The year what wuz . . .
Monday, December 31, 2007
Friday, December 28, 2007
Playin' in the band
Sometimes I've been a guest player for the fabulous Bunker Brothers. It's a thrill when we mesh and produce something worth listening to -- even if it's something only we listen to. We don't do it half often enough as far as I am concerned. We combined in separate duos recently and worked on such things as "Danko/Manuel" and "Leaving Trunk."
I deeply appreciate it, Bros Bunker, and look forward to the next installment.
It's a long affaire I've had with the guitar. What little real talent I ever had on the instrument is dissipating now with age and accompanying carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis and God knows what else. I never really had that much to begin with; though not from lack of trying. Anyone observing my attitude toward the instrument and the joyful noise I make with it would think I was a serious professional musician. Would that I were; but, unfortunately, the many inadequacies with which I started the violin carried easily over to the guitar.
This often puts me in an embarrassing situation. I've been making CDs of myself playing multi-track guitars, harmonica, violin (sometimes), and vocals. Each "album" seems a little better than the last, even though it's 99% covers of stuff the original of which is so, so much better -- leaving me with the question "who'd ever want to listen to this crap?"
And yet, music, to be complete, requires an audience. I do have a tiny fan base and they are all very kind and supportive and flattering whenever they have anything at all to say.
A few of the ones whose criticism I value the most never say anything at all, which is probably quite merciful. Yet the silence hurts, because there is too much damned ego tied up in trying to please someone's ear -- and that ego is quite fragile.
Sometimes it's an appealing thought to convert the guitars to kindling, though I'd hope that I'd give them away rather than destroy them. It's amazing how they get into the blood.
It was listening to Joan Baez play bluegrass back before the 60s got so colorful that got me started on the instrument nearly half a century ago. Soon, almost a year before I heard the man himself, I was picking out Baez versions of Dylan songs. Somewhere in there I picked up on blues in E which morphed into 3-chord rock -- about the time that the Stones, The Band and Traffic started doing songs that I was compelled by unseen forces to learn to play myself, so urgently that it seemed a matter of life and death.
San Francisco compounded the sickness. I spent many a night in flophouses or out on Telegraph Hill hammering away on a $25 pawnshop special trying to sound like a one-man version of Jefferson Airplane or Grateful Dead -- or Neil Young or Taj Mahal before I knew who either of them were.
That's still, basically, all I'm doing. I think maybe I still don't get it: I can't walk by a guitar without picking it up.
I deeply appreciate it, Bros Bunker, and look forward to the next installment.
It's a long affaire I've had with the guitar. What little real talent I ever had on the instrument is dissipating now with age and accompanying carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis and God knows what else. I never really had that much to begin with; though not from lack of trying. Anyone observing my attitude toward the instrument and the joyful noise I make with it would think I was a serious professional musician. Would that I were; but, unfortunately, the many inadequacies with which I started the violin carried easily over to the guitar.
This often puts me in an embarrassing situation. I've been making CDs of myself playing multi-track guitars, harmonica, violin (sometimes), and vocals. Each "album" seems a little better than the last, even though it's 99% covers of stuff the original of which is so, so much better -- leaving me with the question "who'd ever want to listen to this crap?"
And yet, music, to be complete, requires an audience. I do have a tiny fan base and they are all very kind and supportive and flattering whenever they have anything at all to say.
A few of the ones whose criticism I value the most never say anything at all, which is probably quite merciful. Yet the silence hurts, because there is too much damned ego tied up in trying to please someone's ear -- and that ego is quite fragile.
Sometimes it's an appealing thought to convert the guitars to kindling, though I'd hope that I'd give them away rather than destroy them. It's amazing how they get into the blood.
It was listening to Joan Baez play bluegrass back before the 60s got so colorful that got me started on the instrument nearly half a century ago. Soon, almost a year before I heard the man himself, I was picking out Baez versions of Dylan songs. Somewhere in there I picked up on blues in E which morphed into 3-chord rock -- about the time that the Stones, The Band and Traffic started doing songs that I was compelled by unseen forces to learn to play myself, so urgently that it seemed a matter of life and death.
