I didn’t watch the Academy of Country Music awards the other night (!), so I was spared what apparently was a wall-to-wall display of feel-good (if relatively mindless) patriotism. But I’m sorry I missed the part where the Dixie Chicks appeared via video from an Austin concert, and were booed in response to Natalie Maines’ teeshirt reading “F.U.T.K.”, which expands to “Fuck You Toby Keith.”

Heh. See this item from Top40-charts.com for more on the Maines/Keith thing.

In case you were wondering, I first came across a mention of this in the permalink-challenged Dizzy Girl weblog, which I was reading because its name caught my eye as I was scanning through the list of losers (most of whom outrank lies.com) at The Truth Laid Bear’s Blogosphere Ecosystem. The reason it caught my eye is that Dizzy Girl is the title of the first song on the really fabulous first (and only?) CD from a 90’s San Francisco band called The Rosemarys, that CD having been my favorite listening for the last few weeks since I heard it on grrl.com’s Grrl Radio.

So. Now you know everything.

Here’s a nice opinion piece from CommonDreams.org focusing on the whole Dixie Chicks thing. By Joy-Ann Lomena Reid: Whistling Dixie. She has a lot of good things to say about the importance of allowing criticism of the president during wartime, including this quotation from Teddy Roosevelt:

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.

There’s also this passage, where Reid hits the nail on the head, at least as far as I’m concerned:

And then there was the hour-long, televised rebuke of the women Thursday night, in which ABC News correspondent Diane Sawyer repeatedly pressed, in tisking, school-marm fashion, for just one more apology to Bush. Maines heroically resisted the attempts to reduce her to a wicked child, who surely must realize that it isn’t nice to criticize her betters, but the interview ought to go down in history with the House Committee on Un-American Affairs hearings for its daring presumption of guilt. What many of the rest of us still don’t get, is just what Maines is guilty of: Feeling ashamed? Being from Texas? Or speaking her mind?

Really. What exactly is Natalie Maines guilty of? Because whatever it is, there’s a whole bunch of us who are just as guilty.

ymatt pointed me to this story, about how Bruce Springsteen is standing up for the Dixie Chicks: Springsteen backs under-fire Dixies. Even better, the story included a small screenshot of the nude-Dixie-Chicks cover of Entertainment Weekly, which reminded me that I’d wanted to see that (for journalistic reasons only, you understand), which led me to track down a bigger version of it here.

Cheesecake factor aside, it’s a pretty cool image. I give Natalie Maines credit for standing up, Bush-like, to her detractors, rather than running off and hiding. Must be a Texas thing. And mad props to Martie Maguire and Emily Robison for standing by Maines, too.

As commented upon interestingly by Sungo at Sungo’s Journal, check out the story of Antron Singleton, rap artist, aspirer after fame, and cannibal.

Some interesing stories drifting past my tiny little mind today, many of them having to do with intelligence and our national news and entertainment media.

First, from today’s craptastic-user-login-required LA Times Business section comes this story: Those flag-waving hits fly with DreamWorks (you can login with cypherpunk98/cypherpunk, at least at the moment). It seems that good liberals Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen have no problem celebrating the major green they’re pulling in from chart-topping patriotic country songs like Darryl Worley’s Have you forgotten? and Toby Keith’s Angry American, both of which are functioning as unifying anthems for the crowd that believes our invasion of Iraq was a logical, appropriate response to the 9/11 attacks.

I’m not saying those songs shouldn’t be recorded, or that people who tend not to think too deeply about international events shouldn’t be free to hoist a few Budweisers and feel a surge of patriotic pride while singing along. The freedom to be stupid is, after all, one of the freedoms we hold dear in this country.

But in order for our country to function properly, there need to be some not-stupids participating in the national debate, too. People who realize that this invasion of Iraq was a huge gift to Osama bin Laden, since it a) distracted the US from pursuing him, b) toppled a secular, Socialist Arab dictator who was a hated, entrenched rival, c) paved the way for the rise of a fundamentalist state in Iraq that will be more sympathetic to him and more hostile to the US, d) united the Arab world in opposition to US imperialism, e) indoctrinated a whole new generation of young Arabs in the glory of martyrdom in opposition to the Great Satan, and f) weakened and isolated the US with virtually all its global allies in terms of pursuing the international law-enforcement effort that is the biggest threat to al Qaeda.

On some level what the folks at Dreamworks are doing is just good business, I know, but on another level they’re helping to dilute the national IQ when they push music like this. I see it having an impact on the debate at every level, and that concerns me.

