Thursday, September 21, 2006

Fleetwood Mac

Thursday and a rare post from me on a Thursday. There have been many problems with computers today and I won't bore you with all of them but those who want to post are sharing two laptops and the rest are being used for the gina & krista round-robin. In fact, some members will have it e-mailed out (Friday's) Thursday (right now, it's about nine minutes until midnight EST) due to the problems that have been ongoing. So most of the laptops are being used on that and I don't know who will blog this evening and who won't. Had I, as I intended to, noted Tuesday that I'd take Thursday off, I wouldn't be blogging but when I forgot to put that up, I was committed to blogging each night this week. There's a roundtable ongoing right now and a number of people present are participating (as well as two journalist friends of C.I. -- be sure to read Friday's round-robin). I'll take part in Friday's roundtable.

I feel out of the loop completely on what's happened today. What little I do know, I know from hearing C.I. dictate (twice) the snapshot today. In the snapshot, a song by Stevie Nicks is quoted, "Fireflies." She wrote that and Fleetwood Mac preforms it on Fleetwood Mac Live. I actually prefer that CD to The Dance, their other live album. Fleetwood Mac Live came out in 1980. Tusk had come out in 1979 and underwhelmed for those expecting another mega-blockbuster like Rumors but I actually prefer Tusk to Rumors. Like Tusk, Fleetwood Mac Live was a double album -- in those days, that meant that it had two vinyl records. It probably could fit on one CD today. (Although I do have Fleetwood Mac Live on CD and it's on two CDs. I avoided buying Tusk for years, on CD, due to the fact that they decided to edit one song to fit it all on one disc. The song they elected to edit was the album's most durable hit and my personal favorite, "Sara."

"Wait a minute baby, stay with me awhile, said you give me life, but you never told me about the fire . . ." Another favorite song of mine on Tusk is "Beautiful Child." It, like most of my favorite Mac songs, was written by Stevie Nicks. I always feel her songs are the strongest. "Beautiful Child" was written for UNICEF's Year of the Child in 1979. I'll list my top ten favorite Mac songs:

"Sara"
"Gypsy"
"Rhiannon"
"Landslide"
"Silver Springs"
"Dreams"
"Gold Dust Woman"
"Sisters of the Moon"
"Say You Will"
"Thrown Down"

I have many other favorites, I'm a big fan of the Mac, but those are my top ten. The last two are from the CD Say You Will, their most recent. I think some of the Lindsey Buckingham "gems" could have have been left off. But he did nail a few strong ones. (Which is more than I can say of his contributions to Tango In The Night.) But the bulk of the songs I enjoy are the ones written by Stevie Nicks. "Storms" (from Tusk) would easily make my top twenty and there are many more. Of the songs not written by Nicks, I also enjoy many of Christine McVie's. "You Make Loving Fun" and "Don't Stop" are probably my two favorites but her song on Tusk . . .

Which I couldn't remember and had to grab Kat to ask her. I can remember the piano but I'm tired and couldn't think of the title. "Never Make Me Cry" is the title. That's a hidden gem from Tusk, as far as I'm concerned, because it's so little known. Lindsey's strongest contribution? I think "Walk A Thin Line" or "The Ledge." But his lyrics are not strong on any song. That's it for me tonight and Kat said she thinks she'll write about music as well so check out her site (I'm sliding the laptop to her as soon as I post this.)

