Blogcritics Author: Pete Blackwell

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Music Review: Boxcar Satan and the Graves Brothers Deluxe - Black Water Rising

Pete Blackwell — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 12:14:54 EST

When Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans in August of 2005, the physical toll was staggering. Over a year later the floodwaters are gone, the Superdome has been repaired and the residents of the Big Easy are struggling — slowly — to get back on their feet. But not all of the ravages of Katrina were physical, and a couple of New Orleans natives have taken it upon themselves to help address the psychological toll the storm took.Black Water Rising takes on the traditional split single format, with San Antonio's Boxcar Satan trying their hand at a song by San Francisco's Graves Brothers Deluxe and vice versa. What sets this four-song EP apart is that proceeds from its sale are being donated to groups providing free mental health care to residents of the Gulf Coast. Stoo Odom of GBD and Patrick Sane of Boxcar Satan both hail from New Orleans, so the cause is near and dear to their hearts.But don't buy Black Water Rising just for charity's sake; buy it because it's great, too. GBD does an excellent, understated acoustic bass and fuzz guitar rendition of "Shoot Down the Sun", and Boxcar Satan takes on "Legs Rub Together", showing off their mellow side for the first half of the track before bringing it to a rousing conclusion.In addition to the regular split single fare, however, each band contributes a cover version of an old southern blues standard, and it is these songs that really make Black Water Rising stand out.Boxcar Satan opens the disc with a raucous cover of "High Water Everywhere", a blues stomp by the legendary Delta blues guitarist Charley Patton. The Graves Brothers Deluxe do an uplifting cover of "Don't You Just Know It", a call-and-response R & B tune that was a Top Ten hit for New Orleans' own Huey "Piano" Smith in 1958.The inclusion of the Patton and Smith tunes really rings true here, because Boxcar Satan and GBD are not only paying tribute to the city of New Orleans in its time of need; they're paying tribute to the indomitability of the spirit in the face of crushing adversity, and if that ain't "the blues", I don't know what is.Ordering info at Dogfingers Records

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

Atheism Is Not a Religion

Pete Blackwell — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 07:58:01 EST