Another angle on this is the speech that NPR host Bob Edwards gave at the University of Kentucky recently: The press and freedom: some disturbing trends. Among lots of really great comments about the intelligence (or lack thereof) in the messages being delivered by our news media, he had this interesting observation about the flap surrounding Natalie Maines’ remark about being embarrassed Bush was from Texas:

The backlash against the Chicks for making that remark is fine if it comes from ex-fans who say they won’t buy any more records by the Dixie Chicks. The marketplace is a respectable forum for freedom of expression. The Chicks have a right to their opinions. Music fans have a right to tell the chicks to go to hell and to boycott their concerts and refuse to buy their records. Free speech is never really free — it always costs something. But here’s what’s wrong with this picture. The backlash against the Chicks is spearheaded not by fans, but by Clear Channel Radio, owner of 1,250 radio stations. Clear Channel is based in Texas. Clear Channel loves George W. Bush. Clear Channel would like the administration of George W. Bush to remove all remaining restrictions on the ownership of media properties. That is exactly what the Bush administration is considering. The Federal Communications Commission, chaired by Mike Powell, the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, is reviewing the last remaining rules restricting media ownership. Before he became FCC chairman, Mike Powell was a communications lawyer, making fabulous sums of money lobbying on behalf of the broadcast industry — the industry he’s now supposed to be regulating. When he is finished regulating the broadcasting industry, Mike Powell will return to — the broadcasting industry. Now how tenacious is Mike Powell going to be in regulating the broadcasting industry while he is on this temporary hiatus from the broadcasting industry?

But back to Clear Channel, which daily tells Bush and Powell that it loves them. Is Clear Channel’s move on those Dixie Chicks an expression of patriotism or a business decision? Should Clear Channel have the right to ban the Chicks from its 1,250 stations? I think what individuals do is fine — burn the CDs if you want. What industry does is another matter. Clear Channel can say the Dixie Chicks are tools of Saddam if it wants to, but it should not be allowed to kill the livelihood of any recording artist based on politics.

Oh. Side issue: As previously mentioned, I submitted a letter to the editor of the local weekly paper, griping about people lying in support of the war. They published my letter today. Woo! (It’s about halfway down, under the Coastal View-supplied headline, “Show me the evidence,” which isn’t the emphasis I would have chosen to put on it, but at least they didn’t introduce any spelling errors or anything.) So, my own tiny contribution to the local debate is on the record now; I’ll let you know if anyone mentions it to me when I’m at Vons or picking my kid up at preschool or whatever.

Finally, here’s an excerpt from a nice column by Charley Reese: Poor Sean Hannity.

There is a definitely a whiff of anti-intellectualism — so characteristic of fascist states — in the air. Beware of bully boys who worship the military and scoff at museums and libraries. Beware of people whose limited brains see everyone as either an ally or an enemy. Beware of people who can’t tell the difference between patriotism and military conquest. Beware of people so stupid and ignorant that they accept anything and everything the political and the media demagogues tell them.

Thomas Jefferson, who would have been outraged by the loss of the museum and the library, said, “Those who expect to be ignorant and free expect what never was and never will be.” Amen cubed.

I’m no longer concerned about liberals or conservatives, leftists or rightists. I just pray to God for a non-ideologue with a three-digit IQ. If we don’t elevate the level of intelligence and integrity of our government, we are going to end up floating on the cesspool of history.

I only checked out this story because the headline made me think it was going to be about the Dixie Chicks: Brawl erupts after song played at rodeo. Turns out the song in question was actually Lee Greenwood’s Proud to be an American, but the story is still pretty fun. Way to go, Texas! I don’t know about that “taking care of the rest of the country” stuff that Heather was talking about in the user comments, but Texas is sure taking care of my entertainment needs lately.

Giving me yet another reason to like the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines has apparently annoyed the heck out of many country-music fans with her comment during a recent London show that she was “ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” Even nicer is the way Maines and the group are sticking to their guns, using two subsequent press statements to more specifically explain what they’re unhappy about, rather than backing down.

Here’s an interesting example of how our collective memory is subject to the steady, ongoing erosion of the rough edges indicative of actual truth, leaving behind the smoother surface of something not quite as true, but more consistent with the mental models we employ in our ever-failing quest to hang onto meaning. Or something like that. Anyway, check out this story about a U.S. poster company’s decision to airbrush out the cigarette in Paul’s hand in recent versions of the image from the Abbey Road cover. I also came across this nice little montage that includes the original as well as other shots from the same photo session.

