Catching Up

Hello, I'm back from a lovely trip to Europe. I may bore you with a photo or two eventually.

Having been out of the country for over two weeks and having adopted my usual vacation policy of mostly ignoring the news, I've been only slowly catching up on various stories: the oil spill (luckily BP and the government are collaborating to ease my load on that score!), the destruction of the Gaza aid flotilla, and, today, the violence in Jamaica. The relationship between Kingston's gangs and Jamaica's two major political parties is complex and has a long history. I'm not remotely qualified to provide that history, but this interview at the Soundclash blog and this article from the NYT provide some good background as well as an indication of how difficult it will be to change the way things work in Kingston.

My brain is still readjusting to being in America, going to work, etc., so in lieu of anything more substantial from me, here are some things I enjoyed reading upon my return to the internet: Chris Ruen continues to do good work on the consequences of freeloading; here he addresses the rise of corporate patronage as a replacement for the traditional label-based music industry. Nitsuh Abebe wrote a great column on the furor over the New York Times profile of M.I.A. (and this post really made me want to seek out the recently deceased David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress). Glenn Kenny's consumer guide to recent blu-ray releases makes me want to rob a bank or at least acquire a blu-ray player.

Look: a meal I can make with complete confidence on Meals; For Moderns--this was also what I ate for lunch pretty much every day in Europe. Kathy took some great photos on her recent trip to Utah. One upshot of Arizona's descent into full-on lunacy is that Utah no longer holds the most-gorgeous-but-scary-state crown; congratulations Utah! I drained Weird Baby of color. And this funny post at the Soul Review features an amazing video of Ike and Tina Turner covering "Come Together".