Some Atheists ... assert that Atheism is not a religion but instead is the total absence of religion.... But this is like saying that "black," (which physicists define as the total absence of color) is not a color.... In common practice throughout the world, "black" is understood to be a color, despite the technical definition of the physicists. Likewise, "Atheism" is a religion, despite any technical definitions to the contrary. If black is a color, then Atheism is a religion.—Rev. Bill McGinnis, The Religion of AtheismYou hear it regularly from talking heads like Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter (whose latest 'book', Godless, is subtitled The Church of Liberalism), and you're only going to hear it more now that the War on Christmas season is upon us: atheism is a religion just as sure as Christianity is, and all these heathens want to do is foist their religion on the good, god-fearing folk of America.There's always an undercurrent of defensiveness and desperation in this claim, as if one's own faith is invalidated by the existence of a genuinely different approach to life and the universe. In making their convoluted arguments, people who conflate atheism with religion actually weaken the foundations upon which their own belief is built. Atheism simply cannot be a religion unless that term carries essentially no meaning.Here's a handy list of qualities shared by almost all religions that atheism lacks:There Is No God First things first. Atheists do not believe in a god or gods. This is a tautology, of course, since the term "atheism" itself carries that literal meaning. Some atheists have suggested that the term cedes too much to religious believers and argue for a new coinage that captures what atheists do believe rather than what they don't. The fact that there is no such suitable term is a strong argument against classifying atheism as a religion, as we shall see. The denial of god alone, however, is not sufficient proof that atheism is not a religion, since many belief systems do not believe in god. Some, such as Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto — even Scientology — are properly classified as religions since they meet many of the other criteria listed below.There Is No Common Belief Contrary to what the O'Reillys and Coulters of the world will tell you, atheists are bound by no common ideology or belief. An atheist is someone who does not believe in god. Period. Beyond that, things get a little murky. There are the dreaded secular humanists, there are logical empiricists, there are existentialists, there are skeptics, nihilists - you name it. Not all atheists believe in evolution or put their 'faith' in science. This is why no one term could positively describe the entirety of atheism. Atheists as a whole are bound by a common disbelief - and nothing else.There Are No Laws Most religions feature a set of laws or regulations, ranging from what not to eat for breakfast to who thou shalt and shalt not kill and or covet. In atheism, this is entirely lacking. This is not to say that atheism is amoral (see below), but to note that there exists no universal atheist code of standards, either vague or specific.There Is No Church or Ritual It has become fashionable to claim that the Church of Atheism is the editorial board room of the New York Times or the chambers of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but this is nothing more than sophistry based on the supposition that all atheists are cut from the same (non-ecclesiastical) cloth. In fact, this is far from the case. Atheists are everywhere, in all walks of life (watch out!). The idea of an organized church of atheism in which its rituals are practiced by gatherings of (un)believers is a non sequitur.There Is No Unified Conception of Spirituality Unlike atheist religions such as Buddhism, non-religious atheism has no spiritual credo. Some atheists may consider themselves 'spiritual', while a great many do not. Some may feel some sort of connection to nature or the universe while others may feel nothing of the sort. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud called this the "oceanic feeling", and saw it as the source of the religious impetus. He claimed to have never experienced this feeling himself. Whether or not atheists have experienced this oceanic feeling, it has never coalesced into anything that could be called a religion.There Is No Scripture Christianity has the Bible, Islam the Koran; Judaism has the Torah, Hinduism the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. Atheism has no scripture or sacred text. Darwin's Origin of the Species, while held in high regard by many atheists, doesn't count. The very fact that scientists are continually building on and even refuting Darwin's claims is proof that his version of the truth is not considered to be inerrant or divinely inspired.There Is No Priesthood In addition to having no rituals, atheism has no ritualistic leaders. Unlike virtually every religion known to man, atheism has no anointed hierarchy to lead its 'adherents' closer to the truth. This is not to say that there aren't prominent atheists. There are. But, absent the sacred texts and rituals of religion — not to mention a proper congregation — they do not constitute a priesthood or clergy.There Is No Tradition All religions have a tradition and a history. Atheism has many, but no single one that sustains a movement over centuries, as you find in every major world religion.There Is No Founder Buddha, Muhammad, Jesus, Moses, L. Ron Hubbard - most major religions have a founding figure or prophet. Atheism has no such figure. There are many old-timers like Galileo, for example, who rise to prominence, but none of these atheists 'founded' atheism and none commands the reverence accorded to the founders and patriarchs of the world religions.There Are No Holidays Most religions have holy days (still, despite the all-out assault on Christmas). Atheism has no holidays, and no framework to decide when such holidays would be or what they might commemorate. Festivus doesn't count.There Is No Identifying Clothing Yarmulkes, robes, veils, turbans, sacred underwear and other holy vestments hold great importance for the majority of religions. Atheism has no dress code, although comfortable shoes are recommended.There Is No Concept of the Afterlife Most religions attempt to answer the question of what happens to us when we die. Where do we go to be warmed in the loving embrace of the lord? Where do they go to be horrifically tortured? There's heaven and hell, of course, and reincarnation, nirvana and moksha. Atheists have no concept of the afterlife, except that, most commonly, there isn't one.There Is No Creation Myth Now wait just a minute! How is the Big Bang any less of a myth than Genesis? Keeping in mind that not all atheists believe in the Big Bang theory, it's different because it's a scientific postulate that can be tested and the effects of which can be empirically demonstrated. If in the end this theory does not stand up to scientific scrutiny, it will be chucked on the trash heap alongside the bodily humors and the Atkins Diet.******So, atheism shares none of the characteristics common to all belief systems commonly known as religions. Even widely-despised and derided belief systems like Satanism, Wicca, paganism and Presbyterianism are religions by these standards. Atheism is not. Arguing that it is means that faith in god, ritual, community, tradition, spirituality and theology are irrelevant. Religion then becomes an incredibly paltry thing. It is not a source of solace and spiritual wonder; it is not a vehicle for bringing symmetry to the chaos of life and meaning to the void - it's just the act of taking a position on the existence of god. That's it. How pathetic.Those who would prefer not to do such grievous harm to the meaning of 'religion' have another argument at hand. Atheism may not be a religion, but it is a faith. Because the existence of god can be neither definitively proven nor disproved, atheism merely replaces faith in god with faith in science. While this argument is subtler, it poses no less of a threat to the underpinnings of religious belief.There is a fundamental difference between faith and atheism that cuts to the essence of what religion is. A scientific-minded atheist believes that science can explain the world and the universe. This does not require that it already has explained everything; only that it can. This is a world view based on hypothesis and evidence. For most religions, on the other hand, faith in the absence of clear evidence is a virtue. Evidence (or at least purported evidence) is not entirely lacking from the religious world, but it is beside the point. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.Religious faith is a complicated thing. It involves the belief in god, but it goes much further than that. Faith is the trust in god and the acceptance of paradox and contradiction. It revels in the revealed truth and embraces the unknowable. In religious people, it is the umbilical cord to the soul. Science is not anathema to faith; it simply operates on a different plane of thought. Faith is 'belief', but it's not the belief in just anything. To say that atheism is a faith because it stakes claim to a belief is to denigrate all true faith. To have a faith and to hold a belief are two distinct things. All faith is belief, but not all belief is faith.Another common misperception is that atheists merely put their faith in secular 'gods' and call them by another name. Richard Dawkins is a popular choice, as are Darwin and Carl Sagan. But whether an atheist is drawn to the ideas of these men or to Nietzsche or Frank Costanza, it is not proof of 'faith'. Plenty of people are widely admired, from the aforementioned thinkers to Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman. We sometimes even use religious language and talk about how they are 'idolized' figures. But there is a difference between agreeing with someone or admiring them and having religious faith in them. Without this distinction, the concept of faith is utterly worthless and the designation of 'god' is a meaningless banality. Certainly the religious faithful do not believe this to be the case. But there is no way to hang the mantle of faith on atheism without eviscerating one's own beliefs.Once it has been established that atheists have neither religion nor faith, it is assumed that they must therefore believe in nothing. Atheism is then synonymous with amorality and chaos. It should be quite obvious that this argument is a fallacy based on a false dichotomy in which all the attributes of religious belief are necessarily absent from non-religious belief.There is a facile assumption that morality belongs only to the realm of religion, and the codes of religious law are offered up as proof. Where would we be without the Ten Commandments? Coveting asses, no doubt. But there is plenty of historical and anthropological evidence to suggest that religious morality is simply a reflection of taboos and strictures that have developed over millennia and are intrinsic to all cultures, regardless of religion (or lack thereof).******"All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?""Brought peace!""What!? Oh... Peace, yes... shut up!"—Monty Python, The Life of BrianOnce upon a time, Jesus said, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" I'm pretty sure that's a fancy way of saying, "What, you think your shit doesn't stink?" It's a little snippet of scripture that every atheist should know.I'm aware that atheists are an embattled minority, far less likely to be elected to the presidency than Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, child molesters and Frenchmen. I know some of the vitriol and condescension of the true believers at Focus on the Family and FOX News is hard to stomach. That doesn't mean you have to return the favor.One of the biggest selling points for the "atheism is a religion" trope is the common misperception that atheists know that there is no god. Certainly there are some who would say so, just as there are Christians who have no religious doubt whatsoever, but these are not (I hope) majority views. Insistence on the absolute correctness of your position is not a sign of either faith or rationalist purity; it's a sign of hubris and epistemological immodesty.There's no question that certain religious groups would like to impose their narrow view of the world on everyone. These people need to be opposed at every turn. But this does not mean that religion as a whole should be denigrated or dismissed as irrelevant.Religion has been central to the history of humanity and there's no reason to believe it won't continue to be. The wisdom of the Greeks and Romans survived the Dark Ages thanks to religion. Gutenberg designed his printing press to reproduce the Bible. Much of the greatest art and architecture in the world was inspired by faith. Religion has been central to movements for social justice, democracy, peace and charity for centuries. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, religion has been the cause of and solution to most of the world's problems.That is not an endorsement of religion so much as it's an exhortation to intellectual honesty. All atheists are not represented by a jerk who wastes everyone's time with irrelevancies like trying to get "under god" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, just like all religious people are not represented by Ann Coulter or Ted Haggard.So much of the atheism versus religion debate takes place at the intractable fringes where there are so rarely either hearts or minds to be won. If we can surge past this white noise, however, we may come to a place where differences can be honestly respected and ideas can be exchanged in good faith (if you will).Despite our differences we must strive for common ground, for that's the only place where we all can live.

