Zuky

Friday Music — Faye Wong

The iconic megastar known in China as Wang Fei...

National Immigrant Bond Fund

From the American Immigration Lawyers Association (thanks, Michael!), a memo announcing the creation of the National Immigrant Bond Fund:

For too long U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have raided workplaces across the country, detaining and separating hard-working immigrants from their children, while leaving their local communities in total disarray.

ICE agents have detained, shackled and pushed men and woman alike through hearings in which these detainees have been deprived adequate legal representation, including an attorney of choice. In some cases ICE has flown detainees thousands of miles from their families to be tried in detention centers on the border.

These harsh enforcement actions are causing an economic, constitutional and humanitarian crisis in the United States.

Legal experts across the nation agree that the best chance immigrant detainees have to avoid deportation is to post bond immediately and contest their case in the courts. Posting bond sets jurisdiction in the district where the arrest took place, thereby avoiding ICE's rapid transfer of detainees outside the district. Posting bond also increases the detainee's ability to argue his/her case for a stay of deportation before a judge. Lastly detainees able to post bond have better access to community resources and family support.

Go to http://www.immigrantbondfund.org to help families remain intact and honor our nation's commitment to human dignity and due process.

The goals of National Immigrant Bond Fund are to:

Assist immigrants caught in raids to post bond so that they can assert their right to legal counsel and due process in court Build public opposition against raids and support for immigration reform by focusing on the lack of rights afforded detainees. Support local community's efforts to respond effectively to ICE enforcement actions and raise public awareness of the need for detained immigrants to access due process. 100% of your tax deductible contribution will go directly to an immigrant seeking due process in our courts (families of detained immigrants will be required to contribute towards the posting of bond). Released bonds will be returned to the Fund to assist other detained immigrants.

The National Immigrant Bond Fund is a fiscal project of the Public Interest Projects, Inc. (PIP). PIP strengthens the work of philanthropic institutions, nonprofit groups and other public interest organizations sharing a vision of a society that ensures justice, dignity and opportunity for all people.

Stick A Restraining Order On This Sick Pendejo's Sorry Ass And Kick It Out The Door

UPDATE: Additional posts on this matter have gone up at The Sanctuary, VivirLatino, and WOC PhD. In particular, Prof BW explains:

The connection between sexual exploitation, assault, and immigration policy is well documented. Arizona, like other border states, has “rape trees” where women’s under garments are strewn across branches presumably as a sign of the price they paid to cross the border (while some have claimed these trees, which appeared shortly after the minute men, are propaganda for the conservatives, the existence of rape on the border by all sides is well documented, including a case against Border Patrol in TX and ongoing complaints of sexual assault in detention). And stories of assault and degradation surface regularly with ever new ICE raid. It is clear there is a mentality in border towns that rivals that of the neo-nazi inspired anti-immigration beatings in Russia. They too put their videos out on the internet. And they too believe it is an important part of checking any citizen or government inspired policies supporting immigrants’ rights and inculcating a growing culture of hate. And while Jon Justice may have physically assaulted no one, his actions not only resonate with the stories of those who have but could, in the wrong hands, incite such behavior. [...]

In a nation where “shock jock” Imus is back on the air after a national campaign to hold him accountable for his disparaging remarks about women of color, and djs in Alaska made racialized sexist jokes about indigenous women with very little non-local out cry (and claim innocence b/c of lack of intent after a 3 week suspension), there is more at stake than what one dj has said and done. If we map these incidents and their frequency, we cannot ignore that the radio has become a key site for the targeting of women, and women of color in particular. During an election year in which it became acceptable for media pundits and outlets to refer to one of the candidates as a “shrew” a “b—h” and a “monster” and depict another as a terrorist burning down all things American from within the White House, there is a very real ideological battle at stake when we ignore or excuse people like Jon Justice.

UPDATE 2: More from The Mahatma X Files and La Chola, where Brownfemipower comments:

I am purposefully not going into any detail about the work she does, because I don’t want anybody to think that this clip is vile and disgusting because the woman does amazing work. I want people to see this for what it is--a white man feeling like he can control, humiliate, and imply sexual violence against a brown woman--all while be recorded for public broadcast. It’s about a white man controlling a woman who pissed him off, by mocking her race, by implying sexual control over her through the use of racist imagery and language.

