SFBG Blogs

Nite Trax: The Jeff Mills mix that made me live in 2008

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Nite Trax: The Jeff Mills mix that made me live in 2008

I’m a-freezing my hanukkah latkes off in Detroit right now (-10 wind chill), so maybe it’s appropriate, among the blizzard of end-of-year lists, that I pop in my hot mix of the year. All 45 Ghostworld conga-line minutes of Detroit wizard Jeff Mills’ triple-table symphonic techno tour de force, “The Exhibitionist.”

Before the techno purists claw my ears out, yes this mix came out in late 2k7 — but I’m on drag time. (I also grew up listening to Jeff as the Wizard, with the Memorexes to prove it, so I can name him king of any damn year I want.)

What really got me about this mind-blowing performance (the sleeve clean at 17:20 made me burst into tears) was how Mills tweaked the massive global rhythms that have always existed subconsciously below fine techno’s surface to come up with the kind of polyrhythmy that dubstep can only achieve at its best. Kinda space samba-y.

Not that it’s a competition — and I was addicted to more dubstep mixes this year than I can count — but I’m a technoist at heart, and this mix really said something I’ve been trying to say for years: that machine music possesses a global soul. I will eternally worship the person who transcribes this for the New York Philharmonic. Or whips out the entire set at Carnaval.

BONUS: Some SF-made mixes I loved this past year:

Lazer Sword: Future Blaps

Kontrol: XLR8R techno tear-up

Richie Panic: An Amazing Lifelike Companion

Public: all mixes (esp. Metallica)

Will Durst: If the shoe fits, hurl it

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By Will Durst

The President of the United States looked into the sole of another foreigner- twice- as a pair of shoes was flung at him during a Baghdad press conference on a surprise visit to Iraq. And though a lame duck, he proved to be one hell of a ducker. Some might say “the mother of all duckers.” The biggest shock may be how well he went to his left. And thank god it WAS a surprise visit or the assailant might have had time to assemble an arsenal more potent than his size 10s. Any half way decent computerized re-enactment would surely show size 13 Timberlands clipping their intended target.

An international outcry has arisen over the actions of Muntadhar al Zaidi the irate Iraqi TV reporter slash shoe- flinger. Not because of his “if the shoe flies, hurl it” philosophy, but because his aim was so ducking bad. And he stopped after two shoes. That’s right. For the first time in what may be recorded history, a person is the recipient of worldwide scorn for not being a centipede. A female centipede. Because then chances increase tenfold he would have had a matching handbag or fifteen to lob as well.

A Tom and Jerry Christmas: It’s hard out there for a Grinch

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By Justin Juul

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Oh yes, it’s all real

Can we all just take a minute and stop pretending that the holidays are fun? I mean sure, there are more opportunities to drink before nightfall, and sure, we’ll probably all get new iPhones. But come on! Christmas is like the most annoying time of the year. Not only do we have to spend cash on other people, but we also have to donate an incalculable amount of our free time to activities we’d normally avoid. Forget about going to the gym or watching a movie; the next two weeks are gonna be nothing but awkward work parties, shopping, cooking, and listening to music that makes you remember your childhood. Not fun.

It’s easy to get depressed over the holidays for these reasons, but it’s always better to just bear through the ordeal with a smile. After all, there are millions of people with problems far worse than our own. Starving children, homeless people, and the housebound elderly come to mind, but that’s not who I’m talking about. I’m talking about the one group of people to whom the holidays are a true burden: obsessive decorators.

Think about it. The holidays may mean that you and I will have to throw some sparkly shit on a dead tree or light some candles, but that’s nothing compared to what folks like Tom Lawson and Jerry Goldstein (AKA the cutest couple in the world), have to deal with. These guys spend weeks preparing their holiday display and the cost is through the roof. I mean, dude, look at that tree! The lights alone must cost thousands of dollars to operate. And just imagine how much effort it takes to get all that stuff up there? It’s a wonder that Tom and Jerry even bother with the holidays, but they always have and they always will.

Why? Well, that’s a good question. The Guardian stopped by the Goldstein/Lawson residence (3650 21st ST) a few times this week to get the scoop.