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

Kanye West Flips Out at EMAs

Pete Blackwell — Fri, 3 Nov 2006 17:42:26 EST

Kanye West doesn't care about white people. Well, not about Simian and Justice, at least. They won Best Video honors at MTV's EMAs (a European version of the VMAs, I believe) for "We Are Your Friends," and the rapper apparently crashed the stage to complain about not winning the award for his "Touch the Sky" video. The hip hop star spat, "F*ck dis! [My video] cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it, I was jumping across canyons [not a reference to Pamela Anderson's breasts], and sh*t! If I don't win, the awards show loses credibility. Nothing against you (J&S), but hell man." Yes, he did just use the word "credibility" in reference to an MTV video awards show. It looks like, with Axl Rose in semi-permanent-maybe-retirement, someone has finally stepped in to fill the batshit crazy egomaniac vacuum in the music world. It's about time!After the awards, West raged on at the press conference. "That is complete bullsh*t, I paid a million. Obviously it's not all about the money, but the response it got transcended everything, it really made great TV. It took a month to film; I stood on a mountain [also not a reference to Pamela Anderson's breasts]; I flew a heliocopter [sic] over Vegas. I did it to be the king of all videos and I wanted to walk home with that award."It wasn't all animosity from Kanye, though. He had no problem losing to Justin Timberlake for the Best Male award: "Obviously Justin should have won, he's on fire and he's an inspiration to me."Pity the name "Ludacris" is already taken.