San Francisco compounded the sickness. I spent many a night in flophouses or out on Telegraph Hill hammering away on a $25 pawnshop special trying to sound like a one-man version of Jefferson Airplane or Grateful Dead -- or Neil Young or Taj Mahal before I knew who either of them were.
That's still, basically, all I'm doing. I think maybe I still don't get it: I can't walk by a guitar without picking it up.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Another look back down short-term memory lane
Glenn Greenwald strikes again!
Dec. 26, 2007 One of the few things I dislike more than end-of-the-year "looking back" lists is the incessant chatter and worthless speculation over the upcoming primaries. But that chatter and speculation inundating everything. Thus, I offer some of my favorite quotes of 2007:
"When I talk to senior government officials on the phone, it's my own policy -- our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission" --
Tim Russert, under oath at the Lewis Libby trial, citing the textbook function of a government propagandist to explain his role as a "journalist." "I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used. It's our best format," as it allows us to "control the message" --
Cheney media aide Cathie Martin, under oath at the Libby trial, making clear how well Russert fulfills his function.* * * * *
"I am so uninterested in the Democrats wanting Karl Rove, because it is so bad for them. Because it shows business as usual, tit for tat, vengeance" --
Time Magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengel, emphasizing how bored he is by efforts to uncover Karl Rove's role in the firing of U.S. attorneys."As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off" --
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, explaining why it's best if government wrongdoing, such as Lewis Libby's perjury, remains concealed."YAAWWN. That's my view of the Libby flap" --
Washington Post National Political Reporter Shailagh Murray, emphasizing how bored she is by the story of the President of the United States protecting one his top aides, a convicted felon, from prison."Breathless." "Hot rhetoric." "Whenever that big day comes, Dodd -- as the keeper of the 'hold' -- must return from the campaign trail to officially block debate on the bill. . . . -- time that Dodd, who is trailing badly in early primary polls, can scarcely afford" --
Washington Post National Political Reporter Shailagh Murray, emphasizing how bored she is by efforts to stand up to the President's lawbreaking, torture, abolition of habeas corpus, and warrantless surveillance."Some stories stay alive longer than others because they reveal a more serious vulnerability. In Iowa, planting questions calls into question your authenticity -- something Clinton struggles to demonstrate on the best of days, because she's just not a gal who wings it. This episode sort of reminds me of the John Kerry windsurfing photo. It's the sort of thing that can linger in the mind" --
Washington Post National Political Reporter Shailagh Murray, emphasizing the issues that really matter to her, the ones that "linger" in her mind.* * * * *
"Does he have sex appeal? . . . Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of, a little bit of cigar smoke?" --
Chris Matthews, fantasizing about the pleasing, manly body smells of Fred Thompson."There is a hierarchical, there is, dare I say it, male, there is an old-line quality to them that some voters, indeed a lot of voters, find reassuring. And this is something that the Democrats need to understand" --
Newsweek's Howard Fineman, admiring the calming masculinity of the GOP presidential candidates and warning Democrats to take heed."What's appealing about Rudy Giuliani is not the generous side, what's appealing about him is the tough cop side.
Right. You just wait until daddy gets home.
Yes, that part...
That Daddy.
... of the daddy. It's the tough cop side, so...
