The Nomad and the Olive Branch

Music is classified into many genres (rock, pop, rap, etc.) and subgenres (classic rock, heavy metal, hiphop, soul, etc.). It has worked mainly to classify different tastes and musical movements. Recently, however, the upper echelon of the Western music industries have come up with a fancy term for anything else that doesn't fall into these categories: "world music," an umbrella phrase that shrouds Arabic, Latin, Hindi, Greek, Carribean, and other genres (sorry if I left anyone out, but I just included these for the sake of example). The phrase "World music" is the biggest crock of BS I have ever come across as one who has a taste in a variety of musical genres (albeit admittedly over a limited scope of artists). It is a demeaning and racist term used to shove aside any and all interest in a wider spectrum of musical tastes, regardless of whether or not they conform to some standard of musical creation, such as classical or baroque music, or some form of diction...

I know this story is long overdue, and that I haven't been writing in a while. There are more things to life than sitting in front of a computer and rambling about whatever comes your way in the news or your daily experiences. But anyways, to the issue at hand. Last year on December the 14th, Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi reporter from the Iraqi-owned and Egyptian-based Al-Baghdadia TV (البغدادية), threw 2 "size 10" shoes (according to Dubya) at the then pResident of the U.S., George W. Bush ( 1 ). All Dubya could do was smile at Zaidi, who was then assailed by Iraqi security forces and taken into custody. Of course, that was all said and done at the time, and usually at other events involving political figures being assailed one way or another by angry protestors, the news of such things tends to die off or remain in memory as an event alone. Of course, that's for most events of this theme. Sadly, Western - and unfortunately this time around, Arab - media outlets have...