Roundup:

We've got a new "Think Again" column called "Who's Jailing Journalists?" here in which we wonder, aloud, why the United States has joined the alleged Axis of Evil in jailing journalists without charge.

And I did a piece for the Daily Beast on "The Death of the Neocons" here.

Alter-reviews: Eric on Madeleine Peyroux; Sal on George Harrison.

Eric: I saw Madeleine Peyroux with Bruce Cockburn at Town Hall last week. She is an odd, but beautiful bird. A bohemian style chanteuse who was born with a voice that somehow combines Billie Holiday with Patsy Cline, she has now become an interesting songwriter as well. Her new CD, Bare Bones (Rounder), attempts to move her into the territory occupied by Norah Jones with songs co-written by the likes of Larry Klein and Walter Becker, and wonderful lyrics like "I remember what my daddy taught me 'bout how warm whiskey is in a cold ditch/And one more thing about good and evil: you can't tell which is which" She had a fine acoustic band with her which sounded like no other band I know and sings in French too, which is always a plus. You can find all kinds of stuff, including some pretty fun video of her here. Bruce Cockburn warmed her up, solo. He was his mystical, rather than rocket-launcher self. A matter of choice, I suppose, but it wouldn't be mine.

Sal: Writing about the new George Harrison collection, Let It Roll: Songs By George Harrison, is akin, for pathetic critics like myself, to shooting fish in a barrel. Give a Beatle fanatic an opportunity to rant, in an age when he is still watching a Betamax version of Let It Be and listening to the classic catalogue on CDs mastered when Nina Blackwood was the face of music television, is not a good idea.

"Give me love, give me peace on Earth." HA!! Give me something other than some hastily slapped together collection of tunes, that every Beatles fan has heard a thousand times and more and we got ourselves a ballgame...except...this collection really works.

Let It Roll, by practical measures should have included the killer, stray single "Bangla-Desh," and explained somewhere in the otherwise brilliant and moving liner notes by Warren Zanes, the inclusion of inferior live versions of "Something" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Those complaints aside, Let It Roll is a joyous occasion. It plays like the mix-tape that YOU would have made...except for the exclusion of "Bangla-Desh" and the inclusion of...well...see above.

Sal Nunziato
The Eighth Beatle
www.burnwoodtonite.blogspot.com

This week on Moyers:

On the heels of winning this year's Pulitzer prize for poetry, W.S. Merwin joins Bill Moyers for a wide-ranging conversation about language, his writing process, the natural world, and the insights gleaned from a much-lauded career that's spanned more than 50 years. W.S. Merwin is the author of 21 volumes of poetry and won his second Pulitzer Prize for his most recent collection, The Shadow of Sirius.

The mail:

Name: Bob O'Reilly
Hometown: Cambridge MA

In 1972 when I was a senior in high school I read Tragedy of American Diplomacy in an advanced history seminar. It ranks among the most important books I have read in that it provided me with a method of looking at the actions of the US and many other nations are despite the rhetoric purely national self interest. That economics -- expanding foreign trade for us -- drives many of decisions. I recall much discussion in the book and in class about the Open Door policy regarding China and the feeling that who said the Chinese had to open the door to the US and European products. Really didn't they have the right to keep the door closed if they wanted to.

Name: Steve Thorne
Hometown: Somewhere in California

The healthcare "reform" debate will get us nowhere because we're still thinking in insurance company language. The entire debate is about "insurance," "payer" and "coverage." I don't want "coverage" or "insurance" when some part of me fails or some microbes go somewhere they're not invited. I want to get it fixed or for those microbes to be slaughtered (set "slaughtered" in italics) and not risk losing my house in the process. Until we change the language used in the debate to something not found in the tiny print of an insurance policy, we're not going to fix the problem in this country.

Name: David K. Richie
Hometown: Birmingham, Al

Mr. Charles Pierce,

I am interested to observe that what is left of what used to be the great left wing in this country cannot understand what happened to the single payer option.

While I have no doubt that 75% of us, including degenerate business owner, tax avoiding polluters like me, support some form of government competition, it is hard to imagine the left wing attacking fops like Gingrich and Limbaugh. They are not the problem. The problem is all the candy ass politicians you people elected.

Attacking our (choke, gasp) President is not the answer either. To have a substantial public option you are going to have to convince the doctors, nurses and administrators in a mind boggling bureaucracy that they are not worth what we are now paying them. This is a huge obstacle not even considering the drug cartel, oops, I mean industry.

The continued carping about Obama simply does not address the real issues in the legislature, ie. THE PAYOFFS!

Until then my fellow pope Catholic, you are simply preaching to the choir.

Name: Ray Lodato
Hometown: Chicago, IL

Hey Eric,

Do you know what we call it in Chicago when there are more votes cast than there are voters?

An election.

Name: Ben Miller
Hometown: Washington, DC

Mr. Alterman:

I am not going to pretend to understand all the intricacies of the varying healthcare proposals. But I get upset when I see these articles bringing up the failure to fix health care under Clinton, and maybe with Obama's efforts we are seeing deja vu. The articles usually act as if it was a defeat for Clinton, when in actuality, it should be a black mark on those who stopped reform from happening. Shouldn't the Democrats have a simple response to any such criticism --we wanted to fix health care over a decade ago. The Republicans blocked it. Since then, health care costs have gone up X-amount, the number of uninsured has gone up Y-amount, while profits have increased Z-amount. Politics today is about soundbites, and what can be played quickly on CNN or even tweeted on twitter - wouldn't a simple message of how much worse health care has become say loud and clear that we must act now, and we must do so regardless of any Republican scare tactics.

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