12.8.04: Terrorism, Yushchenko

In an editorial in the NY Times by Roger Cohen posted from Brazil he muses that most of the world does not see the "war on terror" as a priority. He reports that much of the world sees this "war" as a front for U.S. hegemony and the establishing of a "civilization of fear", as one Brazilian called it.

I tend to agree.

He reports that many Americans, however, tend to see the "war on terror" as needful, legitimate, necessary. They feel that America is protecting the world from rogue states and maniacs. In their view American boys are laying their lives on the line to defend the values that all these ungrateful nations take for granted.

I am not surprised at this reaction and opinion, but in my opinion it once again confuses 9/11 and terrorism with Saddam Hussein and Iraq when there was never any connection. (Hence the quotation marks around "war on terror" — it is anything but.) The invasion of Iraq is not a war on terrorism. Not even close. If anything it has served as a recruiting poster for terrorists, confirming their opinions about U.S. intentions abroad.

How to fight a legitimate war on terrorism?

In my opinion, there is no way to "fight" it, period. It is the stuff that oozes out of the cracks when you try and stomp down on it. The harder you stomp the more it spreads out, and the more you get on you.

I'm referring to both terrorist and guerrilla actions as they are commonly known in the press — though institutional terror is just as common, but because it's a policy and backed by a nation state it goes by other names in the press. Breaking into people's homes with no warrants, large men in high-tech video game drag dragging people out into the street. Institutionalized abuse and torture in prisons worldwide. Etc. etc.

The answer would be — with compassion, with aid without strings or an agenda attached, by not supporting oppressive regimes. By not playing kingmaker. Not too much of this is likely, given the world's history, but sometimes the pendulum swings that way.

I've been reading The Great Game, a history of the various intrigues in Central Asia mostly in the 19th century. (Needless to say the various spurious justifications for invasions, slaughters and inside deals are all reminiscent of contemporary events) The depictions of English and Russian spies infiltrating the region with dyed skin, handlebar mustaches and turbans is unbelievable — did they really fool people? And the surreal and brutal slaughter, violence and bloodletting equals the Crusades.

It makes one think that to some extent geography is destiny. Afghanistan in particular, being the great sandy and mountainous no man's land between Western Europe, Eastern Europe, India and the Middle East has been perpetually haggled over.

The opposition leader of the Ukraine developed a strange medical condition while he was campaigning some months ago. His face became disfigured, all blotchy and lumpy, truly monstrous, and he began to develop ulcers all over inside. Back problems, too — at one point he had to be flown to a European clinic and was returned to the campaign trail with a constant morphine drip straight into his spinal column!

Not only was he transformed into a monster, but a drugged-up one.

At a rally he asked, "Do you like my face?" — his voice passing through the huge speakers spread around the square. "This is the face of today's Ukraine".

Here is a before and after:

Doctors don’t know what it is. The incumbent claims it was bad sushi and too much cognac. Uh huh.

Some European doctors say the symptoms smack of dioxin poisoning, which seems likely to me, given the history of similar tactics and intrigues in that part of the world.

12.8.04: A Consumer Society

An article in the NY Times Magazine section on a couple of companies who specialize in word-of-mouth marketing campaigns. These are campaigns, paid for by corporate clients, to raise the awareness and profile of a product by getting a small army of "agents" to drop a mention of the product into casual conversation, carry it (in the case of a book) prominently displayed on the subway, write reviews to Amazon, ask for the product at shops, all without revealing that one is promoting it.

It's a Philip K. Dick world. There are tens of thousands of these "agents" out there. Ordinary people, not necessarily trendsetters or celebrities, who are living breathing advertisements... and proud of it. We don't know, for example, when someone is merely being helpful of informative, or even friendly, or when they have a hidden agenda. When they're slipping a bit of product placement into the conversation and when they're just engaging in the occasional mention of a book or brand as part of normal everyday life. So, in this world, which is our world, no one is to be trusted. No one's word, on this stuff at least, is to be taken at face value.

And who knows, the same techniques and maybe the same companies use this process for inserting ideas, political opinions and "factoids" into normal society?

Do I sound paranoid? I'm not making this stuff up. I'm merely extrapolating, trying to determine the repercussions of this phenomena and what it means.

For quite a number of years clients have paid what they determined were early adopters and trend spreaders, or even people who weren't but who would be watched — celebrities and models — to be seen drinking a particular vodka, wearing a designer's clothes or hanging out at a new restaurant. No one was fooled, or at least some people weren't fooled. (I would have been fooled, I thought this crowd simply was "in the know".) Anyway, since these folks were paid to sport the product, and made no bones about it, people were somewhat influenced, but not entirely suckered.

But this new process eliminates both the trendies and the payment. Surprisingly, the ordinary people who are recruited to talk up the product are usually unpaid — they usually just get some free samples, and not enough of that to really financially compensate for all the time and effort they put in. But they're proud and thrilled to be the chosen ones, to be influential.

It turns ordinary people into trendsetters, AND it jacks up the idea of being a trendsetter, so that the power to influence implicit in that designation becomes an end in itself. An end created and doled out by the agency.

In the Phillip K. Dick version there would be more convoluted scenarios. The agent would be unaware that he or she was an agent. And when the agent discovered that he or she was an agent it would be through information received through another agent — therefore suspect information by nature. So, in this world, where all information is suspect, one is not really sure if one is an agent or not. One's own identity is suddenly questionable, a classic Dick scenario... suddenly events from one's past can be called into question — did the formative events of adolescence and childhood just happen? Were they all subtly guided by agents and agencies, seeking to create life experiences that can be filled and satisfied with products? When did I become an agent? Or when did I stop being an agent?

