Friday, February 09, 2007

So They Admit They Suck?

This is too good. The Society for Ethnomusicology:


demands that the United States government and its agencies cease using music as an instrument of physical and psychological torture.


As someone who, as a child, was taken to an "Up With People" so-called concert, I appreciate the lasting harm that involuntary exposure to really awful music can inflict. (Sometimes, when it is really quiet, I can still hear <> inside my head < / shudder > "Up, up, with people! You see them wherever you go. Up, up, with people ....)

But I suspect that this is less a case of being morally opposed to torture as it is being horrifed at the possiblity a member of the society will be fingered as the author of music bad enough to get committed jihadis to renounce their god and way of life.

Professional pride is taking quite a beating here, eh?