E. Michael Harrington

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Very sadly, the broadast flag passed a Senate committee yesterday.

In the words of Gigi Sohn, President of Public Knowledge, the broadcast flag "injects government into technological design, restricts lawful consumer activities and increases consumer costs by making obsolete millions of digital devices..." And it rewards the North Korean style approach of the entertainment troika (the RIAA, the MPAA and the U. S. Copyright Office) - to fight the future and fair use at all costs.

Hopefully Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) will offer an amendment to this repressive piece of legislation that will curtail the dumbing down of technology before the bill comes to the entire Senate.

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The BOSTON RED SOX won their 10th game in a row last night, this time against one of only three teams that have a better record - the New York Mets. The Mets, like all professional New York sports teams, looked confused and startled that their arrogance alone could not propel them to victory, that someone robbed them of their inherent right to win because they are from New York. It is very funny to see one of the country's largest city's elite sports teams go down in flames.

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Pennsylvania Republican SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER is considering suing President Bush for giving himself the right to follow only those laws he chooses. Bush has signed more than 750 laws which he does not feel apply to him. Since hsi first term, Bush has not vetoed a bill and has increased the size of government while erasing the country's largest surplus and creating the largest deficit. I don't know how a true conservative can support this administration's drunk-and-spend policies. (I'll always remember Ronald Reagan in 1980 stating that a $40 billion deficit - created by President Jimmy Carter - was an impeachable offense.) In fact, many old school real conservatives openly do not support this reckless President.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/06/28/senator_considers_suit_over_bush_law_challenge/

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CAPTAIIN COPYRIGHT is a Canadian Communist

The pitiful group of Canadian copyright propagandists, Access Copyright, have been stingingly rebuked by who they hoped would be their strongest endorseers - the Canadian Library Association. The CLA will not set sail with the feeble extremist captain.

From the P2P Net article:

"At its annual meeting in Ottawa earlier this month, the Canadian Library Association passed a resolution on Access Copyright's Captain Copyright.

The resolution is powerful rebuke from one of the groups that the Captain Copyright program presumably hoped to attract.

It criticizes the biased approach on copyright, the linking policy, and notes that the "website poses a threat to our shared information commons by providing biased copyright information to the Canadian public, particularly children and schoolteachers."

With that in mind, it resolves the the CLA President will write an open letter to condemn the Captain Copyright initiative."

It is time for Access Copyright to conjure up better cartoon - perhaps a mole, weasel, cockroach, or sickle and hammer - that would more accurately reflect their intent.

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I just received an email that stated that EMI is trying to purchase Warner and that Warner has been trying to purchase EMI. The email seems to suggest that something big could be happening very soon. Of course none of this is surprising as we have on'y the Big Four now. (The Sony BMG nuptials of 2003 turned the Big Five into the Big Four).

The only change will be the elimination of good people from their jobs. Otherwise, I am certain that lawyers and lobbyists wlll continue to flourish in their buying Congress people ways.

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Posted by EMH at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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I AM BACK IN TENNESSEE. Boston was excellent as always but my house, CD's and DVD's are here and I can sometimes get more done here than anwhere else.

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The Boston Red Sox have won 9 in a row. Yesterday, David Ortiz aka BIG PAPI did it again - a walkoff hit. Often these are home runs - yesterday was "just" a single but it meant we won in the 12th inning.

And this victory means even more because it is over the shameful anti-woman Philadelphia Phillies, the team that coddles its wife beater, BRETT MYERS - praises his on field ability and lets him pitch even after having been arrested for beating his wife on the streets of Boston. It is hard for me to believe that a man would ever strike or even threaten his girlfriend or wife. But even after witnesses called 911 and had him arrested, his employer, the amoral Philadelphia Phillies, chose to not admonish him, suspend and fine him, but reward him. Shame on MYERS and all of those in the Philadelphia organization who would not condemn this cowardly bastard. I am prouder than ever to be a Red Sox fan.

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I'VE BEEN BOATING a hell of a lot on the Cumberland River, And swimming, reading, drinking chardonnay and eating catfish. I'm loving this river. My friend, the boatowner and I, will probably take a long boat trip along some rivers in July. We're planning stuff and that's always where the trouble begins. We are capable of bringing foolishness hundreds of miles away - we export stupidity. All it will take is a boat, immaturity and money for tomfoolery and other essentials.

