Category: U.S.

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William Elliot Whitmore is coming to Vancouver

Whitmore (photo credit: cucamonga.be)I was parsing through my iTunes library when I came across the two albums that I have by William Elliot Whitmore[wiki]. When I did the public radio thing back in the states, he was a guest a few times on the show that we did at a local coffee house every Friday. Super nice, and one of those artists that were able to detract my attention from the levels on the mixer and completely pull me into his performance. Not too shabby for ten in the morning.

I thought I’d check him out on the web to see what he’s up to. He’s originally from southeast Iowa, so southeast that he grew up on the “penninsula” of the state, surrounded by the Mississippi and Des Moines River. These roots make their way into his music from time to time, but that’s not why I’m a fan of his music. Some people say Tom Waits or Johnny Cash when they talk about him, but I think that’s way off. He’s William Elliot Whitmore. Once you get to see him perform, you get it.

Whitemore (credit: ranhar2[flickr])Quite fortunately, he’s coming to Vancouver. October 5th at the Red Room. With hope, I’ll be able to make it out to see him.

Whitmore is my age. When I shook his hand to introduce myself as his sound guy, I thought that his voice might still be suffering from just waking up not long ago. Deep, raspy, and almost struggling for air. That’s just how he talks. How or why, I’m not sure, but whiskey might have something to do with it.

I set up three mics for him. One for his vocals, another for his banjo or guitar, and a third for his foot. He stomps the floor as he plays, getting the stage to boom like a kick drum. Head tilted up and eyes closed, it was like magic. On his song “Cold and Dead”, he doesn’t play anything. It’s just him singing. It gets me when I’m listening to the recording, just like I did the day I saw him perform it.

Oh sure, you might think that it sounds lame. Guy from Iowa with a banjo on stage. Tell that to all the fans of the hardcore band, Ten Grand[wiki], that have become some of his biggest followers. Imagine going out to a show in some of the seediest clubs in Europe with the intention of seeing a band with loud guitar noise and screaming, only to see this guy come on stage as the opening act. It happened many times, and people loved him.

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The Reverend has The Mountain Goats on tape

Photo by: mountain-goats.comOne thing that The Mountain Goats[wiki] encourages is taping of their live shows. These things end up getting traded among fans, and you’ll see them posted around various sites on the internet, such as TheMountainGoats.net, for the masses to enjoy.

The Reverend Don Deeley was able to catch their show in Pittsburgh the other day at The Andy Warhol Museum, and you know he got it on tape. He mentioned that it’s not a soundboard recording, but the important thing is that he captured it. The Rev got me introduced to their music from our KRUI days together. You can find his recording on the Internet Archive, and here’s the track listing from the show.

Collection: MountainGoats
Band/Artist: Mountain Goats
Date: September 20, 2006
Venue: The Andy Warhol Museum
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Description

Wild Sage
New Monster Avenue
Love Love Love
Song for Lonely Giants
Your Belgian Things
Cheshire County
Moon Over Goldsboro
Maybe Sprout Wings
In the Hidden Places
Dilaudid
Gameshows Touch Our Lives
You or Your Memory
In Corolla (Peter on guitar)

Encore:
Pet Politics (Silver Jews)
This Year

[archive.org]

The Rev in Stanley ParkAs I post this, I have “We Shall All Be Healed” rolling in the background. Everytime I make my way back to The Mountain Goats, I am finding myself amazed and falling in love all over again. Needless to say, The Rev is much more of a fan than I am. The stories he has relayed to me about the trials and tribulations of John Darnielle[wiki] are fascinating.

I have to throw in a slight Iowa connection here. Darnielle lived in the town of Grinnell for a short period of his life, which is also home to a small college of the same name. I don’t know what it is about this city that lies within viewing distance from Interstate 80 as you drive by, but it’s a tiny hub for music in the area.

Grinnell College has a knack for pulling in some great acts, Death Cab For Cutie, Styrofoam, and John Vanderslice being a few that I can name off the top of my head. Not bad for a town of nearly 10,000 people. It’s also the birth place of Speed of Sauce, a long gone local band that has been a favorite of mine since I saw them open up for The Dismemberment Plan in Iowa City.

About the picture, that is The Rev. We ventured into Stanley Park when he was out here in February. Good times.

