Roman Polanski

Well, they finally got him. I know that this is an unpopular move, and many people have decried it because of the overcrowding in CA jails and the fact that we just signed a law releasing 40,000 criminals (inmates, if that fits your perspective better - assuming they were all captives in an unjust system and victims of an overzealous state - of course, the actual truth is somewhere in the middle) due to budget issues and because the victim has since forgiven him, etc., etc., etc.

Here is the problem that I have. Let's say he wasn't a famous film director, just the creepy Polish dude who lives down the block (irony duly noted, given my heritage and somewhat creepy disposition). Suppose this 44 year old guy invites a 13 year old model for a "photo-shoot", plies her with wine and barbiturates, gets her in a hot tub and has sex with her. He is then arrested, pleas guilty to a statutory rape charge instead of child molestation, and is released until sentencing. This guy then flees the country and spends the next 30+ years evading authorities. Would we have sympathy then?

I would say that most people would not, and given that these were the circumstances as I recall them (I don't know what he actually plead to, but I figured it would be something like statutory rape), I think that his personal issues stand separate from his directorial accomplishments. He is no better or worse than the rest of us. The European mentality stems from both an openness towards sexual mores (which I do not think really apply here, given the coercion) and from the fact that Europe is a classed society, where there is a long history of one class being better than another and getting to flout the law as a result. They are much more comfortable with this double standard because it has been culturally ingrained in them for thousands of years. It is also one of the reasons that we have an equal protection clause in our Constitution and why people are supposed to all be equal under the law. This was a guiding principle in the formation of the government, though it was not always put into practice - and this fundamental difference is what separates us from many other nations. A celebrity should not be free to get away with more stuff than anyone else - Paris Hilton goes to jail for a few days on a drunk driving charge just like anyone else in her situation (and yes, most people receiving a 30 day sentence for a similar charge get out in five days due to overcrowding - she shouldn't be punished any more because she is a celebrity either). Phil Spektor gets convicted of murder when he kills a young aspiring actress.

Obviously, there is some difference, celebs and the wealthy afford better representation, and can pull strings to get away with some stuff, but this should not be encouraged - Michael Skakel could have actually been tried as a juvenile and dealt with his problems after murdering his young neighbor, but the fact that he was part of the Kennedy "royalty" and the local DA was beholden to the Kennedy clan delayed his conviction until after his adulthood, leading him to be sentenced as an adult because of the continuing conspiracy to conceal the crime as an adult. Treating celebrities differently only creates problems in our legal system, and it does nothing to set up the sense of fairness that is supposed to underpin our system. This attitude is fine in Europe, but it cannot be tolerated here. Sorry, Roman, and I do love your movies, but you have to pay the piper. I liked Hemingway to, but that doesn't mean he wasn't a crotchety, depressed, suicidal drunkard. I appreciate Spektor's contribution to the music industry by bringing a number of great bands to the public eye, but he is still a murderer.

I never really liked Aurthur C. Clarke, however, and he is still a child molester, whether I like his work or not (but that brings new meaning to his novel, Childhood's End, now doesn't it?)

Ah, peroxyacetone...

Well, well, well, a terror suspect apprehended buying hair and nail care products - will wonders never cease. Just as a quick note, in case anyone was wondering, he was trying to make peroxyacetone - a highly explosive and none-to-stable compound that is really easy to make. In fact, it's what the train bombers in Britain used a few years back.

I made some in lab this summer for a demonstration in chemistry, and, oh boy, is it ever fun. I had about a 2 gram pile of it on a 4"x4"x0.5" pine board (to protect the lab bench). 2 grams takes up about a half a golf ball sized pile (it is kind of fluffy - you could try to compress it into a smaller container, but I wouldn't risk that after it was dry, it would likely blow up while you were tamping it down). With ear plugs and the class well back, I had a lit match taped to the end of a 2 meter long stick - a touch of the match to the pile and BOOM!
goodbye board, meter stick, filter paper (that the substance was drying on) - the reaction was so energetic, it actually disintegrated most of the filter paper except for the parts that were actually driven into the board (and if you know anything about momentum, you know this takes a lot of force to drive paper into the grain of a pine wood board), the small board was shattered into three pieces, one of which flew 15 feet and landed in a student's lap, and scared the bejeezus out of the entire third floor. I felt the pressure wave (albeit only slightly) from seven feet away. Good times.

