by Chris Barrus
“You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the US of arrogance and Germany doesn’t want to go to war.” – Anonymous
Canadian post-rock music collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor were held for questioning as possible terrorists at an Oklahoma gas station last weekend.
According to Tom Windish, a representative for the band at The Billions Corporation, the band pulled their two vans and white-panel truck, which they use for toting equipment, into an area gas station to refuel. Upon seeing the motley crew of nine musicians, the station’s attendant phoned the police, reporting the possibility that the band might be terrorists.
Before even having a chance to leave the station, the group was reportedly surrounded by police cars and FBI agents who, a representative for Chicago’s Abbey Pub, where the band played this weekend, said had guns drawn. The band was held for questioning for roughly three hours before finally being released as innocents. “They get hassled by The Man regularly,” said Bruce Adams, co-founder of the Chicago-based label Kranky. “Police pulling them over, anything you can imagine. It’s just the feeling in the country right now.”
“I just feel very lucky that we weren’t Pakistani or Korean,” Godspeed You! Black Emperor frontman Efrim Menuck told Pitchfork at the band’s Chicago performance on Friday night. “They detained 1,000 people in California, no one knows what happened to them. We’re just lucky we’re nice white kids from Canada. That’s what I feel lucky about.” Menuck was reluctant to further discuss the incident, citing that they had already told the story at a performance earlier in the week. Constellation Records, which the band presently records for, had no comment.
The NY Times catches up with the current state of hypersound. They’re long past theory and now have actual hardware…
Nimbly holding a big black plate, Norris stands with me in an A.T.C. sound chamber. Since he’s poised behind the weapon, he will hear no sound once it’s powered up: not a peep. ”HIDA can instantaneously cause loss of equilibrium, vomiting, migraines — really, we can pretty much pick our ailment,” he says brightly. ”We’ve delivered a couple dozen units so far, but will have a lot more out by June. They’re talking millions!” (Last month, A.T.C. cut a five-year, multimillion-dollar licensing agreement with General Dynamics, one of the giants of the military-industrial complex.)
Norris prods his assistant to locate the baby noise on a laptop, then aims the device at me. At first, the noise is dreadful — just primally wrong — but not unbearable. I repeatedly tell Norris to crank it up (trying to approximate battle-strength volume, without the nausea), until the noise isn’t so much a noise as an assault on my nervous system. I nearly fall down and, for some reason, my eyes hurt. When I bravely ask how high they’d turned the dial, Norris laughs uproariously. ”That was nothing!” he bellows. ”That was about 1 percent of what an enemy would get. One percent!” Two hours later, I can still feel the ache in the back of my head.
The NY Times looks at the coming economic chaos and namechecks this amazing Onion article that was published on January 18, 2001.
Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that “our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over.”
“My fellow Americans,” Bush said, “at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us.”
Bush swore to do “everything in [his] power” to undo the damage wrought by Clinton’s two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.
During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.
“You better believe we’re going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration,” said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. “Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?”
Excerpts from the address of Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish, March 19, 2003:
“We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.
“If you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory.
“Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there.
“You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis.
“You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing.
“Don’t treat them as refugees for they are in their own country. Their children will be poor, in years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.
“If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day.
“Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly and mark their graves.
“It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly.
“I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts, I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them.
“If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they go home to their family.
“If you harm the regiment or its history by overenthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer.
“You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest for your deeds will follow you down through history. We will bring shame on neither our uniform or our nation.”
Excerpt from the address of President George W. Bush to the United States Congress, January 20, 2003:
“All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries, and many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.”
It’s quite a sight when an officer about to lead men into combat sounds like a statesman, while the President of the United States sounds like a gangster.
When I heard Colin Powell say that there were 15 nations that were offering support but preferred not to be identified, I realized that the U.S. Government has been reduced to claiming that “the lurkers support us in email.”
In the online New York Times 11pm PST on Wednesday…
“Move to War Leaves Some Feeling Alienated”
Brother Wayne tells it like it is:
If artists don’t want their music used in connection with other products or services, that’s their right. It’s their work. They decide what’s best for them, but that doesn’t mean their records aren’t products and they don’t deal in services. Artists have a right to make a living from their work just like anyone else does.
Where does it say in the revolutionary handbook that I’m supposed to starve to death?
The BBC has a main-point summary of the latest Iraq events with no hype, speculation, or confused reporters. Just the facts ma’am.
While the war weapons catalog tech-demo is the lead story everywhere this morning, I think this story is just as significant.
“The European Union has uncovered a bugging operation that targeted five of its 15 member countries, the organization announced Wednesday. Listening devices were found late last month in the offices of the French, German, British, Austrian and Spanish delegations in a headquarters building, officials said.”