“In the current socio-political climate, he said to himself, committing suicide is absurd and redundant. Better to become an undercover poet.”

― Roberto Bolaño, Distant Star

+ Instead of invading Greenland, Canada, Panama or Mexico, in a tactical faint worthy of Gen. George Armstrong Custer, Trump invaded…Los Angeles.

+ The last time a President deployed the National Guard to a state over the objections of the governor was in 1965, when LBJ sent them to protect Civil Rights marchers in Selma in defiance of Alabama Governor George Wallace. Now they’re being sent by Trump to California to crack down ON civil rights protesters.

+ No masks allowed, except for Trump’s secret police:

+ Jonathan Last, writing in the Bulwark: “Almost by definition, stable democracies do not allow agents of the state to operate under cover of concealment. Either that characterization is wrong, or we are no longer a stable democracy.”

+ A dockworkers’ strike might have been an effective response to Trump’s invasion of Los Angeles had not Trump’s tariffs already halted most cargo traffic into the Port of Los Angeles.

+ Wait until the LAPD learns it’s a “leftist police department”…You won’t have to defund them, the entire force will be applying for jobs in Pocatello, Boise, and Coeur d’Alene..

+ There’s nothing more anti-American than someone who claims to be fighting “anti-Americanism.” To be anti-American is the birthright of every American.

Q: “Could we really see active duty Marines on the streets of Los Angeles?”

House Speaker Mike Johnson: “I don’t think that’s heavy-handed.”

Q: “You don’t think sending Marines into the streets of an American city is heavy-handed?”

Johnson: “We have to be prepared to do what is necessary.”

+ Their hypocrisy is a feature, not a glitch, and the more glaring the better as far as MAGA is concerned…

+ Cost of sending Marines to terrorize LA: $135 million.

+ So we’ve gone from a police state to a military police state in less than five months. What comes next?

+ A memo obtained by NBC News shows that the DOJ has been instructing immigration court judges (who they oversee) to dismiss cases from the bench without giving time to appeal in order to allow ICE to make courtroom arrests.

+ Really, “criminals” are lining up to pick strawberries in 100F heat for $13,000 a year…

+ But “criminals” aren’t the people being targeted for arrest and deportation by ICE…

+ ICE is rounding up nearly 10 times as many non-criminal immigrants as it did at this point last year. At least 23% of the noncitizens arrested by ICE have no criminal record, which is itself a new record…

+ ICE arrested an Afghan who provided security for US troops in Afghanistan, who was in the country legally as his asylum claim was being processed, and who had no criminal record. In the charging document, ICE lied to the court about his status. Let this be a lesson to any foreign national that you can’t trust the US to live up to its commitments. We’ll chuck you out when we have no use for you, for any reason at all or no reason at all, back into the hands of people who may want you dead…

+ If your cause is so righteous, why do you have to resort to such vile forms of trickery and deception?

+ ICE “mistakenly” arrested a US Marshall in Arizona because he looked the type. We’ve gone from showing probable cause as a basis for arrests to “he fits the general description” (ie, male and Hispanic), let’s haul him in and sort it out later….

+ I thought this had to be a parody and looked for transposed letters to indicate that the ICE number would take you to an underground sanctuary network like the Trystero postmarks in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49: “Report All Obscene Mail to the Potsmaster General.” Nope, the federal government really wants you to snitch out the guys who mowed your lawn and washed your car.

+ Here’s a GoFundMe page set up by the families of the 14 people who were illegally detained in the ICE raid on the Ambiance Warehouse in downtown LA, many of whom are the primary breadwinners of their families.

+ SEIU’s David Huerta, after being released from custody, after being arrested and roughed up for filming ICE’s unconstitutional raids in LA..

+ Federal Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that Mahmoud Khalil will suffer irreparable harm in detention and cannot be detained or deported based on Marco Rubio’s determination. The judge ordered his release on bond by June 13 unless the government appeals by then.

+ From Mahmoud’s wife, Noor…

+ Like many family members of people ICE detained during its raid on Ambiance Apparel in Los Angeles last Friday, Yurien Contreras has not heard from her father, Mario Romero, and has no idea how is doing: “I witnessed how they put my father in handcuffs, chained him from the waist and ankles. My family and I haven’t had communication with my dad. We don’t know anything.”