But seriously, this is dangerous stuff, and the guy was buying chemicals in quantities to make a lot - at least 100 times what I made, just in the one video purchase that they show on TV. It is really easy to make - mix fairly concentrated hydrogen peroxide and plain old acetone and add a couple of drops of something else, and, Presto! it precipitates out of the solution (no, I am not going to tell you the proportions, or the secret ingredient, or the concentration of H2O2 - if you want to blow yourself or someone else up, F--- Off! somebody else online will help you, but you can be damn well certain it isn't going to be me).

Why am I writing all this? I really don't know - just trying to indicate that almost anything can be made into a weapon if you want it to - ban guns and scary knives and chemicals all you want - bad people still do bad things. And yes, I am calling him bad - he isn't misunderstood or manipulated by his religion - he gravitated to this kind of ideology based on who he is. Most followers of Islam are not bad people, as are most Christians, Jews, Deists, Buddhists, Atheists, etc (I say not bad because it requires effort to actually be good - so I would say most people qualify as basically not bad). Bad ones are drawn to extremism - whether it is bombing the World Trade Center or an abortion clinic. It isn't the religion that causes the violence, it is the people - we could all be secular humanists and I would contend that there would still be violence; in fact, the most wholesale slaughters of the twentieth century were perpetrated by people who ascribed to no particular faith (Mao, Lenin, and Stalin - all of whom said that religion should be done away with). They did away with religion, and managed to wreak more havoc in a shorter time than most major religions ever have over their entire history - even the Crusades did not have the body count that any of the big three above did. (Liberal estimates of the death toll on both sides gets to about 3,000,000 - but most likely these are overestimates, because counting issues at this time were suspect at best)

I don't really know where I am going with this other than to say that humans seem to have a very violent streak - religions and societies at once have a mitigating effect and at other times seem to exacerbate the issue - which is why one cannot blame society or religion. Both of these are constructs created by people (while I do believe in God, spirituality, etc., religions are the human constructs for communal expression of their spiritual nature), and it is the people who are the issue- those suspicious of organizations, corporations, religions, etc seem to often forget that they do not exist independently of people, and that they are just a reflection of the dual nature of humanity. (BTW, if you want more non-religious massacres, I can get them any time - the Hutus massacring hundreds of thousands of Tsutsis, for example, based on tribalism, Pol Pot killing intellectuals, French killing British, British killing French, etc., etc., etc.)

Oh, well, we muddle through as best we can...

First Five Rush Albums Reviewed

So I reviewed my first five Rush albums (not chronologically, I tried to randomly select albums so that I would be less biased by the era in which they were recorded). I will give the overall percentage score that they received, the raw score (straight accumulation of all scores on the album), and a brief overview of my impression of the album after listening to it.





In terms of scoring each song, I tried to listen to them as individual songs, as well as the placement in the album. I will not include notes on each song, but I will give the 1 to 10 score rating each song on the album got. The raw score is important, because sometimes short albums will skew high in the ratings - it is easier to rate high on an album with only 4 songs, compared to an album with 11 songs. I toyed with the idea of actually breaking up the long songs (2112, Hemispheres) and rating the component sub-pieces, but this doesn't fit for me - they wrote them as an individual song, so I should rate them as such.





As a reminder, here is my grade scale:

• 90-100% A


• 85-89 A-


• 80-84 B+


• 75-79 B


• 70-74 B-


• 65-69 C+


• 60-64 C


• 50-59 C-


• 0-49 F

Note that there are no "D"s - either I liked the song enough for it to pass, or it failed - a failure is a song I just don't want to listen to again. Obviously, the scale is totally subjective, but I am looking for how the song feels musically constructed, how interesting it is to me, how much emotional response I have to the song, and how much I would like to listen to the song again. Anything in the A or A- range would be something perfect or near perfect, that I could listen to over and over again. B songs still have a similar impact, but I might need to be in the right mood - "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" for example has good energy and is interesting, but a little long for my tastes, whereas "The Weapon" is a great song, but a bit depressing, and if I am not in the right mood, I won't want to listen to it as much. Nonetheless, I would never skip past a B graded song (+ or - included) if I was listening to an album. A C rated song kind of missed the mark. It still works, is a decent song, but may be misplaced on an album, be too trite for what I like, and I may consider skipping it if listening to an album - this would still be a rare occurrence, as I would still like the song well enough to listen to it, just not enough to go out of my way to find it.

