reason for (cautious) optimism?

just did some light reading on the new defense secretary nominee and his views on various middle east situations:

A political dialogue with Iran should not be deferred until such a time as the deep differences over Iranian nuclear ambitions and its invidious involvement with regional conflicts have been resolved. Rather, the process of selective political engagement itself represents a potentially effective path for addressing those differences.

i can get behind that. the current administration's arrogance and stubborness seem to play right into the attitudes towards the rest of the world that many americans apparently hold. i am of the mind that saying "we won't talk to you until you do what we say" isn't always the best approach. flies and honey, etc.

of course, having said that, there are times when that approach can work. for example, i'm hoping the baker-hamilton's report on iraq to the bush administration starts with the line, "shut up and do what we say".

end-around

that bush is one crafty devil.

Bush has virtually abandoned his veto power, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Bush has vetoed just one bill since taking office, the fewest of any president since the 19th century.

but!

Bush's use of signing statements...has challenged more than 800 laws enacted since he took office, most of which he said intruded on his constitutional powers as president and commander in chief. By contrast, all previous presidents challenged a combined total of about 600 laws.

a signing statement is something a president can issue after he signs a law, basically saying, "hey, you know that law i just signed? i didn't really mean it."

cool.

(blues) rock me

i'm onsite in seattle (actually bellevue) with a company that my company is working with on a project (i know, it sounds wicked cool). i'm sitting in this one guy's cube for the day. he's currently away at a meeting, but he's playing some music on his computer, and by "music" i mean "blues rock".

is there a more vapid genre? i mean, seriously. no disrespect intended to blues lovers.
while i'm not a big blues fan, i certainly respect the work of pioneers like robert johnson, muddy waters, blind willie so-and-so, etc., and would like to check out more of that stuff.

but blues rock, to these ears, is a whole other animal. i'm 99% sure that there has only been one blues rock song written, ever. every song since then has been a cover of that song. done poorly.

apologies to blues rock fans. i know that when you're not feelin' a particular genre of music, it has a tendency to all sound the same. i'm sure others might feel similarly if they perused my music collection. of course, the key difference here is that they would be wrong, whereas i am right.

right like me

thanks to a couple of friends clueing me in to bloglines a few months back, i've become a big blog reader. i read a lot of political blogs, mostly lefty. i try to occassionally check out some right-leaning blogs too, in the interests of hearing all sides. i find that i can't really read conservative blogs for more than a few minutes, though, before i start to lose my marbles.

i sometimes wonder to what extent progressives and conservatives are really that different, versus just being two sides of the same coin. one key difference that i think i've noted is this: conservatives seem consumed with the notion of absolute good and evil.

it is a comforting thought in some ways. if you can convince yourself that the world can be split up into undeniable good and undeniable evil, and if you can further convince yourself that you come down on the side of good, then it pretty much gives you free moral reign to think and do whatever you like, and it will - by definition - be good.

i come down on the side of moral relativism. this is not to say that i think morals have no place in a society; defining morals - or, more accurately, defining laws to govern behavior, which is not necessarily the same thing - is one of society's key functions. it's only to say that there can be danger in thinking that your opinions are grounded in some universal moral absolute. our society once predominantly thought that slavery was morally acceptable. many people in germany thought the third reich was morally justifiable. most of us can look back now and say that these things were wrong. unfortunately, we seem to lack the ability to look at ourselves now with the same critical eye.

conservatives like to accuse progressives of being wishy-washy, flip-floppers, soft, and whatever else. however, what they appear to lack is the sense of perspective, the awareness of others, that might allow them to more objectively judge our nation's actions and their impacts on the world. slave owners in the 1800's didn't care about the impact of slavery on the unlucky souls brought over from africa. all they knew was they had access to a readily available supply of free labor. likewise, if terrorism scares the bejesus out of you, then seeing boatloads of bombs dropped on brown people halfway across the globe might help you sleep better at night.

i don't mean to paint all conservatives with such a broad brush, and i certainly don't equate them with slave owners or nazis. neither am i implying that progressives have all the answers. balance is key, and while those of us on the fringes may have a hard time hearing the opposing viewpoint without frothing at the mouth, the end result will hopefully be something in the middle that is acceptable to all. isn't that how societies are supposed to work?

news flash

a national intelligence estimate reveals what millions of americans already knew before we ever went into iraq:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html?hp&ex=1159156800&en=22b7a0941b08007f&ei=5094&partner=homepage

assuming this story even gets much notice, it probably won't change many minds one way or the other. supporters of the current administration will brush it off as propaganda from the liberal elements of the intelligence community. detractors will just have their existing opinions reinforced.

in other words, we've all pretty much stopped listening to each other or our government anyway.

lesson #1: buddying up to evil

the current administration likes to use the word "evil" a lot to justify their actions. i'm hard pressed to think of a more subjective term:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/08/31/the_true_iraq_appeasers/

show report

one of my bands, knife & son, just played it's inaugural gig at a bar in portland called acme.