"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Thursday, September 21st, 2006, International Peace Day established by the United Nations November 30, 1981 and Bully Boy offers 'alternative programming' as the chaos and violence continues in Iraq, as the press learns that 'suicide bomber' is an imprecise term, as those doing the torture includes 'government forces,' as the US military fatality count approaches the 2700 mark and the so-called coalition of the willing continues to shrink with the US forces left to sing,"To be the last to leave, the last to be gone, stolen from the ones who hung on to it" ("Fireflies," written by Stevie Nicks, available on Fleetwood Mac Live).
The BBC reports that Manfred Nowak (anti-torture expert for the United Nations and Austrian law professor) has stated that torture is not only on the rise in Iraq but it may be happening more frequently than when Saddam Huseein was in power. Nowak's statements were based on a UN report which found that "Victims come from prisons run by US-led multinational forces as well as by the ministries of interior and defence and private militias".
This as Reuters notes: "The Sunni religious organisation, the Muslim Scholars Association, accused unnamed militia and government forces of killing five people in the village of al-Intsar, on the northeastern outskirts of Baghdad late on Wednesday. The group said others were kidnapped and houses burned."
Richard A. Oppel Jr. (New York Times) reported today, in Baghdad alone, at least "5,106 people . . . died violent deathd during July and August". Which is no doubt why, as reported by Sudarsan Raghavan's (Washington Post), The Giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone, William Caldwell IV, US military spokesperson, announced the obvious, after the UN had, that there was "a spike in execution-style murders" and "many bodies found had clear signs of being bound, tortured and executed." Way to stay ahead of the curve, but then he wouldn't look like the third guest, the loopy, bra-less one, if he couldn't state the obvious long after it had already been noted, would he?
Meanwhile Reuters reports that at least 38 corpses were discovered in Baghdad with most bearing signs of torture. Bombings? Reuters reports that a rocket attack on a home in Baghdad killed four and left five wounded, while bombs killed eight in Baghdad and left eighteen wounded and, in Diwaniya, a roadside bomb took the lives of two Iraq soldiers. Shootings? Reuters reports 3 shot dead in Kerbala and three police officers in Baquba. In a combination of the two (mortar attack, followed by gunfire) AP reports the deaths of six Iraqi police officers when their Baghdad police station was attacked.
AFP reports that the so-called coalition of the willing continues to suffer from shrinkage as Italy hands over Dhi Qar to Iraqi forces and, low and behold, there are no reports the Italy's actions "embolden" terrorism or that their action prevents "democracy." Quite the contrary, a US military press release credited to Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Gen. George W. Casey Jr.maintains that the handover and Italy's withdrawal predicated on the handover is "another sign of progress." Progress is possible, apparently, for all but the U.S. and England. Reuters identifies Italy as "the last major Western European ally" for England and the US and notes that an Italian soldier died just "hours" before the handover raising the total number of Italian soldiers who died in the war to 32.
The US military fatality count continues to rise and the US military announced today that a US soldier died in Baghdad Wednesday from a roadside bomb while today a soldier died from wounds received while fighting in al Anbar province. The announcements come as the US military fatality count is at 2,693 (seven away from the 2700 mark) and as the AP reports questions remain in another Wednesday US military death in Baghdad ("Sgt. 1st Class Charles Jason Jones, 29, of Lawrenceburg", Kentucky ) which is currently classified as due to "non combat-related causes".
"Suicide bombers" and "suicide car bombers"? The AP reports that term is far from precise and that the Iraqi Defense Ministry issued a warning today based upon the fact that people are being kidnapped, released and then used as unknowing bombers via remote control from devices planted on them or their vehicles.
In peace news, Sue Anne Pressley Montes (Washington Post) reports "A group of ministers, veterans and peace activists attempted to deliver a 'declaration of peace' to the White House today, kicking off a week of vigils and other activities in 350 communities across the country calling for the prompt withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq" and "The day's activities also featured vigils for peace in dozens of cities and towns, including Little Rock, Ark.; Tucson, Ariz.; Pasadena, Ca.; Miami, Fla.; Decatur, Ga.; Pittsburgh, Pa.; and Austin, Tex. In San Diego Friday, there will be a Dance Action for Peace; on Saturday in Cincinnati, a Peace Tent City will be erected. San Francisco is hosting a mass bicycle ride to protest the conflict, and Madison, Wisc., is holding community forums on the issue." The Declaration of Peace site contains aVigils Calendar that will help you find events in your area as well as more information.










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