Glad to see that Paul Wolfowitz has resigned from the World Bank, though it would be a happier day had he been exiled to the Île du Diable -- Devil's Island.
Instead, Wolfy will receive a tidy severance package and stay on the job until the end of June. I suspect he’ll never live down this or his role in planning the Iraq War, though he’ll probably write a memoir trying to claim bragging rights. Question is, who will buy it? A friend of mine in Virginia thinks it would be more fitting to detain the man at Guantanamo’s Camp X-Ray – in an orange jumpsuit.
Meanwhile, Mark Mothersbaugh -- lead singer and songwriter for Devo -- turns 57 today. Devo mixed one part Kent State agit-prop with one part Kraftwerk on ampheta-pep to produce catchy, danceable statements. Prospective members of the band had been on campus during the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, so it’s not surprising there’s a sense of tragedy underlying many of their songs, on close listening.
The album cover above is not a Devo one, though – this is only because, frankly, Devo album covers are hideous. Instead, this one’s from Gang of Four’s first and best album, Entertainment! (1979).
Gang of Four was way cool; paired together with The Cure’s Three Imaginary Boys (UK, 1979) and Boys Don’t Cry (US, 1980), they come across like existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus dueling over an elusive object of desire. Gang of Four was one of the more intellectual bands of its time: the name derives not from Maoist China, but from Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan and Claude Lévi-Strauss. And all that delivered with a double dose of funky punk and punky funk, British working class accents included.
Today’s Rune: The Mystery Rune.
Birthdays: Omar Khayyam (Ghiyās ol-Dīn Ab'ol-Fath Omār ibn Ebrāhīm Khayyām Neyshābūrī), Bertrand Russell, Babe Adams, Walter Gropius, Frank Capra (b. Francesco Rosario Capra), Big Joe Turner, Pope John Paul II (b. Karol Józef Wojtyła), Reginald Martinez Reggie Jackson, Mark Mothersbaugh, George Strait, Chief Smoke (aka Old Dope), Martika (b. Marta Marrero).
Damn the Torpedoes!
4 comments:
Wolfowitz needs to be subject to the treatment that he co-signed with the Little Bush.
Barbaric, yes. But, are we as a nation perpetuating a modern barbarism? As of your running counter on the bucks this "war" is costing us, I'd say yes indeed. Even if it only cost us one dollar, that single should be spent here, or there--perhaps food or clothing. A familly in Iraq can eat very comfortably on one American dollar a day. I know this through a friend of mine who is Chaldean and lives in daily fear of deportation for sending money to his familly.
It wasn't blood money until our government turned that kind of aid into it. Sad state of affairs.
Love my country, fear my gov't.
How many wars will we have? Our country is also currently at war with it's own citzenry, a little opperation called
...the war on drugs. oops. Need to proof better.
My wife gave me an ultimatum: your albums must go. In an attempt to save them, I bought a bunch of album frames so I could hang them on the wall. My wife was okay with this. However, she wouldn't let me frame-n-hang my Devo albums, especially the one with the potatos.
I have to admit I was never a Devo's fan. I like my stuff a little heavier, like Motorhead, say.
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