~ ~ ~

It's not a complex story: Isabel Garcia [pictured] is a respected, outspoken, effective public defender and pro-migrant human rights advocate. Needless to say, she is also a woman and a Latina, attributes which clearly mark her as a particular target for reactionary hate. And so it came to pass that some pathetic fantasy-rapist named Jon Justice of Arizona's 104.1 FM started shooting frat-boy videos of himself sexually molesting a life-size doll of her and posting those vids on YouTube, until someone realized this was a bad idea and they started trying to make those clips disappear. But you know the law, ancient and immutable: once you open a window, you can't stuff bad air back into a room. Jon Justice has put himself on display for the world to see and what has been seen can't be unseen.

This is not the first time that Isabel Garcia has been subjected to extremist hatemongering. Three years ago, the unhinged racist Roy Warden circulated an email whose subject line read "Warden to Isabel Garcia: I will blow your freaking head off". Neither is it first time this Jon Justice fool has made a public display of his pathetic depravity: in 2005 he was fired from his radio gig in Grand Rapids, Michigan, after a hoax in which he pretended to drown a dog on air.

So which is more offensive: pretending to drown a dog or pretending to sexually violate a woman?

Correct.

From Nezua:

So. How can we respond to Jon Justice’s insinuation of rape/domination over Isabel Garcia, champion of ACTUAL justice?

We can hit his sleazy misogynist white supremacist business model where it hurts. And we are already.

Speaking of money, here is the list of advertisers for 104.1 The Truth. There is a massive letter-writing and phone call campaign underway to call these businesses to withdraw their support to these racist and xenophobic messages being broadcast on the airwaves of Baja Arizona:

So far, the following previously listed sponsors have informed us of their intention to immediately withdraw their support of 104.1 FM:

• Main Gate Square
• Patio Pools & Spa
• The Auto Body Shop
• Advanced Recon
• Aung Foot Health Clinics
• Sol Cars

Interestingly, many of them were not even aware that their “package” deal with Journal Broadcasting Group meant advertising on 104.1 FM, and most were not aware of what they were supporting, and would not choose to support intolerance.

In addition, the following companies have expressed concern about this issue, and have assured us that they will be looking into the matter immediately:

• El Parador
• Allstate Insurance
• State Farm Insurance
• The Wildcat House
• Maloney’s Tavern
• Progressive Plumbing
• Axiom Drafting and Design
• Integrity Automotive

This is where you and I come in. We can

1. Contact local Pima County officials in support of Isabel Garcia
2. Call on the advertisers of 104.1 FM “The Truth” radio to end their support of hate radio, misogyny, and racism.
3. Visit Derechos Humanos for other ideas and resources, including sample letters.

I'll keep this post updated with any new developments. Thanks to Manuel for bringing the story to our attention and to Nezua, Kyle, and Symsess for the follow-ups.

Tony Bourdain in Laos

He's one of the few figures to emerge from the celebrity-chef fad with a few shreds of dignity and something interesting to say about food and culture. Sure, I like Tony Bourdain because he's a hard-drinking world-weary pulp-novelist with a seething disdain for mass-produced overly-processed pop-formulaic culture product. But just behind that jaded exterior, he shows more genuine heart and emotion than any of the fake-cheery bobbleheads working their bland hustles on Food Network. Bourdain loves food, not the foodie-industrial complex. And he loves the same kinds of food that I most love and respect: bold unpretentious food, street food, rustic food; spicy noodle soup or beef stew for breakfast; food which nourishes the body and soul not the ego; food rooted in wisdom not flash; food which pulls you closer to this teeming world not further from it.

Here's a stirring and informative segment from a recent episode of "No Reservations" in Laos, in which Tony takes a look at the work of an organization called UXO LAO as they clear unexploded US bombs from the countryside:

Friday Music — Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, "Heatwave"

Satire of the Stupid

[ Image via Diary of an Anxious Black Woman ]

At the risk of beating a dead literary-institution carcass, I want to clarify something about the massive failage of The New Yorker's now-infamous cover.

Not that I'm particularly aggrieved, incited, or surprised by the standard brain-farting and deep mutual butt-sniffing of white liberals of the variety that produce and display The New Yorker. I mean, I worked for years on Wall Street and in corporate media, so I'm tiresomely familiar with the cultural contours of that worldview and the soul-less snickering and self-congratulatory self-absorption at its anxious core. People of color are objects, not subjects, in that conversation; the presence and exhibition of our melanin, but not our voices, is meant to serve as guilt-balm, affirming liberal tolerance and unctuous self-regard.