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Dedication of Johnny Carson’s birthplace

When I met Wyn at one of the Metroblogging Vancouver meetups, she mentioned, with a lot of pride, how she puts a little bit of Halifax in everything that she posts, whenever she can. Afterall, it is her home town, and I think that’s what I try to do with a lot of the things that I write about here. If anything, I like to promote information about Iowa that some people might not be unaware of.

Take Johnny Carson[wiki] for instance. He’ll claim that most of his days spent growing up were in Nebraska, but his true place of birth is in the town of Corning, Iowa[wiki]. Yeah, Iowa… Corn… Corning? A historical pun of the sorts, but this is the truth.

Carson birthplace event called off; McMahon ailing

THE REGISTER
September 21, 2006
Thursday’s planned dedication of the Johnny Carson Birthplace in Corning is off, event organizers say, because Carson’s former pal Ed McMahon is unable to attend.

McMahon was to headline the day’s events honoring the memory of Carson, who died last year. The two were together during the three decades Carson hosted NBC’s “Tonight Show.”

“Mr. McMahon called us (Wednesday) night and told us he was ill and unable to fly,” said Beth Wadle of the Adams Community Economic Development Corporation. “He very much wants to be here when we dedicate the birthplace, so we’re holding off until he can reschedule.”

The small house where Carson was born in 1925, was recently purchased by a Corning native who plans to restore it to its original condition.

Carson also lived in Clarinda, Red Oak and Avoca as a child before his family moved to Nebraska. [desmoinesregister]

There are certain things that you have to be proud of, and for many Iowans, this is one of them. While it is true that Carson sat on his throne for nearly thirty years on the west coast, his roots run deep in the midwest. He always spoke with fondness about where he was from, if not making it apart of his jokes. It’s easy to do, and more acceptable when you are one of us.

I think what troubles me are those who move away from Iowa and do everything they can to hide where they are from. Actually, this goes for anyone from anywhere, and I’ve run into this with a vengence. I outted a girl for being from Indiana once, and that happened at the University of Iowa. I don’t think she liked me much prior to that moment, and she certainly hated me after.

It all comes down to stereotypes. Why not be truthful about your roots and defy those things that people already presume that we are? Not having the sense of pride to say where you are truthfully from doesn’t make your lie of where you claim to be any better.

People often ask me where I’m specifically from when I mention being an American. I’m not afraid to tell them where, and it’s rare to have a long conversation with anyone about it. I do live and reside in Vancouver, but you won’t hear me claim it as where I am from.

The fact is that a majority do not know a lot about Iowa other than what they saw in Field of Dreams[imdb].

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The climate is ripe for irony

There is too much going on in the world of terrorism, the Bush administration, and the coming mid-term elections in the U.S. to not wonder about all of its coincidence.

DUBAI (Reuters) – Al Jazeera television aired a video tape on Thursday showing al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden meeting what is said were some of the September 11 attackers, days ahead of the fifth anniversary of the strikes.

The Arabic channel said the tape documented the “daily life” of al Qaeda operatives as they trained and prepared in the mountains of Afghanistan. Bin Laden was shown in long white robes walking through rocky terrain with aides carrying rifles.

Release of the five-year-old video was clearly timed to coincide with the anniversary of an attack that killed almost 3,000 and launched the United States on a “war on terror” from home shores to Iraq and Afghanistan. [reuters]

This makes sense. The five year anniversary is upon us, and I would bet that terror threat levels will rise over the next few days. What else is there?

George Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday the existence of a secret CIA prison network, and said the mastermind of the September 11 2001 terror attacks and other high-value detainees had been transferred to Guantánamo Bay.

In a robust defence of the detention regime that has brought condemnation around the world, the US president said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaida operative believed to have plotted the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, and 13 other terror suspects had been brought to Guantánamo and would be brought to trial. [guardian]

So the secret prisons, that everyone seemed to already know about, actually exist. Of course, everything has been humane and there hasn’t been any ill-treatment of prisoners. Whew! What a relief, but there’s more.

The terror suspect accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks also planned to crash hijacked airliners into Heathrow airport, according to documents released by the US government.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed conceived a plot to hit Heathrow after the attacks on America five years ago, the documents from the US office of the director of national intelligence said.

Another alleged al-Qaida member Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, described as a “key facilitator” in 9/11, was said to have been a “lead operative” in the UK plan, which the US said was disrupted in 2003.

