Guardian of the Non Sequitur

This song was wafting in and out of my head several weeks ago. I really need to dial it up on the CD player and get it out of my system. I think it’s particularly apropos (oh no, did I use a French word? The horror.), but I’ll leave my personal feeling of its interpretation to myself. That’s the beauty of music, it can mean different things to different people, all correct.

-b

>REM – Dead Letter Office – Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Come on aboard, I promise you you won’t hurt the horse
We treat him well, we feed him well.
There’s lots of room for you on the bandwagon,
The road may be rough, the weather may forget us
But won’t we all parade around and sing our songs,
a magic kingdom, open-armed

Greet us hello, bravo, name in lights
Passing on the word to fellow passengers and players, passing in,
Until you’re tired looking at all the flags
And all the banners waving
This is some parade, yesiree Bob.
Could we have known?
Yesiree Bob, could we have known?

Look at all the flags and all the banners waving.
Open up our arms, a magic kingdom, open-armed and greet us all

Come on aboard I promise you you won’t hurt the horse
We treat him well, we feed him well
There’s lots of room for you on the bandwagon
The road may be rough, the weather may forget us
But won’t we all parade around and sing our songs and wave our flags.
A magic kingdom, greet us all hello, greet us hello, greet us hello.

This opinion piece was published in the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday. It is by Thomas L. Friedman, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, working for The New York Times. He has been working on a documentary entitled “Searching for the Roots of 9/11″ for The New York Times and the Discovery Channel. It will be broadcast April 1 on the Discovery Times Channel at 8, Eastern time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/26/opinion/26FRIE.html

Scorecard for the War

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I was in a restaurant at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on Sunday, and it had an NCAA basketball game playing on the TV at one end of the bar and the Iraq war on the other. Most people were watching the basketball game — probably because it’s so much easier to keep score. How will we know if we are winning in Iraq? Here are six things I am watching for:

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SXSW day 2.

4p

We missed a band last night called Dressy Bessy, they seemed good, so we went to check them out at Waterloo Records in-store. It was decent, but something missing. Very cute red-haired chick singer, gigantic guitar player. Perhaps because they didn’t have much room in the record store, but they didn’t seem to have much excitement.

Michelle and I stepped next door for some lunch. I had the chicken fried stake, and I have to say it was the worst chicken friend steak i’ve had in i-can’t-remember-how-long. There’s musicians coming from all over the world to the music store, I sure hope they’re not eating there and judging it.

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Well, another SXSW is underway.

Met up with the crew of about 10 at Lovejoy’s, I was drinking the Hazelnut Stout. At $2 a pint, an excellent way to begin an evening.

After trying to slap together a plan that would absolutely not be followed, we headed out.

8p

Started at The Mercury, a venue so wisely alphabetized under T by the SXSW website. Midlake from Denton, TX. They are a 5-piece, ranging from mostly guitar to mostly keyboard. A good, danceable band. They vary from Coldplay to 80′s Manchester to 60′s psychedelic.

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So, after attending a friend’s b-day party, I stopped by my regular haunt. Ran into a few people, one asked if I read the story in the Press, I hadn’t. He mentioned “breast” and “scotch”, I didn’t pay much attention. After one I decided to head home and past Rudyard’s, there seemed to be quite a crowd, so I stopped.

I ordered the new seasonal, St. Arnold Bock, a very excellent beer. Talked with a few people at the bar, including coincidentally, the guy i’d spoken with at the last bar. Ascertained the cover to get up stairs, and headed there.

I was only there in time to see the last band, 12:30 or some such. I was under the impression that the bands that night were an SXSW overflow, but after checking it out it seems he’ll be in FLA next week. It was excellent, none the less.

So, I step into the den… Continue reading

This was a small article on the Bush administration abandoning a promise to push forward the Peace Process in Israel/Palestine. With all the other Iraq stirrings, this tidbit will fly under the radar. Unfortunately, I think it will come back to haunt us.

Israel, North Korea,… it’s much easier to ignore the sticky problems. We’ve got Saddam, we’ll deal with that, because we think we can solve it.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/world/1810704

March 9, 2003, 10:31AM
Bush refuses to offer plan for Mideast

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
New York Times

In a sharp rebuff to European allies, Russia and the United Nations, the Bush administration has decided not to put forth a plan for a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians until after the crisis in Iraq is resolved, administration officials say.

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