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

Aid and Comfort

Pete Blackwell — Wed, 1 Nov 2006 03:46:41 EST

A week out from the midterm elections, things are tense. The air is thick with slung mud and bad blood.As Republicans desperately struggle to hold on to the power they so richly deserve to lose, they're bringing out the big guns against a Democratic party poised to grab the power they scarcely deserve to hold. A favorite weapon in this arsenal is the accusation that Democrats, with all their cut-and-runnery, are providing "aid and comfort" to the enemy. Terrorists in Iraq, so the argument goes, are emboldened by Democratic calls for troop withdrawal. (Heck, Dick Cheney basically said the terrorists vote Democrat just the other day.) If they can only hang on until after November, Speaker Pelosi and company will hand them a golden victory for jihad.Now, as wantonly bandied about as this argument may be, it has the merit of being true. If the U.S. pulls out of a turbulent and broken Iraq, it will unquestionably be a victory for terrorism -- both because the country would likely turn into a killing field (more so) and because defeating the U.S. would be a huge P.R. coup. Of course, there's no guarantee that a power shift to the Democrats would result in such a policy, but the Republicans are more than happy to scare people into thinking it would.Conservatives and right-wingers like to believe they have rock-solid anti-terrorism credibility, and only the Democrats could possibly provide aid and comfort to the enemy. That's where they're wrong.One of the crucial errors in the War on Terror so far has been the Bush cabal's inability to grasp the psychological aspects of the conflict. They've been far better at winning territory (and they haven't been very good at that) than they have been at winning hearts and minds. The reason is plain: they don't understand what they're up against.This is by no means limited to the White House. These kinds of errors are propagated across the right-wing blogosphere and find their way into FOX News talking points as well.The first way the right-wing is guilty of providing aid and comfort to the enemy is not even limited to the conservative mindset, although it finds its natural home there. Some well-meaning liberals fall into its trap as well. This is the tendency to conflate the worst aspects of Muslim intolerance with Islam in general. You see it in spades on sites like Michelle Malkin's blog and Instapundit, and, sadly, on Andrew Sullivan's blog, too. It reached its height during the Muhammad cartoon crisis, but it's evident every time some imam says something idiotic. Terrorist groups like al Qaeda have gone out of their way to frame the War on Terror as a religious war; as a war not just against them, but against Islam as a whole. Whenever ill-informed pundits and politicos use the actions of a few to tar a culturally and doctrinally diverse group of over a billion people, they make al Qaeda's argument for them. Every time Muslims hear their religion is inherently violent or sick, or that they are by definition incapable of tolerance, Osama bin Laden's obscene philosophy gains a little strength.Another way in which War on Terror partisans make life easier for the terrorists is by exaggerating the scope of the international terrorism "apparatus" in an effort to underline the threat we face. That's not to say there isn't a threat. There is, and it's grave. That said, attributing all of the various terror cells and splinter groups to one massive and far-reaching conspiracy -- turning myriad ragged bunches of nihilists into a monolith of pure evil -- confers an exaggerated power onto them. It's a power they would greatly like to possess, and couldn't without our help.If we in the United States and the Western world as a whole are serious about confronting the problem of international terrorism and geopolitical upheaval, we need to be far more nuanced in our thinking. The problems are too real and too complex to be dumbed down for the election cycle and used as a battering ram against domestic political enemies.The current administration has proven itself utterly incapable of taking anything other than an opportunistic and cynical approach to the problems of our age. The political opposition shows no signs of being any different in this respect. And that's election season in a nutshell. Happy voting!

