2. On the day he turned seventy, Steve Reich gave an odd lecture to so-called "post-minimalist" composers via NPR's Modern Mainstream program. He told the young composers, "I'm the one who made you, and I can also destroy you. If you don't believe that, just try me!" Reich then gave an extended account of his early (unpublished) writings and claimed that he invented stereophonic sound and that any composer who records music in stereo owes him royalties. After the radio broadcast, Reich mysteriously disappeared and was replaced with an impersonator.

Much of the intense dissatisfaction I have with the American media arises out of the fact that these extraordinary developments -- the dominant political movement advocating lawlessness and tyranny out in the open in The Wall St. Journal and Weekly Standard -- receive almost no attention.

While the Bush administration expressly adopts these theories to detain American citizens without charges, engage in domestic surveillance on Americans in clear violation of the laws we enacted to limit that power, and asserts a general right to disregard laws which interfere with the President's will, our media still barely discusses those issues.

They write about John Edwards' haircut and John Kerry's windsurfing and which political consultant has whispered what gossip to them about some painfully petty matter, but the extraordinary fact that our nation's dominant political movement is openly advocating the most radical theories of tyranny -- that "liberties are dangerous and law does not apply" -- is barely noticed by our most prestigious and self-loving national journalists. Merely to take note of that failure is to demonstrate how profoundly dysfunctional our political press is.

By contrast, Byrd, Gibbons, Weelkes and Tye were like the dinner guests on whom you had crushes as a child, not because of any particular story they told, but because of the way they told those stories - the turns of phrase, the little obsessive details, the localised, rather than structural repetitions. The content of the stories could be in another language, but the little gestures - the musical equivalent of subtly tapping the table twice to reinforce a conclusion, smoothing out the tablecloth before the punchline of a joke, a well-timed sip of wine with eyebrows cocked - were the stars of the show, they were like the things you remember when people you love have changed, or moved away, or died.

Lamenting is the product of an idea, conceived by Brad Wells, to place Giovanni Palestrina's 16th century settings of the Hebrew alphabet (the "Alef Bet") in a modern context. Four of the five books of the Lamentations of Jeremiah were written as an alphabetical acrostic; these were set with their Hebrew letters intact by Renaissance composers, offering those composers a rare opportunity to avoid the usual constraints of Latin texts. Palestrina responded with a series of extremely short miniatures that are often contrapuntally and harmonically bold for their time, and beautiful for any era. My goal, in writing Lamenting, was to internalize Palestrina's compositional voice and write a new work that would combine his voice with my own, in the service of creating a full setting of the Alef Bet. The resulting setting is intertextual, speaking both to and through the Hebrew language, Palestrina, and the acrostic shell of the Lamentation text, with its description of the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem and the corruption of the Jewish people. Lamenting incorporates actual Palestrina settings and references others, placing that music in dialogue with musical elements that are clearly of the present. In forging that connection between the past and the present, from the eras of Jeremiah and Palestrina through the histories of two of the world's greatest and bloodiest cities, up to the present day, it is impossible to avoid the bittersweet quality that is so characteristic of Jewish history. Jerusalem is still the source of much lamentation after 2500 years, and even as the Alef Bet has once again become the alphabet of a joyous, living tongue, spoken by Jews who live and thrive in the city, the dark clouds of corruption still gather. As much as anything else, I lament that this is so, and that we are unable to move past the problems of centuries long past, but not forgotten. Lamenting is dedicated to my grandmother, Gabrielle Greenstein.

I formed New Amsterdam Records as a haven for the great artists I know who make music that slips through the cracks between genres. There's an exciting scene that's developed in New York over the past few years, as a set of strong-minded young musicians have taken their art in highly personal directions, speaking not just to the traditions that have spawned them but also to the varied musical culture in which they all live. They make music without filters, bringing the breadth of their listening experience and the love they have for many different kinds of music into their own playing and writing and producing. This is music without walls, but also without an agenda, and without an organizing principle. The records we sell will paint a certain picture of that scene without a name, without trying to give it one. I hope that New Amsterdam develops as quickly and as broadly as the scene itself, capturing the best that people in it have to offer along the way, and touching the outer edges where musics meet. And I hope that you enjoy the music that we offer.

Lorin Maazel declared, "Xian has the potential for a superb career, not because she is Chinese or a woman, but because she is uniquely gifted."

Lark Quartet is releasing a new CD "Klap Ur Handz" on Endeavor Records on October 10, 2006. The CD is titled after one of the movements from DBR's newly commissioned string quartet "Parks" (named after Rosa Parks). In this work, the players have to clap, a feature he says was inspired by hip-hop rhythms but dates back to Cro-Magnon man. "There's something really communal about that," he says.

The key point is that African-Americans, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, are highly concentrated in a few districts. This means that in close elections many Democratic votes are, as political analysts say, wasted - they simply add to huge majorities in a small number of districts, while the more widely spread Republican vote allows the G.O.P. to win by narrower margins in a larger number of districts.

My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that because of this "geographic gerrymander," even a substantial turnaround in total Congressional votes - say, from the three-percentage-point Republican lead in 2004 to a five-point Democratic lead this year - would leave the House narrowly in Republican hands. It looks as if the Democrats need as much as a seven-point lead in the overall vote to take control.

(a) In General - No person may invoke the Geneva Conventions, or any protocols thereto, in any habeas or civil action or proceeding to which the United States, or a current or former officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States, is a party, as a source of rights in any court of the United States or its States or territories.

"You can't go out, you are arrested." "So it seems," said K. "But what for?" he added. "We are not authorized to tell you that. Go to your room and wait there. Proceedings have been instituted against you, and you will be informed of everything in due course. I am exceeding my instructions in speaking freely to you like this.... If you continue to have as good luck as you have had in the choice of your warders, then you can be confident of the final result." (3)

(2) PROHIBITION ON GRAVE BREACHES-....No foreign or international source of law shall supply a basis for a rule of decision in the courts of the United States in interpreting the prohibitions enumerated in subsection (d) of such section 2441 [of title 18, United States Code].
(3) INTERPRETATION BY THE PRESIDENT- (A) As provided by the Constitution and by this section, the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and to promulgate higher standards and administrative regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out.

- Pastor Martin Niemoller