This is the coolest story we've read in a while. From The Guardian:

There's a hand lying on the blanket on Matt Nagle's desk and he's staring at it intently, thinking "Close, close," as the scientists gathered around him look on. To their delight, the hand twitches and its outstretched fingers close around the open palm, clenching to a fist.

In that moment, Nagle made history. Paralysed from the neck down after a vicious knife attack four years ago, he is the first person to have controlled an artificial limb using a device chronically implanted into his brain.

The experiment took place a few months ago as part of a broader trial into what are known in the business as brain-computer interfaces. Although it is early days, aficionados of the technology see a world where brain implants return ability to those with disability, allowing them to control all manner of devices by thought alone. There are huge hurdles ahead. No one knows how much information we can usefully decipher from the electrical fizz of the brain's 100bn neurons. More importantly, scientists are still in the dark as to what effect, if any, long term implants will have on the human brain, or how its circuitry will cope with the new tasks demanded of it.

Nagle got involved in the latest trial after hearing about John Donoghue, a professor of neuroscience at Brown University on Rhode Island, whose company Cyberkinetics has developed an implant called BrainGate. Under Donoghue's instruction, Nagle was given a general anaesthetic before a disc the size of a poker chip was cut from his skull. After making an incision in the brain's protective membrane, a tiny array of 96 hair-thin electrodes, each protruding about a millimetre, was pressed onto the surface of his brain, just above a region of the sensory motor cortex that is home to the neuronal circuitry governing arm and hand movement. With the electrodes in position, the bony disc was replaced, leaving room for a tiny wire to connect the electrodes to a metal plate the size of a 10p piece that sits on Nagle's head like a button.

To read brain signals from Nagle's motor cortex, Donoghue's researchers attach an amplifier to the metallic button on his head and run a cable to a computer. When he's hooked up, the tiny voltages of the sparking neurons beneath the electrodes produce a series of brainwaves that dance on the computer screen.

Since having the electrodes implanted in June last year, Nagle has been test-driving the technology, seeing what he, and it, are capable of. "We're evaluating his ability to do a whole range of things. We've hooked him to a computer that lets him turn a TV on and off, change channel and turn the volume up and down," says Donoghue.

The success of the technology relies on being able to decipher accurately the electrical activity within Nagle's brain and turn it into useful actions. The trials started tentatively. Nagle had been unable to move any of his limbs for nearly four years. The scientists had no idea how this would have affected the brain signals that normally control movement. Would they have fizzled out through lack of use, much as muscles waste away in the wheelchair-bound? "No one knew if it would work in someone with these injuries, but simply by asking him to imagine moving we got useful signals and it was amazing. I was overwhelmed by how beautifully the cells were still working," says Donoghue.

Getting the signals is one thing; deciphering them is another. But Donoghue's team found that some simple rules held - if the brain wanted to move the hand to the right, certain cells would fire a rapid series of impulses. If the brain was willing the hand to move left, the cells fired a different number of times. Other information, such as where the hand should end up, what trajectory it should take, and how quickly it should move, is also embedded in the electrical signals.

Part of the difficulty in reading brain signals is that while even a simple movement such as raising a hand requires electrical signals from many regions of the brain, the implanted electrodes pick up just a tiny fraction of those that fire. "We're recording only a dozen or so, when a million might be active," says Donoghue, who likens the process to dropping a microphone into a crowded room and trying to get the gist of all the conversations going on.

The limitations of taking signals from just a few active neurons have become apparent in the trial. Many of the tasks Nagle is set involve moving a cursor around a screen by thinking which way it should move. But the cursor jiggles, making it difficult to select icons on the screen with any precision. "We could smooth it out using software, but at the moment, we want to see if Matthew can learn to control the wobble," says Donoghue, who is recruiting four other patients to complete the trial. "If he can do that, he can use computer software to answer emails, and if he can do that, he could be employed."

Ultimately, Donoghue says there should be no need to connect cables to peoples' heads to read their minds. Miniaturisation should bring smaller devices that can be powered through unbroken skin and transmit signals wirelessly from the brain to a processor worn on a belt that triggers the intended device.

If all goes according to plan, Donoghue's trial, designed to explore how well a variety of people can control different devices by the power of thought, will be completed in about 18 months. He's not the only one keen to find out just how useful such devices could be. At Duke University in North Carolina, Miguel Nicolelis is in the final stages of getting permission to fit 16 quadriplegic patients - half in the US, half in Brazil - with brain implants for a period of 30 days. Initially the trial will look at whether the patients' brains still produce useful motor signals. "Then, we want to see if these patients can control a robotic arm that can reach and grab objects, and how well their brains get used to it," says Nicolelis.

In previous studies, his team showed that when monkeys had their brains hooked up to robotic arms, they assimilated the arm, effectively making it their own. "Their brains actually incorporated the robotic arm by dedicating neuronal space to it. We want to see if the same thing happens in humans," he adds.

For all the promise brain implants hold, there are some that believe they are not the best bet for many patients. Implants suffer from a number of drawbacks, the first being that they demand invasive surgery, with attendant risks. Second, implanted electrodes cause at least some inflammation of the brain tissues they push into. As well as obvious medical concerns, if the inflammation is significant, it can smother any signals the electrodes might pick up.

"Every one you put in gives some inflammation, but it's minor. We're still working on making electrodes more biocompatible, but we've got monkeys who have so far survived for nearly five years with implants and they are fine," says Nicolelis. "The thing is, to do what we want to do, to get that level of control, you have to get into the brain."

Nicolelis says his goal is to use brain implants to allow the disabled to walk again. He has already started designing a wearable robotic "exoskeleton" that could help power paralysed legs - think Wallace and Gromit's The Wrong Trousers, only with better control. Nicolelis is also developing something called "shared control" in which a robotic limb is triggered by a basic command from the brain, but refines and carries out the movement itself, using pre-programmed intelligence. "The hurdles ahead, after finding even better electrodes, are developing prosthetics that are more amenable to brain control," he says.

Many of the labs looking at brain implants started out doing basic research into understanding how small numbers of neurons worked. The research required the development of thin wire electrodes that could cosy up to individual neurons, a legacy that led to fully implantable devices. But for many applications, simpler signals, that can be picked up without undergoing major surgery, may suffice.

At the Wadsworth Centre, the laboratory arm of the New York State health department, John Wolpaw and his team recently proved that a hat not unlike a swimming cap peppered with electrodes could pick up clear enough signals to allow the wearer to move a cursor around a computer screen. "There was an unsupported assumption that to get that kind of control, you needed to implant, but our work showed that's not the case. These systems can do better than a lot of people give them credit for," says Wolpaw.

Instead of tapping into the brain's natural signals for moving limbs, Wolpaw's system picks up changes in general brain activity that the patient must learn to control. "We look at rhythms on the EEG that are normally just idling, but we've shown that by using mental imagery, people can learn to make the signals stronger or weaker and we can translate that into cursor movement," says Wolpaw.

Wolpaw's patients are trained over 10 sessions, during which about 80% learn to control their brainwaves well enough to move a cursor around a screen. In time, most can do other things, such as think of answers to questions to select on screen, without it interrupting their control. The risks of the technique are undoubtedly fewer than for full brain implants, though questions remain about the effects of forcing the brain to change its activity, in a way the electrodes can pick up. "It's probably just like learning anything else. There's been no indication that any of this does anything harmful, and it's hard to see how it could, but we can't say for sure," says Wolpaw.

While Wolpaw has achieved control many thought impossible without implanting electrodes directly into the brain, he feels a third technique, called electrocorticography, or Ecog, might have the brightest future. Ecog involves a smaller operation to place a small sheet of electrodes on the surface of the brain. "With this, you get strong signals, you can pick them up from smaller areas but you're not sticking something into the brain," he says. Preliminary trials show patients can learn to use Ecog devices much faster than electrodes placed on their scalps.

More than likely is that all three techniques will co-develop, each finding its own niche. Full implants may only be worthwhile for the severely disabled, who need to control complex machinery, such as prosthetic limbs, with their thoughts. For many though, regaining even the most minor level of independence would help. "One fellow said to me, 'I just want to be able to scratch my nose'," says Donoghue. "It's easy to forget the kinds of extraordinary things people can't accomplish. If you can do something that lets them reach out to the world even a little, it can make a huge difference."

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Bush puppet, Colin Powell, speaks out 2 years too late.

(AP) - Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Bush administration was sometimes "too blustery" in its rhetoric during the buildup to the Iraq war, but he still believed toppling Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do, according to a German magazine interview published Wednesday.

Powell also was quoted by Stern magazine as saying that the ongoing insurgency in Iraq is "much bigger" than anticipated. The magazine published the interview in its German translation and could not immediately offer the English version.

"I suppose we sometimes were too loud, too direct, maybe too blustery," Powell was quoted as saying. "That must have had the Europeans shuddering quite a few times."

He also said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's famous jibe at France and Germany, when he labeled them "old Europe" for refusing to join the war in Iraq, did not help.

"Terms like 'old Europe' didn't exactly have a confidence-building effect," Powell was quoted as saying, "and clearly helped turn public opinion in Europe against us."

Powell, who retired as secretary of state in January, also said he still is angry about his Feb. 5, 2003, speech to the U.N. Security Council in which he said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that violated U.N. sanctions.

No such weapons were found, but Powell told Stern he had no reason to doubt intelligence from the CIA and other agencies suggesting Saddam had them.

Powell said he spent four days and three nights at the CIA before making the presentation, Stern reported.

"Some of this information was wrong. I didn't know that at the time," Powell was quoted as saying. "I have to live with that."

But he defended the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam and paved the way for elections in Iraq - despite the continuing anti-U.S. insurgency.

"Yes, the insurgency is much bigger than we assumed. But I'm happy that Saddam is in jail. And I'm darn glad that we will never again have to talk about weapons of mass destruction in connection with Iraq," Powell said.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

From Rolling Stone:

Rick Rubin is hoping to do for Neil Diamond what he did for Johnny Cash. The producer -- who revived the Man in Black's career in the Nineties with the Grammy-winning American Recordings series -- has revealed to Rolling Stone that he is producing Diamond's next album, the follow-up to 2001's Three Chord Opera.

The record will mark a slight change in direction for Diamond, moving away from his recent, lavishly arranged crooner material to his stripped-down singer-songwriter style of the late Sixties. "This is more of a songwriter's album than a singer's album," says Rubin

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

From Pitchfork:

What's it been, like five weeks since we reported that creepily-pale blues exploders Jack and Meg White had just begun recording duties for their fifth studio album? Well, you can reset your egg timer, as according to an email from the band's label, V2 Records, the latest LP from the White Stripes has been given a release date of June 14.

The album, which was produced by singer/guitarist/thespian Jack White, doesn't seem to have an album title or tracklist yet, but their PR company notes that unlike the Stripes' previous release, 2003's Elephant, no guest artists appear on the disc. And considering Jack's recent crossover success with Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose, you know our good friend Kenny Rogers is somewhere sulking in his chicken bucket right now.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Terri Schiavo's father, Robert Schindler

From NY Times:
The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.

"These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler's legal battle to keep Terri's estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri," says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo's father. "These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!"

Privacy experts said the sale of the list was legal and even predictable, if ghoulish.

"I think it's amusing," said Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant. "I think it's absolutely classic America. Everything is for sale in America, every type of personal information."

Executives of Response Unlimited declined to comment. Gary McCullough, director of the Christian Communication Network and a spokesman for Ms. Schiavo's parents, confirmed that Mr. Schindler had agreed to let Response Unlimited rent out the list as part of a deal for the firm to send an e-mail solicitation raising money on the family's behalf.

The Schindlers have waged a lengthy legal battle against their son-in-law Michael Schiavo to prevent the removal of the feeding tube from their daughter, who doctors say is in a persistent vegetative state.

Mr. McCullough said he was present when Mr. Schindler agreed to the arrangement in a conversation with Phil Sheldon, the co-founder of a conservative online marketing organization, RightMarch.com, who acted as a broker for Response Unlimited.

"So the Schindlers do know the details," Mr. McCullough said on Monday. How much attention they paid to the matter is hard to assess, he added. "The Schindlers right now know that their daughter is starving to death, and if I ask about anything else, they say, 'I don't want to hear about it.' "

Direct mail and mass e-mailings are ubiquitous fund-raising tools of interest groups on the left as well as the right, and others in the direct-mail business defended the sale of lists like the roster of donors to the Schindlers as a useful way for potential donors to learn of causes that might appeal to them.

Pamela Hennessy, an unpaid spokeswoman for the Schindlers, said she was initially appalled when she learned of the list's existence.

"It is possibly the most distasteful thing I have ever seen," Ms. Hennessy said. "Everybody is making a buck off of her."

Ms. Hennessy, who operates the Schindlers' Web site, www.terrisfight.org, said the family had not released any of the names or e-mail addresses gathered there. "Obviously these people are enterprising, and they are taking advantage of this very desperate father," she said.

On Sunday, as the Schindlers gave up on their legal battle and their daughter passed her 10th day without food, others continued to rally supporters and solicit money in an effort to restore the feeding tube.

"This time, we have a real chance to break through the 'roadblocks' that the enemies of life have been putting up in front of us," said a mass e-mailing from RightMarch.com, asking supporters to urge Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene somehow.

The message added: "We're asking you to give a donation to help with our activism efforts to save Terri's life. Battles cost money; resources cost money; media costs money; we could go on, but you get the picture."

Mr. Sheldon - whose father, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, has also sent appeals urging support for Ms. Schiavo - apparently played a dual role as a partner in RightMarch.com, which is working with the anti-abortion activist Randall Terry, and as a broker for Response Unlimited. Mr. Sheldon did not respond to phone calls yesterday.

"I think it sounds a little unusual right now because of the situation where she is in the process of dying," said Richard Viguerie, another major conservative direct-mail operator. "If you came across this information six months or a year from now, I don't think you would give it too much thought."

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sincerely
Peek-A-Boo Records
Review by Monte Holman

Remember that party you went to in east Austin during SXSW that didn't really get started until two a.m.? The one at that decrepit house on the trashy lot even the vagrants had vacated prior to this lightless gathering of sweaty-ass hip kids doing coke off record dust jackets? And remember that band delivering an hour (or was it three days?) of mellow rock and roll?

Ok, yeah. That was Black Lipstick. Sure it was impossibly stuffy in that house, and there was only one light in the whole place emitting a depressing orange incandescence, but admit it: that trancelike repetitious rock made you feel cool.

With Sincerely, the band's second LP, Black Lipstick once again litter the air with their dark and dirty brand of rock and roll. Their incarnation of party rock offers more than the typical three chords and poppy bounce. Songs ease into and out of themselves. The band smears warm distortion all over the recording and languidly toys with dissonance, both vocally and instrumentally. Themes of drugs, death, religion, and love lost uphold a consistent tone, a bleary-eyed dedication to the self-destructive rock myth.

The record's packaging is appropriate, its main colors orange-yellow, deep red, black. We see the sun rising over a tiny Austin skyline after a long night of numbing indulgence. Its rays spell out "Sincerely, Black Lipstick," a nod to listeners as the band slinks away until darkness returns.

The album begins with a fitting production additive-the fuzzy bass line and drums sound muffled, as though listeners are walking up to a house inside of which a band is starting to play. We open the door a few seconds into "B.O.B. F.O.S.S.E.," and the sound fills out the speakers. Not so rowdy, mind you, just loud. The tune keeps rolling through repeating guitar licks, though the noise grows. A few lines of male/female call and response give the song a sweet pop kiss before it melts into hotly reverbed and melodic strings.

From there Sincerely unfolds nicely. Songs are smooth but versatile. "No Mercy" slurs out lines like "Some things are worth it, and baby, I think you may be one" in a two minute, nine second punch of pop - instrumentally bright, lyrically shaded with violence. And fuck staying on key. "Grandma Airplane" features droning vocals atop a simple chord progression that eventually spins into several lead lines a la Sonic Youth.

Sincerely champions the rock cause: burn out and repent just before you die. "Viva Max" states in a deadpan drawl, "Over the nation all the haters bow to thee / One foot on the dance floor, the other in the grave," while "The Bad Catholic" muses, "Mary Mary, thank your SON [it's capitalized appropriately in the liner notes] for mercy, for salvation. When I'm done having fun I'm sure to need some." Indeed.

The other moody tracks on the album maintain their rock and roll spirit, conjuring shades of the Velvet Underground and the Stones inoffensively. Black Lipstick aren't trying to alter the face of independent music here-they're simply offering a warmer, less robotic version of dance rock.

Listen to this record when the sun goes down. For kicks and for effect, introduce the adolescent black light to your adult self and then go to that party you were thinking of skipping. Black Lipstick remind us that you don't have to reshape rock history to make a kick ass rock record.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

click here for the full Terry Schivo collection.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

From AP

WILTON, New Hampshire (AP) -- Guitarist Rod Price, founding member of the blues boogie band Foghat, died Tuesday after falling down a stairway at his home, a family friend said. He was 57.

The London native's solos drove Foghat to three platinum and eight gold records during the band's quarter-century career.

Foghat released its self-titled debut album in 1972. The group was best known for the hit single, "Slow Ride," from the 1975 album, "Fool for the City."

After many years of touring he settled in Wilton in 1994. Many in town knew Price as a loving dad who never missed his son's baseball, soccer or basketball games. Fewer people knew of Price's musical background.

Price had played with Champion Jack Dupree, Duster Bennett, Eddie Kirkland, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon and Honey Boy Edwards.

In recent years, Price concentrated on his blues projects, cutting several CDs and giving private guitar lessons at his home.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

So much has already been said about Bloc Party, from the early clamor around "She's Hearing Voices" right up through today's release of Silent Alarm. All that hype is tough to live up to, but Silent Alarm definitely delivers. It's one of the best things we've heard this year, and we can't wait for Bloc Party's sold-out appearances at the Bowery Ballroom on April 7 and 8. Needless to say, we were pretty excited to sit down and chat with guitarist/lead singer Kele Obereke and drummer Matt Tong a few weeks ago. Fresh off of performing at the Motherf*cker party, they stepped away from VH1 Classic for a few minutes to talk to us. This interview was done in conjunction with our friends at OneLouder.

