by David Burn | Mar 11, 2006 | Media
I’m listening to Ike Carter’s “Nothin’ but the Blues” on Savannah State University Radio, WHCJ 90.3 FM. It airs every Sat. morning from 8:00 to 12:00.
At the moment, Mr. Carter is kicking a lot of Muddy Waters from the 40s and 50s. You can’t ask for more than that from a DJ.
According to Wikipedia, The station just recently started broadcasting 24 hours a day. The station’s signal covers all of Chatham County, and can also be heard in Effingham, Bryan, Beaufort, and Liberty counties.
WHCJ plays jazz, reggae, gospel, blues, and salsa music in addition to featuring a lineup of talk shows, commentary, and cultural enrichment programs that provide a major source of programming for the African-American community.
Given that music is the universal language, I’d say the larger community is also well served by SSU’s radio station. Lovers of the blues, gospel and jazz would do well to make sure this station is properly funded.
by David Burn | Mar 10, 2006 | Politics
Photo by Larry Downing of Reuters
by David Burn | Mar 9, 2006 | Food & Beverage
Bojangle’s country ham biscuits
by David Burn | Mar 6, 2006 | Place, The Environment
We took a day trip to Cumberland Island National Seashore yesterday.
Cumberland is located off the southernmost part of the Georgia coast, and can be reached by boat only. Two ferry trips a day are conducted from St. Mary’s. The roundtrip is $15, plus a $4 entry free in to the National Park.
One of the largest undeveloped barrier islands in the world, Cumberland is home to about 250 wild horses–brought to the island by the Spanish in the 1550s.
In preparation for this post, I clicked through several Google links, and found City of Dust to be a remarkable source for historical information. Most visitors know about the Carnegie family’s presence in the late 19th and early 20th century, as the Dungeness ruins are one of the island’s attractions. What I did not know was Charles Fraser’s role in acquiring 3000 acres of Cumberland Island property for development in the 1960s, an act that precipitated a battle with legendary environmental activist, David Brower of The Sierra Club.
Given that we know all too well what Fraser achieved 110 miles to the north, it’s a relief to know things didn’t go his way on Cumberland.
According to Wilderness Society, there’s still plenty of preservation work to be done on the island. When it comes to protecting our last great places from developers, it seems the work is never done.
by David Burn | Mar 1, 2006 | Music
Eric Levy, a scholar from University of Illinois at Chicago presented a paper with a fascinating title last month at Southwest Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Assocation’s annual conference in Albuquerque.
“When the Secrets All Are Told and the Petals All Unfold”: On Joycean Epiphany in Hunter/Garcia’s “Wharf Rat?”
I sure would like to read it. While Joyce mystifies me, I hope to one day expand my comprehension. And I love the song, one Jerry’s most heartfelt ballads.
[via Uncle John’s blog]
by David Burn | Mar 1, 2006 | Politics
John David Rose examines the Bush budget and what it means for middle class Americans. Bottom line, it means those calling the shots in our executive branch firmly believe you’re way too busy trying to make ends meet to question, much less challenge, their arrogant and reckless ways.
Republicans brag that the president increased veterans’ medical care budget $1.9 billion in 2007. Well, there are lies, damned lies and Republican budgets.
What they don’t tell you is that, in order to save tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, veterans’ programs will be cut by $10.3 billion over the next five years.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (who provided the figures for Rose’s editorial), “Given the rising cost of medical care — and especially the large number of wounded servicemen returning from Iraq and Afghanistan — the reductions after 2007 are almost certainly not tenable.”
The disdain for the disempowered in our culture that daily emanates from Pennsylvania Avenue can no longer be tolerated. We can either get together and eradicate this elitist manipulation, or we can continue to suffer the consequences well in to the next decade and beyond.
by David Burn | Mar 1, 2006 | Music
Novelist, Brendan Halpin doesn’t like Wilco’s live album, Kicking Television.
I received the Wilco live album, Kicking Television, for Christmas, and I was very excited. But after a couple of listens, I have to say I think Wilco might be heading into that “good at what they do but not really for me” category. Why reproduce the horrible noise from “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” live? Does anybody think, “You know, what I really love about that record is the unlistenable noise between the otherwise great songs. The parts that are almost impossible to listen to really make it. Boy, I hope they have a radio tuned between stations when they play live!” Also, would it kill you to rock just a little bit?
