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Showing posts from October, 2009
Los Tigres del Norte, the most successful and well known Norteño band, again demonstrates their mettle. Tigres del Norte nix Mexico show, cite censorship The Mexican "norteno" band Los Tigres del Norte says it has canceled a planned appearance at an awards ceremony after organizers allegedly asked it not to play the biting political commentary song "La Granja." The song's lyrics appear to lampoon former officials and also allude to the violence unleashed in the government's war on drug cartels. (I do wonder why the AP put "norteno" in quotes and misspelled it to boot? As a liberal "webpage" Salon it might be expected to fix this, if only to demonstrate a clue that this whole "norteno" thing exists. Billboard has more of a clue, and more detail too, if you are interested. "Los Tigres del Norte aren't performing at tonight's (Oct. 28) Lunas awards at Mexico City's Auditorio Nacional-- either because of official

"Is you the Professor?"*

This is really an essential article , if a depressing one, about the collapse in literacy for college graduates. "The first survey had been taken in 1992 using a sample that accurately represented the entire adult population age 25 and up. The NAAL grouped respondents into four categories, below basic, basic, intermediate, and proficient according to their reading abilities. These were tested in three categories of literacy labeled prose, document, and quantitative. Prose literacy denotes the ability to search, comprehend, and use information in continuous texts. Document literacy means the ability to do these same things employing noncontinuous texts in various formats. Quantitative literacy involves having the knowledge and skills to work with numbers and figures, a figure that changed very little between 1992 and 2003 when the second assessment was made. The other two categories showed a precipitous decline in literacy among college graduates aged 25 and older. In 1992 40 perce
A guy I knew in college wrote a memoir about those years , it is being marketed as "a strange and salacious memoir of life at the ultimate hippie college during the height of Reaganomics." As a product of that ultimate hippie college I am, of course, curious about what it might say. I knew him fairly well and my band Powerslave's first show was opening for the Supreme Dicks, who seem to be the focus of the book from the blurbs. I do hope Powerslave is given the attention it deserves... My wife just asked "who could possibly be interested in that book other than someone who was at Hampshire in the 1980s?" I can't really think of anyone, but you never know. The author, Richard Rushfield, has begun posting pictures on a blog . The pictures really look old, I think as a quality of the film and the switch in recent imagery. I recognize everyone in the pictures but only remember some of them. That is me sleeping in the picture from his Oct. 6 posting. he s

"if attacked, fight back"

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This past weekend I went for a walk in a redwoods park south of the city, here is the sign at the head of the path warning about mountain lions:
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I'm in the endgame out here and so trying to get as much done before heading back to the Norfolk. But I have to say that I can't wait to get back to see the Lil Buddha. Skye sent me some pictures of her this morning:
Ralph Stanley clearly has a good publicist these days . I've been looking forward to reading his book. A friend of mine in New York said the Strand already has copies for 50% off, should you find yourselves there. I think each Virginian should be issued a copy as a function of citizenship in the Commonwealth, but so far that has not happened. If Deeds wants to be governor he should put it in his platform.
As I mentioned, I have quite a bit of time taking the BART (and waiting for it for astounding amounts of time). I recently finished reading the Count of Monte Cristo , which is among the longest book I have ever, though not a difficult one at all. Not the best choice to carry around perhaps, but fun to read. The book is a strikingly violent revenge fantasy in which happiness and vengeance is available through the combined attainment of limitless wealth and harnessing of the power of an angry God. Or at least that is what I got out of it. I was interested to find out that the Count himself rarely had to sleep because of a mixture of opium and hashish that he rolled into little balls and ate each day.
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Who knew that 124 mile long collections of "sea mucus" are out there, filling the seas? Here is the story . Here is some video .

Share the wealth

Over the weekend I went to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate park, which is a free festival with several stages and upwards of 750,000 people in attedance ( the Examiner says 800,000 ). A columnist in SF Chronicle wonders if this means it is getting too big since this number was "nearly the population of San Francisco". The "free" part helps the crowds, no doubt, but the line-up was all A list bands and the whole experience was a lot of fun. There were I think six total stages, I listened mostly to the bluegrass. I think Ricky Skaggs put on the best show of the bluegrass bands. He played almost entirely Stanley Brothers songs, all very traditional bluegrass and all very well played of course. Ralph Stanley played his usual set without any surprises, always good to hear him. Though I was sad Jack Cooke wasn't there. Earl Scruggs played and was not really up to it anymore, but he is 85 years old and I am glad to have gotten to see him b