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Tom and Jerry, in the spirit

SFBG: That’s a helluva set up you got there. How long have you been doing this?
Tom Lawson: Oh, I guess it’s been almost 20 years now.

SFBG: Jesus, man. That’s a long time. Has it always been this big?
Lawson: Oh, it’s always been on the bigger side of things, but it’s definitely grown over the years. It’s gotten pretty out of hand, actually.

SFBG: How much does something like this cost?
Lawson: Well, we don’t discuss things like that, but I will say it’s not cheap. I mean look, that crane alone costs $3,000. And then I gotta hire a Santa Clause and everything. And then of course, there’s my crew. They’ve been with me forever.

SFBG: Are they like your personal elves or something?
Lawson: Ha! Don’t let them hear you say that. No, I’m a property manager and this is my work crew. When Christmas rolls around we stop working regular jobs and we put all of our energy into this.

SFBG: Why?

Ammiano: Rick Warren to wear lipstick

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Today’s Ammianoliner:

In a conciliatory gesture Rick Warren will wear lipstick. “Obama, what was that remark about a pig?”

(From the home telephone answering machine of Assemblyman Tom Ammiano Friday, December 19, 2008.)

Announcing: P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2008

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By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon

Now in their 17th year, the P.U.-litzer Prizes recognize some of the nation’s stinkiest media performances. As the judges for these annual awards, we do our best to identify the most deserving recipients of this unwelcome plaudit.

Announcing the P.U.-litzers Prizes for 2008:

HOT FOR OBAMA PRIZE — MSNBC’s Chris Matthews
This award sparked fierce competition, but the cinch came on the day Obama swept the Potomac Primary in February — when Chris Matthews spoke of “the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.”

BEYOND PARODY PRIZE — Fox News
In August, a FoxNews.com teaser for the “O’Reilly Factor” program
said: “Obama bombarded by personal attacks. Are they legit? Ann Coulter comments.”

Republicans are stupid

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By Steven T. Jones

Forgive the blunt headline, but it seems to me an inescapable conclusion based on the ridiculousness going on right now in Sacramento. Since writing about Republican legislators’ illogically doctrinaire opposition to taxes in this week’s paper, I’ve now watched the Democrats come up with a dishonest yet effective way around the blockade.

Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed with the legally dubious tax gambit, noting that desperate times require desperate measures. But then he vetoed the bill, criticizing Democrats for not making deep enough spending cuts in social services that people need most during hard times. This is the guy who keeps saying we face “fiscal Armageddon” if we don’t act immediately (and his best shot doesn’t take effect for another month and a half). And then, he has the balls to summon back the legislators, who had already stretched in barely legal ways to work around the Republican temper tantrum.

Let me say it again: Republicans are stupid, and California is about to start paying a heavy price for that stupidity.

HuffPo: The future of journalism, or its death?

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By Steven T. Jones

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the Huffington Post, and not just because of media-savvy founder Arianna Huffington’s convenient conversion from neocon darling to progressive populist. No, for me, as a struggling newspaper journalist of 17 years (and with the debt to prove it), I’m bothered by a business model that relies on free content. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe writers — even that subspecies known as bloggers — should be paid for their work. More media, great; more exploitation of media professionals, not so great.
But of even greater concern is that HuffPo has apparently been outright stealing content from other outlets that do pay their writers, as a post and discussion over at the Chicago Reader’s blog details. I’ve heard these stories for quite awhile and I know some of the victims, so it doesn’t seem like this is an isolated instance.
At a time when my profession has been decimated by corporate layoffs and challenged by evolving expectations of readers, HuffPo often get held up as a model for the future. In fact, they reportedly have their sights set on the San Francisco media market, flush with venture capital cash. Unless they can figure out a way to pay reporters for working a beat, HuffPo could be a huge contributor to journalism’s demise rather than its savior.

Jews rock out for Hanukkah as if the Spanish Inquisition never happened

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Old-school musical mash-ups – hold the torture: DeLeon.

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Eight days of fun packed into one night: two bands, DJs, latkes, He’Brew beer tastings, halvah, Hanukkah survival kits, and a menorah-lighting ceremony – this surely surpasses any party Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, and Blitzen are planning to throw this holiday season.

