Grocery striker fundraiser at Kulaks Woodshed

ANSWER LA held a fundraiser for the striking grocery workers at Kulak’s Woodshed in North Hollywood last night, and raised about $1,000 for the AFL-CIO strike fund for Local 770.

Performing were the always amazing Michelle Shocked (photo), singer songwriter duo Lowen and Navarro, hip hop artist Wil B., The Blazers from East L.A. - who go back three decades with Los Lobos and share the same roots, and alt country singer Cisco. You can find The Blazers and Cisco on Little Dog Records.

Kulak’s Woodshed is an innovative performance space / coffee house primarily for singer songwriters. Check this out. All performances are broadcast live on the Net! And there’s no cover charge. They pass the hat during performances plus those watching on the Net can contribute via PayPal. It’s all volunteer, with six video cameras, and, in a way cool touch, a monitor where performers can read to the audience email sent to them during the performance. At one point, The Blazers (I think) read that someone in Portland, Maine emailed to say they’d contributed $100 to the strike fund! Get on the Kulak’s mailing list. You’ll be surprised at the Names who play this 50 seater club!

PS “Woodshed” is an oldish term in music for practicing or trying out new stuff to a small audience. Also, for you rock historians out there, Kulak’s started in the same space, since expanded, as the original Bomp Records store. I remember seeing punk bands there in ‘76. After 20+ years of being a machine shop, it’s back to its innovative musicial roots, albeit with a totally different style of music! And check out Bomp affiliate labels at Alive / Total Energy.

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Big fun with Windows XP

After getting home late last night from the fundraiser (see above posting), I discovered my main PC, which runs XP, was running sluggishly, and that normal actions like cut-and-paste and drag-and-drop weren’t working at all, which is alarming, to say the least. This has happened at least twice before, also for no apparent reason.

The solution: Restart in safe mode (F8 while booting), then rebooting normally several more times. Each time the system recovered more of the functionality. For example, while working with the above photo of Michelle Shocked in Fireworks, at first, none of the drop down menus worked. Reboot. Menus then worked, but crop photo didn’t. Reboot. Crop photo started working, but I couldn’t move the Fireworks window. Reboot. The Fireworks window could be moved. This type of odd behavior was happening across all applications.

Weird, huh? Anyone know what’s happening?

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This is madness

Mentally ill man executed in US.

The state of Arkansas forcibly medicates a convict so he is well enough to be executed.

Charles Singleton, 44, was forcibly given anti-psychotic drugs which made him lucid enough under court guidelines to be put to death.

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Why weren’t they arrested on criminal charges?

3 reservists discharged from Army after abuse

Abuse?

Brig. Gen. Ennis Whitehead III, the acting commander of the 143rd Transportation Command, found the three soldiers had maltreated prisoners at Camp Bucca, southern Iraq, on May 12. The general found that Master Sgt. Lisa Marie Girman, 35, a Pennsylvania state trooper, knocked a prisoner to the ground, “repeatedly kicking him in the groin, abdomen and head, and encouraging her subordinate soldiers to do the same,” Harris said.

Staff Sgt. Scott A. McKenzie, 38, a lieutenant at a boot-camp-style prison run by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, was found to have dragged a prisoner by his shoulders and then to have held his legs apart “and encouraging others to kick him in the groin while other U.S. soldiers kicked him in the abdomen and head,” Harris said.

McKenzie was also found to have thrown the detainee face-down to the ground and have stepped on “his previously injured arm.”

Some might well call that torture.

Their penalty?

The U.S. Army discharged three reservists and ordered them to forfeit two-months’ salary for abusing prisoners at a detention center in Iraq.

In other words, barely a slap on the wrist.

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Respected pollster John Zogby sees 2004 election as 50/50

From a Zogby interview

Q. What are Governor Dean’s chances to beat President Bush? Will he be able to carry some southern states?

John Zogby: I think that any Democrat starts the campaign with 45 percent of the vote. It is sort of like the SAT exams where you get 200 just for showing up on Saturday morning. Now obviously there will be a campaign and things that can not be foreseen - issues of temperament, events not previously foreseen - but I think this is a 50/50 president in a 50/50 nation.

I think that both parties in the fall will wage a highly partisan red-meat campaign appealing to their core voters. That could leave genuine centrist independents out in the cold. However for those who are determined to vote, I think it is on an even keel between George Bush and let’s say Howard Dean. Dean will be able to appeal on the basis of the war and the economy and on the basis of being a moderate, NRA, balance the budget governor. Equally the president will be able to point to his compassionate conservatism. I think it will be a highly partisan campaign, but I don’t give either candidate an edge on centrist voters.

Q. How does the defection of Green Party voters back to the Dems figure in your polls?

John Zogby: Anything that moves voters by a few hundred or a few thousand in key states could change the election. Make the blue states even bluer. Will they be energized is the issue.

Q. Does your polling indicate that Bush has a chance in California or is it going to stay in the Democrats column?

John Zogby: I don’t see any potential for Bush in California. None. That was a unique local issue — the recall. Schwarzenegger ran as a Democrat.

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Conservatives launch deeply clueless TV attack ad on Dean

The conservative Club for Growth Political Action Committee said their 30-second spot against the Dean will begin running in Des Moines today.

In the ad, a farmer says he thinks that “Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading …” before the farmer’s wife then finishes the sentence: “… Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs.”

As one who has spend considerable time in Vermont, I can safely say this view of Vermont is so muddled and confused that it is comical.

Were I to sum up the politics of Vermont in one word, it would be “libertarian”. As befits a state that simultaneously allows concealed carry of a handgun without a permit and has virtually legalized gay marriage.

They’ve been libertarian before the word was invented. Also, the patron saint of Vermont is Ethan Allen, who, in the late 1700’s, staged armed raids against New York and helped win Vermont statehood. He is admired to this day by Vermonters for his fierce independence.

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