Bedtime Music: Foreigner - Cold as Ice

One of the things that amazes me about rock music is the timeless quality a lot of songs have. Here's a song, Cold as Ice, by Foreigner, that came out when I was a sophomore in high school (yeah, I know ... dating myself), and it still sounds as good now as it did when it first came out back in March 1977. The song peaked at #6 in the U.S. charts.

Lee Iacocca: Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Amen! This is an excerpt from Lee Iacocca's book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.'

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

& someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions.

That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty & I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them — or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. & That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq — a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith-based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.

So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina & Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing & Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry ...

Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises ... If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's ... go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough."

HT: Oroville Mercury-Register.com

State Rankings by Social and Economic Liberalism/Conservatism

This is an interesting graph showing where the states in the continental U.S. rank in terms of social and economic liberalism vs. conservatism. The data used to make this graph is somewhat old (from the 2000 election season).

Here's a graph of the 50 states (actually, I think Alaska and Hawaii are missing), showing the average economic and social ideology of adults within each state. Each of these is scaled so that negative numbers are liberal and positive are conservative; thus, people in Massachusetts are the most liberal on economic issues and people in Idaho are the most conservative:


West Virginians are on the liberal side economically but are extremely socially conservative, whereas Vermont is about the same as West Virginian on the economic dimension but is the most socially liberal of all the states. Coloradans are economically conservative (on average) but socially moderate (or, perhaps, socially divided; these are averages only).

Read the rest of the post here.

HT: Economist's View

A question that would interest me is, by how much do states shift in terms of their economic and social beliefs over time? One would think that they do to a degree, but not by that much. However, a recent article in The Economist (The Big Sort), discusses how Americans are segregating themselves into geographical areas by political beliefs:

Americans move house often, usually for practical reasons. Before choosing a new neighborhood, they drive around it. They notice whether it has gun shops, evangelical churches and “W” bumper stickers, or yoga classes and organic fruit shops. Perhaps unconsciously, they are drawn to places where they expect to fit in.

Where you live is partly determined by where you can afford to live, of course. But the “Big Sort” does not seem to be driven by economic factors. Income is a poor predictor of party preference in America; cultural factors matter more. For Americans who move to a new city, the choice is often not between a posh neighborhood and a run-down one, but between several different neighborhoods that are economically similar but culturally distinct.

...

Because Americans are so mobile, even a mild preference for living with like-minded neighbors leads over time to severe segregation. An accountant in Texas, for example, can live anywhere she wants, so the liberal ones move to the funky bits of Austin while the more conservative ones prefer the exurbs of Dallas. Conservative Californians can find refuge in Orange County or the Central Valley.

Over time, this means Americans are ever less exposed to contrary views. ... Americans were the least likely of all to talk about politics with those who disagreed with them.

Intriguingly, the more educated Americans become, the more insular they are. ... Better-educated people tend to be richer, so they have more choice about where they live. And they are more mobile. One study that covered most of the 1980s and 1990s found that 45% of young Americans with a college degree moved state within five years of graduating, whereas only 19% of those with only a high-school education did.

There is a danger in this. Studies suggest that when a group is ideologically homogeneous, its members tend to grow more extreme. Even clever, fair-minded people are not immune. ... Republican-appointed judges vote more conservatively when sitting on a panel with other Republicans than when sitting with Democrats. Democratic judges become more liberal when on the bench with fellow Democrats.

Residential segregation is not the only force Balkanizing American politics, frets Mr Bishop. Multiple cable channels allow viewers to watch only news that reinforces their prejudices. The Internet offers an even finer filter. Websites such as conservativedates.com or democraticsingles.net help Americans find ideologically predictable mates.

And the home-schooling movement, which has grown rapidly in recent decades, shields more than 1m American children from almost any ideas their parents dislike.

...