New York band DeLeon reinterprets pre-Spanish Inquisition Sephardic folk melodies sung in Ladino (a Judeo-Spanish language), Hebrew, and English into postmodern rock compositions. Fusing Spanish and Middle Eastern percussion and electronic rhythms along with a mixture of each aforementioned language, DeLeon’s songs commandeer an array of emotions, ranging from lovelorn and woeful to lighthearted and gleeful, while reclaiming an ancient folk tradition for a modern audience.

Sonic Reducer Overage: High on Fire, Fall Out Boy, Black Fag, and so much more

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Hang time: High on Fire’s “Hung, Drawn, and Quartered.”

Cool, ain’t it? The fun just keeps coming in chilly-chilly-chill SF. Here are a few more musical note-worthies.



BART DAVENPORT
Soulful and sweet as it comes – thanks to the Oakland singer-songwriter. With Brian Glaze and the Night Shift, the Dry Spells, and DJ Lithuanian Prince. Thurs/18, 9 p.m., $8. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. (415) 621-4455.


HIGH ON FIRE
Get an earful of this week’s “Year in Music” cover dude Matt Pike and his Bay power trio, High on Fire, a band that has gone far beyond being, as Guardian contributor Mike McGuirk put it, an “outlet for aggression/Yeti poems Pike uses in place of his defunct first band, Sleep, San Jose’s most seminal export.” With Drunk Horse. Thurs/18, 9 p.m., $16. Great American Music Hall, 859 O’Farrell, SF. (415) 885-0750.

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HIGHTOWER
The SF thrashers throw a benefit for Bordertown-Oakland Skate Park. With the Ferocious Few. Thurs/18, 9 p.m., $5. Thee Parkside, 1600 17th St., SF. (415) 503-0393.

Scene: Bersa Discos hits the bueno

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Here’s an interview with new-cumbia whizzes Bersa Discos — on the eve of their party Tormenta Tropical’s first anniversary this Friday at the The Elbo Room — as published in this week’s Scene: The Guardian Guide to Nightlife and Glamour magazine, on stands inside the Guardian…

“The reception to our sound has been amazing here,” says new-style cumbia pioneer DJ Oro11 — who, along with partner DJ Disco Shawn, heads the Bersa Discos label (www.myspace.com/bersadiscos) and puts on the packed Tormenta Tropical monthlies at Elbo Room. “A place like the Bay Area is a perfect spot for new cumbia sounds to take hold. People here are always looking for new music, plus there’s obviously a huge Latino population. A lot of younger Latinos who grew up hearing cumbia also listened to hip-hop and electronic music. They’re really into what we’re doing.”

Cumbia, the irresistible traditional accordion-driven dance music of Latin America (originally from Colombia), has undergone a mutation of sorts, opening up to include electronic augmentation, hip-hop beats, and even punk styles. The new iteration has taken hold in clubs like the cutting-edge Zizek, in Buenos Aires, where Oro11 was living and performing when Disco Shawn sought him out in 2006 for a taste of the electro-cumbia sound. The two returned to San Francisco, their home base, to form the Bersa Discos label as a kind of sonic nexus. “DJs and producers were selling burned CDs and swapping MP3s, but nothing was very organized at the time,” says Disco Shawn. “We just wanted to get some of these amazing tracks pressed up on vinyl and circulated a little more officially.”

Bersa Discos is now on its fourth release, titled, appropriately, Bersa #4 and featuring Afro-Colombian-tinged tracks by Brooklyn’s Uproot Andy and deeper sounds from the Netherlands’ Sonido del Principe. And the Tormenta Tropical party has seen legends like DJ/Rupture, South Rakkas Crew, Buraka Som Sistema, Toy Selectah, and even the Zizek folks burn up the stage. Shawn says to keep a 2k9 ear out for DJ Panik’s Texan “crunk cumbia.” Meanwhile, UK “bashment” crew the Heatwave hop in Dec. 19 to enliven the party’s first anniversary.

SFBG What originally attracted you to the new cumbia style?