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

The Worst Band Names Ever, Part II

Pete Blackwell — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:25:21 EDT

Back in the mists of prehistory, I wrote a think-piece on the worst band names in history. It was an opportunity not only to make fun of some god-awful names, but to give some direction to up-and-coming rockers considering naming their band after a local pawn shop or something they read in a William S. Burroughs novel. I think of it as a public service, really.This post ended up being pretty popular, particularly in its second home at Blogcritics.org. In fact, it still gets comments a year and half later. Many of these comments claim that I'm some kind of idiot, which is untrue. Mostly, people nominated their own private 311s and Archers of Loafs, and pointed out some categories I missed.So, without further ado, here is an addendum to my original Worst Band Names Ever post. I'm sure I'm still missing some horrendous names, but I'm only one man and there's so much low-hanging fruit.Thou Shalt Not Rock the Lord's Name in VainJesus, Mary and Joseph! You can't swing a piece of the true cross without hitting a band that thought how mighty clever it would be to put "God" or "Jesus" in their name. Well, it's not clever. It's nothing more than an attempt to garner some free publicity for being "irreverent" and "daring", or it's a way to seem profound without actually having to write good lyrics. Definitely not kosher.Why Have You Forsaken Me?: God is My Co-Pilot (with extra demerits for violating the Your Band Name Should Not Be a Bumper Sticker Slogan rule)Jesus Wept: The Jesus Lizard (hey, let's juxtapose!)Original Sin: Eyehategod (where to even begin with this one…)Honorable Mention: The Jesus and Mary Chain, Jesus Jones, Nazareth, MC 900 Foot Jesus, The Ordinary Fear of God, Peter Paul & Mary, Godflesh, Godsmack.Exceptions: Actual religious bands (if you must) and awesome satanic metal bands like Deicide or, say, Christpuncher.Band Names Should Not Be AcronymsIt's a truism in the rock & roll world that an acronym is a bad band name created to disguise an even worse one. It's no surprise that Electric Light Orchestra went by ELO or Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were widely known as OMD. It may be less embarrassing, but that doesn't make it Okay. Note to rockers: If your name is so bad that you turn it into an acronym (I'm looking at you, Bachman Turner Overdrive), you just need to go back to the drawing board. The same logic applies to groups like NWA and A.C., who use acronyms like fig leaves to cover up the naughty bits. Extra negative points to NRBQ, whose acronym actually manages to be worse than its bland meaning (New Rhythm and Blues Quartet).FUBAR: EMF (Epsom Mad Funkers)SNAFU: A.B.C. (Another Bad Creation—although that is truth in advertising)LMAO: H.I.M. (His Infernal Majesty)Honorable Mention: K.L.F. (Kopyright Liberation Front—further demerits for the misspelling), LFO (Lyte Funky Ones), KMFDM (Kein Merheit Für Das Mitleid, which means No Pity for the Majority in English—and not Kill Mother F**king Depeche Mode, as some have said), ABBA (Agnetha, Björn, Benny, Anni-Frid), N.E.R.D. (No One Ever Really Dies).Exceptions: REM, because the acronym is in standard usage; W.A.S.P., because while it might stand for We Are Sexual Perverts, Blackie Lawless maintains that it means We Ain't Sure, Pal; and AC/DC, because na na na na na na na na ANGUS!Ünnëcëssärÿ Punctuation: Bad for Band Names!!Spin magazine once called the heavy metal umlaut the "diacritical mark of the beast." The theory is that an umlaut supposedly adds a dash of Teutonic menace to a band name (not that there's anything very menacing about David Hasselhoff). The fictional metal band Spinal Tap put an umlaut over the 'n', which gets to the heart of how unbelievably silly the practice is better than I ever could. Resorting to this rock cliche for extra oomph means you've probably got a sucky band name to begin with. The same goes for punctuation, which is a sign of an unwieldy or pretentious band name. Usually both. I shudder to think what was left off the beginning of ...And You Will Know Us From the Trail of Dead. Who knows? Maybe it was the good part.¡Forward, Russia! — Where to begin? Three punctuation sins in a two-word band name. That's actually pretty impressive.Mötley Crüe — A classic band name sullied by heavy metal umlauts and the intentional misspelling. The correct pronunciation as spelled is "Mertly Crew-eh", which is what was allegedly chanted by thousands of fans at a concert in Germany.!!! — This band name is reportedly meant to be pronounced "chk, chk, chk", which is far from intuitive. They best learn a lesson from Prince about what happens to your career when your name is an unpronounceable symbol. Plus, where does it get filed in the record store???Honorable Mention: à;GRUMH...; Godspeed, You Black Emperor!; Songs: Ohia; Queensrÿche; Blue Öyster Cult; Ümlaut (because the word "umlaut" has no umlaut)Exceptions: Motörhead, because I'm not going to mess with Lemmy. Band names that are actually German (not that I condone German bands).