Yes. Yes" --
Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman, breathlessly sharing their excitement over the firmness of their Daddy, Rudy Giuliani.He has "chiseled-out-of-granite features, a full, dark head of hair going a distinguished gray at the temples, and a barrel chest . . . . and has shoulders you could land a 737 on" --
Roger Simon, The Politico's chief political columnist, enthusiastically admiring numerous parts of Mitt Romney's body."The press here does a fantastic job of adhering to journalistic standards and covering politics in general" --
Newsweek's Richard Wolffe, at the National Press Club, chatting with Tony Snow and Karl Rove's dancing partner, David Gregory, about how partisan and hateful bloggers are and how professional and "fantastic" our national press corps is.* * * * *
"Well, John Edwards' campaign for president spent $400 on February 20, and another $400 on March 7, at a top Beverly Hills men's stylist, Torrenueva Hair Designs. . . . Only Edwards, however, has had the care he takes with his hair memorialized on YouTube" --
The Politico's Ben Smith, breaking wide open the modern press corps' Watergate, one of the most discussed political stories of 2007."John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an Edwards friend told The Politico" --
The Politico's Ben Smith, 53 minutes before Edwards announced that his wife had cancer and he would stay in the race."[The Politico's Ben] Smith also has a too-broad denial from Edwards [to a rumor that he is having an affair]: 'The story is false' . . . . Edwards' peculiar vulnerability should the allegation be believed is suggested by this Reuters lede"--
Slate's Mickey Kaus -- who, a month later, similarly amplified an equally sleazy whispering campaign about Hillary's rumored lesbian affair with a young Muslim aide -- proving conclusively that one can actually occupy a sewer level beneath the one where The Politico and Drudge are situated.* * * * *
"Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee's bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that -- Limbaugh is salivating -- would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only. In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid" --
Joe Klein of Time Magazine, acting as spokesman for GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra, smearing the Democrats with patently false statements."I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right" --
Joe Klein of Time Magazine, reciting the anthem of our modern press corps in explaining why he can't be bothered to correct the script Hoekstra fed him.* * * * *
"It may seem perverse to suggest that, at the very moment the House of Representatives is repudiating his policy in Iraq, President Bush is poised for a political comeback. But don't be astonished if that is the case" --
Dean of the Washington Press Corps David Broder, February 16, 2007.* * * * *
"Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy is an appropriate response. We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian (sic) atomic scientists" --
Law Professor Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, advocating that the U.S. Government begin murdering Iranian scientists instead of attempting diplomacy."Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged" --
Frank Gaffney in The Washington Times, using a fake Abraham Lincoln quote to argue that anti-war Senators should be punished as traitors."Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive" --
Mitt Romney, invoking the cowardly flagship of the modern GOP in arguing for limitless presidential powers and, with one short sentence, completely repudiating the core, founding American political value as most famously expressed by Patrick Henry."What the bill seeks to do is set back basic rights by some 900 years" --
Sen. Arlen Specter on the Military Commissions Act, in a speech he delivered on the Senate floor immediately before voting in favor of that bill (that was actually from September, 2006, but I cheated and included it anyway because it's my all-time favorite political quote).
Thank you, Salon.com
Dec. 26, 2007 One of the few things I dislike more than end-of-the-year "looking back" lists is the incessant chatter and worthless speculation over the upcoming primaries. But that chatter and speculation inundating everything. Thus, I offer some of my favorite quotes of 2007:
"When I talk to senior government officials on the phone, it's my own policy -- our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission" --
Tim Russert, under oath at the Lewis Libby trial, citing the textbook function of a government propagandist to explain his role as a "journalist." "I suggested we put the vice president on 'Meet the Press,' which was a tactic we often used. It's our best format," as it allows us to "control the message" --
Cheney media aide Cathie Martin, under oath at the Libby trial, making clear how well Russert fulfills his function.* * * * *
"I am so uninterested in the Democrats wanting Karl Rove, because it is so bad for them. Because it shows business as usual, tit for tat, vengeance" --
Time Magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengel, emphasizing how bored he is by efforts to uncover Karl Rove's role in the firing of U.S. attorneys."As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off" --
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, explaining why it's best if government wrongdoing, such as Lewis Libby's perjury, remains concealed."YAAWWN. That's my view of the Libby flap" --
Washington Post National Political Reporter Shailagh Murray, emphasizing how bored she is by the story of the President of the United States protecting one his top aides, a convicted felon, from prison."Breathless." "Hot rhetoric." "Whenever that big day comes, Dodd -- as the keeper of the 'hold' -- must return from the campaign trail to officially block debate on the bill. . . . -- time that Dodd, who is trailing badly in early primary polls, can scarcely afford" --