+ The Wall Street Journal reported that Stephen Miller instructed ICE to conduct warrantless “sweeps” of Hispanic areas of the country, detaining people who were suspected of any crimes. Miller wanted them to target places like Home Depot and 7/11s where day laborers tend to gather. This violates the Constitution and they knew it, because they were told not to write anything down, just “do what you need to do.” That’s not how law enforcement is supposed to work in the US or any democratic Republic.

+ Jose Ortiz, one of the men arrested in the LA worksite raids, has lived in LA for 30 years. After 18 years on the job, he had advanced to the role of floor manager when ICE arrested him without a warrant and with no criminal record.

+ Immigrants in California…

Immigrant residents: 10,633,200
Immigrants’ spending power: $404.4 billion
Immigrants’ taxes paid (2023): $168.1 billion

+ Conor Simon really sums up where we’re at in America now…

+ The latest Quinnipiac poll finds Trump’s approval rating slumping to 38-54%. And he’s underwater even on his signature issue:

Trump approval on immigration: 43-54
Approval on his deportations: 40-56

+ After saying he would arrest California Governor, Gavin Newsom, Trump was asked what crime Newsom had committed…

Trump: What crime did Newsom commit? He ran for governor.

+ When you’ve radicalized Kim Kardashian: “When we witness innocent, hardworking people being ripped from their families in inhumane ways, we have to speak up. We have to do what’s right.”

+ A few days ago, 75 Democrats voted for a Congressional Resolution praising ICE. Today, ICE manhandled, threw to the ground, cuffed, and detained US Senator Alex Padilla for trying to attend a press briefing by DHS Secretary. Kristi Noem…Whose side are you on?

+ Sen. Alex Padilla: “If that’s what they do to a United States Senator with a question, imagine what they do to farm workers, day laborers, cooks, and the other nonviolent immigrants they are targeting in California and across the country. Or any American that dares to speak up.”

+ Violence at protests is almost never started by protesters. Why would they? The police have all the weapons. It usually begins with a cop losing it after being verbally taunted and beating a protester with a baton (aka, club).  Then, the other protesters intervene to keep the cop from seriously injuring the first protester, at which point, all hell breaks loose. The other way it starts is when an agent provocateur (often a Proud Boy or similar reprobate) in the crowd throws something towards the cops, and the cops respond by charging the crowd with tasers, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades.

+ In LA, the violence was instigated by ICE and the National Guard…

+ Two of the countries the Clintons “liberated” with cruise missiles, Libya and now Kosovo, are being used as black sites for Trump’s rendition of immigrants…

+ The Trump admin plans to send thousands of noncitizens to Guantanamo beginning as early as this week, including citizens of close allies UK & France, with no intention of notifying their home governments in advance, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post.

+ ICE released photos of National Guard troops, not “guarding” against “rioters,” but assisting in raids on immigrants…

+ Andrew Cuomo on ICE raids in New York City: “They are going to do things that are illegal and unconstitutional. But let’s not overreact.”

+ Bernie Sanders was somewhat less equivocal: “He has conducted massive illegal raids. He has provoked a counter-response. And then, he has called in the troops. That is how an authoritarian rules.”

+ Unbelievable, yet somehow entirely believable: 75 Democrats joined with House Republicans to vote for a Resolution thanking ICE for its role in implementing Trump’s Mass Deportation operations…

+ CNN: “You guys are condemning the violent protestors in LA. Is it hypocritical given the president pardoned the violent protestors on Jan. 6?”

Speaker Mike Johnson: “No, I think there’s a clear distinction between those two.”

+ Yes, one group tried to overthrow the government. The other group is trying to keep the government from overthrowing the Constitution.

+ Rarely has a politician been owned so completely…owned in both senses of the word.

+ Trump: “People that burn the American flag should go to jail for one year … we’re working with some of your senators.”

+ In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that laws prohibiting the burning of the US flag are unconstitutional, a ruling supported by Antonin Scalia.

+ Elizabeth Torres, whose grandparents immigrated to the United States, explained why she was waving a Mexican flag outside the detention center in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday morning. “I am a very proud American. But I have to show support also for our Mexican brothers and sisters.”

+ I’ve been proudly wearing my team Mexico World Cup shirt every time I leave the house, even though Color Me Beautiful told me my color isn’t green. The sacrifices we make!