An F is a song that I would skip. End of story, no questions, just don't like it - the varying scores from 0 to 4.5 rate the relative severity of the fail... a zero has nothing I like at all, while a 4.5 is decent through most of it but has something that just rubs me the wrong way. I cannot think of any Rush songs that would fit in this category - that is why they are one of (if not my) favorite bands.

So here goes nothing:

2112

• Raw Score: 50.5 out of 60


• Percentage: 84.17%


• Grade: B+


• Track 1: 2112 - Rating: 10


• Track 2: Passage to Bangkok - Rating: 7; Good song, but doesn't really fit after a song as epic as 2112. Even if you had to flip over the album, a much clearer transition, this song is too trite for Rush lyrically, maybe it fits on an earlier album, but not here.


• Track 3: Twilight Zone - Rating: 7.5; just slightly to long for what it is, but an interesting attempt.


• Track 4: Lessons - Rating: 10


• Track 5: Tears - Rating: 6.5; Decent song, but it is misplaced on the album - it could have fit better as the last song, I think.


• Track 6: Something for Nothing - Rating: 9.5; Near perfect song, this is why Tears could not be the last song... the only thing that hurts it is that the intro is slightly too long for my taste, and the technique of fading out a song is something I generally do not like. The fadeout here still works, however, because it is not just the same riff repeated at the end, but is intricate enough to want to keep listening as it fades.


• OVERALL: With two 10s and a 9.5, this is an album with great songs, including a great epic song in 2112. A few hit and miss songs take this album into the B+ range (just barely), but that would have been my impression without scoring the album.

Power Windows

• Raw Score: 70.5 out of 80


• Percentage: 88.125%


• Grade: A-


• Track 1: The Big Money - Rating: 10; A perfect opening song; great keyboard, guitar, and bass.


• Track 2: Grand Designs - Rating: 10; Great riff, fantastic lyrics, good transitions, great finish to the song.


• Track 3: Manhattan Project - Rating: 9


• Track 4: Marathon - Rating: 9; great bass-lines, good supporting guitar work, great transitions within the song.
  Track 5: Territories - Rating: 7.5; Decent song, but a bit too moody for my taste all the time - that is all that keeps it from an A- is the emotional tone... the song itself is very solid.


• Track 6: Middletown Dreams - Rating: 7.5


• Track 7: Emotion Detector - Rating: 8.5


• Track 8: Mystic Rhythms - Rating: 9


• OVERALL: A really, really good album, bordering on a great album (A, not A-). Starts of strong, near perfect, but dips a little in the latter half and comes back with two really good songs to end - this is a great progressive rock step for Rush, though I know a lot of "hardcore" Rush fans swear by the seventies and early eighties Rush, but for my money, they really hit stride in the eighties with the Prog Rock sound, while the seventies had a great hard rock/early metal sound. It is like comparing Alien to Aliens in quality - they are both great movies, but too different to compare to one another.

Presto

• Raw Score: 102 out of 110


• Percentage: 92.73%


• Grade: A


• Track 1: Show Don't Tell - Rating: 10


• Track 2: Chain Lightning - Rating: 10


• Track 3: The Pass - Rating: 10; One of the best Rush songs ever. Literally. If it is not my favorite, it is in the top 2 (with Cold Fire). If I had a rating higher than 10, I would give it. In fact this song does go to 11.


• Track 4: War Paint - Rating: 10


• Track 5: Scars - Rating: 8.5; The first "dip-down" on the album, the song is slightly less than perfect, but still phenomenal nonetheless.