Washington Post National Political Reporter Shailagh Murray, emphasizing how bored she is by efforts to stand up to the President's lawbreaking, torture, abolition of habeas corpus, and warrantless surveillance."Some stories stay alive longer than others because they reveal a more serious vulnerability. In Iowa, planting questions calls into question your authenticity -- something Clinton struggles to demonstrate on the best of days, because she's just not a gal who wings it. This episode sort of reminds me of the John Kerry windsurfing photo. It's the sort of thing that can linger in the mind" --
Washington Post National Political Reporter Shailagh Murray, emphasizing the issues that really matter to her, the ones that "linger" in her mind.* * * * *
"Does he have sex appeal? . . . Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of, a little bit of cigar smoke?" --
Chris Matthews, fantasizing about the pleasing, manly body smells of Fred Thompson."There is a hierarchical, there is, dare I say it, male, there is an old-line quality to them that some voters, indeed a lot of voters, find reassuring. And this is something that the Democrats need to understand" --
Newsweek's Howard Fineman, admiring the calming masculinity of the GOP presidential candidates and warning Democrats to take heed."What's appealing about Rudy Giuliani is not the generous side, what's appealing about him is the tough cop side.
Right. You just wait until daddy gets home.
Yes, that part...
That Daddy.
... of the daddy. It's the tough cop side, so...
Yes. Yes" --
Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman, breathlessly sharing their excitement over the firmness of their Daddy, Rudy Giuliani.He has "chiseled-out-of-granite features, a full, dark head of hair going a distinguished gray at the temples, and a barrel chest . . . . and has shoulders you could land a 737 on" --
Roger Simon, The Politico's chief political columnist, enthusiastically admiring numerous parts of Mitt Romney's body."The press here does a fantastic job of adhering to journalistic standards and covering politics in general" --
Newsweek's Richard Wolffe, at the National Press Club, chatting with Tony Snow and Karl Rove's dancing partner, David Gregory, about how partisan and hateful bloggers are and how professional and "fantastic" our national press corps is.* * * * *
"Well, John Edwards' campaign for president spent $400 on February 20, and another $400 on March 7, at a top Beverly Hills men's stylist, Torrenueva Hair Designs. . . . Only Edwards, however, has had the care he takes with his hair memorialized on YouTube" --
The Politico's Ben Smith, breaking wide open the modern press corps' Watergate, one of the most discussed political stories of 2007."John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an Edwards friend told The Politico" --
The Politico's Ben Smith, 53 minutes before Edwards announced that his wife had cancer and he would stay in the race."[The Politico's Ben] Smith also has a too-broad denial from Edwards [to a rumor that he is having an affair]: 'The story is false' . . . . Edwards' peculiar vulnerability should the allegation be believed is suggested by this Reuters lede"--
Slate's Mickey Kaus -- who, a month later, similarly amplified an equally sleazy whispering campaign about Hillary's rumored lesbian affair with a young Muslim aide -- proving conclusively that one can actually occupy a sewer level beneath the one where The Politico and Drudge are situated.* * * * *
"Unfortunately, Speaker Nancy Pelosi quashed the House Intelligence Committee's bipartisan effort and supported a Democratic bill that -- Limbaugh is salivating -- would require the surveillance of every foreign-terrorist target's calls to be approved by the FISA court, an institution founded to protect the rights of U.S. citizens only. In the lethal shorthand of political advertising, it would give terrorists the same legal protections as Americans. That is well beyond stupid" --
Joe Klein of Time Magazine, acting as spokesman for GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra, smearing the Democrats with patently false statements."I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right" --
Joe Klein of Time Magazine, reciting the anthem of our modern press corps in explaining why he can't be bothered to correct the script Hoekstra fed him.* * * * *
"It may seem perverse to suggest that, at the very moment the House of Representatives is repudiating his policy in Iraq, President Bush is poised for a political comeback. But don't be astonished if that is the case" --
Dean of the Washington Press Corps David Broder, February 16, 2007.* * * * *
"Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy is an appropriate response. We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian (sic) atomic scientists" --
Law Professor Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, advocating that the U.S. Government begin murdering Iranian scientists instead of attempting diplomacy."Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged" --
Frank Gaffney in The Washington Times, using a fake Abraham Lincoln quote to argue that anti-war Senators should be punished as traitors."Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive" --
Mitt Romney, invoking the cowardly flagship of the modern GOP in arguing for limitless presidential powers and, with one short sentence, completely repudiating the core, founding American political value as most famously expressed by Patrick Henry."What the bill seeks to do is set back basic rights by some 900 years" --
Sen. Arlen Specter on the Military Commissions Act, in a speech he delivered on the Senate floor immediately before voting in favor of that bill (that was actually from September, 2006, but I cheated and included it anyway because it's my all-time favorite political quote).
