(NUNAL) (EYEBALL)

In lieu of detailed analysis of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's multiple personal and professional failings and the connections between his core venality, greed, and duplicity and his deeply held religious convictions honed at Regent University here in Virginia Beach, of all godforsaken places, Nunal offers this possible soundtrack to his morality play: Horatiu Radulesco's String Quartet No. 5, "before the Universe was Born"

This is really compelling listening for this midweek moment. (Placed here to save you the hours of getting sucked into youtube) Definitely beyond the kayagum sanjo I can play, which I have been thinking about (and which she plays starting at 1:37 until 2:07).

Twenty years on with the EZLN TO THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO: MEXICAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS: We are a product of 500 years of struggle: first against slavery, then during the War of Independence against Spain led by insurgents, then to avoid being absorbed by North American imperialism, then to promulgate our constitution and expel the French empire from our soil, and later the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz denied us the just application of the Reform laws and the people rebelled and leaders like Villa and Zapata emerged, poor men just like us. We have been denied the most elemental preparation so they can use us as cannon fodder and pillage the wealth of our country. They don't care that we have nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over our heads, no land, no work, no health care, no food nor education. Nor are we able to freely and democratically elect our political representatives, nor is there independence from foreigners, nor is there peace nor justice for ourselves and our ch...

I'm reading a history of Mexican military bands, so here's a soundtrack dating from the cylinder era:

Tom Laughlin, aka Billy Jack, R.I.P. I knew quite a bit about Billy jack, not only from watching the movie many times but also from living in Wisconsin and remembering fondly his shortlived run for president in 1992. Laughlin was a Milwaukee native. This LA Times obit I linked to has some amusing lines: "Over the years, critics assailed Laughlin's performances. Leonard Maltin called him "the only actor intense enough to risk a hernia from reading lines." The New Yorker's Pauline Kael called "The Trial of Billy Jack" extraordinary — that is, "the most extraordinary display of sanctimonious self-aggrandizement the screen has ever known."

This issue of Chinese sovereign jurisdiction assertion into the East China Sea is interesting on numerous levels form UN Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) angle to the broader significance in terms of U.S. power projection in the Pacific. The Washington Post reports just now: "The U.S. military has flown two warplanes over the East China Sea on a training exercise, the Pentagon announced Tuesday, blatantly ignoring a recent edict from China that it must be informed in advance of any such flights over the region."... Japan and the United States immediately protested the move. The Pentagon, which frequently conducts naval and air exercises in the East China Sea, said it had no intention of bowing to China’s demands, calling them “a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region.” On Tuesday, the White House blasted China’s imposition of the air defense identification zone, but urged Beijing to address territorial conflicts diplomatically instead of militarily."...