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The June 2006 NASHVILLE COPYNIGHT meeting

There is so much going on now in Congress and much of it has been renamed, reconfigured and expanded. But the principal thrust of the legislation will enable the content providers (RIAA and MPAA) to extert more control over what consumers cannot do, and eliminate or sharply constrict traditional fair use. The content providers are trying to create law as North Koreans would - citizens should never be too free as freedom leads to trouble.

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Here are some of the names of bills that contain "broadcast flags," "digital radio flags," and attempts to "patch" the "analog hole" and make our world more Orwellian:

"Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act"

"Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act" (PERFORM ACT)

"Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006" (HR 5252) (COPE Act)

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GOD HELP US! Must there be an acronym for every bad piece of legislation? The winner, the biggest and baddest and most clumsily worded, is now five years old:

"Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." (PATRIOT Act)

And then there's the Section 115 Reform Act (S1RA), and more I've left out, as well as the non-governmental copyright/IP concerns.

Other new questions and concerns:

should there be a copyright for fashion design?

why is France easing up on its Apple iTunes legislation?

is DRM spreading? Answer? Yes but is the other side - we human beings - winning?

will the U. S. Copyright Office continue to nurture the RIAA and MPAA by keeping that Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 phrase off its website?

should the U. S. Copyright Office raise the basic registration fee from $30 to $45? That can be answered easily. Yes, it will take place on July 1. Other fees will be raised as well. It must be the price of energy that caused the USCO to jack up the rates so much.

This is an open invitation for anyone to attend the next Nashville CopyNight meeting (Wednesday, June 28, 2006) at 7:00 PM at Tabouli's, 2015 Belmont Blvd.

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THE NEW FRANK BLACK double CD - Fast Man Raider Man - is great! I should write a long glowing review of it but other projects are beckoning me.

Frank Black, again, is too cool for words.

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Posted by EMH at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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TWO YEARS AGO TODAY, VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY proudly used The "F WORD" while serving as President of the U. S. Senate.

From the Washington Post:

On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice.

"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.

Leahy's spokesman, David Carle, yesterday confirmed the brief but fierce exchange. "The vice president seemed to be taking personally the criticism that Senator Leahy and others have leveled against Halliburton's sole-source contracts in Iraq," Carle said.

As it happens, the exchange occurred on the same day the Senate passed legislation described as the "Defense of Decency Act" by 99 to 1.

Read more of Daring Eagle Eye Dick here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3699-2004Jun24.html

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Decency and Dick Cheney. Fill in the blank _______________

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ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR, I WROTE THIS and sent it to this very good blog (I never know what I'm going to find when I enter "-0621" into a search through this computer):

I'm glad you posted this and thrilled that Hagel and a few Republicans are getting realistic. Imagine if Clinton had lied about a 3rd world country's intent to attack the U. S. and that country's possession of weapons of mass destruction that could lead to "mushroom clouds" in the U. S., and that country's ties to the 9/11/2001 attack on the U.S., and then we bombed the hell out of that country and found no weapons, after almost every nation had not agreed with our contentions and invasion, and then Clinton on his own gave a multibillion dollar contract to Al Gore's ex-corporation to rebuild that country. And then imagine if Gore had been telling U. S. citizens that we would be welcomed as liberators, that there would be no significant resistance, and that the entire campaign could be conducted for a price of $1-2 billion dollars (not the $200-300 billion it now appears), as that country's oil revenues would pay for the war. Would many still believe anything Clinton or Gore would say?

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I COMPLETELY AGREE with my thoughts from 365 days ago. Only the costs are now very close to $500 billion dollars and despite the huge security clampdown, three of our soldiers were just killed, two were just recovered yesterday. And there have been dozens of attacks and hundreds of deaths and injuries to IIraqis during this clampdown period as well. And the Republicans are claming that all the Democrats want to do is "cut and run." Kerry calls the Republican policy, "Lie and die."

