• Cycling,  History,  Links,  Photography,  Quotes

    Quick tab clearing round up

    Comments Off on Quick tab clearing round up
  • Music

    “I get real depressed and tell everybody”

    That’s my favorite line on Tommy Womack’s latest album “There I Said It“. I like this album a lot. Womack has been on my top three list of favorite living songwriters for several years now, and this is probably his best work to date. It’s a bit more electric than much of his prior work, which usually i don’t like but it works quite well on this album.

    For those of you not familiar with Tommy, he was in the bands Government Cheese and the Bisquits and also worked with Jason Ringenberg on several albums. He’s had five (I think) solo releases; all very good. I’d ordered several of his other albums through his website and he was nice enough to send me an advance copy of There I Said It several months before it came out. I think it’s his best yet. He’s one of the very few non-bluegrass artists I listen to at this point in my musical life.

    I think this is the only album review I’ve done on the blog to date.

    Comments Off on “I get real depressed and tell everybody”
  • Photography

    Swamped

    Work comes at me from all sides, but as the saying goes “I’ll sleep when they drive a stake through my heart”. Here are some recent photos. The Safe Place one is kind of creepy.

    Comments Off on Swamped
  • Iraq

    Response to Subadei

    Subadei was kind enough to post about my earlier Iraq thoughts.

    As the power vacuum created by US withdrawal is quickly filled by the Shia we’ll see a down turn in sectarian violence not the ethnic cleansing many fear. Once they have political control of Iraq what do the Shiites stand to gain through annihilatory tactics waged against the Sunni minority? Such actions would certainly provoke Jordan and Syria as the refugee flood becomes a tidal wave. The Sauds are already waving their fists in response to Sunni deaths at the hands of Shiites and their perceived threat of Iran’s growing influence.

    Actually I don’t see the Shia filling the power vacuum created when the US leaves. The Iraqi Sunni are quite adept at wreaking havoc and I think that would increase with the US gone. The threat we pose is political, whereas the Shia threat is existential.

    I also think I misused the word “state” inaccurately. Most likely the three areas would be a Shia state in the South, a Kurdish one in the north, and a wild, violent region in the middle. I don’t see the Shia (large, unorganized, and ununited) being able to impose a monopoly of violence against a more organized and much more united (smaller in size) Sunni region. Especially if the Saudis and AQ are able to make spoiling attacks and fund the warring factions.

  • America,  Movies,  Society

    An interesting movie

    I finally finished watching the documentary Bastards of the Party, an interesting history of gang activity in Los Angeles from the 40s to the present day. It’s not a balanced take and doesn’t pretend to be, which is quite refreshing.

    One quibble – the historian explaining the rise of crack traced it back to Iran-Contra and the CIA-crack folklore. I’ve always found this ridiculous. It assumes that the government was that clever (doubtful) and also that no one else would have thought of taking a commodity that sells for five cents in South America and selling it for fifty dollars in the US.

    Beyond that though, well worth watching.

    Comments Off on An interesting movie