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And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. - Mark 16:17-18, King James Bible.

WIKIPEDIA: Chuch Of God With Signs Following
MYSPACE: What Is Adam Acuragi?
MYSPACE: What Is Dame Satan?
MYSPACE: What Is Serpents Of Wisdom?

[“eRacism” Self Portrait by WILLIAM POPE L.]

FRESH AIR

The Rev. James H. Cone is the founder of black liberation theology. In an interview with Terry Gross, Cone explains the movement, which has roots in 1960s civil-rights activism and draws inspiration from both the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X — and he comments on controversial remarks made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former minister and a black liberation theology proponent. In a now-famous 2003 sermon, Wright charged that an ingrained, abiding racism in American society is at fault for many of the troubles African-Americans face, and he thundered, “No, no, no, not God bless America! God damn America — that’s in the Bible — for killing innocent people.” Cone explains that at the core of black liberation theology is an effort to make the gospel relevant to the life and struggles of American blacks. Cone’s books include Black Theology and Black Power, God of the Oppressed, and Risks of Faith. He serves as the Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.

RADIO TIMES

Hour 1
BOBBY GHOSH just returned from a two-week trip to Iraq. Guest host, Dave Davies talks with Ghosh about what life is like in Baghdad and the challenges of reporting on the war. Ghosh was Baghdad Bureau chief for Time magazine from the beginning of the war in 2003 until six months ago when he became World Editor of the magazine.

Hour 2
Progress update on Philadelphia’s crime emergency. We’ll talk with the City’s new Police commissioner CHARLES RAMSEY about his plan targeting high crime neighborhoods for additional police patrols. Prior to taking the job in Philadelphia in 2007, Ramsey served on an independent commission for Congress that assessed the readiness of Iraq’s military and police forces. Ramsey served as the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia from 1998-2006.

THE WORLD CAFE
Former singer, guitarist, and songwriter of internationally acclaimed group, the Jayhawks, Gary Louris launches his solo career with Vagabonds. He recorded much of the album live, with background vocals contributed by Susanna Hoffs of The Bangles, Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, and the Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, who also produced the album. Louris says the most interesting of his songs are not born from specific ideas, and the proof lies in this collection; based on an almost spiritual search for meaning, these songs can be at once brooding and inspirational.

THE DOORS: Waiting For The Sun

The following is an email making the rounds, and comes via THE FIELD NEGRO:

“1-James McDougal - Clinton’s convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement.He was a key witness in Ken Starr’s investigation.2 -Mary Mahoney - A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown . The murder happened just after she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment in the White House.3- Vince Foster - Former White House counselor and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock’s Rose Law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide.4- Ron Brown - Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the top of Brown’s skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors. The rest of the people on the plane also died. A few days later the air Traffic controller committed suicide.5- C. Victor Raiser II- Raiser, a major player in the Clinton fundraising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.6-Paul Tulley - Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock , September 1992.Described by Clinton as a “Dear friend and trusted advisor”.7-Ed Willey - Clinton fund raiser, found dead November,1993 deep in the woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day his wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.8-Jerry Parks -Head of Clinton’s gubernatorial security team in Little Rock . Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock . Park’s son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton . He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.9-James Bunch - Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a “Black Book” of people which contained names of influential people who visited prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas.10-James Wilson - Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He was reported to have ties to Whitewater.11-Kathy Ferguson- Ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suit cases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit. Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.12-Bill Shelton - Arkansas State Trooper and fiance of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide ruling of his fiance, he was found dead in June,1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fiance.13-Gandy Baugh - Attorney for Clinton’s friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994.His client was a convicted drug distributor.14-Florence Martin - Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related to the Barry Seal Mena Airport drug smuggling case. He died of three gunshot wounds.15- Suzanne Coleman - Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney General. Died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a suicide. Was pregnant at the time of her death.16-Paula Grober - Clinton ’s speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978until

(more…)

NITTANY LION KING: Obama Draws 20,000 At Penn State Rally, Urges Crowd To ‘Take The Skinheads Bowling, Take Them Bowling’