I think we lost this war a long time ago, partly because it is unwinnable because the Administration is making it up as it goes along, we didn't have enough troops, were clueless about these cultures we would encounter, and underestmated the peoples' hatred and resolve against us. Every claim of ours has been proven to be a lie or a mistake. And they still cannot even say what their policy is or what it will mean "to win." Arrogant incompetent and disgraceful is my description, today, of the Administration.

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While all of the politicians are attacking each other with very uncreative and silly slogans - cut and run, we'll stand down once they stand up, etc. - it is important to remember that for the rest of this week, the high temperatures in Baghdad will be between 115 and 118 F each day and that residents only have electricity for a few hours each day. And this is the beginning of summer, our 4th summer LIBERATING and improving conditions in this country that had done nothing to us.

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I LISTEN TO THE ONION RADIO NEWS and subscribe to their podcast. Here are the titles of the five most recent episodes:

Ted Nugent Talks That Way Even When Buying Socks

Area Fry-Cook Learns Leaving Restaurant Industry Isn't That Easy

Cheese Pretzel Highlight Of 7-Year-Old's Art-Museum Trip

Area Woman Thought Motherhood Would Be A Breeze After Raising Four Cats

Bigamist Continues Searching For Another Ms. Right

Strangely, and without knowing about the Onion's plans for a bigamist episode, I wrote a few bigamist haiku yesterday. I should write some more and publish them soon.

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I got mentioned in the CNET Buzz Out Loud podcast from June 19. I use this podcast as a "text" in a course I teach and they were thrilled that their very good work is getting recognized by a few professors from around the U. S.

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Posted by EMH at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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MANGO BLUE at the Regattabar WERE FANTASTIC LAST NIGHT - 8 players with great feel, precision, innovation and humor. We shared a table with Jim, a 53 yr. old steelworker, and his girlfriend. Jim is a hell of a smart Boston suburbs drummer turned Latin percussionist. Years ago he sold his drum set and bought chekere, bongos, congas, bells, cuica, cowbells and everything you need to do that right. He's also a fanatic of a Chinese szechuan chef at home. His girlfriend is his girlfriend because only she can eat his cooking, this according to both of them. Jim and I had very good talks about Afro Cuban everything - artists, players, 3-2 vs. 2-3, polymeter, mojitos, etc. We joked that we would be the only ones at our respective work places to go see Mango Blue, or any type of progressive/traditional/multi-Caribbean/South American ensemble. Sadly I am rarely near world music people these days.

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I finally got to buy a Mango Blue CD - IMMIGRANT BLUES. We also got to hang out with Mango Blue between sets as they are very enthusiastic fun musicians who are happy to meet others who share the love of great music.

This was the perfect ending to a perfect day. My Bunker Hill, Stravinsky, Watergate celebrations went perfectly as well.

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And as if I needed more great news yesterday, the Boston Red Sox, with Josh Beckett and Jon Papelbon, beat the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field.

Even more fun was what happened in Washington, DC where the New York Yankees scored 7 runs in one inning - A-Rod hit a big 2-run homer that seemed to "mean something," as it put them ahead. This was followed by a Posada home run and then the

Looks like Jesus
Acts like Judas
Throws like Mary

Johnny Damon, hit a grand slam. Wow - Satan's Minions, the New York Yankees, were destroying the new team, the hapless and meek Washington Nationals, 9-2. Curtains. Good Night Irene. "That's all folks!"

BUT something so good happened - Washington scored 9 runs in the remaining innings (put another way, the Yankees and their flawless Mariano Rivera blew a 7-run lead) and won. Joe Torre said that this was "as bad as it gets." No, it was as good as it gets and one of the highlights of this great June 17. Thank you NYY. Stay as old and cocky as you are.

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If you want to revel in the Yankees' misery, there are four articles in today's NY Daily News. New Yorkers can really savage other New Yorkers.

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Posted by EMH at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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I WENT TO AN EXCELLENT JAPANESE FUSION restaurant yesterday afternoon and got to see The DA VINCI CODE again. It was playing on a DVD with Chinese subtitles on all of the huge thin screen TV's. The IP guy inside me - my inner IP self (I need relief from my nerdom) - asked what was the deal with The Da Vinci Code playing in this excellent fancy ass restaurant on June 16, 2006 before it has been released on DVD in the U. S. I was told the standard line and what one should always say in situations like this -

IT CAME FROM NEW YORK. LOL (In horror films, this same DVD would have come from a monster's fangs in a deep dark swamp with rising mist at midnight under a full moon.)