The details emerged in profiles (pdf) of 14 terror suspects, including Mohammed and Bin al-Shibh, who, the US announced yesterday, have been transferred from secret CIA prisons around the world to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. [guardian]

It just so happens that this terror plot was averted five years ago, but the world is being told to be thankful that secret prison camps stopped it from happening. Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief, five years after the fact.

Bush made the surprise admission as he prodded the U.S. Congress to approve rules for military commissions to try such detainees and with national security a key issue for Republicans who face the possibility of losses in the November congressional elections. [reuters]

Combined with the five year anniversary of 9/11 and the potential of losing the majority hand in congress, there is way too much going on here to not say that the irony of the situation makes you scratch your head a little. Even if it’s too conspiracy for you, the coincidence is incredibly interesting.

I’ll toss in a recent CNN poll about former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani[wiki], being a heavy favorite for the Republican presidential nominee for 2008 as well. That’s a whole lot of 9/11 going on.

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Tired of the past-present-Kerry politics

I haven’t written a lot regarding politics in the history of this blog, and that could be a good thing. With the coming mid-term elections this fall and the run for the presidency starting to make more than whispers, it’s really hard not to think about. Perhaps I’m finding myself more inclined to talk about it now that I’m no longer a U.S. resident, so you’ll have to bear with me as I try to do more of this from time to time.

John KerryThe thing that pains me the most right now is the thought of John Kerry[wiki] running for president again. I haven’t liked the guy since he first came on the radar for the ’04 elections. I have this problem with politicians in general, but something about Kerry left me feeling less than impressed from the day he stepped up to bat.

The one issue that I keep coming back to is how Kerry would consistantly say what he would have done if he was president when (insert significant political issue or event, that occured prior to the date of making said statement, happened during the Bush administration, and occurred before the ’04 vote, here). This is what we call hindsight, and it was also banking on the anti-Bush sentiment that ran among those with the “anyone but Bush” method of voting.

It almost seems like his tactics haven’t changed.

Sen. John Kerry didn’t contest the results at the time, but now that he’s considering another run for the White House, he’s alleging election improprieties by the Ohio Republican who oversaw the deciding vote in 2004.

An e-mail from Kerry will be sent to 100,000 Democratic donors Tuesday asking them to support U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland for governor of Ohio. The bulk of the e-mail criticizes Strickland’s opponent, GOP Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, for his dual role in 2004 as President Bush’s honorary Ohio campaign co-chairman and the state’s top election official.

“He used the power of his state office to try to intimidate Ohioans and suppress the Democratic vote,” Kerry says in the e-mail, according to a copy provided in advance. [cnn]

The article goes on to say that there have been groups not affiliated with the Kerry campaign contesting the results, even into present day. Granted that he lost and fighting the issue in Ohio might not have changed anything, don’t think that this won’t come up in the ensuing run up to the ’08 vote.

Here is what I want from a presidental candidate, and I mean candidate. Not an elected president, but from the people who want to be the final group of folks looking for the vote. Continue reading “Tired of the past-present-Kerry politics”

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One more reason to be proud of my home state

There are a lot of people in the world that make great achievements in their life and do their best to share that with the land that they call home. Iowa is no exception, and it’s home to a lot of great people in history. John Wayne, President Herbert Hoover, Johnny Carson, Grant Wood, Glenn Miller, Cloris Leachman, and, as I recently posted, James Van Allen, just to name a few, and you can Wiki all of those on your own if you wanna know more.

Maybe they’re not the greatest people in the world for what they did, but most people know the names if you say them. On top of that, accomplished folks tend to do more with their legacy to show their accomplishments or invest for the future.

Enter Tim Dwight[wiki]. Iowa Hawkeye football star who has gone on to a career in the NFL. He grew up in Iowa City, went to high school and college there, and is a bit of a celebrity to the area. It’s also good to know that he’s made a quality investment in not only his home town, but also one of the biggest party schools in the Big Ten[wiki].

Liquor House […] opened last Thursday and has already seen a surge in business at the bigger and better store, said co-owner Jeremy Harrod.

“It’s a huge upgrade from what we had,” said Harrod, who owns the store with his brother Mark Harrod and former Hawkeye football star Tim Dwight.

The new store is about 25 percent bigger than the old one and has a 400-square-feet walk-in cooler that can house up to 85 kegs. The store’s inventory has doubled, with three new liquor sections and expanded wine collections.