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. (AP) — Shivering in blankets of Penn State’s colors, some 20,000 people filled a campus lawn Sunday to hear Barack Obama say he can win the Democratic nomination even if rival Hillary Rodham Clinton stays in the race. Supporters stood in long lines for hours to hear Obama ahead of the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. Some Democrats, particularly Obama’s supporters, have voiced concern that the hard-fought, drawn-out race is already hurting the party’s chances to win in November. The Illinois senator told the crowd not to worry. “As this primary has gone on a little bit long, there have been people who’ve been voicing some frustration,” Obama said. “I want everybody to understand that this has been a great contest, great for America. It’s engaged and involved people like never before. I think it’s terrific that Senator Clinton’s supporters have been as passionate as my supporters have been because that makes the people invested and engaged in this process, and I am absolutely confident that when this primary season is over Democrats will be united.” [via ASSOCIATED PRESS/photo courtesy of SQUASH713]

Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., bowls at Pleasant Valley Recreation Center in Altoona, Pa., Saturday, March 29, 2008.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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9 GOP Lawmakers Breaking Ranks To Support ‘Common Sense’ Gun Legislation

HARRISBURG - Nine Philadelphia-area Republicans signaled last week they would break ranks with their caucus today and support handgun-control legislation when the state House of Representatives resumes debate on a controversial proposal. The measure, which would require reporting handguns that are lost or stolen, has been vigorously pushed by Democrats in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh as a “common sense” restriction that would reduce gun violence. Through a legislative maneuver this month, gun-control proponents attached the proposal as an amendment to a separate weapons bill, setting up a possible historic full House vote on a substantive gun-control bill. That would force lawmakers of both parties to make their positions known at a time when polls show a majority of Pennsylvanians support some form of gun control and a noticeable shift is occurring among Republican lawmakers who represent the Philadelphia suburbs. [via THE INQUIRER]

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Economy To Become $1 Trillion Lighter, Says Guy Who Would Know

March 31 (Bloomberg) — Be it ever so devalued, $1 trillion is a lot of dough. That’s roughly on a par with the Russian economy. More than double the market value of Exxon Mobil Corp. About nine times the combined wealth of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Yet $1 trillion is the amount of defaults and writedowns Americans will likely witness before they emerge at the far side of the bursting credit bubble, estimates Charles R. Morris in his shrewd primer, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown.” That calculation assumes an orderly unwinding, which he doesn’t expect. “The sad truth,” he writes, “is that subprime is just the first big boulder in an avalanche of asset writedowns that will rattle on through much of 2008.” Expect the landslide to cascade through high-yield bonds, commercial mortgages, leveraged loans, credit cards and — the big unknown — credit-default swaps, Morris says. The notional value for those swaps, which are meant to insure bondholders against default, covered about $45 trillion in portfolios as of mid-2007, up from some $1 trillion in 2001, he writes. [via BLOOMBERG NEWS]

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KILLADELPHIA: Two More Dead Since You Went To Bed

Two men were shot dead over the weekend bringing Philadelphia’s homicide count for the year to 70. The number of killings in the city remains down - about 28 percent - from last year’s total of 98 slayings to date, police said. Early Saturday morning, police were patrolling in West Philadelphia at 3:20 a.m. when they heard gunshots. Officers rushed to the 4600 block of Parish Street where they found Hasan Deloach, 30, suffering from multiple gun shot wounds. Deloach, of the 2100 block of S. Simpson Street, was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where he was pronounced dead shortly before 4 a.m., police said. Police have a suspect in custody. Late Sunday, officers on patrol in North Philadelphia heard several gun shots minutes before 11 p.m., police said.They found a black man on the 1800 block of Cecil B. Moore Ave. bleeding from his head. The man, who has not been identified pending notification of his family, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police have no motive or suspect in the shooting. [via INQUIRER]

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Bush Housing Sec. To Resign, Set To Become The Next ‘Heckuva Job Brownie’

Housing Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson is expected to resign Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday night. Mr. Jackson has scheduled a news conference for 9:45 a.m., 15 minutes before Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. is supposed to outline plans for dealing with the financial crisis set off by the risky mortgage lending. If Mr. Jackson steps down, it would remove a key player from the administration team dealing with the problem. Mr. Jackson, 62, has been under investigation by the Justice Department and the housing department’s inspector general in inquiries focusing on whether he gave lucrative housing contracts to friends. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has interviewed several of his employees. In 2004, less than two months after his confirmation as housing secretary, Mr. Jackson told a House panel that he believed poverty “is a state of mind, not a condition.” Two years later, he said in a speech that he had canceled a contract for a company after its president told him that he did not like Mr. Bush. Mr. Jackson later said he had made the story up. MORE

