The Beeb just bannered the EU turnabout with the phrase “EU leaders put on a show of unity over Iraq” which I heard as “EU leaders put on a show of lunacy over Iraq.”
Which made me pay some attention, I must say.
Finally, the world stands together
US to punish German ‘treachery’: in a poorly sourced story, the Observer reports that
The US will withdraw all its troops and bases from there and end military and industrial co-operation between the two countries – moves that could cost the Germans billions of euros.
which echoes the long excerpt from Jim Henley‘s site that Scott ran the other day.
I’ll wager this trial b’loon from Defense gets a big, BIG BIG thumbs up in Germany.
One question, though: Does the U.S. get to keep Daimler-Chrysler? Seems like maybe an end to “industrial co-operation” might make it hard for Benz owners.
AND ANOTHER THING – even if pulling the troops would set off a depression in Germany (the apparent goal of the threat), um, didn’t Europe have a traumatizing few years in the wake of the last time punitive measures were taken against Germany’s economy? Oh, that’s right, it led to a fascist state.
Hilarious. I suppose after Iraq we’ll just have to “fix” the broken democracies of France, Germany, and – OMG – Britain, which obviously needs military reinforcement after this weekend. Of course, it takes a long time to fly a million people out to the North Sea in helicopters and pitch ’em in, a few at a time – but what was tried and tested in Chile is gonna work for Rummy, by God!
Somehow, I doubt that there are gonna be massive troop withdrawals from Germany.
Smithsonian Folkways
Smithsonian Folkways Dusts Off Titles With New Technology [NYT via MeFi]. Ooooh yeah baby. That’s the way to do it. Especially if as a label you have a huge backlist and archivists already on the case.
Interestingly, Spencer and I discussed this quite a bit back a couple years ago, when the depth and success of the LOC’s American Memory site became apparent. Spence combed through the digitized field recordings to select the songs that remain the base of the Wretched Bastards’ repertoire (such as Influenza of a couple days ago), wrote up some detailed liner notes that included links to other info about the tunes – as I recall, located elsewhere – and then burned some CDs.
Anyway, I saw that and had visions of Dover Music – you know, like Dover Books, reprints of public domain material repackaged for various purposes – collage, scholarship, so on and so forth.
Smithsonian Folkways has been one of my favorite labels for years now, specifically because of the breadth and strangeness of the music therein. I just love the idea of JIT music delivery for this long work of quixotic idealism.
I also love that the music belongs to you and me, under the terms of Moe Asch’s bequest of the label to the Smithsonian. The majority of WPA’s power projects have been cynically privatized by the bad mens, as I recall. I hope they won’t be dropping by Moe’s ol’ place twirling their moustaches anytime soon. They’ll take to raising the rent, wavin’ papers around, scarin’ the wimminfolks and gents of delicate constitution such as yours truly. Keep a pitchfork handy!