Thank you, Salon.com
Monday, December 24, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Have a happy holiday
I don't do Christmas very well. Not that much to tell. I do, however, remember how my heart always came up into my mouth and flooded my eyes as I sang in the church choir on Christmas Eve back in the day when Santa was real.
Thanks to Salon, I'll send all you good people a greeting card created by a great American:
All I need for Christmas
A big orange and some fresh pine boughs and "Silent Night."
A few details bring back a snowy night in Minnesota years ago.
Dec. 19, 2007 It was Christmas in the New York subways last week, musicians heading off to play Christmas gigs, and in the Times Square station a wild-haired old man out of a George Price cartoon pounded out "Winter Wonderland" on an electric organ, a rhythm attachment going whompeta-whompeta-whompeta, and two crazed battery-powered Santas dancing the boogaloo, nearby a young trumpeter giving "O Holy Night" a good working over, and then the doors closed and we racketed uptown as an old codger came into the car and launched into "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" as he limped up the aisle, jingling his Styrofoam cup.
I am pretty much hardened to Christmas music, except at the end of the Christmas Eve service when the lights dim and the glories stream from heaven afar and the heavenly hosts sing Alleluia and then, from long habit, tears well up in my eyes and I weep for the dead who enjoyed Christmas so much and for humanity in general, and then we go sashaying out into the cold starry night and walk home.
A big orange and some fresh pine boughs and "Silent Night" are all I need, and cookies, of course. They are the strings that when I pull on them I pull up the complete glittering storybook Christmases of my childhood. Even in Manhattan, the combination of orange and evergreen and the holy hymn brings back a snowy night in Minnesota and the colored lights, the mound of gifts, the deluxe mixed nuts in the cut-glass bowl, the candles, the faint air of Lysol from the toilets, and the cologne of my uncles as they sit munching their peanut brittle.
I stood in line at a pine-bough-decked-out Starbucks behind a tall, beautiful, dark-haired woman who ordered a venti mocha latte, 180 degrees, seven pumps, 2 percent, no foam, and though the headphones around her neck were playing the Beatles who were back in the USSR spreading their broken wings and learning to fly, and finding Gideon's Bible to help with good Rocky's revival, the smell of chocolate and pine brought back the lights, the snow, the whole blessed day. The advantage of age: a few details stand for the whole, just as in poetry.
The aim of a festive season is to attain amiability, and perhaps actual joy, which we may find in our private moments but which at Christmas we seek to attain together, thus it is a true test of the power of the community to elevate its members, without which we may as well take to the woods. The family gathers, with its checkered history of jealousies and resentments, hoping to share warmth, to instill the most sullen member with a measure of cheer, and if it cannot do this, then it will break apart.
We left our families to escape our disapproving elders and find friendlier authority figures who give us permission to be original and write our own stories. All we parents, no matter how wonderful we may seem, have said and done bad things to children, and so we are relieved when they escape us without apparent permanent damage. And we hope for forgiveness, and for them to want to be with us at Christmas. But how can we make them happy this time, when we have failed so often in the past?