GAMBLE & HUD: City Claims Feds Forced Discount Land Deal For Kenny Gamble

President Bush’s housing czar pressured the Philadelphia housing agency to transfer land worth $2 million to Kenny Gamble, the music producer turned developer, and retaliated when the agency would not knuckle under, a lawsuit says. The Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) says the top federal housing official, Alphonso Jackson, improperly sought to steer the land to Gamble at a big discount. In court filings, Carl Greene, PHA’s executive director, says Jackson, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, called Mayor John Street twice to lobby on Gamble’s behalf. HUD confirmed yesterday that Jackson, a friend of Gamble’s, had made the calls to Street. It denied it had in any way retaliated against the Philadelphia agency. In the federal suit, filed in December, Greene contends that HUD is threatening to impose new controls on how Philadelphia spends millions in federal housing grants as payback for Greene’s refusal to help Gamble. Greene said the federal crackdown could force PHA to lay off hundreds of workers, raise rents, and halt millions of dollars in construction work on low-income housing. [via INQUIRER ORIGINALLY POSTED 2/5/08]

[via PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER]

R.E.M.
Accelerate
(Warner ****)

Just when I’d concluded that R.E.M.’s three-legged dog don’t hunt no more, they turn in their most powerful and cohesive work since 1992’s Automatic for the People, a record brimming with all the things that made them great in the first place: clangy autumnal melodies, droney proto-emo vocals, trippy nuance, the haunted poetics of regret, the routine eschewing of the obvious and the familiar in pursuit of the sublime and the unexpected. This one goes out to the long-suffering superfans, the kind of people whose faces light up when you say that the piano on “Until the Day Is Done” reminds you of the glorious sun-kissed bridge from “The Flowers of Guatemala,” or that the stunning “Sing for the Submarine” has the same Ken Burnsian antebellum feel of “Swan Swan H,” or that the whole things rocks harder than their cover of Aerosmith’s “Toys in the Attic.” Call it their post-post-rock period, but Accelerate lives up to its adrenalized title with a handful of ripping, gutbucket rock-outs (”Living Well Is the Best Revenge” and “Mansized Wreath”) to balance the epic torch-folk balladeering (”Hollow Man,” “Houston”). And unlike, say, 1994’s Monster, Accelerate is not just loud, but hard, as if these songs were actually lived-in and jammed-on, and possibly even sweated over. Hooray for everybody! — Jonathan Valania

REM: Drive

NEW YORK TIMES: “We never do much rehearsal,” Mr. Buck, 51, the band’s guitarist, said over a ginger ale later at a dark, empty bar around the corner. “Sometimes having that little edge of not feeling comfortable with the songs gives it a little bit of energy. Terror will do that.”

Despite spending 28 years together, at this moment a touch of fear is understandable for the trio. (The fourth member, the drummer, Bill Berry, left the band in 1997, following a brain aneurysm.) From its debut in 1981 until the mid-1990s R.E.M. was a definitive American rock band, but its sales and influence have steadily declined in the last decade. “Accelerate” is a very deliberate response to an internal crisis that Mr. Stipe, the group’s singer, described as major, and that they all agreed almost broke up the band.

Its last album, the hazy, somber “Around the Sun” (2004), took nine months to make and satisfied neither the musicians nor their fans. It didn’t crack Billboard’s Top 10 and sold less than 250,000 copies. The band members realized they needed to find a new way to work together or quit, coming to the end of a road that took them from this out-of-the-way college town to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Mr. Buck said he had few commercial expectations and was much more concerned about making fans believe in the band again. “Whatever we did on the last record didn’t work,” he said. “I wasn’t happy with it, and I don’t think anyone else was. Michael tends to think that the longer you work on something, the better it can be. But it doesn’t work that way for us. It just kept getting weirder and weirder and worse.”

“Around the Sun” came after other R.E.M. albums — “Up” (1998) and “Reveal” (2001) — that also received lukewarm receptions and were more atmospheric and keyboard based than the music that established the group. The band had fallen from its place as one of the biggest acts in the world to being unable to reach gold-record status. This downturn followed a record-breaking $80 million contract the band signed with Warner Brothers in 1996, a move that recently made Blender magazine’s list of the “20 Biggest Record Company Screw-Ups of All Time.” MORE

ROCK SNOB ENCYCLOPEDIA: The Beatles of the post-punk era. While most rock snobs will fess up to a kudzu-covered copy of Chronic Town or Reckoning in their stacks of vinyl, others flat-out hate R.E.M. These are the people who don’t cry at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, and they are to be avoided at all costs.

