this is indie rock

...'this is indie rock: the best bands you've never heard vol.2' is deep elm's compilation of some of today's best unsigned bands (their compilation series was formerly known as the emo diaries)...chicago's very own maxel toft opens up this album with one of his songs...he also used one of my photos of him to be in the liner notes...i happen to be a big fan of max's music...he's working on an album for each of the presidents, which may remind you of sufjan stevens's project to do an album for the 50 states...but max started his project first...max doesn't know this yet, but teddy and i are going to make music with him someday...

cadence's nose has slowed down to a slow jog, but i'm still sick...i thought i had the flu, but it turned out to be a cold...i haven't slept too well the past couple nights because of my cough...and to make matters worse, i keep waking up cadence too, which can lead to my being awake even longer...hopefully, this cough will go away soon so we can all get some sleep around here...

so i was googling my full name the other day, and i discovered that my dear friend caleb maskell has got himself a blog! for those of you who don't know, caleb has been my spiritual and music appreciation mentor literally since the night my dad died (that's when he sent me an email out of the blue because he saw my bill mallonee photos)...i pay much heed to what caleb says, at least most of the time...

the reason i bring this up is that he has several posts there regarding some of humankind's greatest inhumanities towards humanity...this is a topic that has weighed heavily on my heart ever since my eighth grade history fair which had the theme of 'man's inhumanities towards man'...that was back in 1986, and in addition to the atrocity of slavery, we studied the trail of tears (forced removal of the cherokee nation from georgia to oklahoma), the armenian genocide, the japanese internment in the u.s., the jewish holocaust and the killing fields of the cambodian genocide...it was a sobering learning experience for my 13 year old mind to grapple with these atrocities...

you would think that with the passage of time, the world would learn from the mistakes of history...you would think that with exponential advances in science and technology, we would mature socially as well...you would think so, but we all thunk wrong...

caleb has a link on his blog to this report for the International Labour Orgnanization (an agency of the United Nations) regarding slavery around the world today...how is it possible that in the year 2005, there are over 12 MILLION people trapped in forced labor around the world today? and how is it that 40-50% of these victims are children under the age of 18?

it seems that most of the slavery is perpetuated by the private sector...sweatshops, agriculture, prostitution, etc...yes, there's big money being made here, folks...yet again, the love of money is the root of all evil...

we can no longer plead ignorance in this day and age of instantaneous mass communication...we are responsible...we must be our brothers' keepers...if we don't, we may as well all go to hell in a handbasket...