The beauty of Christmas is that it is not about us, our creativity, our fabulous décor, the glittering gifts we can afford, but about a story and ritual that lift us all. The other night I saw a young man standing on the corner holding a gas can and asked him if he needed a ride. He said he'd been to a party at his sister's house and a guy started beating up his sister and the young man jumped the guy and the cops came and broke it up and the young man had forgotten to ask his sister for money to buy gas for his car which was now out of gas and here he was on a cold night, far from home, a little drunk, and very broke.
I did what anybody else would've done, and all the way to the gas station and back he was a little incredulous, but that's Christmas. It isn't about me, just as it isn't about the shepherds in the pageant who are worried about forgetting their lines. Not a problem. We all know the lines. Just do what the others do and try to beam when it seems appropriate.
-- By Garrison Keillor
Thanks to Salon, I'll send all you good people a greeting card created by a great American:
All I need for Christmas
A big orange and some fresh pine boughs and "Silent Night."
A few details bring back a snowy night in Minnesota years ago.
Dec. 19, 2007 It was Christmas in the New York subways last week, musicians heading off to play Christmas gigs, and in the Times Square station a wild-haired old man out of a George Price cartoon pounded out "Winter Wonderland" on an electric organ, a rhythm attachment going whompeta-whompeta-whompeta, and two crazed battery-powered Santas dancing the boogaloo, nearby a young trumpeter giving "O Holy Night" a good working over, and then the doors closed and we racketed uptown as an old codger came into the car and launched into "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" as he limped up the aisle, jingling his Styrofoam cup.
I am pretty much hardened to Christmas music, except at the end of the Christmas Eve service when the lights dim and the glories stream from heaven afar and the heavenly hosts sing Alleluia and then, from long habit, tears well up in my eyes and I weep for the dead who enjoyed Christmas so much and for humanity in general, and then we go sashaying out into the cold starry night and walk home.
A big orange and some fresh pine boughs and "Silent Night" are all I need, and cookies, of course. They are the strings that when I pull on them I pull up the complete glittering storybook Christmases of my childhood. Even in Manhattan, the combination of orange and evergreen and the holy hymn brings back a snowy night in Minnesota and the colored lights, the mound of gifts, the deluxe mixed nuts in the cut-glass bowl, the candles, the faint air of Lysol from the toilets, and the cologne of my uncles as they sit munching their peanut brittle.
I stood in line at a pine-bough-decked-out Starbucks behind a tall, beautiful, dark-haired woman who ordered a venti mocha latte, 180 degrees, seven pumps, 2 percent, no foam, and though the headphones around her neck were playing the Beatles who were back in the USSR spreading their broken wings and learning to fly, and finding Gideon's Bible to help with good Rocky's revival, the smell of chocolate and pine brought back the lights, the snow, the whole blessed day. The advantage of age: a few details stand for the whole, just as in poetry.
The aim of a festive season is to attain amiability, and perhaps actual joy, which we may find in our private moments but which at Christmas we seek to attain together, thus it is a true test of the power of the community to elevate its members, without which we may as well take to the woods. The family gathers, with its checkered history of jealousies and resentments, hoping to share warmth, to instill the most sullen member with a measure of cheer, and if it cannot do this, then it will break apart.
We left our families to escape our disapproving elders and find friendlier authority figures who give us permission to be original and write our own stories. All we parents, no matter how wonderful we may seem, have said and done bad things to children, and so we are relieved when they escape us without apparent permanent damage. And we hope for forgiveness, and for them to want to be with us at Christmas. But how can we make them happy this time, when we have failed so often in the past?
The beauty of Christmas is that it is not about us, our creativity, our fabulous décor, the glittering gifts we can afford, but about a story and ritual that lift us all. The other night I saw a young man standing on the corner holding a gas can and asked him if he needed a ride. He said he'd been to a party at his sister's house and a guy started beating up his sister and the young man jumped the guy and the cops came and broke it up and the young man had forgotten to ask his sister for money to buy gas for his car which was now out of gas and here he was on a cold night, far from home, a little drunk, and very broke.
