Reader Tips

Reader Tips 71 Comments

Good evening, welcome to EBD’s Wednesday edition of Late Nite Radio. Several weeks ago at SDA, Paul linked to his Cjunk post, “ Gaze In Wonder at Your Frigidaire.” The title is a line from the song “Auschwitz to Ipswich” by Jarvis Cocker, who is perhaps best known as the frontman for the British band Pulp.
One might expect any song about the West’s passivity and unwillingness to defend itself culturally at home to take an anthemic, “we must fight this” tack, but Cocker takes the opposite approach: his first-person narrator is a faithless, dissipated, sadly self-pleasuring Western everyman who has given up the ghost on the matter of his culture. He recognizes a cultural sunset, but since he uses his own life as a reference point, he sees nothing of real value being lost; since society is just himself writ large, it is no more worthy of being saved than he is. Cocker’s apt use in this case of the small, first-person ironic voice serves to limn the inexorable connectedness between citizens’ seemingly inconsequential personal attributes and civilizational changes of historic consequence.
It’s just a song we’re talking about, of course, one mostly notable for its subject matter. Before we get to it, I have a quick question for SDA readers: are there any other popular songs extant that either mention, refer to, defend, or acknowledge the value of western culture — even if only metaphorically — vis a vis others? I can’t think of any; if you can, please elaborate in the comments.
Anyway, here it is, without further ado: Jarvis Cocker sings From Auschwitz to Ipswich.
The comments are open, as always, for your Reader Tips.

71 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  1. “Canada’s economy set to shine on world stage: IMF
    OTTAWA — Canada’s economy is set to outperform nearly all industrialized countries this year and next, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday, leading analysts to declare the country does not need additional stimuli as advocated by certain world leaders at this week’s Group of Eight summit.”
    “As for Canada, the IMF said the economy would contract the least among industrialized nations this year, with a drop of 2.3%, compared with the 3.8% shortfall expected among all advanced economies. In 2010, the Canadian economy is set to post growth of 1.6%, or second-best among advanced nations after Japan’s expected 1.7% gain. In contrast, the U.S. economy is seen recording meagre growth of 0.8%, or half the Canadian output.”
    urlm.in/cscw
    …-
    [Liberal] “Budget officer [Kevin Page] calls for debate on economy”
    “We think we’re going to need a debate,” he told CBC News,”.
    urlm.in/cscx

  2. Missed this as I don’t shop at CeeBeeCEE.
    …-
    “Frost in July hits P.E.I. from CBC News”
    “…frost has never been reported before in July”
    Temperatures dropped to a record low in Prince Edward Island overnight Tuesday, with reports of frost throughout the province.
    An official record low of 3.8 C was set early Wednesday morning at Charlottetown airport.
    The previous record for that date was 5.1 C, set in 2005.
    Bob Robichaud, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said that to his knowledge, frost has never been reported before in July in P.E.I.”
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/

  3. For every 1 (one) trillion dollars of US deficit, that is 160 dollars for every man, woman and child on the planet!
    Do the math.

  4. Max2, hey, it’s only weather, not climate. It’s climate when it gets hot for a day! Get with the program!!

  5. Maz2
    “Canada’s economy set to shine on world stage: IMF
    Can you hear Iggy tearing his hair out and frothing at the mouth?
    “Damn, I must call an election before the economy improves; but I cannot afford an election now”. Heheheh … evil grin!!

  6. The IMF economists are the same economists that didn’t see the recession coming in the first place. They have no credibility. We are in a depression and it is going to last for many years. It doesn’t matter what the governments around the world do. They can not fix itbut only make it worse because the problem is too much debt. They can’t solve that by spending money. Don’t let them suck you in.

  7. To answer your question about popular songs, I suppose Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” would count. I presume the references to Stalin, Malenkov, Castro, Mao, Palestine, and Dien Bien Phu are negative.

  8. To answer your question about popular songs, I suppose Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” would count. I presume the references to Stalin, Malenkov, Castro, Mao, Palestine, and Dien Bien Phu are negative.

  9. Kevin – we are in a recession. A depression is an entirely different scenario and one that is not projected.
    Economics 101

  10. Billy Joel, isn’t he the one who said that “Catholic girls start much too late?” Would it be improper on my part to ask about the initiation of Jewish girls? And when he says that “we” didn’t start the fire, is he referring to Americans, the West, or the People of the Book?

