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TOKYO (AP) — For decades, the U.S. Air Force has grown accustomed to such superlatives as unrivaled and unbeatable. Now some of its key aircraft are being described with terms like decrepit. The aging of the Air Force made a brief appearance in the presidential debates when Republican nominee Mitt Romney cited it as evidence of the decline of U.S. military readiness. His contention that the Navy is the smallest it's been since 1917 got more attention thanks to President Barack Obama's quip about "horses and bayonets." But analysts say the Air Force has a problem that likely will worsen no matter who wins Tuesday. It was created in part by a lack of urgency in the post-Cold War era, and by...

In an article in Open magazine, "The Riot and the Rot," Dhirendra K. Jha examines the communal violence that broke out on Oct. 24 in Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh, while a Hindu procession was carrying idols of the Goddess Durga for immersion in the Saryu River. The violence, Mr. Jha writes, was not spur-of-the-moment but carefully orchestrated by Hindu rioters against minority Muslims. According to Mr. Jha's account, the rioters mingled in the procession before proceeding to loot and ransack shops owned by Muslims, as well as vandalizing a mosque. He argues that the cause behind the violence requires no investigation, since the perpetrators wanted to make their message clear; one sign of that, he...

A world-renowned house and garden in Canterbury has today been gifted to the people of New Zealand. Architect Sir Miles Warren announced he has created the...

Related topics Music ReleasesPunchlinevinyl records Advertisement Pop-rock band Punchline will be releasing their latest EP, So Nice to Meet You, on vinyl on November 13. The one-sided, 21" vinyl will be released via Paper + Plastick Records. It will be available in both transparent red and transparent blue colors. So Nice to Meet You was originally released on January 3, 2012 through the band's own label, Modern Short Stories. The EP hit number 1 on the iTunes rock charts and number 4 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, aided by singer Steve Soboslai's appearance on the TV show Mobbed, and bassist Chris Fafalios' "threat" to leave the band if the album did not chart at number 1. In...

Aretha Franklin performs at the Nokia Theatre L.A. in July in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello, The Associated Press) CHICAGO — The gospel-truth, if you believe most of the history books: Aretha Franklin didn't really find her true voice until she began working with producer Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records in 1967. "My idea was to make good tracks, use the best players, put Aretha back on piano and let the lady wail," Wexler wrote in his autobiography, "Rhythm and the Blues: A Life in American Music" (1994). Indeed, Franklin's 1967 Atlantic debut album, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way That I Loved You)," is considered a soul masterpiece. But the Aretha before and...

View All123Next » Fifty years after his death, Ernie Kovacs is de rigueur. Mainstream, even. His angular, imaginative approach to humor was impossible to imitate, but his influence on television-specifically television comedy-is intractable. He's the Thelonious Monk of the small screen. And just trying to play in a Monkish style always points out that Monk is Monk and nobody else is, so it is with TV and Kovacs. The jazz world often assumes that the avant-garde thinks and operates independent from the mainstream. We'd be shocked to find saxophonist Ellery Eskelin on singer Jane Monheit's new disc. But there are other avant-gardes, no less wild, and in the mainstream. Carl Stalling's...

Track review of "Round Midnight" Austrian vocalist/trumpeter Michaela Rabitsch and guitarist Robert Pawlik have fronted a quartet and performed as a duo for the past 15 years, releasing three CDs ahead of the present Voyagers. Concentrating on original compositions that...

Complexity can sometimes be considered a form of art in itself and it seldom follows simplicity. Complexity is also impressionism in its purest form. Its faithful depiction of the present may be deemed naïve and unsophisticated, but it remains an unfiltered, pure representation of the being. Less than 20 years ago, Änglagård's albums, Hybris (Mellotronen, 1992) and Epilog (Exergy, 1995), caused a stir in the progressive world. The blending of the archetypes of...