Most of the criticism I've seen directed at the image has construed the problem as being that only urbane cosmopolitan sophisticates will get it, with commenters hastening to add, "Oh of course I get it, but what about the ignorant yokels? Remember the philistines!" But that's really not how I see it. Because to me, those who claim to get this image are the unsophisticates who lack the cultural and artistic literacy to understand the proper meaning of the word "satire". It's not the same as "sarcasm". That's why we have two different words. (Hint: that last line was sarcastic, not satirical. And I won't even get into the massive popular abuse of the word "ironic".)

See, in my world, the purpose of satire is iconoclasm; by which I mean, the breaking of icons, the exploding of false power centers and false narratives which hold destructive sway over society. The New Yorker cover, despite its intention and despite being sarcastic, is not satire; rather, it is a visualization and manifestation of racist cliches and stereotypes, and thus a propagation and perpetuation of racism. It does not interrogate the validity of those racist stereotypes, but rather accepts and gleefully embraces their marginalizing and dehumanizing power, then implies that it's ludicrous for conservative yahoos to think that the Obamas are those kinds of blacks; the Obamas are good blacks, not scary militant blacks or Muslims; the Obamas do not sport Afros or turbans, they are not reminiscent of dangerous Sixties radicals, no sir, they are down with the program, they are safe for whites.

Aside from the racial insularity from which it emerges, this art fails on purely discursive grounds. You can't fight demeaning portrayals by actualizing them. If a woman is accused in sexist society of being ugly, the appropriate response is not to draw a picture of her looking extremely ugly according to certain patriarchal standards in order to chuckle about it. That doesn't work. The appropriate response is to undermine the entire set of underlying assumptions and beliefs which give potency to sexist slurs.

Perhaps most fundamentally, the piece does not connect with the social realities of blackness, but only with the fears of the white imagination. In so doing, it reaffirms and reanimates those fears and social divisions at a pre-intellectual level, which is where art primarily impacts the psyche. The lives of people with Afros, the lives of people who wear turbans, the actual legacies of the Black Panthers and 60s social justice activists, are all distorted, discarded, and mocked in the service of asserting the palatability of the Democratic nominee to provincial white sensibilities. And there's nothing even remotely cosmopolitan or sophisticated or iconoclastic or hip about that.

So there it is: witness the miseducated dorkiness of The New Yorker, neither funny nor provocative, just another sloppily-dressed comic too cross-eyed drunk to realize how badly he's bombing on stage, because the audience is laughing not at his jokes, but at him.

The Sanctuary's Kety Esquivel on CNN

In the wake of yesterday's Wall Street Journal post and our now-looming questionnaire, blogmiga Kety Esquivel of CrossLeft and The Sanctuary went on CNN's American Morning today to talk immigration politics...

[ Transcript ]

Kety did a very slick job of pressuring both the Obama and McCain campaigns to show Latin@ communities something solid and specific, beyond "mariachi politics" as it has come to be known. Yes yes we all know that Obama is the stronger of the two mainstream candidates on all manner of issues, but like any other politician on the brink of power he must be forcefully coerced into taking gutsy, smart political risks which may fall outside of craven Beltway orthodoxy. Such risks sometimes involve antagonizing an influential few to the benefit of the unsung many. This is how populism happens. As I see it, Democratic Party politicians are unlikely to grow a backbone until their constituents do.

The Sanctuary's Questionnaire for Presidential Candidates

The founding editors of The Sanctuary have put together a detailed questionnaire focusing on issues surrounding immigration, which we are distributing to the 2008 presidential candidates. [ Image: Sanctuary poster by Nezua, of course.]

We sent the questionnaire to the Obama and McCain campaigns a little over two weeks ago. Since we hadn't heard back from either of them, yesterday we publicized the survey on a major Latin@ email list which gets read by all sorts of Beltway mucky-mucks. The Obama campaign promptly got in touch with us and reassured us that our survey is not being ignored; they are working on it along with the hundreds of other such requests they receive. O the woes of making it a mainstay of your campaign sloganeering that "change comes not from the top down, but from the bottom up!" Come on, Barry, show us some change we can believe in!

Meanwhile, no word from the McCain camp.