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Fran, our wonderful server, wanted to please me. I had asked if they had mojitos. She did not know what a mojito was. She asked me me how she could make it. Many places do not have spare mint lying around so she made me a mint-less mojito, with love. So very nice.

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June 17 is my favorite day of the year as it is the anniversary of three great events -

The Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, Igor Stravinsky's birthday in 1881, and the second break in at the Watergate Hotel where $80 per week security guard, Frank Wills, caught Nixon's five burglars - the event that led to Richard Nixon's resignation in August 9, 1974. I used to refer to Nixon's resignation as Black Friday, as it happened on a Friday. I loved that Nixon was resigning but I hated that for the first time in our country'5s history, we had an unelected President, Vice President Gerald Ford. I got over that eventually and most of the country had no problem with it. In fact, years later the Kennedy Family gave Gerald Ford a rightfully deserved Profile In Courage Award for having the guts to pardon Richard Nixon. President Gerald Ford is like President Dwight Eisenhower – you never hear their names because present day Republicans don't like them or any moderate Republicans.

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BUNKER HILL

From American Memory at the Library of Congress:

"On June 17, 1775, American troops displayed their mettle in the Battle of Bunker Hill during the siege of Boston, inflicting casualties on nearly half of the British troops dispatched to secure Breed's Hill (the actual site of the battle).

More than 15,000 colonial troops defended Boston at Breed's Hill, Bunker Hill, and Dorchester Heights following the battles of Lexington and Concord. African-American soldiers comprised approximately one-third of the rebel troops.

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My take on this - we colonial thug terrorist freedom fighters fought dirty, were not civilized and kicked the Redcoats' asses out of The New World. YEA! Score one for Bostonian terrorists!

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jun17.html

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STRAVINSKY

I have way too much to say about Igor Stravinsky. I have complete undying love for his music and thought process.

I wrote a paper comparing Stravinsky to the Beastie Boys. I got the idea from knowing the Beastie Boys music and culture and being alive now, and also because in the same way that Stravinsky had "sampled" Gallo, Pergolesi and others, the Beastie Boys sampled Stravinsky's "Firebird" in their song, :Electrify," an absolutely brilliant song on HELLO NASTY.

I need to publish the damn paper as I've received great feeback when I delivered this presentation at different conferences, universities and law schools. One of these days....

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TONIGHT I GET TO SEE MANGO BLUE for the 3rd or 4th time. Any excuse to go to the Regattabar; any excuse to see Mango Blue.

http://www.mangoblue.org/

http://www.regattabarjazz.com/

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Posted by EMH at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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In one of my dreams last night, I was transcribing music, really good music that was foolishly complex - there were a lot of loops of indeterminate meter and polymeter. I should sit down and try to write it for real now because it was my creation. But later in another musical dream, it occurred to me that there was something odd, or even, structurally, about a RHCP song. Somehow they butted in.

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So now I am sitting at Panera transcribing different things, one of them is the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

RHCP insert a 20-bar blues into their song, "Stadium Arcadium." What makes it even stranger is that not only is it a 20-bar blues (and even then its 20-bar structure is odd with an opening 8 measures of i minor and a premature ending of the already too long 20-bar structure - it ends with two measures of the V chord without resolving to the i chord within the 20-bars) but it is the bridge of the song.

Jupiter, the first CD of the two-CD STADIUM ARCADIUM, is very nice with some clever oddities.

I'm missing writing and playing music. I get a bit of relief and lots of joy when I sleep and create it there however.

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HERE IS MY FAVORITE SITE OF THE DAY:

http://www.newburycomics.com/rel/v2_home.php?storenr=103&deptnr=89

To paraphrase Elvis Costello: "All this useFUL beauty."