Voters in landslide districts tend to elect more extreme members of Congress. Moderates who might otherwise run for office decide not to. Debates turn into shouting matches. Bitterly partisan lawmakers cannot reach the necessary consensus to fix long-term problems such as the tottering pensions and health-care systems.

America, says Mr Bishop, is splitting into "balkanized communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible." He has a point. Republicans who never meet Democrats tend to assume that Democrats believe more extreme things than they really do, and vice versa. This contributes to the nasty tone of many political campaigns.

This last paragraph also helps to explain why most non-Muslim Americans are so Islamophobic and xenophobic: Not knowing any Muslims they are more susceptible to believing the lies spread by the haters.

Seen in Little India

Today's bumper sticker:

Terrorists don't scare me.
Your driving, that scares me!

Watts Zap Best of 2006 (#2)

While we're waiting for the Tour de France to start, I'd say that Alejandro Valverde of Spain is probably the man to beat at this time. He's won two major races so far this year, the Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April, and the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré in June.

The Meeting between Umar and Hurmuzān

Another story from Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests (pp. 130-31). As the Arab army swept through Khūzestān (in what is now southwestern Iran), the Persian general Hurmuzān (Hormozan) fled to the city of Tustar (now Shushtar), where he and his forces were besieged by the army of Abu Musa Al-Ash'ari for at least eighteen months (some records say two years). Shustar finally fell when one or two of the city residents befriended the Arab soldiers and agreed to help them in exchange for a third of the spoils. The Arabs then tunneled under the city walls, and the city was eventually taken. However, the decision was made to send Hurmuzān to the Caliph Umar, who would decide his fate:

After his surrender at Tustar, he was brought to Medina to be presented to the caliph. Before he and his escort entered the city, they arrayed him in all his finery, his brocade and cloth-of-gold robes and a crown studded with rubies. Then they led him through the streets so that everyone could see him. When they reached Umar's house, however, they found that he was not there, so they went to look for him in the mosque but could not find him there either. Finally they passed a group of boys playing in the street, who told them that the caliph was asleep in a corner of the mosque with his cloak folded under his head for a pillow.

When they returned to the mosque they found him as the boys had said. He had just received a delegation of visitors from Kūfa and, when they had left, he had simply put his head down for a nap. Apart from him there was no one in the mosque. They sat down a little way from him. Hurmuzān enquired where his guards and attendants were but was told he had none. "Then he must be a prophet," the Persian said. "No," his escort replied, "but he does the things prophets do." Meanwhile more people gathered round and the noise woke Umar up. He sat up and saw the Persian and the escort asked him to talk to the "king of Ahvaz." Umar refused as long as he was wearing all his finery, and only when the prisoner had been stripped as far as decency allowed and reclad in a coarse robe did the interrogation begin.

Umar asked Hurmuzān what he thought about the recent turn of events, to which the Persian replied that in the old days God was not on the side of the Persians or the Arabs and the Persians were in the ascendancy, but now God was favoring the Arabs and they had won. Umar replied that the real reason was that the Persians had previously been united while the Arabs had not. Umar was inclined to execute him in revenge for the Muslims he had slain. Hurmuzān asked for some water, and when it was given to him he said he was afraid he would be killed while he was drinking. The caliph replied that he would not be killed before he had drunk the water, whereupon Hurmuzān allowed his hands to tremble and the water was spilled. When Umar again threatened to kill him, the Persian said that he had already been given immunity; after all, he had not drunk the water. Umar was furious, but the assembled company agreed that Hurmuzān was right. In the end, he was converted to Islam, allowed to live in Medina and given a substantial pension.

Kennedy continues:

The story of Hurmuzān's trick is probably a folk motif grafted on to historical events, but it serves its purpose to illustrate the contrast between Persian pride and luxury and Muslim simplicity; the honesty of the Muslims and the integration of elements of the Persian elite into the Muslim hierarchy.

