Regarding Evil
April 3rd, 2005
MIT, Cambridge MA
Building 10, Room 10-250

The transnational summit, Regarding Evil, will be called to assembly
with the simultaneous sounding of the trumps in six sites around the
world projected simulcast.  In collaboration with the six individuals whom
were issued the instruments, each will announce their particular state of
emergency and will converge at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a
seventh blast.  Gordon Smith will assume the role of 7th piper.      

Artists and scholars of international reputation have been invited to
present visual and discursive material confronting the elusive and  
immeasurable subject of Evil, its transpolitical behaviors, charismatic
aesthetic, and viral dispersement in the vast enterprise of simulation,
symbolic power, and catastrophe. Panel discussion and audience talk back will
provide a public forum to expand this dialogue.

Engaging in the discourse of ethics as a codal system by which we can only hope
to define a subjective good, continues to undermine the intelligence of Evil
and fuels the perpetual orbit around exotic ‘otherness’ as an opaque foreigner
situated in an archaic Other World of saboteurs.  How then can we speak to/of
evil while choosing to sidestep the subject using rhetorical strategies at the
risk of sacrificing symbolic power?  Must we rely on the performative death act
to regain this symbolic power?  Including ourselves within the equation of Evil
is necessary for a richer appraisal of our condition which may in some cases,
require the invocation of such an unwanted guest directly into our universe.

April 3rd is daylight savings (so set your clocks before you go to sleep on the 2nd)!

11:00  EST The Sounding of the Trumps  

      
11:10  Introduction- Ross Cisneros

11:20  DAMNATIO РMEMORIAE, Julian LaVerdiere,

12:00¬†¬†Evil’s Political Habitats, Jodi Dean

12:40  BREAK

1:00¬†¬†Lets Go Ahead Let’s Misbehave, Ronald Jones

1:50  Ideologues of the Rejected, Boyd Rice

2:20  Ted and Me, Beau Friedlander

2:40  Panel Discussion, Questions from Audience, Closing Remarks

3:20  De Lama Lamina, Matthew Barney

4:10  FINAL REMARKS

From the March 13, 2005 Sunday Times

Revealed: Israel plans strike on Iranian nuclear plant
Uzi Mahnaimi

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy fails to halt the Iranian nuclear programme.

The inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave “initial authorisation” for an attack at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert.

Israeli forces have used a mock-up of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant in the desert to practise destroying it. Their tactics include raids by Israel’s elite Shaldag (Kingfisher) commando unit and airstrikes by F-15 jets from 69 Squadron, using bunker-busting bombs to penetrate underground facilities.

The plans have been discussed with American officials who are said to have indicated provisionally that they would not stand in Israel’s way if all international efforts to halt Iranian nuclear projects failed.

Tehran claims that its programme is designed for peaceful purposes but Israeli and American intelligence officials — who have met to share information in recent weeks — are convinced that it is intended to produce nuclear weapons.

The Israeli government responded cautiously yesterday to an announcement by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, that America would support Britain, France and Germany in offering economic incentives for Tehran to abandon its programme.

In return, the European countries promised to back Washington in referring Iran to the United Nations security council if the latest round of talks fails to secure agreement.

Silvan Shalom, the Israeli foreign minister, said he believed that diplomacy was the only way to deal with the issue. But he warned: “The idea that this tyranny of Iran will hold a nuclear bomb is a nightmare, not only for us but for the whole world.”

Dick Cheney, the American vice-president, emphasised on Friday that Iran would face “stronger action” if it failed to respond. But yesterday Iran rejected the initiative, which provides for entry to the World Trade Organisation and a supply of spare parts for airliners if it co-operates.

“No pressure, bribe or threat can make Iran give up its legitimate right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes,” said an Iranian spokesman.

US officials warned last week that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israeli or American forces had not been ruled out should the issue become deadlocked at the United Nations.

Additional reporting: Tony Allen-Mills, Washington

Radio’s last radical

From the Sunday, March 6th, 2005 New York Daily News

When he walks into a room, the first thing Bob Fass does is turn on the radio.

“And the second thing I do,” he says, “is change the station. Then I change it again, and again, until I admit that nothing I find does it for me.”

Bob Fass is 72, an age at which many people feel their radio has abandoned them. But Fass’ case is different. He has been on radio himself for more than 40 years and still is, midnight to 3:30 a.m. Thursday on WBAI (99.5 FM). His “Radio Unnameable” is just that, a show on music and politics and whatever is on his mind.

