Here’s part of the stage show that’s gotten former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters in trouble with the Anti-Defamation League. “Of course Waters has every right to express his political views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through his music and stagecraft,” said ADL head Abe Foxman in a statement. “However, the images he has chosen, when put together in the same sequence, cross a line into anti-Semitism.” (To wit: “An animated scene has projected images of planes dropping bombs in the shape of Jewish stars of David, followed by dollar signs.”) Foxman, of course, just has tons of credibility after his anti-Park 51 stance. But maybe he’s got a point! What Foxman failed to mention is that the lyrics to the song “Goodbye Blue Sky” are deeply offensive as well, if you really listen to what he’s saying.

Here’s a transcription:

Did Jew, did Jew see the frightened ones?
Did Jew, did Jew hear the falling bombs?
Did Jew ever wonder why we had to ruin the shtetl,
When the promise of a brave new world,
Unfurled beneath a clear blue sky?

Did Jew, did Jew see the whitefish come?
Did Jew, did Jew schmeer the bagel, son?
The flames are all long gone,
But the pain lingers on.
Goodbye, blue sky.
Good buy, Jewish guy.
Good buy.
Good buy.

I mean, what is he really trying to say there?

Non-Republican Senators who Voted Yesterday To Block Legislation Ending Tax Breaks for Companies that Outsource Jobs Overseas

by Abe Sauer

• Max Baucus
• Jon Tester
• Ben Nelson
• Mark Warner
• Joseph Lieberman

Science, not persuaded by the commonsense answer of “because they can,” has a theory about why squirrels masturbate: It’s to avoid squirrel STDs. “A masturbating squirrel gets cleaner genitals in two ways — it scrubs the outside bit and flushes out the inside ones.”

It’s a “DEATH BLOW,” says the Politico weblog. If only! But still, thank God someone’s doing something about the most ridiculous Senate race in the country (to be fair to the nuttiness that is 2010, we should probably not give that title away too soon). Florida’s “Independent” Senate candidate Charlie Crist is sending out pictures of far-right candidate Marco Rubio with Che Guevara. Now Democrat Kendrick Meek is putting out this vide of Crist sucking up to the former administration, which, good for him! This is going to end badly but really it couldn’t end badly enough for most of the terrible people involved.

Well, there you go: “An article on Tuesday about a poll in which Americans fared poorly in answering questions about religion misspelled the name of a beatified Roman Catholic nun and Nobel Peace Prize winner. She was Mother Teresa, not Theresa.”

by Andrew Piccone

Tell me about your job.
Well, my job has changed and I’ve switched gears. I spent about 25 years as a composer exclusively working on documentaries, PBS and HBO stuff-”Sesame Street” for fun-mainstream network stuff for money. In the last 3–5 years I’ve started co-producing my own projects which are about people who have experienced profound trauma and come back from it.

How did you get into composing?
Well, that was a long time ago, I got into the composing thing at a young age. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be a writer or a director and I was doing both. But I realized that I was obsessed with rhythm and what was happening underneath the words instead. So I started writing that: the music that no one consciously notices. So it took a while but by the time I was 28 I realized ‘I’m a composer! I am actually being paid to do this.’ So I decided to learn how to write it down and get my chops and be the real thing.

And now you’re working on a documentary?
I’m working on a project about women veterans with disabilities, who are finding their way back to wellness, transitioning home-the unique challenges they face. It’s really interesting. I started co-producing this as a documentary with a friend except now that I’m not just composing, I’m co-producing. I’m involved every step of the way. I’ve been able to connect with hundreds of female veterans, there are so many stories. The film is great, but but I love connecting with with the people. The road to political consciousness? Listen to the stories of our veterans and observe how the people who served us are served. I think that it gets people from the left and the right focused on issues that are profound.

What’s your favorite thing about New York?
Well, I’ve lived in Soho since it was So What? I’ve been out here since 1975, I was just a baby girl. I love the mix here. I grew up in Ohio and Wyoming and I was just surrounded by a much more homogeneous population and I was a freak because I was creative. And I came to New York and all of a sudden I’m the salt of the earth, I’m so square and straight, it’s just divine. I love the diversity and the excitement. I just love New York.

