Maven's Mini-Concert: The Broun Fellinis

My husband saw these guys in a club in the Lower Haight for our first "date" as I brought my best friend with us as well. These guys seriously play delicious music. Check out The Broun Fellinis myspace site.

Maven's Mini-Concert: Otis Redding at Monterey

If you can own one concert movie on DVD, my pick would be The Complete Monterey Pop Festival featuring an amazing set of Otis Redding.

Friends Don't Let Friends Abuse the Adult Content Flag

Something real uncool happened to me on Yahoo 360. Someone who had a problem with my politics decided to flag my blog post for March 31st entry with the graphic "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican" as adult content. There was one word in a very long post that I could conceivably be anywhere near adult and I changed it from balls to Guts, but I have no way to get the flag taken off. So what protects authors from harrassing flagging? Of course, Yahoo can say that the adult flag isn't censorship since they didn't remove the post, just made it invisible to people who have the adult filter on like myself and give no way for me, the author, to make it right.

A while ago as part of a writing contest I posted an artwork with a naked, mutilated, woman that was posted elsewhere on the 360 world and was in the context of writing about abused women, or women who mutilize themselves for beauty. One of my 360 friends wrote me to tell me that this painting could be offensive to some cultures with more modesty standards. I instead linked to it giving people an opportunity to see it or not. I have always strived to avoid the adult rating. I don't take invites from people who have adult content on their 360 site, because I do not want people to access that stuff from my page. If people had problem with what I write I would hope they would have the GUTS to tell me and allow me the opportunity to make amends. I am a mother and a long time Internet citizen since 1992. I was even named one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web. I don't deserve to be treated this way -- no one does.

I can only conclude that they didn't because they wanted to harrass me for my political views which may differ from others, but are quite reasonable and reasoned.

I am mostly upset at Yahoo 360 who allowed this harrassment to occur and gave me no means to appeal or make good within their Terms of Agreement. I had to use their own harrassment reporting to let them know what had occured. If this doesn't get resolved, I don't know what I will do.

The thing is I see a lot of offensive things that are not flagged adult. I don't flag it, instead I let the person know what it is offended me and why, and say that I cannot visit their site again unless they fix it. It would be tempting to be hardnosed and go around flagging things as adult, but I believe in freedom of speech and expression too much to do that. I would protect the right of everyone to express themselves even if I passionately disagreed with. I guess there are people out there who lack the moral and civil fortitude to do the same.

So whoever did this, thanks for ruining my day. I assume that was your intent. Bravo! You succeeded! Next time, If you have a problem with what I say have the ***** to tell me directly.

Put the Phone Down and Drive!

Yesterday, my son and husband almost got run over by a woman on a cellphone. Despite my husband yelling at her, she was oblivious and still on the phone. This call was obviously more important than the lives of my son and my husband. How am I supposed to feel about this woman? How am I supposed to feel about people who decide that other's people's safety is less important than their conversation?

In my experience if a driver is driving erratically and in an unsafe manner they are deep in conversation on the cell phone. What amazes me is I see women doing this while their kids are in the car. What is she thinking.

Being able to multi-task shouldn't be more important than other people's safety.

If I am driving and not expecting a call, I figure that is what voicemail is for. If I am driving and expecting a call, the call goes like this, "On the road, on my way/late, bye." If it is an important call that has to take awhile, I pull over and stop the car to talk. No conversation is worth another person's life.

I am old enough to remember that people multi-tasked and functioned without a cell phone. So I am not going to buy that any cell call while driving is important. If there is an emergency, pull over the car. Otherwise, it can wait.

Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican

I have been feeling cranky lately. My husband has been turning the radio dial over to Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura, and my dad likes to watch Fox News. The thing is as I surf around the Internet I hear the same spin and parroting of the Bush administration that defies logic. They continue to blame liberals for everything, forgetting they had a monopoly on power till the 2006 election. You can see this in Nerdman's blog entry, Defending America by not defending America . Watch how he never really questions Bush's incompetence except for the lame excuse, "We NEEDED to get involved. Iraq HAD to happen. Not in the WAY it was pursued, but it HAD to happen." I understand he NEEDS to believe that, because otherwise he has to face the fact that he was horribly wrong. If you read enough about warfare, every war seems inevitable at the time with the drums of war a pounding, you pull back and look at the motivations, the missed signals, poor intelligence, and poor decision making and you can see that no war is inevitable or only has one way it could go.



The only movement to accomplish anything was the act of Democrats sweeping out the screw-ups called republicans. Republicans didn't have the guts to reign in their incompetent President and the American people responded.

Then I come across Becky with lots of hearts. She too likes to blame liberals for everything and attribute positions to liberals that have no evidence whatsoever. She sees Rosie O'Donnell bring up a conspiracy theory and automatically that all liberals believe it and totally ignores that her side of political belief have come up with some whoopers too in WAY TO GO POPULAR MECHANICS!!. She also misses out in having a enlightening discussion about religious literacy to blame liberals for pedophilia, incest, and if you let her go on that we are responsible for Sanjaya still being on American Idol.