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Today in Boston it will reach 81 degrees F. It had been perfect and in the 60's and 70's. I'm so glad not to be in Phoenix where it will be 111 for most of the next five days. "But it's dry heat," I've heard so often. 111 degrees is great for lizards, scorpions and road runners. Not people. Having twice bicycled across Arizona - from the SW corner (Yuma) to the NE corner (Four Corners), and from West (Parker AZ) to East (New Mexico) - I know how rough 111 + weather is. Boston is civilized.

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I hope the press doesn't buy into the "We've turned the corner and Al-Qaeda in Iraq is on its last legs. - victory is ours" nonsense. The U. S. press was complacent and cooperative with Bush between 2001-2005, but seemed to be a bit independent recently. Now that the President has returned from his six great hours in the Green Zone and Edgar Al-an Al-Zarqawi is dead, GWB is filled with confidence and joviality - just watch him joke with the blind.

I've noticed that there is a lot of talk about victory over there (we've already lost) and that this is a "milestone" or a "turning point." So wasn't the toppling of the Phil Hussein statue, the killing of Phil Hussein's two lovely sons - Jeremy and Todd - the capturing of Phil Hussein himself, the three or four elections (even though most of the names on the ballot were left blank for fear that these people would be killed if their identity was revealed) and on and on.

And then there's the mess in Afghanistan where we prematurely pulled out so that the Taliban could re-strengthen and that Osama and his pals could develop a better network with his kind on the Pakistan border.

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A closing Bob Dylan thought:

"the air is getting hotter, there's a rumbling in the sky, I've been wading through the high muddy water with the heat rising in my eyes, everyday your memory grows dimmer, it doesn't haunt me like it did before, I've been walking through the middle of nowhere Tryin' To Get To Heaven before they close the door"

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Posted by EMH at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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ON THIS DAY IN 1999, the RIAA was handed a serious defeat as MP3 players were deemed legal and could be manufactured and sold to an extremely eager public. Without this June 15, 1999 decision, there would be no Apple iPod or Apple iTunes. The decision to let the clunky Diamond Rio MP3 player our of jail led to thousands of new products and the great potential for new means to empower fans and artists. But had the RIAA won, our society would be in a different place as a lot of technology would have been imprisoned.

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The 9th Circuit held that...

"...the Rio is not a digital audio recording device subject to the restrictions of the Audio Home
Recording Act of 1992. The district court properly denied the motion for a preliminary injunction against the Rio's manufacture and distribution."

I would love to hear the RIAA recognize that they were wrong to fight this technology, just as they are wrong to continue fighting every new technology and buying Congress people to further fight the future. But I'm just a dreamer.....

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY and HARVARD SQUARE were perfect today especially with the wild off and on rain and wind, seeing friends, meeting people and being a geek consumer.

I now own a few more DVD's:

Neil Young: Heart Of Gold (I was at the making of this concert DVD at the Ryman on August 19, 2005)

The Last Temptation Of Christ

The Empire State Building (History Channel)

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (the Wilco DVD)

Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Rust Never Sleeps

George W. Bushisms

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and new books on IP and music industry DIY

AND I BOUGHT SOME GREAT GEORGE BUSH STUFF

A few "Drink'n With Dubya! Speaking Bottle Openers"

Four GW Bush speech excerpts are here. I'll transcribe them later (or you can hear them at the website) but my favorite of his - involving OB-GYN's who can no longer practice their love with women - is included in the device.

I also bought a gigantic refrigerator magnet that states:

01.20.09

Bush's Last Day

and a small bumper sticker of the same.

God bless Newbury Comics, the best CD and fun store in the United States of America.

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I AM THRILLED TO SEE BILL GATES ANNOUNCE THAT HE WILL step dwn from that regressive corporation and continue to do the wonderful philanthropic stuff he's been doing. He's lovable and inspirational as a philanthropist, frightening as head of the bludgeoning backwards Microsoft.

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And in New York Yankees news, Derek Jeter over ran second base today (I think that's his second time this year), Randy Johnson was suspended for five games, manager Joe Torre was suspended for one game, and A-Rod (the Red Sox Trojan Horse!), struck out with the bases loaded. Yes, it was that great a day. God is smiling.