12.4.04: Moral Values

According to a New Yorker piece on Election Polls, the decisive factor in the election was NOT the moral values issue but the terrorism issue. Or at least that's what it's called. Enough people believe that "the country is safer now than before 9/11 and that only Bush can protect us from terrorists" to tip the scales. Never mind that this opinion is based on ignorance and misinformation — conflating Iraq and Saddam with 9/11, for example — but some pollsters claim this is what enough people feel to tip the scales.

The moral values issue, touted in the media as the deciding factor, is thought by many to be a red herring — a conclusion based on the semantics and structure or on the polls themselves. Although some claim, and I would tend to agree, that "moral values" are code words for being against gay marriage and abortion and not for moral values like equality, peace and social justice, those who claim to be for moral values would not have stood quite so tall if their poll choice was based more clearly on the gay marriage and abortion issues.

A book review of An Empire Of Wealth in the Times points out some interconnected areas that surprised me.

The McCormick eliminated the need for large number of farm laborers, who could then be funneled into the labor needs of rising post Civil War industry. In a sense the reaper made industrialization possible.

"The rise of the automobile created a crisis for American farmers who in 1900 had devoted a third of their land to growing oats and hay for horses. By 1929 the horses were almost all gone, and the land set aside for fodder now produced food crops" — which we would initially think would be a boon to the farmers — higher overall yields! But the increased production drove down prices — the cost of some kinds of success — and drove down prices, devastating the farmers.

The Guardian seems to be giving prime coverage to the continued bombs and devastation being wreaked by the insurgents in Iraq. In the NY Times it’s a second tier story. (Today Dec. 6 they made the front page, a series of attacks rolled up into one article.) The two recent Baghdad explosions killed many and injured scores (80 over the weekend.) Maybe the U.S. media wants us to think the U.S. Falluja campaign was a success and that the insurgency is "quiet"?

12.2.04: Arturo's

Went to Arturo's on Houston St. to hang with band members Tracy and Paul, former bandmember Lara, Tracy's friend Jason and the guy in the string quartet Ethel, whose birthday it was. Everyone was eating pizza and drinking carafes of red wine. Arturo's is a weird combination of 2 throwbacks in one — it's a jazz bar, where regulars sing standards and musicians often stop by after a session or gig and sit in. It's also a neighborhood pizza restaurant (the pizzas aren't bad) that is friendly, noisy and slightly chaotic.

The owner, whom I've never met, fills the walls with paintings. Some odd-looking portraits and some typical Greenwich Village scenes. His daughter Lisa is often there and says hello — I asked her what's up with the funky airplane models hanging from the ceiling and she said her dad decided no more paintings; he’s going to do airplane models now.

The place is a neighborhood joint. There are a lot of regulars. It's not the sort of place that would get reviewed or mentioned in the trendy guides to NYC. The piano sits smack in the middle of the front room, the upright bass player squeezes into a corner and a drummer plays a rudimentary kit made out of a snare, hi-hat and one cymbal. He almost blocks the entrance to the kitchen; he's wedged right against the piano. Singers grab a hand mike and have to dodge waiters and folks who want to use the restroom. The bathroom has a bathtub in it. A big one. I wonder how many people have fallen in there, or if the staff sometimes decides to have a hot bath.

A pear-shaped woman begins to sing to enthusiastic applause. Someone mentions to me that she is the mother of Savion Glover, the famous young tap dancer. I can see the resemblance, in the face at least. Her hair is a mixture or black and gray and is wound in a tight vortex, like Kim Novak's in Vertigo. She sings a standard and she's great, astounding.

She sings another and then sits down at a nearby booth with some friends. The pianist shows Paul from my band some chord charts then he sits at the booth behind the singer, near the kitchen door. He begins furiously focusing on some music scores he has with him, spreading them out across the tabletop. He's oblivious to the scene.

A man named Jimmy takes the mike. He had introduced himself to me earlier — "I do Thursday nights" was how he put it. Jimmy's hair is hard to describe. It's like a combination of a mullet and a Mohawk, but super slicked back. He's got on a black jacket and a tie with big yellow trumpets on it. He sings a standard (they all do, except Paul, who does Stevie Wonder) — he puts his heart and soul into it.

The audience at Arturo's, which not a very big place, are usually a mixed bunch — some are paying attention to the singer, some are shoving food into their mouths and some are talking to friends. Not an ideal audience by any means, but it doesn't seem to deter anyone here.

Jimmy disappears for a second. He has an Asian pianist who has his eyes closed and maybe he doesn't notice Jimmy’s absence. Jimmy immediately reappears in a cream-colored jacket carrying a matching cream-colored umbrella. He immediately launches into "Pennies From Heaven", and one gathers these are the props he keeps on hand for this number "Ev'ry time it rains, it rains...pennies from heaven" — and up goes the umbrella, in the middle of this crowded room. Pizzas being served up and folks ordering wine using hand gestures. No one here seems fazed or the least surprised by the umbrella gag. Jimmy's jazzing up the song, scatting and improvising — it's almost unrecognizable at times. He sometimes acts out the lyrics at the same time — holding his hands in a praying gesture or grabbing Mrs. Glover to dance a step or two. They make an improbable couple. Now he's got a little black hat on too. At one point his singing is so impassioned that he abandons the mic on the piano near the tip jar and begins hopping, really hopping, around the room singing at the top of his lungs.