******************************

Are you surprised by the reaction you're getting in New York?
Your shows were sold out well before the album's release date.

Matt Tong: It's the downloading that's going on.

Does that bother you?

M: I remember the people who are singing the words
[laughter] and we meet them afterwards.

Kele Obereke: We get the roadies to go out and shut
those people down. We give them the shakedown. [laughs]

Is there any concern from you or your label about downloading? Some artists are worried about losing sales, but you've sold out two shows at the Bowery Ballroom.

M: Complaining about downloading really seems to be the province of people like Metallica; immensely successful people who want more, more, more.

K: I read somewhere that Madonna was really worried she wouldn't be able to give her kids an education because of people
downloading her records. It's really ridiculous.

A lot of the media lump you in with the post-punk revival - some call you the next Franz Ferdinand. How do you feel about that?

K: It's not something you enjoy, but who cares. If it wasn't the next Franz Ferdinand, it'd be the British Rapture or it'd be something else. I think the media is always going to try to compartmentalize you. In the UK, I remember when bands like Muse and Coldplay were being called the next Radioheads. No one says that now because they've established what they are.

Success seems to all be happening quickly for you guys. Is it
surprising how easy it's been so far? You haven't been around that long, at least over here.

K: Well, we haven't spent that long in the public eye, like a year or something, but we were playing as an unsigned band for a year before that. I've been in a band with Russell [Lissack, Bloc Party's guitarist] since 1998. So it's taken us about five years to finally find the right lineup. Once we found that, it's all fallen into place rather quickly.

What did you sound like back in '98?

K: We were a much more conventional rock band, I suppose. We had big ideas but we didn't know how to express them in a band situation. That really came after writing a lot of songs together and becoming more confident about our abilities between the four of us.

Was there a breakthrough song or moment?

K: The breakthrough moment was when we wrote "She's
Hearing Voices." That would have been around the spring of 2003, about three months after Matt joined. Because we had had so many drummers come and go, we spent so much time teaching drummers parts of our songs, trying to get something to play live. Then it wouldn't work out and we'd have to go back to the beginning.

When Matt joined we were able to write more songs together. We were able to evolve. I remember when we wrote the song, we were immediately pleased because it was something we were always aiming for. It was the first song that we wrote that had a lot of space in it. It was really just a drum beat, which was something we couldn't do before because we relied on writing songs only with guitars.

M: I remember being shocked when Kele said "just take it easy, don't change the beat." I just had to have a lot of trust in him as a leader. It was one of the first times we all realized it was more important to sacrifice aspects of your individuality for the greater good of the song.

Is that when labels started to take notice?

K: There were a few that were interested around that
time. When we released that song on our first demo, no one really liked it all.

M: It was quite a departure at the time. It was the
first time we recorded something that was on our own terms. Even though we were limited by our lack of equipment at the time, it was still a song we recorded as intended, in terms of getting down our ideas.

Listening to the album, it was most surprising to hear the
slower, more atmospheric songs. Were these written early on or later in the process of recording the album?

K: Some of those songs were the last set written before we began recording the album. We always wanted to express more than being a fast, disco rock band. We've always like bands that can vary what they do. It was something we weren't as confident earlier on we were first started touring. I'm really excited about the next record because I think there will be a great exploration of those ideas.

Have you started writing new songs already?

K: Yes, we have about 12 songs already. We going to do more recording at the end of this tour. We write very quickly. If you sit us down for an hour we can come up with a song because we always have ideas. Unfortunately when you're on tour for a long time you don't get to sit down and not worry about playing shows. We've been filling our spare time in the studio, recording.

What's your process for recording a new song?

K: Usually I have an idea about a rhythm. I have an
idea about how the song is going to start or how it will end. Sometimes I will have the music; sometimes I won't have anything at all. I usually ask Matt to play something on the drums, which will start me thinking of something to add to it. Usually the original idea will be superceded by other ideas that are thrown out.

All of the songs on Silent Alarm were written before we entered the
studio. Nothing was written in the studio. We had already recorded demos of them all before we went in. But of course it is a creative process and you have to let yourself be inspired while you're in the studio as well. That's what we were aiming for. Nothing was set in stone. We had a blueprint, but the songs had to sound better, bigger.

What inspires you to write?

K: Usually I'll hear something in a club or I'll listen to something and one little thing will stick out to me. Then I'll go away and obsess about it and it will spark ideas.

What kind of clubs do you like to visit?

K: One of the turning points for this band was when
Russell and I got into dance music. When we first met we were just two kids who liked playing guitars and were into traditional rock and roll. Then we both discovered house and trance music. It sounds odd, but it really did affect how we put music together. It made us more aware of space, atmosphere and rhythm in music. It's an integral part of our sound now.

Are there any certain DJs or electronic artists in particular
who did it for you?

K: I still don't know that much about dance music. We really like DJ Shadow and Squarepusher. It's enough to me to go to a club and dance for three hours and be made aware that there's lots of different rules about music.

For me, as someone who was interested in playing guitar and experiencing dance music for the first time, it was something that I didn't want to immerse myself in. It was enough that I could hear it in a club and be inspired by it.

How did your collaboration with the Chemical Brothers happen?

K: They got in touch with our manager and asked if I
could sing on one of their songs. I've seen them a couple times and
thought they were quite good. So I was approached and thought it would be good.

They had ideas for what they wanted and I tried to accommodate them. I didn't really add anything to the structure or tone of the song. It's not really my song, I just sing on it.

The Japanese version has an impressive list of artists remixing your songs: M83, Four Tet, and Mogwai. Did you pick them out?

K: We got in touch with lots of different people and
asked for remixes. We got them all back and some were better than
others. Some of them were real disappointing, but some were interesting. You have no idea how someone is going to change a song. It's interesting to hear someone reinterpret a song.

What I can't stand is when people change just one thing about it. It
seems really lazy. I hate that.

Anything that implies someone has actually engaged with the song is
really exciting. The M83 remix of "Pioneers" is really lush and ambient. Overall we received about 10, but many of them weren't that good.

Did you find a difference at all in the crowds in NYC compared to LA? Those are the two places you guys have played in the US so far.

M: LA seemed a bit sleazier. [laughs]

K: We had two really odd shows in New York and LA, so we can't really compare them yet. It'll be interesting to see what happens when we come back on tour properly. Then we'll get to see every city. I'm quite curious to see which cities are going to take to Bloc Party and which cities are not going to take to Bloc Party. America is such a big place.

I always find it odd when British bands declare that they're going to
break America immediately. You have to keep coming back and back and
back if you want to be really successful in the States. It takes a lot of hard work. When you're a big band in the UK, you can think that you've made it pretty quickly.

This is a question we always like to ask - what were your first concerts?

K: I saw the Cranberries at Wembley with my mom and my
best friend and his mom when I was fifteen or so.

Was that the Everybody Else Is Doing It tour?

K: Yeah, it was that period.

M: I didn't know that.

I think the first concert that I saw was Blur. It was in a big arena.
It was just when The Great Escape came out.

Didn't you guys just do something with Graham Coxon?

M: Yeah, we toured with him for about 3 or 4 days.

That must have been pretty cool, if you're big Blur
fans.

K: Yeah it was. It really was.

M: Definitely.

K: We're all Blur fans, and he's certainly one of my
favorite guitar players.

M: I think he's probably our favorite member of Blur as well.

What's your take on Blur without Graham then?

M: I'm pleased that they're at least trying to do
something interesting, because Graham pretty much was Blur.
K: I think the point about Blur, and one of the reasons that I liked them, was the different personalities were making something more than just pop songs. Graham was into really noisy, heavy music, and Damon was trying to make really parochial-sounding pop music, and it was really interesting watching that sort of tussle between them. And I think now that he's gone, they've lost a lot of their appeal to me because there's no tension. It doesn't sound interesting to me.

It's quite bad, because I thought they were getting better. I know it's not a popular view, but 13 and Blur were my favorite Blur albums, Blur especially. It's completely dark. I wasn't really a fan of the twee English ones like Modern Life is Rubbish or Parklife. I couldn't stand that sort of chirpiness.

M: Really - when did Parklife start to piss
you off?

K: It's just something that I never listen to now. I listen to Blur and 13 when I listen to Blur.

M: There's a real underlying sense of sadness in
Parklife, I think, wouldn't you say? About half the album is pretty sad.

K: I think The Great Escape is a sad album.
There's a real sense of weariness in it. But yeah, Blur's my favorite.

What was the last album you went out and bought?

K: I just got a Fleetwood Mac live CD. We were
watching some Fleetwood Mac on the tour bus and I'd always thought that they were a rubbish band. But actually watching them, I was really impressed with their musicianship. Matt's already a really big fan of theirs. Really awesome — I was listening to it last night.

What do you think of New York, by the way?

K: I like New York. I like the fact that it's a grid, so you always know where you are in relation to everything else. It's empowering!

Indeed. Thanks for your time!

*****************************

Bloc Party MP3's
-- "The Answer"
-- Banquet (Phones Disco Edit)
-- Tulips

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 05:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I suppose I should be at PS1's Greater New York congratulating my friend D about his ascension into the ranks of the emerged artist. Instead, I find myself alone with a wretched hangover and a bucket of cynicism. I'm soaking my feet in it to soothe the bitterness that washes over me as I read over the list of artists that have emerged since the 2000 exhibit. The sad thing about this one is that instead of going out and finding artists that haven't quite emerged, they went looking for people that already had.

Basically the curators pillaged the last Whitney Biennial and the Working in Brooklyn show. What a shame. It's all in the press release. They decided to show who had emerged since the last one, instead of looking for themselves. So much for curators.

Fuck it.

Without having even seen the show, I can already see David Opdyke's meticulously crafted sculptures next to Dana Schutz's lush passages of thick paint across the room from Banks Violet and Sue de Beer's teenage angst ridden rifts. Ah, Opdyke probably deserves to be in the show, but the rest? Schutz was in the last fucking Venice Bienelle, while Violet and de Beer are an entire sub-genre unto themselves that garnered most of the critical attention at the Whitney Biennial. While they obviously represent strains of new art in New York, this is certainly not a show of emerging artists. It's kind of a lazy, predatory curatorial effort. Well, all I can hope for is that someone writes about D's work and Peter Caine offends everyone involved. I'll be organizing an art crawl through it this weekend. I'll be talking loudly while I work on my map of the commercial representation. Ask for me a sip of whiskey.

Last night between shots of booze and pissing on sidewalks, I did see a few shows that I couldn't be bothered with last go around. Everyone was all gussied up to woo collectors who dared forsake the Artforum after party for the humble confines of Williamsburg. I started my drunken descent into madness at Schroeder Romero, where I slugged a bottle of white wine in the little hallway gallery while everyone was schmoozing. In the main space, Susan Graham (work pictured) was projecting super-8 films of a parallel universe, mid-western tundra populated by sugar-sculptures of antennas, radio towers, and satellites. The series of varying monochromatic loops are projected onto sheets of Plexi hung from the ceiling. The short compositions are ephemeral and dreamlike spaces that exist on the periphery of vision. You can't even see the things until you are directly in front of the panes otherwise they drift out of sight like the moments themselves. Apparently, some of the films have already burned out, which I kind of dig. Physically, these films are barely here, already on the edge of fading away. It's damn poetic, like the baleful photographs of the sets in the second room of the gallery. Here, Graham shows us the place, perhaps, that the films traverse in understated images. The world she creates reminds me of a sci-fi outpost on some bleak, wintry world. Maybe it was the cheap wine, but I got all choked up and had to fight back the tears. Well, not really, but I wanted to feel like that. Feel something, anything. I waded through the sea of gallery goers and walked over to Parker's Box.
(3 1/2 Greenbergs. Susan Graham's portal to a parallel universe closes March 28th)

I always go to Parker's Box because A, I like the two crazies that run the place, and B, they've always got the most booze, which they 'suggest' you throw in for. Throb, which opened awhile back, and has a really, really big... title. The show is a fairly effective representation of the direction the gallery has taken over the last two years. Mike Roger's multimedia installation concerns the drum playing of his young neighbor. The weird home theater presentation includes a stereo pumping out the kid's roaming and unstructured sessions and a LCD monitor running an image of the house and garage where the music originates. Roger's transforms private creativity, the kind of aimless, egoless work that artists' pine for, into suburban audio sculpture. Patrick Martinez presents footage of a human body being dissected in millimeter slices on a high-speed loop turning it into a boiling abstraction. The body is reduced to a series of shrinking and expanding organic shapes that edge more into painterly abstraction than scientific analysis. I've seen the thing before, and I liked it, but it is still vaguely disturbing. Steven Brower also has a video of his unemployed astronaut climbing a ladder in a simulated vacuum of space. The endless climb sums up of Brower's cutting cynicism and critique of progress. My personal favorite may very well be Tere Recaren's video of a makeshift pole-vaulting mat in an alley somewhere in Europe I think. It's strangely analogous to American backyard wrestling, reeking of the same desperation. Simon Faithfull has a bizarre installation in the back cellar stairs of the gallery, where the degraded video signal of a wireless camera attached to a balloon is on display. The video is shown in a circular black frame in some attempt to convey deep space. Maybe, but I had to stand back so I wouldn't topple into the thing and get permanently banned from the gallery.

The back space also has a complimentary exhibit of drawings by the artists. I got a kick out of Brower's drawing of a fat kid contemplating the skeletal lunar lander he built in the gallery last year. I felt like that fat kid, standing there with my beer and insecurity. Recaren's pen drawings of monkey and panther make a joyous return to the gallery, although without the company of more of them, they look pretty silly. I like the attitude, which seems at odds with Roger's dutifully rendered basement room. It'd be a good fight between the styles. Martinez also has a series of tiny, stamp-like ballpoint drawings that continue his exploration of the beginnings of the universe. Overall, Throb, sort of throbbed, but not as much as the gigantic title. It deserves an honorable mention as biggest title of the decade. I can't remember a bigger title anywhere else, er well maybe that hack Eric Fischel's copperplate font title at Mary Boone Gallery. His isn't funny though. It just says "Hey, I'm still a big ass!"
(3 Greenbergs. Throb has been... extended through the 27th).

Sweet Jesus, I was fairly wasted as I stormed out into the darkness in search of more beer when I stumbled over to Dam Stuhltrager. Carol Salmanson had built some kind of New Agey light show in the gallery, which I had a hard time squeezing into through the aging crowd. My green wagmag turned from green to brown in the strangely calming patterns of light. The front of the gallery is broken up into planes with long 'crystals' of colored lights. Honestly, I started to feel a bit like Superman in Superman II when he gives up his powers for Lois, and becomes human. I didn't want to get all in touch with my feelings or aura, so I charged into the backspace where Jae-Hi Ahn had populated the walls with resin 'creatures' that look like the artist plucked them from some bizarre ocean. The organic, spiny sculptures progressively get smaller as they traverse the gallery walls and descend towards the basement. The colorful creatures were an interesting counterpoint to Salmanson's fairly serious endeavor, yet I think I preferred Ahn's playful use of abstraction. It's really hard to top the good light artists.
(2 1/2 Greenbergs. Luminous Layers and Rubberworms are shimmering and swimming through April 14th)

I don't remember much about the walk home, but from the looks of most of the revelers at Supreme Trading Company, I'm probably not alone.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's important to keep in mind what this whole the Terri Schiavo BS is really about; the 2006 elections:

From Seattle Times: Republican leaders believe their attention to the Terri Schiavo issue could pay dividends with Christian conservatives whose support they covet in the 2006 midterm elections, according to a GOP memo intended to be seen only by senators.

The one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, called the debate over Schiavo legislation "a great political issue" that would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who is up for re-election next year.

"This is an important moral issue, and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," said the memo, reported by ABC News and later given to The Washington Post. "This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a co-sponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats."

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

"More than 130 buildings are under construction in a haven for artsy young people."

click image for building slideshow - care of NYTimes (reg req)

From NYTimes [read it here (reg required) or below]

Williamsburg Reinvented
In the last decade, Williamsburg in Brooklyn has been a first stop for young people new to the city, just out of college. As they have grown up, the neighborhood has too, evolving from dive bars and movie rental joints to chic sushi restaurants and designer furniture emporiums.

Most of these Williamsburg devotees are now young professionals, often working in creative fields. They tend to be in their 20's and 30's and earning $60,000 to $150,000 a year, according to David Maundrell, president of Aptsandlofts.com, a real estate company in Williamsburg.

"It is a small town of late 20- to 30-somethings," said Mr. Maundrell, who is 30 and grew up in East Williamsburg. "They recognize people on the train going to work in the morning. Saturday mornings you go to walk your dog and get your coffee at 8 in the morning and someone else has the same routine."

In an area with little real estate to buy, these renters have been hungering for some equity of their own in a neighborhood that has become home, and not just a stopping-off point.

They are about to get their wish.

This little hamlet is going to get bigger. Like a whole town bigger. Imagine all the owner-occupied housing stock of a town like Princeton, N.J., moved to this part of Brooklyn. Twice.

More than 130 buildings are currently planned in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the neighboring area to the north. They are but a curtain raiser for the large-scale waterfront developments that are anticipated with the proposed rezoning along the East River that will transform 75 blocks from industrial to residential use. Last Monday, the plan was approved by the New York City Planning Commission and now makes the next and last stop in the City Council before an expected approval in May.

The buildings under construction now - some small, and tucked between low-slung neighbors, others rising above the rooftops with more than 200 apartments - are just the beginning of a transformation that will some day make the neighborhood look very little like Brooklyn, and more like parts of the far West Village, with sleek glass high-rise buildings and waterfront residences.

