Canadian folk rock legend Neil Young said he has lost all hope that music can change the world, as he presented a documentary about his 2006 anti-war concert tour at the Berlin film festival on Friday. Welcome to adulthood, Neil.
"I know that the time when music could change the world is past. I really doubt that a single song can make a difference. It is a reality," Young told reporters. Don't worry, Neil. A single Nuke going off in Berkeley still could, but I don't know if it would be for the good or the better.
"I don't think the tour had any impact on voters." What tour?
But the silver-haired frontman of the sixties supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young nonetheless dealt US President George W. Bush a stinging, back-handed insult and said his own "naive" urge to make people think remains intact. "What is wrong with George Bush? That would take a really long time. Let's talk about what is right with him, it is a much shorter answer.
"He is a very good physical specimen. He shows that a man his age can stay in physical condition," said Young, who is 62.
He made no distinction between the Vietnam War, during which CSNY first earned their reputation as political activists, and the US-led war in Iraq which their tour condemned with songs like "Let's Impeach The President". It's all just war, man!
"It is all the same war and it hurts everybody. It's a wrong way to solve a problem," he said, adding that Americans were deluded if they thought they were liberating Iraq. You're right. You can thank the extremists for dragging us into it. Oh, and the Americans' desire to preserve their way of life. Well, 52% of them, anyway.
"We just don't have to go and spread democracy around the world." Wrong tree, Neil.
Young said he deliberately included interviews with unimpressed critics and soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the documentary of his band's "Freedom of Speech" reunion tour, which earned them both praise and death threats. Picked them at random and they all had the same thing to say, right?
"Otherwise I thought it would just feel like a bunch of old hippies. And nobody would care. I would not, I would have left," said Young, who directs his films under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey. Your camouflage didn't work, and the reality is you're still an old hippie.
"I wanted to serve the people who came to see the shows, to serve the soldiers who fought in the war and to serve the people who started the war. It sounds naive but everybody has to make a decision in their hearts about how they want to live." Wanna serve the soldiers? Ask their opinion first. Then cater to that.
"CSNY: Deja Vu", which borrows its title from an album the band released in 1970, had its world premier at the Sundance Film Festival in January. It is screening in the Berlinale Special section of the Berlin festival, which has this year made music a headline act by bringing The Rolling Stones, Madonna and rock poetess Patti Smith to town. Isn't there some part of the Berlin Wall left standing that you could show it on for some kind of symbolic effect?
Martin Scorcese's Stones concert film "Shine A Light" opened the festival with a bang on Thursday night and the Oscar-winning director said he wanted to pay tribute to the vintage rockers as they had inspired his work from "Mean Streets" through to "The Departed."
Coming days will see screenings of Madonna's directorial debut, "Filth and Wisdom," movies about Sudanese hip-hop artists and Argentinian tango and "Om Shanti Om", the Bollywood song and dance blockbuster. Patti Smith will attend a screening of a documentary on her career and play a sold-out concert on the festival sidelines.
Young, who managed the quirky feat of singing every line of dialogue in his 2003 film "Greendale" said music was a "primal subject" for the movies.
But the genre has changed little in his time, he added. "I have not seen tremendous growth, any evolution really. From the Sinatra years, The Who's 'The Kids Are Alright' ... directors have always made films about music culture. There have been some great ones though."
#1
Young said he deliberately included interviews with unimpressed critics and soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the documentary of his band's "Freedom of Speech" reunion tour, which earned them both praise and death threats.
Not to be nitpicky, but wouldn't people actually have to see this "documentary" to have that kinda reaction? Although I'm sure it'll be on the Sundance Channel, which plays movies that are so bad that it's part of my basic cable package, soon.
"Otherwise I thought it would just feel like a bunch of old hippies. And nobody would care. I would not, I would have left," said Young, who directs his films under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey.