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

DVD Review: Bad Brains - Live at CBGB 1982

Pete Blackwell — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:21:21 EDT

Much has been made about the fact that Bad Brains were a one-of-a-kind band. They were black Rastafarians in the otherwise lily-white world of early-80s hardcore, after all. But that's beside the point. Simply put, they rocked harder, louder and faster than anyone else. Period.Bad Brains formed in Washington, D.C. in the late 70s, taking the marriage of reggae and punk rock -- then all the rage in England thanks to, amongst others, the Clash -- to the extreme. They quickly gained a reputation for scintillating live performances; the kind that got them banned from playing in local clubs (immortalized in the classic song "Banned in D.C.").Live at CBGB 1982, recorded over three nights in New York City, catches the band at the absolute height of their powers. H.R. flails himself all over the tiny stage, wrenching impassioned if incomprehensible lyrics from both gut and soul while guitarist Dr. Know remains remarkably composed as he riffs and solos at breakneck speed. Earl Hudson is the picture of concentration and intensity behind the drum kit and, sadly, bassist Darryl Jennifer is hardly on film at all thanks to the camera positions.The band is sloppy at times, but their frenetic stage presence is infective and it's easy to see what all the fuss was about. Since the CBGB stage was about two feet off the floor, there are stage divers and slam dancers galore, knocking into H.R. and joining him on the mic to bellow a choice line or two.In fact, watching the audience is half the fun of this DVD. It's worth a look if only to see what a hardcore gig looked like back when there was still a pretty good chance of the cops cracking some skulls after the show and before mohawks were merely ironic. There's also something to be said for watching hulking mosh pit denizens nervously bob their heads to one of the band's reggae numbers, waiting for another hardcore onslaught to begin.The video quality on Live at CBGB 1982 is pretty good, but the sound quality varies greatly from night to night, ranging from awful to so-so. Part of that is the recording itself, but CBGB was a notoriously crappy-sounding club as well. Highlights include incendiary versions of "Right Brigade," "Banned in D.C.," and "How Low Can a Punk Get," and an excellent rendition of the reggae jam "The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth."Live at CBGB 1982 shouldn't necessarily be anyone's first introduction to the power and glory of Bad Brains, but it's virtually indispensable for a fan. First-timers might want to check out their 1982 self-titled debut on ROIR, which has been reissued on CD. It more faithfully captures the top-notch musicianship and genuinely unique vocal stylings that set Bad Brains apart from their more straightforward power-chords-and-anger contemporaries.

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

Oh, the Humanity!

Pete Blackwell — Fri, 4 Aug 2006 12:13:18 EDT

Politics, it's often been said, creates strange bedfellows. True enough, but that only scratches the surface of its strange alchemy. Political ideas, calcified by years of reflexive insularity, appear capable of even changing the chemistry of the brain, resulting in a condition we may as well call 'selective compassion'. There's no better example of this today than in the conflict between Israel and the two-headed beast of Hezbollah and Hamas.When armchair pundits manned the virtual barricades for the latest crisis in the Middle East, they came armed with the well-oiled weapons of pat ideology. They know one side of the coin so well, but they never dare flip it for fear that they might land on 'tails' (naturally, both sides assume ownership of 'heads').For a clamorous contingent on the left, Israel is the US-client rogue state in the region, raining down death on innocent Arab children. Of course, there are elements of truth in this depiction. Certainly, for example, the Israeli army is far better equipped than their enemies, which makes their bombs much more likely to hit their targets. Israel also has a tendency to answer every attack with a response many times more devastating than than the original provocation.Many on the left dwell upon this fact without thinking critically about the actual threats faced by a Jewish state virtually surrounded by Muslim nations that would like nothing better than to wipe it off the map. The tendency is to remove Israel from its geopolitical context and to see it only as an actor against Muslims, be they Palestinian or, more recently, Lebanese. As such, the temptation is to dismiss Israeli casualties as unimportant, especially when compared to the greater number of Muslim deaths.On the right, the tendency is reversed. Israeli casualties count more because the Muslims in the area basically have it coming. For example, the aptly-named John Hawkins of the blog Right Wing News recently wrote that the Palestinians "deserve anything and everything that happens to them short of genocide."Again, there are kernels of truth in this perspective (although Hawkins' bizarre formulation takes things well beyond the pale). The Palestinians, after all, did elect a terrorist group to head their parliament, and the threat from Hezbollah, who have taken over southern Lebanon, is not imaginary.The problem is that both sides, regardless of the merits of their argument, display a selective compassion for their team while remaining shockingly dismissive of suffering undergone by the other. In theory, I'm certain that these people believe they are champions of humanity; in reality, they're callous to the point of being inhumane.Israeli citizens, regardless of what one may think of their government, do not deserve to live under the constant barrage of Katyusha rockets and suicide bombers. Furthermore, since their army is based upon universal conscription, it's not even appropriate to argue that their soldiers deserve to die in the southern suburbs of Beirut.While it's true that the Palestinians voted in a Hamas-led government, the tendency is to believe that these virulent haters of Israel enjoy near-universal support. That view is mistaken. Hamas won a majority of seats in the parliament thanks to 44% of the vote. Fatah, their main rival and the heirs to Arafat's legacy, won 42% of the vote. Hardly a landslide. I don't think anyone would argue that all Americans support President Bush, who won in similar fashion.It must also be remembered that people vote for a variety of reasons. Fatah, known for widespread corruption and failure, certainly represented a poor alternative to Hamas, and many Palestinians may have just done what plenty of Americans are keen to do: vote the bastards out. It's also hopelessly naive to look at the Palestinian election as though they had a choice between Hamas and some sort of liberal democratic party of peace and love. Palestinians are in a desperate situation and their options are severely limited. It would be disingenuous to place the blame for this situation on the collective shoulders of the Palestinian people, as if their views are indistinguishable from the military wing of Hamas.Similarly, it's insane to claim that the Lebanese (many of whom, for the ethnically-motivated, are Christians and Druze, not Muslims) deserve their recent cruel fate. Yes, Hezbollah basically owns the southern part of that country, but Lebanon is not a typical nation. They have, since the bestial assassination of former prime minister Hariri in 2005, been trying to eradicate Syrian influence from their country, and their current government, while encouraging, is far from stable. They're certainly not powerful enough to sweep out both Syria and Hezbollah simultaneously and on their own.Many Lebanese despise the influence of Syria and Hezbollah in their country and its politics. Those who do support Hezbollah, mainly the Shi'ite minority in the south, do so for a variety of reasons that are complex and point to a larger religious and ethnic divide in the Muslim world. To say that the Lebanese en masse deserve the wrath of Israel is to simplify a highly complex problem to the point of absurdity. If the problems of the Middle East were really as simple as some people think (Israel is evil; Muslims are bloodthirsty), then they'd be solved by now.I want to be clear that I'm not arguing that it's impossible to make distinctions in this case or in other Middle East conflicts. I'm just weighing in against the kind of intellectual laziness that prevails these days. Fine lines of distinction can be drawn without stripping away the complexity of the situation and certainly without denying the humanity of the people put in harm's way. It's inevitable that civilians die in modern warfare, whether by accident or by design, but there is no calculus of death. The people dying are people with families and friends who mourn their loss.This grief exists outside of politics. We'll need to recover our humanity to realize this. Originally published as (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding?

