Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

I hear some of the most wonderful music on my local radio station, KBCS. One afternoon, I heard a cover of Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ while listening to the car radio. It’s a song I’ve always been partial to. But this cover was something else. It was gorgeous with smooth, shimmering [...]

Well, not so fast with the cheering. The only reason I’m a JIB finalist is that I was nominated for Best Jewish Music Post and there weren’t enough nominees to have a first round vote. So I get to call myself a bona fide finalist. The post nominated is the one I [...]

UPDATE: KBCS will rebroadcast this show this Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 7PM.  To listen live to the audio stream, click link in paragraph below.  A zis’n Peysach!
On Sunday, April 1st at 7 PM PDT, I’ll be hosting The Old Country, KBCS’ world music program. The theme will be Passover music since it will [...]

Delighted to report some of the worthy winners in tonight’s Grammy Award competition. The main categories that interest me are the traditional ones. And I’ve already featured blog posts about most of the 2007 winners when these recordings were initially released. But it’s worthwhile highlighting them again now that they’ve achieved new [...]

I first met Ry Cooder’s music in 1969 through my best friend in high school, Rina Slavin, who had some of the best cultural taste around. She had an amazing Skip James record and whenever I heard that high-pitched wail of a voice it sent shivers up and down my spine. Rina also [...]

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I’ve added a new feature to my blog which you can see and use in the sidebar: XSPF Player plugin. I started out this quest after reading the NY Times article on blog widgets, which referred to Streampad’s mini-player. It looked so cool and performed such a useful task I coveted it for my [...]

Yesterday, gunmen attempting to topple the current Lebanese government assassinated Pierre Gemayel, Industry minister, and scion of a major Lebanese Maronite family. In the aftermath of the summer war between Hezbollah and Israel, Lebanon seems to be sliding slowing into chaos. And it is a crying shame. Lebanon is precisely the Middle [...]

‘Settler Gothic:’ spoof of American Gothic in Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest (cartoon: Avi Katz)
I’ve noticed there is a type of what I call Jewish cultural revisionism (not to be confused with Holocaust revisionism, chas v’halilah–God forbid) gaining popularity. That is, a rebellion by alienated, mostly secular Jews against “their father’s” Judaism–a religion and culture full [...]

DO NOT download this badge or your local Scout may turn you in to MPAA for piracy (credit: AP)
This just in from the Department of Are They Kidding?
The 52,000 Boy Scouts in Los Angeles have a new virtue to strive for: respect for copyrights. In return for learning about the harms of downloading pirated movies [...]

During the height of the Lebanon war, I was grasping for ways one might formulate an alternate, and more peaceful perspective on the conflict. I thought: “why not put together a radio show of Israeli and Lebanese peace music?” I got in touch with Richard Isaac, who’d produced an Israeli pop music show [...]