Max Roach, 1924 – 2007

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Jazz giant Max Roach died today; he was 83.

Roach‘s list of achievements is long and storied: he played with Duke Ellington Charlie Parker as a teen; he was one of the first jazz musicians to teach college full time; he was the first jazz man to win a MacArthur (1988). He’s on Miles Davis’ “Birth of the Cool,” and about fifty-eleven other seminal jazz recordings. He wrote music for Sam Shepard plays, and won an award for it. He played with Mingus, Sonny Rollins, and Dizzy, too.

We’re running out of giants, dammit.

I don’t know Butchie instead

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Yeah, so Milch’s latest has been given the kiss-off by HBO, which is understandable, we reckon, since its 10 episodes required actual thought in a world dominated by television shows that penalize said. It was still good, and fun, and thoughtful, and if that wasn’t enough, it used a Joe Strummer track for a theme song. Here’s a video clip of Strummer playing said song on Letterman only a few years back; enjoy.

Best. Craigslist Posting. EVAR.

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This is just fabulous; so good, in fact, that we’re quoting the whole thing:

Reply to: pers-396600781@craigslist.org Date: 2007-08-14, 1:01AM PDT

People throw that expression around a lot, “I’m looking for a partner in crime,” or something along the lines of, “I’m looking for the Bonnie to my Clyde.” It’s cute, I think. These people that say these things, they’re legitimately looking for someone to share experiences with, someone to be passionate with, and I am A-OK with that!

Or, perhaps, they’re delusional and they think love is actually a crime…I don’t know, maybe they’ve listened to that shitty Anastacia song too many times or something. Whatever.

Anyway, while just saying it is sweet, I actually mean it. I am looking for a partner in crime.

We’ll start off with small things; infractions and misdemeanors, mostly. We’ll jaywalk back and forth, flipping off oncoming traffic and exposing ourselves to blind people and getting drunk in public on Heineken and Robitussin. Then, when we’re ready, we’ll move up to vandalism: we can get pigs blood from a butcher’s shop that I know and use it to paint “EAT MEAT” in a large, serif font on the windows of that Vegan grocery store we always shop at. Then we can rob liquor marts for booze and cigarettes and money; we’ll give the first two to homeless people and schoolchildren, but we’ll use the money to buy silly hats from thrift stores (I have the feeling you’d look really sexy in a homburg).

When we’ve saved up enough money to buy a couple of airsoft guns that look real, we’ll put on a couple of hats from our collection (I have dibs on the stovepipe) and rob a bank. We won’t go for the safe, no, we’ll do it just so we can take the money from the tills. When all the money’s in the bag and we’re making our getaway, we’ll pull over to the side of the road and strip, get in the back seat, and empty the bag of money all over ourselves. In the pile will be that exploding dye pack that you see in movies, the one that splashes permanent red ink on everything. When it explodes on us, we’ll kiss and draw little dollar signs and ampersands and other symbols nobody’s ever seen before on each other’s flesh. We’ll fuck and later we’ll push the car off a cliff. It was your mother’s anyway, and she deserves it for saying that I’m a bad influence, in my opinion.

A couple of years will go by. We’ll change our names and pretend to be married and move to a small town in Illinois. I’ll masquerade as a reverend and lure the penitent into your clutches, and it’s in this way that you’ll become one of the most prolific serial murderers in history: torturing the victims in our basement and killing them in curious ways (like with a toothpick, or in the process of trying to find out whether plucking nose hairs can cause a lethal infection–the reason I always give to you so I don’t have to do it). Our weekend bible retreats will be a cover for dumping the bodies. After a long stretch of this I’ll show up in your torture room while you’re using dental tools on a person trying to find out if the human anus can accumulate plaque, I’ll have a suitcase and I’ll be wearing the only fedora I have left.

“I’m leaving,” I’ll say.

“I know,” you’ll say, “I could tell this was coming.”

I’ll put the suitcase down, “This just doesn’t do it for me, not like it used to,” I’ll sweep my hand towards the writhing naked man on your table of horrors.

Your eyes will glide down towards the chainsaw on the floor, thinking, weighing. “You should go,” you’ll say.

“I’ll always remember you,” I’ll say.

“Just go.”

I’ll leave and change my name again and become a youth counselor or a parole officer, something ironic like that. One day, when I have a family of my own and I’ve grown fat with beer and ennui, I’ll be watching the news while I’m eating blood pudding and I’ll see that you’ve assassinated someone important. Your face in perpendicular mug shots will be cracked and bruised, but you’ll still have that grin I remember you having after doing something wicked and pulling it off perfectly.

