Monday, February 20, 2006
BRONX IN BLUE, REGIME CHANGE DEJA VU
Remember this guy? Hint: "Teenager In Love", "The Wanderer", "Abraham, Martin, and John". Yep, it's Dion. And he has a new album out, featuring acoustic blues. He was featured on WORLD CAFE today, and if the album, BRONX IN BLUE, is half as good as the live performance, it is a winner!Dion tells a great story as to how the album came to be produced. As a kid in the Bronx, he would stay up late at night listening to those powerful southern radio stations that featured blues artists like John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson, and Howlin Wolf. Blues was his first musical love. He started out as a street singer performing blues songs. But he never considered recording any of them. He only played them for his own pleasure, often in impromptu sessions with friend Paul Simon in Dion's living room.
One day, while promoting the album Deja Nu, he was being interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air. He would punctuate the stories of his youth with snippets from these songs. When the interview was over, Gross and a her engineering staff all came up to him and told him he had to record these songs! They were very insistent. But he kinda let it pass, until a guy he used to write songs with in the teen idol days called him. The guy had heard the Fresh Air interview and told him he absolutely had to record those songs. So he went into the studio, and recorded the entire album in two days.
The songs he performed on WORLD CAFE were Statesburo Blues, I Let My Baby Do That, Built For Comfort, Crossroads, and an incredible, impromptu blues version of The Wanderer.
You can here the songs and interview on WORLD CAFE here! BRONX IN BLUE is available at Amazon.com.
REGIME CHANGE DEJA VU
Daniel Shorr reported on Weekend Edition Sunday that the US is preparing to attempt to foment regime change in Iran. Now, we have been down this road before. Many times. And I can't recall of a time when this strategy actually worked. But apparently that student of history, George Bush, missed the class where this was discussed! Shorr points out:
Regime change often begins with a process of fomenting disaffection, encouraging people to turn against their government. The United States tried it a couple of times in Iraq. The Pentagon poured millions of dollars into backing exile groups with connections in Iraq. A lot of it went to the Iraqi National Congress, based in London, headed by Ahmed Chalabi. It didn't work. In the end, the Pentagon had to change the Iraqi regime the old fashioned way: by invasion. And now it is the insurgency that is fighting for regime change.
But the Bush administration, apparently deciding that if Iran develops the bomb, it would be a good idea to have an Iranian government more well inclined toward us, seemingly can't resist making the same old mistakes again. According to Shorr:
The project surfaced when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice applied to Congress for $75 million on top of an initial $10 million. She told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the idea was to confront the extremist policies of the Iranian regime and support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom, its plan to provide money to Iranian labor unions and to provide around-the-clock broadcast service in Farsi... The Bush Administration believes, based on what I do not know, that there is a substantial underground opposition to the radical new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in spite of his landslide election victory.
Of course, there are other regimes we would really like to change too! I'm sure the Bushistas are desperately trying to figure out a way to get rid of Hugo Chavez, albeit in a little less clumsy manner than supporting an attempted coupe de tat, as per their last attempt. And according to Shorr:
Unhappiness on the part of the Bush Administration with the results of democratic elections has not been restricted to Iran. Last week, Steven Erlanger of The New York Times reported from Jerusalem that the United States and Israel have been quietly discussing ways to undermine the new Hamas-led Palestinian government and hopefully cause new elections, potentially with the result more to Washington's liking. Looks like more regime change.
To quote that old sage Yogi Berra;"It's like deja vu all over again!"
The Temptations were right: The world IS just a Ball Of Confusion!
Comments:
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Didn't we mess with Iran's government before? And didn't they throw the bastard out because he was a "Puppet"... the sheer magnitude of hubris it requires to think that this will work is astounding.
How long can we afford to meddle in the affairs of other governments before they ALL turn on us? I'm sick to death of this administration and its corruption. Though, to be fair, we've had many other administrations that also meddled in other governments' affairs. Are we witnessing the ground work that will set the stage for WWIII? I hate to be a pessimist, but I can't see any good coming of all this.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the US must play by its own rules. If they don't want anyone else, i.e. the "bad" countries having nuclear weapons, then NO ONE should have nuclear weapons, including the US. I have to agree with VV above: nothing good can come of this whatsoever.
Talk about deja vu, GWB. This new site looks...familiar... :)
Talk about deja vu, GWB. This new site looks...familiar... :)
Well, they say the definition of insanity is repeating the same process and expecting a different result. Hmmm, what *does* that say about King George?
We're spread too thin to do ANYTHING in Iran! Regime change; like that would help.
I didn't realize Dion was still recording!
We saw him live at the grand opening of the Eden Prairie mall, 30 yrs ago. We just ran in to buy L a shirt, and wound up staying for the show.
I didn't realize Dion was still recording!
We saw him live at the grand opening of the Eden Prairie mall, 30 yrs ago. We just ran in to buy L a shirt, and wound up staying for the show.
WC's right, this site looks eerily familiar. I think I've seen it many times before...
Just kidding, looks great.
For Satanic panic research I watched an early '70s movie called "Season of the Witch", and Dion sang the theme song. The song was waaayyyy better than the movie. ;D
Just kidding, looks great.
For Satanic panic research I watched an early '70s movie called "Season of the Witch", and Dion sang the theme song. The song was waaayyyy better than the movie. ;D
Dont threaten me you unemployable dead beat looney, get yourself a bollock and brain transplant and swap them around, you ugly faced moronic asshole creeper.
# posted by 
: 3:41 PM
: 3:41 PM
god....
nobody threatenend you,everybody here is gainfully employed, and all have I.Q.'s twice as high as yours.
So do us all a favor and take a flying fuck off the empire state building, you doddering moron,
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nobody threatenend you,everybody here is gainfully employed, and all have I.Q.'s twice as high as yours.
So do us all a favor and take a flying fuck off the empire state building, you doddering moron,
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