  11. hope and freedom, this one came to mind.
    Therell be bluebirds over
    The white cliffs of Dover
    Tomorrow
    Just you wait and see
    I’ll never forget the people I met
    Braving those angry skies
    I remember well as the shadows fell
    The light of hope in their eyes
    And though I’m far away
    I still can hear them say
    Bombs up…
    But when the dawn comes up
    Therell be bluebirds over
    The white cliffs of Dover
    Tomorrow
    Just you wait and see
    Therell be love and laughter
    And peace ever after
    Tomorrow
    When the world is free
    The shepherd will tend his sheep
    The valley will bloom again
    And Jimmy will go to sleep
    In his own little room again
    Therell be bluebirds over
    The white cliffs of Dover
    Tomorrow
    Just you wait and see
    Therell be bluebirds over
    The white cliffs of Dover
    Tomorrow
    Just you wait and see…

  14. Well it speaks to hope, and was written by a Canadian, though it isn’t likely too popular now:
    The World is Waiting for the Sunrise

  15. Hi Kate ,
    Ton answer your question thiso ne is actually still on the air way’s it is actually a very good song ..it is more focused around britian or the british empire and it’s fall …at least that is how i inerpret it ….but britain is still parto f the west ….technically ..lol ….anyway the song is called viva lavida by coldplay …again my interpretation is probly different than some so yeah read the words iti s pretty cool ..i alway’s tell my british friends it is britains farewell song.
    Paul.

  17. When did you change the icon to a tower emitting signals? It was roadkill a minute ago.

  18. I think Leonard Cohen’s “Democracy” might qualify, but the whole thing’s very equivocal.
    “It’s here they’ve got the range
    And the machinery for change
    And it’s here they’ve got the spiritual thirst.”

  19. Kate You like juxtaposition Here’s a good one. The BBC has a segment about the greening of the Sahara desert, from the BBC website “While the world is discussing how to slow down global warming, satellite pictures of northern Africa show that areas lost to the Sahara desert during decades of drought are turning green again.”
    Tonight on the National on CBC the featured segment was about hunger increasing in the world.
    who is right, the CBC or the BBC?

  21. Oh, EBD, BTW, I have a distinct memory of an Anthropology prof explaining patiently to me that there is no such thing as “Western Culture”, so it could be that your question is intrinsically meaningless. Just sayin’.

  22. Goodbye CNN
    I used to watch it a lot, haven’t watched it for a while.
    Flipped on the TV, and the odious Campbell Brown had a montage of TV personalities swatting at flies, and missing, and again talking about how wonderful the president was because he hit his.
    This was followed by a two minute Letterman monologue trashing Palin.
    That’s news?

  24. EBD,
    How about any song from the west that’s being pumped through a karaoke machine in Japan.

  28. I think the “We” in “We didn’t start the fire” is the baby boom generation.
    When Joel says, “We didn’t light it/but we tried to fight it”, he means that western culture was sick before the boomers, and the boomers’ cultural vandalism was a noble effort.

  31. “are there any other popular songs extant that either mention, refer to, defend, or acknowledge the value of western culture — even if only metaphorically — vis a vis others?”
    Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Wagner?
    What?
    OK, OK, The Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin:

    We come from the land of the ice and snow,
    from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
    How soft your fields so green,
    Can whisper tales of gore,
    Of how we calmed the tides of war.
    We are your overlords.
    On we sweep with threshing oar,
    Our only goal will be the western shore.

    No? Fine, enjoy your perverse atonal noise. Perhaps dance a “Jitter” “Bug” while you’re at it.

  33. Idea for a Jarvis Cocker-inspired bumper sticker:
    “IF YOU WANT MY FRIGIDAIRE YOU’LL HAVE TO PRY THE HANDLE FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS”

  34. Rats, fascists, and TO’s union garbage strike.
    …-
    “Signs of the rat
    While Toronto’s Mayor struggles to deal with the three-week-old strike, some of the city’s inhabitats are revelling in it: rats.”
    “Q The Mayor is pretty short on fans at the minute, but at least he has the rat demographic covered?
    A He’s not doing very much and that’s frustrating. The irony is that he’s all pro-environment, but it’s fine to use parks as a dumping zone. What sense does that make? In my last cartoon, he’s there. The rats are getting bigger and bigger and they’re getting bolder, demanding devonshire cream and scones and beluga caviar.
    Q Those are pretty expensive tastes for rats aren’t they?
    A Well, this is Toronto. They’re in the best city in the world with everything at their disposal.
    Q Have you seen any actual rats so far?
    A Actually I have. I’ve seen them on the TTC.”
    http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=1772667
    …-
    camus
    Albert Camus’s The Plague (Vintage Books, New York: 1991, translated by …. A fascist plague, with its stormtrooper rats, can always be hiding in the …
    home.insightbb.com/~adamwatson/showcase/camus.html

  37. JM – The minister responsible, Diane with the unspellable last name, who we generally like, had her fingers slapped on this one and Tony Clement has taken over her duties in that field.
    We trust it will not happen again?

