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Stapes

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  9. Question of the Day

    in Soundboard

    Posted

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    June 17, 2002 -- In their 20 years of creating innovative rock music, They Might Be Giants have broken many music conventions. But even with all their experience with albums, videos, theme songs, and media appearances, the duo had never before put together a children's CD.

    Why children's music? The two Johns --- Flansburgh and Linnell -- explain that TMBG's music already sounded child-like with its simplicity and energy. "There's always been the thing about the spirit of They Might Be Giants as a band that is very childlike . . . Making a children's album seemed like a natural," says Flansburgh.

    In addition to music, every track on their new CD -- simply titled No! -- has an "enhanced" animated section, with visuals complementing the music when played on a computer.

    The duo had to be careful with the topics of the music for this CD, they told host Robert Siegel on All Things Considered. "Our other records have happy, friendly-sounding melodies, they're very melodic, and there's not very much swearing . . . but they do cover a lot of topics that would really be unsuitable for kids, namely death and deep disappointment and bitterness and things like that," says Flansburgh.

    Their new CD focuses on children's topics, including crossing the street safely and getting to bed. "It seemed like a good thing to stick on the record, but the thing that made it sort of different was that it's one of the most raucous tracks on the record," says Flansburgh. "It doesn't really make you want to go to bed."

  11. WATCHMEN (the Movie)

    in Soundboard

    Posted

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    LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - British filmmaker Paul Greengrass, who shot the summer hit "The Bourne Supremacy," is set to direct "The Watchmen," a project based on the seminal DC Comics limited series of the same name.

    Darren Aronofsky ("Pi") had been attached to direct the Paramount Pictures project but bowed out because of scheduling conflicts. He is shooting "The Fountain," starring Hugh Jackson.

    "The Watchmen," created by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbon and originally released in 1986 as a 12-issue comic book, is credited with redefining the superhero genre. It tells a crime-conspiracy story that provided the first realistic look at the behind-the-heroics lives of superhero archetypes.

    Set in an alternate America, "Watchmen" follows the costumed hero Rorschach, who is living a vigilante lifestyle because most masked heroes have retired or been outlawed. While investigating a murder, he learns that a former masked-hero colleague has been killed, prompting him to begin investigating a possible conspiracy.

    With Greengrass aboard, the project is now eyeing a possible 2006 release date. Greengrass, known for his gritty style, also wrote and directed the critically lauded Irish saga "Bloody Sunday."

  16. Break out the tinfoil hats!

    in Soundboard

    Posted

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    Nov. 18) -- Eyewitnesses all over the country are reporting glimpses of something large, dark and mysterious in the skies above big cities and busy highways. The crafts are often described as triangular in shape, silent in their movements, and of unknown origin, and they've been seen here in southern Nevada. It looks like these mystery craft might be a secret military project, but if so, why are they flying around in the open?

    "Look at them, there's three or four of them." In 1997, thousands of eyewitnesses watched in awe as a boomerang-shaped formation of lights cruised slowly and silently over the city of Phoenix. "They're lined up in a pattern." Witnesses first thought these were separate lights, flying in formation, but quickly realized the lights were all part of a single, gigantic something.

    Full Story

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    Probably one of these.

  19. Australian Scientist: WAR CRIME COMPLAINT

    in Soundboard

    Posted

    Should Canada indict Bush?

    THOMAS WALKOM

    When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Ottawa — probably later this year — should he be welcomed? Or should he be charged with war crimes?

    It's an interesting question. On the face of it, Bush seems a perfect candidate for prosecution under Canada's Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

    This act was passed in 2000 to bring Canada's ineffectual laws in line with the rules of the new International Criminal Court. While never tested, it lays out sweeping categories under which a foreign leader like Bush could face arrest.

    In particular, it holds that anyone who commits a war crime, even outside Canada, may be prosecuted by our courts. What is a war crime? According to the statute, it is any conduct defined as such by "customary international law" or by conventions that Canada has adopted.