“Radio at its best,” he muses, “takes you from the known to the unknown. It incorporates a part of someone else’s experience into your life. It’s like the way Bob Dylan takes an experience everyone is having but not understanding and puts it into a context where it makes sense.”

The Dylan reference isn’t random. Forty-odd years ago, Fass was one of the first hosts to interview Dylan. But he doesn’t define his show by its celebrities.

“I used to put six or seven people on the phone,” he says. “The guy from the Bronx would say it was starting to rain. The guy in Brooklyn said the skies were clear. Then the Bronx would say, ‘Listen to that thunderclap,’ and Brooklyn would say, ‘Yeah, I felt it here.’ You got the feeling of a network of the whole city.”

Radio alone among media can create that immediacy, Fass says, but radio seems increasingly to value it less – even WBAI. “There are still some great shows on ‘BAI, like Ibrahim Gonzalez, the computer show and Jay Smooth,” he says. “WBAI’s news is still the best, because it has maintained its independence. The women’s shows are quite good. But some of the programming has narrowed.”

As an unreconstructed progressive, Fass is happy to hail the good old days at WBAI, when it mobilized opposition to the Vietnam War and introduced music later scooped up by stations like WPLJ for great commercial success.

But he’s not living in those days. He sounds more outraged over lawyer Lynne Stewart being convicted of abetting terrorism last month than over LBJ.

“Bob is still the real deal,” says his friend and colleague Mike Feder, now on Sirius radio. “His energy, intellect and dramatic passion for things alternative and political are undimmed by the years and the mileage.”

Fass’ broader lament about radio now is that it has lost the droll, understated wit of Bob and Ray or the elegance of Henry Morgan and Jean Shepherd.

“Shepherd used to have trouble with the suits because they said he couldn’t sell soap,” Fass muses. “Today, Rush, Drudge and all of them, that’s what they do. They sell soap. Air America wants to sell soap.”

He decries modern radio’s “artificial excitement.”

“You tell someone to s-w in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Okay. But does that tell us anything about the human condition? Al Lewis used to sell medicine for traveling carnivals. When they got to a town, he’d burn a log on Main St. Everyone came to look. But all he was doing was selling them medicine. That’s radio today.”

He also hears a hardening of the national spirit.

“There’s a lot of hate radio,” he says. “I mean the bitterness and the anxiety you hear constantly about the new people moving in on the block – or toward anyone who doesn’t fit into what the Bush people present as the norm.”

NPR, he says, is better, to a point. “But it gets on my nerves because it’s so unspontaneous. You have the feeling if someone giggles, there’s a management conference on whether to edit it out. It has to be so polished. It condescends to the listener.”

He’s happier with WFUV, WFMU and college stations that don’t sell soap. He also finds rap encouraging. “It’s an extension of what Woody Guthrie and the folk troubadours did,” he says. “You can see why it’s so powerful and so important.”

Holding to this perspective rarely makes anyone rich, Fass included. Last month, his friends held a kind of rent party for him, and he talks about the cost of living in the city as one who could be torpedoed by it.

But he doesn’t regret hitching his ride on radio. “When I was 11, I used to pretend I was on the air,” he says. “I don’t know if I thought it could ever be a job. But the notion of sharing an idea with unseen people was a magnificent thing.”

Dub Mission and Future Primitive Sound present:
THE BLOOD & FIRE SOUNDSYSTEM TOUR
featuring from Jamaica, RANKING JOE on the mic
selector/MC GENERAL LEE (High Power Records)
and selector DOM (Blood & Fire)
plus Echodelic Sound System  (Dub Club)
featuring djs Tom Chasteen, Boss Harmony, Dungeonmaster, Roy Corduroy
and mcs : Jah Faith, Chicho Don and special guests
THUR MARCH 10, 2005
@ Temple Bar – 026 Wilshire Boulevard – Santa Monica, California
21 & over Р$10 Р310 393 6611 -more info at www.templebarlive.com

From its first appearance at London’s Essential Music Festival in 1997 the BLOOD & FIRE SOUND SYSTEM (B&F) has played to well over 100,000 people with shows in France, UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Russia, and Canada. Their appearances in the US have been woefully few. DUB MISSION and FUTURE PRIMITIVE SOUND are proud to present their return to the States after four long years.
 

