Woodstock Museum, archivist of Sixties, receives prize and grant

 " ... The Woodstock Museum, which for nearly two decades has sought to preserve the spirit and substance of the Sixties counterculture and the town's identity as its epicenter, has received a prize and accompanying grant that will enable the museum to improve access to its building and pursue plans to expand its space and offerings.

The museum is the recipient of the Manes Peace Prize, which is awarded annually to American individuals or organizations who notably promote peace or contribute to good will. It comes with a grant of $25,000 that Museum officials intend to apply to the construction of a promenade that will make it easier for people with disabilities to visit the distinctive, hexagonal museum building and for art objects to be moved in and out of it.

The museum is located on Bach Road in the town of Saugerties, where its founders, Nathan Koenig and Shelli Lipton, reside. Since its inception in 1989, the museum has presented an annual film and video festival and other events at both the Bach Road site, which includes a 50-seat multimedia center in a separate studio building, and locations such as Town Hall in Woodstock. The 2007 festival featured screenings of performances by Sixties-era fixtures Jefferson Starship and Barry McGuire and Koenig's film of the Dalai Lama's September 2006 visit to Woodstock. Previously screened films also include The Tibetan Book of the Dead, narrated by Leonard Cohen, and The Great Conspiracy, which examines "the use of fear in the war on terrorism." Approximately a thousand people have attended recent festivals, according to the founders.

"We try to educate people about the legacy of the Sixties, through the work of Ginsberg, Dylan, and others," said Koenig. "We want to show that the hippies were right about a lot of things and our generation will resonate through history. We try to keep the vision, as we saw it and see it, alive." ... "

 

http://www.ulsterpublishing.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=439989

"I’m not pro-life, and I’m not pro-choice. I’m pro-football"

Subversive Rock Humor: The 'Dewussification' of Texas

" ... As a wave of traditional conservatism swept across the nation in the ‘70s —a by-product of President Nixon’s “silent majority” backlash to hippy liberalism—Kinky decided that his band members should all have stage-names guaranteed to irritate the socially sensitive. Little Jewford, Big Nig, Panama Red, Rainbow Colors, and Snakebite Jacobs became the Texas Jewboys. And while his country outlaw compatriots (Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard) sought authenticity in earnest songs of romance and adventure, Kinky harnessed his humor and wrote scathing protest songs about prejudice (“We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You”) or against wholesome country values (“Mama, Baby, Mama Let Me Jump in Your Pajamas”).

Initially, listeners were not sure what to make of Kinky. He did not fit comfortably within any genre and his rapier wit had more in common with Frank Zappa than with any country artists. Still, he had a minor hit on the country charts with the title track from his debut album, Sold American (1973), though thereafter mainstream country fans got wise to his wise-ass style and soon left him for more palatable fare. Before the backlash, though, he managed to land a spot on the Grand Ole Opry (the first Jew, he claims), and his performance for Austin City Limits has since become legendary for the fact that, due to Kinky’s “offensive” language, the session was never broadcast.

Before long, Kinky Friedman & the Texas Jewboys were gaining renown for being the thorn in the side of country culture. This endeared the band to other independent spirits like Bob Dylan, who hired them as support act on his mid-‘70s Rolling Thunder tour, and to Saturday Night Live, which, finding a musical kindred spirit, fed them to the nation in 1976. Cast member John Belushi, particularly, remained an active Kinky fan thereafter.

Since their inception in 1971, the band’s fan base had mutated into a hodge-podge collection of unconventional mavericks, spanning Hells Angels bikers, hardened hippies, and down-to-earth country folk. These supporters found refreshing candor in Kinky’s comic offenses and in his libertarian outlook. Some, though, were less than enamored with his harsh delivery and Jew-themed lyrics. Indeed, across the US, the band were often chased off stages by Jews and Gentiles alike that were offended by the “liberties” Kinky took with his freedom of speech.

During the mid-’70s, Kinky wrote most of the comedic songs that have remained the crowd favorites of his live sets. Each is characterized by his disarming Texas directness and subversive pursuits of story-telling. “They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore” (1974) employs a classic Western bar room brawl scene to play out its good versus evil parable. The song engages two voices/characters: one is a racist “redneck nerd”; the other is Kinky, our Jewish savior of the sagebrush.

The “redneck nerd” throws the first verbal punch, charging, “You just want to doodle a Christian girl and you killed God’s only son.” Loading on the insults into absurd zones, the antagonist-provocateur broadens his invective, saying, “Aristotle Onassis is one Greek we don’t need / And them niggers, Jews and Sigma Nus, all they ever do is breed”. “Well, I hits him with everything I had right square between the eyes”, responds hero Kinky before declaring, “If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s an ethnocentric racist / Now you take back that thing you said ‘bout Aristotle Onassis”. This is humor at once child-like and silly, but also pointed in its incongruity and rousing in its relief.

