Hustler of Culture
The SF Chronicle reports that Josh Wolf is on his way to being the longest jailed journalist in US History.
I’ve given my opinion on Josh’s case and will continue to correspond with him. If you’d like to write to…
Joshua Wolf 98005-111
Federal Correctional Institution – Dublin
5701 8th St. Camp-Parks, Unit J2
Dublin, CA 94568
(via New Media Musings)
Memo to Houston Police: Are you freakin’ kidding me?
Saw this on Boing Boing this morning…
Last Friday night, a small music venue here in Houston (Walter’s) was in the middle of a show when a cop walked in on a noise disturbance call (not unusual for Walters), and instead of talking with the management to turn down the music or shut down the show, walked straight up to the stage to tell the band to shut down. The band had no idea what was going on and asked why, at which time the cop tried to grab one of the musicians’ guitar, and then slammed the musician to the ground… of course from that point on melee ensued, with at least three people being tasered by this cop, and several people being arrested. One of the kids tasered was a 14 year old kid who was there with his parents! One account states that the boy’s father was also tasered.
The band, according to SFist, was Two Gallants, a San Francisco duo I’m fond of (I extolled their song “Waves of Grain” on Episode #6 of my podcast)
This is insane. Look at the tape and judge for yourself but at the very least, the city of Houston should be looking into this, the police department should discipline this over and police procedures regarding recruiting and proper procedure in a high density situation like a concert should be reevaluated. It’s a wonder this didn’t start a riot.
We pay police departments to protect us from harm, not to make it worse before it happens. This is not public safety. This officer is a power-hungry thug who deserves to be sanctioned and then dismissed immediately.
Update: Two Gallants reports they’ve had lawyer up. They also break it down over at Rolling Stone and in an interview with SFist.
I was pretty angry after suffering through this episode of Forum, our local yap show. Ostensibly a look at the new television series debuting in the fall, it ended up a gang of television critics complaining for the 5 millionth time that there’s nothing good on TV and the host, the normally commendable Michael Krasney, beginning the epsiode with the “Television is a vast wasteland” rag, a sentiment about as contemporary as I Like Ike.
Here’s my deal. Premising a conversation on television being a sludge bucket is like beginning a conversation about pop music with a take-down of Britney Spears. It’s a cheap, easy target that lets you smug-coast right past the glaring evidence to the contrary. It plays the snob gallery by letting you ignore that you are not only mypoic but wrong.
I’m sure you can find some television programming that feels like wet mashed potatoes. With 18+ hours, 7 days a week from now until the end of time to fill, much of it will be junk. But but for the first time in recent memory, much of it is much better than that. Thanks to cable, HBO, DVD and TiVo which means you don’t have to wade through chaff to get to wheat, good television programming grows thick and tall. Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Criminal Minds, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Veronica Mars, are all regular viewing for me. You may not care for one or many of them but to call them wastes of time and talent is nonsense. To use them as evidence that there is “nothing on TV” means a) you need more than a half dozen shows a week to be satisfied and are a glutton and b) you’re not looking hard enough for them.
Maybe TV isn’t your bag? No shame in that. But television is a platform not a state of mind. What matters is what’s in the box, not the box itself. The box doesn’t invade our lives like a cancer unless we let it. Worried that you watch too much or that it’s easy to fall back on it like an unhealthy ex-lover? Throw a tablecloth over your set. You’ll be amazed how soon you forget.
Salon’s Heather Havrilesky says it well in this feature and this roundup of the new fall series. I’m excited for “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” and “Six Degrees” already. The rest I’ll test out without guilt.
and more tired than angry…
Now here’s one I’ve never heard before. I decide to stay in this evening and call Bombay Indian restaurant for some dinner. I’ve done this dozens of times, enough so that they know my order (Saag Paneer and Chapati). Only this time, right after I’m done giving it they tell me “Sorry. it says here you cancelled the last order. So you can no longer order from us.”
I argue. I protest. I say “You’re saying you don’t want my business?”
To which they reply “We don’t need a customer like you.”
Let me get this straight…
1) I have no memory of this ever happening. So maybe Suzan did it. Fine.
2) Even if either of us did, did they really waste the food? Am I the only person that evening to order saag paneer and chapati? You couldn’t give it to another customer? An employee at the end of their shift?
3) What if I had suffered a heart attack and was being rushed to hospital and that’s why I cancelled my order? Why are they assuming my reasons are suspect?
4) Had this not have happened, I would have continued to order from them as long as I lived in the neighborhood. Which means that for the cost of one meal they will give up dozens that I would have ordered from them.
This is perhaps the dumbest business practice I have ever falled pray to. If you live in San Francisco, I recommend not patronizing Bombay Indian Restaurant. They do not respect their customers nor have any interest in being good neighbors. Their motto “great food, excellent service” is a half-true joke.
I’m pretty much done with the James Frey debacle but it sure was nice to read this essay on truth, memoir and William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow by my friend and book club buddy Mara Naselli.
During lunch with my friend Marianne, a veteran progressive activist, she posed this question (and I paraphrase)
“Our anger motivates us to act. So how do we give voice to our anger? We can build a large platform from which we can yell at a lot of people. Or we can speak from a position of understanding and love and lead by example. We can show, gently but firmly, that there is another way. Because no one wants to change when you’re yelling at them.”
Man, that hit me hard. I wrote my first book because I was angry about how the book business sees its future (or doesn’t). My second book comes from a deep frustration with the narrow-minded, self-flaggelation of the American Jewish community.
I could on like this. There’s always something to be angry about and anger is a powerful reason to get out of bed. But do I want to be heard or do I want to be heard less dramatically and have it matter?
I’ve been thinking hard about that since our lunch. Yesterday, I heard this poem on The Writer’s Almanac. It’s by Jim Harrison.
Despond
At midnight in his living room a man
is angry at a fly that is bothering him.
How can this be?
A man is angry at things
that never happened
and never will happen.
He’s angry at the woman he’ll never meet
because she refuses to meet him
because, not existing herself,
she has no idea that he exists.
He’s frying potatoes that don’t exist
at sunset. The frying pan is a black sun
and out the window in the gathering dark
the ocean looks so heavy that it might fall
through the earth and join another ocean.
At dawn he wakes. There’s a fly in the room
but perhaps it’s a miniature bird. Magnified,
the sound is the basso rumbling of the universe
the peculiar music galaxies make when they fray
against each other. He sleeps again, his hand
on his dog’s heart which says don’t be angry.
She senses the steps of the last dance saved for us
How does your anger serve you? How does it harm you?
Did the President call the Constitution “a godamn piece of paper?” (via Powazek)
For the second year in a row, I’m sick on World AIDS Day. This tim, instead of snot and sinuses, it’s nausea and exhaustion. I took 3 naps today, which I haven’t done since nursery school.
So bleh. Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery.
Not having internet access in your hotel room in 2005 is like being asked to use the toilet in the lobby. And getting charged for the privilege.