Hank Kalet

I did this once before, back when Channel Surfing was new and still learning to walk. But it is time now to revise the list, given that some good new live discs have made their way onto the shelves. So, here it is, today’s Tuesday Top Ten:

1. Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, “Live 1975-1985.” This one — which was listed at the top spot the last time I did this — remains at the top because it remains the definitive live disc from the definitive live act. His bootlegs probably should top the list — such as the one I have of the legendary Bottom Line show — but let’s stay with official releases.

2. Bob Dylan, “Live 1966: The Royal Albert Hall Concert (The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4).” Here is what I wrote in 2003 (it still holds): “This torrid live disc was released in 1998 and proved to be the first officially released Dylan live disc worth spending money on. Dylan has always been notorious for uneven live performances and it has shown through the years on a series of dubious recordings. But with this disc – which records the first electric tour, its reaction and Dylan’s angry rebuttal.”

3. Wilco, “Kicking Television.” This double disc does something that most live discs do not — it improves everyone of the songs, fleshes them out, gives them meat and makes them more than what they had been in the studio.

4. Lucinda Williams, “Live @ the Fillmore.” Ostensibly a greatest hits package, it offers the same kinds of pleasures as the Wilco disc, lending an edge to Williams that can sometimes be softened in the studio. This record burns.

5. Television, “Blow Up.” This disc from one of the great, but underappreciated punk bands of the ’70s, made the list last time. Here is what I wrote: “Poorly recorded with the sound of a bootleg, this disc features the New York arts-punk band at their best, with a masterful 15-minute version of their classic ‘Little Johnny Jewel’ and a dreamy version of Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.’ This is out on disc now — I have the cassette from what was then a tape-only record company called Reach Out International Records.”

6. Bob Dylan, “Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue (The Bootleg Series, Vol. V)” and “Live 1964: The Cocnert at Philharmonic Hall (Bootleg Series Vol. VI).” These are great discs showing him at his best at a particular time in his career. And, imagine, three discs in the Top 10 from a man who also managed to release some of the worst live recordings ever (“Live at Budokan,” “Real Live” and “Dylan and the Dead”).

8. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, “Reach Up and Touch the Sky.” Here is what I wrote three years ago: “A great recording of a great live band – and one of the best rock and roll horn sections you’ll ever want to hear — at the height of its ability. Worth buying for the live versions of ‘Why is Love Such a Sacrifice’ and ‘The Fever.'”

9. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, “D.T.K. Live at the Speakeasy.” From 2003: “I have an old vinyl copy of this sloppy, nasty album, recorded in 1977, during the Heartbreakers’ self-destructive heyday. It is an amphetamine-driven explosion of feedback and noise that is definitely not for the squeamish.”

10. Steve Earle, “Just an American Boy.” The simultaneously released film of the same name is equally riveting — worth buying to hear Earle comment on the John Walker controversy, politics and life while producing some energetic country/folk/rock. (Also worth a listen are “Live from TX”)

Some other thoughts: Springsteen’s “Live at the Hammersmith Odeon” was a tough one to leave off, as were Nirvana, “Unplugged” and “On the Muddy Banks of the Wishka”; Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, “Live Bullet”; Police “Live”; Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Pack Up the Plantation”; The Band, “Rock of Ages” and “The Last Waltz”; Neil Young, “Rust Never Sleeps” and “Live Rust”; The Clash, “Live From Here to Eternity”; Warren Zevon, “Stand in the Fire”; Lou Reed “Take No Prisoners”; U2, “Under a Blood Red Sky”; and “Stiffs Live” from Stiff Records.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

Skewed priorities — that’s what we are living with these days, thanks to President George W. Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress.

The basics go like this: Cut taxes for the rich — either by cutting their income taxes, the capital gains tax or the inheritance tax — and then cut benefits for the middle class and poor through changes to Medicare and Medicaid, education and other programs.

Paul Krugman, America’s best popular economist, puts it this way:

Any senator who votes to repeal the estate tax, or votes for a “compromise” that goes most of the way toward repeal, is in effect saying that increasing the wealth of people who are already in line to inherit millions or tens of millions is more important than taking care of fellow citizens who need a helping hand.

He reminds us that the inheritance tax cut was slated for a vote in September but was tabled after Hurricane Katrina ripped the curtain hiding the shredded social safety net.

But it is back and a vote is expected shortly.

What voters need to remind senators — something senators already know — is that the “estate tax is overwhelmingly a tax on the very, very wealthy; only about one estate in 200 pays any tax at all.”

As Mr. Krugman writes:

In the interest of stiffening those spines, let me remind senators that this
isn’t just a fiscal issue, it’s also a moral issue. Congress has already
declared that the budget deficit is serious enough to warrant depriving children
of health care; how can it now say that it’s worth enlarging the deficit to give
Paris Hilton a tax break?

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

Guess who I’m liking for 2008? Not Hillary Clinton. Read here for a clue.

Cover-up is a dirty thing. But that has been the Bush administration’s MO for much of its tenure in executive branch.

In any case, we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s come to this, given that those of us who opposed this war from the beginning questioned the wisdom of our acting as an occupying force. But that is where we are now and that, at base, is the genesis of the Haditha killings.

As The New York Times writes:

Now that we have reached the one place we most wanted to avoid, it will not do to focus blame narrowly on the Marine unit suspected of carrying out these killings and ignore the administration officials, from President Bush on down, who made the chances of this sort of disaster so much greater by deliberately blurring the rules governing the conduct of American soldiers in the field. The inquiry also needs to critically examine the behavior of top commanders responsible for ensuring lawful and professional conduct and of midlevel officers who apparently covered up the Haditha incident for months until journalists’ inquiries forced a more honest review.

The president now promises transparency and accountability, but there is no doubt that when the smoke clears the people who led us into this war and created a culture in which international norms could easily be flouted will remain in their posts.

And, as the Times writes:

It should not surprise anyone that this war — launched on the basis of false intelligence analysis, managed by a Pentagon exempted from normal standards of command responsibility and still far from achieving minimally acceptable results — is increasingly unpopular with the American people. At the very least, the public is now entitled to straight answers on what went wrong at Haditha and who, besides those at the bottom of the chain of command, will be required to take responsibility for it.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

Derrick Z. Jackson makes the connection between the Haditha killings and the other, more recent actions of the military in Iraq. The military is investigating, so it is still too early to cast blame, but it does appear that there has been a patter of abuse on our part caused by mix of anger, exhaustion and the dehumanizing attitude of the men at the top of the military food chain.

Jackson puts it this way in today’s Boston Globe:

No one incident adds up to the single atrocity of My Lai, where US soldiers killed up to 500 Vietnamese civilians. But the mentality appears identical. American soldiers are again in an aimless war, aiming in the end at innocent targets.

A huge part of the problem is that America never did learn its lessons from My Lai. Even though the mere utterance of My Lai stiffens the back of anyone who remembers it, there was, in the end, virtually no punishment for the killings. The only soldier convicted, Lieutenant William Calley, had his sentence reduced to relative insignificance by President Nixon, and was released after three years of house arrest. He went on to sell jewelry in Georgia.

The same pattern has emerged in Iraq. The abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib has resulted in sentences almost exclusively for the grunts, with commanding officers escaping subpoenas and trials. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says over and over how he takes responsibility, without showing any sign of how he has. Bush has handed out medals to top officials of the occupation. The president should indeed be troubled. He should be troubled that the Vietnam syndrome is kicking Iraqi civilians in the teeth and his legacy down the staircase of infamy.

The South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press