Obviously, both Obama and McCain have in recent weeks been increasing the volume of their bleating noises about reaching out to Latin@ voters; but it's not enough to chant "Sí se puede" or visit the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Many Latin@ communities are currently under virulent attack by a lethal wave of reactionary scapegoating and hatemongering, institutionalized intimidation, repression, and violence, and thumb-twiddling liberal indifference. The questions in The Sanctuary's survey express many desperately urgent concerns, and any unwillingness by any candidate to offer unambiguous answers to these questions speaks volumes about the chasm between rhetorical posturing and actual policy positions. As Marisa Treviño writes at Latina Lista in her own post about this survey:

Depending on the source, recent headlines have touted Obama and McCain of either "pandering" for the Latino vote or "courting" it.

Given that both men have been or will be appearing at national Latino or Latino-participant events (NALEO, LULAC, NCLR, UNITY 08), it's obvious they both want to be seen as supporting Latino causes.

But do they really? Do they dare to make their true stands on the issues known before November 4, 2008?

Each claims that he has but while speeches touch on issues of interest to Latinos, in true political style, the issues are acknowledged but not explored. Talk with no substance.

Of course, we are also reaching out to Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney (who has just named Rosa Clemente as her running mate) and other third-party campaigns, though we're still in the early stages of these efforts and have nothing to report yet. As readers here probably know, I'm a fervent advocate of third-party politics, because I believe that the two-party Coke-Pepsi lockdown on US politics is one of the biggest obstacles to progressive change in this country and the world. Most of the great victories in US social justice history — from the abolition of slavery to suffrage for women to the union movement — have depended upon third parties. There is absolutely no reason to believe that future social justice victories can be achieved without similar pressure. The status quo never changes out of the goodness of incumbents' hearts; the establishment succumbs to change only when it is the least costly option.

So I'll keep this post updated with additional posts on this matter from my colleagues at The Sanctuary, as well as with any further developments in our communications with the campaigns. And you're invited to help us raise a stink about it as well! Let's make some noise, friends! That's what these intertubes are for.

UPDATE 1: A post on this matter has gone up at The Sanctuary, as well as one from Man Eegee at Latino Politico.

UPDATE 2: More from Maegan at Vivir Latino, Sylvia/M at Problem Chylde, and Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican.

UPDATE 3: And Kety at CrossLeft. Now we're rollin!

UPDATE 4: Add Para Justicia y Libertad and Citizen Orange to the mix.

~ ~ ~

The Sanctuary's Presidential Candidate Questionnaire

[ Please provide direct, detailed answers and explain how long you have held each position. ]

1. Could you please articulate what you think are the most pressing issues for the U.S. immigrant community, at home AND abroad, and how you would hope to address those issues as President?

2. Do you support comprehensive immigration reform?

3. What policy conditions would comprehensive immigration reform have to meet in order for you to support it? Please be specific.

4. Do you support the establishment of an expanded guest worker program?

5. Do you support the expansion and construction of a virtual border along the U.S./Mexico border?

Music — Feist, "I Feel It All"

Speaking of fireworks...

Actually I went to Feist's concert last night in Prospect Park, where she played an energetic, uplifting set in front of thousands of rain-drenched singing dancing fans. A friend of mine called me up at the last minute with an extra ticket to the show, so I boogied over to Brooklyn. We got soaked to the skin and had a blast.

Monday Music — Sheryl Crow, "Gasoline Will Be Free!"

Here's some light-pop near-future sci-fi anarchist imagery to get your engine turning on this sluggish morning, about a petroleum crisis which drives people around the world to take matters into their own hands and come to the simple realization that the Earth's natural resources belong to everyone...

...When the government turned its back on the farmer man what I hear
Is they dragged the pumps out of the ground with a big vintage John Deere
Now I've got soldiers on my payroll standing guard on my front drive
Snipers on my roof poised at those who didn't want me alive
'Cause they audited my taxes and my family under threat
'Cause I've got a message and a megaphone and I'll scream it to the death...

Happy Interdependence Day

Being the type to generally embrace any and every excuse to throw a party, I like all holidays, especially when there's barbecue and fireworks involved (fireworks being arguably the third greatest Chinese contribution to world civilization, after books and noodles). I like celebrations, and I like people who are in the midst of celebrating.

