TriumphAnt

It’s all relative…

In news coverage of the aftermath of the great Hawaii earthquake of mid-October 2006, the Governor of the State spoke on CBC-TV Newsworld to explain why he called for a declaration of a state of emergency. In quick order, he mentioned:

- It was going to take “most of the morning” to get things back to normal;
- They lost internet connectivity and were only just beginning to get it back after a whole day without it;
- Some 3,000 tourists still had not yet been cleared to return to their hotels.

Asked about injuries resulting from the quake, he said that not all the reports were in yet but, so far, they had one broken arm reported and, when that was confirmed, it would be the worst of the injuries reported so far.

All I could wonder was what must the people of New Orleans be thinking when they hear what prompts the declaration of a state of emergency on the Big Island of Hawaii.

(I also thought that it sort of parallels the now-infamous day in this country in mid-January 1999 when then Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman felt compelled to call out the Canadian Army to help his city deal with several days’ accumulated snowfall of some 100 cm overall that effectively paralyzed everything for a day at one point in the run of bad weather.)

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A soundtrack disappointment to share…

Recently we (we being the immediate family) watched a movie that it turned out I liked a lot more than I thought I was going to – “50 First Dates”, with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, that proved to be an occasionally touching little romantic comedy.

One of the reasons I liked it was its music and three songs in particular really stood out for me – a nice piece of Bob Marley reggae called “Pressure Drop” (Coincidentally the same song by a different band, The Specials, figures in another movie soundtrack I like a lot – the music that backs up “Gross Pointe Blank”); there is also a wonderful interpretation of the Wizard of Oz’s signature piece – “Over the Rainbow” – that is backed up by the most unlikely of instruments, a ukulele. And because it occurs in at least two of the movie’s turning points, I really liked the way they used the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t it be nice?”.

Not one of which, it turns out, is on the CD of songs from the movie.

Apparently, I’m not alone in my disappointment with these omissions. Here’s one rail from the “Was this review helpful to you?” order desk of Amazon.ca:

“hmmm.....i dont know HOW they missed out on Iz's song....hes known and loved throughout Hawaii. i think its a bit of a slap in the face to be missing this one....he is, i think, the greatest Hawaiian singer of all time...and come on! His song is playing during their wedding! Also missing the Beach Boys, 311 and of course: BOB MARLEY! Its a sad soundtrack....i won't go out and buy it but im sure the songs on the cd are good, its just not worth the money because its not complete”

The “Iz” in the foregoing is a reference to the artist who sings the gorgeous Island take on “Over the Rainbow”. After a couple e-mail exchanges with a Baby Duck regular, I received a copy of a message he got from his son, who informed us that he is also a big fan of the artist (and it’s a good thing because I doubt I ever would have come up with, “It’s Israel ‘Izzy’ Kamakawiwo'ole... beautiful.” in any Google search that I might have triggered!) Iz died in 1997 – way too young at age 38, but it was hardly surprising when you read this note on a tribute page: “Throughout his career, Iz also had a weight problem that plagued his 6-foot-2-inch frame. At one time he tipped the scales at 757 pounds, and vowed in 1995 to shed 360 pounds. At one point during his career, he required a forklift to get on stage.”

The full tribute, with some somewhat frightening pictures, appears here.

And without too much trouble, you can also Google up an online link to Iz’s lovely take on “Over the Rainbow”. Worth the search; and it’s just too bad it – and Bob Marley’s “Pressure Drop”, and “Wouldn’t it be nice?” – got bumped by a couple of the 80s cheese dips they included on the movie’s “soundtrack”.

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Here’s a bit of spin to forever re-define “spin”. If you’re in the Florida Congressional District that is home to disgraced Washington page-chaser Mark Foley, well take heart, the Republican Party feels your pain. In fact, they’re urging voters to reject the pedophile by voting for him. It actually makes its own perverted sense once you read why, and I could try to explain it. But why bother when Florida author Carl Hiaasen, who has written some hilarious novels of his own about corrupt South Florida politicians, does it so much better in a recent Miami Herald column? (online edition, October 22 / 06):

GOP's logic: To reject Foley, vote for him

By CARL HIAASEN

If you think you've got problems, imagine what it's like to be Joe Negron.

The good news: You finally get to run for Congress.

The bad news: Your name won't be on the ballot.

The really bad news: Mark Foley's name will be.

Negron is a Republican state legislator from Stuart. He was chosen to run for Foley's seat in Florida's 16th congressional district after Foley resigned suddenly last month.

The move came so late that the ballots couldn't be updated. And last week, in a blow to the GOP, a judge ruled that election officials cannot post notices at polls to explain that a vote for Mark Foley is actually a vote for Joe Negron.

Given the heated publicity surrounding the scandal, only a cave dweller wouldn't already be aware that Foley has quit the race and has been replaced by another candidate -- Negron.

But this is South Florida, where several thousand folks mistakenly voted for screamer Pat Buchanan back in 2000 and threw the presidential election into epic turmoil. This time around, it's the Democrats who stand to benefit from voter confusion, and the Republicans are frantic with worry. That's why they suggested helpful, prominently displayed notices bearing Negron's name.

When Leon County Circuit Judge Janet Ferris ruled against the on-site notices, Democratic contender Tim Mahoney cheered the decision, saying it preserved ''the sanctity of the ballot box.''

It also preserved the convenient invisibility of Joe Negron. Mahoney probably wouldn't be riven with dismay if some voters who saw Foley's name on the ballot assumed that the ex-congressman was still in the race.

