The Gospel according to Lace.

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World Music

May 5, 2007

Last night was the first (annual?) KPFT World Music Concert and was held at the Artery. I got there a little late; I was told to show up around sundown with my camera so that we could set it up backstage but the venue had begun an hour or so earlier and was already nder way. so I waited until a Pakistani flutist (flautist; they're both in the dictionary) did his set, then a movie was shown about what it is like for a little boy to come to a strange country, not knowing the language, learning to incorporate himself into a new life.

The Pakistani flutist played an instrument whose origin had been traced back to the times of the Pharoahs. As he played, his daughter and neice and some guy came on stage and danced their traditional, very complex costomary dance. It looked quite like River Dance, with a line dance theme and a lot of squats. Their legs must be in terrific shape. I would have liked his music better if he hadn't used a percussion machine, but it did lend itself to a couple of his tunes.

After his set Mark set up the camera in back, then an Iranian "band" came onstage with their country's traditional instruments. The sound had a beautiful clarity to it, ancient riffs played with the modernization of an electric keyboard (and mics, of course.) After their set a more eastern group (India?) came to play their traditional instruments, a more familiar sound and feel, with the sitar and harmonium in tow.

It was a beautiful evening that was not to be missed.

Food Safety Records and Poisonings

I have nothing against the Chinese people; I think they're doing a swell job of exploding onto the global market as best as they know how. But I DO have an enormous problem with the Chinese government. They have lousy, lax safety regulations and are appearing to not give a damn about people. They seem to only be concerned with the bottom line - the money - and it is causing extreme trauma and fatalities all over the globe.

Poisonings - diethylene glycol

5/6/07 - From China to Panama, a Trail of Poisoned Medicine
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/world/americas
/06poison.html?ex=1336190400&en=bb1e413622490327
&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
5/6/07 - Mass poisonings tied to toxic syrup
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld
/2003695413_syrup06.html

4/29/07 - 100 die of diethylene glycol poisoning in Panama
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-04/29/
content_6044072.htm

3/21/07 - FDA Import Alert for diethylene glycol
http://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/ora_import_ia5502.html

10/15/06 - A Killer in a Medicine Bottle Shakes Faith in Government
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/16/world/americas/
16panama.html?ex=1318651200&en=f7da1d1a6fb04fe4&ei=5088...

8/2/96 - Fatalities Associated with Ingestion of Diethylene Glycol-Contaminated Glycerin Used to Manufacture Acetaminophen Syrup -- Haiti, November 1995-June 1996 (so its happened before....)
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00043194.htm

April 30, 2007

According to the New York Times: " The pet food case is also putting China’s agricultural exports under greater scrutiny because the country has had a terrible food safety record.
In recent years, for instance, China’s food safety scandals have involved everything from fake baby milk formulas and soy sauce made from human hair to instances where cuttlefish were soaked in calligraphy ink to improve their color and eels were fed contraceptive pills to make them grow long and slim."
(I hope the previous statement was a rumor...)

There was a woman here in the states who, for a year, tried not to buy anything from China for a year. With a husband and two children she found it very, very difficult and had to just give up on some things because of the prevalence of Chinese products in our system. Due to their disgusting practices such as those listed above, along with a record of complete disregard to human rights and simple decency, I am going to begin a personal campaign to boycott Chinese "goods" as well. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.

More on nasty imported food: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/business/01food.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&en=ede&ex=1335758400

 

My Word

April 29, 2007

Word of the Week: mensch - (Yiddish) A person having admirable characteristics, such as fortitude and firmness of purpose.
In all my days I never expected to have such a collection of mensch in my midst.

Hence, I go blessed.

Business Time

April 24, 2007

Irresponsibility

April 20, 2007

Nice job, NBC and MSNBC. So you fire a guy, Don Imus, blew him off the airwaves for blurting out some banal comment about women on a basketball team rather than simply ousting him for a few weeks without pay, then you turn around this week and broadcast both video and photos of a raving madman.

You have now set the stage for all sorts of people to one-up the killer. Don Imus was an idiot for saying what he did. I am not a fan nor do I approve of displays of bigotry and racism, but it was one stupid comment made on the spur of the moment. You had time, NBC, to mull over the implications and possibilities of airing a dead murderer's self-aggrandizement, knowing he was disjointed and insane, knowing what he had done to so many innocent people and many other victims and survivors of that horrific tragedy.

You not only salted the wound, you dug around in it and ripped open the pain to unbearable extremes. What good did you think would come of this? I know that the FBI have files that no one has ever seen - they're good at hiding things; why would it have been so difficult to hand over every single piece of garbage that this monster sent to you, NOT making copies that could be leaked, NOT allowing your illustrious staff to handle the venom that came your way? But you didn't have the forethought to do this. You, perhaps, were seeking your own aggrandizement via this demented kid, or thinking you were doing someone somewhere a favor... but what you held in your hands didn't answer any questions and you knew this. You knew it wouldn't tell people why it happened, why they (we) lost so much in those hours of terror last Monday, but you just had to honor, even glorify, this fool's wishes.

He made a damned fool of us all and you, NBC and MSNBC, are King Idiot.

Punk Lives On

April 14, 2007

Punk rock is somewhat alive, or at least still breathing, in Texas. I was in on a video shoot at the Artery tonight of The Hates. Quite a nice trio of lads. Older lads, anyway. The drummer looked about 35 or so and he was the youngest. I'm not into punk at all, never was, but I must admit they did a nice set of Rockabilly that I liked. I hope I got some good video for Mark to use in his pieces. I'm working at becoming a better camera-person. Cameradyte. I just made that up. I googled it and it doesn't exist online. Yet. How about, from this point forward, cameradyte describes anyone holding the camera, video or otherwise, while shooting photos or video. A cameradyte. You can quote me on that. Don't bother - I'll just quote myself. Champagne is good for making up your own words. If you can't think of any, give me a shout. I'll think up plenty.

Back in college I used to include a glossary of new phrases and words that I had to make up to describe what I was talking about, like "carpegenesis" - to seize your initiation into this world (like going back to the womb and reliving the birth experience) and "ecocide" (which is now a word but wasn't then) - to annihilate the environment for one's own gain.


Back to work. I'll provide some still shots when I download them from my camera.

Opossum Kingdom

April 11 , 2007

For hours the dogs next door were barking. I've gotten used to it over the last couple of years since the nayber moved in. She's never home so she doesn't teach them when its okay to bark and when its not. So they do it incessantly. I've learned to ignore it. But today it was beautiful outside and I wanted to enjoy a cup of coffee with the girls and have a little peace. We went outside and the barking continued (it'd been going on for about 3 hours at this point.) I banged on the fence and shushed them. They stopped for a moment, then continued. I looked through the slats in the fence and realized they were barking at something sitting on the top of the back fence.

I got my ladder and peered over my side of the fence and saw that it was an opossum. A opossum (what IS the correct grammar here?) This poor opossum was sitting on this fence trying to figure out what was going on. It must have been there all those hours, perhaps waiting for the dogs to go away so it could go back to its little home somewhere. I feared it was rabid because, as all opossums do, it looked a bit ill. I called animal control and they said they wouldn't even come out unless I trapped it first (what the living hell do we pay you guys for, if not to protect us from wild rabid animals? )

So we were on our own. I couldn't find my wild animal trap so I waited. All in all this poor animal was on the fence for at least 4 hours. It finally found a way down and away from the danger of the dogs while I wasn't looking. Say a little prayer for the opossum. The Opossum Prayer.

Poor, confused, blind, scared, sleepy little thing......

Damn dogs.