Illustration by Paul Szep

As the ground and air war continues in Libya, I received an email from a former colleague and friend from the Detroit media. He related how he covered a story in the mid-1980s about a Gaddafi’s loyalist. Musa Kousa, who had attended school at Michigan State University studying sociology and following the Spartans’ sports teams. He sent me the link for the mid-1980s story he uploaded to You Tube.

Kousa returned to his homeland and then became the equivalent of the Libyan ambassador to the UK when he headed up the Libyan Mission in London. Back then, he was allegedly in charge of assassinating the exiled political opponents of Colonel Gaddafi. In 1984, during demonstrations in front of the Libyan Embassy in London, the crowd of demonstrators was sprayed with bullets from the embassy. Among those killed was a London police officer, Yvonne Fletcher. At that point, the Brits told Kousa to get out and shut down the embassy.

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by Christopher Griesedieck

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Yesterday, news broke that President Obama had signed a secret order – called a ‘finding’ – which authorised the covert support of the United States government for the Libyan rebel forces. Basically, a finding is one of the principal forms by which the president authorises secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency.

As an Iraq War veteran, I’ve approached our increasing involvement in the Libyan civil war with a gradually escalating sense of foreboding. The lack of clarity in what we want to achieve in Libya, and how we intend to achieve it, is eerily reminiscent to me of our entanglement in Iraq.

There are a few things that come to mind here, now that we are ‘covertly’ supporting the Libyan rebels. Full story »

At so many points along the way I have felt like music was life. There is music on most of the day when I’m working. There’s music when I’m driving around. Music when I’m riding my bike or working out. Music when I go to sleep. Music in my best and worst moments.

I was a club DJ and I DJed at a college station (as well as pulling a shift or two at a rock station where I worked shortly after graduating from college). Picking a song that makes me happy, well, as with the last couple of days, the hard part is picking just one. So I thought back to a time when I wasn’t generally happy. Thanks to a personal crisis (yes, involving a woman) I endured some very dark days during the two years I spent getting my MA. I tried to think about music that lifted me out of the blackness. And a memory came to me. Full story »

by James Corbett

The facts of my case are fairly simple. Chad Farnan, a 15-year-old self-described Christian fundamentalist student in my Advanced Placement European History class, sued me for a “pattern” of statements unconstitutionally hostile to religion. His claim was based on hours of illegal and surreptitious recordings.

In my attorney’s opinion, the law was on our side, so he advised me to seek a summary judgment. I now believe that was a critical error because when a defendant requests a summary judgment rather than a jury trial, the law requires that all the facts presented by the plaintiff be accepted as truthful. No fact may be disputed, only the law. My attorney believed a fair application of the Lemon test would turn in my favor, but the test fails in a case such as mine both as a matter of law and of logic. Had I gone to court, I could easily have demonstrated that Chad and his mother are Full story »

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Remember how I said yesterday that naming my favorite song was really, really hard? Uh-huh. Piece of cake compared to naming my least favorite song.

At the root of the issue is a basic math problem: if 99% of everything is crap (and that’s probably understating the case) then there are 99 times as many crap songs as great ones. I mean, I hated every motherfucking song that the radio played during the disco years. I detest large swaths of hip-hip, all American Idol-style industry put-up job pop, and will somebody please kill those guys who did “The Macarena.” Full story »

“Hey, Sam. What’s your favorite song?”

This is about as hateful a question as it is possible to ask a guy like me. I own somewhere in excess of 4,000 CDs probably and if you put a gun to my head I could make a case for at least several dozen songs that fit the bill. I could pick a number of U2 tracks, for instance (“Sunday Bloody Sunday,” maybe, especially the live version from Rattle and Hum, or “Pride”) or The Police’s “So Lonely” or “Shadows in the Rain,” which was simply chilling live. Or Queen’s “The Prophet’s Song.” Or Springsteen (“Thunder Road”) or REM (“South Central Rain”) or Johnny Clegg & Savuka (“I Call Your Name” or “The Crossing”). How about Don Dixon’s “Your Sister Told Me Where You’ve Been” or “(If I Could) Walk Away.” (Actually, I might use that last one later if there’s a call for a song that torments you to sleep at night). Full story »

Let’s try a little thought experiment here. What if the problem with conservatives isn’t that they are wrong, but rather than even when they are right their logic is so bad we can’t fairly judge the merit of their positions?

What if their logic is so twisted that it simply short circuits our brains? Their arguments send our thoughts careening like pinballs, bouncing from untruth to non sequitur to logic loop to inconsistency to false conclusion. Perhaps we completely forget to ask ourselves whether their positions might be right, because we are entangled like a kitten in their ball of yarn.

It’s certainly possible. Just because you can’t argue doesn’t make you wrong. I remember listening to our local hippie in 1978. Ed took on Henry Kissinger during open mike at a post-speech Q&A. Kissinger mauled Ed. Ed was right, but he couldn’t out-argue Kissinger. Full story »

If you have a Facebook account it’s damned-near inconceivable that you haven’t tripped across the 30-Day Song Challenge. You may even have done it (or be in the midst of doing it) yourself.

I was thinking about having at it myownbadself, but I couldn’t imagine just posting a song on some of these days (come on, my favorite song? The debate over what that song is could fill volumes) without providing context, argument, whatever. So I thought heck, there’s nothing that says I have to do it within the limited confines of Facebook, is there? I can make a series of it at S&R.