#5
Neil actually was kinda gung-ho right after 9/11, with songs like "Let's Roll". The the hippy instincts kicked in.
Neil's made great music. If I screened my music for moonbats, I'd have practically nothing less.
Musicians and movie stars and the like are basically overpaid extended adolescents. It's what they do for society ... most of us go and get a job, raise a family, etc ... we pay Neil to facilitate our fantasy that someday we could still learn some bar chords and hit the road.
#7
As a baby boomer from a family with many in uniform at the time, I have never forgiven him for this refrain:
Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down ...
Watching the shameful abuse of those national guardsmen, spitting and rock throwing and more. And that young kid who panicked and fired and felt awful afterwards ...
And then this slimemold makes a fortune off of it with his self-righteous song?
SPIT
(Not that I feel strongly about it or anything ...)
#8
From "Let's Roll" to "Let's Run" in how many years? If musicians are so flimsy in their own opinions why the hell should we give them any credit.
I think Crosby Stills, Nash and Young probably thought there 4 Dead in Ohio song caused the uproar about that campus shooting, as if nobody would have been offended if there wasn't a theme song guiding them.
Music can entertain and it can fill the emptiness but uninformed politics and irrational fears are still uninformed politics and irrational fears even when put to music. I still smirk when I listen to all of those anti-nuke songs from the 80s that always seemed to tilt that it was USA's fault we were spiraling into inevitable war. Yeah maybe people who live the problems day and night knew a bit more about things than those that learned about it from a Time magazine article they skimmed and the feverish rantings of a drug-soaked roadie. Maybe.
#9
I disagree that music can't change the world. Bagpipe music used to do a pretty fine job of it. That was before the UK began removing their spines at birth.
But of course, Lefty Moonbat music can also change the world. It turns people with brain cells into Republicans.
Egypt's highest civil court ruled Saturday that 12 Coptic Christians who had converted to Islam could return to their old faith, ending a yearlong legal battle over the predominantly Muslim state's tolerance for conversion.
The court overturned an April 2007 ruling by a lower court that forbade the 12 Muslims from returning to Christianity on the grounds that Islamic law would consider that apostasy.
There is no Egyptian law against converting from Islam to Christianity, but in this case tradition had taken precedent. Under a widespread interpretation of Islamic law, converting from Islam is apostasy and punishable by death though the state has never ordered or carried out an execution on those grounds.
Judge Mohammed el-Husseini sidestepped the issue by saying the 12 should not be considered apostates since they were born Christian, said a judicial official on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The judge also ordered the Ministry of Interior to list converts' former and current religious status on identification cards, which the government body had previously refused to do.
Mamdouh Nakhlah, a lawyer for the 12, described the ruling as "victory for human rights and freedom of religion in Egypt."
"This will open the door for many others to return to Christianity," Nakhlah told The Associated Press.
While lower courts have ruled in favor of conversions in the past, Saturday's ruling was the first in a high court. Government bodies have until now refused to recognize conversions away from Islam.
However, given the judge's reasoning that the men could convert because were born Christian, the ruling will not necessarily bring change for other Muslims who wish to convert. Most who convert practice their new religion quietly or leave the country.
Egyptian Christians can easily convert to Islam and many do so to obtain a divorce, which is prohibited by the conservative Coptic Church. But many change their minds or say they were converted against their will by a parent and want to become Christians again.
Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 76 million population and generally live in peace with the Sunni Muslim majority, though sectarian clashes do occasionally occur.
N.T. "Tom" Wright is one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought. As Bishop of Durham, he is the fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England and a major player in the strife-riven global Anglican Communion; as a much-read theologian and Biblical scholar he has taught at Cambridge and is a hero to conservative Christians worldwide for his 2003 book The Resurrection of the Son of God, which argued forcefully for a literal interpretation of that event.
