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1/31/2002

DEGENERATES ABROAD
The Degenerate Press effort five years in the making is finally complete!
http://www.degeneratepress.com/postmodernlove/index.html
There are a few pages that need some layout tweaking but all the content is there. Read it and weep. Or read it and laugh. But please READ IT and get us some feedback! If we get enough interest in this beast we might actually consider trying to get a real book out of it.

FILM FLAM
Last weekend we saw Black Hawk Down, a film some critics, such as in Premier Magazine, are including on their lists of best war films ever. I thought it was good, but not THAT good. The battle scenes are quite good - you feel the panic mixed with cool resolve that the soldiers feel, you feel the danger as thousands of Somali citizens rush towards them in a rage. But what you don't get is any of the reasoning behind the rage. The film starts off with a few lines of text mentioning the targeting of U.N. peace-keepers, but not why the peace-keepers are there or why the Somalis turned on the very people that they'd considered saviors only weeks before. Instead you get a two hour running battle with many scenes that feel a bit too similar to Saving Private Ryan. It's still good, but you should catch The History Channel's The True Story of Black Hawk Down for a total picture, and a warning of what may come to be in post-Taliban Afghanistan.

BLASPHEMY
OK, I've read the articles, I've watched the TV news reports, I've listed to NPR and I'm finally tired of all the Enron crap. You know why? Nobody is actually saying what happened! Oh, sure we're getting the nitty gritty details, the memos, the numbers - but nobody I've heard has the balls to just come out and SAY it. The *story* has gotten lost in the "news." So here's the story, as I see it:
The big wigs of Enron basically stole the retirement savings of their employees as well as anyone else who's 401K or stock plan included Enron stock. This is a LOT of people because Enron owned a lot of companies. This is a LOT of money too - hundreds of millions of dollars.
To get away with it they paid their auditors, Arthur Andersen, to keep their doings quiet. To cover their own asses, the auditors have been busily destroying the evidence.
To make as much money as possible, both Enron and Arthur Andersen paid politicians from both parties to deregulate their industry and made the laws as favorable as possible for the company. The big wigs of government happily obliged.
Some people in politics wanted to do something about it, but the commander in chief is riding high approval ratings by busily distracting the nation with bombing raids on our "enemies." And we all know the U.S. has NEVER used war as a political distraction/economic stimulus, right?
And yet there's still some question about whether anyone did anything illegal?!? Does the term "insider trading" mean anything to anyone?
How about "murder"?
Legalities aside, does the word "ethics" mean anything to anyone?
How about "haul the bastards out and string them from the highest tree"?
The infuriating thing is nothing is going to happen to these guys. Sure, Enron CEO Ken Lay has resigned (does the term "golden parachute" mean anything to you?) Sure, there will be congressional hearings, but they're preformed by the very people Enron bought and paid for. And sure, we might catch/kill a few terrorists but how many people will be killed/detained indefinitely in the process?
Does the name "Nixon" ring a bell? Sure he resigned in "disgrace" but he still got to keep his retirement.
Even those of us who DO remember history are doomed to repeat it.

EAR PLUGS
We got Danielle Howle and the Tantrums' latest CD Skorborealis from Daemon Records the other day. It kicks off with some very Pretenders-ish pop rock, a bit retro-ahead-of-its-time/timeless. A few songs don't wander far, until you run into Karaoke, a similar sound but with a vaguely country structure/theme/aftertaste that sounds like it's trying to be serious but the lyrics are all novelty song. From there the sounds jump around with a fair degree of variation, soft to hard, slow to fast, but the constant is Danielle's strong, clear voice and a nice jangly guitar. It even wraps with a slow, n almost jazzy ballad. Good stuff!
In other news, we erroneously reported that Echo Lounge had added booths in the recent renovations. They've been put on hold according to several sources. Unfortunately we just forgot and missed the recent reopening bash but all reports on the renovations have been favorable.

INFRASTRUCTURE
In case you're new to our broadcast, welcome. We broadcast on Sundays and Wednesdays, unless we're late, or early, or have something better to do, or just don't feel like it. We only post shows and events we recommend, usually from experience, so you're guaranteed to like it or your money back! Of course, this is a free service and you get what you pay for. We encourage you to send in your own reviews, classifieds, poems, prose, perverse pictures, whatever you want in print. If it's strictly for "off the record" please specify!
The desubscribe command for this broadcast is "I'm sure the oil barons in the White House had nothing to do with Enron."


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