ORO11 I first got into cumbia in 2001 while I was in Buenos Aires — the same time that the Argentine economy was collapsing. Kids were still heading to the clubs all night, but as a whole the music was pretty unimpressive. Lots of ’80s, trance, Ramones, and Rolling Stones — seriously, whole subcultures based on those last two. But one day I caught a Sunday TV variety show called Pasion Tropical that had the group Pibes Chorros on. Those dudes were repping heavy keyboard-guitars, long hair, and skull tees. They had a different sound that grabbed me, meaner than most cumbia I had heard. So I started tracking down their mixes, chopping up their samples, and making cumbia remixes with dancehall and hip-hop thrown in. Guys like Marcelo Fabian, Villa Diamante, Sonido Martines, and Daleduro were messing with cumbia too. So we started linking up, throwing parties together. Shawn and I met not too long after and started throwing the idea of Bersa Discos around.

SFBG What are some of your most memorable Tormenta Tropical experiences?

DISCO SHAWN It’s all been amazing. But the best thing has been getting to play with artists whose music I was already a fan of. The crowd has also been great. It’s totally mixed — Latino cumbia diehards, hipsters, dancehall heads, etc. Even better, people are really into dancing. Most of the time we’re playing songs that people don’t know — most of the songs are in Spanish, so a good portion of the crowd may not even understand the language — yet everyone goes crazy on the dance floor. It’s really nice because we’re not slaves to playing any sort of “hits.”

SFBG Drop a new cumbia top five on us.

ORO11 How about these?

Petrona Martinez, “La Vida Vale la Pena (Uproot Andy Remix)”
Los Rakas, “Esa Mulata”
El Guincho, “Kalise (Frikstailers Remix)”
DJ Panik, “Gettin’ Some Head”
BananaClipz featuring MC TIDAL, “Bluetooth Riddim”

TORMENTA TROPICAL ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY
With the Heatwave and Paul Devro
Fri/19, 10 p.m., $10
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
(415) 552-7788
www.elbo.com

Editorial: Beyond the bloody cuts

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Editorial for Wednesday’s Guardian (12/17/08):

Beyond the budget cuts

The crisis is an opportunity–a chance to examine how the city’s current revenue sources are unfair, unstable, and unwieldy

Click here to read EDITORIAL.

EDITOR’S NOTES

By Tim Redmond

San Francisco’s not ready to make $118 million in budget cuts.

Click here for full editor’s notes.

Ammiano throws high heel at governor

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Today’s Ammianoliner:

Girly man throws high heel at governor. Budget this.

(Tom, Tom, watch your enunciation. It is hard to tell if you are saying ‘Budget this” or “Budget dish” and I had three people listen in. Don’t let them knock you off stride in Sacramento.) B3

Will Durst: Giving governors a bad name

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By Will Durst

(Durst is a comedian who writes a little. He is the author of “The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing, the Common Sense Rantings from a Raging Moderate.”)

Hats off to the Illinois Governor for shooting so high above and beyond the normal arc of political malfeasance that he’s probably annoyed NASA by interfering with satellite traffic. After years of highlighting nuances and scrutinizing minute distinctions, it’s downright thrilling to finally find someone acting crookeder than a dump truck full of dissembled wire hangers. Excuse me. I mean, finally finding someone GETTING CAUGHT acting crookeder than a dump truck full of dissembled wire hangers. Not everyday the FBI arrests a sitting Governor at his house at 6 in the morning: We’re talking movie of the week here. I see Casey Affleck in a bad wig. With Aaron Eckhart as Patrick Fitzgerald.

Rod Blagojevich has lined himself up to be the fourth Chief Executive of the Land of Lincoln since 1974 to be offered a long- term residency at the Gray Bar Hotel. That Springfield Capitol building must be quite a feat of social engineering. It seems to work like a halfway house in reverse. He has single handedly smashed all doubts that Chicago is to corruption what Santaland is to elves. What Los Angeles is to plastic surgery stitching. Upper Michigan and deer ticks. The list goes on. Seattle and mildew. See.

Street Threads by night: What are you wearing?

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Guardian photog Ariel Soto continues her quest for San Francisco’s best street togs — this time with an spotlit eye on eveningwear.

