The story of the Tripoli 6 is profoundly depressing, yet another extreme case of the seemingly infinite capacity of human beings to rationalize cruelty. Stirling Newberry has an important post at TPM Cafe.

Don’t they have, like, you know, editors at the Associated Press to keep things like this from happening?

I can watch this over and over and over and never get tired of it. Brilliant courageous running from Prefontaine, and otherworldly and tactically superb racing by Viren. But why did Pre let Viren out of the box he set on the backstraight of the last lap? (Not that it would have made any difference.)

Without question one of the finest new compositons of the year.

YouTube – Kitten Composer

On Friday, October 13, I’ll be going to a performance of “Persian and Turkish Improvisations” by the extraordinary Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor and the Turkish baglama player Erdal Erzincan. Kalhor is one of the supreme virtuosos on the ancient Persian instrument the kamancheh, which is an ancestor to the western violin. His flights of improvisational fantasy with the sitarist Shujaat Khan in the fusion group Ghazal is some of the most astonishing music I’ve heard in the last 10 years. The new CD by Kalhor and Erzincan on ECM, The Wind , is just out, and I highly recommend it.