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

In Defense of Heterodoxy

Pete Blackwell — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 16:10:38 EDT

Andrew Sullivan has a post today about the resurgence of ideological purism, quoting a reader who describes being ostracized from a left-wing group for believing that the U.S. did not deserve the 9/11 attacks.I agree that such purism is nefarious and prevalent, but I'm not sure it's on the rise. Weblogistan certainly gives it a new and powerful platform, and so many of the top sites seem to be specifically catered to readers who know what opinions they want to read and know where they can consistently find them. In my experience, however, ideological purism has been both a constant threat and a consistent temptation, and it is by no means limited to politics.When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I was a full-on music snob. I would express shock when a like-minded connoisseur would express an appreciation for, say, Pearl Jam, and I would feel pangs of shame if I caught myself singing along to Madonna or some other cantor non grata in the hipster universe (nowadays it is perfectly OK for a hipster to like Madonna; extra points if it's an ironic appreciation). Worst of all, I would pass judgment on others for their music taste, attributing their penchant for Squeeze or the J. Geils Band to ignorance or some sort of brain defect.I have since learned a powerful lesson: I was being an asshole.Around the height of my music snobbery, I was also an insufferable, puritanical scold when it came to politics and a host of other things as well. I think this is normal for college-aged people who are just coming into adult political and cultural consciousness. Orthodoxy and identification with a group or "type" provide a powerful mooring for the tenderfoot. The problem comes when people can't leave the vestiges of adolescence behind.In real life, identifying yourself wholeheartedly with a "kind of people" is the most insidious form of groupthink and it strips away at the core of your individuality. Any political movement that demands absolute homogeneity from its adherents is suspect, if not downright dangerous. The core responsibility of adherents to Nazism or communism—or any cult-like group for that matter—is fealty to the infallible leadership and the ideals which they jealously guard. Individuality and free-thinking are anathema in an organization where any one member can be expected, as Georg Lukács wrote, to sacrifice his inferior self on the altar of the higher idea.Ideological purism leads to reflexive thinking (if you can call it thinking). It's not whether you like something or agree with something, it's whether you should, and each new choice and new experience sends you racing for the handbook. Ideological maturity, on the other hand, requires an open mind and admits the possibility that you still may have something to learn. A mind that can under no circumstances be changed isn't much of a mind at all.I treasure writers like Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens precisely because I so often disagree with them. They are practitioners of political heterodoxy, and it's readily apparent that the positions they take are based upon personally-held values that are the result of years of intellectual soul-searching rather than adherence to a party line. They may be wrong on occasion—sometimes wildly—but they're writers from whom the discerning reader might hope to actually learn something. That's more than can be said for most of the ink-spillers out there.Ideological purism provides a kind of closed-minded comfort. It encourages engagement only with like-minded partisans and it disdains not only those diametrically opposed, but potential allies who fail to pass the purity test as well. It is, simply put, a way to be politically engaged without all the bother of thinking. Ideological heterodoxy, on the other hand, requires intellectual courage and invites attack from the groupthinkers poised on either horizon. It's also the only way to go to sleep at night burdened only by a shame that is yours and yours alone.Now I think I'm going to go listen to that one Kelly Clarkson song I like. Yeah? Screw you, too!