[ ... ]

When the Jewboys fell apart at the end of the ‘70s, Friedman continued to record new material intermittently, but he mostly turned his sights to a new career as a topical essayist and detective novelist. Inspired by the staccato brevity and macho wit of hard-boiled noir writer, Raymond Chandler, Kinky has made himself his own central character in his novels, and indulges the poetic license that takes his hero self in and out of various dramatic jams. Since 1986, Friedman has put out one or two books a year, under such typically Kinky-esque titles as Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola (1993), The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover (1996), Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned (2003), and ’Scuse Me While I Whip This Out (2004).

Recently, Kinky put both his writing and musical career on hold to embark upon a campaign to be Governor of Texas. Using Jesse Ventura’s independent campaign model and Anne Richards’ forthright Texas charm to complement his own sharp-tongued style, he performed as a competitive candidate throughout, ultimately receiving 12.6 percent of the vote in the five-person field. His stated goal of the “dewussification of Texas” and his strategic fence-sitting (“I’m not pro-life, and I’m not pro-choice. I’m pro-football.”) endeared him to the “don’t mess with Texas” libertarian strain of the state’s populace, while enabling him to navigate around the conservative fundamentalists and “good old boys” that control the power structures.

Largely liberal on the issues, Kinky—like Jello Biafra in his ‘80s San Francisco Mayoral campaign—was so freewheeling and down-to-earth with his wit and pithy slogans that he was able to disarm voters of various stripes, appealing to their intrinsic cynicism and distaste for “politicians as usual”. Classic Kinky one-line slogans like “No teacher left behind” spiced up the usually mundane campaign trail, and with Willie Nelson penciled in as future Energy Czar, subversive humor was given free reign as the candidate’s communicative strategy of choice. ... "

~ Full article ~

UK: 'Hidden surveillance camera microphones to be outlawed'

" ... Hidden microphones mounted on CCTV cameras which can eavesdrop on private conversations in the street are set to be outlawed, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, believes that the cameras are a serious breach of civil liberties.

Britain has 4.5million CCTV cameras which capture the average person around 300 times a day.

This week Mr Thomas will launch a new code of practice and declare that no organisation should be able to monitor or store private conversations, claiming that such activities are “highly intrusive”.

Whitehall sources said last night that he has the strong backing of ministers. The ruling is also likely to be hailed by civil liberties campaigners.

A spokesman for Mr Thomas said that the use of cameras to record voices would be allowed only in “extremely special circumstances” such as the detection of crime. ... "

 

 

Work in Progress: European Security and Defense Policy - Implications for Transatlantic Cooperation

" ... If NATO is to remain the pillar of transatlantic cooperation, it has to incorporate intelligence and civilian agencies within its structure. Therefore, a new comprehensive agreement on missions, threats and capabilities must be drawn up by the allies. Blaming others for failures to achieve progress in that aspect is counterproductive. Europeans learned their lesson and know the United States will negotiate with the EU on matters related to security only if the EU structures possess capabilities. On the other hand, the ESDP is not the only culprit. The United States has pursued bilateral agreements and building “coalitions of the willing.” The latest example are American plans to deploy ballistic missile defense components in Europe without obtaining approval in NATO structures. That can be explained through justified fears that such discussions might delay or block deployment of the systems due to widespread opposition in major West European countries.

Some view ESDP as a dagger pointed at NATO’s heart. Others view NATO as a tool to impose American interests on Europe. The problems within NATO did not begin with the 2003 intervention in Iraq nor with the establishment of the ESDP. There is a long history of transatlantic disputes which failed to destroy NATO and the ESDP is unlikely to destroy transatlantic relations either. The ESDP is more of an attempt to unite a fundamentally disunited European Union and serve as a conspicuous accomplishment after the chaos into which the EU plunged after its latest expansion and the subsequent fiasco with the European constitution. Furthermore, the leadership changes in major European countries indicate an alteration in the approach toward transatlantic cooperation and NATO.

Unlike his predecessor, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is not hostile to the United States, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is not as sympathetic toward the EU integration process and close relations with Russia as was her predecessor. Ultimately, it is the divergent views and struggles within Europe that will prevent comprehensive European agreement on the transformation of transatlantic cooperation. There are no indicators that these divisions will be overcome anytime soon. ... "

~ Full article ~

 

Calls to end child trafficking in UK

Hundreds of African children are being sold by their parents to become modern day slaves in Britain.

Many are sold while they are still babies to criminal gangs and people traffickers, with their parents hoping they will be able to find a better life out of Africa, The Sunday Telegraph has reported.

However, once the children arrive in Britain, they are used to obtain thousands of dollars worth of fraudulent welfare and housing benefits from the government.

Many aged over seven were also put to work as domestic slaves or in restaurants and shops while others were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, the newspaper said.

Campaigners including the charity End Child Prostitution and Trafficking have called on the British government to take urgent action to stop child slavery in the UK.

"These children are being abused under our noses in our own country," the charity's director Chris Beddoe told the newspaper.

"We need urgent action to identify these children as they enter the UK, find those who are being abused and offer proper protection to those who escape or are freed from their abusers."

The newspaper said that during its undercover investigation one reporter was offered several children for sale by their Nigerian parents, including two three- and five-year-old boys for STG5,000 ($A11,248) and a 10-month-old baby for STG2,000 ($A4,499).

A recent government survey found that 330 children, including 14 aged under 12, had been trafficked to Britain in the past year.

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