Did Blondie Begat REM?

So REM has officially called it quits. Meanwhile, Blondie is on a mega tour.

I remember the first time I heard "Radio Free Europe" -- knew it would be huge, had a much better sense of music then -- typical for a teenager I suppose. Was obsessed with the notion that the huge groups would all be acronyms of some sort -- REM, U2 and, well,  XTC, which never quite happened as I'd thought of course. 

REM front man Michael Stipe has said that the name for the group came from picking random letters out of the dictionary in 1980. I'd always been skeptical of this, it seemed like a too clever name, and recently realized that Blondie's 1977 song "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear" has what we would now call something of an REM sound to it -- and has the word "REM" in it:

Floating pass the evidence of possibilities
We could navigate together psychic frequencies
Coming into contact with outer entities
We could entertain each one with our theosophy
Stay awake at night and count your REM's
When you're talking with your super friends
Levitating lovers in the secret stratosphere

The song was actually written by Gary [Valentine] Lachman who as best as I can figure was forced out shortly thereafter. Deserving of those splendid lyrics, he's gone on to write several books on the occult. [personal page; vid of interview, "From Blondie to Jung"], His ouster could almost be predicted by his body language: You can see a bit of it in this video and I've seen it more clearly in others, he (the bassist with big curly hair) is bopping around instead of being all detached and just being backup for Debbie Harry, which is the obvious script. Harry rewrote, actually sanitized, the lyrics for another song of his about a sex offender, becoming "X-Offender," [vid of him really breaking script] which apparently is what got them their record contract. When the band was induced into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, Harry wouldn't let him on stage. 

Human Rights Watch blind to reality of criminality of Israeli policies @KenRoth @hrw #hrw

Ken Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch yesterday tweeted: 

Could #Hamas opposition to #Palestine statehood be from fear of being dragged to #ICC for rocket attacks on #Israel? http://bit.ly/n5erQu

The trivial thing wrong with this is that the link goes to a New York Times story about Turkey's role in the region and makes no mention of Hamas or the ICC. 

The deeper thing wrong with it is that Roth hasn't tweeted anything like "Israel is obviously opposed to the Palestinian UN bid, the ICC, etc because it wants to keep getting away with murder." I've asked Roth about related matters, he talks of Israeli violations of laws of war and disproportionate use of force and such. He won't talk about individual capability of individual Israeli officials -- as he does in other cases, like the Sudan. And so, he enables further Israeli war crimes. 

See: "The Palestinians have asked the International Criminal Court to take jurisdiction over any war crimes committed in its territory. This could include Israeli actions during the 2008-09 Gaza war, or it could include illegal settlement building. Acceptance by the ICC of such jurisdiction could be hastened by either UN membership or non-member state status."

How We Lost: Regressive Lessons from the Repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" @AaronBelkin

[From yesterday's Democracy Now -- guest was Arron Belkin, author of How We Won: Progressive Lessons from the Repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" -- he directly contradicts his thesis when presented with Sycamore's argument]: 

AMY GOODMAN: In October of 2010, Democracy Now! hosted a debate on whether the movement against "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" was helping to legitimize U.S. militarism at home and abroad. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is an antiwar queer activist and writer. She was debating Lieutenant Dan Choi, the discharged servicemember who was a leading voice opposing "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." This is what Mattilda had to say.

MATTILDA BERNSTEIN SYCAMORE: Dan Choi talks about all of America being a victim of the policy of excluding openly gay soldiers in the military, but all of the world is a victim of the U.S. military. So if we have to look at one culprit for all of the problems that are going on in the entire world, that would have to be the U.S. military. And as a queer movement, what we need is a movement for gender, sexual, social, political and cultural self-determination for queers in this country, for everyone in this country, and for everyone all over the world. We do not need to support the U.S. war machine, which is busy plundering indigenous resources and fighting at least three wars right now, you know, for corporate profiteers.

We need to be fighting for universal access to basic needs, things like housing and healthcare and the right to stay in this country or leave if you want to. We need to be fighting for comprehensive sex education, for AIDS healthcare, for senior care, for safe houses for queer youth to escape abusive families. And the problem with all this attention on the war machine, all this support for, you know, soldiers to serve openly in unjust wars, the problem is that the military is what’s taking away the ability to fund everything in this country that would actually benefit, you know, the people who need the most.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. Aaron Belkin, your response?

AARON BELKIN: Well, I would say that things are even worse than Mattilda suggested, because it’s not just a question of the focus on "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" diverting attention. And I say this as someone who has been fighting "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" for years and who believes passionately that "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" needed to end, and that’s been my professional struggle for all these years. But at the same time, it’s important to be honest and to note that not only did we divert attention away from more pressing problems, but our very rhetoric, as a gay and as a queer community, in the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" struggle reinforced militarism. What does that mean? It means that every time we talked about the importance of promoting unit cohesion and the loyal gay and lesbian servicemember, we reinforced the notion of the military as a noble institution. And that has a militarizing impact.