Sleater-Kinney: Jumpers

Four seconds was the longest wait...

For my money, one of the most compelling songs ever to come out of SF.  As for its relevance to the current gentrified environ. and house prices in SF, well that's ground rather too well-trodden and too-depressing for my tastes.  Another glorious city shat all over by the insatiable appetites of our billionaire overlords.  I guess Portland is still relatively cheap.

David Bowie: Panic in Detroit

Historically, geographically, the wholesale abandonment of Detroit by non- 'African-American' populations makes no sense.  And what other similar territory in the US would not, decades later, have been gentrified by now ?  What is it about this particular piece of real estate, with wealthy white suburbs ringing it all about, with nearby Arab-heavy suburban communities, and with so many auto factories relocated just north of the border into Canada ?  Where else in the US is the line between populations so explicitly marked along stark white and black lines ?  For what reason, and to what end ?  By rights, Detroit could have been/should be one of the jewels of America's crown.  Instead, it's a perpetual embarrassment, and a racial case-history upon which no race seems hugely inclined to dwell.  I could go into the current right-wing 'emergency measures' being put forward for the 'reform' of Detroit, but I don't think my heart could stand it.  Detroit deserved/deserves better.

Of course Detroit is merely practice.  YourTown, USA is next on the Billionaire agenda.  Your time will come, and sooner than you think...