In E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936, al-Hurzumān, described as the King of Susiana,

"...succeeded as saving his life by his cunning but only on condition that he adopted Islām. He was able to be useful to the Caliph in various ways on account of his knowledge of Persian affairs. But when 'Omar was murdered in 23 = 644 by a Persian Christian, al-Hurmuzān, probably without reason, was suspected of being an accomplice and killed by 'Ubaid Allāh, son of the Caliph." (p. 338)

Photo credit: Panoramio/shushtari

Watts Zap Best of 2006 (#1)

As I patiently wait for the Tour de France to start (July 5th), here's some more of the Watts Zap Best of... series. Parts 2 and 3 will be over the next two days.

Movie Sunday: Tron

We had been discussing the movie 300 and the state of CGI this week over at Izzy Mo's, and I had brought up the example of the 1982 movie, Tron, as a film that has poor to average computer graphics by today's standards, but was obviously at the forefront of CGI at the time.

In many ways, Tron is actually a very good movie (at least in my opinion ;) ) What I like is the soundtrack by Wendy Carlos, whose musical work I've been familiar with since my teenage years, and the philosophical undertone of the movie, which suggests that, like the computer world of Tron, humanity is a form of organic computer in which we individuals are "bytes," interacting with each other, sharing, storing and creating data that allow our collective "program" to grow and be improved upon. (This, to me, is the meaning of the last scene in the movie, when we look over the sped-up cityscape at night.)

Trivia:

Jeff Bridges produced too much of a bulge in the crotch area in his computer outfit, so he was forced to wear a dance belt to conceal it.

Although the film was an initial failure, the arcade video game based on it proved to be a tremendous hit and actually out-grossed the film.

The movie was passed over for an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects because the Academy felt Tron "cheated" by using a computer. (Seven years later, The Abyss (1989) would win for its computer visual effects.)

Have you ever noticed how similar the scenes involving the character "V.I.K.I." in the 2004 movie, I, Robot, including Will Smith's sliding down the computer core and injecting the "nanites," are to Jeff Bridges' falling into the MCP to allow Bruce Boxleitner ("Tron") to throw in his identity disk? Milady did.

BTW, I don't normally feature or remark about tribute videos, but I will say that I rather enjoyed watching this video that sets scenes from Tron to the Eiffel 65 song, Blue (Da Ba Dee).

Tron: If you are a user, then everything you've done has been according to a plan.

Kevin Flynn: Ha! You wish!

Greetings, programs!

The Conquest of Junday-Shapur

Another story from Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests (p. 128), this time dealing with the "conquest" of Junday-Shapur (also known as Jondisapur (p. 206) or Gundishapur), an ancient city that lies in the modern Iranian province of Khūzestān, between the cities of Dezful and Shustar.

According to this story, the city resisted vigorously until one day, to the great surprise of the Muslims, the gates were flung open and the city was opened up. The Muslims asked the defenders what had come over them, to which they replied, "You have shot us an arrow with a message that safety would be granted to us. We have accepted this and set aside the tribute payments." The Muslims replied that they had done no such thing, but after extensive enquiries they found a slave, originally from Junday-shapur, who admitted that he had indeed written such a message. The Muslim commanders explained that this was the work of a slave with no authority to make such an offer, to which the inhabitants replied that they had no means of knowing that and finished by saying that they were going to keep their side of the bargain, even if the Muslims chose to act treacherously. The Muslims referred the matter to [the Caliph] Umar, who responded that the promise was in fact binding, for "God holds the keeping of promises in the highest esteem." The moral is clear: even the promise of a slave must be respected.

Photo credit: Wikipedia/Zereshk - The interior of Masjid Jameh (Congregational Mosque) in Dezful, Iran.

