Bite sized reviews of things we (sometimes) like.

Walking through downtown Oaxaca last December, my friend greeted a couple of young women as we passed on the sidewalk. "Adios," she said. "Adios," they replied.

"That was Lila Downs, the singer," she said to me. I had no idea who that was and didn't give the matter much more thought. But then, I'd never heard her sing.

A couple months later, still in Oaxaca, I saw a flyer for a Lila Downs concert: a benefit show for a foundation that helps poor Oaxacan women get an education. I bought a couple of tickets, expecting to be pleasantly entertained while contributing to a worthy cause. But I wasn't entertained. I was blown away. It's been a while since a singer has gotten under my skin like this.

Lila Downs' records are found in the world music section, under Mexico. This is probably as good a place as anywhere to keep them, though Lila herself is perfectly binational and her band includes members hailing from Canada to Argentina. The latest disk, La Linea/Border, is inspired by the experiences of Mexico's migrant workers. With songs in Spanish, English, Mayan, and Zapotec, it reflects the babel of voices that is our ever-expanding border region. Everyone can sing along with some parts and almost no one can sing along with all of it. Just like real life.

Born in Oaxaca of a Mexican mother and Gringo father, Lila Downs got her start, with her saxophone-playing husband Paul Cohen, playing the tourist clubs of Oaxaca.

Meanwhile, she studied Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. And this interest in culture, including her mother's Mixtec culture, inspires her music. Based largely in Latino rhythms and informed by jazz sensibilities, her three CDs to date range from traditional Mexican songs to popular covers. It's a body of work unlike any other.

The first disk, La Sandunga, is mainly arrangements of traditional Oaxacan songs, or songs inspired by traditional styles. Tree of Life, the second disk, is drawn from Mixtec histories and myths. Borderlines pushes those boundaries to include Woody Guthrie covers and a beautiful jazzy ballad. The first song, Mi Corazon Me Recuerda (My Heart Reminds Me) puts to music one of the poems of the romantic Chiapan poet Jaime Sabinas. And the music complements the poem perfectly. When she sings "Soy el tiempo que pasa," (I am the time that is passing), her voice carries all the unassailable authority of time itself. There's no point in me trying to explain. You'll just have to go to a record store and listen.

--Troy Skeels. Lila Downs music is available from Narada World, www.narada.com.

Blog 'til You Drop! Those with neither the time nor the inclination to scour the Web for the Maximum Bad News in the Minimum Time may rejoice at the advent of the Media Patrol at www.cursor.org, the Permanent Warlog ("...this Warlog's purpose is to demonstrate the folly of the War On Terror by taking articles only from wire feeds and mainstream news organizations, including FOX") at www.dack.com, and the Common Dreams News Center at www.commondreams.org. The breadth of news sources surveyed by each is terribly impressive, even somewhat bewildering. It's a helluva service they're providing, separating the interesting news from the waterskiing chipmunks and all. The least we can do is pay attention (and maybe drop 'em a few bucks). Also well worth adding to the daily surfing routine are www.counterpunch.org (the ETS! charter requires us to plug Counterpunch "no fewer than several times per annum," in case you've noticed) and Brendan O'neill's www.boneill.blogspot.com. --Eddie Tews

And I would add to surfing suggestions some foreign news. There are a lot of foreign newspapers seconds away, a resource we didn't have five years ago and one that points up almost instantly how woefully pathetic (and jingoistic, and obedient to state interests) our "free" media is in the US. Depending on the region, just about every part of the world has at least one or two major dailies with English-language editions on line. They have their own biases to sort through, but those biases tend to be right up front, compared to the uniquely American myth of "objectivity." And, of course, there's the ones originally in English: British Papers like The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk), The Independent (www.independent.co.uk), and the Daily Telegraph (www.dailytelegraph.co.uk), or even the venerable voice of Tory Britain, the London Times (www.londontimes.com) are all better than anything in the US for news on the rest of the world and on American actions in it; or, try an often overlooked source, the Irish Times (www.ireland.com). --G.P.