Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Another dumb music list

Eric Alterman mentions this list on his Altercation blog. My question is what kind of criteria might they have come up with that would place Carole King’s very good Tapestry album above Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited (for that matter, that could place anything above that album aside from maybe Revolver, Rubber Soul or Bringin’ It All Back Home).

And this doesn’t take into account the inexplicable placement of Born to Run at number 14 or the exclusion of any hip hop (Eminem comes in at 28? What about Public Enemy or Run DMC?) from the Top 20 or the ranking of Shania Twain as the “most influencial and popular” country album on the list (what would Johnny, June, Merle, Willie, Waylon, Loretta, Tammy, etc. have to say?).

I guess the key to understanding it is that it “was developed by NARM, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers” — i.e., the people who view music in terms of units and not art.

Alterman offers this comment, with which I won’t argue (though I do abhor violence):

The less said about it, the better. (In a just country, these people would be taken out and shot …)

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It could happen here

The dissident novelists of the former Eastern Bloc — writers like Milan Kundera and Josef Skvoercky — often took as their theme the manner in which history was distorted by the communist regimes, the way officials who had fallen from favor would be airbrushed from the official narrative.

I wonder what they would make of this:

In December 1989, one month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, President George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Malta and, in the words of a Soviet spokesman, “buried the cold war at the bottom of the Mediterranean.”

The Russian transcript of that momentous summit was published in Moscow in 1993. Fourteen years later American historians are still waiting for their own government to release a transcript.

The reason for this is a 2001 executive order issued by President George W. Bush that gave

sitting presidents the power to delay the release of papers indefinitely, while extending the control of former presidents, vice presidents and their families

and

changed the system from one that automatically released documents 30 days after a current or former president is notified to one that withholds papers until a president specifically permits their release.

The Bush system has given working historians fits and seems more suited to the closed societies of the old Soviet satellite states — which is consistent with the Bush administration’s devotion to secrecy and its attempts to broaden the powers of the chief executive. Thomas S. Blanton, executive director of an independent research institute called the National Security Archive at George Washington University,

said he believes the Bush White House is primarily concerned with reversing what it sees as an erosion of presidential power after Watergate. “It has the added advantage of giving the incumbent a lot more control over history,” he said.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is reviewing legislation that would overturn the executive order — it could go to the full House next week for a vote. The it would need Senate approval — and a signature for the man looking to limit access, meaning the legislation is likely to fade away along with our democracy.

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Runner’s diary, Wednesday(and Tuesday — oops)

I forgot to post about this yesterday, which is odd considering I had such an outstanding run.

I started out with a goal of running four miles — on the treadmill; still too cold — and wasn’t sure if I’d get that in at the beginning.

But then things clicked and I pushed the pace and added distance, finishing with seven miles in 62:40 (approx.), for a better than 9-minute-per-mile pace. I did leave it all on the treadmill, so to speak, finishing with a cramp in the foot and a sore left knee.

Today, however, I was feeling the after-effects: tight muscles that wouldn’t loosen and a still-sore knee. But I managed to get in three miles (actually 3.1) in about 29 minutes.

The iPod selection on both days was a mixed playlist that includes a little punk, a little country, some folk, The Beatles and Dylan.

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Shameful neglect

Two editorials today ask two different, but equally important questions surrounding the scandal at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington.

The New York Times links the “shameful neglect of wounded soldiers” to the overall war effort, once again reminding its readers that an administration puffed up with its own power callously and unnecessarily sent American troops into battle without considering the consequences.

(T)he fundamental responsibility rests with the president and his former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who stubbornly insisted on going to war without sufficient resources — and then sought to hide the costs of their disastrous mistakes from the American public.

Is it any surprise that the war’s wounded have been hidden away in the shadows of moldy buildings by an administration that refused to let photographers take pictures of returning coffins? Or a White House that keeps claiming that victory in this failed and ever more costly war is always just a few more months away?

The paper goes on to say that the “president needs to learn that the horrors of this war can no longer be denied or hidden away.”

The Record offers this:

Once again, the Bush administration is unprepared for the aftereffects of its rush to war in Iraq. The veterans’ health system is obviously unable to cope with the huge strain of treating so many unforeseen casualties, many of whom will need care for the rest of their lives.

Like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this deplorable situation once again raises profound questions about the administration’s management of government agencies. The White House has sought to limit the cost of treating wounded veterans and has underfunded their care.

Is Walter Reed the tip of the iceberg? That’s what outraged Americans are asking, and that’s what Congress and independent investigations must find out.

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Guilty guilty guilty

Scooter Libby is looking at some jail time — unless President George W. Bush uncaps his pardon pen and signs his get-out-of-jail-free card.

And given the stakes here, that “unless” looms pretty large. (Josh Marshall says it all with this post.)

Consider: This was a trial about obstruction of justice and perjury that, despite the protestations of the conservative punditocracy, raised serious questions about the lengths to which this administration would go to protect the powers it has claimed for itself.

If the administration — via the vice president’s office — was willing to engage in the kind of unsavory activities that led to the indictment and conviction of Libby to protect its prerogatives, why wouldn’t the president pardon Libby to close off whatever trail is left?

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