In addition, Liquor House will offer a home delivery service for the first time. That service is available during the store’s operating hours, which is extended during game days. [press-citizen]

Sure, this is a huge money making opportunity, so anyone able to invest in demand of binge drinking, bright eyed college students makes complete sense. This isn’t the only thing Dwight does. He also “gives back to the community” with his yearly football camp for kids between the ages of 8-18. You could say that he gives back to those under the legal drinking age, but this is college we’re talking about. Being illegal doesn’t stop much.

It’s a wonderful thing to see role models taking interest in helping the community they once grew up in. I’m not bad mouthing drinking. It’s all apart of the college experience. Beer bongs until you vomit and can’t see straight is another story, not to mention the reckless behavior that comes along with it. Yes, there is truth in being too much of a good thing.

There seems to be somewhat of an oxymoron going on here, does it not? Poll a majority of the students on the UI campus and they’ll tell you that you’re probably wrong. It’s just a smart business venture, and there is nothing wrong with Dwight teaching young kids football talents and owning a store that aids in hardening the livers of students. What a great way to use that social status.

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The Mexican political situation

I witnessed a teacher strike last year in B.C. Maybe they could take a page from this, and let’s just hope ClearChannel doesn’t adopt this tactic in their attempt at owning all the radio stations in the world.

Teachers striking in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca have seized at least eight private radio stations.

They acted after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a government radio station already under their control, injuring one of their colleagues.

The strikers used the stations to tell parents to ignore Monday’s start of the school year and keep children at home. [bbc]

The situation in Mexico is increasingly concerning. When I visited at the age of 17, staying in a hotel just off of the Zocalo[wiki], there was a labor protest outside of the government buildings in the square. It was full of people, loud speakers, and non-stop protest. For the most part, it was peaceful, but it was enough to freak me out a little bit. The country seems to be noticibly different now than those days, and these folks are going further than before to make their voice on the matter heard.

Protests are taking place in Vancouver about the current, political situation in Mexico. I think it confuses a lot of people as to what they are demonstrating for. There is a growing population of Mexicans here, so it makes sense. Around the world, it seems that not a lot of folks are paying a lot of attention to it.

A couple of years ago television, radio and print media in the west just couldn’t get enough of ‘people power’.

In quick succession, from Georgia’s rose revolution in November 2003, via Ukraine’s orange revolution a year later, to the tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan and the cedar revolution in Lebanon, 24-hour news channels kept us up to date with democracy on a roll.

Triggered by allegations of election fraud, the dominoes toppled. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, was happy with the trend: ‘They’re doing it in many different corners of the world, places as varied as Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and, on the other hand, Lebanon … And so this is a hopeful time.’

But when a million Mexicans try to jump on the people-power bandwagon, crying foul about the July 2 presidential elections, when protesters stage a vigil in the centre of the capital that continues to this day, they meet a deafening silence in the global media. Despite Mexico’s long tradition of electoral fraud and polls suggesting that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – a critic of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) – was ahead, the media accepted the wafer-thin majority gained by the ruling party nominee, Harvard graduate Felipe Calderon.

Although Mexico’s election authorities rejected Lopez Obrador’s demand for all 42m ballots to be recounted, the partial recount of 9% indicated numerous irregularities. But no echo of indignation has wafted to the streets of Mexico City from western capitals. [malaysiasun]

The other thing to consider is that pretty much all of North America is now headed by conservative governments, excluding countries to the south of Mexico on that statement. I don’t have enough details to say that the Mexican elections were tampered with, but the similarities to the 2000 elections in the U.S. is interesting. Nothing in politics is ever innocent.

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Farewell, Professor Van Allen

Professor James Van Allen - June 14, 2005One of the neatest things that I can recall from my early days of becoming a lifelong geek was discovering that something in space was named after a guy who was born and raised not far from my home. I think that’s common for anyone who has some one from their home state do something that makes you proud to say that you are not afraid to say where you are from.

Then in high school, you are taught by physics teachers who studied under the guy. I had an interest in astronomy that died out during these years, but that didn’t make me any less interested in learning more about it. The Van Allen radiation belts? James Van Allen[wiki] was that guy.

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Physicist James A. Van Allen, a leader in space exploration who discovered the radiation belts surrounding the Earth that now bear his name, died Wednesday. He was 91.