+ Number of US troops deployed in…

Iraq: 2,500
Syria: 1,500
Los Angeles: 4,800

+ Reaper drones have been circling — well, hexagoning —over LA this week…

+ Reapers are usually armed with Hellfire missiles. The drones are coming home to roost…

+ In the 1930s, the US deported 400,000 workers back to Mexico. The result? A dramatic decline in US employment numbers, especially among low-income workers. Trump wants to deport 4 percent of the US population, which would likely crash the US economy.

+++

+ Rand Paul on Trump’s Big, Beautiful Military Birthday Parade: “I wouldn’t have done it. I’m not sure what the actual expense of it is, but…We were always different from, you know, the images you saw in the Soviet Union and North Korea. We were proud not to be that.”

+ While standing in front of a handpicked collection US troops at Fort Bragg this, Donald Trump referred to Americans protesting ICE raids in Los Angeles as “animals” and a “foreign enemy:” We will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy, and that’s what they are. These are animals, but they proudly carry the flags of other countries, but they don’t carry the American flag. We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again.”

+ In the same speech, Trump announced that he’s changing military base names back to honor Confederate generals. “For a little breaking news, we are going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill, and Fort Robert E. Lee…We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It’s no time to change. And I’m superstitious, you know? I like to keep it going. I’m very superstitious.”

+ Aside from being a traitor and continuing the war long after it had been lost, at the cost of 10s of thousands of lives, Lee had a whipping post at Arlington and used it–including at least once to shred the flesh on the back of a young black woman.

+ If Trump really wants to start naming US military bases after generals who defeated the US Army, he should name one of the biggest ones after General Giap. He sure didn’t want to face the PAVN or the Liberation Front and concocted a mysterious case of bone spurs to avoid doing so…

+ It’s becoming clearer and clearer every day that the South finally won the Civil War and the Insurrectionists won J6.

+ The Feds want workers to sign a loyalty pledge to Trump, not the Republic on which he stands (somewhat crookedly) or the Constitution…

+ The entire Fulbright Scholarship board resigned, citing interference from the Trump administration.  The board’s legacy depends on “the integrity of the program’s selection process based on merit, not ideology, and its insulation from political interference. That integrity is now undermined.”

+ Every day, the “free speech” administration launches new attacks on free speech…

+ Terry Moran’s post on the loathsome Stephen Miller was one of the most honest things we’ve heard from an ABC News anchor since Peter Jennings accused George W. Bush of going into hiding in the hours after 9/11. Moreover, it was much less inflammatory than what many of Miller’s own family members have said about him.

+ Even though Moran’s comments were measured compared to the vitriol that is spewed nightly on Fox News, they triggered an avalanche of denunciations from the Trump inner circle…ultimately leading to Moran’s suspension and dismissal, in the second major capitulation to Trump from ABC.

+ Pam Bondi: “After the October 7 anniversary, they [a California coffee shop] added new drinks to the menu. One was ‘Sweet Sinwar’ in honor of tribute to the leader of Hamas … You can’t do that. And so we’ve sued them and we’re gonna stop this from happening. And anywhere in the country, if you do this, we’re coming after you.” The federal suit claims that the Oakland coffee shop sold a tea named “Ice in Tea Fada,” which might be considered a terrible pun but is otherwise inoffensive. Crude, maybe, but there’s a law against this? What’s the law and how is it constitutional?

+ A former engineer for DOGE told NPR that during his audits, he found that fraud and waste in federal government agencies and programs were “relatively nonexistent.” Sahil Lavingia: “I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was.”

+ Trump warned Elon Musk that there would be “very serious consequences” if he backed Democrats in the next election.  As if the Watergate tapes were being broadcast live on CBS…

+ Musk’s father told the Russian newspaper Izvestia:  “Elon made a mistake, I think [by fighting with Trump.] He’s tired. He’s stressed. Five months of continuous stress.”

+++

+ The latest analysis from the World Bank estimates that the global economy will have the slowest growth of any non-recession year since 2008: 2.3%. The bank’s chief economist warns: “The world economy today is once more running into turbulence.” The study predicts that the US economy will grow half as fast in 2025 as it did in 2024: dropping 2.8% to 1.4% growth.

+ This week, the US dollar hit a three-year low.