As I climb into bed that night my wife will talk to me about soccer camp and what shouldn’t be put in the recycling bin and whatnot, and all I’ll think about are the great times that we had, and the great times we could have had if maybe I just stuck around a while longer and tried to make it work. I decide that in the morning I’m going to tell my wife about my plans to assault the soccer coach that keeps yellow-carding our son for kicking his cleats into the back of the other kids’ knees, just to see if she’d be into that.

Pic4pic. Girls brought up strictly catholic preferred.

We sure hope this gets him laid. (Brought to our attention on The Well.)

We’re all a bunch of hysterical goons

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Bruce Schneier notes an article on perhaps the one book to speak truth to power about our preoccupation with terrorism:

John Mueller suspects he might have become cable news programs’ go-to foil on terrorism. The author of Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them (Free Press, 2006) thinks America has overreacted. The greatly exaggerated threat of terrorism, he says, has cost the country far more than terrorist attacks ever did.

[…]

Mueller’s book is filled with statistics meant to put terrorism in context. For example, international terrorism annually causes the same number of deaths as drowning in bathtubs or bee stings. It would take a repeat of Sept. 11 every month of the year to make flying as dangerous as driving. Over a lifetime, the chance of being killed by a terrorist is about the same as being struck by a meteor. Mueller’s conclusions: An American’s risk of dying at the hands of a terrorist is microscopic. The likelihood of another Sept. 11-style attack is nearly nil because it would lack the element of surprise. America can easily absorb the damage from most conceivable attacks. And the suggestion that al Qaeda poses an existential threat to the United States is ridiculous. Mueller’s statistics and conclusions are jarring only because they so starkly contradict the widely disseminated and broadly accepted image of terrorism as an urgent and all-encompassing threat.

Bruce links to the whole article; click through to read it all.

That said, you should probably still pay the light bill

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Apparently, some researchers have happened upon an old philosophy class notion: namely, that we can’t actually know whether or not the world around us is real. This, combined with the ongoing increase in computing power, led them to the conclusion that humans may eventually decide to model the whole world in much the same way millions play with Sims. Denizens therein would not be aware that they weren’t real, natch (see also the works of the Wachowski brothers).

This all ties into Cartesian thought; ol’ Rene is the one who gave us “Cogito, ergo sum,” or “I think, therefore I am.” It’s less a statement of being than an affirmation that this, in fact, is all we can really know. If we can think, we must exist in some form, somehow, somewhere. We take everything else on faith.

Our first exposure to this was, like many others’, in a freshman philosophy class 20 years ago. Dr. Hestevold asked us one morning something along the lines of how much we trusted our senses and perceptions, and how firm we were in our conviction that we were actually sitting in ten Hoor Hall, on the campus of the University of Alabama, in the year 1987. Virtually everyone agreed that, yes, this was the truth, so he passed out a letter (mimeographed blue ink on ever-so-slightly damn paper!) that we paraphrase for you now:

Greetings!

I’m sure you’ll agree the simulation is a smashing success! Every aspect of late-20th-century life has been modeled with the greatest degree of accuracy possible, right down to my old colleague Scott Hestevold, who tragically passed away in 2006. You are, of course, safe and sound on a table in my laboratory in Switzerland, though we’ve conditioned your brain to view this information as only slightly more credible than the ravings of a streetcorner madman.

We’ll have a fine meal when you emerge, which we’ve planned for a few hours from now as you perceive time.

Dept. of Literary Resurrections

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My friend Brad has a pretty ugly episode regarding his book Bear Bryant Funeral Train. We’ve just discovered that our favorite college prof — the recently retired Don Noble — actually reviewed the reissue of his book, and has joined the chorus of Brad’s defenders:

In September of 2005, it seemed Brad Vice had it made. His story collection The Bear Bryant Funeral Train had won the prestigious Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. The book was published and was in bookstores everywhere, waiting to be bought. And then the storm broke. It was noticed that some of the sentences in Vice’s story “Tuscaloosa Knights” (with a K), in fact the first few sentences, were almost exactly the same as some sentences in Carl Carmer’s chapter “Tuscaloosa Nights” (with an N) in Stars Fell on Alabama.

Vice was accused of plagiarism, and within three weeks the prize had been withdrawn and the book recalled and pulped. It has to be the fastest rush to literary judgment in American history.

What Vice’s attackers, in their undue haste, failed to consider was that Vice, born in DCH and raised in Northport, had been educated in the English Department at UA and at the University of Cincinnati in the theories and techniques of postmodernism. This was not plagiarism, this was hommage, collage, playfulness.

Sweet. Our copy of the reissue is on order as we speak. All hail Brad, and all hail Dr. Noble and the rest of those smart enough to realize Brad was getting a raw deal.

Sweet GOD it’s miserable

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We just stepped out for a minute, thereby encountering the midday heat.

Approximate Houston temperature: Eleventy Billion Degrees. Cars were vaporizing into superheated plasma. Concrete was boiling.

Fourth Amendment? What Fourth Amendment?