REM: Imitation Of Life

PREVIOUSLY: Twenty years ago — let’s just pause and think about that for a sec, 20 years ago! — R.E.M. released Reckoning. It was the much-anticipated sophomore release by the underground’s then-favorite sons of the South. The album made good on the kudzu-crusted promise of the band’s bewitching and ultimately confounding debut Murmur, radiating a murky but hopeful aura to an alt-world grown weary of punk’s safety-pinned doom and goth’s spider web of gloom.

“I’m the sun and you can read,” they sang, or at least that’s what it sounded like–you never knew for sure back then, and that proved to be an awful lot of their charm. And in the jingle-jangle morning of Reagan’s America, we came following them.

Reckoning was full of secret maps and sepia-tinted legends, the autumnal ring of Rickenbacker guitars and the mesmerizing moon-river moan of Michael Stipe, delivering the promised fables of classic rock’s stylistic reconstruction to a post-punk world of shattered expectations, asymmetrical haircuts and skinny black pants.

Reckoning contained multitudes, alluding to the Byrds and the Velvet Underground, mining the backwoods mysticism of Southern folk art and wedding it to love-beaded mid-’60s folk rock to create a new atlas of blue-highway Americana. All across the nation, red-eyed sophomores clustered Indian-style around the dim glow of dorm-room lava lamps, separating seeds from stems, trying to decipher Stipe’s cryptic utterances.
[…]
Aside from the intriguing foray into electronic ambience and Pet Sounds exotica of 1999’s post-Berry Up, you could be forgiven for concluding, based on the albums that came after–the flat-soda pop of 2001’s Reveal and the unrelentingly midtempo mopery of the just-out Around the Sun–that the dog don’t hunt so good anymore.

Once you get past the lovely, elegiac folk-pop of the album-opening “Leaving New York,” Sun’s first single, things bog down quickly. Much of the blame can be laid at the feet of Stipe, who lost his Delphic aura back in the late ’80s when he traded incantation for clarity and you could actually make out what the hell he was singing.

I liked him better when he just pretended to be deep instead of actually trying to be. Too many songs on Sun–all tastefully colored with piano tinklings, keyboard washes and gilded folk pluck, mind you–sound like the working script to some bad Sofia Coppola movie in which the hip young protagonists languish melancholically in fading romances set against an international jet-set backdrop of high-speed trains and chic restaurants. “Your rope trick started looking stale,” sings Stipe on “Boy in the Well,” and he could well be singing to the man in the mirror.

I’ve seen R.E.M.’s world up close, and it’s all five-star hotels that recycle and solar-powered limousines. And I’d never begrudge those guys the right to get stinkin’ rich from the high art they were capable of transmuting rock into when they were at the height of their powers–or even just stinkin’ drunk on airplanes. But they’re millionaires locked in a bubble of climate-controlled luxury, long removed from the heat and friction of ordinary lives that make for music worth listening to.

In the end you have to choose between the mansion on the hill or the art in the streets. And the only time the twain shall meet is when art is hung over the sofa in the mansion on the hill. That’s a gross overstatement, of course, but that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that when you get to a certain tax bracket and the zip code that comes with it, you can’t go back to Rockville again. –JONATHAN VALANIA

REM: Radio Free Europe

MORE: The End Of REM As We Know It, And I Don’t Feel Fine [PDF]

THE INDEPENDENT: Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take “immediate steps” to reduce exposure to their radiation.

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks. It draws on growing evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.

Professor Khurana – a top neurosurgeon who has received 14 awards over the past 16 years, has published more than three dozen scientific papers – reviewed more than 100 studies on the effects of mobile phones. He has put the results on a brain surgery website, and a paper based on the research is currently being peer-reviewed for publication in a scientific journal.

Noting that malignant brain tumours represent “a life-ending diagnosis”, he adds: “We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation.” He fears that “unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps”, the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, by which time it may be far too late to intervene medically.