The main objective of the sound is to bring something of the original Jamaican dancehall vibes of the 1970’s and early 80’s to a wider audience. Choosing from vintage 20-years-old classics to modern gems, selectors Dom Sotgiu and General Lee keep the vibes up to date with the aid of dub mixology while master vocalist/rapper Ranking Joe performs live on the mic over their riddim tracks, and Lee joins in. Before B&F started touring outside the UK, most people in Europe and North America had never seen or heard the authentic style of Jamaican sound system – featuring deejays and singers performing live over dubplates, but when they see the B&F show they make the connection!¬† Developed in 1993, by long-time reggae authority Steve Barrow and the management company of Simply Red (including singer Mick Hucknall) B&F has set the standard in the field of reggae music for the last ten years, supplying the world with carefully-selected gems, in comprehensive, lovingly-prepared reissues. The label has enjoyed great artistic and commercial success with its releases on the Ranking Joe, The Congos, Horace Andy, Yabby You, Big Youth and King Tubby, among others. Crucially, it has also led the way in its business dealings. Almost for the first time, the rights of both producers and artists were recognised and respected and the company pays royalties to over 80 individuals, based on sales from the 45 full-price albums thus far released.
 

Born Joseph Jackson in Kingston, Jamaica, Ranking Joe got his start on record with the founding father of Jamaican music–the late producer Seymour “Sir Coxsone” Dodd (Studio 1), cutting “Gun Court” in 1975 as Little Joe. He recorded for a variety of producers including Bunny Lee, Watty Burnett, Prince Tony Robinson, and former African Brother Derrick Howard. By 1976 he was deejaying on the legendary sound system of Daddy U-Roy and building up a formidable reputation as a live deejay/chanter. He began recording hits for Sonia Pottinger (“Shine Eye Gal” 1978) and was the first deejay to record for Sly & Robbie’s Taxi label when he versioned Gregory Isaacs’ hit “Soon Forward” (“Stop Your Coming & Come” in 1978).¬† He recorded for Joe Gibbs (“Leave Fi Mi Girl Arleen”), Jo Jo Hookim’s Channel One [“Weakheart Fade Away”] and Dennis Brown (the excellent “Around The World” album reissued by Blood & Fire) and moved to another sound system, the newly reconstructed Ray Symbolic Hi-Fi with Jah Screw as selector. They took away the championship in 1980. Along with Jah Screw, he worked on the last dub album to be mixed by King Tubby at his old studio, “Dangerous Dub.” Since the ‚Äò80s, Joe has maintained a base in Bronx, New York, producing records for his label with scores of top reggae artists such as Frankie Paul, Sugar Minott, Dennis Brown, Glen Washington, Glen Brown, The Meditations and Papa San, and on tracks for New York label Massive B (Bobby Konders). He also recorded with NY’s Easy Star crew, (appearing on their big-selling “Dub Side Of The Moon”) and for Ryan Moore’s Twilight Circus Dub Sound System.¬† Joe has been one of the most influential pupils of the great U-Roy, introducing the so-called ‘fast style’ to rapturous dancehall audiences.¬† His fast chat on the mic has been copied by younger artists many times, people like Heavy D, Papa San, Beenie Man and the late Pan Head being the most free to big up Joe as their teacher!¬† He is simply one of the best deejays in the world.

Born Gary Douglas in Kingston, Jamaica in 1962, MC/Selector/Producer General Lee started his musical career at the age of eight by DJing acapella style over jukebox records. His grandfather rented jukeboxes to bars, and Lee would travel with his grandfather and entertain customers by signing over dub versions. By the age of 14, he had his first live experience with Sir Barry’s Sound System in Clarendon, Ja. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Kingston, where he met Bob Marley, Big Youth, Gregory Isaacs and many others. His first recording, “Slam Bam,” came in 1977 on Jamaica Sound under the moniker of Ranking Tony, which he later changed to General Lee on the advice of Al Campbell. For the next few years, he operated and MCd for Jack Scorpio’s Sound System and others in Jamaica and the UK.  He started his own label High Power Records in 1983, recording a tribute to General Echo called “Echo Debt.” Lee has recorded many bright stars of the roots and dancehall scene since, including Frankie Paul, Al Campbell, Trinity, Gregory Isaacs, Michael Rose, Glen Washington, Sizzla, Buju Banton, Everton Blender, TOK, JC Lodge. His biggest successes are ”Old Time People Say”  by Al Campbell, and the platinum-selling “Street Respect” by Sean Paul (on Tabla Rhythm, recorded with Sly & Robbie).

