Real World Music defies convention and is not stereotypical American "folk music". So I'm glad to introduce Ivan Kupala and Nortec Collective as real music from different parts of the world that takes a little effort to appreciate but is worth the effort.
" As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H. L. Mencken
In a refreshing show of ecumenicism religious fanatics have come together to condem "The Da Vinci Code".The Central Spiritual Directorate of Muslims in Russia (where 1/7 of the population is Islamic) denounced the film as blasphemous. In their words,
"We equal this film with the recent Prophet Muhammad extremist cartoons as the novel and the film desecrate the Prophet Isa (Jesus Christ) worshipped by the Muslims."
Not to be upstaged the Vatican issued their own denunciation, Cardinal Paul Poupard worried that "millions of people "would watch the film and believe it to be true. ... What I'm concerned about is that decent people who do not have the proper religious education will take this nonsense for the real thing."
More interesting stuff from south of the border. Chico Science & Naco Zumbi continue to intrigue. Sadly I hear that Chico Scienece was killed in a MVA in Brazil in the 1990s. One can only speculate how far this guy could have gone. La Mujer de Mi Hermano is a great sound track that introduces (to me at least) what I thought might be there, namely cool Mexican music. I'm looking forward to CDs from Nortec Collective and the Mexican Institute of Sound.
The Russian headline says it all, "Wild Dick Takes a Shot at the Kremlin."As if having the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, possibly Iran, and all the terrorists in the world that we don't like wasn't enough, Cheney decides its time to piss off the Russians. It's entirely without irony that he takes on the Russians for stifling democracy by media concentration, intimidating its neighbors through its economic and energy influences, and just generally not going along with the script.The glaring hypocrisy of all of this is mind boggling and of course went entirely unnoticed by our own sycophants that pass themselves off as journalists. I highly recommend Karen Kwiatkowski's analysis in the "Huffington Post" for a real dissection.