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Hanna and Alison, Dolores Park

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Josh, Noe and Elizabeth

Say Ariel: “It was time to venture into the dark and see what stylish San Franciscans wear when they go out on the town. I was quite impressed, especially with some of the long coats and the assortment of unique boots. Even though it is winter, I was able to find great looks, despite the need for a few extra warm layers.”

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Fancy Lady, 23rd St. and San Jose

Pics: SantaCon ho-ho-hos through the city

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By Ariel Soto

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Tis the season to be jolly and this past weekend Santa popped up all over San Francisco to celebrate all that is red, white and green. There were three groups of Santas who gathered in different spots throughout the City. I met up with the group coined Mastrobation in the Mission, where everyone seemed happy to drink beer at 11am and celebrate in their matching velvet outfits. It’s like Bay to Breakers in December. Happy holidays San Francisco!

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Republicans attack education

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By Tim Redmond

The GOP proposal to cut $10 billion out of K-12 education is unconscionable and the Democrats who control the Legislature will never go for it. And the state’s getting sued over low school funding already. But the proposal just shows how bankrupt the GOP ideas are as California struggles with a horrible budget crisis.

First of all, California’s schools are so big, and have so many contracts, that it’s hard to imagine how anyone could simply whack 20 percent of all spending in one year. Even if you wanted to cut spending that much, it would take a couple of years to phase those cuts in (unless you’re interested in wholesale dismantling of public education).

But here’s the nut: Even after destroying the schools, the GOP would still come up radically short in closing the state’s budget gap. The Republican plan covers $22 billion. The deficit is about $40 billion. What about the rest of the money? No answer except “no new taxes.”

Not the the Democrats or the governor are doing a whole lot better, but at least they’re part of the reality-based community. This is going to take a radical combination of cuts and tax increases. Period.

Or perhaps we should simply cut off all state payments to the Legislative districts that have sent no-tax Republicans to Sacramento. No schools, no road repairs, no housing money … nothing for the people who don’t want to pay for it.

The layoff list

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By Sarah Phelan

Mayor Gavin Newsom’s 409 mid-year layoffs mostly target front line staff, who make under $70,000 a year. And that almost 70 percent of these lay-offs (285 positions) are in the Department of Health.

You can read the list here.

(Reader beware! The list is, in itself, fairly impenetrable. So it helps to go online to the City’s compensation manual. Here, you can enter the “class” of job, plus job “class title” to decipher each annual salary. For instance, a 923 Manager 11 makes between $91,000 and $116,000 a year, and we could only find a couple laid off. By contrast, a 1428 unit clerk makes between $45,000 and $55,000 a year–and 49 such clerks got pink slips last week.)

What’s worrisome about the Mayor’s lay-off decisions—aside from the obvious human pain and cost of losing one’s job in the middle of a nationwide recession—is that those left on the job are going to come under increasing physical, mental and employment pressure, as unemployment lines lengthen next year.

That at least was one of the primary concerns that San Francisco General Hospital worker Mike Dingle shared with me last week, outside the first public hearing into the Mayor’s proposed cuts–a hearing only made possible thanks to Board President Aaron Peskin, who folded the Mayor’s $118 million proposal (which up until then had been negotiated exclusively behind closed doors) and his own package of cuts into brand new legislation, so that all the proposed cuts can now be publicly reviewed

Dingle handles bodies, “both the living and dead” as he put it, as part of SFGH’s patient lift team. And from his position in the front line trenches, Dingle is predicting that one of the impacts of Newsom’s layoffs—scheduled to kick in on February 12, 2009– will be increased injuries all around.

SFJAZZ announces the lineup of its 10th Anniversary Spring Season

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This in from SFJAZZ’s people (a total aside: I’m looking forward to Brad Mehldau, Jenny Scheinman, pictured below, as well as Seun Kuti, pictured above. And you know Allen Toussaint and Tinariwen are going to be awesome):