Drum Corps Saturday: 1975 Oakland Crusaders

The sixth place corps in 1975 was the Oakland Crusaders, which was a merger between the Etobicoke Crusaders and the De La Salle Oaklands, both of whom were from the Toronto area. Both corps were strong Open Class corps in 1974 (De La Salle placed seventh in the 1974 DCI finals), and the merged corps continued to do well through the late 70s. In the early 80s, the corps went through a slow decline; in 1986, the Oakland Crusaders merged with the Ambassadors of Newmarket/Aurora, Ontario to form a corps called Out of the Blue, which competed for one season.

Like the Royal Crusaders, who gave several corps a scare by doing well in the 1975 DCI prelims, the Oakland Crusaders also did very well in the prelims, scoring a 86.20 for fourth place. However, the corps slid down to sixth place in the finals, despite getting an 86.00.

Notes:

In the first video, watch for the drum major bumping into the girl at the 1:19 mark.

Be sure to check out the De La Salle Oakland Crusaders Alumni website; there's also a page devoted to the Oakland Crusaders at the Optimists Alumni website.

The Repertoire: Swan Lake * Jupiter (from The Planets) * Malaga * El Gato Triste

Bedtime Music: Eagles - Hotel California

This song really needs no introduction. This concert took place in November 2004 at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia. The trumpet introduction is a nice touch (one I hadn't heard before). I heard this song live back in the mid 80s when Don Henley came to Arizona State University for his "Building the Perfect Beast" tour.

BTW, any guesses as to the new theme yet? :)

Bedtime Music: Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me

Def Leppard is about as hard rock as I go. I'm not into metal, but I do like hard rock. Hysteria was, in my opinion, one of the better hard rock albums, not just of Def Leppard's discography, but of the genre as a whole. Apparently, Pour Some Sugar On Me has become extremely popular at strip clubs; not that I would know. Seriously! :)

The Economist: The Future of Energy

I've been having a nice conversation with Terry, who is justifiably concerned with the amount of oil the U.S. has been importing. He mentioned recently that he believes in our pursuit of alternatives, and I wanted to let him (and others) know that this week's Economist magazine has a special report (nine articles) on the future of energy, which focuses primarily on prospects for various alternative energies. Below is a listing of links to all of the articles.

The Power and the Glory (energy alternatives)
Trade Winds (wind power)
Dig Deep (carbon storage)
Another Silicon Valley? (solar energy)
Beneath Your Feet (geothermal generation)
Grow Your Own (biofuels)
The End of the Petrolhead (tomorrow's cars)
Life After Death (nuclear energy)
Flights of Fancy (energy's future)

The Foundation Myth of Qayrawān

I read this to Milady the other night before we went to bed. It's a cute foundation myth for the city of Qayrawān (aka Kairouan, located in Tunisia), which was founded around the year 670 by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi (whom the masjid in the picture to the left is named after). As Milady said to me the other night, this is the sort of story one would tell children. This story appears in Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests (which I mentioned the other day), pp. 210-11:

Uqba went on: "I have only chosen this place because it is well away from the sea and Roman ships cannot reach it and destroy it. It is well inland." Then he ordered his men to get building, but they complained that the scrub was full of lions and vagabonds and that they were afraid for their lives and refused to do it. So Uqba collected the members of his army who had been Companions of the Prophet [pbuh], twelve of them, and cried out, "O you lions and vermin, we are Companions of the Prophet of God [pbuh], so leave us and if we find any of you here we will kill them!" Then the people witnessed the most extraordinary sight, for the lions carried their cubs and the wolves carried their young and the snakes carried their offspring and they left, one group after another. Many Berbers were converted to Islam as a result of this.

He then established the government house and the houses for the people around it and they lived there for forty years without ever seeing a snake or a scorpion. He laid out the mosque but was uncertain about the direction of the qibla and was very worried. Then he slept, and in the night heard a voice saying, "Tomorrow, go to the mosque and you will hear a voice saying Allahu akbar." Follow the direction of the voice and that will be the qibla God has made pleasing for the Muslims in this land." In the morning he heard the voice and established the qibla and all the other mosques copied it.