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Posted by EMH at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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HAPPY FLAG DAY! June 14, and the idea of a Flag Day, has been special to me. In my town, we always had a parade in which there were a lot of flags from many countries as well as politicians walking, waving, smiling and promising, marching bands and kids. (The best part of every Flag Day was getting to watch my Dad walk in the parade.) I am back in Framingham, Massachusetts now but do not know if there is a parade here or not today.

I got to show my very limited knowledge of flags on Monday night as I was sitting in a bar in a Japanese restaurant with Brazilians, Bostonians, Coloradans and a local Libyan (collectively we were between 21 and 81 years old), having been here since the 1970's. He was thrilled that I knew the Libyan flag was green - it is only green and has no symbols, logos or slogans. Just green. He thought that it might have changed over the years and I did not know whether it had or not. I only know that in 1988 when I organized and conducted a concert called, "Love Is By Your Absence," L-I-B-Y-A, the Libyan flag was solid green. I wanted to do an entire concert with the LIBYAN acronym because at that time Ronald Reagan and the hawks were blaming Libya for everything - droughts, too much rain, overweight people in Ohio, etc. - and I just thought that their flag needed a-showin'. And that a concert of contemporary classical music needed to be called something as foolish and unfitting as LOVE IS BY YOUR ABSENCE. Throughout the concert we played many variations - subtle and not - on the Libyan National anthem, a particularly pompous insignificant and uneventful Western hymn of a national anthem. The anthem is as Libyan as I am Kenyan (I'll leave out getting lucky with a beautiful student from Kenyon College). Libyans deserve a better song.

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Jen, our lovely bartender that night, wants to make a drink called a Lemon Enema. She does not know what will be in the Lemon Enema but she knows that it will be fun to hear people slur the pronunciation of the drink.

I got to educate her and my new friends at the bar about a Coo Woo. The Coo Woo is called the first drink in the Colonies and that this was a really excellent means of getting wild in 17th century Massachusetts. (When we weren't throwing bricks at the British thug soldiers or writing political manifestos, we were drinking coo woos and envisioning a future evil world that would have New York Yankees and big insurance companies.) Count me in!

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The Coo Woo consists of rum and ginger brandy. I like it very cold but even room temperature can be great. And this drink is the salmon of mixed drinks in that it is sturdy and can take a lot of abuse - it can be mixed 1 to 1, 2 to 1, 4 to 1, etc. and still be good. I am a 1 to 1 kind of Colonist though. Drinking coo woos is a patriotic thing to do and can hopefully make one as creative and brilliant as Benjamin Franklin.

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Coo woos are a part of history I want to remember just like I want to remember the U. S. Constitution, especially Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8, the words that gave us copyright and patents.

"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

I want to remember and honor the U. S. Constitution and Article 1,, Section 8, Clause 8. Sadly, well paid employees at the United States Copyright Office want to hide it and dishonor it as they have removed it from the top front page of the U. S. C. O. website (federal administrators know best, I guess). [Notice how sad and lonely this large chunk of corner is?] May they be filled with lemon enemas until it can do them some good.

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CANADA's Captain Copyright

Canada is often far ahead of my country when it comes to culture and arts and law but when it comes to the pedantic and uncreative, such as the administration of record labels and the enforcement of their intellectual property rights, there is dumbness and futility rampant in our big northern neighbor.

Propaganda with respect to IP has come to Canada. It would be sad if this one-sided propagandistic "education" was to have some effect but because it is foolish and intellectually embarrassing at its core, it is great for humor and getting some to create new cartoon characters to do war with the hapless Captain Copyright. Canadians would be so much better off with Captain Crunch and not Captain Copyright. Dumb ass Canadian copyright thugs.

And Captain Copyright has had his feelings hurt and had at least three legal statements defining who what and why can link to him. He's a sensitive captain who only wants friends that are just like him. If you link to the Captain and are not ON BOARD, you have hurt his feelings and you must be thrown overboard. You can only ride the Captain's ship if you are pleasant with pleasant supportive statements. Even though the Captain is floating in cyberspace for the entire cyberuniverse to see, he needs to only be loved. You must love the Captain or the Captain's attorneys will contact you. (He thinks He knows Hyperlinking. Insert Lloyd Bentsen here..... "Captain, I knew Hyperlinking....Hyperlinking was a friend of mine. Captain, you're no Hyperlinking.")

