Magpie

Saturday, December 20, 2003

Surviving 'Return of the King.'

Magpie has these helpful hints for sitting through a 3 1/2 hour film (especially if you are female).

1. Pee right before the movie starts. There will be no good time to go later. Trust us.

2. If you must buy something to drink, don't touch it 'til the film is at least half-finished.

Sadly, Magpie didn't follow these rules.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:25 PM | Get permalink

Thursday, December 18, 2003

The 9/11 attacks.

The chair of the independent commission investigating the events leading up to 9/11 says that the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon could have — and should have — been prevented.

In an interview with CBS News, Republican Thomas Kean blamed at least part success of the attacks on the fact that some people in the US government 'failed.' He said to expect major revelations about during the commission's public hearings that begin in January.

The 9/11 commission has faced substantial opposition from the White House in its investigation of the attacks, and has had to threaten subpoenas in order to get some necessary documents.

"As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea what wasn't done and what should have been done," he [Kean] said. "This was not something that had to happen."

Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.

"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said.

Dubya has had a nice upward bounce in the polls because of the capture of Saddam Hussein. Magpie is curious as to how well his shiny new poll numbers will survive the disclosures made during the 9/11 hearings.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:18 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Johnny Cunningham, 1956–003

I'm really lucky. I get to do something that I love to do. I get paid for it--not a lot, but I do get paid for it. I get to be creative. I get to use the energies that I have in a positive way...You know, being alive is the best experience you can have.
— Johnny Cunningham, 1993

One of the greatest contemporary Scots traditional fiddlers, Johnny Cunningham, died of a heart attack on Monday night in New York City. He was 46.

Magpie first met Johnny Cunningham in the late 1970s, when he and his accordianist brother Phil were both members of the Scottish group Silly Wizard. While Phil's accordian pyrotechnics were the real crowd pleasers, we remember being more impressed with Johnny's less flamboyant and more lyrical fiddling. Not that he was a quiet, restrained sort of fellow: We also remember producing a concert with Johnny and his brother a few years later during which the two pelted their hapless opening act with paper airplanes from offstage.

We didn't heard him play a few more times in the 1980s, and then didn't see him or hear him play again until a few years ago. During that time, he spent time in the folk 'supergroup' Relativity, recorded several excellent solo albums, and toured with Irish fiddler Kevin Burke and Breton fiddler Christian Lemaître as part of the Celtic Fiddle Festival.

We ran into him again at an Irish music session in Portland, Oregon around 2000. We'd noticed that this vaguely familiar guy had sat down in the seat next to us, and that he was a pretty good fiddler. No, make that a really good fiddler. Or, rather, a fuckin' amazing fiddler. After a half hour or so, we both figured out why we looked familiar to each other (Ah! Johnny Cunningham!; Ah! Those concerts in Santa Cruz!). In the course of our catching each other up on the last 15 years, Magpie mentioned that we'd just started learning the fiddle, after a detour with the concertina. When we suggested that the concertina might have been a 'gateway instrument' to the fiddle, in the same way that the evil weed is supposedly a gateway to other illicit substances, Johnny's eye's lit up.

He leaned in and said in a conspiratorial tone: 'You know what the fiddle is the gateway to, don't you?' We shook our head. Then his eyes got really wild, and he practically shouted the answer to his own question: 'It's the gateway to *HELL*!'

And then both of us dissolved into laughter.

Magpie saw Johnny a few more times afterwards, the last time about nine months ago, over some whiskies in a Portland bar. When we finished our drinks, Johnny went to join the session going on, even though he'd forgotten to bring his own fiddle. He asked the loan of one from another fiddler, and then sat down and played the most stunningly beautiful version of the tune 'Hector the Hero' that we've ever heard.

It's hard to believe he's gone.

The obituary in The Scotsman is here. Another one, from Wednesday's New Bedford (MA) Standard-Times, is here. The same paper also has this remembrance.

A 1993 interview with Johnny Cunningham is here. All Music Guide has a somewhat dated bio and discography here.

Johnny Cunningham's website is worth visiting just for the photo on the opening page.

The Kennedy Center for the Arts has several concerts featuring Johnny Cunningham with his frequent musical partner Susan McKeown and with his brother Phil. You can find links to the streaming video here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:24 PM | Get permalink

New to the blogroll.

