Ariel Dorfman on NPR

I was just listening to Ariel Dorfman (who wrote an excellent opinion piece in the Washington Post today) on NPR, talking about the outrage of U.S.-sanctioned torture in this day and age. The host continued to ask him why he is opposed to torture, and Mr. Dorfman, exasperated, said he truly cannot believe that this is a topic that's being seriously debated in the U.S. I'm with him. I find it extremely sad that the host was hinting that there might be some sort of merit to the pro-torture argument. I cannot believe we're in the business of torture.

Excerpt of the opinion piece:

It is a story that our species has listened to with mounting revulsion, a horror that has led almost every nation to sign treaties over the past decades declaring these abominations as crimes against humanity, transgressions interdicted all across the earth. That is the wisdom, national and international, that has taken us thousands of years of tribulation and shame to achieve. That is the wisdom we are being asked to throw away when we formulate the question -- Does torture work? -- when we allow ourselves to ask whether we can afford to outlaw torture if we want to defeat terrorism.

I will leave others to claim that torture, in fact, does not work, that confessions obtained under duress -- such as that extracted from the heaving body of that poor Argentine braggart in some Santiago cesspool in 1973 -- are useless. Or to contend that the United States had better not do that to anyone in our custody lest someday another nation or entity or group decides to treat our prisoners the same way.

I find these arguments -- and there are many more -- to be irrefutable. But I cannot bring myself to use them, for fear of honoring the debate by participating in it.

You know times are tough when...

...Obstructed, Broken Road Signs Frustrate Drivers. I'm amazed that it's taken this long for this to become a story. The parks department is so underfunded, but when times are tough it's one of the first departments to get the weed whacker treatment. It's a shame. They're probably doing as good a job as they can do, given the dire financial straits they're in.

Is this not an extremely embarrassing statement?

"After the initial, total ban, we have learned enough from the UK investigation to say with confidence that small, travel size liquids are safe to bring through security checkpoints in limited numbers," said Assistant TSA Secretary Kip Hawley.

With all of the supposed resources we have devoted to the combatting of terrorism and gathering of intelligence here in These United States, you would think we would have been able to determine long ago how much of a liquid is safe to bring on board an airplane. Total assiness.

In Which the Reality Meets the Fantasy

Since US presence in the Middle East is such a positive thing for all Americans, I guess it's time for us suck it up and pony up.

On days like today, it's impossible to restrain the snark.

Dumb Senatorial Comment of the Day

”I think it’s obvious that the difficulties we’ve experienced in Iraq have certainly emboldened" terrorist groups, Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

“But I would also argue that these people didn’t need any motivation to attack us on Sept. 11,” he said.

OK, so our continued presence in Iraq and bumbling of everything imaginable in the Middle East are emboldening the terrorists (oh, and you forgot to mention these things are breeding more terrorists...but I guess that's straying a bit too far from the line, eh?), but that doesn't really matter because they'll just attack the US for absolutely no reason. It's good that we're there to prevent a completely unprovoked attack from ever happening again - of course! Now I see it.

Sting Rays 1, Humans 10

This is like something out of The Onion. Unbelievable. What are these people thinking????

"Stingrays Multilated After 'Croc Hunter' Death"

This story, on the other hand, did not surprise me:












WHATEVER! The story goes on to say that veterans of the Gulf War have much higher levels of illnesses in general than other veterans. Doesn't this tell them something? Just because there isn't a specific pattern of symptoms in all of these veterans doesn't mean the syndrome doesn't exist. Hopefully someday we will find out this syndrome's cause.

I rode the dragon's wing!

Asia played at Avalon last night, and totally rocked, a bunch of progrock fogeys having a terrific time. Here's my review:

Walking past Avalon on my way to meet my friend Blake, I notice that there's a growing line of older, balding, fat, geeky looking men (and a middle-aged woman) streaming out of the club door. Oh my god, I think to myself, this could end up being an absolutely horrific experience. At the very least, though, it will be interesting!Arriving at Avalon laer on with Blake, we see that the male/female ratio at the show is something like 4 to 1. The over-30/under-30 ratio is probably like 9 to1, with the 1 being a Berklee guitar student who wants to take a gander at Legendary Guitar God Steve Howe. Finding myself among a crowd as different from me as when I saw Helmet at Axis, I giggle a little and start wondering if this is going to be disastrous show.

Prog-pomp classical music belts out of the speakers. Literally, seeing as how the tune is "Pomp and Circumstance" by Elgar. It's good to see these guys have a sense of humor (it's generally true that the older prog musicians get, the more they understand how pompous a lot of their music is. But they still revel in it). The band gets on stage to cheers and applause - Steve Howe as rail thin and ugly as ever, sporting a very 70s flowery shirt, John Wetton fat and drunk looking, Carl Palmer in amazingly good shape for his age (I guess that probably goes with drumming), and Geoff Downes looking like he never left the 80s. John Wetton wore a shirt that read "ALEA JACTA EST," which upon investigation I found to mean "the die is cast," as said by Julius Caesar at some point in his career.

The first song begins - I'd been guessing with Blake what would be the opener, we were both wrong - and I can't remember what it is, but it sounds familiar. It turns out that it's one of my favorite tunes from their first album that I've totally forgotten about, "Time and Time Again." The mix is really bass and drum heavy, the guitars get a bit louder, but the keys are lost in the mix unless it's a solo (the mix was fixed later on, not perfectly, but good enough). They were all rocking, and it was pretty fantastic. John Wetton played like a bass ace who'd had one drink too many. Carl Palmer was crazy on the drums. Steve Howe made his funny faces during his guitar solos. They were all a bit rusty and having a good time of it.

They played every single song off of their debut (and to my shock I remember most of the music, lyrics, and guitar solos), and just a couple from their second album. During "Sole Survivor," John Wetton kept on raising his index finger in the air as if to indicate, "Just one, single, sole survivor," in case we were confused about that. It was pretty funny. One of the tunes they played, "Cutting It Fine," I had again totally forgotten about, and it totally rocked. So many arpeggios and riffs to fit into a 4 to 5 minute tune!

And then there were the non-Asia tunes they played. "Roundabout" was a predictable choice, and they did an OK job with it. Steve Howe got 2 old tunes to play, as he did "The Clap," also, which of course everyone clapped along to. Carl Palmer's tune was "Fanfare for the Common Man," which made for a surprisingly entertaining prog-jam. It really rocked. John Wetton's bass shook the place. In a strange move, they played "In the Court of the Crimson King," which is a huge mystery since Wetton didn't even play on that; Greg Lake did. Who knows? The 80s Moment of Zen came when the band played "Video Killed the Radio Star," which was a surprise, though I guess it shouldn't have been. It was one of those audience bonding moments. Good Times. John Wetton sang through a megaphone, and Geoff Downes brought out his Synthaxe. Brought the house down. They hadn't had this good a time since 1982.

Not surprisingly, they ended with "Heat of the Moment," which the crowd of course went totally nuts for. The concert was well worth the money, and my only regret is that I wasn't able to meet up with John Wetton for a pint after the show. He seemed half in the bag already.

Good news for Polish Bostonians!

It's a nice statue - and it's a rare occasion when I can compliment the T on doing something right.