It therefore comes as a something of a shock that Wright doesn't believe in heaven at least, not in the way that millions of Christians understand the term. In his new book, Surprised by Hope (HarperOne), Wright quotes a children's book by California first lady Maria Shriver called What's Heaven, which describes it as "a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk... If you're good throughout your life, then you get to go [there]... When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you heaven to be with him." That, says Wright is a good example of "what not to say." The Biblical truth, he continues, "is very, very different."
Wright, 58, talked by phone with TIME's David Van Biema.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/09/2008 12:15 ||
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#1
Been to heaven Mr. Wright ?
No ?
Bullshitting us again Mr. Wright ?
#2
While I might disagree, somewhat, with Bishop Wright's new age, touchy-feely, environmentalism, I'm forced to agree, for the most part, with his interpretation of Biblical and Jewish theology.
The apocalyptic "vision" of the Left Behind novels and Christian fundamentalism is a new development in Christianity, less than 200 years old. It's fundamentally flawed in its vision in that it interprets Biblical theology as saying we go to live with God in the end times rather than God coming here to live with us.
The Bible is very clear on a few things - it is important, very important, what we do here and how we live.
Bishop Wright's just saying that the touchy-feely vision of what happens to us after our physical body dies here is wrong according to what the Bible actually says. That's (the apocalyptic version of theology) a modern day interpretation that goes hand-in-hand with new age theology and religion that is, itself, fundamentally flawed in its vision of the world and the afterlife IMNSHO, of course.
I think Bishop Wright is right on the money when he basically states that we have a lot of work cut out for us when God returns.
#3
Follow the link and read the entire vomit puddle of moonbattery.
This "bishop" can't help but get in digs against the Iraq War, and promote Green propaganda. The issue isn't whether or not the technical aspects of his theological view square with this biblical source or that. He was merely using the interview to push his cultural marxism masquerading as Christianity.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
02/09/2008 14:34 Comments ||
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#4
"a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk"
That's got about as much New Testament support as the idea that little Jesus was born on Christmas Day, or that his Jewish parents would have given him a Latin rather than Hebrew name. What on earth was Mrs.Schwarzenegger thinking when she wrote that pap?
This was Time Magazine? It's their annual let's try to upset the believers issue, then, where they find something long known to Biblical scholars that's contradictory to common beliefs, and run with it. I think last year it was the Gospel of Judas, one of many such the Church Fathers chose not to include in the Testament they codified in the 4th century, just as the rabbis chose not to include many "historical novels", and anything written from the time of the Maccabees onward in the Jewish Bible. (If I recall correctly, the Book of Daniel was the last to be written, just before the cut off, even though the story was set in the time of the first diaspora. It was very much a coded message to those living under the rule of the Syrio-Hellenic tyrant Antiochus IV Epiphanes, he who was defeated so thoroughly by whichever Ptolemy was ruling Egypt at the time).
#5
FOTSGreg, actually, it doesn't seem that overwhelming.
Love your fellow man as you love yourself.
For we civilians in a system that preaches equality, it should be easy to queue up for heaven. I feel sorry for the soldiers. Those trained to kill who have indeed become methodical and efficient can use all the help we can offer to ease the trauma of their deeds revisited.
It's surprising that our society has never found a way to deal with such a broad problem resulting from our numerous wars. Rather, we celebrate victory, and sweep the details away pretending a new day washes all hands. Can we be so certain the God excuses them so easily ?
#6
Only murder is forbidden, wxjames, at least in the Ten Commandments in the original Hebrew. Killing in a just war, or to execute justice, is perfectly acceptable to God. If not, He and I will have a little talk when the time comes, for even Jesus accepted that those who crucified him were doing his Father's will. Whereas those civilians whose hands are clean because they stood aside while others were murdered, as far as I'm concerned they share guilt with those who actually took lives wrongly. "Anything is permitted in the saving of a life," the rabbis said, and "God does not demand of us a suicide pact."