The whole concept of a "liberal conspiracy" also makes me laugh. I am a liberal who has over the years worked with other liberals, our "democratic" decision models make it impossible to decide any one conspiracy to focus on. Believe me, we wouldn't get as far as deciding whether to free Mumia, Tibet, or lab animals. I have been trying this novel idea of picking one thing to protest on per protest event, I am still waiting.



Then I found Conservative Voice's blog where he/she states quite boldly in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that global warming is a hoax. Heck, a huge majority of Americans believe in Angels and UFOs.

Don't mistake me, I will defend all these people in the right to believe and boldly state their opinion, but I have the equal right to argue against them and demand that they defend their beliefs. It is their right to question my beliefs. That is how the marketplace of ideas are supposed to work.

I get cranky because I have all these conservative bloggers, talking heads, and politicians telling the public about what I as a liberal believe -- they are absolutely wrong. I am a liberal, if you have a question about what liberals stand for I can tell you. I will give it to you straight because I am not ashamed of being a liberal. I was a liberal feminist in the Reagan era where feminazis and liberalism was attacked all the time. Don't listen to Ann Coulter, Rush, Dr. Laura, O'Reilly, or the Bush administration what we believe because they all have their bread buttered defending a particular ideology. I don't even get shells and shiny objects for sharing my opinion.

If liberals screw up, I will tell you. If I screw up I will tell you.

I am liberal, but I am an independent liberal. I am registered "decline to state" for a reason. Politicians have to earn their vote.

I don't have a problem with traditional economic conservatives, I may not agree with their ideas, but I understand where they are coming from. I do lean towards libertarian instincts, but think you can take libertarianism too far. Religious right folks have the right to believe what they believe, but my tolerance ends when they try to get government to reinforce their religious beliefs. To those who want to snoop in our bedrooms, I say, "Shoo! Get your own life! Mind your own morals!"



I love and live for political debate with people who disagree with me, because I get bored preaching to the crowd. Every once in awhile I get enormously cranky when I hear people parroting the Bush administration or Fox News. People I really try to get my sources through relatively unbiased sources...work with me here.

All Bow Down to His FauxHawk!

He taunts us. He dares us to vote him off as he knows that he is invinceable. It kind of reminds me when Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day realizes since his day keeps repeating everyday there are no real consequences. Sanjaya's fauxhawk is Bill Murray stealing the Groundhog and driving angry to their demise. Of course, this is just snarky speculation. He is most likely a clueless teen, who is led to believe that America loves him. The fauxhawk may just him being silly -- thinking it would be cool.

What is not cool is the whole anti-Indian vibe I have been seeing around the net, and sometimes people think he is Iranian. Let's stick to the plain fact that this person just can't sing, and needs to be voted off. Now.

Movie Maven: Shut Up and Sing

In the time leading up to the Iraq war, people around the world were against the United States invading Iraq. While an overwhelming amount of Americans supported the war, there were Americans who were against the war. The opponents of War warned the United States that they were making a grave error in this pre-emptive invasion. Much of the warnings that were ignored came to pass.

I remember when Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks told her British audience that she was supportive to the opposition of the war and that she was embarrassed that Bush was from her home state of Texas. I thought that it was a brave stand and that she gave voice to the Texans I knew who always thought that the Bush family were mere carpetbaggers who did little for their state.

This movie documents the consequences they faced and still face because those 12 little words of dissent. Country fans abandoned them for speaking out in a foreign country and being the All-American country-girl face of anti-war sentiment. This movie illustrates how the consolidation of radio stations under huge right wing corporate leaders intensified the consequences the Dixie Chicks faced. They could no longer count that their music would be played on any country station.

The Dixie Chicks are enormously talented women who are mothers of small children. They have to tour, record their next album, spend time with their small children often while they are pregnant. They contend with all that and have to deal with death threats, pickets, commentators calling them traitors, stupid, and all kinds of harsh words, and boycotts.

I don't question the right to boycott performers or anyone in the media. I stand by the right of people who boycott Dr. Laura, so I must stand by those who boycotted The Dixie Chicks. I just think that they had to put up with far more crap for just 12 words. Part of that is that the right wing had control of enough radio outlet to fuel the rage against them that couldn't have happened 10-20 years ago.

I think that while they did pay the price by losing the country audience, I think the experience made their music better. I think their last album is brilliant and about very important things that they have went through. My favorite song of theirs is "Not Ready to Make Nice" echoes a lot of anger I have built up over the Bush administration and their followers. It really sums up nicely what people went through speaking out against the Bush war machine. Now that the anti-war crowd is vindicated (an unsatisfyingly sad vindication) and people are now seeing that we were right, we are still angry what we were put through and people who questioned out patriotism have not earned the right to our good will.

The Dixie Chicks were one of the countless casualties of this Bush administration's march to war and general incompetance, but also to the worrying trend of media consolidation. See the film and decide for yourself.