palewire

I made a call-in appearance on the Chicago Public Radio program Sound Opinions last Saturday to answer a request for great summer songs. My choice: “Dr. Bombay” by Del Tha Funkee Homosapien.

If you download the podcast and fast forward to a little past the 32-minute mark, you can hear me ramble on about Del’s song, early ’90s G-funk, peripheral characters on the television series Bewitched, blues legend Robert Johnson and my beloved Toyota Camry.

What you won’t be able to hear are any of my thoughts about how club culture and the increased recreational use of MDMA (a.k.a. Esctasy) has changed hip-hop music since Del’s day, when marijuana consumption was much more conspicuous. You won’t hear any of that, because my comments were edited out by the show’s producers. I have been censored. Ben Welsh. Too bad for public radio.

Below you can find a copy of the notes I prepared before my call.

Talking Points: Del Tha Funkee Homosapien

Time’s Web site has a follow-up story with the Iraqi journalism student who broke the Haditha story (link). You’ll note that Taher doesn’t respond to attention with the appeals to professionalism and objective detachment favored by most American journalists.

“These are people who didn’t just kill individuals, they destroyed entire families,” he says. “In Islam, the punishment for such a crime is death.”

You’ll also note that Time’s coverage, once so humble and unassuming (One Morning in Haditha, March 27, 2006), has become much bolder now that leaks from the military investigation have backed up their story (The Shame of Kilo Company, May 28, 2006).