Elan Padeh, the president and chief executive of the Developers Group, a consulting and marketing firm with 30 projects currently planned in this area, estimates that in the next two years there will be 3,000 to 4,000 new units in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. "In the next four to five years," he said, "10,000 to 12,000."

For people who are not only priced out of Manhattan, but shut out of the brownstone neighborhoods of Brooklyn like Park Slope or Brooklyn Heights because of price creep, the idea of a deluge of new construction is seductive: it will sell for $500 to $700 a square foot, half the price of Manhattan, and the tax abatements of 15 to 25 years will lower monthly costs. With a 30-year fixed mortgage on a $399,000 two-bedroom apartment with a tax abatement, buyers will spend about $2,500 a month, about the same as they would spend on rent in the neighborhood.

But it isn't just economics. It is also aesthetics.

"I like to design and build my space," said Jennifer Chan, 30, an architect who recently signed a contract on a one-bedroom apartment with high ceilings and a mezzanine in the Union Lofts building on South Second Street, around the corner from where she has lived for four years. "It seemed like enough of a blank slate."

She said she had looked in Queens and other areas of Brooklyn for something that she could renovate, but after weighing the money and time decided that "it seemed a lot more affordable to buy new construction." And she wanted to stay in Williamsburg. "I'm very attached because my friends are there, the base of my social network," she said.

Mr. Maundrell said he sees it all the time in his buyers. "These people don't want to live in brownstone Brooklyn," he said. "They are individuals or young couples. They aren't going to have much in common with the 50-year-old couple in Brooklyn Heights. Park Slope is another world. They look in Dumbo a little. But Dumbo doesn't have the sense of community."

Other brokers agree. "Aesthetically, Park Slope is beautiful, but if you don't want to live in a house from 1860 and don't like gargoyles, it isn't for you," said Kara Kasper, an agent with the Corcoran Group who specializes in Williamsburg. "To people coming from the East Village, Williamsburg feels like home and Park Slope feels like the suburbs."

But with so many developers breaking ground across the 11222 and 11211 ZIP codes and hiring architects with typically contemporary notions, will that community and cultural sensibility be maintained? Or will it run out in a wash of construction?

They are building from Broadway in South Williamsburg, where the smoky aroma from the Peter Luger Steak House wafts, to the far northern reaches of Greenpoint and deep into East Williamsburg, where leafy streets like Ten Eyck and Scholes Streets recall "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith. With most of the vacant lots already built on, three-story vinyl-clad houses and two-story garages are being replaced by glass towers that mimic those sprouting in Manhattan.

Many developers are rushing to get foundations laid to take advantage of existing zoning. New height limitations will go into effect when the new zoning plan is approved. Others are simply trying to capitalize on the interest in the market.

The neighborhood has come a long way in the past five years. Developers were long dubious that anyone would do anything but rent in Williamsburg. Originally, the conversion of the Smith Gray Building at 138 Broadway in 2001 was conceived as rentals. Mr. Padeh, who was with the Corcoran Group at the time and worked on the project, said that when the owner decided to sell the units, the expected price was $375 a square foot. The building sold for an average of $455 a square foot. (A 1,997-square-foot, three-bedroom penthouse is now available for $1.55 million, or $776 a square foot.)

"Based off of that success, the Gretsch Building was developed," Mr. Padeh said. "No one would have taken a shot if 138 Broadway would have flopped."

The Gretsch Building, a 130-unit luxury building at 60 Broadway, was first offered for sale at the end of 2003 and sold for an average of $575 a square foot.

Many of the largest developments in Williamsburg have not been done in the neighborhood's prime areas, which Mr. Padeh describes as the area immediately surrounding the L line subway station at North Seventh Street and Bedford Avenue, the streets on the perimeter of McCarren Park and, of course, the waterfront.

Those who do sell apartments in the prime areas will get a premium. One building, an eight-unit building at 171 North Seventh Street, about 20 steps from the subway, recently sold for $735 a square foot.

Not long ago, North and South Williamsburg were areas where people could find deals. Now, they are just another option. The best bargains are in East Williamsburg, where buildings in territory better known as "second stop" and "third stop" on the L are selling out in a matter of days.

During an open house last week in East Williamsburg at a new condo building called the Nola, young buyers traipsed out into the cold and cooed at the view as the skyline of Manhattan turned pink on its jagged edges.

By the end of his first weekend of showings at the Nola, Mr. Maundrell, whose firm is selling the apartments, had accepted offers for seven of the eight units ranging from $399,000 to $650,000. Mr. Maundrell keeps a list of interested buyers and holds open houses for people to have an advance look at property coming to market. Next week he will have an open house for those on the reserve list for an 11-unit building on Ten Eyck Street with views of Manhattan called Tower 78. His list is already 200 people long.

East Williamsburg became a viable place to sell, he said, when Manhattan went "through the roof." And it helps, he said, that the new buildings have appealing design.

Robert M. Scarano Jr., an architect based in Dumbo whose 60-person firm is leading the way, is working on 100 buildings in East Williamsburg alone. With a following mainly gained through word of mouth and support from developers who have seen the firm's work, Mr. Scarano does not have an exclusive broker for the properties but works with Corcoran, Prudential Douglas Elliman, the Developers Group and Aptsandlofts.com. "We're like a Switzerland," he said.

But the firm is really more like a young United Nations with architects, whose average age is 29, pulled from around the world. Thumbing through a two-inch-high pile of papers on a file shelf he said: "This? This year's resumes." Moving to the shelf below it with a similarly intimidating pile, "Last year's resumes."

It is no surprise. Mr. Scarano bestows an incredible amount of responsibility on his young staff, whom he wisely dispatches to design for people like themselves.

When Carmen Larach, a 25-year-old Honduras-born architect at the firm who lives in Greenpoint, finished designing 171 North Seventh Street with double heights and mezzanines, she knew exactly which unit she would love to live in. The top level, east side. "The developers said, 'Let me make money on this one.' Maybe next time I can have one," she said.

In Mr. Scarano's office, one wall is all but covered with renderings. The mode for Scarano projects in Williamsburg and Greenpoint is a layered contemporary exterior with glass curtain walls. The quality of the finishes varies, based on the building, but stainless-steel appliances and granite countertops are practically standard issue. Buyers also want high ceilings, lots of light and outdoor space, he said.

Mr. Scarano is excited about the future of the waterfront and anticipates building in the rezoned area. He credits the likely changes to Amanda Burden, the chairwoman of the City Planning Commission. She "is doing for Williamsburg what C. Virginia Fields did for Frederick Douglass Boulevard" in Harlem, he said.

Of course, with so much building, everyone involved is wary of saturation.

Karl Fischer, the architect who designed the conversion of the Gretsch Building, has two of the most ambitious current projects: four buildings on Bayard Street, which runs along one side of McCarren Park, and a waterfront complex, Schaefer Landing, a joint venture with Gene Kaufman, an architect. He expects that the market will be flooded within a year or two after the rezoning takes effect.

"It will actually be very good for the buyer," Mr. Fischer said. "They will be able to shop around and have lots of product to choose from. Developers will have to try different things to compete."

For all its emulation of that island across the river, this northern knob of Brooklyn will remain the anti-Manhattan in at least one sense: it's a buyer's market.

What's Available in Williamsburg By ANNA BAHNEY

Published: March 20, 2005 IN NYTIMES

MOST of the condos now available in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, are selling for $500 to $700 a square foot. In the prime areas like the waterfront, parts of North Seventh Street and around McCarren Park, prices are $800 to $1,000. Here are properties currently available and a small sampling of things to come:

SCHAEFER LANDING, 446 Kent Avenue

The former site of the Schaefer Brewery, on the waterfront, will have two buildings: a 14-story tower with 75 condo units and 140 rentals for those who meet the income limits, and a 24-story tower with 135 condos. Both sit behind a promenade along the river in South Williamsburg. The 14-story tower is 90 percent sold with two- and three-bedroom apartments with two baths available from $865,000 to $1.475 million; sales in the 24-story tower begin at the end of April. Helene Luchnick or Linda Rubin, Prudential Douglas Elliman (212) 965-6008; www.schaeferlanding.com or www.elliman.com.

THE CASA, 92 Conselyea Street

Of the 24 loftlike units in this corner building in East Williamsburg designed by Scarano & Associates Architects, only one, a 1,309-square-foot, ground-floor duplex for $688,000, is available. Aptsandlofts.com (718) 384-5304; www.thecasalofts.com.

THE NOLA, 31 Conselyea Street

One of the eight units in this East Williamsburg building is left, a one-bedroom ground-floor duplex for $550,000. Aptsandlofts.com, www.thenola.com.

252-258 RICHARDSON STREET

Five of 12 units in this traditional-looking masonry building in East Williamsburg are available. Four two-bedroom apartments are on the ground floor with patios; a three-bedroom is on the third floor, and has a terrace. Prices range from $675,000 to $699,000. The Developers Group (718) 222-1545;

www.thedevelopersgroup.com.

WITHERS PLACE, 246 Withers Street

Six two-bedroom, two-bath condos in this 25-unit building in East Williamsburg, designed by Karl Fischer Architect, are available, ranging from a 1,021-square-foot apartment for $590,000 to a 2,324-square-foot ground-floor duplex for $925,000. Helene Luchnick and Patrice Mack (212) 965-6031, Douglas Elliman.

THE STAGG, 63-69 Stagg Street/52 Ten Eyck Street

Seven one-bedroom apartments, five of them duplexes, are available in this building in East Williamsburg designed by Scarano & Associates Architects. Most have two bathrooms and outdoor space and range from $595,000 to $715,000. The Developers Group.

BROADWAY RIVERVIEW, 20 Broadway

In South Williamsburg, five out of 14 units in this converted four-story former hotel are available, ranging from $539,000 for a one-bedroom to $1.225 million for a 1,243-square-foot penthouse with a 900-square-foot terrace. Aptsandlofts.com.

THE GRETSCH BUILDING, 60 Broadway

There are six units left in this loft conversion in South Williamsburg, all with two bedrooms and two bathrooms ranging from $795,000 to $1.025 million. The Corcoran Group, (718) 388-0537, www.corcoran.com.

Coming This Spring and Summer

LUXE226, 226 Richardson Street

A 6-story, 10-unit building designed by Gene Kaufman with an elevator opening directly into the units. The Developers Group.

TOWER 78, 78 Ten Eyck Street

An 11-unit building designed by Scarano & Associates Architects with two duplex apartments, six mezzanine lofts and three penthouse tri-level lofts, priced from $425,000 to $750,000. Aptsandlofts.com.

THE AURORA, 30 Bayard; THE IKON, 50 Bayard

The 58-unit Ikon is a warehouse building converted to lofts, with four additional glass enclosed floors and the Aurora is a 51-unit, 12-story building next to it. Both are in North Williamsburg opposite McCarren Park. The Developers Group.

55 BERRY STREET

A 35-unit loft conversion in North Williamsburg designed by Karl Fischer with one- and two-bedroom apartments on the corner of Berry and North 11th Street, ranging from $710,000 to $1.39 million. Helene Luchnick, Douglas Elliman.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (29)

We were going to post this last week as a "to do" but knew the opening weekend crowd would be too annoying. Check it this weekend:

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
Greater New York 2005
MARCH 13 - SEPTEMBER 26, 2005
click for directions/info

Greater New York 2005, jointly organized by P.S.1 and The Museum of Modern Art, will go on view at P.S.1 on March 13,2005 showcasing more than 160 artists from the New York area. This exhibition builds from the spirit of its first incarnation, Greater New York, which opened at P.S.1 in 2000, shortly after the two institutions became affiliated.

Greater New York 2005 presents artists who have emerged since 2000. Their work explores both this specific time period, during which New York City has changed dramatically; shows vitality, energy, and exciting promise; and anticipates new artistic directions. The exhibition includes artists from New York's five boroughs, as well as nearby towns in New Jersey.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From NY Times:

Under sharp questioning at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mr. Goss sought to reassure lawmakers that all interrogations "at this time" were legal and that no methods now in use constituted torture. But he declined, when asked, to make the same broad assertions about practices used over the last few years.

"At this time, there are no 'techniques,' if I could say, that are being employed that are in any way against the law or would meet - would be considered torture or anything like that," Mr. Goss said in response to one question.

When he was asked several minutes later whether he could say the same about techniques employed by the agency since the campaign against Al Qaeda expanded in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks in the United States, he said, "I am not able to tell you that."

He added that he might be able to elaborate after the committee went into closed session to take classified testimony.

And of course, it's not torture if you kill them. It's a good thing we're nipping that steroids/baseball thing in the bud!

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

[Sub Pop - 2005]
Review by Monte Holman

So your favorite bands are the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. And during the last decade you listened to a lot of Guided By Voices. Oh, and you're a big fan of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Well then, Jennifer Gentle is your band.

Jennifer Gentle isn't really Jennifer and is only sometimes gentle. This Italian male duo explores rough lo-fi recording and the rock aesthetic lightheartedly, finding music in laughter, kazoos, cowbells, and even squeaking balloons. But there's another side to the band that helps us accept the jokiness and continue listening both critically and carelessly. Despite its superficial high jinks, Valende, Jennifer Gentle's third album and first Sub Pop release, impresses.

Marco Fasolo and Alessio Gastaldello, the core of the band, write songs that are multifaceted. Sort of schizophrenic. Two tracks, "The Garden" (parts one and two), sound like they're sung by the real-life female embodiment of Jennifer Gentle. Breathy and delicate falsetto vocals unravel atop acoustic guitars in "The Garden, Part One" and build back up in "The Garden, Part Two." In between the garden songs convulses "Hessesopoa," the kind of frenetic chaos Sun-Ra would enjoy (all seven minutes, thirty-three seconds of it). Beginning in light, quick cymbal hits, the song spirals out into hysteria, evoking the image of the Indians from the Good, Bad, and the Ugly soundtrack chasing Elmo through the percussion section of a music store.

These tracks represent the extremes of Jennifer Gentle: the band appreciates quiet harmonies, but they're also really hyped up on coffee as one song title, "Liquid Coffee," suggests. The other seven tracks on the album consist of possible combinations of the garden songs and "Hessesopoa."

The backbone of most songs is a tinny acoustic guitar, a ride accompanying a loose drum kit, and a bass line. But Fasolo and Gastaldello fill everything out with extras, xylophone, Stones guitar, dreamy vocals, a recorder, whatever fits. "I Do Dream You" contains distorted guitar bends and warm organs topped off with hand claps. It's a fast-paced go-go song. And I'm pretty sure the helium inhaled for this one carries over into the next track, "Tiny Holes," which begins with a rising chord progression, lazily floating as if the musicians, well, inhaled too much helium and are now paying the price.

In the balance between chaos and beauty, Fasolo and Gastaldello discover a natural inclination toward the absurd. Lyrically, yes-for example one refrain repeats, "On the sofa / if you please / I spilled some coffee / on my trousers,"-but also sonically. The aforementioned balloons and other nontraditional instruments, production antics that pit instruments against each other in opposite speakers, and cartoony yee-haws, oohs, and ahhs.

"Nothing Makes Sense," a fitting title and the last song on the record, bounces around, starts and stops, and pops in and out amusingly. Lines like "honey bunny Sunday morning Sunday boring by the way" could've been spoken by the Mad Hatter himself. And if all this hasn't satisfied our inner children, the vocals elevate to a squealing chipmunk pitch before song's end.

But Jennifer Gentle have the ability to rein it in. You have to like a band with a sense of humor combined with talent and an overall sense of cool. It's smart, it's Italian, it's a nice sampling of different eras of rock and roll, it's Jennifer Gentle-fresh with welcomed unpredictability.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From NY Times:
At least 26 prisoners have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide, according to military officials.

The number of confirmed or suspected cases is much higher than any accounting the military has previously reported. A Pentagon report sent to Congress last week cited only six prisoner deaths caused by abuse, but that partial tally was limited to what the author, Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III of the Navy, called "closed, substantiated abuse cases" as of last September.

The new figure of 26 was provided by the Army and Navy this week after repeated inquiries. In 18 cases reviewed by the Army and Navy, investigators have now closed their inquiries and have recommended them for prosecution or referred them to other agencies for action, Army and Navy officials said. Eight cases are still under investigation but are listed by the Army as confirmed or suspected criminal homicides, the officials said.

Only one of the deaths occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, officials said, showing how broadly the most violent abuses extended beyond those prison walls and contradicting early impressions that the wrongdoing was confined to a handful of members of the military police on the prison's night shift.

Among the cases are at least four involving Central Intelligence Agency employees that are being reviewed by the Justice Department for possible prosecution. They include a killing in Afghanistan in June 2003 for which David Passaro, a contract worker for the C.I.A., is now facing trial in federal court in North Carolina.

Human rights groups expressed dismay at the number of criminal homicides and renewed their call for a Sept. 11-style inquiry into detention operations and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. "This number to me is quite astounding," said James D. Ross, senior legal adviser for Human Rights Watch in New York. "This just reflects an overall failure to take seriously the abuses that have occurred."

Pentagon and Army officials rebutted that accusation. Lawrence Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said that he was not aware that the Defense Department had previously accounted publicly for criminal homicides among the detainee deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, but insisted that military authorities were vigorously pursuing each case.

"I have not seen the numbers collected in the way you described them, but obviously one criminal homicide is one too many," said Mr. Di Rita, who noted that American forces had held more than 50,000 detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past three years.

Army officials said the killings took place both inside and outside detention areas, including at the point of capture in often violent battlefield conditions. "The Army will investigate every detainee death both inside and outside detention facilities," said Col. Joseph Curtin, a senior Army spokesman. "Simply put, detainee abuse is not tolerated, and the Army will hold soldiers accountable. We are taking action to prosecute those suspected of abuse while taking steps now to train soldiers how to avoid such situations in the future."

In his report last week, Admiral Church concluded that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan had been the result primarily of a breakdown of discipline, not flawed policies or misguided direction from commanders or Pentagon officials. But he cautioned that his conclusions were "based primarily on the information available to us as of Sept. 30, 2004," and added, "Should additional information become available, our conclusions would have to be considered in light of that information."