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First, Bush and his cronies blatantly and repeatedly violate FISA, each example of which is a felony. Bush admits that this is happening on national television. Nothing happens.

Then the fucking laptop majority rolls over and allows him to completely gut FISA, so that he can’t be troubled with such issues anymore. This law, which supposedly sunsets in six months, effectively gives the administration carte blanche to eavesdrop on any person, at any time, and in any place, for any reason. Period.

But oh, it gets better: now they’re claiming the Constitutionality of eavesdropping undertaken prior to the FISA-gutting cannot be challenged, on account of “national security grounds.”

Look, if you’re not pissed off by this, if you’re not mad enough to spit nails, you just aren’t paying attention. This president HATES the rule of law. He HATES that he can’t just do whatever he wants, and laws be damned. This is awful close to the Nixonian “it’s not illegal if the President does it” argument — but then again, at least Nixon had the decency to resign. Bush and his ilk show no such fiber.

Yet Another Indictment for DRM

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Google has decided that they’d rather not have all those videos people bought from them, so they’re taking them back. Sure, they’re going to credit the customers, but the end point is this: the consumers bought something, and now Google doesn’t want to have sold it, so — thanks to the magic of DRM — they’re able to call a mulligan and undo all those transactions.

First, it’s surprising that it’s Google doing this (their motto is said to be “Don’t be evil”). Second, this is pretty much all you need to know about DRM. If vendors have the ability to revoke your purchase later, they will. It’s DRM that allows that. Don’t patronize companies that foist DRM on their products; you’ll never really own anything that way.

A word on content

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The Magnolia Office expressed some distress in re: the influx of cat-related content. Fear not, as football season approaches, which will bring with it an entirely different set of content-related gripes.

Universal Gets A Massive Clue

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Via BoingBoing:

Universal Music — who are usually the most extreme piracyphobes in the music industry — have announced that they’re going to try selling much of their catalog without DRM from now until January. What caused them to change positions? Fear of an iPod Planet.

The iPod plays two kinds of music: music crippled with Apple’s DRM and MP3s. If you want to cripple your music with Apple’s DRM, you have to give Apple total control over your track-pricing. No other store can carry Apple-crippled music. Every time we buy an Apple-crippled track, it gets that much harder and more expensive to switch away from the iPod and iTunes.

For record companies, there are only two choices: sell Apple-crippled music and increase Apple’s control over the online music business, or sell uncrippled music.

This is huge. HUGE.

More Florida Prosecutorial Assholery

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The prosecutors in the “we don’t care if you have a prescription for those” Mark O’Hara case have announced the won’t drop the charges, this despite having their case called “ridiculous” by the appeals court.

As noted before, they’ve already bankrupted the guy. They somehow managed to get information about his prescription suppressed in the first trial; there’s no doubt they’ll try some similarly unethical angle this time around. Perhaps in response we’ll see real sanctions from the judge, or at least the Florida Bar.

Dept. of Really Classy Moves

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Johnson and Johnson is suing the Red Cross because the charity — which is, by the way, older than J&J — is using its eponymous symbol on products it sells to the public (the proceeds help fund the Red Cross’ mission).

Can you say “douchebags,” boys and girls?

Best Headline Today

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Passenger ‘hid monkey under hat’, which we found at Majikthise.

A man has been questioned by police at LaGuardia airport in New York after smuggling a monkey onto a flight from Florida by hiding it under his hat.

Passengers spotted the animal when it climbed out and perched on the man’s ponytail, Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Alison Russell told reporters.

Here’s the best part:

When passengers noticed the fist-sized primate on the flight, they asked the man “if he knew he had a monkey on him”, Ms Russell said.

MUST. HAVE. MONKEYHAT.

This Week’s Onion Pick

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DNA Evidence Frees Man From Zoo

PHOENIX — Years of controversy were finally settled Monday after DNA tests conclusively proved that Duane Panovich, an attraction at the Phoenix Zoo for the past 11 years, was indeed a human being, and not a reticulated giraffe from southwestern Kenya.

and

In a statement following Panovich’s release, the zoo said it will appeal the court’s decision regarding its former giraffe. In spite of this, Panovich’s story has spurred new interest in the case of Ernesto, a scarlet ibis that claims to be a contractor hired to remodel the aviary at the Houston Zoo.

More “Good” from the War on Some Drugs

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The DC Court of Appeals decided yesterday that there is no fundamental right to lifesaving drugs. Radley Balko has more, but the gist is this:

the bureaucrats at the FDA can now deny terminally sick people the medication that could save their lives. And not even because it isn’t safe, but because it hasn’t been proven effective, at least according to standards set by the FDA.

Right. Bureaucrats are in control, firmly. What’s worse, they cited a medical marijuana case (Raich, which held that the feds can deny pot to sick people who need it, regardless of benefit) in the decision, which makes this case another casualty, at least in part, of our bogus drug war.

