Bush has promised to double aid to Africa over the next five years. Having spent a month living in rural Tanzania, seeing Africa’s poverty and its peoples’ immense beauty with my own eyes, I can only welcome this news with open arms. In similar news, Nigeria has been granted $18bn in debt relief, something I’m sure will go quite a ways toward helping them. Really, I’m rather shocked to see how well Live8‘s efforts prior to the G8 summit are going. Now I just hope that these governments hold to their pledges. This is the real way to fight a war on terrorism. This is the real way to spread freedom and peace.
Monthly Archive for June, 2005
Having done a few college visits, I think I can say with certainty that visiting a place for one day, especially if you’re in the company of people trying to make it look good, doesn’t give you an idea of what conditions at the place are truly like. Nevertheless, this technique is good enough for Congressional representatives on a “fact-finding mission” to Guantanamo Bay. I could get all political, but I won’t. Because the BBC has provided something better.
They watched the interrogation of three suspects, including one in which a detainee was read a Harry Potter book aloud for hours until he turned his back and put his hands over his ears.
Who knew that terrorists had feelings similar to Christian fundamentalists?
The Guardian has gone and started the dangerous game of questioning pop lyrics:
Is there any point trying to get meaning from the wishy-washy lyrics of bands such as Coldplay, Keane and Snow Patrol? Or have musicians just run out of things to say?
One does have to ask if pop music ever said much of anything comprehensible. I think of classic songs like Don McLean’s “American Pie” or the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and they come across as pretty non-sensical, too. Or how about Pink Floyd and “Dark Side of the Moon”? This shouldn’t be taken as a defense of Coldplay, mind you. I do enjoy listening to Coldplay, but it’s certainly not for their lyrical genius or inventive melodies. I make no mistakes about “Speed of Sound” making any more sense or sounding much different from “Clocks”. Hell, I’m an aerospace engineer, so I study things that happen at the speed of sound, and that song… well, it certainly doesn’t represent it with “birds go flying at the speed of sound / to show you how it all began”. But I’m not convinced that popular songs from years past were much better off.
What really interested me about this article is the fact that it more or less ignores artists who actually have lyrics that make sense. Or lyrics that make sense but are difficult to decipher (Alanis Morissette, anyone?). Their examples of better crafted modern lyrics come from the likes of Franz Ferdinand, another group I listen to, but really more for the sound. I mean, “I am the new Scottish gentry / anglofied vowels, sub-London thoughts” repeated over and over isn’t exactly high on the poetry scale, either.
Where are the singer/songwriters of today in this? Where’s Rufus Wainwright (or his sister Martha, for that matter)? Damien Rice? John Ondrasik? Sarah McLachlan? Sheryl Crow? I’d say Mic Christopher, but I don’t think anyone outside of Europe has heard of him except for me.
Maybe the Guardian is stuck up on popular British artists with lyrics that make sense. If so, Travis is a good sight better than Coldplay, and they’ve got a card of widespread popularity that my favorite band has yet to receive.
Ah well… at least I’ve got my playlists well in hand.
be my muse, hypotenuse, twice the one i am
divide by nothing to give me everything
break the code or split the atom
we extricate, extrapolate,
prove ourselves together
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