Sir Duke: Circle of Life Congressional Remix Version

It must be hard for someone used to power and privilege not only to go to prison but then face a loss of rights upon their release. Such is the case with former Congressman and current inmate Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Next year, Cunningham will finish the 100 month sentence he’s serving for bribery, fraud and other misdeeds committed while he served as part of California’s delegation to the House of Representatives.

Cunningham, who had to forfeit a lavish home as part of his plea agreement, plans to live in a cabin in the Ozark Mountains after his release on June 4, 2013. Reflecting that choice of domicile, Mr. Cunningham would like to make generous use of Second Amendment rights in order to provide both food and protection for himself. As described in a letter he sent to the judge who sentenced him, Larry Alan Burns, “[Cunningham] will live in a very remote part of Arkansas and not much threat from people but they do have a lot of black bears, cougars, and history of rabies.” The problem, however, is that convicted felons like Cunningham are generally prohibited from possessing firearms. 

Cunningham, who despite the fact that he plead guilty to the various offenses apparently sees his situation as a shameful example of how the country treats veterans rather than the result of any misconduct on his own part, wrote to Judge Burns to request permission to own and use guns after his release. In a very thoughtful response, Judge Burns explained that he had no authority to grant this request and went on to explain the avenues available to inmate 94405198 and the obstacles he’s likely to face in a way that the former congressman should appreciate more than most.

“You should be aware, however, that every year since 1992, Congress has refused to provide funding to the ATF to review applications from the federal firearm ban. And the United States Supreme Court has ruled that inaction by the ATF does not amount to “denial” of the application within the meaning of section 925(c) United States v. Bean 537 US 71, 75 (2002). So unless Congress changes course and decides to fund ATF’s review of applications for relief, it appears you are stuck.”

Douglas Adams: A Man Who Really Knows Where His Towel Is

Since 2001, today has been known in some circles as Towel Day, a tribute to the work of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams who died in May of that year at the much too young age of 49. The many adaptations of his work that have appeared in film, TV and radio since his death are a clear tribute to how beloved Adams and his work was by so many. Towel Day, which is inspired by a particularly amusing passage from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is another particularly unique sign of that love.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to- hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Mostly Harmless, Adams’ final book in the Hitchhiker’s Guide… series, came out in 1992, the same year as the blockbuster romance The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller and probably only sold a small fraction of what Waller’s book did. However, it’s a safe bet that years from now new readers will be embracing Adams’ work while Waller and his ephemeral blockbuster will be answers to a trivia question or if they’re lucky remembered as the inferior inspiration for a pretty good movie from Clint Eastwood. Whether those new fans will be reading Adams’ work in printed form or on an electronic device like the one the writer envisioned back in the late 1970s remains to be seen, but I’m hopeful they’ll all know where their towels are.

In Praise of Disco (As Long as We're the Ones Playing the Machines)

I come to praise disco not to bury it. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that the recent deaths of both Donna Summer and the Bee Gees’ Robin Gibb suggest that the latter is proceeding on its own unfortunately literal trajectory. The other is that it ultimately doesn’t deserve all the derision heaped on it (except possibly for some of the fashion choices it inspired). Whether people like to admit it or not, disco (and related forms of dance music) was the victor of the dueling late-70s musical revolutions between itself and punk and it won for good reasons.

On a social level, disco and dance music tend to be more inclusive in terms of race and gender than a lot of punk, notable exceptions like Bad Brains and Pansy Division notwithstanding. On an artistic level, disco is more adept at crafting expressions of desire that appeal more directly to the heart than the head. The examples are plentiful as anyone who’s heard both "If I Can't Have You" and "Anarchy in the UK" can attest. There are certainly notable exceptions such as the Buzzcocks, though some of Pete Shelley’s solo work suggests that they may be the exception that proves the rule.

It obviously bears mentioning that there’s a lot of crap dance music, just as there's a lot of crap punk music. At its best, though, when you know it’s the humans playing the machines and not the other way around, there’s an undeniable gut-level impact to songs like Chic’s “I Want Your Love” (or even New Order’s "Bizarre Love Triangle").

That points to what may be another underlying cause of disco’s victory. Dance music thrives in that middle-ground between craftsmanship and inspiration, where the technology and humanity collide. As it should, punk offers plenty of collisions, but its reticent attitude toward craftsmanship often makes it as limited in scope as many of its leading practitioners are filled with musical ambition. It’s not surprising then that artists like the The Jam’s Paul Weller have spent most of the past three decades making music that for all its passion is well outside the scope of what we commonly think of as punk.

I certainly wouldn’t want a world with only one or the other, but it’s all too easy in the age of micro-trends to dismiss what you don’t personally like as meaningless. Personally, I’m happy to know that the work of Robin Gibb and Joe Strummer will outlive both of them.