Joel Schalit

Critique of Political Economy

Thomas Frank now works in advertising.  Or so I joked when Jennifer and I first came across this ad at the height of the crash in October.  It could almost be a page out of The Conquest of Cool.

If only the design department at the Socialist Workers Party had the same sense of humor. Thumbs up to the savoir faire behind this poster’s placement. Brixton Market, 11/08.

Iraqi Hardcore

The music is terrific. The liner notes, some might argue, are even better. To top it all off, Give Me Love was issued by Damon Albarn‘s delightfully idiosyncratic Honest Jon’s label. In other words, its got indie written all over it, in every possible sense of the term. However, with a twist. The noise is decidedly Middle Eastern, Iraqi to be precise, played by Baghdad Jews during the British Mandate period.

If you are a fan of vintage Folkways recordings from the 1950s, or own a copy of  Sublime Frequencies‘ faux documentary of Iraqi pop, Choubi Choubi!, this record is for you. In preparation since August, Charlie Bertsch’s brand new essay on the 2008 anthology was published in Tuesday’s edition of Zeek. Like all of Charlie’s music writing, The Sounds of Jewish Iraq was most definitely worth the wait.

For an excellent companion piece dialing into the Iraq-dominated zeitgeist, check out Adam Shatz’ Leaving Paradise, published last month in the London Review of Books.

Investigative Journalism

By Saturday afternoon, Britain’s leading tabloids had already determined the identity of the terrorists that had raided Mumbai.

With the Evening Standard already having established the guerrillas’ nationality, The Daily Express narrows things down to their hometown.

All The Sun can do is recycle another paper’s already problematic headline – albeit with a more in-your-face layout. (Note the use of  ‘rampage’. It’s not as tough as ‘butchers’, but still provocative.)

Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph chooses to indulge the same anxiety by returning to the nationality issue, this time sans the headlines. The understatement of the query’s still front-page positioning is important.

My colleagues here have not had the best things to say about the state of this periodical. Though it’s allegations might very well be accurate, you have to question the timing of this article’s publication.