I did what anybody else would've done, and all the way to the gas station and back he was a little incredulous, but that's Christmas. It isn't about me, just as it isn't about the shepherds in the pageant who are worried about forgetting their lines. Not a problem. We all know the lines. Just do what the others do and try to beam when it seems appropriate.
-- By Garrison Keillor
Friday, December 14, 2007
Without comment
http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/politics/2007/12/12/barneychristmas/index.html
Enjoy the video, but watch it on an empty stomach!
Enjoy the video, but watch it on an empty stomach!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Why I live for music
It's an escape . . . literally. I hate to say it if she's still among the living; but then she'd be too old to care (or even to remember) anyway: I loathed and feared my fifth grade teacher. She made my life hell -- interfered with my every attempt to impress my classmates and to get anywhere near my beloved Linda Faye. She expected me to shut up, pay attention and do classwork -- and dealt unduly harshly with my natural aversion to these mind-numbing chores.
God bless the State of Virginia's elementary school string program! One or two hours out of class every day! Within a year I was playing the violin well enough to serenade my old man at his construction worker bedtime (early, very early). Within two years I was scoring high marks at the annual Virginia scholastic music festival. By graduation, I was first chair in both my high school orchestra and the Norfolk Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Had I not had a pressing need to escape the fifth grade, I'd never have even considered music. I loved it, of course, and had been something of a neighborhood soprano celebrity until my voice changed; but I never took it seriously until it became a means of escape.
It came to my service in a similar fashion once again years later in the Republic of Korea while I was doing my part for American imperialism. I was assigned to an artillery ballistic meteorology section supporting Honest John missiles at Camp Page in Chunchon. Camp Page was a "show camp," which meant duty consisted primarily of getting ready for inspections, parades and visits of dignitaries of one kind or another. For me, that boiled down to cleaning and polishing endless bits and pieces of government property, usually in the motor pool. Obviously, this was activity that demanded escape in the worst way. I became pretty adept at it. I volunteered for a two-week tour of duty at the International Boy Scout Jamboree in Chunchon -- passing myself off easily as an old scout, something I'd never been. I managed to spend six weeks or so hand-lettering (under the beady, watchful, and bitterly resentful eyes of the First Sergeant) a battery manning chart in the quiet comfort of the day room.
But my greatest escape of all was with a fiddle and a bow. It began when I teamed up with a professional concert violinist and a pianist to work up a performance of the slow movement from Antonio Corelli's Christmas Concerto for the service club's Christmas show. That took me out of the motor pool for long periods of time.
While this was going on, I met a guy who was getting a hillbilly band -- the (wait for it) Koreabillies -- together. He had his guitar with him and was happy to teach me -- try to teach me -- how to play Wildwood Flower. When he learned that I was a violinist, he immediately started to try to recruit me for the band.
No, no, I demurred . . . my thing is Mozart, Vivaldi . . .
He insisted that it would be nothing at all for me to play, say, Orange Blossom Special.
Much to my surprise, I was able to do it well enough to get get it by your average drunk NCO.
Between that, being able to add a note or two to his wealth of Johnny Cash covers, and sitting up on a high stool and cracking wise between songs, I became an accomplished country-western music-hating country-western STAR. Indeed, we traveled to Seoul and appeared on Armed Forces TV Network. On weekends, we did NCO clubs and the occasional officers' club.
Needless to say, my appearances in the motor pool became quite rare. My appearances in the Christmas show were three: violin 2 in Corelli's Christmas Concerto, fiddle and mandolin in the Koreabillies, and impersonator of Ray Charles in "I Need Money."
My butt reverted to the ownership of a vengeful First Sergeant when the band broke up the following January (1965), but I was out of there in February -- on my way home on a USN troop transport -- still avoiding duty by arising very early each morning to tour the ship with my empty clipboard.