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Here's Michael Geist's take on the Captain and his need for friends:

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1286

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And if you want to see a great way of cartooning, I would highly recommend the new offerings from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The EFF (I am a very proud member) have put together this short piece that will enlighten about the extremely significant war against consumers being waged by The TROIKA - the RIAA, the MPAA and their Boy-Child, the U. S. Copyright Office:

http://www.eff.org/corrupt/

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Loving Flag Day.....

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Posted by EMH at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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I PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO POLITICS, ESPECIALLY U. S. POLITICS AS I LIVE HERE AND HELP PAY FOR MY GOVERNMENT'S OFTEN-STUPIDHEADED ACTIVITIES. I am very glad that I have watched the President closely as I learned a lot from him yesterday. And what I learned helped explain what went wrong in my marriage back in 1993.

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The President said that the sanctity of marriage has been under attack and that marriage needs the help of an amendment to our wonderful U. S. Constitution. Marriage between a man and a woman is at risk because we do not have an amendment to the U. S. Constitution that will declare what the Defense of Marriage Act already provides. If marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman in that bill, shouldn't that be enough? No, I guess not. Our president, God bless his mind, states that the BIGGEST AND BADDEST OF BOOGEYMEN -

ACTIVIST JUDGES ACTIVIST JUDGES ACTIVIST JUDGES ACTIVIST JUDGES ACTIVIST JUDGES

have thwarted the will of the majority of Americans who want to interfere with homos and lesbians who want to do something as normal, dull and conservative as GET Married.

In the words of Napoleon Dynamite: "IDIOTS!"

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Because of what the President said, I now know tht it wasn't my fault my marriage didn't last. It was the fault of 2/3 of the Senate. 2/3 of the House and 3/4 of the individual states that comprise the United States. The aforementioned - the Senate, House and states - failed to pass a consitutional amendment to protect the "sanctity of marriage." Had the aforementioned parties passed the damn protect straight marriage amendment, my marriage surely would have lasted as government actions can do so much to enhance happiness and moral lifestyles.

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I remember watching that old movie with that famous utterance near then end that, "everytime two homosexuals want to get married, many heterosexual marriages fail." (Or was that, "everytime a bell rings, an angel gets his wings?") I think that lack-of-amendment must be what doomed my marriage. Marriages will fall apart if homosexuals anywhere have marriage in their minds.

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The President thinks that this amendment is necessary to preserve and defend hetero marriage. So, obviously, not having a Defense of Marriage amendment in place, is what has wrecked society.

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If there was an amendment that prevented homos and lesbians from marrying, society would be the place society should be.

THERE would not have been

two dozen Iraqi high school students murdered yesterday because they were not the right shade of Muslim

fifty million Americans without health insurance

American soldiers killed trying to find weapons of mass destruction

very high gasoline prices

melting icebergs

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AND IF ONLY THERE HAD BEEN AN ANTI-HOMO MARRYING AMENDMENT, everything would be good -

education would be free and accessible for all-Americans as government wants to help students

marriages would be sanctified and never end

there would be no junk mail

there would be no SPAM, the Hormel food-like stuff in a can

there would be no Rita Crosby

and dishonest polticians and poltician-makers, such as Dick Cheney, Randy DUKE Cunningham, Tom DeLay (the closet Frenchophile), Denny Hastert, Jack Abramoff, Karl Rove, Bob Livingston (the INFIDELITOR), Henry Hyde (the INFIDELITOR and IMPREGNATOR), would also go away

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ANN COULTER RELEASED HER NEW BOOK ON 6/6/06.

She thinks that the 9/11 widows are a nasty bunch because they are making the argument that... (fill in the blank - she really hates them).

I saw excerpts from a Matt Lauer (sadly I watched a part of this) interview with the NASTIEST of Females, Ann Coulter. She said the following and much more.

In the words of the delicate and demure Ann:

"these broads are millionaires..."

"I've never seen wives enjoying their husbands' deaths so much..."

Ann Coulter, in the above quotes, was refering to women who lost husbands on 9/11/2001.