What do you think about where New York is going?
New York is the most wonderful little teeny-tiny world-in the world. And every change that upsets me, economic crisis, terrorism, is everywhere else in the world too. You just have a broader palette of people to react to it here than in other places. New Yorkers just have huge big mouths, and I love that. And I love that its a place where people who have dreams come. Whether it’s leaving other countries, flight from the suburbs, to art, choice, whatever.

What do you hate about New York?
Absolutely nothing.

Any closing words?
Vis a vis your work, particularly if you are an artist: When you find that the people who supported you start dissing you and becoming critical, that’s when you know you’re on the right path.

Andrew Piccone is a photographer in New York City.

“I don’t come to refute Gladwell’s strawman argument….”
-I’ve been waiting for someone to take a swing at Malcolm Gladwell’s argument about how Twitter… isn’t… the Civil Rights Movement? Well here we are, with your host, Anil Dash.

So how are students at Bowdoin, Bates and Colby surviving this semester with no hard alcohol allowed on their campuses? The outright bans-decided on over the summer, when the students were not able to riot and take over administration buildings-seem particularly cruel for these bright young things, cut off as they already are from the rest of society by virtue of their being in college. And Maine. I mean, where and when does an 18- or 19-year-old really need a glass of something strong if not snowed-in in some musty old dorm room during finals week? It’s gonna be like The Shining up there this winter.

Judging from a quick perusal of their respective college newspapers, though, nothing so gory so far.

Bowdoin students are making do with beer. The Bowdoin Orient’s William Albuquerque and some friends celebrated the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest by taste testing Hefeweizens.

After managing to get the pouring technique down (read: beer shower), my group of Hefeweizen compatriots and I were able to truly enjoy the various beers assembled, which included not only authentic Bavarian imports, but also some American takes on the classic German wheat beer.

Colby co-eds, on the other hand, are replacing whiskey and vodka with a more permissive attitude towards beer-and-wine fueled sexual encounters than their peers at other colleges nationwide. From an informal campus poll conducted by The Colby Echo:

“Interfering in a friend’s drunken hook-up might actually go against accepted social codes. ‘Who wants to have their friends intervene in their sex life or be the one to intervene in their friends’ sex lives? No one,’ Kristine Walters ’12 said. ‘If both you and your friends are in agreement that the situation is safe then why not have a little fun?’”

Batesians, meanwhile, are doing their best to remember a time before the ban, years ago, when Absolut ruled the scene and, according to the title of an article in The Bates Student, “What Happens On The Dance Floor Stays On The Dance Floor.”

“In a swirl of spandex, legwarmers and jean cutoffs, the ’80s dance returned last Saturday night, September 18th, while gangs of students got their grind on underneath the library. The live band rocked the arcade with classics like ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ and ‘Your Love,’ renditions that would make Tiffany and The Outfield proud… Although some didn’t manage to ever make it to the dance, those who did were rewarded with raucous dancing and perhaps more bodily contact than they had bargained for.”

“’It appears to me that more people are sitting in cafes smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee than working out … the French don’t see fitness as a lifestyle,’ says American-born fitness consultant Fred Hoffman, who has lived in Paris for 21 years.”
-Uh, GOOD FOR THEM. Drinking and smoking is a lifestyle. Going to the gym is a sick kind of narcissism that even a people as self-regarding as the French recognize as a step to far. I salute you, you Gauloises-smoking, Calvados-guzzling bastards!

Here’s the latest lament of the book publishing industry, which contains this bit that made me chuckle: “’In terms of making a living as a writer, you better have another source of income,’ says Nan Talese, whose Nan A. Talese/Doubleday imprint publishes Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and John Pipkin.” Yes, get a job, Ms. Atwood! How grim. Whatever could one do! This seems a good a time as any to note that you’re all invited to the launch of Mischief and Mayhem Books tonight, a group of writers who work with a publisher who doesn’t pulp books and who splits income with writers and doesn’t give it all away to distributors and who publishes Eileen Myles, what more could you want?