Writ of Habeous Canus Crapitus

Anybody who doesn't think that legislation alone can clean up a city should read Robert Fripp's Diary for the last three days. Seems his experiences of Paris so far this week have been one pile of Dog Doo (literally) in the streets after another. He doesn't even need to begin to make any comments on the stereotype of how bad the people smell; their shoes alone seem to meet that one without argument.

Bowever, he does comment on how, within a WEEK of passing legislation, New York City's dog poo problem seemed almost permanently solved. The EPA at the local level certainly is effective, no?

Shame the EPA at the national level right now doesn't give a shit about anything, much less shit itself.

He also notes: "Paris is a city where people meet to consensually blow smoke over each other." (note: though I'm a non-smoker, and appreciate the concern for non-smoking sections, a concept that's unheard of on the EU continent, I do not support the absolute bans in NYC, California, or locally in Montgomery County, MD).

Well, if that's the legacy he wants to be remembered by...

The double-talk continues...

"[...]. We've got plenty of money in Washington D.C.," Bush said, making no mention of this year's projected half-trillion-dollar budget deficit. -- from an article on Bush's visit to Kentucky this week.

I wonder if Lewis Carroll is laughing or crying at how someone with worse logic skills than his best creations 1) exists, and 2) is actually running the country...

Once again, a little unhealthy paranoia has ruined many lives...

The insanely cumbersome process of entering America now goes something like this: first, the manager or producer or venue who wants to book a foreign artist must petition one of four USCIS service centres. They must prove the artist is unique, extraordinary or renowned, and that he or she intends to return to their home country after their work is done.

If the petition is accepted, it is then sent to the artist in their home country, and the artist in turn brings it to the US consulate, where he or she is fingerprinted and interviewed. After the interview, the waiting begins, as the consulate sends the application to the Department of Homeland Security and "all interested agencies". It may take seven weeks, it may take seven months, but - and here the Kafkaesque institutional absurdity really takes hold - the law says that visas can be applied for, at the earliest, only six months in advance. Waits of up to 10 months are not uncommon.

Nor are visa applications that are never returned. "A case can disappear into the ozone," says Ginsburg. The entire process normally runs from $2,000 to $4,000 per artist, depending on lawyers' fees, and that does not include travelling expenses to and from consulates. In Iran, there is no American consulate, so someone like Kiarostami must travel to Syria and back - twice.

-- source: The Guardian.

So this month and next, with all the Celtic musicians visiting from Ireland and Canada, be sure to thank them profusely and perhaps apologize to their managers for the amount of crap they had to go through to get them here.

And be sure to go and buy their merchandise like CDs and T-Shirts -- $2000 / person for a 7-person group like Dervish (playing next month at National Geographic) means the group itself is seeing next to no money at all for the gigs (which already pay too little as it is), so the only dime they might see are increased CD sales.