Of course, I also like to excise from my attention all forms of loopy nationalistic propaganda as I participate in events such as July Fourth Weekend, whose entire premise is pretty much nationalistic propaganda. See, I really don't like being hustled, and since the essential objective of nationalistic propaganda is to turn people into suckers and suck-ups, well that whole thing doesn't work for me. Admittedly there's something vaguely funny about dorky dittoheads who think it's patriotic to wave flags made in China and watch fireworks made in China while US hegemony turns to toxic compost beneath their clogged noses. There's also something vaguely tragic about it, this desperate hunger to belong to something great which drives people to fabricate rather than realize greatness, and to put out their own eyes and cut out their own hearts in order to avoid unlearning lies about that which is ungreat.

Do I love this country? It depends on what you mean by "country". I certainly love the land and many of the people. I love movies and sandwiches and tequila. I love the blues and jazz and rumba and rock. I love Thoreau and DuBois and Hurston and Whitman and Hughes. Actually I love a lot of things happening here. But there are also plenty of people and institutions and operations in this country whose destructive agendas directly collide with my interests and those of humanity and the Earth; they are my enemies, even if they live in the same country as me or occupy high offices in the corporate-political power structures of this nation-state. That's just how it is and how things are gonna go down, and I couldn't care less if this means that infantile cootie-carrying labels get lobbed at me by dimwits so remedial they're still stuck on such games; I wouldn't listen to such fools discuss the weather, much less the proper relationship between individual and country.

So I enjoyed the weekend. It was a nice opportunity to relax and watch fireworks and chat with neighbors and watch the US Olympic trials. And of course every weekend is a nice opportunity to declare our interdependence:

We, the people of planet Earth,

In recognition of the interconnectedness of all life

And the importance of the balance of nature,

Hereby acknowledge our interdependence

And affirm our dedication

To life-serving environmental stewardship,

The fulfillment of universal human needs worldwide,

Economic and social well-being,

And a culture of peace and nonviolence,

To insure a sustainable and harmonious world

For present and future generations.

Help Academia Understand This Whole "Flame War" Thing

I think it's safe to say that we know a little something about virtual conflict in this bloghood. Some conflict is inevitable; some is meaningful, even productive, educational, transformative. However, it does seem like some forms of online conflict are decidedly unproductive, at times hurtful and unhealthy. Can virtual conflict be managed and minimized by implementing best practices and online community-building strategies?

We're still finding our way in the new media realm, figuring out what works and what doesn't, figuring out what kinds of virtual communities and activities enrich our lives and reward our participation, and which ones end up simply being draining.

Professor Black Woman recently remarked:

In the past week, I have read no less than 5 meltdowns on blogs in which the blog owner has stated unequivocally they are sick of infighting, monitoring comments, and are thinking of quitting. I wrote one myself and it was not pretty. And now, there is one from a radio DJ that has officially received enough hits to become a wordpress “hawt [sic] post.” So is it in the water wires?

I tend to think that discussions are inevitably going to get heated, passionate, intense, angry, personal, when dealing with the kinds of issues we deal with on anti-racist anti-imperialist anti-oppression sites. Then again, the strange thing is that online communities of all stripes — not just political blogs, but forums about seemingly innocuous topics such as HTML or bicycles (as Tom once said) — seem to exhibit similar dynamics of conflict escalation degenerating into personal attacks and bitter exchanges.

Where am I going with all this? I'm plugging a research project on managing virtual conflict being conducted by my dear friend Zoe for her NYU graduate studies. She's collecting survey data for her thesis; it's confidential and doesn't take long, so if you've got a minute please fill out the survey and help academia better understand this whole "flame war" thing!

Ndidi Onukwulu and Seun Kuti at the Commodore Ballroom

The Vancouver International Jazz Festival was raging throughout the week that I spent north of the border, featuring hundreds of local and world artists in dozens of venues around the city. During that week, you could pretty much duck into any downtown live-music bar at night and be likely to see and hear something interesting and worthwhile which you'd never seen or heard before.

Last Wednesday night I ended up at the Commodore Ballroom, on the bustling nightlife strip of Granville Street where clubs and pubs, cafes and music stores, noodle shops and sex shops, operate side-by-side in apparent harmony. As the name suggests, the Commodore is essentially a cavernous room with a generous stage up front and a large wooden dance floor in the center, flanked on two sides by tiered tables and, amazingly, three full bars. There were two sets on the ticket that night: first, burgeoning local chanteuse Ndidi Onukwulu [pictured] with her versatile trio; and second, son of iconic Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti and heir apparent to the musical-political lineage, Seun Kuti, accompanied by Fela's Egypt 80. Both groups put on powerful, inspired performances.