In addition to the criminal homicides, 11 cases involving prisoner deaths at the hands of American troops are now listed as justifiable homicides that should not be prosecuted, Army officials said. Those cases included killings caused by soldiers in suppressing prisoner riots in Iraq, they said. Other prisoners have died in captivity of natural causes, the military has found.

An accounting by The New York Times in May 2004, based on reports from military officials and a review of Army documents, identified 16 cases of confirmed or suspected homicide involving prisoners in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. At that time, however, just five were listed as confirmed homicides, with 11 of the cases still under investigation.

The Army defines a homicide as "a death that results from the intentional (explicit or implied) or grossly reckless behavior of another person or persons."

"Homicide is not synonymous with murder (a legal determination) and includes both criminal actions and excusable incidents (i.e., self-defense, law enforcement, combat)," according to an Army statement.

The new total of 26 cases involving prisoner deaths confirmed or suspected of being criminal homicides includes 24 cases investigated by the Army and two by the Navy, spokesmen for those services said. Two of the Army cases have since been referred to the Navy, and one to the Justice Department. The Navy said each case included a single prisoner death, but the Army said it was possible that at least some of the cases investigated by the service involved the death of more than one prisoner.

The Marine Corps said that nine Iraqi detainees had died in Marine custody, but that none of the deaths were homicides. It is unclear if this number includes the death of an Iraqi captive shot by a marine in a mosque in Falluja last November, an incident filmed by a television crew.

Neither the Army nor the Navy would provide a precise accounting of all of the cases now regarded as confirmed or suspected homicide.

At least eight Army soldiers have now been convicted of crimes in the deaths of prisoners in American custody, including a lieutenant who pleaded guilty at Fort Hood, Tex., this month to charges that included aggravated assault and battery, obstruction of justice and dereliction of duty. A charge of involuntary manslaughter in that case was dropped.

An additional 13 Army soldiers are now being tried, according to Army officials. They include Pfc. Willie V. Brand, who is facing a hearing at Fort Bliss, Tex., next week on charges of manslaughter and maiming in the deaths of two prisoners at Bagram Control Point in Afghanistan in December 2002.

But in some of the cases, including the death of an Iraqi, Manadel al-Jamadi, in Abu Ghraib in November 2003, most of those initially charged with crimes by the military have ended up receiving only nonjudicial punishments, and neither their names nor the details of those punishments have been disclosed.

Altogether, Army criminal investigators had conducted 68 detainee death investigations with 79 possible victims as of February 2005, said Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, an Army spokeswoman. Of those investigations, 53 have been closed and 15 cases remain pending, Colonel Hart said.

In addition to the 24 Army cases listed as criminal homicides and the 11 cases listed as justifiable homicides, 28 cases are listed as confirmed or suspected deaths from accidents or natural causes. An additional five are cases in which the cause of death has not been determined, Colonel Hart said.

Over all, the Army's criminal investigators have examined 308 cases involving allegations of mistreating detainees. They include the 68 death investigations and 240 other allegations of potential misconduct, like allegations of assaults, sexual assaults and thefts, Colonel Hart said. Of the 308 cases, 201 cases are closed and 107 cases were pending as of mid-February 2005.

In addition to the number of detainee deaths, other conclusions in the Church report have drawn scrutiny. The report, for instance, also asserts that psychiatrists and psychologists advising interrogators did not have access to detainees' medical files. That is in sharp contrast to reports from the Red Cross and interrogators interviewed by The Times.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a confidential report last July that the detainees' medical files were open to all. The report said that was unethical and that it diminished the medical care given the detainees, because it discouraged them from seeking medical attention as they knew the information would be shared with interrogators.

One interrogator said in interviews that the files were initially open to all and that it was a regular practice for interrogators simply to go into the detainee hospital and review the records. The interrogator said that when the hospital staff became more reluctant to share the files, the interrogators found that they could ask the psychologists and psychiatrists to obtain them.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

from Sky.com
The snow-capped summit of Mount Kilimanjaro has melted away to reveal the tip of the African peak for the first time in 11,000 years.

The glaciers and snow which kept the summit white have almost completely disappeared.

Although scientists had predicted the melt would happen, it is 15 years sooner than they had predicted.

The white peak of the 19,340ft mountain has long formed a stunning part of Tanzanian landscape, not least because it is only 200 miles south of the equator.

The photograph is part of the NorthSouthEastWest exhibition by The Climate Group, a book of which will be presented to ministers at the G8 energy and environment summit in London.

Steve Howard of The Climate Group said: "Climate change is real. So are the solutions, which are practical, affordable and in many cases, profitable.

"This exhibition shows us that a low-carbon economy is the only sustainable future for our planet."

The G8 meeting comes a day after the WWF warned Himalayan glaciers are receding at among the fastest rates in the world because of global warming.

The environmental group warned that the melting could result in water shortages for millions of people who rely on rivers supplied by the glaciers in China, India and Nepal.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

From Duluth News Tribune:
EPA plan to cut mercury due out today
ENVIRONMENT: The EPA rules are expected to allow power companies to trade pollution "credits" to meet a national goal of cutting emissions in half by 2010.
BY JOHN MYERS

The U.S. government today is expected to announce its first plan to cut toxic mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants.

The new rules are either the first step toward less mercury contamination in fish and people or a major mistake that benefits the nation's coal industry. It all depends on whom you talk to.

The electric utility industry and Bush administration officials in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are touting the regulations as a realistic way to reduce the mercury produced when coal is burned -- the largest source of human-caused mercury in the United States.

The plan is expected to establish a cap/trade system and call for overall mercury reductions of about 50 percent by 2010 and 70 percent by 2018.

Power plants that don't add pollution control technology soon enough to meet the limits could buy credits from plants that do better than the federal standards. The credits will be traded, putting a market price on the cost of failing to reduce mercury emissions.

A similar plan adopted in 1990 is credited with helping U.S. power plants reduce emissions of sulfur dioxode, which causes acid rain.

"This will be the first regulation ever on power plant mercury emissions. It's a dramatic step forward in getting mercury under control," said Frank Maisano, spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a Washington, D.C., industry group that represents coal-burning power plants.

But several environmental experts, scientific groups and even the government's own nonpartisan General Accountability Office say the new rule doesn't do enough to solve the mercury problem. The EPA's own inspector general last month said the administration overlooked health effects in developing the new rules and sided with the utility industry in drafting them.

"It waits too long to require any real mercury reductions. There are too many loopholes that will keep it from protecting people's health," said Sarah Welch, mercury expert for the Izaak Walton League of America.

The Izaak Walton League expects the federal plan to be so weak that the group today will propose tough new state legislation in St. Paul that would demand a 90 percent reduction in mercury from Minnesota's coal-fired plants by 2011.

"It's clear that the federal rule will do little or nothing to reduce mercury emissions in Minnesota. Our own PCA commissioner said that last summer in a letter to the EPA," Welch said, referring to Sheryl Corrigan of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. "It's time to stop burying our head in the sand and time for Minnesota to set an example on this. We can't wait for some global treaty or a real federal plan.... The health of our people and our fishing tradition and tourism economy depend on it."

Environmentalists say the cap-and-trade system shouldn't be used for mercury because the toxic substance will continue to accumulate while many power plants use credits instead of pollution controls to keep operating.

Industry officials say the 90 percent immediate reduction isn't technologically possible, let alone affordable. And they say any fast-paced effort to curb the mercury problem will damage the U.S. economy.

Because much of the mercury that falls on the United States comes from outside its borders, regulating domestic power plants also won't solve the overall problem, industry officials say.

"This is a global issue. We can't solve it all ourselves," Maisano said.

Coal is the most-used fuel for generating electricity in the United States because it's abundant and cheap. Cleaner-burning natural gas has been touted as an alternative to coal because little mercury is produced. But gas is in short supply. It currently costs about $1 to produce a million British thermal units from burning coal versus more than $6 from natural gas.

MINNESOTA POWER

Duluth-based Minnesota Power is watching the new federal regulations with keen interest. Because Minnesotans get most of their electricity from coal, and because Minnesota Power burns western coal that by geological quirk produces more elemental or toxic mercury, the utility probably will end up spending considerable money on new pollution control equipment and/or buying credits from other utilities.

Minnesota Power has 11 coal-fired units at several sites in Northeastern Minnesota and also buys coal-fired electricity from North Dakota.

"We believe that we'll probably be short on allocations" or credits, said Mike Cashin, Minnesota Power environmental engineer. It will take months to determine how the new rules will affect each utility and even longer before consumers know the effect on their monthly power bill, he said.

Depending on how fast the new rules take effect, and on any legal challenges, Minnesota Power's customers can expect to be spending at least a little more money for electricity because of the mercury rules. While homeowners won't have sticker shock, the added cost could hit taconite plants and paper mills hard.

"The industries that use the most electricity in our region are the ones most at risk of global competition. This is going to have an impact on their ability to compete," Cashin said.

Minnesota Power for years has been experimenting to find a way to reduce mercury from its smokestacks. So far "there's no silver bullet out there," Cashin said.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Condi finally issued a definitive answer to the question of whether or not she will run for president in 2008, telling Tim Russert that it's not going to happen. She also said she is in favor of keeping Roe v Wade in place. Now we actually WANT her to run.... the evangelicals would stay at home if the Republicans nominated a pro-choice candidate. It would have been interesting to see an election where the abortion issue was not part of the debate.

Disturbing article of the day:

From the UK Times Online:

Revealed: Israel plans strike on Iranian nuclear plant
Uzi Mahnaimi

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy fails to halt the Iranian nuclear programme.

The inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave "initial authorisation" for an attack at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert.

Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it. Their tactics include raids by Israel's elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.

The plans have been discussed with American officials who are said to have indicated provisionally that they would not stand in Israel's way if all international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear projects failed.

Tehran claims that its programme is designed for peaceful purposes but Israeli and American intelligence officials — who have met to share information in recent weeks — are convinced that it is intended to produce nuclear weapons.

The Israeli government responded cautiously yesterday to an announcement by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, that America would support Britain, France and Germany in offering economic incentives for Tehran to abandon its programme.

In return, the European countries promised to back Washington in referring Iran to the United Nations security council if the latest round of talks fails to secure agreement.

Silvan Shalom, the Israeli foreign minister, said he believed that diplomacy was the only way to deal with the issue. But he warned: "The idea that this tyranny of Iran will hold a nuclear bomb is a nightmare, not only for us but for the whole world."

Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, emphasised on Friday that Iran would face "stronger action" if it failed to respond. But yesterday Iran rejected the initiative, which provides for entry to the World Trade Organisation and a supply of spare parts for airliners if it co-operates.

"No pressure, bribe or threat can make Iran give up its legitimate right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes," said an Iranian spokesman.

US officials warned last week that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israeli or American forces had not been ruled out should the issue become deadlocked at the United Nations.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In celebration of the Armory Show in Manhattan, most Williamsburg galleries will be open until 11pm on Saturday, March 12:

From Flavorpill No, not that kind of after-hours. Inspired by the 1,000-watt Armory Show across the river in Manhattan, tonight's Brooklyn soiree is really a trans-gallery celebration of artists, filtered through the unique sensibility that is Williamsburg. Think of it as a lively promenade through the hip precincts of a robust, artistic community. With over two dozen galleries expected to contribute diverse performances and special events - including a live band at Pierogi, the always idiosyncratic offerings of the Dollhaus, and an Open Ground bash featuring DJ Damone and a talented roster of artists from Berlin - After-Hours provides an eclectic stroll through an epicenter of art that's no longer merely emerging. (DI)

Note: Spike Hill Bar and Grill (184 Bedford Ave, 718.218.9737) houses an information center. Also, various afterparties abound - consult your favorite gallery for information.

Click here for gallery listings
Click here for more info

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Pat Roberts, douchebag of the month

The month of March has only just begun, but we already have a winner. In just 24 hours, Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts has:

1. Voiced his intent to shut down its investigation into whether top administration officials distorted intelligence evidence to build the case for war on Iraq. (He heads the investigating committee)

2. Declared emphatically that there is no need to investigate the CIA's rendition program. You know, the government endorsed program where we send prisoners oversees to be beaten and threatened with ass rape by German Shephards.

Here's Pat's number. Give him a call. He'd love to hear from you:
202-224-4774

See the respective articles below.

FROM LA TIMES

No Need for CIA Abuse Probe, Republican Says
The Senate intelligence chairman dismisses calls to examine the agency's handling of detainees. But Democrats are seeking a vote on issue.

WASHINGTON — Declaring that the CIA is "not torturing detainees," the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Thursday that he saw no reason for the panel to investigate allegations that the agency abused prisoners or transferred them to countries that engage in torture.

But Democrats moved to force a vote within the committee next week on whether to launch a formal inquiry on the CIA's role in the prison abuse scandal.

The standoff highlights the political tensions that continue to surround the prison abuse issue 10 months after photos of U.S. soldiers abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad triggered an international outcry. The clash occurred on a day when the Pentagon issued results of its latest investigation, which concluded that U.S. interrogation policies were not responsible for detainee abuses.

The CIA has come under increasing scrutiny for its handling of detainees. CIA operatives have been involved in at least three cases in which detainees died in custody, and agency officials have recently been forced to defend the practice of delivering detainees to countries cited by the State Department as engaging in torture.

Amid such criticism, the remarks by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) represented the most forceful defense of the CIA to date from a senior Republican in Congress.

"Let me assure you the Senate Intelligence Committee is well aware of what the CIA is doing overseas in the defense of our nation and they are not torturing detainees," Roberts said in a speech in Washington.

He described documented cases of abuse as isolated incidents, saying that "a small group of individuals may have acted on their own in violation of the rules." Roberts said the committee would open its own inquiry only if it found "any shortcomings" in investigations already underway at the CIA and the Justice Department.

"As it stands right now," Roberts said, "the system that Congress designed seems to be working."

The CIA inspector general's office is conducting investigations of half a dozen allegations of detainee abuse. The CIA has also referred at least three cases to the Justice Department, including an incident in which a prisoner froze to death.

Another case involves a CIA paramilitary contractor, David A. Passaro, who has been charged in the beating death of an Afghan detainee in a northern Afghan holding cell in June 2003.

The CIA continues to hold senior Al Qaeda operatives at undisclosed overseas facilities. And military investigations have cited the CIA for so-called ghost detainees kept off military prison rolls and hidden from Red Cross inspectors.

Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, responded to Roberts' speech by renewing his call for the panel to open a formal investigation. "This is an extremely critical issue before our committee," Rockefeller said in a statement.

Rockefeller said that he and the other six Democrats on the panel sent a letter to Roberts requesting a full committee vote on the issue next week. Democratic aides identified several Republicans who might support their call for an investigation, including Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

A spokesman for Hagel said the senator had not taken a position on the matter and was "getting more facts on this, reviewing the issue."

Also Thursday, Vice Adm. Albert T. Church, the Navy's inspector general, said his investigation of the prison abuses found that murky interrogation policies were not responsible for abuses.

"My key findings: There was no policy that condoned or authorized either abuse or torture. There was no linkage between the authorized interrogation techniques and the abuses that in fact occurred," Church told reporters at the Pentagon.

Church's report was criticized by human rights groups for failing to assess blame for what they described as systematic abuse. Church reviewed several previous investigations and oversaw 800 new interviews while also looking into abuse cases in Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Church's report also included new instances of abuses, including an Army lieutenant colonel in Afghanistan who was disciplined after he detained an entire village for four days and abused many residents.

Several human rights organizations criticized the Church report for failing to assess blame on senior military officials. Michael H. Posner, executive director of Human Rights First, said the investigation revealed "an ongoing unwillingness by the civilian leadership of the military to examine the full scope of the problem."

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said no independent investigation was possible with Donald H. Rumsfeld as Defense secretary. The ACLU has sued Rumsfeld and top commanders for allegedly fostering abuses.

"Secretary Rumsfeld authorized techniques that were clearly unlawful," Romero said.

Church dismissed the suggestion, saying, "I don't believe anybody can call this a whitewash."

Meanwhile, the ACLU on Thursday released another collection of prison abuse documents it obtained in a lawsuit against the Pentagon.

The new documents include statements to investigators by Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the Army Reserve's military police commander who was relieved of her command. Karpinski said a boy who appeared to be 8 years old — but said he was almost 12 — was among detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison.

The Pentagon documents released by the ACLU also describe instances of detainees who said they were beaten, threatened with guard dogs, stripped, choked and mistreated in other ways. They also contain statements from enlisted personnel who said women were molested or assaulted while in custody.

**************************

From the BBC:

US Senate ends probe into prewar intelligence on Iraq

The Senate committee overseeing US intelligence has shut down its investigation into whether top administration officials distorted intelligence evidence to build the case for war on Iraq.

Senator Pat Roberts, who heads the committee, said on Thursday he was satisfied administration officials had accurately portrayed what turned out to be flawed intelligence claiming the regime of Saddam Hussein possessed mass destruction weapons.

"The bottom line was they believed the intelligence, and intelligence was wrong," the Kansas Republican told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

The committee released a scathing 500-page report last July that concluded the prewar intelligence on Iraq had been badly wrong.

It also said at the time it would conduct a second phase of the investigation to look into several additional issues.

In particular, the committee agreed to examine whether public statements by US officials were substantiated by intelligence information, and whether the Pentagon Office of Special Plans (OSP), which reported to Douglas Feith, the defence undersecretary, had played a significant role in pushing the intelligence community to take a harder line on Iraq.

Democrats have argued that, while the prewar intelligence on Iraq may have been wrong, top administration officials further distorted the available intelligence to win public support for the war.

But the closing of the Senate investigation will effectively leave all blame for the failures with the professional intelligence community, rather than with political appointees.

"What they have done is a bait-and-switch," said Steven Aftergood, an intelligence expert with the Federation of American Scientists. "I think it's a betrayal of the oversight process."

