Archive of October 2008
Powell Endorses Obama
But also, maybe more importantly, makes a point long overdue in the comment on this race, and which deserves reprinting.
“I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said. Such things as ‘Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’ Well the correct answer is ‘He is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian, he’s always been a Christian.’ But the really right answer is ‘What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?’ The answer is ‘No. That’s not America.’ Is there something wrong with some 7-year old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she can be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he’s a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
“I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo-essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in you can see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Karim Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American, he was born in New Jersey, he was 14 at the time of 9/11 and he waited until he can go serve his counrty and he gave his life.”
Flaming Tusk is What I Said.
One topic I haven’t touched on much in these pages is the metal band I play in, Flaming Tusk. We formed, as I recall, around February of this year. It was me on drums, Don Blood on lead guitar (It was my idea, as a sort of lark, but he was the one foolhardy and stubborn enough to take me up on it), and soon after Zosimus PM and Schneidaar. Within—what, a couple weeks? A month?—We got ourselves a vocalist, my dear old friend Stolas Trephinator.
Since then we’ve been practicing and writing new songs, but we haven’t played out or done any recording—until now! Late last month we started finally laying down tracks for a four-track demo, designed to get something on tape and maybe get us some shows.
Well, the recording went really well. Well enough, in fact—with dearly appreciated help by my friend James at the mastering console—that we have upgraded it from a demo to an EP. We called it Abigail ((King Diamond, please call your office.)) and we have released it, for free, through the very nifty band hosting site bandcamp.mu. We’ve got our own website, of course: http://flamingtusk.com, a little number I drunkenly cobbled together over a weekend; but with bandcamp we’ve got great streaming, multi-format downloads, and embeddable players, and it’s free for you and us. You can access the music at http://flamingtusk.com, but you can also go straight to the album at http://tusk.bandcamp.mu.
Anyway, I hope you listen, and I hope you like it. We’re going to start looking for some shows, so maybe you’ll see us soon, too.
Hail tusk.