“Randall Kline, the Executive Artistic Director of SFJAZZ – the leading non-profit jazz organization on the West Coast and the presenter of the San Francisco Jazz Festival today announced the complete artist lineup for the 10th Anniversary SFJAZZ Spring Season. The unique and spectacular four-month-long concert series begins on March 6 and continues through June 21. The season will present some of the most illustrious names in jazz, world, and related music including McCoy Tyner, Branford Marsalis, Madeleine Peyroux, Bill Frisell’s Disfarmer Project, Ahmad Jamal, Jenny Scheinman, John Scofield and the Piety Street Band, Kayhan Kalhor and Brooklyn Rider, Tinariwen, Chris Potter Underground, Will Bernard, Mariza, CéU, Mingus Dynasty with John Handy, Allen Toussaint, Karrin Allyson, Idan Raichel, Michael Feinstein: the Sinatra Project, Brad Mehldau, Richard Bona and Lionel Loueke, Roy Hargrove, James Carter, Kenny Burrell, Michael Wolff, Hiromi’s Sonicbloom, and many others.

“’For 26 years, SFJAZZ has been guided by a simple principle: we absolutely love music—and we want to present it in the best possible context for all those who share our passion,’ said Kline. ‘In 2000, we took a huge step forward in that mission by launching the SFJAZZ Spring Season, marking our expansion into a year-round concert presenting organization. Over the last 10 years, the Spring Season has grown exponentially. This year we will present nearly 40 concerts over four months, purposefully matching each artist with the ideal venue for a high-quality listening experience. Our aim is to reflect the tighter, more culturally close-knit nature of today’s world, and the positively open-minded, “multi-culti” city that we call home – San Francisco.’

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Save the Small Business Assistance Center

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As hard times get harder, the small business community is ever more essential to San Francisco

By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Scroll down for this week’s editorials, after the jump)

As the mayor’s drastic package of cuts fall on the Supervisors at their Tuesday meeting,
the questions abound: Why so fast? Why not more discussion and more hearings? Why make the cuts as several supervisors leave the board? Why not wait until the new board is sworn in in January? Why let Mayor Newsom drive the cuts, the agenda, and the timing almost unilaterally?

And there is a key question our editorial points out for Wednesday’s edition:

“Why are we talking about cutting the $800,000 Small Business Assistance Center, which actually helps the most important sector of the economy, when there’s $10 million, much of it redundant, in the mayor’s Office of Economic Development?”

As hard times get harder, the small business community is ever more essential as the city’s economic engine. Small businesses create the most net new jobs in the city, according to major Guardian studies. According to a 2006 study by Economist Kent Sims, Former Mayor Frank Jordan’s economic chieftan, small businesses helped moderate the 2000 to 2004 recession’s negative employment and earnings impact on San Francisco households.

Sims also found that small businesses released less than l0 per cent of their employees during the recession while large businesses released more than 20 per cent of their employees, despite the fact that the two groups of businesses had similar shares of pre-recession private employment. Further, he found that small business layoffs generated about 2l per cent of the negative employment and earnings impacts on San Francisco households in 2003, compared with 79 per cent for large businesses. And of course we all know that it is the small businesses that keep our neighborhoods friendly, vibrant, and economically productive. For example, on the economic point, the Guardian’s Shop Local campaign may put $l00 million into the local economy, immediately. (We are asking our 600,000 or so readers to spend at least $l00 in a locally owned business.)

You get the point. Now more than ever, small business ought to be nourished and protected, not put to the slashers once again at City Hall. The supervisors need to keep the Small Business Assistance Center in the budget and, if necessary, slash the mayor’s $10 million Office of Economic Development. And then the supervisors should take a deep breath, postpone the final vote until the new board comes in, and start considering the realistic progressive agenda advanced in the editorial and stories in the Guardian. B3

Wilderness on fire at Bottom of the Hill

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Ponderosa stomp: James Johnson of Wilderness. All photos by Lisa Weiss.

By Michelle Broder Van Dyke

Up above the still of a serene California night, a dry thunderstorm is brewing. Like the tom-heavy drum patterns of Wilderness’ William Goode and the angular guitar lines of Colin McCann, the dry lightning splits from the sky striking down on Earth, igniting wildfires. The blaze destroys in a gradual and shapeless but fierce trail that builds as James Johnson’s howls brew from the bottom of his belly, filling his throat before rising and bursting forth like a clairvoyant issuing forth the voices of the dead, while Brian Gossman sustains the flames with long-held bass notes.

