Chickenhawking is Not a Crime

Jeff Jacoby’s plaintive defense of moral and actual cowardice made the rounds not too long ago. See citizens, it’s OK to call an actual war veteran like John Kerry or John Murtha a coward, while stolid soldiers of rhetorical freedom like Jacoby, Johah Goldberg, or John “I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy” Bolton are, counterinuitively, the bravest amongst us. Because from their perspective, having principles that require the sacrifice and death of others is the model of patriotism. Actually living up to said principles? That’s for suckers, of course (further wisdom from Uncle Dick).

“Watching Beirut Die” by Tony Bourdain

Salon has a great piece by Tony Bourdain on his recent trip to and evacuation from Lebanon, where he was filming an episode of his television show No Reservations.

Bourdain is a great writer, and the piece speaks for itself (if you like his books on cooking, you might try one of his hardboiled novels as well–perfectly dark, funny, and violent escapism). My deepest sympathies to the innocent Lebanese who are now being maimed and killed due to Israeli aggression. And to the Israelis now suffering under a brutal and idiotic military and political leadership.
I’ve linked to this piece by Billmon before regarding the current Israeli insanity, and I’ll do it again. Once a nation or a people enters into the false logic of quantified atrocity (i.e., “Well, you killed six million of ours, so we’ve got a few more million to go before we’re truly guilty of anything other than self-defense”), you’ve already lost the game.

(As a matter of fact, props to Salon for providing multiple articles on the attacks on Lebanon.)

Bannination!

I just got banned from Metafilter.com. The feeling’s mutual.

Those keeping score can see the fireworks in this thread, an FPP linking to snuff audio footage of a victim of the 9/11 attacks, and a Metatalk thread I posted in response (Metatalk, or “the grey,” being a subsite in which technical issues and protocol get hashed out, and the residence of perhaps the strangest type of internet nerd, the Metatalk addict).

G’night Syd

Syd Barrett, founding member of Pink Floyd, just died.

Post-Syd PF (well, except for all the ghosts and songwriting themes of course) was a pretty major deal for me in high school. When I first listened to the Syd albums like Piper at the Gates of Dawn, it felt like a wholly different band which, of course, it was. It was easy to write off Piper and A Saucerful of Secrets as that weird stuff they got out of the way before the good stuff like Dark Side and Animals and The Wall, i.e., classic rock radio staples.

Georgie James

Sweet, sweet synth-pop (four tracks available, official “under construction” site). Really, it’s good. Smokey, sexy, lightly ironical, a lil’ bit Stereolabish. And yeah, I’m a homer for the awesome and now defunct Q and Not U, but this is both different and great (via).

Sleater-Kinney breaks up.

Kind of old news I realize, but I’ve been meaning to link it.

They’re going out at the top of their game, which is doubleplusgood as far as I’m concerned.

Never did get to see you guys live though.