Our society has found a way to deal with the issue, wxjames. Also with the difficult choices that policemen find themselves in, and those true politicians who honestly strive for the greatest good for the greatest number, knowing that not all will be better off no matter what they do, and some will even be hurt by it.
#7
I agree with the Bishop on his reading of Scripture on the nature of Heaven and where we will be in eternity, as well as agree with him on the Jewishness of the first century Church. However, the Time Magazine reporter AND the Bishop are both dead wrong about Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series: Both imply that the series ends in heaven, while the actual series ends at the beginning of the Millenium. Of the two, the Bishop is more in the wrong: the Time reporter can be expected to lie about it, but the Bishop either was as equally ignorant of the series (and thus got it so wrong as to look like a fool to those who actually have read it) or knew and went along with the Reporter's implication (and thus was venal in knowingly participating in perpetuating a falsehood). LaHaye was also very specific on telling us what he thought was Armageddon, and both the Bishop and the reporter go with the "popular" view that its a total destruction of the earth. Thus, in correcting one "popular", but wrong, view, they support another "popular", but also wrong, view.
#8
I still think whatever is on the other side is more wonderful and weird than we can ever conceive. However, I agree that what you do here counts, so make the most of it.
In Jewish theology, there are three laws that cannot be broken to save a life: one may not murder to save another, one may not commit adultery, and one may not commit idolatry. The Rabbis also ruled that one need not sacrifice one's own life to save another.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/09/2008 23:28 Comments ||
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Hat tip Little Green Footballs
The group Vietnam Veterans Against McCain attacks Senator John McCain's heroism as a POW in the Vietnam conflict; this is making some waves in the news due to McCain's presidential candidacy. The documentary "Missing, Presumed Dead the Search for America's POWs" however focuses more on Senator John McCain successfully blocking the release of classified POW/MIA documents. Here is a DVD extra from that documentary.
#1
I'm sure if we apply enough torture to anyone, we can get statements and film that forty years later can be used against anyone trying to obtain an office too. Would anyone from VVAM like to volunteer to prove that point?
#2
Can anyone explain why Vietnam would hold POWs after the war? It never made sense to me. It costs money to guard and feed prisoners and you'd risk exposure.
People don't just hold onto liabilities because of vengeance.
#4
rjs: People don't just hold onto liabilities because of vengeance.
Private individuals don't. When you're a communist leader, and you're using "the people's resources", who cares? If liberals had to pay extra (over and above other people) to support their cradle-to-grave welfare schemes, they'd be a lot less likely to support them. But they have the rest of the taxpayers to support their pet causes, which is what liberalism is all above - other people's money used in the service of private causes.
#5
First, when McCain appologises for that I will forgive him, but he has tried everything to bury the facts. What does that make him ?
Second, the MIAs may have become human experiments. What does successfully blocking the release of information make him ?
This is why some prefer Hitlery to McCrudd.
#6
That didn't take long. I expected it to begin around May-June time frame. This round against McCain will make the real Swiftboaters look like Kerry supporters. Moreover, John shouldn't expect any help from his "friends" in the MSM.
#7
he has tried everything to bury the facts. What does that make him ?
Human.
I've got issues with McCain. None of them involve his time as a POW. If they're lucky they'll roll this out now, because it's not a winner. No matter what he did, he did it during 5 years of hell he personally endured with the intent to keep me free. He's a wartime hero.
#8
I don't know what happened in Hanoi and I supported Romney over McCain.
That said, Ross Perot has publicly stated he will try to derail McCain's candidacy over the POW issue. Perot deliberately sabotaged one Republican presidency - do we need to allow him to do so a second time?
OTOH I had the sense that there were people in the late 70s - early 80s that simply would not believe there were no more POWs to be rescued. The issue became a surrogate for supporting the war, when we had surrendered and withdrew disgracefully. OTOH, there was a lot done badly by our government in that war so conspiracy stories found it easy to gain traction.