Or at least that’s what I imagined as I watched Wilderness perform at Bottom of the Hill on Thursday, Dec. 11. Their distinct post-punk sound builds on echoes that resound throughout the space, stirring the vibrations until trance-like they seep into your pores and take over, completely hypnotizing you. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the audience began speaking in tongues.

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Save Muntader al-Zaidi!

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By Tim Redmond

Okay, let’s get this straight right away: I don’t believe anyone should throw a shoe at the president. In fact, I told my son this morning (perhaps a bit too loudly) that just because a reporter threw a shoe at George W. Bush doesn’t mean he can throw things at his sister.

But seriously: After all that Bush has done in Iraq — after all the Iraqis killed and maimed, after the devastation that country has seen — it’s hard to blame the guy.

But already, the Iraqi security forces have beaten him pretty badly — they “kicked him and beat him until he was crying like a woman,” said Mohammed Taher, a reporter for Afaq, a television station owned by the Dawa Party. You can hear him howling on the YouTube video; it’s almost painful to listen. And he faces seven years in prison. I’m sure the prisons in Iraq are just lovely, too.

What a way for Bush to end his presidency — watching a guy who threw shoes at him get beaten and dragged away to a long, harsh prison term that may well involve abuse and torture.

I’m sure the Bush administration even now is trying to finalize the list of corrupt politicians and white-collar crooks who will walk away with presidential pardons on the last day of his term. I think we should all call on Bush to ask the prime minister of Iraq to pardon Muntader al-Zaidi.

Free Press Welcomes News of Next FCC Chair

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WASHINGTON — According to news reports, President-elect Barack Obama will appoint Julius Genachowski as chair of the Federal Communications Commission.

Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, issued the following statement:

“Under Julius Genachowski’s leadership, the FCC’s compass would point toward the public interest. President-elect Obama has provided a clear roadmap of his media and technology priorities. We share Obama’s goals of creating a more diverse, democratic media system and providing fast, affordable, open Internet access for everyone. We greatly look forward to working with Mr. Genachowski to put the president-elect’s plan into action.

“The challenges facing the next FCC are enormous — a vast digital divide, an open Internet in jeopardy, consolidated media ownership, newsrooms in economic freefall and entrenched industries invested in maintaining the status quo. This moment calls for bold and immediate steps to spur competition, foster innovation and breathe new life into our communications sector. With his unique blend of business and governmental experience, Genachowski promises to provide the strong leadership we need.”

Wall Street Journal: Obama to Nominate Genachowski to Head FCC

Read 2009 Media & Tech Priorities: A Public Interest Agenda: http://www.freepress.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2009techpolicy.pdf

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Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications. Learn more at www.freepress.net

REPORT: Recommendations on Political Appointments

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Center for American Progress

REPORT: Let’s Get It Started

What President-Elect Obama Can Learn from Previous Administrations in Making Political Appointments

By Anne Joseph O’Connell

Key recommendations

WASHINGTON, DC—If President-elect Obama follows the example of recent presidents, he will finalize his initial top picks for the cabinet and heads of other major agencies by Inauguration Day but will take much longer to select individuals for lower layers of the bureaucracy. Staffing these lower but still critical positions is remarkably challenging. It takes many months to get the first wave of appointees into the bureaucracy. Once filled, these positions do not stay occupied for long. And near the end of a term or administration, these political positions empty out yet again.

Barry Bonds’ grand adventure

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By Dick Meister

Barry Bonds is excited. “Really excited!” he exclaims. “It’s awesome really gets your blood pumpin”

Ah, he must mean how it felt blasting those record-breaking 762 homeruns during his quarter-century as a Major League Baseball superstar. No, his baseball career apparently behind him, Barry is finding his excitement elsewhere these days. He keeps the adrenalin flowing by shooting and killing animals for fun and profit as a spokesman for Christensen Arms, a Utah company specializing in high-powered hunting rifles.

You can see Barry at work in a new seven-minute online video, shot for his employer in the woods of Saskatchewan. He seems to be enjoying himself immensely, laughing, shouting gleefully, seemingly breathless with excitement, as dramatic background music pulses loudly.

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