Dom (born Dom Sotgiu) began DJing in 1987. By 1997 he had taken a job at the B&F label and embarked on a live sound system tour with original Jamaican deejays and Steve Barrow as selector. Playing at major international festivals, parties and clubs, B&F also started a weekly reggae night in Manchester often attracting sell-out crowds and special guests including Brinsley Forde, Manasseh, Spikey Tee, Mr. Scruff, Mikey Don and loads of others. The sound system now has a monthly night at Cargo in London where they play to a packed house, they have Horace Andy as guest singer regularly and use Ranking Joe and U Brown as resident DJ’s (MC’s) along with Country Culture and Spikey Tee. Guest DJs from Jamaica often just turn up and sing or chat.

“The other day a mail order customer called up and ordered Finnish post-rockers Circle’s tUMULt release “Andexelt”, and also “Ciudad de Brahman” by Argentinean stoner-rock outfit Natas. I immediately suggested that he also get a copy of this debut CD by Pharoah Overlord, which, being the “stoner rock” project of Circle’s Jussi Lehtisalo, is pretty much a perfect cross between the hypnotic riff-repetition and rhythmic pulse of Circle and the super heavy stoner vibe of Kyuss-worshippers Natas! Jussi describes this project (which also includes the guitarist from Bad Vugum band Sweetheart) as being “hypno-improv-stoner-rock from Finland (file under psychedelic)” and we’d have to agree, that’s the honest truth. It’s VERY psychedelic in the most head-noddinest of ways, really not that far removed from the heavier Circle output, but with more of a stoner sensiblity that should definitely appeal to fans of Kyuss and the like. The jams on here also hark back to 70’s greats like Pink Floyd and Ash Ra Tempel. It’s all instrumental, all mesmerizing, totally great. Everytime we play it in the store people ask what it is, it’s that good. Definitely if you’re already a sucker for anything Circle (like us!) you’ll want it, and stoner/space rock fans should also be very very happy with this disc. Oh, and yes, it’s called Pharaoh Overlord, how cool is that?”

Allan Horrocks
Aquarius Records

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 Posted: 7:52 AM EST (1252 GMT)

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) — A Florida newspaper has obtained video footage taken by a unit of the Florida National Guard in Iraq that the Army previously investigated as possible detainee abuse.

The 26-minute video, obtained by The Palm Beach Post on Saturday and posted without audio on its Web site, contains graphic images, including a soldier kicking a wounded, moaning Iraqi. It also depicts troops feeding rations to a stray kitten.

Army investigators found no cause to charge anyone in connection with the so-called “Ramadi Madness” video, according to documents released last week.

The Army investigation, which ended in December, determined that the footage illustrated “inappropriate rather than criminal behavior.”

Excerpts from the video were made available online Monday.

The video was a compilation of recordings taken of the actions of B Company, 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment, a Florida National Guard unit that was in Iraq in 2003 and early 2004, according to military officials. The company is based in West Palm Beach.

In one video clip, a soldier is shown manipulating a dead Iraqi, shot while trying to run a checkpoint in a truck. The soldier said he only positioned the body so other U.S. personnel could remove it.

Sgt. Chad Shadle, who compiled the video shot by another soldier, said it was meant only to be seen by the circle of soldiers in Bravo Company. He said he put it together late one night out of boredom.

“People see what they want to see,” Shadle said. “They see abuse and want to cry foul. There was no abuse. I’d like to see these critics attacked every night, mortared every day. I’d like to see how they’d feel, how they’d react.”

Other scenes showed soldiers cleaning the head wound of a detainee during an apparent interrogation and a guardsman showing off his weapon.

Maj. Joseph Lyon, the company’s commander, has said the video led to disciplinary action against a soldier or soldiers, but he declined to give details.

From Arthur contributor John Coulthart:

Banned, yet another Channel 4 series of TV programmes and films based around the theme of censorship, will feature some exploration of the prosecutions of Savoy Books for obscenity in the early 1990s.

Part of the police action against Savoy included the seizure, prosecution and destruction of Lord Horror comics created by David Britton and illustrated by John Coulthart and Kris Guidio. The prosecution of these works and David Britton’s Lord Horror novel is set to be discussed in the four-part Banned in the UK series showing in the UK on C4 from Monday the 7th March to Thursday the 10th March.

Channel 4 listings

John Coulthart’s Lord Horror artwork

Details of the Savoy legal battles