This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time! Joe Cocker singing "A Little Help From My Friends" with captioning for the "clear-headed."

I've been noticing lately that when it comes to reports of civilian deaths caused by the U.S. military, there are very often two versions of the truth.

The first version is the one we get from the military, usually congratulating themselves for a job well done in killing some precise number of militants who were gathered at a meeting in some location in Afghanastan or Iraq.

Then after a while, if there were civilian or otherwise non-military witnesses to the actual event a second version appears, in which we find out that the first story was nonsense and, actually, instead of militants being killed by a precision air strike, it turns out that innocent civilians have been murdered instead.

The most recent case of this in the news was in Afghanistan, where the U.S. military bragged that it had killed 30 militants in an airstrike several days ago. An investigation into the incident found that actually more than 90 civilians, mostly women, children and elderly people, were the ones who were killed.

In another recent incident, an Afghan investigation found that around 50 civilians, most of them women, were killed in coalition air strikes early in July when they had gathered for a wedding in the East.

If something like this happened on American soil, there'd be outrage, there'd be incredible media coverage, people would get angry, there'd be investigations and trials. As there should be when something goes this wrong.

But as it is, nothing much happens. Americans don't pay much attention, the media pretty much ignores the story, the U.S. military still won't do body counts or any type of accounting for the civilian deaths it causes. Nobody is held accountable for what in any international court of law would be considered crimes against humanity.

Hopefully someday, for the sake of the survivors of those so brutally and uselessly murdered by these actions, the citizens of America will stand up for what's right, and make amends for the wrongs they've allowed to be perpetrated in their name.

One of my faves, the Ohio Players - "Fire" live!

Here's an article about how the increase in royalties paid by webcasters like Pandora may end up putting many of them out of business.

Being a musician, of course I appreciate being compensated for performances of my music. But internet radio provides an amazing opportunity for independant artists to be discovered in ways that other media doesn't.

So it just doesn't make sense that folks would get so greedy and destroy the one new and interesting model of getting music to the masses. And the royalities charged for internet plays are much higher than paid by any other type of radio broadcast service.

Time to create a new model! Let's make some noise and see if we can keep internet radio alive.

Interesting article in The Guardian - an interview with Turkish president Abdullah Gul in which he talks of a new multipolar world emerging from the wreckage of war. From the article:

"The conflict in Georgia, Gül asserted, showed that the United States could no longer shape global politics on its own, and should begin sharing power with other countries.

"I don't think you can control all the world from one centre," Gül told the Guardian. "There are big nations. There are huge populations. There is unbelievable economic development in some parts of the world. So what we have to do is, instead of unilateral actions, act all together, make common decisions and have consultations with the world. A new world order, if I can say it, should emerge."

This is amazing...a doctor interviewing prisoners being held in Iraq. Some of the prisoners are kids, one of them says he's 9 years old. The doctor says some good stuff at the end of the video...to paraphrase:

..."Juveniles can't control themselves, this is a behavior - they need to be educated, not punished. You are not living in the Arab Gulf, you are coming from the USA, which now wants to lead all the world. Your behavior should be like a leader, not abusing the prisoners..."

Why is it that our administration keeps talking about their compassion and morals when it seems like they have none at all? A report released in Mexico by the Population, Border and Migrant Affairs commission points out that for every three adults deported from the U.S., there is one child abandoned and left behind.

And that's not the worst of it. In the first 7 months of the year, the U.S. has deported 90.000 children to Mexico, without their parents! It says that 15 percent or 13,500 of these children, of all ages under 17, find themselves "parked" at the border. With no family and no way to take care of themselves. Some are either taken in by social service and religious agencies or are forced to live on the streets begging and trying with all their might to get back into the United States, or worse, are victimized by human traffickers who sexually exploit them.

Is this immigration reform, or just heartless behavior in the name of law enforcement?

Wynton Marsalis and Wycliffe Gordon in a jammin' duel from their hotel windows. Yeah!

Finally, another view of Baghdad than the one the U.S. military and our cowering media allows us.

A journalist who grew up in Baghdad wants to check the veracity of U.S. claims that the military surge is bringing stability to Iraq. He travels through the heart of Baghdad and finds the Sunni and Shia populations enclosed behind 12 ft. walls, leaving the city more divided and desperate than ever.



I think you'll agree with me that it's amazing and sad that we in America don't get to see this because of censorship and the sorry state of our news coverage.

Something that has gotten very strange in our media-savvy culture is that we've been told that there is indeed an acceptable amount of violence. Not in our country, of course, where a hateful guy with a shotgun can go shoot up a church and end up on national news for days. But in other countries, where the violence is due primarily to our actions, we've become numb to it, if we hear about it at all.

Today there's an article in the AFP in which General Patraeus says overall violence in Iraq is declining to almost "normal" levels. What are those levels? 25-30 violent attacks per day. Comparing Iraq's population of 27 million to that of the U.S. (301 million), that would mean that every day, we'd get around 330 attacks just like the hateful guy with a shotgun shooting up those people in church. We can't even deal well with ONE of those every so often.

So what's wrong with us? Why have we become so sedate, so uncaring that we can let this happen anywhere? And especially why are we OK with it in a country that because of our actions is forced to rely on us for security? Do we provide security, or just make their situation more miserable? Some questions to ponder...