Moussaoui As Scapegoat

Nothing sickens me more than the government maneuvering to move blame from themselves to an individual. This is exactly the case with Zacarias Moussaoui, the third or fourth person to be referred to as the "20th highjacker" of the September 11 attacks.

Honestly, I couldn't care less about his guilt. That is far beside the point here. What is absurd is that the government contends that because Moussaoui lied to them about his role in the attacks (whatever that may be) they were unable to stop the attacks from happening. The prosecution claims that if Moussaoui had said "I'm al-Qaida" they would've been able to identify 11 of the 19 highjackers and the FAA would've kept them off the plane. What's wrong with this scenario?

1. How does him admitting membership in an organization suddenly allow the FBI to identify other members? He didn't know who any of these other guys were anyway.

2. The government should not have to rely on perpetrators to tell them about an unfolding plot. How feeble are you when you are unable to break something up without the other side giving you hints about their intentions? Besides, there was ample evidence already that was not acted upon, so why would a nutcase like Moussaoui have made any difference?

The end result here is that the government failed miserably in performing the number-one duty of any government: protecting those underneath it. Now it must resort to blaming others for its problems, just as "terrorism" has become the phantom menace to keep all the meatheads in this country in line behind the President and Congress.

Abramoff In Jail, But...

Well, it's a mixed bag. Abramoff and an associate have been sentenced to 5 years, 10 months in jail, but it'll get reduced, certainly. If they spent the full six years, I would view it as an acceptable punishment for their crimes. But, as we all know, white collar criminals get off with much lighter sentences, and, furthermore, serve a far less harsh sentence than common criminals, playing basketball and getting jail cells nicer than my dorm room. Of course, the $21 million restitution fine helps, but he bilked clients out of far more.

The end result is, he'll end up spending eleven months in prison and then get out for a few years of probation.

Book Review: Fast Food Nation

Eric Schlosser's investigative account of the fast food industry and all of its associated businesses (meatpacking, advertising, and agribusiness in general) had been sitting in my house for probably a good year before I finally got around to reading it this past week. It's a shame that it took me so long.

In his book, Schlosser makes numerous references to one of my favorite books, Upton Sinclair's masterpiece muckraking of the Chicago meatpacking industry, The Jungle. While I do not compare the two books, and nor does Schlosser (Sinclair's work was officially fiction, though all the important details were factual), the two books have much in common. In fact, Fast Food Nation could be viewed as a sort of 100-year update on The Jungle, a sort of "where are we now?" Sadly, the situation has improved little, despite the long timespan and numerous half-hearted government attempts at regulation.

Sinclair's main topic in The Jungle was not, as many assume, food, but rather the immigrants who worked in the horrific conditions of the lines. Workers routinely were injured and maimed - sometimes even killed - working on the lines, fired by the company without compensation once the injuries occurred (since they were useless as workers), worked long hours for little pay, and had no job security. Today, the same situation still exists. Schlosser writes that nearly a third of workers in the meatpacking plants sustain some sort of injury, and hundreds die every year. One machine in a Kansas plant was responsible for the deaths of five men on two seperate occasions. The company that owned the plant was fined a mere $480 per death.

Which brings us to what is the main theme of the book, in my opinion. It is less about the greed and callousness of the the industry than the lack of involvement on the part of the government. Adam Smith, the godfather of capitalism, was well aware that a true free market is a recipe for corporations to enslave the world. All throughout the book, example after example of corporate misbehavior is given, and any reader can easily see how a little government intervention would solve the problems. If the government were to treat the deaths of workers through corporate negligence in the same way as they treat any other non-accidental death - that is, prosecute those responsible and send them to jail - plant managers would be scrambling to implement safety systems and procedures that would save hundreds of lives, and thousands of limbs, a year. Of course, the Republican love of business has made this task nearly impossible: since Reagan, the words "free market" have become almost synonymous with words like "liberty," "freedom," and "democracy" in the minds of most Americans. Such things could not be further from the truth.

The situation with the food is equally atrocious, and only marginally better than it was in 1906. Sinclair's masterpiece of compassionate socialism, instead of eliciting calls for increased worker rights, lead to Theodore Roosevelt (who read books on contrary opinions, unlike our current president) forming a comission to investigate the veracity of the claims about the food quality in The Jungle. Such things as dead, cyanide-poisoned rats ending up in the meat, animal fecal matter covering the huge piles of meat, and dead and diseased cattle being slaughtered for food were all found to be true. Today, the biggest problem with the food can be summed up in a single phrase: "There is shit in the meat." This is quite literal. Schlosser details how the speed of the "dis-assembly" line prevents workers from taking their time removing the organs of the cow, so that the contents of the intestines, bowels, and stomachs of cows often spill onto the meat later turned into burgers. Furthermore, improper cleaning of the cattle leads to fecal matter from their coats getting into the food as well. The end result of all this is more than just the unpleasantness of having excrement in your food: it also leads to disease. E. Coli breeds most efficiently in fecal matter, and the presence of it often indicates the contamination of such. Schlosser writes that "Every day in the United States, roughly 200,000 people are sickened by a foodborne disease, 900 are hospitalized, and fourteen die." If the government would be willing to inspect meat for diseases more effectively (right now they only check by sight, which is entirely useless against most diseases) and impose real penalties for the presence of such microbes in food (such as requiring the entire shipment of meat to be destroyed, regardless of the extent of the outbreak) such problems would be marginalized. The situation is easily rectifiable: Schlosser details a number of plants where the HACCP program, which aims to elimnate foodborne diseases from the plant's output, has worked very effectively and increased the end cost of a hamburger by a single cent.

