Sometimes you have to give it up

Sometimes, you have to give it up for Pierre Robert, radio renaissance man of the Delaware Valley, who managed to play U2’s “I Will Follow” as I got into the car today to go to work. It was the rollicking, angry, live version from “Under A Blood Red Sky” that reminded those of us who came across them as of the Joshua Tree album that they could still kick out the jams when they wanted to.


Bill Simmons(@sportsguy33) , on “The BS Report”, noted that he had received feedback from readers, when he mentioned his pal JackO’s journey to a U2 show in Foxboro, amounting to, “Who cares, old man. U2 is over.”. That is an interesting response-U2, without any question one of the most famous and successful bands in rock and roll, is now seen (by young people, I assume), as a bunch of old fogeys.

I guess, in a sense, they are right. U2 has been making music since the early 1980s, and they are still making records and touring 30 years later. Rock N Roll has always been a Kill Your Idols kind of thing, and personally, my musical taste is pretty stuck. There are very few groups that I enjoy today that I didn’t enjoy in, say, 1990. I never used to be that way, but at a certain point, I just stopped caring so much about new music.

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The Roman Polanski case is making all sorts of hay, especially on Twitter. Polanski is a supposedly gifted film director (I haven’t seen his films, and even if I had, I am in no real position to know) who fled the US after becoming involved in a rape case. From what I am able to understand, the victim does not want him tried, but the case is still open. The authorities in Switzerland have picked him up and are preparing to send him to the US to face justice.

All I know for sure is that I don’t know what he did, and neither do you. I also know that rape is a terrible crime, one of the worst things a person can do to another.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote a novel, “Mother Night”, about the effort to track down a Nazi after World War II, and the self righteousness of the pursuers in that book remind me a little bit of the people on Twitter climbing all over themselves to say how terrible a person Roman Polanski is.

He may indeed be a terrible person.

I'm not condoning anything or justifying anything, I just wonder how much is accomplished by trying an old man for something that happened decades ago.

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NPR’s “This American Life” this week was another economic show, “Return to the Giant Pool Of Money”, following up on reporting they did about the economic crisis. I think it’s an excellent program, and well worth your time. I would especially like DMarks to listen to it and explain to me again how this is all Fannie Mae’s fault.