“It is anticipated that this danger has far broader public health ramifications than asbestos and smoking,” says Professor Khurana, who told the IoS his assessment is partly based on the fact that three billion people now use the phones worldwide, three times as many as smoke. Smoking kills some five million worldwide each year, and exposure to asbestos is responsible for as many deaths in Britain as road accidents. MORE

PREVIOUSLY: TODAY I SAW two 16-ft. moving trucks parked back-to-back in front of Mantua Hall, their loading ramps extended so they almost touched each other. Every day is moving day now. The building is slated to be emptied by the end of the year, and while most families have already left there are still some stragglers waiting for the Philadelphia Housing Authority to approve their new scatter-site placements. PHA is paying for the families to relocate, so the moving trucks come in pairs and when one leaves another arrives. The shrill, intermittent symphony of ear-piercing smoke alarms going off about twice a minute on the floors above and below only added to the prevailing air of urgency and evacuation. Not that anybody seemed to give a shit. There aren’t many people left to be bothered by the noise. The people who are left were in high spirits, all smiles because they know they’re leaving soon. I passed a woman in the hallway, and she sent a faint smile toward my eye contact. I call out to her, “You about ready to get out of here?” At this, her smile bloomed into a wide crescent. “You damn right, I been here nine years.” MORE

ALL HIP-HOP: Philadelphia rapper Beanie Sigel will spend the next three months in prison, after he was accused of violating his probation for a third time yesterday (March 28). Probation officials revealed that Sigel provided a false urine sample and tested positive for Xanax and Percocet five times over the past month. Sigel, who admitted to being addicted to the painkiller and muscle relaxer, was originally sentenced to six months house arrest in January, after a second probation violation. In that case, a federal judge found that Sigel took an unauthorized trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and had contact with a convicted felon. MORE

Muqtada al-Sadr’s Militia parading through Basra in an undated photo.

[via ALTERNET]

U.S. is propping up unpopular regime; Sadr has support because of his platform
One of the ironies of the reporting out of Iraq is the ubiquitous characterization of Muqtada al-Sadr as a “renegade,” “radical” or “militant” cleric, despite the fact that he is the only leader of significance in the country who has ordered his followers to stand down. His ostensible militancy appears to arise primarily from his opposition to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.

He has certainly been willing to use violence in the past, but the “firebrand” label belies the fact that Sadr is arguably the most popular leader among a large section of the Iraqi population and that he has forcefully rejected sectarian conflict and sought to bring together representatives of Iraq’s various ethnic and sectarian groups in an effort to create real national reconciliation — a process that the highly sectarian Maliki regime has failed to accomplish.

It’s vitally important to understand that Sadr’s popularity and legitimacy is a result of his having a platform that’s favored by an overwhelming majority of Iraqis. Most Iraqis:

• Favor a strong central government free of the influence of militias.
• Oppose, by a 2-1 margin, the privatization of Iraq’s energy sector — a “benchmark towards progress according to the Bush administration.
• Favor a U.S. withdrawal on a short timeline (PDF) (most believe the United States plans to build permanent bases — both are issues about which the Sadrists have been vocal.
• Oppose al Qaeda and the ideology of Osama Bin Laden and, to a lesser degree, Iranian influence on Iraq’s internal affairs.

With the exception of their opposition to Al Qaeda, the five major separatist parties — Sunni, Shia and Kurdish — that make up Maliki’s governing coalition are on the deeply unpopular side of these issues. A poll conducted last year found that 65 percent of Iraqis think the Iraqi government is doing a poor job, and Maliki himself has a Bush-like 66 percent disapproval rate.

As in Vietnam, the United States is backing an unpopular and decidedly undemocratic government in Iraq, and that simple fact explains much of the violent resistance that’s going on in Iraq today. MORE

TIME: It is difficult to separate real plans from bluster, but militants opposed to the government’s Basra operation have already struck a high-profile blow in Baghdad. Tahsin al-Sheikhli, the government’s spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, was kidnapped from his home on Thursday. The al-Sharqia television station on Saturday aired an audio tape in which Sheikhli said that his fate depended on the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Basra and the opening of negotiations with Sadr’s movement. MORE

REUTERS: The fighting has spread through southern regions, drew the U.S. forces and led to protests in Baghdad by followers of Sadr, who say Maliki is using force to weaken his political rivals. Sadr pulled out of Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government last year when the prime minister refused to set a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawals. But Sadr also ordered his Mehdi Army to observe a ceasefire which has been central to a recent fall in violence. “The key question now is what the United States is going to do,” said Joost Hiltermann, of the International Crisis Group think tank. “If it allows (the crackdown) to go forward the ceasefire will unravel and the U.S. will face the Sadr movement in its full power.” “This will be bad for both sides. Sadr will lose men and the United States will lose the gains of the surge”. MORE