i play guitar and sing in the band. it's something i haven't done regularly in a live setting since '97/'98, when magnetic health factory existed for a brief 6 month period as an actual band, and not just me jerking off into an 8-track. in spite of that, i felt pretty calm going into the show, a fact which i attribute to (a) knowing the songs pretty well, and (b) pot.

we were the third of four bands, which made me cringe a little bit since i'm always reluctant to ask friends to come out for a late show (we went on promptly at 11:30). our portland friends are particularly nocturnally-challenged. nonetheless, 3 friends of ours accompanied laura to the show, which was nice to see.

the first act was a woman who went by the name bEe. she sang and made sounds with a little box. it was artsy. i didn't catch enough of it to know if i liked it or not. it may have been the kind of thing that would be better heard on record than live, at least initially. the second band was two women on drums and bass, playing what seemed like more-or-less straight-forward indie rock songs. i'm generally a fan of bands with unorthodox lineups; i like the idea of not being constrained by the usual bass/drums/guitar format (much as i might love that format). again, i didn't catch quite enough of their sound to tell if i thought they were pulling it off or not. our friends gave it the ol' thumbs down, for what it's worth.

we were up next. of all our songs, i think i had been looking forward to the set opener the most. it's exactly the kind of bombast i love. it's got about a two-minute slow-building intro that explodes into guitar frenzy, and it never fails to get my juices flowing. sure enough, it delivered the goods (for me at least).

there wasn't a sound guy at the gig, so we just kind of started playing without giving too much thought to what we would sound like. it felt to me during the first song like we were a little loud, a fact which was confirmed by a patron at the club after we finished the first song. he politely came up to the stage as the song ended and mentioned that we were really loud. definitely not the first time that's happened to me. when i was in shoehouse (an SF band i played bass in), we were oppressively loud (by the guitar player/singer's design) and were told as much at least once a gig. i was always a fan of backing off the volume a little bit in that band, so i was slightly chagrined to be right back in that position our very first song out of the gate. anyway, paul (the lead guitar player, who generally plays a bit louder than me) and i both turned down our amps, and heard no further complaints (probably because we drowned them out).

i just realized that i forgot to mention one of the more interesting subtexts to the show. our bass player hails from albequerque, new mexico. the more astute (i.e., nerdy) indie rockers among you will immediately recognize this as the home of the shins. sure enough, turns out that sergio is actually friends with marty crandall (i think that's his name; i'm too lazy to google it), the keyboard player in the shins. apparently they played in a band together way back when. and, wouldn't you know it, the band all live in portland now.

nonetheless, when sergio said earlier in the evening that he had called marty and invited him to come, i chalked it up to one of those "yeah, right, one of the shins is gonna come see our first gig" moments. shows how much my cynical ass knows. not only does the dude come, he sits front and center for the entire ear-splitting performance. i would be lying if i said this wasn't just the tiniest bit distracting. i mean, it's hard to focus on one's chops and licks when you're busy mentally rehearsing your sub pop deal-signing.

anyway, the rest of the set went pretty well. one of my big concerns had been remembering all the lyrics. this is not normally something i have a problem with, but roughly one-third to one-half of them had been written several days before the gig. luckily, i seemed to mostly nail 'em (which i realize is something that would matter to no one other than the singer). also, the little guitar riff thing that i play on "landmine heart" often gives me trouble in practice, and i figured it would be no different live. but i think i managed to play it well enough that my fuck-ups didn't register too much with whoever in the audience was actually listening.

the set seemed to go by fast, which it probably did; we only played 7 songs, clocking in at just over half an hour. i think one should err on the side of brevity for a first gig, particularly when we didn't exactly have all the songs down 100%. as it turned out, though, there was really only one screw up of note, and we got back on track within a few chords.

oh, and one more thing: also sitting up close to the stage during our set was this weird shaved-head guy. i was intentionally trying not to scan the crowd too much and just focus on playing, but occassionally out of the corner of my eye, i'd catch a glimpse of this guy, and he was always doing something weird. at one point, it looked like he had his hands clamped over his ears and was rocking back and forth in his seat. laura told me afterwards that he was rocking out pretty hard at various points during the set.

anyway, after the show, he came up to the stage (i didn't realize he was the guy i had noticed at first) and was very complimentary. i thanked him politely. then he kept talking. and talking. and the more he talked, the weirder he sounded, and the more i wanted to focus on packing up my shit. he finally took off after saying something like "i have to go pee".

later on, laura and i were sitting out on the back patio enjoying a drink. i suddenly saw the same guy again out of the corner of my eye. he was standing next to a planter, and was leaning in close to the plants. i realized he was talking to them. he had a salacious grin on his face, like he was wooing them. i had visions of him recognizing me and coming over to talk, which made me extremely nervous. i avoided making eye contact, but i couldn't help but sneak a peek. it was then that i saw him doing what i can only describe as eating one of the plants. i grabbed my drink and said "we're going back inside". laura was extremely confused; i hadn't said anything because i didn't want to draw the guy's attention. i probably looked almost as crazy to her as that guy did to me.

oh, and one last thing: paul mentioned that the willamette week (one of the portland free weeklies) called us "son of knife" in the show listing. rock.