The median pay package for CEOs rose to $17.1 million, up 9.7%, according to the AP. Meanwhile, the median employee at companies in the survey earned $85,419, representing a 1.7% increase from the previous year.

According to CNBC, almost nine out of 10 of the 300 CEOs surveyed in May said they have raised prices or planned to soon as a result of Trump’s tariffs.

+ The U.S. Travel Association projects the U.S. will lose $21 billion in travel-related revenue in 2025 if current trends continue.  Each 1% drop in spending from international visitors translates to $1.8 billion in lost revenue per year for the U.S. economy.

+ Reuters reports that premiums for consumers buying aluminium on the market in the United States hit a record $1,323 a metric ton last week, after the higher tariffs on US imports.

+ Office vacancies are at 19% in the US, near a record high,

+ 38: the median age of first-time home buyers, an all-time high.

+ Ray Dalio: “It looks to me like we are now at the brink of a new era in which machine thinking will supplement or surpass human thinking in many ways, like how machine labor supplemented and surpassed human labor during the Industrial Revolutions.”

+ Manufacturing employment in the U.S. hovers at 12.8 million today, down from the country’s 1979 peak of 20 million. Wells Fargo analysts estimate that a minimum of $2.9 trillion must be invested to expand U.S. manufacturing employment and return jobs to their 1979 peak.

+ According to documents obtained by 404 Media, a data broker owned by the country’s major airlines, including Delta, American Airlines, and United, collected US travelers’ domestic flight records, sold access to them to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then as part of the contract told CBP not to reveal where the data came from. The data includes passenger names, their complete flight itineraries, and financial details.

+ This week, Oregon became the first state to end private equity and corporate control of doctor and clinical practices.

+ RFK Jr. ousted all members of a key CDC vaccination advisory committee and replaced them with his own vaccine skeptic picks, after pledging he wouldn’t during his confirmation hearing before the US Senate.

+ Proposition: By launching the careers of reactionary hucksters such as Mehmet Oz and “Dr Phil (who was embedded with ICE as it raided garment shops in LA), Oprah has done more long-term damage to America than Stephen Miller…

+++

+ The Democrats wilted on raising the federal minimum wage in the face of the Senate parliamentarian’s arbitrary ruling and never brought it up again, letting Republicans like Josh Hawley pick it up and run with it: Senator Josh Hawley to file legislation raising federal minimum wage to $15 per hour in 2026, and further increase it to match inflation.

+ In a leaked audio, DNC Chair Ken Martin confessed: “I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.” Maybe they should ask Biden to take over. Even in his senescent state, he has more energy and fight than the desk clerks and accountants now running the party…

+ In 2016, Andrew Cuomo’s campaign banked a $400,000 contribution from a company called Crystal Run Healthcare, which soon received $25 million in state grants. Crystal Run used the money on fake flowers, luxury art, and a mood music system. Cuomo’s office later tried to hide the apparent quid pro quo deal by redacting the financial records.

+ When bigotry backfires!

+ Zohran Mamdani: “Trump has shown us that on one side of politics, there’s a limitless imagination, and on the other, we are constantly constructing an ever-lowering ceiling.”

+ Nader on Ezra Klein and the Abundance Democrats: “The problem with Ezra Klein is he doesn’t focus sufficiently on the corporate domination of our political economy, of our culture, of our children, and he’s lost his way.”

+ Abundance Democrats in Action: Why fight the Oligarchy, when you can join it!

Case 1.

Case 2.

+ Most popular elected officials in America….

Bernie Sanders+10
Elizabeth Warren−2
Tim Walz−3
Cory Booker−3
Hakeem Jeffries−4
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez−6
Donald Trump−7
Gavin Newsom−14
Chuck Schumer−21

+ Net favorability among independents…

Bernie Sanders +36
Barack Obama+28
Pete Buttigieg 0
Hakeem Jeffries−4
Elizabeth Warren−4
Tim Walz−12
Elon Musk−12
Cory Booker−13
Gretchen Whitmer−13
Donald Trump−20
Kamala Harris−27
Gavin Newsom−27
Chuck Schumer−29
Joe Biden−34

+++

+ Amnesty Intl. on Israel’s illegal boarding of the Madleen and detention of its crew and peace activist passengers…

By forcibly intercepting and blocking the Madleen, Israel has once again ignored its legal obligations towards civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip. The crew were unarmed activists and human rights defenders on a humanitarian mission.