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

Bush Says Chances of Shooting Down N. Korea Missile "Reasonable"

Pete Blackwell — Sat, 8 Jul 2006 15:58:27 EDT

President Bush held a much vaunted "beyond the beltway" press conference on Friday at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago during which he claimed that we had (and presumably still have) "a reasonable chance" of shooting down a U.S.-bound missile fired by reclusive madman and Hollywood film aficionado (connection, anyone?) Kim Jong Il of North Korea. Sounds nice, but, to paraphrase the Oval Office's previous tenant, it all depends on what the meaning of "reasonable" is.America's missile defense "system" has a less than stellar performance record, with only a 50% success rate in tests. Bush might think that's "reasonable", but I think it's a pretty dodgy number when it comes to the threat of thermonuclear destruction. To make matters worse, the 50% success rate is based on only 10 tests, and, according to Media Matters, "no successful test has occurred in roughly three years and...no test of the currently deployed system as a whole has occurred." I believe things just took a turn from reasonable.To make worse matters still more worse, the 50% figure is inflated. A couple of weeks ago, Jim Bohannon had Victoria Samson as a guest on his popular radio show. Samson is a research associate at the Center for Defense Information and a former contractor for the Missile Defense Agency. She was dubious about our chances of shooting down one of Kim's ICBMs, noting that all of the military's tests were conducted under highly controlled circumstances.The missile interceptor crews knew where the missiles were going to be launched from, when they were going to be launched, and what the intended targets were — and they still got it wrong as often as they got it right. Thanks to vigorous intelligence, we may know the North Korean launch sites, but we don't have the other pieces of the puzzle.Put all this together and it's apparent that the Bush administration's definition of "reasonable" may not be the same as the one you'll find in Webster's. Well, heck, they don't know what "compassionate" or "conservative" mean, either.

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.

Coulter Victimizes the Victims

Pete Blackwell — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:53:55 EDT

Ann Coulter exploded back on the scene last week with her despicable comments about anti-war 9/11 widows. She said, amongst other awful things, "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much."I'm sure you'll be shocked and amazed to learn than this line comes from her brand new book, Godless, which accuses liberals of being, well, godless, and which currently sits atop the Amazon.com bestsellers list. The above link is to a Howard Kurtz column in the Washington Post in which he argues that perhaps the media ought to stop feeding this ravenous publicity beast. She might just go away.Kurtz is entirely correct to point out, however, that there is a tiny nugget of a valid point secreted beneath all those layers of Coulterian boilerplate. Here's how he puts it: "...once widows turn themselves into political activists, their personal tragedies should not shield them from rebuttal..."As Matt Lauer rightly noted on the Today show, Coulter disproves her own argument by attacking the widows, as many a right-winger has done to Cindy Sheehan as well. The animus directed at Coulter in this case comes not from her temerity in challenging the widows' political views, but from the inhuman callousness of her attack.Every American has the right to enter the political debate — for any reason. The 9/11 widows and Cindy Sheehan — not to mention Terri Schiavo's parents — have as much right as anyone else to their political views. But, and this is crucial, they have no special right to influence public policy. Their stories may be compelling, even tragic. That might give them a bigger soapbox or a louder megaphone, but it should never give them an extra vote. Their experiences may well give them a special understanding of the issues. Most people will thankfully never know what it's like to have a loved one die in a terror attack or in battle, but public policy, as the name implies, affects everybody, and no one, regardless of private pathos, has a special right to dictate how other people should feel. This is why the sentencing of criminals is done by a dispassionate judge rather than by the victim's family. Justice is supposed to serve the public good, not the frayed emotions of those personally affected.Whenever a victim of a tragedy willfully takes to the public stage to advocate policy, they open themselves up to legitimate criticism. If they choose to open up their private tragedy to public scrutiny, they have no right to wear the unimpeachable mantle of the victim. That said, their critics have a responsibility to criticize their ideas without belittling their pain. Ann Coulter serves as a handy reminder that this is not always borne out in practice.The irony is that Coulter goes ballistic about these women profiting from their pain and bereavement despite the fact that she is doing exactly the same thing, but in an even more underhanded manner. Even if you violently disagree with the political views of the terror widows and Cindy Sheehans of the world, you can at least understand that they are motivated by their pain and grief. Coulter, on the other hand, is motivated by nothing other than greed and vindictiveness. And she's cashing in big-time.

Pete Blackwell is a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm. He lives in St. Louis, Gateway to the West and proud home of Provel cheese.