RELATED: Eric Martin takes me to task over my assertion, based on the Washington Post coverage, that the U.S. government didn’t know this was coming. He has a point. For full disclosure I should have pointed out that last week Cheney met with ISCI’s leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. There has been a great deal of speculation that in exchange for letting the provincial elections law pass through the Presidency Council, Cheney agreed to give ISCI the go ahead to go to town on JAM in Basra. It has also been widely reported that a number of Iraqi Generals were talking about this operation a week ago. Both good points that throw into question whether the Bush Administration saw this coming. Still, the reason I don’t buy this theory is that the timing makes no sense whatsoever from a domestic political perspective. If there was a quid pro quo, the Bush Administration would have asked for a waiting period until after the Petraeus Crocker testimony. Why go with such a high risk operation a week before the progress report to Congress? Makes no sense. This Administration is pretty incompetent about a lot of things, but for the most part they seem to understand political timing. At the end, Eric argues that given the Administration’s not so stellar record with the truth, we shouldn’t take them at their word. Fair enough. But I’d also argue that given the Administration’s long history of incompetence on Iraq, it’s quite possible and in fact likely, that they just completely missed this. MORE

RAW FOOTAGE: Basra Streetfighting Men

TURBO CHARGE: Turbo Station, Trocadero, Last Night,
[Photos by TIFFANY YOON/CLICK TO ENLARGE]

THE DIRTY SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN: Drive-By Truckers, The Fillmore, Last Night

BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER The Drive-By Truckers write songs about the dirty South, where life is hard and folks die soft and squishy and often emphysemic, dirty deeds get done dirt cheap, and everyone goes to church but nobody really goes to heaven. These songs are like the weeds in the cracks of the trailer park, or the pile of broken beer bottles in the woods, or the lipstick traces on the stubbed-out Kools overflowing the ashtray. Oh, the things they have seen. It also bears mentioning that the Drive-By Truckers totally rock, more specifically they rock in that sweet spot where Lynyrd meets Skynyrd.

As was the case Thursday night at the Fillmore, where the Truckers put on a barn-burning two hour hoedown of southern-fried rock for a rowdy, sold out crowd. The Truckers have two main singer-songwriter-guitarists these days: Patterson Hood, burly and bearded, whose voice sounds alternately like an angry Neil Young or a stoned Don Henley; and Mike Cooley, a tall drink of water who bears a passing resemblance to Townes Van Zandt, and sings like a honky-tonk Mick Jagger. It goes without saying that both these gentlemen totally shred as axemen. Providing crunchy Telecaster reinforcement and gorgeous pedal steel atmospherics was third guitarist John Neff. Anchoring this rowdy crew was drummer Brad Morgan who looks like Allen Ginsberg and never left the pocket and a bassist Shonna Tucker who looks like she was plucked from behind a diner counter but is acquainted with the notion that great bass players should be felt — preferably in the chest — not heard. And just for added Southern gentleman gravitas, legendary sideman Spooner Oldham is playing keyboards on this tour.

The Truckers are supporting the new and thoroughly twangtastic Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, which was generously essayed Thursday night. Personally, I prefer Cooley’s songs — not to mention his twangy snarl and dead-eye for dark, pulpy detail — and “Lisa’s Birthday”, “Self-Destructive Zones” and “3 Dimes Down” did not disappoint. Which is not to say that Hood’s “Daddy Needs A Drink” and “The Righteous Path” didn’t also see the world through the glass darkly, and in fact his ode to the lowlife, “The Company I Keep”, was one of the show stoppers. The other one was, appropriately enough, right at the end and like all their best songs it documents the extraordinary wreckage of ordinary lives. It’s a fairly astonishing song called “Puttin’ People On The Moon”, sung by Hood in the first person, about an Alabama Wal-Mart clerk forced to sell dope to pay for his wife’s chemo.

Opening act — and fellows Athens, GA, residents — The Whigs stoked the crowd with a loud, raucous and thoroughly impressive set that had all the hair-on-fire urgency and last-ditch desperation of the characters in the Truckers’ best songs.

[photo by JONATHAN VALANIA]