underground

(h/t to artsyhipster)

friday random ten

Photo by Ryan McManus

Penultimate Edition


"Stop Your Sobbing" - The Kinks [Kinks]


"Beast Of Burden" - The Rolling Stones [Some Girls]


"Take Me To the River" - Talking Heads [More Songs About Buildings and Food]


"Sixteen Blue" - The Replacements [Let It Be]


"My Kingdom" - Echo and the Bunnymen [Ocean Rain]


"Starry Eyes" - Roky Erikson [Don't Slander Me]


"Me and a Gun" - Tori Amos [Little Earthquakes]


"Lucky" - Radiohead [OK Computer]


"Rebellion (Lies)" - Arcade Fire [Funeral]


"Swimming In the Swamp" - The National Lights [The Dead Will Walk, Dear]

listen

Happy "Mission Accomplished" Day

Robert Greenwald and Steven Connell join forces to remember May 1st, 2003: "Mission Accomplished" day.
http://tellusthemission.org/

America's War On Tourists

New Zealand Herald

Welcome to America, where officials who work for the Department of Homeland Security, which was set up after the 2001 terrorist attacks, have a major image problem.

In a recent poll of international travellers, commissioned by Discover America Partnership, a coalition of US tourist organisations, 70 per cent of respondents said they feared US officials more than terrorists or criminals. Another 66 per cent worried they would be detained for some minor blunder, such as wrongly filling out an official form or being mistaken for a terrorist, while 55 per cent say officials are "rude."

[snip]

"We are citizens of a country regarded as one of the closest allies the US has," frequent British visitor Ian Jeffrey told the Orlando Sentinel last November. "Yet on arrival we are treated like suspects in a criminal investigation and made to feel very unwelcome."

Such comments, and the poll results - which rate the US by a 2:1 margin as the world's "most unfriendly" destination for foreign travellers - are found in "A Blueprint to Discover America," [.pdf] unveiled in January by Discover America Partnership to halt a dramatic decline in foreign visitors.

According to the blueprint overseas travel to the US has slumped 17 per cent since 2001, even as world travel to other countries reaches historic growth levels. The decline has cost US$94 billion ($127 billion) in visitor spending, US$16 billion in tax receipts, and some 194,000 American jobs. Many poll respondents said that visiting the US had become a hassle and that they would take their holiday money elsewhere.

(via BoingBoing)

Monday reads

Jeremy Scahill - Who Will Stop the U.S. Shadow Army in Iraq?

Former CIA officers write an Open Letter to George Tenet

Aram Sinnreich - The End of Internet Radio?

mswsm - Another Reason for MONICA GOODLING to Plead the Fifth

Friedman Units (FUs) of Iraq (via Mother Jones)

Middle East Conflict Intensifies As Blah Blah Blah, Etc. Etc.

Happy Springtime (Bush Is Over)

Op-Critical featuring the Harmonic Angels



Justice Through Music