The second phase had been promised to win Democratic support for the committee's investigation, while appeasing Republicans by delaying until after the November 2004 election any issues that might reflect badly on President George W. Bush or his top officials.

But Mr Roberts said on Thursday that, even in a "post- election environment", it "wouldn't achieve any possible progress" to call administration officials before the committee and ask them to defend their prewar statements on Iraq.

With respect to the OSP, Mr Roberts said there was no evidence that Mr Feith's office had "any significant impact" on the conclusions reached by intelligence community in its flawed October 2002 report that said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Jay Rockefeller, the top Democrat on the committee, said that Mr Roberts had formally agreed to the second phase investigation "and I fully expect him to fulfil his commitment", adding that "the completion of Phase II is long overdue".

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

From Disinfo.com:

This Sunday, March 13th, ABC will air an episode of David E. Kelley's top rated drama, "Boston Legal," that features "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism." The real story here is that the show never mentions Fox News!

The gist of the story is that Chi McBride, the principal from Kelley's previous hit show "Boston Public," uses the "Fox Blocker," a device sold on the Internet, to prevent Fox News Channel from being shown on all the televisions at his school. He claims it promotes hate speech and makes it harder to run the school. The episode revolves around free speech issues and uses actual footage from "Outfoxed" in several scenes.

Apparently, ABC executives got nervous when they saw the initial script, which specifically mentioned Fox News and Bill O'Reilly repeatedly-it even included the clip from "Outfoxed" where O'Reilly threatens war protesters in the same sentence he promises not to demonize anyone. According to sources, ABC ordered Kelley to remove all references to Fox News from the script. Meanwhile, ABC is also refusing to run a commercial for "Outfoxed"-featuring the infamous montage of O'Reilly's "shut-ups"- during the episode.

In an ABC show fundamentally about the first amendment, ABC has silenced the show's creator to protect a competitor and refuses to sell commercial space for an ad critical of that competitor.

"Outfoxed" producer/director Robert Greenwald said "I am shocked that ABC is not willing to take our hard earned money to run an ad for 'Outfoxed' during Boston Legal this Sunday. The episode of Boston Legal focuses on 'Outfoxed' which makes ABC refusal all the more troubling. While I understand that the film is controversial, I had assumed that ABC was still in the business of selling advertisements for the network. The refusal of ABC to run an ad for this film which has reached an audience all over the world is of great concern. Previously the only media that had refused to run an ad were two Rupert Murdoch newspapers in Australia. I hope ABC will re-consider its position."

"Outfoxed" is one of the most successful documentary films of recent years and became an instant hit when it was released in July of 2004, zooming straight to number one on Amazon.com's DVD chart. Distributed initially on DVD via the Internet by organizations such as MoveOn.org and The Center for American Progress, and to retail and rental outlets by The Disinformation Company, the film became so popular that it went on to screen in theaters across the United States and in many foreign countries.Disinformation President Gary Baddeley said that his company has placed advertisements for "Outfoxed" with a variety of media outlets without any problem until now and that "it's particularly frustrating that ABC's standards and practices department would not make any suggestions at all as to how we'd have to edit the ad to make it acceptable, saying only that it seemed like there were 'insurmountable issues' without being very specific. I have to conclude that there are political concerns governing their decision."

For more information, check out Alternet's story on the debacle at:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21463

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(Subpop Records)
Review by Monte Holman

Typically the word prolific translates to mostly crap. Crap lacking staying power. Being prolific is evidence of a wonderfully active imagination, sure, but it also improves the chance that the material will be derivative of itself and boring. Lucky for us, despite Sam Beam's creative fecundity, Iron and Wine has yet to produce an insignificant record.

Hailing from Miami, Florida, Beam is an uncharacteristic product of the beach city's Big Willie style. Somehow the song of the south leaked out of Alabama, through the Redneck Riviera of western Florida, and down the east coast. Who knew the community that brought us hot Latin nights filled with shiny shirted cokeheads could also house folks sporting beards, eating boiled peanuts, and sipping cans of Dixie?

Woman King, Beam's fourth record (two LPs, two EPs) in two-and-a-half years, offers six beautiful tracks and once again soothes us with acoustic guitars, banjos, hushed falsettos and tender harmonies. In this EP, Beam continues to explore polished production. The album, trading four-track basement recording for the big time, was recorded at Engine Studios in Chicago by Brian Deck and includes more instrumentation than past records. Slightly off-key pianos, violins, percussion (including tasteful bongos, two words I never thought I'd see together).

There are those who will consider Iron and Wine's gloss and added flourishes a loss of integrity or roots or something, but come on. The Creek Drank the Cradle and The Sea and the Rhythm have their charm and innocence, but one has to move on. And Woman King moves with subtlety.

Beam keeps traveling down the country road in tracks like "Freedom Hangs Like Heaven." This one contains a breakdown of what sounds like tin cups and glass bottles tapped with sticks. But Beam also investigates non-folksy noises and rhythms. The title track features a distorted bass, and the closer, "Evening on the Ground (Lilith's Song)," is damn near jazz, albeit jazz inspired by a union uprising in an old bottle factory. And for those unwilling to give up Iron and Wine's analog feel, Beam insulates his vocals with tape hiss. Happy? Good.

This short album focuses on women in the biblical sense; that is, biblical themes and images permeate Woman King. Lines from "Freedom" note, "Mary, carry your babe / bound up tight like lips around a whimper / your fingers over my face / blind-eyed Sampson driven to the temple." The whole EP captures tensions between the sexes, years of constant power struggles. Beam masterfully mixes the personal with the historical, tying his experience to a larger context and avoiding tired phrasing. Songs are chockfull of interesting verbiage and memorable metaphors. It's intimate; it's connected.

Woman King builds on what Iron and Wine does best: writing mature, delicate songs. The effortlessness with which Beam composes lovely pastoral lyrics puts us at ease. Iron and Wine's nonintrusive nature continues to court us, and even if new records and songs will follow steadily, all we can say is please play it again, Sam.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I usually rely on The Atlantic Monthly (alongside any New Yorker issue featuring Sy Hersh) for most of my long-form news. This month, The Atlantic Monthly featured an article discussing political talk radio in America written by David Foster Wallace. One would think a respectable political rag like The Atlantic Monthly would have better judgment than to work with this poster child for pretension, but hey, the magazine biz is tough these days I guess. They gambled instead to capitalize on his gimmickry.

Evidently, in order to accommodate his "writing style," the layout department at The Atlantic Monthly decided to place his footnotes in easy-to-read color-coded boxes. The end result is the King of Self-Indulgence's pinnacle achievement. The only thing not pretentious about the article is its ironically succinct title: "Host."

The 23 page article includes:

Los Angeles is definitely starting to become the worldwide capital of cool. The band that exemplifies the new spirit more than any other is The Moving Units. They play music that is informed by post-punk and dance music. They are on the verge of making it big. In the past few years they have become one of my favorite bands. Things did not come easy for them. They started almost three years ago, and have been gigging ever since. Their reputation is largely based on their exciting live shows and great songs. Songs like "Emancipation" and "Going For Adds" are some of the most rocking songs this year.

The Moving Units were all former members of the hardcore band Festival of Dead Deer. At the end of 2001, they began writing and gigging as The Moving Units supporting The Rapture. They signed to label Three One G and issued an EP in fall 2002. Initially, they were seen as LA's answer to The Rapture, but now, they have found their own sound and a large fanbase. They subsequently they moved to Palm Pictures, who reissued the Moving Units EP in early 2003. In fall 2004, the band's full-length debut Dangerous Dreams was finally released. I saw them play in LA recently with The Secret Machines. I spoke to Chris Hathwell right before the show. The Moving Units are Blake Miller (vocals/guitar), Johan Bogeli (bass), and Chris Hathwell (drums).

AL: Are you all from Los Angeles?

Chris: No. The singer is from Detroit.

AL: How did you all meet?

Chris: From just hanging out a lot in the same scene. We were all DJing and partying together in same places.

AL: People seem to know about The Moving Units for a while now.

Chris: We have been touring for a long time. It's all been word of mouth.

AL: People used to compare you to The Rapture. What did you think of that?

Chris: It's an easy way to look at it I guess. We are friends with The Rapture and I have known them for a long time. I have played with them before so it is not a negative thing to say. We are different bands with different energies and ideas. People are going to think what they want to.

AL: Maybe when you first started, The Moving Units were more like some New York bands than they were like the rest of the bands from LA?

Chris: Yeah.

AL: What did you listen to when you were growing up?

Chris: I listened to a lot of metal and a lot of jazz. We listened to punk and disco. Everyone in the band has eclectic music tastes. We are all music geeks. We all like popular music.

AL: When you play other parts of the country do people have expectations about you being an LA band?

Chris: You are immediately stuck with a bunch of stigmas and stereotypes. Since you are from LA, people assume that you are full of shit. That definitely happens. The expectations are everyone expects you to suck. We have had some good genuine reactions to our music in the Midwest.

AL: Where do you like to play?

Chris: Anywhere in California. Those are our people. We have had really good shows in Texas, Phoenix, and Cleveland. Miami was fun.

AL: Has playing so many live shows influenced how you write music?

Chris: Somewhat. You can develop your ideas by playing everyday.

AL: How do you write songs in the band?

Chris: Usually someone has an idea. We work collaboratively and organically. Blake writes all the lyrics, but the music is all of us.

AL: What are some songs like "Emancipation" or "Submission" about?

Chris: Nothing deeper than what is there on the surface. They are pretty self-explanatory.

AL: There is a feeling about the music that is like "This is party music. Let's have fun." Is that the message?

Chris: I wouldn't say that. The energy of the music is something like that, but there is also a dark underbelly or dark undercurrent to everything that we do. There is too much attention paid to the other element that you were talking about. Blake is a complex with a bunch of abstract thoughts and views. That is what separates our band from a lot of other bands in this genre. If you pay attention to the words, there are a lot of heavy things going down. You don't get that with your average disco punk group.

AL: What bands have you played with that you have liked?

Chris: A lot of them. We are on tour with this band called Autolux that we like a lot. The Chinese Stars are good. Kill Me Tomorrow from San Diego. Wives are another LA band.

AL: Does the band still DJ a lot?

Chris: Blake does a lot. He is going to DJ tonight. We all play at after parties when we are on tour.

AL: You are playing a lot of shows in the LA Area this month. You are playing four or five venues within a month. Are you playing as many shows as you can?

Chris: We are not playing every show we can. But that is the idea when you make a record. You want to play the songs to people wherever they live. We are playing Australia and Japan. We are coming back and headlining our own shows.

AL: Is that the first time you have played in Australia and Japan?

Chris: Yes, sir.

AL: You have played England too?

Chris: Yes, sir. Many times. It's alright. It's cool. We have had some good shows there.

AL: Is there any hobbies that the bands has?

Chris: Bickering. We bicker a lot. We do a lot of philanthropy. We do humanitarian work.

AL: Have you read any good books recently?

Chris: Yeah. I am reading a biography of the Carter Family right now.

AL: Have you seen any good films?

Chris: No.

AL: You have been busy. What is going on this summer?

Chris: That is too far in advance. We are hoping to be working on our next record by then. We have some new songs. We have a lot of work to do. We haven't had any time because we have been on tour for a while.

AL: Who is the most dispensable member of the band?

Chris: That is really an inflammatory question.

AL: I'm sorry.

Chris: I'll say "Me." How's that? I will volunteer myself.

AL: I meant to say: who is the most indispensable member of the band?

Chris: That would be me as well.

AL: Have you been to any weird parts of the United States recently?

Chris: Any part that is not New York or LA is pretty weird.

AL: How did you record this recent record?

Chris: It's totally live. Everything. We used a lot of tin foil while recording this album.

AL: What do you think about bands who are new wave revivalists?

Chris: It's 2005. It's hard to play something that doesn't sound like something else. If you heard something that you like, and you want to play that, then that's cool. I would rather hear regurgitated music of something that I liked rather than regurgitated music of something I didn't like.

AL: Some bands are incapable of making it their own.

Chris: I see what you are saying. It's harder than it looks though.

AL: People still have to know how to play.

Chris: Do you know who Ian MacKaye is?

AL: Yeah.

Chris: He said that there is a group of kids in every generation who hears a band that they like. This band creates a interest in music that makes people want to play music themselves. They get some gear and go to the basement. They are going to emulate what they heard. But since everyone has their individual life and experiences and individual way that they do things and how they play and heard, it's most likely that they are going to come up with something totally different than what they set out to accomplish. There are different factors involved and a generation gap. They end up creating something new that is the basic principle or basic idea.

AL: Do you have any advice for someone who wants to start a band?

Chris: Yeah. Take good care of your hair. Clothes make the man. Shameless self-promotion is a good thing. I am not saying that is what we do. I was giving advice.

AL: What is the set like?

Chris: We play mostly songs from the new album. We have two new songs. We don't play any cover songs. We are only playing seven songs when we open up for another band. Some of our own shows are much longer.

--Interview by Alexander
Laurence

Website: www.movingunits.net

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Stop by and check out our updated RESTAURANT GUIDE. Now with more listings, reviews, and an all new user review functionality. As per countless requests, you can now search by cuisine as well.

Write us at mail@freewilliamsburgDOTCOM if you want to be included or need updates to your establishment.

In case you missed our earlier post, the BAR SECTION has undergone a makeover as well.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One MP3 for each band performing:

Download away.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 05:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

East River Bar
(photo: Cary Conover)

OK OK. Our bar listings have been in drastic need of revamping. We'd failed to include such gems as East River Bar and Moto and some of the reviews weren't up to date.

After much hard labor, we are proud to now have the most thorough guide once again. Now you can even add your own bar review.

Check it out and be sure to let us know what we missed.

THE WILLIAMSBURG BROOKLYN BAR GUIDE

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

President Bush chooses Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations:

At a 1994 panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association, Bolton claimed, "There's no such thing as the United Nations," saying that ''If the U.N. secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

Read more on Catch.com

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New York Press editor Jeff Koyen stepped down today in response to intense criticism about last week's satire on the pope. Koyen was a major league ass plug who attacked us in 2003 for publishing The Hipster Handbook:

"Lanham's unbelievably stupid 169-page pocketbook is a bad joke, a riff, an overly long Saturday Night Live skit converted to print.... he's now embarrassed by everything he did the night before, so he's claiming satire."

(Yeah, strong sales and critical success are pretty embarassing, Jeff). Koyen was even stupid enough to think the book (and its satirical lexicon) were not intended to be a joke.

Nevertheless, we are sad to see the censors prevail. Is this the 1950's? The Pope article was a joke. And the author of the article, Matt Taibbi, who we know personally and have much respect for, is an incredibly nice person. We guess being tasteless is a crime again. We never thought we'd be on Koyen's side. The sun will be turning red soon. There will be locusts!

Here's Koyen's statement:

In Friday's Daily News, Rep. Anthony Weiner called on New Yorkers to "exercise their right to take as many of these rags as they can and put them in the trash." Unfortunately for Mr. Weiner, New Yorkers don't have that right. No one does. Interrupting the distribution of any newspaper-even a paid one, wherein you buy, say, 1000 copies and toss them-is against the law. Case law dictates that the right to circulation is to be held as sacred as the right to publish, as one is worthless without the other.

My bosses apparently don't believe in New York Press' right to distribute. They refused to stand up against Rep. Weiner; they refused to condemn his call-to-action as immoral (and illegal). They also refused to stand behind me in the face of harsh criticism for publishing Matt Taibbi's "52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope". On Friday afternoon, I went on the 3 different radio programs and even suffered through an MSNBC appearance with Joe Scarborough and the disgusting bigot Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League. I did my best to show this battle to be one of free expression.

This morning, I was told to accept a two-week unpaid suspension. During that time, I was to "think about what this paper should be."

Problem is, New York Press already is the paper it should be. We are iconoclastic, occasionally obnoxious but always intelligent. If you see through the nasty Pope jokes, for instance, you will see a well-reasoned political argument.

Publisher Chris Rohland is a spineless alt-weekly weenie. I can't blame him, really. He has a wife and kids, and a nice home in New Jersey. He wants nothing more than to punch the clock and get his paychecks. Owner David Unger, who is the paper's ultimate owner, is similarly spineless. They want New York Press to be "advertiser-friendly"; they "don't want controversy."

That's their choice. But I don't need to be party to such weenieness. And I won't be sent to my room without dessert. Hence, I resigned this morning.

It's been a great run, and I have nothing but respect for everyone in the editorial department I've just left behind. Chris Rohland and David Unger, however, can blow me. Such weak-willed and lackluster men should not be in control of a newspaper, especially not in these times of editorial restriction by way of advertiser dick-sucking. They're too vulnerable to the appeal of money.

Later Dickhead.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 02:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Louis XIV are a new band from San Diego. I saw them play this summer when they opened for The Killers. They started playing two years ago and recorded some songs in France and San Diego. Some of their songs were put online at their website which led to "God Killed The Queen" getting played on the radio. Soon after, they released a few EPs and got some play on BBC Radio.

As their reputation grew, they signed to Atlantic Records and won Best Album at the San Diego Music Awards. In January they released the "Illegal Tender" EP. A new full length album will come out this Spring. I met the band at their show during the Noise Pop festival in San Francisco. They were opening for Hot Hot Heat. Look for them at Sin-e on March 8th. They will be playing a second show with Hot Hot Heat at Bowery Ballroom on March 9th. I spoke to Brian Karscig backstage right before their show. Their music is a mix of glam rock of the 1970s and Britpop of the 1990s. They are often compared to the Velvet Underground.

Louis XIV are Jason Hill (guitar/vocals), Brain Karscig (guitar/vocals), Mark Maigaard (drums) and were joined recently by Jimmy Armbrust (bass).

*******************************************

AL: How did you meet each other?

Brian: Jason, Mark and myself grew up together. I have known Jason since junior high. We have known each other for a long time.

AL: Did you play in other bands?