The 16th district, which includes parts of Palm Beach and eight other counties, is heavily Republican and conservative. Normally that would bode well for Negron, but Foley's antics were sufficiently reprehensible to deflate some rank-and-file enthusiasm.

Salacious e-messages

Had Foley merely been caught taking bribes, like his crooked colleague from Ohio, Bob Ney, the challenge facing Negron wouldn't be so daunting. However, Foley's salacious electronic messages to teenage House pages set a new subterranean standard of sleaze that offended virtually every core constituency.

It's so bad that Florida's top Republicans are loath to do what the ballot plainly does – mention Foley by name. You can't blame Negron for wanting a printed explanation of his weird predicament tacked up at all the polling places.

State Republicans, prodded by Gov. Jeb Bush, intend to appeal Judge Ferris' ruling that barred the posting of such notices. They say it's unfair to their candidate -- an amusing argument from the same people who blocked Al Gore from getting a statewide recount in his presidential contest with the governor's brother six years ago.

The proper spin

If the court's decision in the Negron case is overturned, the GOP should pull out all the literary stops with their election-day 'educational' signage. Leave nothing to chance:

Notice to All Registered Voters of the 16th Congressional District:

This is to remind you that a vote for that degenerate mollusk, Mark Foley, is really a vote for that upstanding family guy, Joe Negron!

Joe sincerely wishes his name were on the ballot instead of Mark Foley's. It certainly would make your task easier, and ours, too. And even though it might be distasteful -- even nauseating – to cast a vote for the disgraced former congressman, you can be confident that your vote won't be wasted.

Each and every one will be counted for Joe Negron, who is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like Mark Foley, we swear to God.

For example, Joe Negron has never gone skinny dipping with a priest. Or even with a rabbi, for that matter. He has never flirted with teenagers on the Internet, or engaged in raunchy online sex while voting on an important appropriations bill.

Please don't punish Joe Negron just because his name isn't on your ballot. It would have been there, if only Mark Foley had been caught earlier.

That would have happened had the House Republican leadership not looked the other way, but that also isn't Joe Negron's fault. He is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like Dennis Hastert, we swear to God.

Look at it this way: A vote for Mark Foley is really a vote against Mark Foley and the morally bankrupt system that allowed him to run wild for all those years.

Send a strong message to Washington by electing Joe Negron to Congress. Vote for Mark Foley on Nov. 7.

See? With the proper spin, it's really not so confusing.”

US Republican politics: what goes around, comes around.

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And finally…

I’ve been a big fan of Steve Earle’s music for a long time and so was delighted to discover that the ongoing Eagle Rock Entertainment’s “Live at Montreux”* series now includes a 66-minute long set of his 2005 Montreux appearance.

* (Everything here subtitled “Live at Montreux” is part of the series.

Now if you are someone whose Earle lust is sated only by the thundering rock of tunes like “Copperhead Road”, or the bluegrass-heavy full-band music that you’ll hear on the albums he’s released in company with the likes of the Del McCoury Band, you might want to give this a miss, because what you get here is Steve, his acoustic guitar (which he swaps for one song for a mandolin), and his harmonica. Even his rendition of “Copperhead Road” is acoustic here.

What you also get on this Eagle Rock release is his trademark voice, and his reduction of the alphabet to a couple vowels and about six or eight consonants that he rolls over top of each other at the end of each line and the beginning of the next. And of course you get his politics. Steve Earle is a passionate opponent of the Bush White House and the depths to which it has dragged the “America” that he (Earle) so obviously cares about. (In fact, at the beginning of this Montreux concert, he is introduced by a Charles Aznavour clone as “the Michael Moore of the music set”.)

One of my favourite songs of his, “Dixieland”, is written as though it comes from the mouth of a US Civil War-era soldier named Kilrain, in the Union Army’s 20th Maine regiment. Civil War-o-philes can be forgiven for thinking Kilrain was an actual figure from history. The 20th Maine, after all, really existed and performed heroically at Gettysburg. Kilrain, meanwhile, figures prominently in the Michael Shaara novel, “The Killer Angels”, about the Battle of Gettysburg, and not surprisingly in the movie, “Gettysburg”, which pretty well takes its storyboards from Shaara’s book. But although he personally is fictional, Kilrain is very much based on historically real people – the Irish who fought for the Union in that War. (And even when you’re new to reading about the Civil War, it won’t be long before you’ve encountered The Irish Brigade, fearless and sadly renowned for the unbelievably high casualties they sustained at three major Civil War battles – Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg.)

More here.

On the surface, “Dixieland” is about Kilrain fighting for his commander, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. But then you hit the line:

“I am Kilrain of the 20th Maine and I damn all gentlemen
Whose only worth is their father's name and the sweat of a workin' man.”

(Anyone know of another such American “gentleman” placed perhaps in a more recent historical context?) Whoops! Suddenly you realize you’re listening not to a lively celebration of a fighting Irishman, but rather to a protest song. As Earle succinctly puts it after briefly reviewing some of the causes of the Civil War, when you boil it all down, it was all about money and it was one more in the endless series of class wars that threw the poor into the front lines to fight for the interests of the rich.

And so the following line then becomes less a statement of pride than a fervent wish, or a prayer, or perhaps even a bitterly sarcastic, “Oh sure, in your dreams!”:

“Well we come from the farms and the city streets and a hundred foreign lands.
And we spilled our blood in the battle's heat;
Now we're all Americans.”

Until next time.