The University of Iowa, where he taught for years, announced the death in a statement on its Web site. [globeandmail]

When I worked at WSUI, we used to venture downtown for various live remotes that we would have to setup for, and that would take us to Van Allen Hall, the physics building that is named after him. We’d park the car in one of the official vehicle spots just outside the lecture hall, and there was one, professor emeritus, reserved parking spot that had an older, green, Jeep Cherokee in it. That was Professor Van Allen’s, and it was usually there every single time we dropped by.

Professor James Van Allen - June 14, 2005Even in his 90’s, he was still leading projects and heading into his office nearly every single day. I’m not sure to what capacity, but if you had a some sort of physics research that needed some help in getting a monetary grant from some institution, who else would be better to help sign off on it? He changed a lot about space travel with his discoveries, and the life he led is hardly a dull one.

These pictures are a few snaps that I took when BBC Radio wanted to do an ISDN[wiki] interview with him from our studios in Iowa City on June 14, 2005. He was the kindest man, parking in the lot out front with that classic, green Jeep. His wit was still pretty sharp, and the stories he told were fascinating.

I can’t even recall what the BBC wanted with him, and it doesn’t even matter. I just remember being so excited to shake his hand on that day. It’s not so much about him being a celebrity as it is meeting a great man. A lifetime of researching and discovering new things is an incredible thing in my opinion.

“Certainly one of the most enthralling things about human life is the recognition that we live in what, for practical purposes, is a universe without bounds.”
– James Van Allen (September 7, 1914 – August 9, 2006)

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No one escapes the FCC inquisition

The FCC is pushing the pursuit of cleaning the airwaves even further. Going beyond live broadcasts of award ceremonies of the world’s rich and famous, sports programming is next.

In its continuing crackdown on on-air profanity, the FCC has requested numerous tapes from broadcasters that might include vulgar remarks from unruly spectators, coaches and athletes at live sporting events, industry sources said.

Tapes requested by the commission include live broadcasts of football games and NASCAR races where the participants or the crowds let loose with an expletive. While commission officials refused to talk about its requests, one broadcast company executive said the commission had asked for 30 tapes of live sports and news programs.

“It looks like they want to end live broadcast TV,” said one executive, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity. “We already know that they aren’t afraid to go after news.” [reuters]

The article goes on to say that live sports events will come under an almost, “no-slip” rule, meaning that accidents will come with consequences.

Indecent or not, how are broadcasters supposed to police ambiant noise from the crowd in a live event? Go to an Iowa Hawkeye football game some time and pay attention to what is coming from the student section. Sometimes, those chants can be so loud that the mics in the announcer booth can be pick it up, and that’s in an outdoors venue.

7-second(perhaps even more than that) delays or just not putting a mic on the crowd will be the only answer. Or else you have to have some one listening for “bad stuff” on the ambiant audio as well as another person listening to the main content for more “bad stuff.” That means seperate delays for each, costing more money for the broadcaster.

I might be pushing the idea, but the tighter things get about this, the more that will need to be done to stay out of hot water. Kinda makes having 5.1 dolby-digital surround sound not worth it if the FCC cracks down so hard that you can enjoy what you thought you were paying for.  Rediculous.

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Get impending doom directly on your phone

The Digital Emergency Alert System (DEAS) is expanding once again in the U.S., and I emphasize “digital” because for a long time it was simply known as the EAS[wiki]. Welcome to the new age of technology.

The US government unveiled a communications system that in case of emergency should soon allow it to send SMS alerts to Americans’ mobile phones and computers.

“We have the ability to do this. It’s a major step,” Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director David Paulson told reporters outside the US capital as he unveiled the program’s design.

The Digital Emergency Alert System (DEAS) will include the participation of television networks and public radio stations and be based on an existing alert system built in the Cold War era for use in the event of a nuclear attack. [breitbart]

This is a brilliant concept, but everything like this will come with some type of problematic consequences. With so much information coming to us, “digitally”, there is that nagging convenience of ignoring that information as it comes in. The whole, “I’ll get to it later.”

This also can make people avoid the idea of paying attention to conventional methods of information distrubution, such as radio and TV. I’m not saying that is a horrible thing, but putting all your eggs in one basket could prove fatal if your mobile phone network is lacking electricity for some reason.

I can’t fail to mention the last part of this article. Who says big brother isn’t watching? Well, watching out for you, right?

Internet-linked computers will automatically switch on to a video message from the US Department of Homeland Security while downloading instructions prepared specifically from natural disasters, chemical and nuclear attacks, and other calamities. [breitbart]