Brian: We have played in a million bands. We have been playing since we were sixteen. There have been a lot of bands in the past ten years.

AL: What is the scene like in San Diego, for someone who hasn't been there, like myself?

Brian: There is a cool music scene there. My ignorance ranks high because we were never part of a scene down there. The scene is thriving but we don't really fit into the mold of what is happening. We appreciated it. There are a lot of good bands.

AL: How long has the band been going?

Brian: It's been two years. We were playing in multiple bands.

AL: This is band that took off?

Brian: Yeah. It was bizarre. It wasn't meant to be. We went to France and recorded for two weeks. We came back and the response in the UK started the buzz in the United States.

AL: Things happened in Europe first?

Brian: Yeah. They caught on to it first. They thought we were from Europe. People still do. They come up to us and expect that we are going to have a British accent.

AL: How did the record come about?

Brian: We have another record that we did. It's out on our own label, the Pineapple Recording Group. We still put out records now, but it's through a bigger label now. We made the record and printed and distributed the record ourselves. We started getting a lot of attention from it. That was the record we did in France.

AL: You played a lot of shows in Europe?

Brian: We haven't played many shows over there yet. We are going over there in May this year. We did one show at a tranny strip joint. We brought in a sound system and played for some people who were interested in us over there. We were being played on BBC radio. There were a few blurbs in places like the NME. That started the American interest in a band. They paid more attention to us.

AL: You played with The Killers when they were blowing up.

Brian: The Killers said "Come play with us" and we were stoked because they are one of the new bands that we really dig. They are great guys.

AL: You started your own label, Pineapple Recording Group, and you kept that going. Is that a good idea?

Brian: I think it's a great idea. That's how the success started. Why give up what worked so well just because a major label comes into the picture? Once we sold fifteen thousand records out of our bedrooms, the labels came in hordes. They wanted to do this deal. There is no more power than the word "No." You say "No" and people go away for two weeks, and come back with bigger and better offers. We did have bigger offers but we went with Atlantic because they genuinely understood the vision. They were going to help us with the plan that we already created. It's cool.

AL: So what records have you released already?

Brian: We released a full-length album first. We were so low key and not so much about selling our music. We were much more into giving away our music and getting people interested. We released the song "Finding Out True Love Is Blind" on our website as a free download. It wasn't on the album we just released, but check out new things we are doing. Then a DJ on a radio station in San Diego went to our website, burnt a copy, started playing the songs, and things just exploded.

AL: The song wasn't even released?

Brian: That's how we got the whole EP vibe. We just finished putting out the album. We only had four or five new tunes. We were forced to put something out while radio is picking it up. We put out what we called the pink and the blue EPs. Those are discontinued. You can find them on Ebay now. We only printed up about seven thousand. Illegal Tender came out on January 25th. That is pretty much our first national release.

AL: How do you write songs in the band?

Brian: It usually starts with an idea that comes from either Jason or myself. Jason and I will get a piano or guitar and start to throw ideas around. We have a formula. Jason has a Bon Scott AC/DC type of voice. He sings the verses. I got the high, more feminine voice, and I sing the choruses and bridges or bridges.

AL: You sing the high part in "Finding Out True Love Is Blind?"

Brian: Yeah. There is a girl who sings one part. I sing most of it though. People think it's a girl. From the very beginning, people listen to our recordings and ask, "Where did you get the girl to sing?" I sing the choir vocals.

AL: The new album has been done as well?

Brian: It's coming out on March 25th. It's called "The Best Little Secrets Are Kept." We tried to keep things the same. Just because we signed to a label we didn't want to change things or get other people involved in the creativity. We produced it ourselves and recorded it ourselves at our own studios. I don't think that we would have made something that we were not 100% happy with. We are our own worst critics.

AL: How do you record?

Brian: We don't use Pro Tools. We have a 16-track two-inch tape machine. We have a lot of old gear. We have old microphones. We make our records with that. You can go to Oceanways Studio in LA and they don't have stuff that cool.

AL: You recorded live?

Brian: We recorded live as a three piece. We did a lot of overdubs. I played the piano with the drums. We like the big room sound. We like the sound bleeding through the other tracks. Let it bleed. It's cool.

AL: It's a studio band.

Brian: We are a studio band. People like the live show. We play live to support what our true passion is and that is being in the studio.

AL: You must have recorded a lot of songs? Some of the songs might not fit?

Brian: Yeah, some of them are not like what we currently do. We don't make songs to fit. Louis XIV will never be pigeonholed, I will tell you. We will never be backed into a corner because we are this type of band. I would be insulted. People might think we are a guitar rock band. Who is to say that our next record will have no guitars?

AL: You might come out on stage looking like Kraftwerk.

Brian: Exactly. There is no limit. I was a fan of the rock and roll that had no rules. The dangerous stuff. David Bowie plays a song that switches keys in the middle, wearing makeup, and offending parents. Rock and roll is supposed to have no boundaries. The danger in rock and roll is what is cool. You want the parents to get pissed off at their kids for buying your record.

AL: You mentioned Bowie. Do you like The Fall?

Brian: Everybody mentions that band. We have never heard of The Fall until six months ago. We love so many other bands. It's really easy to compare what you doing to some other band. It's more difficult for people to find the uniqueness in what your do. I am not an advocate for us being the best band in the world. We set out to be our own favorite band. I don't hear anything on the radio that sounds like us.

AL: You still have to deliver the songs onstage.

Brian: I think that your delivery is a part of how much you believe in it. You can see bands that are nervous and not too confidant about what they do. I saw bands play who I heard their recordings and loved them. When I saw them, they let me down. I was so bummed.

AL: I noticed that there are a lot of girls who are into Louis XIV. How do they get to meet the members of the band?

Brian: The girls who are really determined are the ones who will be hanging out with the band. Only the strong survive. You have to fail to succeed.

Website: www.louisxiv.net

--Interview by Alexander
Laurence

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I was on the ole' shitter reading an essay by Peter Plagens the other day about the role of critics. He basically lumped them into three groups; goalies, cartographers, and evangelists. As I stared in vain at his concepts, I got thinking about a comment I read on this very site one afternoon. Some angry creative type was bitching about how the music reviews were garbage because they just tore down the 'hard work' of the artists. He even recalled the thrill of walking through an undergraduate studio and feeling the surge of power that accompanied saying something like 'this blows' about all the crap on the walls. Besides the fact that the shit a hungoverpriviledgedtwentyyear old is bound to be bad, the main problem is, and this is the really hard part that makes people quit being artists and move to suburbia, that all the fucking hard work and effort in the world doesn't mean anything.

Our fearless leader refers to war as 'hard work'. Hard work, talent, facility, intelligence, and seriousness are not prerequisites for art. It's tough to admit that someone who devotes their life to making objects for public consideration may end up with absolutely nothing for their efforts. No cookie, no reviews, no money, no fame. They might very well continue to work very hard within a set of received ideas, a space totally devoid of originality, have a couple of shows and even sell some work. Some won't even get that far. Just because a young artist just discovered lyrical abstraction for themselves doesn't make it anymore interesting than it was in the 60's, unless they figured out how to mess with the rules.

Should we add a fourth role to Plagens' list? A therapist of sorts, patting artists on the back with gentle words of constructive criticism. "You're doing really original abstract expressionism" or "I've never seen color fields like this before. Is that cerulean blue?" I can't help but wonder why the angry creative type needed to have everything be OK, not bad, not good, just letting everything go by without comment. I'm no music critic, but everything I heard last year sounded like something else, and as far as I can tell post-modernism in music doesn't jive with 'popular' culture. People want their music sincere.

I saw the Fiery Furnaces open for Wilco and the lead singer's atonal warlbing voice made my ears bleed. I mean, there was obviously some ambition in the construction of the songs, but man, she cannot sing live. Anyway, that's my take. That's all I'm trying to do when I am sober enough to take something seriously, at least long enough to write about it. Williamsburg is full of shit half the time, and everyone knows it, it's what happens when you give the young and infirm a chance. There are persistent, ambitious people out there with great presentations that sell objects, but aren't admired, respected, or even liked. As long as I try to avoid personally insulting artists and gallerists, I'll continue on my merry way to talk about art without trying to set the fucking table for everyone involved. I don't have a reputation to uphold either. No paycheck to keep coming. No editors to placate. Just Rob, and he's one of the reasons I started writing. Whatever, kids, now after a week and half of recovering from the last round of openings, here is an art crawl.

S and I went out on the big Friday in February and started off the day early by getting just a little bit pissed on boozed and charged up on some art. We started off with whiskey and PBR before trucking over to Brooklyn Fire Proof. S said he wanted to see a show about Supergirl. I had my doubts but we had the pleasure of being rewarded with Craig Drennen's show of works on paper about the movie Supergirl. That's right asshole, Supergirl.

Impossible you say to make a show about a terrible movie that helped sink the comic book film for nearly two decades? Well, as hard as it is to believe, Drennen succeeds in using the film to make watercolor paintings of drawings. Supergirl herself is something of a red herring. There are only one or two images of Helen Slater in the whole show, which made S a bit sad. Instead, Drennen makes paintings and drawings of sketches on paper of film's credits superimposed over washes of color. The finely executed spaces are less about the campy film than a formal exploration of space and obsessive riff on memory. The show suffers from some repetition of the underlying adolescent daydreaming that Drennen's 'sketches' suggest. I liked the show, but found it was about as weighty as a ball of loose leaf. It's sort of like flipping through a fashion magazine where everything looks good for the sake of looking good. Desire or some shit. (3 Greenbergs. "Helen Slater as Supergirl" is being "kinda like what?" through March 12th)

We ran over to RKL gallery to see Josephine Halvorson's show "Still Lifes" (it's on the way to the Pourhouse, I had to kick S's ass at poo). Halvorson paints very simple compositions of objects that emphasis gesture and touch. She uses a limited palette to the spare arrangements a rather ghostly presence without getting caught up in making her work about realism. Nah, the strength of these quiet little canvases is in the directness of the paint. S thought it kind of looked like muted Bay Area figuration, but he never really looked. I tend to agree. They've got a sleepy psychological space though, instead of the bright west coast spaces. Before the show made us nod off, we charged back out into the cold. (2 1/2 Greenbergs. Halvorson is drugging passerby with her painterly charms through March 7th. If your in the neighborhood...)

We stopped in Dam Stuhltrager to warm up (after I beat S 4 out of 7 and killed a fews pints) and briefly checked out work by James Murray and Eric Hollander. They cleaned the place up a bit since the last time I stopped by, including some new walls. Murray's paintings are fairly monochromatic renderings of spare landscapes. A large white canvas with an obsessively rendered tree is the most haunting thing in the show, while the others share a preoccupation with poured pools of paint. I prefer the odd little moments of drawing around the edges of Murray's abstract compositions, like the image of a man walking down a sidewalk alone. I can relate.

Hollander doesn't turn up the volume on Murray's work. His large metallic grey works on paper are meditative studies of birds. He creates layers of silhouettes that shift subtly in the foreground. Hollander uses different tones of grey to create a shallow depth of field within the relatively simple compositions. It's a pretty, unhurried show with just a few rough edges, mainly in Murray's liquid paintings. ( 2 1/2 Greenbergs. The "Grand Reopening" show apparently had a grand ole' closing before I got my shit together to finish this)

We made our way over to Joymore, where we caught two interesting shows with even more interesting titles; "Candy says I'd like to know completely what others so discretely talk about" and "The Museum of the Five Coldest Nights of My Life". The first exhibit is by French artist Laurent Montaron, who creates a moody conceptual film as installation art. Montaron doesn't actually show a film, but presents a large, color photo of a woman recording her thoughts on a train platform. Inside the main gallery space, a projector lamp shines across the darkened room illuminating text of the show's title, which is white on white only slightly raised from the wall. Facing the darkened window, Montaron has created a projector liked apparatus that appears to be running a loop of audio tape. The whole installation creates the atmosphere of filmic narrative through a few simple elements. It's an intriguing work that suggests more than it shows. S, the sloppy bastard nearly fell asleep in the corner. The nerve!

In the back space, there is a two part 'museum' by Marie Lorenz. The first part, a parallel series of linear narratives revolve around the personal relationships of the narrators. The ink drawings are beautifully executed, and the writing is even better, conveying intimacy and depth. Outside the gallery, Lorenz created windows made out of ice about cold nights, I guess, but they had melted by the time we showed up. The fleeting, temporary nature of the objects were an interesting metaphor for trying to grasp memory. I had to wake S up on my out of the gallery. (3 1/2 Greenbergs. Both shows with long titles are up through March 11th)

S suggested we stop for drinks before the long walk to Pierogi, where he tried to wrap his head around contemporary art's never ending fascination with film. We probably had too much to drink (probably?), but we had some time to kill before the openings. At Pierogi, it was all metal and leather. Jonathan Schipper has built some sort of giant, rock and roll machine that tosses people around. The machine itself is an impressive piece of engineering and manufacture, but it reminded me of some sort of bad S&M device. The exhibition also includes a low grade Brazil like spinning tv and a slow-motion car crash. The smaller, time dilated sculpture was vastly more intriguing than the rock and roll harness ride. Maybe it's just me, but the combination of figurative painting and CAD drawing in the study for the rock and roll thing is just awful. It reminded me of one of my old professors talking about self-consciousness in art, where you have to give yourself over to the thing you are working on. He was always vague about it, but seeing academically painted figures on a CAD drawing really sums it up for me. The two concerns clash without irony. It just made me wince. Sometimes, collaborations come back again... as fucking awful ideas.

In back, once again, there was the thing about film, video, or representation that drives artists to ponder over mechanical reproduction. Simon Lee's main installation in the back space is of a piece of cabbage being recorded and projected back on itself. S scratched his head in the dark. I coughed. The cabbage made me nervous. I wasn't sure if the cabbage was real, or the projection was real, or the whole thing was some elaborate hologram. Maybe it really was just cabbage that would soon decay, and Lee would record and play back the decomposition in real time, at the same time. What I couldn't figure out was why it mattered. I suppose I am the cabbage. There were some other things on the wall that weren't about cabbage, I think, but more about photography. (2 Greenbergs. Schipper and Lee are fucking with you through the 14th)

Outside, away from the cabbage and tonnage of metal, I felt slightly better. S suddenly felt the urge to weld and drink Guiness. We ended up drinking more and complaining about our failure as artists, when it was time to try and get as much free beer as we could at the openings. What's a donation at a commercial space amount to anyway? I mean, really. The worse the art, the longer I stay to make up for it in beer. Anyway, we staggered our way over to Jack the Pelican where I nearly pissed my pants. Peter Caine's animatronic installation of absurd grotesquery was a wonderful change of pace from the gentleness of the afternoon. Hanging above a menagerie of whacky characters, a portrait of JFK as Hitler welcomed us to the show, promising the kind of awfulness that transcends form. Caine's drunken, bloated, horny figures edge into the territory staked out by Paul McCarthy, but with a more direct effort to offend, and even less psychological subtelty. Caine's subjects are all familiar from the specific, Condoleeza Rice, to the grossly stereotypical, pick your race. He gleefully attacks race, religion, family, ethnicity, culture, and politics through his talking, fucking, smelly, and generally repulsive sculptures.

The nun holding a big turd with a miniature Pope of her shoulder is fucking hilarious and makes me happy to be an atheist. I'd hate to be Catholic and have to listen to the Pope exhort you to smell his shit. There's also a naked, hairy runner in a diaper holding a sign that emphatically states "I sold a smelly one", leading off the parade of gross characters. Caine toys with 50's and 60's era stereotypes throughout the show, perhaps in an effort to hold conservative, Leave it to Beaver moral values to the flame. A Jerry Lewis like stereotype of an Asian soldier fucks the severed head of a GI effectively skewering Vietnam. In the back room of the show, Caine creates a robotic, nuclear family as failing robots. The backyard barbecue tableau is a nightmarish mix of Capitalism and Facism, replete with swastika wearing Nazi maids. I'm pretty sure this will piss off people who care about American capitalist ideology; one that makes heroism out of war and patriotism out of blind obedience. Anyway, I wish I had enough money to take home the football helmet wearing Boy Scout holding a severed, bloody head to the nascent gods of suburbia.

S laughed and laughed, happy to acknowledge an artist as disgusted with our own sickening moral relativism, which operates on the level of societal cognitive dissonance at this point. Caine who was once in the military makes his criticism at the visceral level of the carnival funhouse. It doesn't appeal to intellect or reason, but to our base emotions like fear and hate. If this show wasn't so funny, it would be terrible. This is the kind of show that should have barker out front luring in hapless marks. I'd gladly pay for a ticket.
(4 Greenbergs. "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto is pissing on your shoe until March 20th and you'll be happy it happened)

Leaving the show, elated, we staggered off to hit some more shows, but I got too wasted to actually look at anything else, so I'll try and be a better blogger and add some reviews next week.

Well, I woke up today in the hallway of my apartment building to the sound of my neighbor asking her husband if he thought I was still breathing. Man, I remember pissing on the door of Supreme Trading Company and trying to talk with someone about Peter Caine's profoundly absurd sculptures at Jack the Pelican. I was like "Serious, man, no really, they aren't showing paintings made out of carpet, it's wild." Well, after I assured my neighbors that I was indeed alive, though far from well, I staggered upstairs. Truly, Caine's installation of animatronic sculptures of demented, obscene figures was the highlight of my recent crawls around the neighborhood.

keanepepper@hotmail.com

CLICK HERE for our full gallery listings

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Social Security debate has been a nice smokescreen for Bush in recent weeks. Everyday new evidence surfaces about the outsourcing of torture:

From NYTimes:
"The Bush administration's secret program to transfer suspected terrorists to foreign countries for interrogation has been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency under broad authority that has allowed it to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or the State or Justice Departments, according to current and former government officials.

The unusually expansive authority for the C.I.A. to operate independently was provided by the White House under a still-classified directive signed by President Bush within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.