• Track 6: Presto - Rating: 9.5; Again, near perfect, but can't quite hold up to the first 4 tracks. The fadeout at the end isn't too bad, but takes a bit away from the song. Again it is interesting enough as it fades to want to keep listening, it isn't just the same riff repeated at the end - the worst way to end any rock song. Rush never does that.


• Track 7: Superconductor - Rating: 10; WOW!!!, just when the album seems like it can't attain the perfection of the first 4 tracks, it does, and it is like starting a whole new album.


• Track 8: Anagram (for Mongo) - Rating: 8.5


• Track 9: Red Tide - Rating: 8


• Track 10: Hand over Fist - Rating: 9


• Track 11: The Wind Can Carry - Rating: 8.5


• OVERALL: WOW!!! This is a freakin' great album. I have always thought that, but after reviewing this, I just put the album on again and listened to it in its entirety. 5 songs with a rating of 10, only one that dips into the B+ range, this is a must in any collection. It also has one of my "11" rated special songs that would give it a revised raw score of 103, percentage of 93.63%, but I don't know if I should actually change my score...

Fly By Night

• Raw Score: 66 out of 80
• Percentage: 82.5%
• Grade: B+
• Track 1: Anthem - Rating: 9; Good opening song, lyrically meaningful (based on Ayn Rand's only good novel, Anthem - where allegory is used appropriately and there are no ridiculously didactic diatribes)
• Track 2: Best I Can - Rating: 10
• Track 3: Beneath, Between and Behind - Rating: 9
• Track 4: By-Tor and the Snow Dog - Rating: 7; solid rock'n'roll, with a little D & D flair, it just goes on a bit too long for what it is.
• Track 5: Fly By Night - Rating: 10; might be the best song on the album - good choice for title track.
• Track 6: Making Memories - Rating: 7; fairly standard rock song, but just doesn't meet up to my standards for a Rush song. I know that they were young when they wrote it, and writing a song about touring was probably fun, but it just is not an A song.
• Track 7: Rivendell - Rating: 5; this is probably my least favorite Rush song (barring maybe I Think I'm Going Bald, though that song bothers me less than it used to - I wonder why?). It isn't bad, it just isn't that good either. It isn't that it is slow or acoustic, it just isn't interesting. It still is a passable song, but just barely.
• Track 8: In the End - Rating: 9
• Overall: A very solid album, very good followup effort to their first album, a great debut for Neil Peart's writing skills, just a few less than perfect songs mar the overall album, but still very listenable.

Subdivisions

• Raw Score: 75 out of 80
• Percentage: 93.75%
• Grade: A
• Track 1: Subdivisions - Rating: 9.5; my only complaint is that the guitar could play a more prominent roll.
• Track 2: Analog Kid - Rating: 10
• Track 3: Chemistry - Rating: 10
• Track 4: Digital Man - Rating: 10; how can you go wrong with the contrast between this and Analog Kid. Just as the metal/hard rock sound for Rush transitions to a prog rock sound, this is the perfect picture of their growth as a band.
• Track 5: The Weapon - Rating: 8; good, just not as great as the rest of the album.
• Track 6: New World Man - Rating: 10
• Track 7: Losing It - Rating: 9; one of their best songs in terms of evoking a mood, its only fault being that it is too good at evoking in me the sense of despair, desolation, and desperation. I can't help but being near tears every time I hear it or even when I think about it in retrospect.
• Track 8: Count Down - Rating: 8.5, this is a great counterpoint to the previous song, but I think, for me it suffers from the mood the previous song evokes in me, but still a good capper to the album.
• Overall: A great album, again, this is a requirement in anyone's collection who is a fan of good music. I remember in high school, in the back of Guitar Magazine, everyone who was trying to get a band together seemed to list "Pre-Signals Rush" as an influence. They were are and shall always be idiotic, because Signals is a great achievement! I give half the songs 10s (4 of 'em) and only one dipped into the B+ range, but just barely - Even though this got a higher overall score than Presto (by 1.02 percentage points, or only .12 percentage points if you count The Pass as an 11) it is hard for me to say it's better than Presto (which has more 10s and is a longer album, so more chances to go awry), it is at least as good, which makes it pretty damned fantastic.

There you go, have fun with it, for what it's worth.