Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore.  The Goat Farm.  Tonight.  This will be great.

Here's a terrific, intimate portrait of Moore, filmed last June before the shocking news was released.

For what it's worth,  I lived in New York (Long Island to be honest, but a short train ride away) during the time of which he's talking.  Although I never saw them perform, I remember how shockingly young Sonic Youth were when they debuted, and I've watched Moore and Gordon age gracefully over the years, their faces a virtual Dorian Grey portrait of my own advancing years.

Tonight, an old man will watch a mature artist reflect on a live lived fully.

Handel, Again

It's old news at this point, but last week the Susan B. Komen Foundation got a lot of publicity, almost exclusively bad, concerning its recent decision to cut off funding for cancer screening to Planned Parenthood. I won't elaborate on the story, as its already been fairly well dissected all over the internets,  but I do want to remind loyal WDW readers that I've been issuing warnings about the person behind this scandal, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel, for some time now. 

Way back in June 2009, I posted an article on Handel's signature accomplishment as Georgia Secretary of State - disenfranchising some 2,000 registered voters under the presumption of "voter fraud," and then later claiming her efforts were somehow "proof" of the disenfranchised's guilt.  To be fair, a year later I pointed out that when she was a Fulton County Commissioner, she had taken a fairly progressive stance (for a Republican) on gay rights, and had supported a rape-and-incest exception to a hypothetical abortion ban and  had opposed a proposal to sharply restrict in-vitro fertility clinics.

As it turns out, the very things for which I was trying to praise her worked against her in her run for Governor.  Her opponent, Nathan Deal, painted Handel as an Atlanta liberal, and used her stance on the issues above to ultimately defeat her in the Republican Primary, despite a highly publicized endorsement for her from Sarah  Palin, who called Handel one of her "mama grizzlies."  In fact, the 2010 Gubernatorial Primary was viewed by many as a barometer of conservative politics, with Handel and Deal viewed as proxies for their backers, Palin, and in the case of Deal, Newt Gingrich, and as an early litmus test of 2012 Presidential possibilities.  Looking back at that primary now, here at the outset of the 2012 Presidential campaign, it's apparent that although his star is rapidly fading, Newt has unfortunately remained a viable presence in American politics, while Palin is now largely and thankfully forgotten.

So, I had thought, was Handel.  After her primary defeat by Deal (who ultimately went on and became Georgia Governor), I had not heard from Handel, and she quickly - and mercifully - faded from my memory.  Until the Komen controversy, when I learned that she had somehow become a senior policy adviser for the charity, and was behind the dust-up with Planned Parenthood, which has irreconcilably tarnished the charity's reputation. This is what happens when you put Georgia wing-nuts in charge of important things.

If you follow Handel's career trajectory, one fairly obvious motive for trying to insert a cancer charity into an abortion-rights controversy is that she wanted to develop some "pro-life" credentials to compensate for the Achilles' heel that had cost her a shot at the Governor race.  Under this theory, the chilling possibility that she may run again, whether for Georgia Governor in 2014 or for some other office, must be considered.  Even if she has damaged and discredited the very charity she was being paid to support, she can still walk away claiming she was trying to score a "pro-life" (or as we like to say, "anti-choice") victory, before the "liberal, lame-stream media" interfered.  

Frighteningly, as the twin liability on the other ankle was her former tolerant stance on gay rights, it can be expected that she'll next jump on board some anti-gay crusade, like a ban on marriage equality, before making another run for office in 2014.  Be afraid, be very afraid, as her next stunt will likely further inflame intolerance and bigotry.

The latest news on all of this is this morning Handel resigned from the Komen board and gave an interview over on Fox "News."  It's clear that she's still trying to politicize this whole debacle and demonize Planned Parenthood, as she stated, "Last time I checked, private, non-profit organizations have a right and a responsibility to be able to set the highest standards in criteria on their own, without interference, let alone the level of vicious attacks and coercion that’s occurred by Planned Parenthood," adding, "It’s simply outrageous."

I don't like being harsh, but what's outrageous is Handel's assumptions that a charity could collect money from sincere donors and then expect to do whatever it wants, or doesn't want, to do with those funds, and not expect reprisals.  It wasn't  the charity's recipient that threatened to boycott Komen, it was the charity's donors.  Handel fails to see the difference, and for that, she's unfit to serve in charity.

Fair and balanced update:  Say this for Georgia at least - today, the new Secretary of State - a Republican, naturally - has announced that, what the hell, Obama can be on the election ballot this November after all.

Superb Owl

Frankly, I don't want to talk about it.  I'll just say that I fished my "lucky" t-shirt out of the sack of rags now used for housecleaning, the t-shirt that I got as a promotional give-away at a sports bar in Portland during the last Patriots-Giants Superbowl back in 2008 (which, come to think of it, may mean that the shirt isn't so "lucky" after all), and wore it all day today.  