Hopefully the venomous Ann is not planning to reproduce or have a family.

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More material for the NSA:

Hanan Matajarahnish Matajarahnish Matajarahnish Matajarahnish Hanan Matajarahnish Matajarahnish Hanan Matajarahnish Matajarahnish

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Posted by EMH at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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I HAD MY FIRST FRENCH PRESS HOME-DONE HOME-BREWED COFFEE THIS MORNING. Yea France! I thought it would take dozens of times to get this right but it worked perfectly the first time. Of course it helped that I read the six-sentence directions twelve times, three or four times before bed last night and eight or nine times awake this morning in the kitchen. Damn! Life is great! The very hot water is poured over the grounds until it is within an inch of the top. The lid is pushed into place "until snug, depress the plunger 1/2 inch. Let steep for four minutes. Depress the plunger fully. Drink directly from the mug and enjoy." This was the best coffee I ever had. It helped that it was Trader Joe's Ultra-Roast Bay Blend. It's time for another one.

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I am listening to and watching Youssou N'Dour's Super Etoile Band live from Montreux 1989. It's hard to ever hear better players and more honest authentic music then this. There is also a bonus section with songs live from 1995 including the always-goose-bump-producing, "7 Seconds." (I should get into a detailed description/analysis of each song on this DVD as all of it is foolishly profound.)

How do goose bumps happen? Why do they happen? I have not Googled this question or Wikipedia'ed it but I know there are some songs that have given me goose bumps for decades, and this is one of them. For me, it often has to do with music theory and musicianship. According to my very non-scientific self, when they (musicianship/theory) get this profound, the body is forced to bump. If it doesn't bump, maybe one's life gets shortened. And maybe bumping is the most spiritual thing that can ever happen. Or so my scientific self speculates.

My life is so much better because of Youssou N'Dour and French pressed coffee.

Youssou N'Dour - one of God's best creations.

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ONE OF MY NEW PROJECTS is try to understand the meaning of musical style, sound, the relationship between then, their connectedness to melody, rhythm, harmony, structure, instrumentation and how to write about all of this so that judges, juries, lay people, experts in the field and others can undertsand this, all at the same time. I should finish by 3 PM so I can hike at 4 PM, don't you think? LOL

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SADLY, HAITHA IS NOW HADITHA TIMES THREE and our troops have been placed into no-win situations. We have to leave Iraq and apologize to millions of people. It is too late. We lost the war awhile ago, we should never have started a war (no one should ever start a war, let alone the country with the world's best constitution, geography and immigration policy of old), and have made things worse for millions of innocent Iraqis.

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I WOULD HATE FOR A SUNDAY TO GO BY WITHOUT snatching an opportunity to be CRITICAL OF THE TROIKA (the music industry, film industry and their boy-child, the U. S. Copyright Office).

Their normal day-to-day philosophy is to try to keep their antique out-of-touch business practices in practice, stop any new technologiies that jeopardize their outdated ways,

One of their new ploys is as dangerous as it gets. There are new technologies that will allow customers to enjoy music and visual in ways that they want - technology is making life more convenient and more powerful and the TROIKA views the empowement of fans as a threat that must be squahsed. So a-squashing the TROIKA will go. Rather than try to imagine the fans as people with lots of disposable money, they view their customers as criminals who want to do things that the TROIKA cannot control. If the TROIKA could, they would insist that anytime a fan THINKS about a song or film, they are charged for the thought as that thought, according to law (three of the copyright owner's six rights) , is performing the work, copying the work and making an unauthorized derivative of the work (the fan would be altering it or not reproducing it exactly and therefore making a derivative of the original work).

And speaking of PERFORM, one of their proposed evil deeds is called "The PERFORM Act." Of course it is a George Orwellian style acronym for a bill that will empower the corporations and hurt the average law abiding music and video fan. It is government against the people, just the way the TROIKA works.

Here are two very good sites about this and other TROIKA initiaitives.

http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2006/04/perform-act.html

http://www.eff.org/IP/digitalradio/

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Uh-oh. Napoleon Dynamite is on HBO. SO much for deep thinking about sound and style. I like your sleeves, they're real big.

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Posted by EMH at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)