    War crimes also specifically include any breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, such as torture, degradation, wilfully depriving prisoners of war of their rights "to a fair and regular trial," launching attacks "in the knowledge that such attacks will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians" and deportation of persons from an area under occupation.

    Outside of one well-publicized (and quickly squelched) attempt in Belgium, no one has tried to formally indict Bush. But both Oxfam International and the U.S. group Human Rights Watch have warned that some of the actions undertaken by the U.S. and its allies, particularly in Iraq, may fall under the war crime rubric.

    The case for the prosecution looks quite promising. First, there is the fact of the Iraq war itself. After 1945, Allied tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo — in an astonishing precedent — ruled that states no longer had the unfettered right to invade other countries and that leaders who started such conflicts could be tried for waging illegal war.

    Concurrently, the new United Nations outlawed all aggressive wars except those authorized by its Security Council.

    Today, a strong case could be made that Bush violated the Nuremberg principles by invading Iraq. Indeed, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has already labelled that war illegal in terms of the U.N. Charter.

    Second, there is the manner in which the U.S. conducted this war.

    The mistreatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison is a clear contravention of the Geneva Accord. The U.S. is also deporting selected prisoners to camps outside of Iraq (another contravention). U.S. press reports also talk of shadowy prisons in Jordan run by the CIA, where suspects are routinely tortured. And the estimated civilian death toll of 100,000 may well contravene the Geneva Accords prohibition against the use of excessive force.

    Canada's war crimes law specifically permits prosecution not only of those who carry out such crimes but of the military and political superiors who allow them to happen.

    What has emerged since Abu Ghraib shows that officials at the highest levels of the Bush administration permitted and even encouraged the use of torture.

    Given that Bush, as he likes to remind everyone, is the U.S. military's commander-in-chief, it is hard to argue he bears no responsibility.

    Then there is Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. says detainees there do not fall under the Geneva accords. That's an old argument.

    In 1946, Japanese defendants explained their mistreatment of prisoners of war by noting that their country had never signed any of the Geneva Conventions. The Japanese were convicted anyway.

    Oddly enough, Canada may be one of the few places where someone like Bush could be brought to justice. Impeachment in the U.S. is most unlikely. And, at Bush's insistence, the new international criminal court has no jurisdiction over any American.

    But a Canadian war crimes charge, too, would face many hurdles. Bush was furious last year when Belgians launched a war crimes suit in their country against him — so furious that Belgium not only backed down under U.S. threats but changed its law to prevent further recurrences.

    As well, according to a foreign affairs spokesperson, visiting heads of state are immune from prosecution when in Canada on official business. If Ottawa wanted to act, it would have to wait until Bush was out of office — or hope to catch him when he comes up here to fish.

    And, of course, Canada's government would have to want to act. War crimes prosecutions are political decisions that must be authorized by the federal attorney-general.

    Still, Prime Minister Paul Martin has staked out his strong opposition to war crimes. This was his focus in a September address to the U.N. General Assembly.

    There, Martin was talking specifically about war crimes committed by militiamen in far-off Sudan. But as my friends on the Star's editorial board noted in one of their strong defences of concerted international action against war crimes, the rule must be, "One law for all."

    LINK

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  20. Random Lyric Thread

    in Soundboard

    Posted

    When the routine bites hard

    and ambitions are low

    And the resentment rides high

    but emotions won't grow

    And we're changing our ways,

    taking different roads

    Then love, love will tear us apart

    again (4)

    Why is the bedroom so cold

    Turned away on your side?

    Is my timing that flawed,

    our respect run so dry?

    Yet there's still this appeal

    That we've kept through

    our lives

    Love, love will tear us apart again (4)

    Do you cry out in your sleep

    All my failings expose?

    Get a taste in my mouth

    As desperation takes hold

    Is it something so good

    Just can't function no more?

    When love, love will tear us apart

    again (4)

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