They must be released immediately and unconditionally. They must also be protected from torture and other ill-treatment.

As the occupying power, Israel has an international obligation to ensure civilians in Gaza have sufficient and safe access to food, medicine, and other supplies indispensable to their survival. Instead, and as part of its calculated effort to inflict on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life designed to bring about their physical destruction, it has consistently and deliberately impeded the provision of impartial humanitarian assistance for civilians in desperate need.

During its voyage over the past few days the Madleen’s mission emerged as a powerful symbol of solidarity with besieged, starved and suffering Palestinians amid persistent international inaction. However, this very mission is also an indictment of the international community’s failure to put an end to Israel’s inhumane blockade. Activists would not have needed to risk their lives had Israel’s allies translated their rhetoric into forceful action to allow aid into Gaza. 

States must act now or risk complicity in Israel’s grave violations of Palestinians’ rights.

Trump: “I think Israel has enough problems without kidnapping Greta Thunberg”

For once, he was right. Greta’s a whole lotta problems.

+ After her release, Greta gave a master class for activists on how to stay on message under questioning from a hostile press corps…

Reporter: How did the Israelis treat you, we saw them giving sandwiches?

Greta Thunberg: They probably have posted lots of PR stunts, they did an illegal act by kidnapping us in international waters, but that’s not the real story here. The real story is the genocide in Gaza and systematic starvation.

Reporter: Are you worried about the others?

Greta: Yes…I’m calling for everyone who can to mobilize to demand their immediate release and, of course, to demand not only humanitarian aid being let into Gaza but also a ceasefire and most importantly an end to the occupation, an end to the systemic oppression and violence that Palestinians are facing on an everyday basis.

Reporter: “Why do you think so many countries and governments around the world are just ignoring what’s happening in Gaza?”

Greta Thunberg: “Because of racism.”

+ Al Jazeera published the names of all 236 journalists killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon since October 7, 2023–231 of them Palestinians.

+ US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said the United States no longer endorses an independent Palestinian state as a policy goal. (Did it ever, really?)

+ Israel’s “opposition” leader says Israel should have lied about accepting a truce to secure the hostages, then resumed the war in Gaza. He said the US supported the plan, but it didn’t move forward because Netanyahu mentioned it in public.

“In an interview with Haaretz, Israeli “opposition” leader Yair Lapid said Israel could have made a deal with Hamas to secure Israeli captives without intending to honor it, describing a plan for “Israeli subterfuge” and suggesting agreements with “terrorist organizations” are not binding. He claimed the idea had strong U.S. support but said Netanyahu “talked about it out loud,” spoiling the opportunity and forcing Israel to now abide by guarantees in any future deal.”

A new poll by the aChord Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem helps explain why Netanyahu feels very little internal pressure to stop  Israel’s genocidal operations in Gaza (Note that the poll surveyed Arab Israelis as well, so the percentage of Jewish Israelis who don’t want to hear about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza is even higher than these stark numbers reveal):

-64% of Israelis say there’s “no need” for more reporting on Gaza’s suffering

-64% agree that “there are no innocent people in Gaza”

+ After its strikes on Iran, the Netanyahus are hiding in tunnels under Jerusalem’s streets, using the civilians living above them as human shields. Almost every allegation Israel has made against Palestinians in Gaza has been a confession of their own tactics…

+++

Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawai’i’s Big Island peaked for the year at 430.5 ppm, 3.6 ppm higher than last year and the second largest May-May increase in the 67-year Mauna Loa record. In 2023, the CO2 peaked at 424 ppm. Just wait until you see next year’s numbers!

+ A new study in Canada by researchers at McGill University found that methane leaks from dormant oil and gas wells are at least seven times worse than previously thought. In a rational world, these companies would get the corporate death penalty and the executives a SuperMax cell. But that’s not the world we live in.

+ Just wait until September, when Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Oregon and California are burning, Switzerland!

+ In the last week, the burned area from the Canadian fires has grown by 760,000 hectares – that’s more scorched land than for most entire years! Currently, 2025 is sitting in 12th place for the largest burned area in Canadian history, and it’s only June.