Photo credit: Masjid Uqba and cemetery, courtesy of Wikipedia/Douya

Bedtime Music: Chicago - Hard to Say I'm Sorry

As a teenager in the 70s, my favorite band was Chicago; I was involved with drum corps at the time (I played a baritone bugle), and getting into brass-oriented jazz and rock (e.g., Maynard Ferguson, Chuck Mangione) as a result. This particular song, the 1982 release, Hard to Say I'm Sorry, however, moves in the opposite direction, being horn-less and heavy on layered synths and distorted electric guitars. Still, the song was very successful, and reached #1 in September 1982, the band's first top-50 hit since their December 1978 release, No Tell Lover.

State Coincident Indexes

Every month, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia produces a "State Coincident Index" that allows economists to see how well each of the individual states are doing economically:

The coincident indexes combine four state-level indicators to summarize current economic conditions in a single statistic. The four state-level variables in each coincident index are nonfarm payroll employment, average hours worked in manufacturing, the unemployment rate, and wage and salary disbursements deflated by the consumer price index (U.S. city average). The trend for each state’s index is set to the trend of its gross domestic product (GDP), so long-term growth in the state’s index matches long-term growth in its GDP.

What the graphs below show is a state-by-state analysis of the economy. The first three maps show the month of January for 2005, 2006 and 2007, respectively. (Note that in these maps, a five-point scale is used with dark blue being the best and dark red being the worst.) The last six maps are for the last six months available, December 2007 through May 2008. While the scale has been increased from five points to seven points, the same basic color scheme is still used; i.e., dark blue is the best, dark red is the worst.

As you can see, the American economy has gotten quite bad over the past six months, especially in the Northwest and, to a slightly lesser degree, in the Midwest and South. Some of the states in the Mountain West and Northeast are doing well, with the best state currently being Texas. (I'd be tempted to say that Texas is doing well because of the multiplier effects from higher oil prices, but if that's the case, then why isn't Alaska doing well too?)










HT: Economist's View

Bedtime Music: Boston - More Than a Feeling

When I came up with the idea for the current theme (which you now may be able to guess at), Boston was a natural choice. The real problem is to find a decent video of one of the songs, especially with pre-MTV bands. In general, I prefer music videos or professional footage from concerts; with a band like Boston, however, most videos available are taken by fans at concerts that look like they've been recorded with a handphone camera. So I was rather happy that I could find a decent video of the 1976 hit, More Than a Feeling.

Be a Man: Check 'Em

These were ... uh ... different, especially the second one (ladies, you may not want to watch). And yet these PSAs are on an important health concern for men, that being testicular cancer. A friend of mine in college had already gone through it by the time I met him, even though he was only in his mid-20s. He was lucky to have lost only one testicle. (This is the cancer that bicyclist Lance Armstrong overcame.) So, guys (especially those of you between 15 and 35): be a man, and check 'em.

Bedtime Music: Aerosmith - Dude (Looks Like a Lady)

New theme starting; guess what it is if you can. (You won't be able to guess until at least tomorrow night.)

There are a lot of great Aerosmith songs to choose from; while this song isn't my first choice, Dude (Looks Like a Lady) has always been a favorite, if only for Robin Williams' dance to the song in the movie, Mrs. Doubtfire. What inspired the band to write this song?

The song, which originally started out as "Cruisin' for a Lady," talks about a male with an effeminate appearance who is mistaken for a female. There is a story that the song was inspired by the glam look of the members of Mötley Crüe and their constant usage of the word "dude." Steven Tyler says in the book Walk This Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith, "Then one day we met Mötley Crüe, and they're all going, 'Dude!' Dude this and Dude that, everything was Dude. 'Dude (Looks Like a Lady)' came out of that session."

...

In his recent book, The Heroin Diaries, Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe claims that the song was specifically inspired by Vince Neil, singer with Mötley Crüe.

Someone needs to work on their customer service skills...

HT: Advertising Is Good For You