Moreover I personally know a former Marine pilot who stashed a fortune in gold in Swiss accounts from running heroin and whores during the war and who may have done work for the CIA. He probably was not alone in that sort of thing. There's likely to be stuff in those files that goes way beyond MIA/POW info, which might complicate matters re: their release.
So it's hard for me to sort this out. I'll rely on my career military uncle and cousins who served multiple tours in Nam and in one case flew tree-top missions over countries we officially were NOT operating in and who was told he would be disavowed and not rescued if his plane went down. They felt the POW issue was being artificially prolonged. And they suspected that honorable men who had broken under torture would have their names dragged in the mud and relive the torture again if the files were released.
My older uncle (Silver Star, multiple Bronze Stars, multiple purple hearts at Bastogne in an earlier war, still suffers from those wounds and from a 47% casualty rate in his regiment) also thought the issue should be allowed to rest.
#9
"Can anyone explain why Vietnam would hold POWs after the war?"
Don't forget North Viet-Nam held on to French prisoners and remains in violation of their peace agreements. They released them in dribs and drabs to humiliate the French and extort money.
As late as the 1970's the North Vietnamese were still demanding money in order to return the remains of French soldiers.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/09/2008 14:50 Comments ||
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#10
I feel we need to focus on the end of the game here.
I expect liberals to bash McCain, but not Rantburgians, at least not now that he's the clear runner. Put aside any and all of your distaste for McCain, he is the least worst as they say. We need to unite and show support, don't play into the hands of liberals trying to bash McCain. McCain wasn't my choice either, but do you want Clinton or Obama?
I don't feel it's right to sit in judgement of someone who spent years in hell.
Posted by: Jan ||
02/09/2008 15:08 Comments ||
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#11
his POW days should be off limits
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/09/2008 15:25 Comments ||
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#12
Gosh what did they do to Senator Kerry to make him betray his country? Any statement made by someone while detained by a enemy is way WAY off base.
#13
It is not right to judge McCain for this, but it is equally wrong to run for President with this kind of shit stinking up the closet.
Does this country have such a shortage of good men that we need to recycle a lame war horse ?
McCain is a jerk. This will destroy him, and he will have wasted 4 years of contested American politics for his own personal need.
Phucking egocentric asshole. He's not flying over the kooko's nest this time, he's running for President. Do I need to add that a sane man would have declined ?
#16
fair enuf. I'm puzzled by the "your country". I'd thought you were American
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/09/2008 17:53 Comments ||
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#17
Does this country have such a shortage of good men that we need to recycle a lame war horse?
At the moment it would seem so, wxjames, at least in terms of those willing to run for president of the U.S.A. Else there would have been more, or different, candidates for both of the main parties. Perhaps things will be different four years from now.
#18
Does this country have such a shortage of good men that we need to recycle a lame war horse ?
A look at what was done to Romney and Thompson should suggest why good men don't run for president. And I'm not sure they should, nor that they would do a good job if they won the office.
#19
Guys, this is what I was referencing as a problem for McCain.
Its nto that there are any POWs, not did he cover up. Its that his ATTITUDE sucked, and his temper and rudeness came to the forefront with people working on these issues. Basically he was dubbed "McNasty" for his treatment of the veterans and POW familiy members who tried to get him to listen and help.
And by pissing those people off and being abruipt rude and having a "go f yourselves" attitude toward them, he made a lot of people into very hard enemies, some of whom are in the tinfoli hat groups liek the Paulbots. They saw a "conspiracy" and have been trying to weave that narrative of the "Manchurian Candidate" around McCain ever since.
ANyone around here knows me, knows I do not like MCCain, nor do I trust him. But the kind of stuff they are flinging around, surely manufactured from fevered fantasy, is beyond the pale and unacceptable.
As for the alleged propaganda? Never head of that before.
#21
Not only was McCain tortured, and suffered broken bones, diseases and malnutrition at the hands of his captors, but is believed to also have a seldom mentioned periodic skin disease that is somewhat like excema, based in his imprisonment, along with reoccurring melanoma skin cancers.
