Red

(Red)Wire will launch on December 1, World Aids Day, with its first selection of music that will benefit the (Red) organization, which though the Global Fund helps HIV infected people in Africa. Bob Dylan, U2, R.E.M., Coldplay, the Killers and Elvis Costello are among the first artists signed up for the initiative. For both creativity and humanitarianism (and some potentially great music) this is a terrific idea on many levels. Oh, and this holiday season you'll also be able to help the Global Fund through Starbucks by drinking some of their holiday coffees.

A new day breaks...

For today only, Bruce Springsteen's new single, "Working on a Dream", will be available as a free download from iTunes and the official Bruce Springsteen site. (The digital single will go on sale beginning tomorrow). The song is a preview from the album of the same name, which will be released on January 27. So, 2009 will start off as a banner year with a major new album from Bruce, the follow up to last year's terrific Magic. The new single is a gently swaying pop tune with some sunny and hopeful lyrics and was first performed live by Bruce at an Obama rally just a couple of days before the election.

Sing the Changes

As we transition away from the campaign to the Obama presidency, it seems that it is about time to address some other issues that this blog is intended to address, namely: music! and film! and books!

This seems a perfect time to transition on the blog and mention the imminent release of Electric Arguments from the Fireman. Who are the Fireman you may ask? None other than Sir Paul McCartney and the DJ Youth, who first and anonymously released two albums in the nineties. Now, with anonymity long gone, the duo are set to release their third album; and this one from what I've heard is basically the McCartney follow-up to last year's terrific Memory Almost Full. Unlike the previous albums, which were experiments in dance and electronica, Electric Arguments boasts lyrics and song structures, albeit not quite what we would expect on a traditional album from Sir Paul. I first heard the brilliant song "Sing the Changes" with its soaring melody and almost otherworldly backing vocals (compliments of Sir Paul himself) a few weeks before the election, and I thought it would make the perfect song and anthem for an Obama victory. I think it beautifully captures what came to pass on November 4.

You can hear the song at the Fireman site as well as stream the entire album on NPR's site. Electric Arguments is released on November 25 and we'll be putting a full review of the album up soon.

Hope

Yes we did. November 4 truly brought change to America. Hope is alive and the work is ahead of us, but this is a truly inspiring and wonderful moment for the United States.

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Yes We Can

Finally here it is. Election Day only hours away. After months and months of campaigning and speechifying it all comes down to us. Tomorrow we can elect a man who will help turn America around after eight years of war, corruption, economic neglect and the very subjugation of our constitution. Barack Obama is a man who will be a transformational leader; a man of ideas and the power to inspire us all. We can defeat the forces of fear and the ideas of yesterday with the promise of change and the hope of a brighter future. Others more eloquent than myself have penned words endorsing Barack Obama and this is a good time to share some of them:

Addressing Obama's transformational candidacy and also stating how his eloquence is also a means to govern, The New Yorker's endorsement concludes with, "at a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama."

The New York Times noted that Obama has "the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation’s problems" in their endorsement which concluded that "this country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities."

Always eloquent and never more so in his campaign appearances with and for Obama, Bruce Springsteen talked about the American promise and how it was handed down to us giving us the things that "bind us together and give us faith in our contract with one another." He went on to say that he has spent his life and career "measuring the distance between that American promise and American reality" and that Obama will "restore" that promise and how we can all rebuild the "house that is truer and big enough to contain the hopes and dreams of all of our fellow citizens."

And so, tomorrow we can finally act and with one voice say, "Yes We Can."

Socially Speaking

The cries of "socialism" and "wealth spreader" from the McCain-Palin campaign that have been reigning down on Senator Obama and that are being hooted and booed by the throngs at Republican rallies the past few days are, extrememly ironic on the one hand and deeply dishonest and hypocritical on the other. On two levels there are problems with this latest turn in the campaign saga. One: Obama's tax plans, which are being called "socialistic" are hardly that; and two: what exactly is wrong with a little socialism anyway? Unfortunately and expectedly, these words are being devoured by the throngs that shout and holler at McCain rallies and by gullible people who look no further than any talking point or the latest diversionary tactic.

What McCain and Palin are not stating to their adoring minions, for one thing, are their own "socialistic" behaviors and comments over their time in public life. Back in 2000, McCain said that "when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more"; but that was McCain v.2000 and the McCain who at one point opposed the Bush tax cuts, not McCain v.2008. In an interview this summer with The New Yorker's Philip Gourevitch (conducted weeks before she was picked to be the VP candidate) Palin explained that Alaska is "set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs." Alaska's collective ownership of resources which are then given back to the state's citizens in the form of dividend checks have lead to it being "sometimes described as America's socialist state", according to Gourevitch. Food (or oil) for thought, eh?

Additionally, would Senator McCain be in favor of dismantling America's progressive and graduated income tax? I think not. As Hendrik Hertzberg writes this week, "the federal income tax is (downwardly) redistributive as a matter of principle: however slightly, it softens the inequalities that are inevitable in a market economy, and it reflects the belief that the wealthy have a proportionately greater stake in the material aspects of the social order and, therefore, should give that order proportionately more material support." How about dismantling (entirely) Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and a myriad of other programs that many Americans rely on for everyday life? Again, I think not.

Of course, that is the hidden truth beyond the right's rhetoric: most aspects of what they would call "socialism", are not a bad thing. In fact, caring and supporting for all for the public good and securing a social compact--isn't that what a compassionate and forward looking society should be doing? I'd love to ask the sneering and booing rabble at some of those rallies if they would support the dismantling of the programs just mentioned above; and even more so: how many of them or their family members have benefited from these "socialistic" programs? Once again, the right wing has found a word that simplifies, labels and distorts (communist! socialist!) and tries to turn an honorable candidate and his positions into plans that they say will be the very means to the end of America as we know it. Again, with hope, we can only try and be optimistic that reality and seriousness will prevail next week and not the empty cries of "-isms" and deceitful, vague and distorted talking points.