  38. “Obama’s Climate of Fear*
    Real businesspeople are really afraid of what the president is doing to free enterprise.
    Recently I had a long lunch with an old friend. He sits on the board of one of the largest and most successful publicly traded regional banks in America. He got his seat when that regional bank acquired the very successful community bank he built from the ground up. I will not name him or this bank, but I will pass on a few things he said to me.
    He said, “Our bank’s leadership team and others I know at the local or regional level feel paralyzed and intimidated by the climate of fear created by the Obama administration. We believe we are targets of a very deliberate conspiracy.
    “The new and proposed regulations will remove every competitive advantage of the community bank, and make every bank identical, forced to operate exactly as does Bank of America,” he explained. “Then, absent competitive opportunity, all of the independent banks will be greatly de-valued and handicapped. They’ll be vulnerable and easily rolled up into the handful of remaining giants … the small bank’s wealth made into fresh food for the insatiable hunger of the big banks’ deficits and losses. This is, I and others believe, the next step in Obama’s plan to take total control of the financial system and money supply, a requirement of dictatorship. “
    What is most significant about these statements is the person making them. This is not some freak like the fellow Mel Gibson portrayed in the movie “Conspiracy Theory.”. He’s not somebody stockpiling food in a cabin hidden away in the woods, to escape to when anarchy erupts. Not anybody you would expect to hear express such thoughts. And he’s not a lone voice.
    Another friend is the CEO of a mid-sized company that had been on an impressive trajectory of growth for the past three years but is now stalled. He and his advisers have reversed their viewpoint in the last few months. They are eager to sell the company if possible now rather than later. Why? They believe Obama is deliberately, systematically destroying the economy as a whole and is specifically targeting small business for extinction – because it’s too difficult to exercise dictatorial control over millions of small enterprises.
    This fellow has begun the process of acquiring dual citizenship and hopes to cash out and leave the country. He said that he can only envision a growing, worsening, toxic climate of fear here – again that term – and he prefers to be away from it.”
    http://www.businessandmedia.org/commentary/2009/20090708120623.aspx
    …-
    Hope* and Fear*: O’s Sisters of Change:
    “Charles Lamb:
    *”Hope is charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, & I am always glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her, her younger sister, fear*, a white liver’d-lilly-cheeked, bashful palpitating, awkward hussey that hangs like a green girl at her sister’s apron strings & will go with her whithersoever she goes.”
    (Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb)”

  41. I agree with that other “Kevin” – despite Bambam’s best (worst?!) efforts, the stimulus isn’t working. At a household level, consumers aren’t spending, and although the statistics are saying they’re saving, they’re not – they’re reducing debt. Those are not the same thing; saving builds up a potential pool of cash that will eventually be unleashed. Reducing debt allows households to survive, and in the “once burned, twice shy” future, it’s doubtful we’ll ever see the same levels of consumer indebtedness until people have personally forgotten (or, more likely, never known) the pain of too much debt. Those who are awaiting for a flood of “pent-up” consumer demand are going to have to wait a long time.
    At the same time, while banks are repairing their balance sheets, they are not lending either. People who walked out with car loans two years ago (and who still have their jobs) are being turned away today. So what we have is a massive credit contraction at both the consumer and financial institution level; hardly the soil from which new recoveries grow.
    I always thought Nicky Kondratieff’s “Long Wave” theory was based more on demographics than crop prices. There’s an old saw “From rags to rags in 3 generations” – the first generation came from nothing, worked hard, saved, and tried to pass something on to the next. The second generation, which grew up on nothing, worked hard, saved, and finally had a comfortable life for their kids. Those kids grew up in plenty, developed sloth, and frittered away everything the previous generations had built up.
    The generation that grew up on easy credit and margin in the late 1920’s got a shock in the ’30’s. I know for both my parents (children of the 1930’s) debt was a dirty word. Even in the 60’s, my parents were telling me that debt (outside of the mortgage) was bad. I remember my father telling me that signing a mortgage for $14,000 in 1960 was the scariest moment of his life. But the kids of the late 60’s and early 70’s – a cohort from which Wall St. drew much of its “talent” in the late 90’s – grew up in luxury. Debt was a joke; it was inflated to nothing in a few years. Easy sex, easy drugs, and a permissive atmosphere at home and school – is it any wonder these kids thought life was one big party? As a society, we’d done everything we could to prevent the chickens from ever coming home to roost – no one failed at school, you got a raise every year even if you’d done nothing to improve, easy bankruptcy, easy divorce.
    But as Canute proved to his fawning subjects, no one can hold back the tide. The swell is just beginning, and it isn’t done yet. (Ironic note: US new weekly jobless claims just released and there is much rejoicing that it’s “only” 550,000, not the 600,000 some feared. Never mind that continuing claims remain at record highs..)
    I’m afraid it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