New Delhi: Indian comrades wanted to participate in an international global warming conference but ended up being cheated of 300 pounds.
Meet P K Ganguly and M K Pandhe - both Left trade union leaders, both deeply concerned with global warming and now more recently both feature in the long list of victims of the Nigerian e-mail scam - better known as the 419 scam.
This is the invite that got the Centre for Trade Unions in India all excited so that decks were cleared for Ganguly to go to London and present a paper on global warming.
But the so-called conference turned out to be a con job and has left the torchbearers of the downtrodden poorer by 301 pounds or Rs 25,000. Pandhe says, Everything they showed us appeared to be genuine but later on we realized we were cheated. "Our friends in London told us and we found out that they are an international gang based out of Nigeria," Ganguly says. John Mukapa claimed to be the conference chairman and the subjects appeared legitimate but a journey to London remained elusive as the promised ticket to fly never arrived even though the CITU was ready to roll.
The comrades are not only red faced and very angry they now want justice against cyber crime and want the Ministry of External Affairs to step in for help. "We will be very careful now. They are targeting us and if necessary we will involve the Interpol," says one comrade. Though doubt remains whether the Interpol will listen to this demand to launch a hunt for Dr Mukapa what is certain is that the red team will now think twice before they shell out the green stuff - at least on the net.
Posted by: john frum ||
02/09/2008 16:36 ||
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#1
How can the comrades be sure the miscreant's name really is Dr. John Mukapa? Mightn't he have lied about that, too?
#2
I'm sad that I deleted this morning's Nigerian scam email, which was so devoid of logic, with poor grammar & spelling, JoeM-type random capitalization, and unclear proposition language (other than the usual underlying "send me your bank info so I can send you money"), that I actually laughed before deleting
it was a near-classic
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/09/2008 18:23 Comments ||
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#3
Commies? Union Hacks? Global Warming Quacks? Ripped off by Nigerians?
There's a lot to like in this story...
Indian tennis player Sania Mirza has disappointed fans by pulling out of all of her home tournaments this year due to the controversy they generate. The 21-year-old has declared she was advised by her manager not to take part in the Bangalore Open next month because of the criticism she encounters when playing in India.
"A lot has been happening in the last few months, everytime I have played in India there has been some kind of problem so we just thought it was better not to play at this point," the star told reporters in Hyderabad on Monday.
As a Muslim player, Mirza has reportedly been condemned by Islamic groups over her attire on the court, with her short tennis skirts coming under particular scrutiny. The star has become something of a flag-bearer for Muslim sportswomen, being seen last year playing in T-shirts bearing slogans of defiance such as "Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History".
"As long as I'm winning, people shouldn't care whether my skirt is six inches or six feet long," she said at the time.
In December the star was forced to apologise after filming an advert near a historic mosque in Hyderabad, where she is from.
In 2005, after Mirza became the first Indian woman to win a WTA tour event, she was the subject of a fatwa issued in India by a senior cleric of the Sunni Ulema Board, a little-known group. The demand to cover up was not the first however, but none have ever gained popular support from the country's 130 million Muslims.
Indian tennis chief Anil Khanna has reportedly called for Mirza, who broke into the top 30 ranked players in the world last year, to be left alone so that she can prepare for an attempt at an Olympic medal this year.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/09/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Personally I prefer the six-inch skirt for her. It wouldn't cover her face like the six-foot skirt would.
#3
The story makes no reference to the ultimate sin Mirza committed, which no doubt drives her islamowacko critics even crazier than her choice of clothing.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Indian tennis player Sania Mirza has disappointed fans by pulling out of all of her home tournaments this year due to the controversy they generate. The 21-year-old has declared she was advised by her manager not to take part in the Bangalore Open next month because of the criticism she encounters when playing in India.
