The So So Glos - "Black & Blue" Soundcheck from Matthew Greeley on Vimeo.

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via The Huffington Post, Little Girl Who Challenged First Lady Is Right: Obama Is Deporting More Immigrants Than Ever

From The Washington Post on March 20:
"When Obama said [during the campaign] it's un-American to tear a mother from her child, we believed him," said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, which has brought several hundred protesters to Washington. "We never imagined that a year later, we'd be denouncing his administration for surpassing the Bush administration on enforcement."

Latinos Increasingly Critical Of Obama's Record On Immigration, The Washington Post, March 20 2010

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LCD Soundsystem - Bye Bye Bayou (HD)

lcd soundsystem | MySpace Music Videos
A bitter irony that this arrives the day oil is washing into the marshlands of Louisiana. This is the music of our times - as James Murphy sings "bye bye delta blues...providence is coming".

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Gulf Oil Spill Leak Now Pegged At 95,000 Barrels A Day, McClatchy News Service, May 20 2010

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, center, and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, right, tour the oil-impacted marsh in Pass a Loutre, Louisana, on May 19.

Nightmare Scene Of Oil Unfolding In Wetlands - Oil Slick Hits Wetlands, Threatens Florida, Agents Presse France via Common Dreams, May 20 2010

Photographer Carolyn Cole, with The Los Angeles Times takes pictures of oil on the breakwater in the mouth of the Mississippi River on May 18. Hundreds of photos covering the spill disaster featured on Huffington Post.

Read the following article from marine toxicologist Riki Ott on Huffington Post which follows reports of fishermen, who are working for BP to fight the slick without respiratory safety gear, suffering from symptoms related to the oil's toxic air and then returning home to their families to find them suffering from the same symptoms.

Human Health Tragedy In The Making, Huffington Post, May 19 2010

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Los Rakas are laughing at us from some Dutty Artz dimension where apparently it is not 50 degrees and raining. Instead the sun is shining, the speakers are loud, the girls are dancing and everything is beautiful in Neuva York. Join them at Dutty Artz with a download of "Abrazame" (Uproot Andy Hold Yuh Remx).

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Costello's decision to not play two shows in Israel follows reports of the cancellation by poet and singer Gil Scott-Heron of a show in Tel-Aviv in reaction to calls for a boycott.

From Elvis Costello's website:

It Is After Considerable Contemplation....

It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July.

One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament.

Then there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.

I must believe that the audience for the coming concerts would have contained many people who question the policies of their government on settlement and deplore conditions that visit intimidation, humiliation or much worse on Palestinian civilians in the name of national security.

I am also keenly aware of the sensitivity of these themes in the wake of so many despicable acts of violence perpetrated in the name of liberation.

Some will regard all of this an unknowable without personal experience but if these subjects are actually too grave and complex to be addressed in a concert, then it is also quite impossible to simply look the other way.

I offer my sincere apologies for any disappointment to the advance ticket holders as well as to the organizers.

My thanks also go to the members of the Israeli media with whom I had most rewarding and illuminating conversations. They may regard these exchanges as a waste of their time but they were of great value and help to me in gaining an appreciation of the cultural scene.

I hope it is possible to understand that I am not taking this decision lightly or so I may stand beneath any banner, nor is it one in which I imagine myself to possess any unique or eternal truth.

It is a matter of instinct and conscience.

It has been necessary to dial out the falsehoods of propaganda, the double game and hysterical language of politics, the vanity and self-righteousness of public communiqués from cranks in order to eventually sift through my own conflicted thoughts.

I have come to the following conclusions.

One must at least consider any rational argument that comes before the appeal of more desperate means.

Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it.

I cannot imagine receiving another invitation to perform in Israel, which is a matter of regret but I can imagine a better time when I would not be writing this.

With the hope for peace and understanding.  - Elvis Costello 

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SBTRKT -Soundboy Shift by sbtrkt

SBTRKT's "Soundboy Shift" was released earlier this Spring by the dynamic Young Turks label, home to the XX and Jack Penate, and it's hitting right as he's at the forefront of a fluid scene of producers and DJs in the UK who are freely mixing up elements of dubstep, 2step, 80's R&B, house, reggae and disco. Following his powerful "Laika" single and a remix flip of Radiohead, SBTRKT has built his reputation with razor-sharp guest mixes on the key new music programs including Gilles Peterson Worldwide, Mary Anne Hobbs late-night Radio1 show and Benji B's Deviation on 1xtra as well as a session on Rinse FM with Skream. You can probably find the mp3 floating on the net but the limited 12" release is essential. Stay tuned to the soundboy shift.
Sbtrkt Mary Anne Hobbs Guest Mix by sbtrkt

Posted by US&THEM, via Midnight Rockers Express

Food stamps are the primary federal anti-hunger program, helping poor people buy food. Enrollment is highest during times of economic distress. The jobless rate was 9.9 percent, the government said on Friday.

The Agriculture Department said 39.68 million people, or 1 in 8 Americans, were enrolled for food stamps during February, an increase of 260,000 from January. USDA updated its figures on Wednesday.

"This is the highest share of the U.S. population on SNAP/food stamps," said the anti-hunger group Food Research and Action Center, using the new name for food stamps, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). "Research suggests that one in three eligible people are not receiving ... benefits." - Charles Abbot, reporting for Reuters

Read the entire article: Food-Stamp Tally Nears 40 Million, Sets Record, Reuters, May 7 2010

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Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

'There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,' said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. 'There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.'

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes. - The NY Times

Read entire article: Giant Plumes Of Oil Founder Under Gulf Of Mexico, The New York Times, May 15 2010

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Well not brand new, this track appeared around October '09, but its now just punching through with the help of this video. Shabazz Palaces is the latest incarnation from Ishmael Butler (aka Butterfly) formerly of Digable Planets. He reluctantly granted an interview to Pitchfork recently, as he's been opting to let the music build rather than going down the over-explain-over-expose route, which he says is not interesting in what he calls "this contentual era".

Posted by US&THEM, via Midnight Rockers Express

The Very Best - Warm Heart Of Africa (So Shifty Remix) by So Shifty

"...filling speaker space with jacked trills and cracking snaps..", Pitchfork on CHLLNGR's dusted-out remix of Primary 1's "Princess".