One more case of the Republican Stupids

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So, you know how it usually turns out that the aggressively righteous and homophobic are the ones that get caught committing exactly those sins that they rail against? Didja notice these goons are almost always Republicans? Yeah, us too.

Well, it happened again: Florida state rep Bob Allen was just arrested for soliciting sex in a public bathroom from an undercover cop.

But it gets better, and stupider, as Scalzi points out.

specifically it’s alleged that he offered an undercover cop a Jackson if he’d let the legislator blow him. This was not a smart thing to do. But having been caught doing something stupid, Allen, who is a pudgy white fellow, has decided to double down on his stupidity by offering what is a truly, spectacularly — indeed, magnificently — dumb reason for soliciting another man for sex: Fear of a Black Planet!

“This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,” said Allen, according to this article in the Orlando Sentinel. Allen went on to say he was afraid of becoming a “statistic.”

[…]

[L]et’s think Allen’s rationale through:

Allen, during the middle of the work day, was at the park, just minding his own business, enjoying the Florida sunshine or whatever, like you do, when he suddenly noticed that the park was full of black men. Fearing for his own personal safety, he decided that the best course of action was to go into the public restroom, peer over a stall — twice — to locate a black man, and offer that black man $20 and a blow job if he’d just leave him alone.

Go read the whole thing. Scalzi’s on fire with this one.

Dear Dateline: You suck

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So, the Predator-catchin’ pseudo-journalists at Dateline decided they’d try to get someone in undercover at the annual DefCon hacker conference this week. We’re sure that, had they succeeded, we’d all hear about how AWFUL and DANGEROUS they all are, and how THEY COULD GET TO YOU RIGHT NOW and all sorts of other alarmist crap, since that’s what passes for journalism on TV these days.

Fortunately for the attendees (and TV viewers), it turns out their mole got found out, so the organizers amended all the presentations to be given to include her photograph and the information that she was in fact an NBC reporter, etc. The first “reveal” was actually set up as an ambush for the reporter, just like their usual victims. Awesome! Hi-larious!

However, the real “WTF?” moment on all this is pretty simple: Here’s who they picked to infiltrate the conference. Dude, that’s a girl. Are you HIGH?

Will they EVER stop with this crap?

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One of the Right’s favorite rants is that to fail to support this president is to be unpatriotic. To them, there is apparently no room for dissent, no possible honorable path besides blind obedience and trust in the state, which is of course an idea with no merit at all. In fact, to call it “intellectually bankrupt” would be an insult to bankruptcy.

And yet, they still do it, which means some idiots are actually buying it. We outlien for you now a distinction:

It is the Right that insists its opponents are unpatriotic; that they hope the enemy wins; that they are in Osama’s camp; that they support Al Qaeda; and that they hate the troops because they want to bring them home. They do this because, we assume, it is the best they can do. They cannot admit their failure and their folly because they equate apology and course-changing to weakness. Instead, they want to run out the clock (and troops and country be damned) and slink away in 18 months.

It is the Left that insists none of these ideas have any merit on their face, and that it is in fact supremely patriotic to insist a President be answerable to those who elected them, to the Constitution, to the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution (once held so dear by the GOP when Clinton lived at 1600 Pennsylvania). No one on the Left ascribes treasonous motives to their opponents — well, unless clearly wishing to establish an Imperial presidency is treasonous (and it may be).

Yet More Evidence That Law Enforcement Needs WAY More Oversight

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Even at the rarefied level of the FBI, wherein we supposedly place the cream of the law enforcement crop, we’ve got pretty serious problems:

Last week, a federal judge excoriated the FBI for not only hiding exculpatory evidence that would have exonerated four innocent men who served more than thirty years in prison, but for rewarding those who did the hiding and covering up with bonuses and promotions. For this crime against American citizens, American taxpayers will now shell out more than $100 million. Thus far, none of the government agents actually responsible for this crime have been held accountable. Only rewarded.

The Agitator has more on the legislative fallout of this case; apparently, we need a law to force the Feds to disclose exculpatory evidence, as well as evidence that their confidential drug informants may have committed violent felonies, including murder. In their view, we guess, keeping a drug case alive is more important than keeping the wrong people out of prison, and that’s just sick. Balko continues:

This would be a morally dubious policy even if were were talking about matters of, say, national security. But we aren’t. We’re talking about the FBI concealing evidence of murder and other violent crimes, and of knowingly allowing innocent people to go to prison in order to not disrupt drug investigations. In other words, all of this is necessary, the FBI is saying, to keep people from getting high. And when confronted by the United States Congress, the FBI can’t even say outright that this is categorically a bad idea, nor can it promise that it will institute a policy preventing these things from happening in the future.