Which is what I’m a-fixin’ to do. Full story »

Everything starts somewhere. For us, getting in shape started with bread pudding.

“I don’t think it’s normal to eat that much bread pudding,” I said. “I wonder if anybody else celebrates International Bread Pudding Day?”

“I’m still not convinced that holiday exists,” said Nancy, “But it is winter in Connecticut, and you need your winter fat.”

“Har, har. My feet are cold. Do I have socks on? I don’t think I can move.”

And I didn’t move for hours. I sat there like a gorged tick. Later that evening, I was able to push myself upright and stagger to bed. I’m lying. I staggered to the refrigerator for a few more bites of bread pudding. Hey, IBP day only comes once a year. The next morning everything had changed. Full story »

The extent to which Libya has rendered the concept of political correctness irrelevant on not only the left, but the right, is breathtaking. For instance, Juan Cole writes:

I am unabashedly cheering the liberation movement on, and glad that the UNSC-authorized intervention has saved them from being crushed. Full story »

The National Basketball Association has a World Wrestling Entertainment problem.

Actually, it has several problems, none of which look like they’re going to be easily solved. (And I’m not even talking about the officiating, although I have in the past and no doubt will again in the future). The collective bargaining agreement is up after this season, at which point The League is going to have to address declining revenues, player salaries, salary cap structures, the fact that the inmates are running the asylum and what to do about the fact that star players have no interest whatsoever in playing in the Outback (you know, Cleveland, Memphis, New Orleans, Toronto, Sacto, Charlotte, etc.) when their superstar friends are living most large in NYC, Boston, South Beach, Chicago and the part of LA associated with the Lakers. Full story »

by Lisa Barnard

I’ll say it: I think my Netflix account has been taken over by a ruthless, vengeful android. I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out.

I’m sitting there crying on my couch after watching a really touching film about something like childhood prostitution, an exonerated convict, or genocide in a far away land (I watch a lot of documentaries), and Netflix catches me off guard and at that moment “innocently” asks me to rate the movie, immediately. I feel like I owe it to these people in the movie to express my concern for their plight and my gratitude to the director for making such a powerful film by rating the thing 5/5 stars. “More people should watch this!,” I think to myself. What an idiot.

Netflix wastes no time in using my moment of weakness against me. My account fills before my eyes with only the most depressing, horrific movies. Romantic comedy? Ha. Full story »

by Talbot Eckweiler

Part four in a five-part series.

Constance Barone sits at her office desk and adjusts her spectacles. For the last eight years, she’s been the site manager for Sackets Harbor Historic Site near Watertown, New York. In 2012, the site will celebrate its bicentennial anniversary as one of the major sites of the War of 1812. While two hundred years makes for many a memory, for Barone, the site holds a personal history that spans three generations.

“My mother’s father was in the naval militia, so he was involved right here on this property,” Barone says. “My mother as a teenager grew up here, in this house. They lived here and this was my mother’s bedroom,” she says and nods at the office area.

The Lieutenant’s House, a pale-yellow brick building, was built in 1847 for the second in command of the navy yard. Narrow, low-ceiling staircases and uneven wooden floors lead to dark rooms settled in silent repose. In October, the peak tourist season has passed, and now the site settles down for winter. Full story »

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Poor Detroit. Still reeling from a decade when the three auto companies, formerly known collectively as the Big Three, imploded with two of them taking federal loans to survive, the Motor City lost almost 25 percent of its residents, according to U.S. Census figures released this week.

In its heyday in the mid-20th Century, Detroit was the fourth largest city in the nation. Now it languishes at 18th.The new population count by the census folks is 713,777, the lowest in a century. One in every four residents left the city during the past decade. Michigan, as well, was the only state to lose population despite an increase in the U.S. population during the past decade.

The implications are harrowing for a city with huge deficits, a school system with a state appointed fiscal manager, decaying neighborhoods and vast swaths of empty lots. Downtown, a vibrant retail area in the 1950s and 1960s which once boasted three major department stores along its main artery, Woodward Avenue, now has none. In the old neighborhoods where small clusters of houses remain, selling prices, if there are buyers, are in just the four and five figures.

And to add insult, it looks like ABC will cancel the show Detroit 187 after just one season. How much more of a battering can the city take? Full story »

Children of the City of Certainties, part 2.

“Everything we have said about Des Moines has been found to be exactly true.”— “Des Moines the City of Certainties has Made Good.” In: The World’s Work, vol. 23, 1911.

Image to the right: “Krug’s Woe is a Tabloid Wow.” Life, August 4, 1947, pp. 26-28. Caption: “THE WHAM GIRL, Judy Cook, was employed at Lockheed Factory as a riveter during the war but also helped entertain Hughes’ guests. Company newspaper said she made ‘wham by day and trouble for the Japs by night.’

My Uncle Spike told me a joke from his college days when I was 13 years old.

There was a newlywed couple who went on an ocean cruise for their honeymoon, and the virginal bride was taking quite a conjugal pounding as they crossed the ocean. Full story »

When the massive tsunami smacked into Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power plant was stacked high with more uranium than it was originally designed to hold. . . . the equivalent of almost six years [almost 4,000] of the highly radioactive [spent] uranium fuel rods produced by the plant  . . . stored in deep pools of circulating water built into the highest floor of the Fukushima reactor buildings.

. . . reports Reuters. Full story »