Maybe he ought to go for Tweedy solo at The Vic. There’s no screeching. The songs are front and center.
by David Burn | Feb 28, 2006 | Politics
As Iraq teters on the verge of Civil War–a condition, we can be certain, the Bush team never planned for–a principal architect of the adminisration’s foreign policy has come out (in a book) against the very ideas he once championed.
From Scotsman.com:
Neoconservativism has failed the United States and needs to be replaced by a more realistic foreign policy agenda, according to one of its prime architects.
Francis Fukuyama, who wrote the best-selling book The End of History and was a member of the neoconservative project, now says that, both as a political symbol and a body of thought, it has “evolved into something I can no longer support”. He says it should be discarded on to history’s pile of discredited ideologies.
In an extract from his forthcoming book, America at the Crossroads, Mr Fukuyama declares that the doctrine “is now in shambles” and that its failure has demonstrated “the danger of good intentions carried to extremes”.
In its narrowest form, neoconservatism advocates the use of military force, unilaterally if necessary, to replace autocratic regimes with democratic ones.
A former State Deparment official, Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on democratization and international political economy.
by David Burn | Feb 26, 2006 | Politics
Time reports that U.S. families in search of affordable heating oil are finding it in the strangest of places–a program run by Citgo that makes 40% discounts available to low-income Americans. Citgo is owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Congressional conservatives feel U.S. cities should not be helping improve the image of Chavez, one of President Bush’s most strident critics. But U.S. Representative, Chaka Fattah of Philadelphia, says, “The U.S. buys 1.5 million barrels of oil from Venezuela each day at full price, so why would anyone complain about getting some at almost half price?”
Philadelphia, Boston, the Bronx and cities in Maine, Vermont and Rhode Island have received a total of 45 million gallons of the subsidized Citgo fuel, and other cities are slated for another 5 million soon. That’s a small percentage of the heating oil Venezuela exports to the U.S. each year, but Citgo says it has set aside about 10% of its refined petroleum products for the program. Says Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, D.C., “Unfortunately for the Bush Administration, Chavez is proving to be a more inventive thinker in terms of hemispheric politics.”
Critics suggest Chavez’s oil diplomacy is simply a ploy to take consumers’ minds off of record high oil prices, which are partly a result of his efforts to rebuild the power of OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member.
Venezuela’s Ambassador to the U.S., Bernardo Alvarez, one of the program’s architects says the Citgo program does give Chavez a chance to showcase “one of our revolution’s most important principles: the redistribution of oil revenues, especially for the poor.”
Alvarez, also says the Citgo program is proof that Chavez’s revolution is still fond of Americans, if not their government.
by David Burn | Feb 24, 2006 | Digital culture, Literature
In the Mormon faith, members baptize thier ancestors into the LDS Church posthumously, ostensibly overriding whatever beliefs the person may have had while alive.
Now we have a similar take on dead writers from present day Los Angeles writer, Paul Davidson. For certainly, great thinkers of yesteryear would have blogged, had they had the technology to do so.
Davidson’s book, The Lost Blogs, imagines what some of these entries into the narrative database would look like.
According to the description on Amazon, the book offers hundreds of blog posts from the most famous minds in history, such as: John Lennon’s thoughts after meeting a young woman named Yoko Ono. Tips of the trade from Jesus Christ’s carpentry blog, including how to build a combination water and wine rack. Shakespeare’s treatment for a new play about two princes who misplace their horse and carriage and spend the entire play trying to locate it. How a stray hot dog nearly derailed Ghandi’s hunger strike. Jim Morrison’s original lyrics to Light My Fire. And the missing two cents from everyone else who matters.
When Davidson is not busy writing someone else’s blog entries, he makes some pretty funny ones of his own.
Find me someone who is willing to use mayo from someone else’s house other than their own and I’ll show you someone who likes to live on the edge.
For whenever I visit a friend’s home for lunch and I’m given the choice of tuna salad or turkey, egg salad or roast beef, ambrosia salad or an apple, potato salad or french fries, cole slaw or a side salad I will always choose the non-mayo item.
This is primarily because I am afraid of mayonnaise that isn’t mine.