Define Irony: Bill Wyman suing Bill Wyman for using the name Bill Wyman. The catch is, ‘Bill Wyman’ isn’t Bill Wyman’s real name — Bill Wyman was born with it before Bill Wyman started using it. (as seen on slashdot)

It seems that Elvis Presley’s personal hair stylist of 20 years collected the King’s clippings, then recently gave them to a friend. Said friend is now auctioning the hair (along with “letters of authenticity from hair-collecting experts”). The starting bid is set at $10,000; no word on whether we can expect future auctions of the King’s toenail clippings, earwax, or navel lint, but a fan can always hope.

from the combined-Britney-AND-RIAA-story dept.

You knew it was coming, but in a new series of commercials, a number of artists with enormous record contracts — including our lass Britney — will be letting their fans know that music sharing is the same as stealing CDs. I think I’m actually more frightened of Britney pouting at her fans over music sharing than I am of all the RIAA lawsuits.

from the music-that-matters dept.

Your new favorite bands are Rachel’s and Godspeed You Black Emperor! if you knew about them, high five, if not here you go.

from the yee-hah dept.

Maverick country star Steve Earle has recorded a song in honor of “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh. Titled “John Walker’s Blues,” the tune compares Lindh to Jesus, speaks favorably of Islam’s teachings, and generally goes out of its way to annoy the hell out of the conservative country music mainstream. Cool.

from the dept.

a_stupid_box writes “So it seems that Sony’s awesome encryption, meant to curb the “piracy” [ed. note: LIBERATION in the circles I converse with] of music from CDs, can be circumvented by spending less than the cost of a bag of Gummi Worms… and that’s not even PER DISC!”

from the passing-the-baton dept.

Scheduled to appear in the Metropolitan Opera’s final event of the season, in what had been billed as the final performance of his career, Luciano Pavoratti called in sick Saturday, so a 33-year-old Sicilian named Salvatore Licitra sang the role of Mario Cavaradossi from Puccini’s Tosca in his place – and brought down the house. Who says stuff like that only happens in the movies?

from the antiques-roadshow dept.

Paul McCartney (excuse me; Sir Paul McCartney) has obtained a court injunction halting an auction of the original handwritten lyrics to ‘Hey Jude’, claiming the lyrics had disappeared from his home under mysterious circumstances. The best part of the story is the original response given by Christie’s, the auction house, which had appraised the value of the sheet of notebook paper at more than $100,000: that if Sir Paul wanted his lyrics back, he should just bid on them at the auction. The judge said, uh, no.

from the judges-are-no-fun dept.

Killing a very funny story before it even had a chance, Judge Robert Alsdorf has ruled that celebrity widow Courtney Love does not have to undergo psychiatric testing. The testing had been requested by the two surviving members of Nirvana, who are engaged in a long-running legal dispute with Love over the Nirvana back catalog, and who argued in court that her mental problems were causing her to make irrational business decisions.

from the here-we-are-now.-entertain-us. dept.

Bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer David Grohl have charged Courtney Love (widow of dead Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain) with incompetence. They want a psychiatric evaluation performed to determine if Love’s alleged craziness is responsible for the trouble they have been having in wringing enough cash from the corpse of Nirvana for them to live a life of ease. My take? No, they just suck.

from the post-hoc-ergo-prompter-hoc dept.

A new study is being cited by the music industry as proof that file-sharing systems and CD burners are hurting sales of music CDs. Interesting how, in the days before they managed to kill off Napster, increased CD sales were happening despite the popular song-swapping service. Now that Napster is gone, the drop in sales is being blamed on the (arguably less useful) services that replaced it. I’ve got a better explanation: Napster helped CD sales, reacquainting people with their favorite forgotten music and with new music that the suckily degregulated radio industry wasn’t exposing them to. It is the record industry itself that is responsible for sowing the seeds of its current harvest of ill-will. Serves them right.

from the shining-happy-medicated-people dept.

Proving that having charismatic rock stars as character witnesses never hurts, REM guitarist Peter Buck has been acquitted by a British jury in his “air rage” trial. The jury apparently bought Buck’s assertion that it was an unintended side effect of a sleeping pill, rather than a prodigious quantity of wine, that caused him to wig out on the British Airways flight. The prosecution branded Buck a liar, but jurors apparently found the testimony of U2’s Bono, who characterized Buck as “famously peaceful,” more compelling. Cool.