For all the good it did (but who's to say what's good and what's bad?).

Girl In A Coma

Let's keep it fresh - here's San Antonio's almost impossibly good Girl In a Coma performing a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR just last Monday, January 30.

Not quite as fresh (posted here about a year or so ago), but just as good, and directed by Robert Rodriguez:

Urban Monk Blues

Oh, look.  The New York Times ran an article about my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia  yesterday.  Let's see what they had to say, shall we?

A sprawling Southern metropolis, Atlanta has become one of the biggest laggards in the economic recovery. 

Oh, dear.  Apparently, prices for single-family homes like mine were down close to 12 percent last November, compared to a year earlier.  By contrast, prices of single-family homes in 20 metropolitan areas across the country were 3.7 percent lower in November than a year earlier, with average prices now at their 2003 levels. In Atlanta, home prices are now below their 2000 levels. 

So why Atlanta?  Well, it seems that in the '90s and 2000s, the city decided to make growth for growth's sake its major industry.  The region was attracting a large number of people from across the nation, drawn by the promise of plentiful jobs, warm weather, and affordable living.  Approximately 100,000 people moved here in 2006, and that influx of prospective new home buyers was expected to continue or even to grow.  So new subdivisions were constructed in ever-more-distant exurbs, and the suburbs and city were crammed with new homes, condos and apartments.  Construction cranes were everywhere, and with cheap, immigrant labor and low lending rates, developers couldn't afford not to build. 

However, the number of new residents moving here plunged to just 17,000 by 2009, the latest census figures available, and when you lose 80,000 people a year coming to a market dependent on construction and real estate, that’s going to be some problems.  From February 2008 to August 2011, Atlanta lost 60,000 jobs in construction and real estate, about 25 percent of all job losses during that period. In comparison, construction and real estate accounted for only 15 percent of total jobs lost across the rest of the nation.  Unemployment here is now at 9.2 percent, slightly higher than the national rate. 

Housing prices plummeted, and the Georgia countryside is now dotted with large luxury homes that never sold and is inundated with foreclosed properties. Atlanta has the most government-owned foreclosed properties for sale of any large city, with foreclosed homes represented 24 percent of all sales in Atlanta during the third quarter of last year, compared with a national rate of 12 percent.  Worse, the city still has a nearly 12-month supply of foreclosed homes, about 70 percent of which are sitting on the books of servicers and lenders, still waiting to go on sale.  Release of just a fraction of those properties can push prices even further down, and the market won’t reach bottom until the backlog has cleared.

Personally, I'm doing much better than the regional trend here, as my home, although single-family, is tucked into an urban neighborhood and not out in the sprawling overdeveloped suburbs where prices have dropped the most.  The urban infrastructure, such as highways and rail, combined with natural features like streams and greenspace, have created unintended barriers to in-town sprawl, and developers were not able to squeeze McMansions in between every lot around me.   

The most recent  (December 2011) on-line estimate I've seen for my house puts the price at about 6 percent less than what I paid back in 2004.  Now, while I, like most homebuyers, had expected the value to accrue, given the state of the economy, both nationally and regionally, I'm not too upset with a mere 6 percent loss in appraised value.  And if I can ride out this post-recession economy and prices start to turn around again, I might actually start to see some increase in value.  There's no point in buying high and selling low.  

Such are the marketplace worries of the home dweller.  Urban monk blues.  Everything is impermanent, and  there's no ultimate profit in worrying about fortune and wealth.  

Dr. Morgan Freeman, Hon.

Monday Night Zazen, Every Week, 7:30 p.m., Atlanta Soto Zen Center, 1167 Zonolite Place

Don't know that I could say it any better, so I won't even try.

Gator

A little trompe l'oeil in Midtown Atlanta.

Other parts of Georgia are busy with trompe la tête.  A judge in Cedartown apparently wants President Barack Obama to take a few hours out of his otherwise busy schedule as leader of the free world, visit the Polk County courthouse,  and prove his citizenship to the satisfaction of the judge. Then the president can appear on the 2012 ballot. No big deal, right?

I try not to pay too much attention to the craziness around me, but this flashback to 2008 really takes the cake.  

Just Saying . . .

Akron/Family - "Everyone Is Guilty" with members of the Sun Ra Arkestra - 1.20.12 - The Blockley, Philadelphia

It looks like we may need to re-define our definition of "incredible."  In addition to featuring the Sun Ra Arkestra, this edited video also captures the spirit of the current Akron/Family tour pretty well.   For those wanting more, you can also download a recording of Akron/Family's January 21 set at 285 Kent over at NYC Taper.