The process, known as rendition, has been central in the government's efforts to disrupt terrorism, but has been bitterly criticized by human rights groups on grounds that the practice has violated the Bush administration's public pledge to provide safeguards against torture.

In providing a detailed description of the program, a senior United States official said that it had been aimed only at those suspected of knowing about terrorist operations, and emphasized that the C.I.A. had gone to great lengths to ensure that they were detained under humane conditions and not tortured.

The official would not discuss any legal directive under which the agency operated, but said that the "C.I.A. has existing authorities to lawfully conduct these operations."

The official declined to be named but agreed to discuss the program to rebut the assertions that the United States used the program to secretly send people to other countries for the purpose of torture. The transfers were portrayed as an alternative to what American officials have said is the costly, manpower-intensive process of housing them in the United States or in American-run facilities in other countries.

In recent weeks, several former detainees have described being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques and brutal treatment during months spent in detention under the program in Egypt and other countries. The official would not discuss specific cases, but did not dispute that there had been instances in which prisoners were mistreated. The official said none had died.

The official said the C.I.A.'s inspector general was reviewing the rendition program as one of at least a half-dozen inquiries within the agency of possible misconduct involving the detention, interrogation and rendition of suspected terrorists.

In public, the Bush administration has refused to confirm that the rendition program exists, saying only in response to questions about it that the United States did not hand over people to face torture. The official refused to say how many prisoners had been transferred as part of the program. But former government officials say that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the C.I.A. has flown 100 to 150 suspected terrorists from one foreign country to another, including to Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan.

Each of those countries has been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture in its prisons. But the official said that guidelines enforced within the C.I.A. require that no transfer take place before the receiving country provides assurances that the prisoner will be treated humanely, and that United States personnel are assigned to monitor compliance.

"We get assurances, we check on those assurances, and we double-check on these assurances to make sure that people are being handled properly in respect to human rights," the official said. The official said that compliance had been "very high" but added, "Nothing is 100 percent unless we're sitting there staring at them 24 hours a day."

It has long been known that the C.I.A. has held a small group of high-ranking leaders of Al Qaeda in secret sites overseas, and that the United States military continues to detain hundreds of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan. The rendition program was intended to augment those operations, according to former government officials, by allowing the United States to gain intelligence from the interrogations of the prisoners, most of whom were sent to their countries of birth or citizenship.

Before Sept. 11, the C.I.A. had been authorized by presidential directives to carry out renditions, but under much more restrictive rules. In most instances in the past, the transfers of individual prisoners required review and approval by interagency groups led by the White House, and were usually authorized to bring prisoners to the United States or to other countries to face criminal charges.

As part of its broad new latitude, current and former government officials say, the C.I.A. has been authorized to transfer prisoners to other countries solely for the purpose of detention and interrogation.

The covert transfers by the C.I.A. have faced sharp criticism, in part because of the accounts provided by former prisoners who say they were beaten, shackled, humiliated, subjected to electric shocks, and otherwise mistreated during their long detention in foreign prisons before being released without being charged. Those accounts include cases like the following:

¶Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, who was detained at Kennedy Airport two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks and transported to Syria, where he said he was subjected to beatings. A year later he was released without being charged with any crime.

¶Khaled el-Masri, a Lebanese-born German who was pulled from a bus on the Serbia-Macedonia border in December 2003 and flown to Afghanistan, where he said he was beaten and drugged. He was released five months later without being charged with a crime.

¶Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian who was arrested in Pakistan several weeks after the 2001 attacks. He was moved to Egypt, Afghanistan and finally Guantánamo. During his detention, Mr. Habib said he was beaten, humiliated and subjected to electric shocks. He was released after 40 months without being charged.

In the most explicit statement of the administration's policies, Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, said in written Congressional testimony in January that "the policy of the United States is not to transfer individuals to countries where we believe they likely will be tortured, whether those individuals are being transferred from inside or outside the United States." Mr. Gonzales said then that he was "not aware of anyone in the executive branch authorizing any transfer of a detainee in violation of that policy."

Administration officials have said that approach is consistent with American obligations under the Convention Against Torture, the international agreement that bars signatories from engaging in extreme interrogation techniques. But in interviews, a half-dozen current and former government officials said they believed that, in practice, the administration's approach may have involved turning a blind eye to torture. One former senior government official who was assured that no one was being mistreated said that accumulation of abuse accounts was disturbing. "I really wonder what they were doing, and I am no longer sure what I believe," said the official, who was briefed periodically about the rendition program.

In Congressional testimony last month, the director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, acknowledged that the United States had only a limited capacity to enforce promises that detainees would be treated humanely. "We have a responsibility of trying to ensure that they are properly treated, and we try and do the best we can to guarantee that," Mr. Goss said of the prisoners that the United States had transferred to the custody of other countries. "But of course once they're out of our control, there's only so much we can do. But we do have an accountability program for those situations."

The practice of transporting a prisoner from one country to another, without formal extradition proceedings, has been used by the government for years. George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has testified that there were 70 cases before the Sept. 11 attacks, authorized by the White House. About 20 of those cases involved people brought to the United States to stand trial under informal arrangements with the country in which the suspects were captured.

Since Sept. 11, however, it has been used much more widely and has had more expansive guidelines, because of the broad authorizations that the White House has granted to the C.I.A. under legal opinions and a series of amendments to Presidential Decision Directives that remain classified. The officials said that most of the people subject to rendition were regarded by counterterrorism experts as less significant than people held under direct American control, including the estimated three dozen high ranking operatives of Al Qaeda who are confined at secret sites around the world.

The Pentagon has also transferred some prisoners to foreign custody, handing over 62 prisoners to Pakistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, among other countries, from the American prison in Guantánamo Bay, in actions that it has publicly acknowledged. In some of those cases, a senior Defense Department official said in an interview on Friday, the transfers were for the purpose of prosecution and trials, but others were intended solely for the purpose of detention. Those four countries, as well Egypt, Jordan and Syria, were among those identified in a State Department human rights report released last week as practicing torture in their prisons.

In an interview, the senior official defended renditions as one among several important tools in counterterrorism efforts. "The intelligence obtained by those rendered, detained and interrogated have disrupted terrorist operations," the official said. "It has saved lives in the United States and abroad, and it has resulted in the capture of other terrorists."

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In support of their great new record:
The Matt Sweeney & Bonnie "Prince" Billy — Superwolf free instore tour of New York.

and don't forget:

The 5th Annual L.E.S. Pageant

featuring Pontani Sisters & a panel of celebrity judges including Michael Musto, Mike Albo, Linda Simpson, Wau-Wau Sisters, and JD Samson from LeTigre!

The Miss Lower East Side Pageant is one of the East Village's leading achievement programs and the world's largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women by providing unlimited drink tickets, a plastic tiara from the 99 cent store, and $100 cash in singles to the winner. The Miss L.E.S. (which also can be pronounced "lez" signifying gay women) Organization provides young women with a vehicle to further their personal and professional goals and instills a spirit of community service, and gives these gals the opportunity to wear sashes rather than Dickies and Trucker Hats for a change.

Click here for info

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 03:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In January 2004 interview, a Japanese newspaper asked Johnson, "Is there any possibility that the Bush administration will come back to the Kyoto Protocol?" He responded, "That question is easy, and it's no."

Read the rest of his track record here.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Gunner Palace

Ever since they moved "Kung-Fu Hustle" out of this month, a lot of the pizzazz has just left. Still, the addition of "Oldboy" should satisfy my badass Asian cinema fix. As for the rest, well, um, it's better than February!

M A R C H 4

THE PACIFIER

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Vin Diesel goes all "Kindergarten Cop" in an attempt to revive his career. Can a "Jingle All the Way" remake be far behind? Sindbad's available!

WILL IT SUCK?
You know, it's about time we put together the director of "Bringing Down the House" with the writers from "Taxi" (movie, not acclaimed TV series). So, yeah, it's gonna suck. As if the presence of Vin wasn't enough of a hint. You know what else? There used to be a time ("Boiler Room," "Pitch Black," "Iron Giant") when Diesel's presence was a good sign. Sigh.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The previous week "Man of the House" is going to be a bit of an issue. Even more of an issue will be "Robots" the following week. Still, this doesn't have any direct competition when it opens, so the curse of Diesel shouldn't be too prevalent. $58mil.

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BE COOL

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Sequel to Elmore Leonard Yarn cum-Vehicle-for-Travolta-to-Capitalize-on-Pulp-Fiction-Persona "Get Shorty." Chili Palmer goes hip-hop.

WILL IT SUCK?
First of all, take a look at the cast: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, The Gay Rock, Andre 3000, Cedric the Entertainer, Vince Vaughan, and Harvey Keitel. Now look at the director. No, really look at him. Look into his soul. Actually, I just want to point out that F. Gary Gray has made some good movies ("The Italian Job," "The Negotiator".well, it wasn't good so much as it didn't particularly suck) and has all sorts of connections to the world of hip hop so should bring a distinct POV to the material.

None of that changes the fact that the script comes from the guy who wrote "Analyze That." Seriously. Why would you bother bringing together a cast like this with a halfway decent director and then throw in the writer from "Analyze That" (not even "Analyze This"!)? That's like building a Ferrari body and putting in the engine from a Gremlin.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
"Hostage" will be a little bit of a challenge the following week but "Robots" will be the bigger issue across the board. Still, with a cast like this and fond memories of "Get Shorty," there should be something here for everyone, especially with a PG-13 rating. $100mil.

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THE JACKET

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Adrian Brody is either crazy or traveling through time. No, he's not Bruce Willis.

WILL IT SUCK?
I'm sorry, did Adrian Brody just blow your mind? No, really, did he? Critics can't seem to agree. Some think it's ingenious, others not so much. Given that one of the writers did the body-switching classic "Dream a Little Dream," I'm inclined to err on the side of the latter group (regardless of my forbidden love for that film).

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Although "Cursed" fills a not-altogether-different niche the previous week, the audience's appetite for anything even remotely resembling horror has been insatiable lately, so look for this to open well, even if the glow doesn't last. $33mil.

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GUNNER PALACE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
This is the true story of a bunch of soldiers, picked to live in Uday Hussein's bombed out palace, and have their lives taped, and find out what happens when countries stop being polite and start getting, well, violent.

WILL IT SUCK?
Early buzz is very, very good. And with so little "real" news coming out of Iraq, it's hard not to be curious to see things from the soldier's perspective.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Not to be rude, but I kind of wish a larger company was handling this, because I feel like it deserves a wider audience than will probably hear about it. But who knows, maybe Palm Pictures will seize the opportunity and have their first big hit with this one. It certainly has the potential to be a water-cooler film. But without the marketing muscle of a Miramax (who'll be releasing "Dear Frankie" the same week) it might not get the buzz it needs to produce. The following week, two far heavier indie hitters enter the fray - Sony Pictures Classics and Fox Searchlight. $1mil.

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DEAR FRANKIE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Mother lies to her son about their absent father. But it's for a good cause.

WILL IT SUCK?
This is supposedly very, very good. It's at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (w/ only 8 reviews, mind you) and doing very nicely on IMDB, thank you very much. It's won a couple of small film fest awards and even got a BAFTA nom.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Miramax mysteriously didn't show this at Sundance 2004. The delay suggests a lack of faith in the marketability of the product (though there could be other explanations). In any case, it's not clear they'll throw their full weight behind this. That plus a lack of star power could mean trouble. $1mil.

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WALK ON WATER

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Israeli queer cinema gets another notch in its belt from the director of "Yossi and Jagger." This one's about the hunt for a Nazi war criminal.

WILL IT SUCK?
Getting mostly good reviews so far. Nominated for numerous Israeli Oscars (but only won ones relating to sound for some reason). Not quite as popular as "Yossi and Jagger."

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Marketed well, this could pull in the gay community in most major cities. That'll be the main audience since there are no real stars. $250,000.

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THE BEST OF YOUTH

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
The best years of, well, two guys lives. Chronicle of an Italian family that doesn't rhyme with Morely Own.

WIILL IT SUCK?
At six hours, it's probably a lot more like "The Box Set of Youth," but audiences and film festival juries (not to mention the Italian Oscars) are hailing it as a masterpiece. A really, really, long masterpiece.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Up against a bunch of films in English with a quarter of the running time, so, you do the math. $300,000.

M A R C H 1 1

THE KINDER, GENTLER PASSION OF THE CHRIST

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Same great passion, with only 90% of the violence!

WILL IT SUCK?
Well, I didn't think the first one sucked, but that's a matter for debate in another column. In this column, let me just say that without that extra ten seconds of scourging, the film will fall flat on its face. You can't lose the scourging. The scourging's your heart.

Actually, I'm sure the re-edited version will be just fine and as off-putting to the people who didn't wanna see it in the first place.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
If it weren't for "Robots," I'd say this'll probably hit number one when it opens. Keep in mind, it's dropping on Good Friday. Mel's no dummy. Still, expect a fairly steady decline to follow a surprisingly-high-for-re-release opening. $40mil (just in re-release, catapulting it to the number six slot for all time US gross over "Spider-Man" from where it currently resides at number nine behind "Spider-Man 2" - weird, huh?)

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HOSTAGE
(Delayed from January)

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Bruce Willis vs. home invaders. With a twist. Several, it seems. Most of which are given away in the trailer.

WILL IT SUCK?
Hard to say. This is based on a novel, which is usually good news for a thriller (as long as it's not Grisham). The writer has done some good ("Die Hard 2") some bad ("Money Train") and some meh ("Bad Boys"). One of the producers has done a modicum of outstanding work, including "Saving Private Ryan" and "A Simple Plan" and a wealth of crap along the lines of "Virus" and "Speed 2: Electric Boogaloo."

Finally, the director has graduated from the world of video games, having done "Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow" and the upcoming "Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory." Mark my words, you're going to see many more directors come up from that world. It's gonna be to this decade what music videos were to the 90's for director breeding.

Also throw into the mix the fact that Miramax is distributing, and they hardly ever do thrillers, much less star-driven wide-release ones.

Anyway, I'd say it's a fifty/fifty shot. It's neat, however, to see Willis graduate from man on the inside ("Die Hard") to the guy on the other end of the walkie/cell phone.

Finally, the delay would cause more concern, if it weren't for the fact that it takes "Hostage" out of a month known for craptastic cinema.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It's arguably in a worse spot now than when it was head to head with "Assault on Precinct 13." "Robots" will leave virtually no prisoners in its wake, and whatever's left will be eviscerated by "The Ring 2" the following week. $35mil.

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ROBOTS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Wacky misadventures of CG animated robots, one of whom is voiced by Robin Williams. From the makers of "Ice Age."

WILL IT SUCK?
First of all, kudos to the casting director. Ewan MacGregor, Greg Kinnear, Mel Brooks, Drew Carey, Jim Broadbent, Jennifer Coolidge, Paul Giamatti, Dan Hedaya, Jamie
"Son of the Mask Made Me a Whore" Kennedy, Conan O'Brien, and Stanley Tucci. All of that almost makes up for Halle Berry.

Now, when we say from the "makers" of "Ice Age," we really only mean the directors and studio, which is not a bad thing. But they don't have the writers, which is the heart of most animated films (and by "animated," I mean "virtually all"). What they have is Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandell who, along with their funny names, have written some very funny scripts, most notably one-liner-fest "City Slickers." However, if you look at their whole record, they bat about .500 ("Father's Day," anyone? When you can't bring the funny with Robin Williams AND Billy Crystal on board, something's very wrong.) The other writers (there are four in all) did "S.W.A.T." which was, y'know, okay.

It won't be "Ice Age," but it'll be funny.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
This is essentially the follow up to a $176 million dollar hit, and its biggest competition is a guy getting flogged in Aramaic. The term "slam dunk" comes to mind (and not in a prelude-to-war sort of way). $210mil.

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THE UPSIDE OF ANGER

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Joan Allen tries to put her life back together after her husband leaves her and her four daughters. But here's the real newsflash: Kevin Costner's in this one, and he plays.wait for it.a retired baseball player!!!! Holy shit!!! Oh, you should see the look on your face. It's priceless.

WILL IT SUCK?
Dude, check out who's playing Joan Allen's daughters: Keri Russell, Erika Christensen, Alicia Witt, and Evan Rachel Wood. All Joan has to do is put these chicks into a modeling agency and her problems are solved!

Early buzz is good, though writer/director Mike Bender's track record isn't. (Hint: His best-known film is "Blankman," which, in his defense, he didn't write.)

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Actually, this could be a clever bit of counterprogramming. There's no real romantic comedy around, and certainly nothing filling that all-too-rare adult romantic comedy niche (and, no, I'm not talking about "Hitch" or "Along Came Polly," - think "Something's Gotta Give" or "In Good Company"). This, more than the cosmic appropriateness of Kevin Costner playing progressively older stages of baseball player will put butts in seats. Not a lot of them, mind you, but some. $18mil.

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IN MY COUNTRY

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Sam Jackson stars in a drama centered around the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in South Africa. I can't wait for the line, "Say apartheid again! I dare ya! I double dare ya, motherfucker!"

WILL IT SUCK?
Not if it has that line in it! Unfortunately, it probably doesn't. In fact, this is kind of considered to be the second worst John Boorman film, right above "Exorcist II: The Heretic." That guy's just gotta stay out of Africa.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
With reviews this crappy, not so well. $700,000.

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MILLIONS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Two little kids find some stolen money and try to do something good with it. From the director of "28 Days Later," so they spend it all on zombies.

WILL IT SUCK?
Not only is this from the director of "28 Days Later" (and "Trainspotting" and similarly-premised "Shallow Grave") but this is from the writer behind "24 Hour Party People," so I'm pretty much sold. Early reviews are fairly solid.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Fox Searchlight has already got the publicity machine rolling on this one with an amiable trailer. Still, you can't exactly market a kid's film with the line "from the director of '28 Days Later'." I mean, that works for me, but very few other people. $5mil.

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DOT THE I

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Two guys pursue some chick who's having doubts about getting married to one of them.