  42. Need new street lights or a Farmers’ Market?
    A Jungle Gym ?
    The Big-Zero will provide!
    All as part of the new healthcare bill of course. It has billions in pork.
    The coach of the Chappaquiddick Dive team chimes in on this topic:-
    “But advocates, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, defend the proposed spending as a necessary way to promote healthier lives and, in the long run, cut medical costs.”
    http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/07/09/in_health_bill_billions_for_parks_paths/

  43. Media Bash PM Harper Again & Again & Again
    Stephen Harper narrowly avoids G8 photo faux-pas
    ctv.ca NNW july9/09
    He arrived 1min.45sec late Just after Obama!!!
    and this is big news in the World of Leftism News
    Now take note on the headline title Normaly it’s Harper this Harper that Not PM Harper media is famous for showing no respect for political leaders there was a time when the media showed respect by using the office titles but those days ended a while ago.
    So iam surmizing that this is a Foreign Press lead to ctv as they are useing his first name Or ctv is trying to get attention to the headline, you pic.
    On a footnote iam sick & tired of the ctv’s constant barage of negative reporting on our countries current govt & leader, & i sent letters to ctv & the crtc asking why should i support your plea’s for saving your network threw my tax dollars when you dont support our current govt and the out right blatant lie’s & twisted reporting on it? has this current Govt stolen monies from the taxpayers to build its parties own coffers Got caught & gotten away with the theft. Why do you constantly support a party of thieves.

  45. “It’s a national disaster,” Jean-Luc Urbain, president of the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine, said in an interview. “The government has not been pro-active.”
    Hospitals in isotope crisis as shipment delayed in Europe
    Karen Howlett and Gloria Galloway
    Toronto and Ottawa — From Thursday’s Globe and Mail Last updated on Thursday, Jul. 09, 2009 09:46AM EDT
    An airplane carrying a shipment of medical isotopes was delayed at a Paris airport on Wednesday, forcing the cancellation of scores of crucial medical tests in Canada and highlighting the fragility of this country’s system for detecting heart ailments and cancer.
    Federal ministers of Health and Natural Resources warned of further shortages as they pointed the finger at Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the Crown corporation that owns the nuclear reactor that until a few weeks ago produced a third of the world’s medical isotopes….”
    How many citizens will government mismanagement kill this week?

  47. We await Gerald Butts*’s comments.
    It’s another photoshopped hoax c/w pics.
    …-
    “Are they brave or mad? Office workers go naked to boost team spirit
    A group of office staff have discovered they work better together when they are NAKED.
    Workers at design and marketing company onebestway in Newcastle upon Tyne stripped off at the encouragement of their boss, who thought the move would boost business.
    The ailing company had seen six redundancies since the start of the credit crunch when business psychologist David Taylor was brought in to boost team spirit. In the buff: The workers at onebestway took a week to steel their nerves for Naked Friday
    Not ashamed: Sam Jackson said she felt ‘totally comfortable’
    The event, dubbed Naked Friday, was deemed a huge success and is even credited with turning around the firm’s fortunes.”
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2288859/posts
    *Butts is president/CEO of WWF, aka World Wildlife Fund-Canada.

  48. O’s recessdepresses Boone.
    Do we need stinkin’ rats?
    Error correction: Do we need stinkin’ Boone Pickens “nascent” wind?
    Boone is twisting in the wind.
    …-
    “Pickens plan setback part of wider wind falloff
    Oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens’ step back from his plan to build the world’s largest wind farm in Texas shows how a brutal recession could change the way the United States invests in renewable energy.
    The economy has changed drastically since the tycoon called last year for the United States to cut back on its oil imports in the face of record-high prices and said he planned to invest US$10-billion in wind power.
    With credit costlier and harder to come by, and oil and natural gas prices down sharply over the past year, the nation’s nascent wind industry may begin to focus on smaller projects that are closer to major population centres rather than massive developments such as 81-year-old Pickens envisioned, industry officials said.”
    http://www.financialpost.com/news-sectors/story.html?id=1772614

  49. Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working
    Jul 09, 2009 06:02 AM
    Les Whittington
    Ottawa Bureau
    OTTAWA–The parliamentary budget watchdog says there’s no proof that the massive stimulus package the Harper government trumpeted in January as a lifesaver for Canada is having any positive impact on the economy yet.
    “In terms of the money actually flowing, so that it’s actually having an impact in the economy – in the cities and regions of the country – we cannot tell right now,” Kevin Page told reporters yesterday.
    “We have no estimate as to what is the dollar figure, we can only presume it’s been very little to date…..”
    Gosh. Good thing it’s the Cons dropping a $150 billion of our money to keep us all safe and sound, and not the Libranos.
    Is it because the Cons steal less? Or is it because they’re the more prudent money managers of the two?

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