Ndidi Onukwulu started things off and got the crowd going with her electrifying bluesy vocals and her uniquely quirky, folksy, eclectic style of songwriting. Glittering in a black sequin dress with a poofy high-waisted knee-length skirt, she cheerfully declared to a smilingly appreciative audience: "All of my songs are about heartbreak, heartache, death, and world destruction. I'll adhere strictly to these four themes. Heartbreak, heartache, death, and world destruction." Canadian daughter of a Nigerian father and German mother, Onukwulu has just released her second CD, titled "The Contradictor", which she says is partially inspired by cemeteries she visited around the country. She says, "You can learn a lot in cemeteries. They are almost like chat rooms for dead people." Hmm. I guess that's kinda cool. Less cryptically, she adds, "The blues is my soul. That’s where I come from. But I was never a self-proclaimed blues artist. When I think of what I’m doing today, it’s organic music that steps outside of any boundaries. I embrace the idea of cabaret. There’s an excess of emotion, almost to a comical point."

As for Seun Kuti, well, some background:

“I know who I am. Even if I sell 100 million copies of my album, even if I tour the world six times, even if I win 70 Grammys, people will be talking about my dad. There's no escaping it,” says the younger Kuti, who has even adopted his father's second Yoruban name of Anikulapo (“I've got death in my quiver”) and references the legacy upon which he is building with his self-titled debut, “Seun Kuti & Fela's Egypt 80.”

After years of singing and performing his late father's songs, Kuti, who comes to World Caf Live in Philadelphia on Saturday, has issued his own incendiary collection of politically pointed oeuvres that swing with all the brash militancy and invigorating dance rhythms of his father's hallmark sound. “Seun Kuti,” released last week on Disorient Records, is an explosive attack on the corruption, ignorance, maladies and other ills ravaging contemporary Africa, the music a pressing and vibrant horn-saturated blend that brims with inventive guitars, keyboards, percussion and vocals.

That Egypt 80 is comprised of more than two-thirds of its original members, who for years played nightly at the Shrine nightclub at Fela's Kalakuta commune in Lagos, Nigeria, keeps much of the band's original sound in tact — the gritty funk-jazz fusion steeped in traditional African rhythms and chants that was pioneered by the elder Kuti.

And while his youngest son asserts that he is very much an individual, he is determined to maintain a certain degree of purity when it comes to preserving the kinetic big-band formula.

“Afrobeat is what I want to do. I don't believe it has to sound like any other genres. They want to put hip-hop, soul, samba, Latin music to try to make it modern. I say Afrobeat is already modern,” says Kuti, who speaks, as he sings, with a muscular urgency. “Afrobeat is the future. All these other genres need to put Afrobeat into the music.”

Although he acknowledges a love for hip-hop, which along with rap, has gained sway over the Nigerian music scene in recent years, he is not a fan of much of what he hears in his homeland.

“In Africa today, the establishment supports hip-hop because the kind of hip-hop they do in Africa today is very ... it's light, it doesn't teach you anything. It's ignorant hip-hop that talks about rubbish,” he says. “But it's what the establishment pushes. It is not a big threat to them, not opposition, not asking questions; it keeps people in the box they want them to be (in).

“Hip-hop doesn't have a wider audience; it has a bigger commercial support. But Afrobeat, with or without support, will still carry on living because it's the truth.

“Afrobeat is not a kind of music you just perform. It's the kind of music you have to believe in. It's a movement that takes over your life and it's a personal movement as well.”

And so along with a musical legacy, Kuti has also inherited his father's defiant outspokenness and inflammatory politics. “Many Things,” from his debut disc, lambastes governmental hypocrisy and the empty promises made by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, even including an excerpt from one of his speeches, while “Mosquito Song” decries the inexcusable prevalence of malaria due to corruption.

It was an amazing time at the Commodore. By the end of the night, chairs had largely been abandoned, the crowd was on its feet, dancing, sweating. And that makes the subversive political message even more dangerous.

Champion of the World

Pinoy powerhouse Manny Pacquiao, belt-holder in four (arguably five) weight divisions, the greatest active pound-for-pound fighter in the world, on the brink of crossover superstardom...

Weekend Music — Fiona Apple, "Across The Universe"

...Jai guru deva om...