WILL IT SUCK?
Critics are split on this one, though audiences seem to like it. Apparently there are some twists and turns here that make this more of a thriller than straightforward romantic triangle. Plus, it has uber-actor Gabriel Garcia Bernal, who cannot be stopped. He cares not for nominations! He'll continue to work, no matter what. God bless that man.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Innovation (the film company behind this one), get on the ball here! You've got Bernal, one of the hottest indie actors around in a rare English-speaking role. Pimp that shit! I haven't heard hide nor hair about it yet `lest I looked for it. If it continues thus, bad news for the b.o. $100,000.

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THE BOYS AND GIRL FROM COUNTY CLARE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
A Ceili music competition in '60's Liverpool. I know, I know. It's about fucking time.

WILL IT SUCK?
By most accounts, yes. But hey, it's got O'Brien from "Star Trek" and that chick from The Coors.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
The UK film everyone will be watching this weekend will be "Millions." $900,000.

M A R C H 1 8

THE RING 2

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
More "World's Deadliest Home Videos.'

WILL IT SUCK?
Probably not. DreamWorks has made some smart moves here. First they hired back writer Ehren Kruger, who redeemed himself from "Reindeer Games" with his near-flawless adaptation of the original Japanese horror film. Next, they brought on the director of said film to direct the American version of his own sequel (Yes, there's a Japanese "Ringu 2." This is a remake of a sequel, not just the sequel to a remake - confused yet?) And, of course, they brought back Naomi Watts and that creepy kid (what do you mean "which one?" - oh, I guess they're both creepy). They've also added Gary Cole and Sissy Spacek, who was getting her creep on back when Naomi was, like, eight. This is going to rock.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It's unstoppable. In a year when even crappy horror has made a dime, this is the jewel in the crown. $141mil.

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ICE PRINCESS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Think "The Cutting Edge." Now dumb it down a little.

WILL IT SUCK?
Frankly, you could do worse than a writer from "Scrubs" and "Spin City." And the supporting cast is halfway decent - Kim Cattrall and Joan Cusack. But the lead is Michelle Trachtenburg, and I've got issues with her dating back to "Buffy," which she Yoko-ed up for the rest of us. (Actually, I don't blame her, but her appearance coincided with the crappy writing).

So I guess this might not be half bad. I can't believe I just wrote that. Damn.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
I think most of the tweenies are going to go see "The Ring 2" instead. $18mil.

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MELINDA AND MELINDA

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
A plot is approached as a comedy and as a drama. The movie alternates between each.

WILL IT SUCK?
Once again, Woody Allen has assembled a tres nifty cast. Will Ferrell, Chloe Sevigny, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Johnny Lee Miller, Wallace Shawn, and Steve Carell among others. And the premise is kind of intriguing. Early buzz is favorable.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
This is going to be the big indie release of this weekend, and with Ferrell's presence, might get a little bit of a push, but the truth is, most of Woody's flicks just don't do that well. $5mil.

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STEAMBOY

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Anime set in Victorian-era London.

WILL IT SUCK?
Well, it took ten years to make, is the most expensive Anime ever, and is from the writer/director of "Akira," so it's going to look as cool as shit. However, the early buzz is pretty middling.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Well, the Otaku are gonna go apeshit at first, but when the word of mouth gets around, favor will drop off sharply. $500,000.

M A R C H 2 5

MISS CONGENIALITY 2: ARMED AND FABULOUS

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
No, really? Are you sure? Do you wanna try that again? Don't you mean "Speed 3"? I could kinda see there bein' a "Speed 3." Y'know, on the Space Shuttle? Or maybe "Demolition Man 2." Benjamin Bratt and Sandra Bullock were together on that, too. No? Miss Congeniality, huh? How about "More Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood?" Huh? Still Congeniality? You're sure you wanna go with that? Hmmm..

(2 hours later)

Really!?!

WILL IT SUCK?
Look, I saw the first "Miss Congeniality." And by "saw" I mean it was on in the background on, like, TBS or something while I was working. It wasn't that bad. But a sequel? Come on, how about "3 Weeks Notice" or "Forces of Nature, Too!" Speaking of her rendezvous w/ Ben Affleck, one of the writers behind it (and "Two Weeks Notice" for that matter) is back. Of course, he co-wrote the original "Congeniality," so that only makes sense. They couldn't get the original director however, so they got a guy who specializes in Tim Allen fare ("Joe Somebody," "The Santa Clause," "Jungle 2 Jungle" - yes, you can make "Jungle 2 Jungle" and still get work).

The cast is probably the only promising thing about this. There's Regina King, who's slummed in sequels before ("Legally Blonde 2") and Diedrich Bader, who knows how to bring the funny. Shatner and Caine return. Bratt, too busy doing, um, "Catwoman," does not. And Kubiac's in it, dude! Kubiac!

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
There's fair competition this week with comedic concoction "Guess Who." But Sandra Bullock trumps Bernie Mac. $94mil.

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GUESS WHO

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
OK. Get this. We're gonna do a remake of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" But here's the twist. Instead of a black guy trying to marry into a white family, it'll be the other way around. This thing writes itself. All that's left is to cast it.

Well, who is the black Spencer Tracy of our day? Bernie Mac, right? And the black Katherine Hepburn? Someone you've never heard of before, of course. Now, here's the kicker. The white Sidney Poitier (and if I've said this once, I've said it a thousand times) is Ashton Kutcher.

Anyone else never want to go to the movies again?

WILL IT SUCK?
Don't get me wrong. I like Bernie Mac. I actually think he's a good choice to play the dad. But at least give him something to work with, people! And I'm not talking about Ashton. I'm talking about the writers from "Serving Sara," "Stealing Harvard," "I Spy," and "National Security" (of which the latter two had interracial leads - maybe that's how they got the job).

The director did "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" and "Barbershop 2," but with this much stacked against you, you're gonna have to do a helluva lot better than that.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Never mind "Armed and Fabulous," this flick's got much more to fear from "Beauty Shop" with Queen Latifah (who, I'm sorry, wasn't available I guess for the Katherine Hepburn role or something?) the following week. Actually, the combined power of Mac and Kutcher's draw should make for a significant opening, even if overshadowed by the competition. $58mil.

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D.E.B.S.

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Sexy young thangs get recruited to be secret agents. Cheeky lesbian overtones ensue.

WILL IT SUCK?
Sadly, I missed this at the Philly Gay and Lesbian Film Fest, but the buzz on it was that it's satiric fun in the vein of "Mean Girls." And you gotta love Michael Clarke Duncan as the Charlie to these Angels. Still, early reviews are mixed.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
No real clear competition. If it can get some better reviews, it might just take off. $15mil.

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THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Little ditty, `bout Jack and Ro-o-ose. Father and a daughter, growin' up in Canada-land. Jack gets sick, has to call on Catherine Keen-er-er. Rose she gets jealous, goes bat-shit crazy. Yeah, I know it doesn't rhyme.

WILL IT SUCK?
Who knows? But it's bound to be controversial. See, there are some undertones of incest there and that's, y'know, controversial. In any case, early reviews are mixed. The one bright spot here is that it's Daniel Day Lewis' return to film for the first time since 2002. Okay, I guess it wasn't that long this time.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
It's hard to spin incest controversy. I'm not sure if that will increase or decrease sales, so IFC might avoid that angle altogether. In any case, Lewis will be a draw, but I think more people are gonna be in the mood for "D.E.B.S." $6mil.

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OLDBOY

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
Guy is held prisoner for fifteen years then released, all for no reason. He goes tear-ass on his captors, but may still be a pawn.

WILL IT SUCK?
Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. Already in the IMDB top 250 (at 107, no less). I think it's safe to say it doesn't totally suck. On the other hand, one should be warned that one best go in with a strong stomach, according to buzz.

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
A quality film that deserves a wide audience? It'll crash and burn. However, the buzz might help and Tartan Films, um, okay I've never heard of them before but I'm sure they can.yeah, it'll bomb. But you'll get to see the whole thing again when Justin "Better Luck Tomorrow" Lin remakes it in 2006. I'm not kidding. Justin, I love ya, but you're above remakes, seriously. (And so are you Scorsese. Don't think I don't know about your remake of "Infernal Affairs.") $100,000.

M A R C H 3 0

BEAUTY SHOP

WHAT'S THE PITCH?
"Barbershop," but with chicks.

WILL IT SUCK?
I don't know how the people making the trailer for this movie forgot to add, "From the director of `Honey' and the writer of `Glitter'."

HOW WELL WILL IT DO?
Queen Latifah's a big draw. This movie has a little bit to fear from the second frame of "Miss Congeniality 2," but not much. The head start on the weekend probably won't hurt. $79mil.

That's all for this month. Next month? Two words. "City" and "Sin." Not in that order. Also, some sort of guide for hitchhikers and the long dreaded sequel to "XXX" which, sadly, is not called "XXXI." Yup, the summer movies are starting in April now.

Dave Thomas

http://travelindave.blogspot.com

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

05-01 Indio, CA - Coachella Music and Arts Festival
05-02 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
05-03 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
05-05 Portland, OR - Roseland
05-06 Seattle, WA - Showbox
05-07 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore
05-10 Minneapolis, MN - Quest
05-11 Chicago, IL - Metro
05-12 Chicago, IL - Metro
05-14 Toronto, Ontario - Phoenix
05-16 Boston, MA - Avalon
05-17 New York City, NY - Irving Plaza
05-18 New York City, NY - Irving Plaza
05-20 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
05-21 Philadelphia, PA - TBA

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Definition of the so-called "Nuclear Option":

[I]n an extended debate over a judicial nominee a senator could raise a point of order that "any further debate is dilatory and not in order." If the Presiding Officer of the Senate—Vice-President Dick Cheney—sustained the point of order.... "he would set a new, binding Senate precedent allowing Senators to cut off debate.

Read the New Yorker article on the Nuclear Option

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

M83
Before the Dawn Heals Us
Mute Records
Review by Monte Holman

In the latest effort from M83, we understand why recently Sofia Coppola was fond of Kevin Shields — this overpowering wall-of-sound electro rock ignites images of dizzying neon signs and the mutterings of constant, distant chatter. Music with narrative inclination. Though more synthy than My Bloody Valentine, M83 certainly dip into the rock soundscape aesthetic with similar vigor. But there's more — samples, hair band riffs, battle themes sonically pitting human against machine, and many elements of what we all would consider downright emo. Before The Dawn Heals Us comes off somewhere between an alternate soundtrack to The Never Ending Story and straight-up Omaha-based emotive rock and roll.

But due to the album's alluring otherworldliness, we can't fault the now-solo Anthony Gonzalez for injecting some cliché Oberstian (dear God) introspection into these tender tracks. The shoe-gazing "Safe" remarks, "Falling stars exploding on the sea, god it's beautiful.I am so alone." And before the song fades into the sound of fireworks and crowd noise, a dramatic instrumental section is prefaced by a couple lines of spoken-word. Maybe Gonzalez is a romantic; maybe he's being Euro-cheeky. It doesn't matter. It's a beautiful song, a beautiful record.

The beauty in Before the Dawn extends far beyond ethereal sadness. The opening track, "Moonchild," begins sparsely with toms and a piano, conjuring dramatic Seventies icon, Styx — we expect to be shown the way. Instead, a sampled feminine voice narrates:

"suddenly a voice told me,
Keep on singing, little boy.
Then raise your arms to the big black sky.
Raise your arms as high as you can,
so the whole universe will glow.'"

And glow it does. Fifty seconds into this intro, drum fills usher in a slightly distorted electronic bass supporting powerful melodies voiced by angelic choruses.

From there, "Don't Save Us From the Flames" has the makeup of an upbeat single, verse/chorus, etc. While Gonzalez is less than expressive vocally, the volatile instrumentals on this track define M83: cheap keyboards, arena rock, indie tenderness, and hand claps.

"*," the sixth track, was most likely playing during the Big Bang. Noisy starts and stops give this song a particular chaotic urgency that must've been present as masses exploded and hurled scorching rocks through the universe. Clips of sound from zero to eleven on the volume knob burst and disappear through the speakers without warning.

M83 contain a more obvious element of cinema that extends beyond soundtrack-inclined writing. "Car Chase Terror!" opens with a B-movie monologue, one actress playing both mother and daughter, describing the dream you have when you can't seem to outrun the murderer. She pleads herself into an insane frenzy ending in a car wreck atop Gonzalez's furious accompaniment. Crickets chirp as traffic speeds by in the background to begin and end the song, bleeding into the next track, the resigned "Slight Night Shiver," as the woman tries to calm down.

Finally, "Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun" shows the grandiose, long-winded side of M83's cinematic temperament. It's still pretty and all, but the song melts into orchestrated mush complete with tympanis. I suppose it's a fitting last track to such an ambitious album, a slowing of breath at sunrise, but it's a bit much. Its ten minutes and thirty-seven seconds could be reduced to about two minutes and thirty-seven seconds and have the same effect. The movie credits are rolling. And rolling, and rolling, rolling, rolling.

Darkness and light, demons and angels, fire and ice. Celestial opposites fill Before the Dawn Heals Us. But Gonzalez masterfully allows them to coexist by composing excellent transitions, keeping the songs short enough (save "Lower...") to hold our interest throughout this narrative album. The recording, on a whole, flows evenly. Songs fade in and out of each other, and the order makes sense. For example, the insistent sixth track fades into "I Guess I'm Floating," a quiet, lovely segue into the more hyper "Teen Angst." The songs lead listeners consistently into subsequent phases of the album.

These are stories of love, loss, and hope, but Gonzalez presents them more effectively than whiny emo bands might. The noise blasts and saintly melodies prove an innocent sincerity yet mature wisdom, the ability for a songwriter to feel without taking his or herself too seriously. Point in case, most of the feeling comes from samples and synthesized vocals and instruments.

Gonzalez winks at and gently pinches the cheeks of the bright-eyed and dyed-black-headed and offers a real example of touching music. Perhaps someday they'll get it.

— Monte Holman

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 03:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

It has been well documented in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The New York Times (to name a few places) that the United States has routinely been sending individuals they deem suspicious to other countries to be tortured.

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert believes sending people who have not been convicted of a crime to other countries to be tortured is ok:

"Because," said Mr. [Pete] Jeffries (his press spokesman), "U.S. taxpayers should not necessarily be on the hook for their judicial and incarceration costs."

Journalist Bob Herbert has this to say about Jeffries' response:

"It was, perhaps, the most preposterous response to any question I've ever asked as a journalist."

Give Hastert and Jeffries a call and tell them torture is NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Pete Jeffries: 202-225-2800
Dennis (as fat as humanly possible) Hastert: 202-225-2976

Here's the full NY Times article:

Published by the New York Times (2-28-2005)
It's Called Torture
by Bob Herbert

As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?

When I interviewed Maher Arar in Ottawa last week, it seemed clear that however thoughtful his comments, I was talking with the frightened, shaky successor of a once robust and fully functioning human being. Torture does that to a person. It's an unspeakable crime, an affront to one's humanity that can rob you of a portion of your being as surely as acid can destroy your flesh.

Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen with a wife and two young children, had his life flipped upside down in the fall of 2002 when John Ashcroft's Justice Department, acting at least in part on bad information supplied by the Canadian government, decided it would be a good idea to abduct Mr. Arar and ship him off to Syria, an outlaw nation that the Justice Department honchos well knew was addicted to torture.

Mr. Arar was not charged with anything, and yet he was deprived not only of his liberty, but of all legal and human rights. He was handed over in shackles to the Syrian government and, to no one's surprise, promptly brutalized. A year later he emerged, and still no charges were lodged against him. His torturers said they were unable to elicit any link between Mr. Arar and terrorism. He was sent back to Canada to face the torment of a life in ruins.

Mr. Arar's is the case we know about. How many other individuals have disappeared at the hands of the Bush administration? How many have been sent, like the victims of a lynch mob, to overseas torture centers? How many people are being held in the C.I.A.'s highly secret offshore prisons? Who are they and how are they being treated? Have any been wrongly accused? If so, what recourse do they have?

President Bush spent much of last week lecturing other nations about freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It was a breathtaking display of chutzpah. He seemed to me like a judge who starves his children and then sits on the bench to hear child abuse cases. In Brussels Mr. Bush said he planned to remind Russian President Vladimir Putin that democracies are based on, among other things, "the rule of law and the respect for human rights and human dignity."

Someone should tell that to Maher Arar and his family.

Mr. Arar was the victim of an American policy that is known as extraordinary rendition. That's a euphemism. What it means is that the United States seizes individuals, presumably terror suspects, and sends them off without even a nod in the direction of due process to countries known to practice torture.

A Massachusetts congressman, Edward Markey, has taken the eminently sensible step of introducing legislation that would ban this utterly reprehensible practice. In a speech on the floor of the House, Mr. Markey, a Democrat, said: "Torture is morally repugnant whether we do it or whether we ask another country to do it for us. It is morally wrong whether it is captured on film or whether it goes on behind closed doors unannounced to the American people."

Unfortunately, the outlook for this legislation is not good. I asked Pete Jeffries, the communications director for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, if the speaker supported Mr. Markey's bill. After checking with the policy experts in his office, Mr. Jeffries called back and said: "The speaker does not support the Markey proposal. He believes that suspected terrorists should be sent back to their home countries."

Surprised, I asked why suspected terrorists should be sent anywhere. Why shouldn't they be held by the United States and prosecuted?

"Because," said Mr. Jeffries, "U.S. taxpayers should not necessarily be on the hook for their judicial and incarceration costs."

It was, perhaps, the most preposterous response to any question I've ever asked as a journalist. It was not by any means an accurate reflection of Bush administration policy. All it indicated was that the speaker's office does not understand this issue, and has not even bothered to take it seriously.

More important, it means that torture by proxy, close kin to contract murder, remains all right. Congressman Markey's bill is going nowhere. Extraordinary rendition lives.

Posted by freewilliamsburg at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)