Jane Meyer‘s excellent New Yorker article, The Predator War, suggests that the U.S. reliance on drones to carry out overseas assassinations may be quick and efficient, but it’s hardly without consequence.  Sticky moral issues aside, delivering death from above—and beyond—has been taking a toll on the drone pilots safely ensconced at their video feeds thousands of miles away. 

I found it oddly telling that pilots sometimes feel compelled to, “wear flight suits when they operate a drone?

 
And speaking of Germany trying to “transcend its gruesome past,” the New York Times relays the story of Yitzhak Ganon and his 65-year-long fear of doctors:

But when he became sick recently, his wife insisted that he visit one.  Stents were implanted to help his heart in a procedure made more risky because he was missing a kidney.  What happened to his other kidney explained his aversion to doctors, according to an account he gave Spiegel Online.

While held at the Auschwitz concentration camp, the 85-year-old Mr. Gannon told his doctors, he was the subject of an experiment by Joseph Mengele, the Nazi physician known as ?

 
Sister Wendy, the art lovin’ nun and a clearly flummoxed Bill Moyers discuss Andres Serrano’s controversial photograph “Piss Christ”. There’s something delightful about the way in which she calmly damns Seranno with faint praise and generally defends her appreciation for erotic imagery in this clip. Go Sister Wendy, go !

 
Since Dangerous Minds seems to be trading the Stones for Krautrock (thanks, Brad Laner!), I thought I’d chime in with this BBC documentary, Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany:

Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard.  They shared one common goal—a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany?

Hey that’s my name up there in pretty red letters ! Sorry for the self-indulgence so early in my tenure, but this here atheist Jew has composed and recorded a Christmas song for the 8 days of Hometapes event and today is my day. Hometapes is the fine and happening Portland-based label that released my 2007 solo debut LP, Neighbor Singing and is due to release my 2nd, Natural Selections some time next year.

 

 

 
Yimmys Yayo is a colorful photoblog descirbed as “visual crack for the ocular fiend.” It is “purely to share amazing visuals found with as many people as possible.” Enjoy!
 
Yimmys Yayo

 
Quarteto 1111 was a Portuguese progressive/psychedelic rock band founded in 1967 in Estoril. Singer/Keyboardist Jose Cid went on to be what I’ve seen described as the “Portuguese Elton John” though there’s no early warning of that here thankfully. Here are a couple of lovely, pastoral, weirdly produced tracks from their eponymous debut LP, a conceptual piece dealing with racism and emigration (or so they claim). Evidently the censorship-happy Salazar regime made sure it was pulled from shelves the very week it was released. Dickheads.

This (unfortuntely truncated) black and white clip is for thier 1967 hit “El Rei D. Sebasti?ɬ

Just like the

 
Thank god she didn’t watch “Requiem for a Dream.”

My wife cries at the end of almost every movie. It’s really cute. I grabbed my camera to capture this moment right after we finished Return of the Jedi.

Note: I love my wife to death! She was okay after about 25 minutes. She laughed when she saw this video.

 
(via Arbroath)

 
African Giant Pouched Rats are being trained to detect unexploded landmines in Tanzania. Socyberty says:

The idea occurred to Weegens as he realized that rats were both easy to train and had an excellent sense of smell. Combining these two would, he considered, provide a cheap way to detect unexploded mines and ?

 
It’s a story that is getting surprisingly little national attention: former Mod Squad actress Peggy Lipton has inadvertently found herself at the center of New York’s pension fund scandal. Lipton was the object of the affections of a political operative named Jack Chartier who abused taxpayer supported town cars and other perks of his job in an effort to woo the actress. Chartier has been described in rather unflattering terms in the majority of the articles I’ve read on the matter. (The back story is told here in great detail). But now the scandal is getting deeper.

Tom Robbins write in the Village Voice:

The only victims in the Tiger Woods episode, for instance, are an SUV and the golf star himself, possibly due to a few swings on a nine-iron by his gorgeous wife. Compare that paltry disabled list to the lethal fallout produced after a schlubby late-middle-aged political hack from Queens fell hard for Lipton, the aging but still charming TV starlet. Lovestruck Jack Chartier was chief of staff to the New York state comptroller with influence over billions in state pension funds. The result has been financial scandal history.

Since Chartier, 64, started confessing to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s investigators about how he abused his office in order to better impress Lipton, at least five powerful figures have been forced to plead guilty to crimes involving the pension fund. Those admitting felonies so far include the former leader of the state’s Liberal Party, a Texas hedge-fund manager, a hugely successful investment adviser, and a pension fund broker.

The latest victim is the biggest catch yet: Elliott Broidy, 52, is the former national finance committee chairman of the Republican National Committee and a personal friend of George W. Bush. Broidy was such a generous and prolific giver that he qualified as a “Super Ranger” on Bush’s fundraising team, a designation for those ponying up $300,000-plus. One glittering evening in 2006, Broidy and his wife had Dubya as the guest of honor at their Bel Air mansion where more than $1 million was raised for the Republican cause. Broidy’s wallet was so wide open that Bush named him to the board of the Kennedy Center, placed him on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, and had him to dinner at the White House with another famously randy figure, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

None of those powerful connections, however, were any help once Chartier started singing after having been being nailed on his own transgressions.

The Peggy Lipton Affair Brings Down Another Mogul (Village Voice)

 
Chicks and vinyl! Vinyl and chicks!

Lifelounge says, “May we present to you a gallery that is a homage to lovely ladies of the past caught mid turntable tease with vinyl in hand. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to get the timeless appeal of this subject. Enjoy.”
 
Chicks and Vinyl

Autonomedia’s 2010 calendar of Jubilee Saints is now available. The calendar tracks world history dates in anarchist and poetic resistance to Teh Machine. (Arthur mag’s blog regularly posts dates from the calendar, which help restore my sense of narrative on a regular basis.)

Autonomedia’s Jubilee Saints Calendar for 2010! Our 18th annual wall calendar, with artwork by James Koehnline, and text by the Autonomedia Collective.

Hundreds of radical cultural and political heroes are celebrated here, along with the animating ideas that continue to guide this project ?

(Via Reddit)