God (or whoever) bless Patrice Roussel. I've been quietly sitting here on my hands for days now, quietly wishing that a small handful of smug, sanctimonious individuals would just fucking TRY to remember once in a while that George W. Bush is not synonymous with "America" and imperialism/colonialism is not synonymous with "America" and McDonald's is not synonymous with "America." Still, the monolithic view from the outside persists. Dig: Not every one of us is proud of what some of us have done or said or committed on behalf of the rest of us here some or even most of the time, most of us still recognize that in the mean time we have a lot to be proud of, including William Faulkner and George Herriman and Jack Kirby and John Coltrane and Harry Partch and Los Bros Hernandez and Robert Johnson and John Zorn and Philip Roth and a whole lot of other things Patrice and Skip already mentioned and -- at least for the moment -- the right for all of us who actually live here to complain openly about just what it is WE don't like about our country, thank you very much, and to take action when action is warranted. And lo and behold, while I sit and steam and sulk, it takes a certafiably cynical Frenchman like Patrice to finally step up and give voice to that which I was too pissed off and offended to accurately verbalize. So thanks, Patrice. I honestly feel a lot better now. But to the next person who wants to flog "us" with 'Fast Food Nation' (a brutally fascinating book, BTW), please try to remind yourself that wherever you are, chances are good that someone near you chose to apply for that McDonald's franchise instead of opening a quaint little local eatery, capice? When I went to Istanbul two years ago, it was a local who insisted on treating me to a Quarter Pounder, not vice versa. And he wasn't being condescending: it was where he wanted to eat. If I lose "cool" points on the Zornlist because of this tirade, I could fucking care less. I support Greenpeace and I support the ACLU and I voted vehemently against both Bushes even though -- or maybe because -- I grew up in Texas, which often views itself as less a state and more an occupied territory. I think Cheney's one of the most evil and mendacious plutocrats ever installed in Washington, D.C., and right now I'm looking to help organize some kind of resistance to the Patriot Act and other Ashcroft transgressions against our freedom and civil liberties -- and yet I still say that this seemingly shallow little mongrel un-culture has a lot more going for it than most lapsed empires of the world care to admit. And when it comes to Islamic fundmentalism, America may be a leading target for its meddling, but every advanced culture in the world that runs on imported petroleum -- allowing the few to become obscenely wealthy in the presence and at the expense of the many -- shares in that blame. End of screed. Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com NP - Anthony Braxton, "Composition 286 (Tentet)," 'Six Compositions (GTM) 2001' (Rastascan/Limited Sedition/Barely Auditable)