+ Plus, Canada’s in for a long, hot summer…

+ Even though the days are getting longer, the outlook is getting darker and darker: This week Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its plans to to repeal outright greenhouse gas standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants, based in part on the specious claim that power plant emissions do not contribute “significantly” to climate change. In fact, coal- and gas-fired power plants are the largest stationary source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and the United States is the second-largest contributor of annual heat-trapping emissions on the planet.

+ Instead of “protecting” kids from life-saving vaccines, RFK, Jr. should be trying to keep lead out of their systems:

– 1 in 3 kids have high levels of lead in their blood

– Some estimates attribute 5.5 million deaths (more than AIDS+TB+malaria)

– Costs of lead removal ~1% of global GDP

+ The former Roseburg Forest “Products” Mill in Montana is now a movie studio!

+++

+ AG Pam Bondi’s brother lost the election for president of the DC bar by a margin of 91%-9 %. Was it the mail-in ballots or Dominion voting machines?

+ I was saddened to read of the passing of Frederick Forsyth, the modern master of espionage thrillers. There was a lot more action in Forsyth’s novels (Day of the Jackal and Dogs of War) than in those of his contemporaries John LeCarré and Len Deighton. However, all three shared certain sensibilities, namely that the intelligence operations of the Cold War often resulted in blowback against their own countries. The Guardian’s review of our book Whiteout said it read like “a Frederick Forsyth novel.” And I immediately became a fan of Frederick Forsyth novels!

+ Pope Leo from the Southside…(With a record of 23 wins and 45 losses, the ChiSox are in dire need of some Divine Intervention.)

+ At the Kennedy Center performance of Les Mis on Wednesday night, Trump saw himself as Jean Valjean, the thief who becomes a millionaire, James Comey as Inspector Javert, the Communards as the J6 insurrectionists and Melania/Ivanka as a Freudian fusion of Cosette, the daughter he could sleep with…Am I wrong?

+ For my money, the three greatest American musicians of the 1960s were John Coltrane, Brian Wilson and Sly Stone. We lost two of them this week.  Brian  Sly spent decades in a creative abyss, they could never wrench themselves out of…(I’m assuming there’s no Prince-like vault of buried gems for either.) I liked the early surf and hot rod rock and Positive Vibrations. It became impossible to enjoy the Band after 1964, as it collapsed into manufactured nostalgia and reactionary politics. 

+ Steve Perry, who published our Nature and Politics column in City Pages during the 1990s: “Sly had the cross of 400 years of racism to bear.  Wilson had Mike Love. We can call that a draw.”

+ For so many years, the Beatles took the blame for inspiring Manson, when the real culprits were Dennis Wilson andDoris Day’s son, Terry Melcher, as all-American as you can get. Check out this astounding passage from Tom O’Neill’s book on the Manson murders, Chaos:

Meanwhile, I’d started to hear more sordid stuff about [record producer Terry] Melcher’s affiliation with the Family. Bob April, a retired carpenter who’d been a fringe member of the Family, told me with confidence that Manson “would supply girls” for “executive parties” that Melcher threw, giving well-heeled business types unfettered access to Manson’s girls. But what would Manson get in return?

“That’s why everybody got killed,” April said. “He didn’t get what he wanted.” Melcher had promised Manson a record deal “on Day Labels,” his mother’s imprint. But Doris Day took one look at Manson “and laughed at him and said, ‘You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to produce a fucking record for you.’ Said it to Charlie’s face.” Melcher and Manson “knew each other very well,” April said. “I’ve tried to get this out for years.”

Boom laka-laka-laka, Boom laka-lak-goon-ka boom

Booked Up
What I’m reading this week…

Selling Social Justice: Why the Rich Love Antiracism
Jennifer C. Pan
(Verso)

Hating Jazz: a History of Its Disparagement, Mockery and Other Forms of Abuse
Andrew S. Barish
(Chicago)

Going Around: Selected Journalism
Murray Kempton
Edited by Andrew Holter
(Seven Stories)

Sound Grammar
What I’m listening to this week…

Never Enough
Turnstile
(Roadrunner)

Marca Passo
Azymuth
(Far Out)

Earthworks
Nathan Davis & Sylvia Milo
(Sono Lumius)

The Crippling Sorrow of Estrangement

“Exile is strangely compelling to think about, but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement.”

–Edward Said, Reflections on Exile

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