One of the problems I had with Woodstock in 1969, was I saw it as stage for a bunch of B-list music acts: none of the biggies showed up such as the Rolling Stones and the Doors, as well as any number of other acts.
The treatise linked misses the point, IMO, because the author fails to address what the thing was: An exemplar for what not to do with an outdoor music festival.
Woodstock was the first and the worst. Much better venues were to follow over the years since.
As an aside, also IMMHO, the only decent act that was there was a newly formed Mountain, a band that is still touring to this day.
A taste from TFA:
Sickeningly, an effluvium of nostalgia over the debacle concert near the town of Woodstock, New York in August of 1969 is everywhere. Its the big 4-0. We should take this anniversary to remember that the catch phrase of the Woodstock generation eventually became dont trust anyone over 30. In the case of the white wash of what really happened with the concert in Max Yasgurs field, the warning is fitting because the truth seems to be forgotten for the fluffy propaganda of how wonderful the concert was. The concert is also emblematic of some of the vapid 60s generation by no means all of them, but the worst of them, to be sure.
Hamid Karzai's main challenger has had enough of governance by patronage. By Ann Marlowe
See how much more fun politics can be?
It's another demonstration of how authoritarian regimes, which the Karzai administration is if a relatively benign one, change over time to more stable, democratic governments. Along the way you get 'reformers' like Abdullah who in turn get reformed a few years later.
Kabul, Afghanistan -- It was midnight this past Sunday when I left the house of Abdullah Abdullah, Hamid Karzai's leading challenger for the presidency of Afghanistan. Twenty or so men were still waiting to see the candidate, some sitting cross-legged in the grassy courtyard.
When I arrived at 10:30 p.m., one dignitary after another filed into the meeting room: a finance executive, a counter-narcotics official, a former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, and a female professor at Kabul University. Lesser notables spilled out into the courtyard of the concrete villa, some in Western garb, some in traditional dress. Earlier, the diplomat brother of the slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud came to pay his respects.
These Afghans don't believe the line the foreign press is pushing--that Mr. Karzai has the election sewn up. With 10 days until the vote, they've come to offer help or cut deals, believing that they're backing the winner.
Dr. Abdullah, 49 years old, is an ophthalmologist and a former foreign minister of Afghanistan who entered politics by organizing medical care for the Afghan resistance after the Soviet invasion in 1979. He's running on a platform of overhauling the 2002 Afghan Constitution. He advocates a parliamentary system, political parties, and direct elections of mayors and provincial governors. (They're currently appointed by the president.)
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08/15/2009 00:00 ||
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Can you have a democracy in a country without a demos?
From state to state, from county to county, from town to town, Americans gather on roadsides with flags, applause and hands over hearts saluting our real heroes.
For your Saturday, grab some tissues, and welcome home two of our heroes.
From Georgia: Killed in action the week before, the body of Staff Sergeant First John C. Beale was returned to Falcon Field in Peachtree City, Georgia, just south of Atlanta, on June 11, 2009. The Henry County Police Department escorted the procession to the funeral home in McDonough. A simple notice in local papers indicated the road route to be taken and the approximate time. Town after town welcomes home Staff Sgt John Beale
From Texas:
I knew of this Marine's death, from another small town just down the road from me... A commenter at Blackfive reminds us: We have had nonstop drought and 102+ temps here all summer. (54 days of three digit temperatures) Those people who stood out in the blazing July sunshine for who knows how long waiting for the motorcade were suffering to be able to do that. I wince at the elderly who were standing there because they were taking a huge risk to pay tribute.
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.