There is plenty more, but this is long enough already. If you want to find out more, read the book, why don't you?

Ted Leo + The Pharmacists Show

In New Haven at Toad's Place. Absolutely fantastic show. Started around 8:30, when a local band of mediocre-at-best talent came on stage for about 30 minutes. They were followed by Les Auf, who were the surprise of the night for everyone. It was just a guitarist and a drummer, and they both were nuts. They played about 10 songs in about 20 minutes (!). Next was a band by the name of "The Duke's Spirit" or something similiar (I'll do an update later with the correction) that was not very good by any measure. And then, around 11:30 it was time for the Pharmacists.

To put it simply, it was just an absolutely amazing show. Ted Leo was soaked in sweat by the end of the set, and there were a couple songs that he really got into. The energy was just amazing, and so was the setlist. The only song they didn't play that I wanted them to was "Parallel or Together?" but hey, it was great regardless. And the encore selection was perfect.

The list isn't in play order, I forget that. It's by CD instead.

Tyranny of Distance
1. Biomusicology
2. Dial Up
3. Timorous Me (Encore 1)


Hearts of Oak
4. Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?
5. Hearts of Oak
6. High Party
7. 2nd Ave, 11 A.M.

Shake The Sheets
8. Me And Mia
9. The Angel's Share
10. The One Who Got Us Out
11. Counting The Hours
12. Little Dawn
13. Heart Problems
14. Shake The Sheets
15. Walking To Do (Encore 2)

Plus a couple of new songs. Oh, and a couple (one, maybe two?) off of Balgeary/Balgury, which I'm not too familiar with.

The set finished around 1:00AM.

"Pipe" As The Penultimate Teenage Angst Song

As much as I hate the concept of "teen angst," I'm going to write a column about it.

Christie Front Drive. I've written about them before, but I'm going to do it some more. Specifically, their song "Pipe," one of my all-time favorite songs by any artist.

Unluckily, I don't have access to a copy of this song, so you'll have to either find it yourself or just do your best at imagining. The song starts with a quiet, lone guitar, and then bursts open, with all instruments coming in. If anyone ever truly mastered the use of the octave chord, it was CFD. The first guitar continues playing the introduction piece, while the second plays two seperate octave progressions that work perfectly. The sensation I always get listening to the second part of this intro is of elation; that is the best word that conveys what I hear.

When everything but one guitar drops out, the mood of the song changes to one of trepidation (once again, these are all my personal emotions during the song. But that's all that matters!). After the reintroduction of the second guitar, the song mellows and I always get the sensation of anxiety or waiting. This continues for just the right amount of time, after which the vocals come in and the previous "mellow" progression drastically becomes one of frustration. Of course, Eric Richter's voice and his lyrics perform most of the heavy lifting through here, and when he lets out a half-moan going into the chorus, its almost tidal. The chorus itself provides the feeling, once again, of temporary elation, before the tone turns dark once again, only to be relieved again during the solo. And of course, after the solo the verse returns, providing not only the previous frustration but also, in my opinion, a sense of urgency.

The outro seals the deal. Simply put, it sounds like anger and frustration.

One of the greatest assets of the song, which sadly is often mistaken for a weakness, is the poor recording quality of the vocals. Little definition can be made out, and the lyrics sound like a garbled mess. This, however, works perfectly with the song. Besides the idea of "voice as instrument," which I've mentioned to a number of people as being a defining characteristic of some music, the inability to make out words with any clarity means that the listener must guess as to the meaning, which will of course involve personal emotions getting involved in the process. I've come up with my own set of lyrics, and they are similiar in many ways to those of others, but there are key differences. What is left is a song that acts as a time capsule for the listener; it brings them back to a time when they were able to connect with the emotion of the song.

To follow up on what was intended as the point of this post, the emotion that comes through not only the vocals but also the instruments makes this the song that best represents the frustration and anger that all of us have felt during our teenage years; more than any other song, it embodies what it means to be human.

What, too grandiose? Listen to it!