Talking Points Memo.

Indispensible. Check it out.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:21 AM | Get permalink

The next time someone tells you that race doesn't matter.

And that affirmative action is really a form of 'reverse discrimination' against white people, point them to this study of how temp agencies treat similarly qualified black and white applicants. The Discrimination Research Center of the Impact Fund looked at agencies in LA and San Francisco and found that they favored white job applicants over black applicants with better qualification by ratios up to 4-to-1.

The case studies from the report are particularly revealing:

Case Study #1: The white tester is offered a more highly paid position sooner than the African American tester, who is offered a less well paid position.

Both testers were interviewed by the same recruiter at the agency. When the African American tester was interviewed, she was told that she did not need to take any of the computer skills tests because she was being placed in the vast pool of clerical job applicants. When the white tester was interviewed the following morning, the recruiter gave her computer skills tests in Word and Excel and assured the tester that she did not place people in jobs for less than $12 per hour. On the day of her interview, the white tester was informed of a $13 per hour job doing relevance testing for an internet search engine company for six weeks, and was told that the recruiter would mark her down as a candidate. She was offered this position eight days later. The African American tester was not offered this position, although she had called the agency on the same day that the white tester received her message regarding the assignment to let them know that she was available to work. Two weeks later, the African American tester was offered a temporary position with the possibility of permanent hire. This position paid 15% less ($11 per hour) and involved distributing mail and providing general office support.

Case Study #2: The white tester is offered a position without being interviewed.

Both testers emailed their resumes to the agency on the same day and received calls from the agency on the same day. The white tester was offered a position one day later without ever undergoing an in-person interview or taking any tests. By contrast, the African American tester underwent an interview and was asked to take a variety of computer skills tests. After more than a week, the African American tester was offered two positions. Although both testers were ultimately offered good positions, the agency was willing to bend its rules for the white tester in order to secure her a job not made available to the African American tester.

Case Study #3: The African American tester is never interviewed.

The testers emailed their resumes to the same agency on the same day. The African American tester called the agency on four separate occasions to follow up and try to schedule an interview. She was repeatedly told that a recruiter would contact her if her qualifications fit any of the positions they were staffing, and was finally told that she had not been contacted because she was not qualified for any of their assignments. The white tester was called the same day that her resume was received and was asked to come in for an interview. She was later offered a permanent position as a purchasing assistant for a cruise line which paid over $35,000 per year and included an annual free cruise.

Via NathanNewman.org.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:14 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, December 14, 2003

Looking into the Iraqi crystal ball.

Since the announcement of the capture of former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, the government of the US and UK (and their sycophants in the press) have been tripping all over themselves in their anxiousness to put the most positive spin possible on the event. Not every observer is so optimistic, however, including some of those who are much closer to Iraq than London or Washington.

One of those observers is correspondent Zvi Bar'el of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. During the runup to the Iraq war and during the war itself, his reports contained some of the most incisive analyis available. After the early days of the occupation of Iraq, however, Bar'el was noticably absent from Haaretz. Until today, that is. Now Bar'el has returned with his own guesses as to what may happen in Iraq over the next few months.

Iraq's future in days ahead will play out according to one of three possible scenarios. The first scenario is the extension of what has happened in recent weeks: that is, daily attacks on foreign targets, Americans and otherwise, could continue. The second possible scenario would be escalated attacks on coalition targets, with the intention of hastening the American pull-out from Iraq. Third, political opposition groups could mobilize peacefully and unite around the demand that coalition troops pull out immediately, so that Iraq is left to Iraqis.

These three scenarios have come to the fore because the American occupation has, up to now, derived its legitimacy from the military need to remove the "remains" of Saddam Hussein's regime. Iraqi movements which opposed the American occupation in principle feared that a premature U.S. military pull-out might have allowed troops loyal to Saddam to re-gain power. Now, such movements are likely to take political and military steps to resist the continued presence of coalition forces in Iraq.

In these respects, Hussein's capture is liable to intensify local opposition to the continued U.S. occupation of the country.

Make sure to check out the whole article. It's a good tonic for the overly optimistic spin that the US and UK governments are given to the importance of Saddam's capture.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:25 PM | Get permalink