NYTimes, May 21, 2007, "White House Says Carter Criticism of Bush Is ‘Sad,’" By JIM RUTENBERG:
...Mr. Carter delivered a blistering critique of President Bush in two interviews released Saturday. And, on Sunday, the White House responded in kind, calling his comments “sad” and Mr. Carter himself “irrelevant.”
In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation that was broadcast on Saturday, Mr. Carter talked about Tony Blair, the outgoing British prime minister, and his relationship with Mr. Bush, calling it “loyal, blind, apparently subservient.”
In a telephone interview with The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published on Saturday, Mr. Carter said, “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.”
The deputy White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, responded Sunday while speaking with reporters in a middle school gymnasium near Mr. Bush’s home here.
“I think it’s sad that President Carter’s reckless and personal criticism is out there,” Mr. Fratto said. “I think it’s unfortunate, and I think he is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments.”
Mr. Fratto said he could not say whether the president knew about Mr. Carter’s comments.
Oh he knew. Bush knew, and he cried about it, and then Snow-Man and his team of icy PR-bots stood up and told everyone that "sticks and stones, &c." but Bush is still Der Leader and will not be slowed, much less stopped, by an old Southerner with a conscience.
In other news, it's still okay to eat delicious things:
NYTimes, May 21, 2007, "Death by Veganism," By NINA PLANCK:
WHEN Crown Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds. His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty.
This particular calamity — at least the third such conviction of vegan parents in four years — may be largely due to ignorance. But it should prompt frank discussion about nutrition.
I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.
Indigenous cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run.
...
A vegan diet is equally dangerous for weaned babies and toddlers, who need plenty of protein and calcium. Too often, vegans turn to soy, which actually inhibits growth and reduces absorption of protein and minerals. That’s why health officials in Britain, Canada and other countries express caution about soy for babies. (Not here, though — perhaps because our farm policy is so soy-friendly.)
Historically, diet honored tradition: we ate the foods that our mothers, and their mothers, ate. Now, your neighbor or sibling may be a meat-eater or vegetarian, may ferment his foods or eat them raw. This fragmentation of the American menu reflects admirable diversity and tolerance, but food is more important than fashion. Though it’s not politically correct to say so, all diets are not created equal.
An adult who was well-nourished in utero and in infancy may choose to get by on a vegan diet, but babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol and fish oil. Children fed only plants will not get the precious things they need to live and grow.
Huzzah, Mz. ex-vegan. I am good friends with many vegans and vegetarians, and they rail against my carnal dietary habits with sometimes gusto, rarely logic, and mostly the deep, brain-scalding pathos of the We're Right Because, Come On, Just, ARGH.
Lastly, Kool Herc in the news, savin stuff:
NYTimes, May 21, 2007, "Will Gentrification Spoil the Birthplace of Hip-Hop?" By DAVID GONZALEZ:
Hip-hop was born in the west Bronx. Not the South Bronx, not Harlem and most definitely not Queens. Just ask anybody at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue — an otherwise unremarkable high-rise just north of the Cross Bronx and hard along the Major Deegan.
“This is where it came from,” said Clive Campbell, pointing to the building’s first-floor community room. “This is it. The culture started here and went around the world. But this is where it came from. Not anyplace else.”
O.K., Mr. Campbell is not just anybody — he is the alpha D.J. of hip-hop. As D.J. Kool Herc, he presided over the turntables at parties in that community room in 1973 that spilled into nearby parks before turning into a global assault. Playing snippets of the choicest beats from James Brown, Jimmy Castor, Babe Ruth and anything else that piqued his considerable musical curiosity, he provided the soundtrack savored by loose-limbed b-boys (a term he takes credit for creating, too).
Mr. Campbell thinks the building should be declared a landmark in recognition of its role in American popular culture. Its residents agree, but for more practical reasons. They want to have the building placed on the National Register of Historic Places so that it might be protected from any change that would affect its character — in this case, a building for poor and working-class families.
...
Preservationists doubted it would stop the building’s owners from leaving the subsidy program, since the landmark distinction would apply to the structure and not necessarily its use. And there is another obstacle: to be eligible for the National Register, a building normally has to be at least 50 years old. The Sedgwick building falls short of that by 12 years. Exceptions are made for extraordinary cultural significance.
“It is complicated when you try to preserve some other feature of a building besides its architecture,” said Lisa Kersavage, a preservationist at the Municipal Art Society of New York. “But this is a very important cultural touchstone for New York, and awareness should be raised.”
...
Curtis Brown, who was a teenager living a few blocks away during Kool Herc’s heyday, agreed. Mr. Brown went from being a fan to becoming Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers, an early and influential rap group.
“That place means everything,” he said. “You can look at it objectively and say it could have happened somewhere else. Maybe. But this is where it did happen.”
To him it is already a landmark.
“As far as government and what they consider important, who knows?” he said. “But for something that saturated the world culture, that went from one building to the world, I would want to hold on to the historical significance of that building.”
Word to preservation.
Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days, named after a work by Walt "Electric/Body" Whitman, features a near-future New York City that exists as America's well-preserved carnival themepark history-land. You can even get mugged in Central Park!
I wonder if the moment they (rightfully) bend the 50-year-rule for Kool Herc's old studio will mark the precise moment hip hop becomes Mainstream... or if that was way back when Masta P was popular and Puffy started selling slacks.
Word, regardless.
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