while packing to go away i watched some of the academy awards.
some thoughts:

1-chris rock’s monologue at the beginning was great.

2-um, i don’t really remember the rest of it.

in the ‘inclusive’ spirit of the oscars i would like to suggest new categories for some music awards shows:

1-best microphone placement on an abstract jazz recording.

2-best computer set-up for a band seeking their first record deal.

3-best guitar tuning on an instrumental folk recording.

4-best lighting for a backstage catering set-up.

5-best assistant engineering on a salsa ballad.

etc.

i’m assuming that you get my drift.
ok, time to pack and then wake up and fly to europe to be, ostensibly, entertaining.
and what the hell is it with me and snowstorms?
the last time i left for europe i left on the morning before the big blizzard hit.
and now i’m scheduled to leave on the morning before the second big blizzard hits.
in other words: if you want a big snowstorm in nyc just buy me a ticket to europe and you’re guaranteed some good snow.
sniff.
i like europe, but i really wish that i could stay and hang out in nyc while it snows.
ah well.
moby

so according to donald rumsfeld the u.s is spending 4 billion dollars a month maintaining the military presence in iraq.
or 1 billion dollars a week.
or 140 million dollars a day.
or 6 million dollars an hour.
or 100,000 dollars a minute.
that’s a lot of money.
and i just visited my local police precinct and it’s desperately in need of funding.
and we’re closing down firehouses in new york city cos we don’t have the money to keep them open. and education budgets are being slashed. and budgets for health-care for the poor are being slashed.
so maybe we could cut the war in iraq short by one minute and my local police precinct could be given 100,000 dollars.
or maybe we could cut the war in iraq short by one hour and we could use the 6 million dollars saved so that we wouldn’t have to close as many of new york cities fire houses.
or maybe we could cut the war in iraq short by one day and give 140 million dollars to the new york school system so that the hundreds of thousands of people in new york’s public schools could have a better chance of having a safe and decent education.
just some thoughts.
moby

some thoughts:

1-men as politicians have done nothing (for the most part )but cause problems.
why can’t we have a gender rule wherein only women can be politicians? wouldn’t that be better? wouldn’t women as politicians be inherently less polemical? if ‘polemical’ is a word…’polemic’?
simple question: how many awful, disastrous wars have been started by women? oh, um, none? and by men? oh, um, all of them? so why not have a nice u.n endorsed rule whereby only women can be politicians? just a thought.

2-couldn’t we have a global dictator for 25 years? someone, preferably dutch or scandanavian, who could sort things out globally? someone who could look at international disputes and not have to worry about offending vestigal sovereignties and just impose some rational, dispassionate solutions? i think that a dutch or scandanavian global dictator for 25 years would be a profoundly good thing. cos it’s pretty obvious that in certain places (indonesia, israel, most of sub-saharan africa, canada, the balkans, etc) that territorial disputes are not being entered into with a lot of logic. so the inherently balanced and logical dutch or scandanavians could impose some logic and objectivity into these long-standing territorial disputes.
like tito in yugoslavia…o.k, maybe that’s a bad example…like, uh, one of those top-notch founding fathers in the u.s, one of those guys who actually got people to look beyond their vestigal and short-sighted self interests to see that they would be well served by compromise and diplomacy.

and it’s 7 a.m and i should go to sleep.
oops, 7:18 a.m, and i’m back in nyc and my goal is to not even leave manhattan for the next 4 months. call me provincial.
-moby