God bless the State of Virginia's elementary school string program! One or two hours out of class every day! Within a year I was playing the violin well enough to serenade my old man at his construction worker bedtime (early, very early). Within two years I was scoring high marks at the annual Virginia scholastic music festival. By graduation, I was first chair in both my high school orchestra and the Norfolk Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Had I not had a pressing need to escape the fifth grade, I'd never have even considered music. I loved it, of course, and had been something of a neighborhood soprano celebrity until my voice changed; but I never took it seriously until it became a means of escape.
It came to my service in a similar fashion once again years later in the Republic of Korea while I was doing my part for American imperialism. I was assigned to an artillery ballistic meteorology section supporting Honest John missiles at Camp Page in Chunchon. Camp Page was a "show camp," which meant duty consisted primarily of getting ready for inspections, parades and visits of dignitaries of one kind or another. For me, that boiled down to cleaning and polishing endless bits and pieces of government property, usually in the motor pool. Obviously, this was activity that demanded escape in the worst way. I became pretty adept at it. I volunteered for a two-week tour of duty at the International Boy Scout Jamboree in Chunchon -- passing myself off easily as an old scout, something I'd never been. I managed to spend six weeks or so hand-lettering (under the beady, watchful, and bitterly resentful eyes of the First Sergeant) a battery manning chart in the quiet comfort of the day room.
But my greatest escape of all was with a fiddle and a bow. It began when I teamed up with a professional concert violinist and a pianist to work up a performance of the slow movement from Antonio Corelli's Christmas Concerto for the service club's Christmas show. That took me out of the motor pool for long periods of time.
While this was going on, I met a guy who was getting a hillbilly band -- the (wait for it) Koreabillies -- together. He had his guitar with him and was happy to teach me -- try to teach me -- how to play Wildwood Flower. When he learned that I was a violinist, he immediately started to try to recruit me for the band.
No, no, I demurred . . . my thing is Mozart, Vivaldi . . .
He insisted that it would be nothing at all for me to play, say, Orange Blossom Special.
Much to my surprise, I was able to do it well enough to get get it by your average drunk NCO.
Between that, being able to add a note or two to his wealth of Johnny Cash covers, and sitting up on a high stool and cracking wise between songs, I became an accomplished country-western music-hating country-western STAR. Indeed, we traveled to Seoul and appeared on Armed Forces TV Network. On weekends, we did NCO clubs and the occasional officers' club.
Needless to say, my appearances in the motor pool became quite rare. My appearances in the Christmas show were three: violin 2 in Corelli's Christmas Concerto, fiddle and mandolin in the Koreabillies, and impersonator of Ray Charles in "I Need Money."
My butt reverted to the ownership of a vengeful First Sergeant when the band broke up the following January (1965), but I was out of there in February -- on my way home on a USN troop transport -- still avoiding duty by arising very early each morning to tour the ship with my empty clipboard.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Democracy at work
Just finished -- along with a lot of other people -- raisin' hell with the Des Moines Register for not allowing Dennis to debate. Lot of good I expect that to do . . .
That's what he gets for not being in anyone's pocket. And, of course, it's no help that he has Stephen Colbert in his pocket -- that's just further indication that he's a fringe hippie weirdo.
That's what he gets for not being in anyone's pocket. And, of course, it's no help that he has Stephen Colbert in his pocket -- that's just further indication that he's a fringe hippie weirdo.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Feelin' poetic . . .
Giuliani was elected
According to the electoral college.
Finally got his degree after all these years,
Or so it seems.
I didn't want to believe it;
But had to when the clown
Arrived with the cyanide pie.
I had coffee with it.
According to the electoral college.
Finally got his degree after all these years,
Or so it seems.
I didn't want to believe it;
But had to when the clown
Arrived with the cyanide pie.
I had coffee with it.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Sunday morning reverie
The heavy fog is beginning to appear to lift ever so gradually and, of course, it's unseasonably warm; though I feel a damp chill. The drought continues. Though it is now considered significant enough to inspire dread visions of some apocalyptic and arid future world, it seems little more than a distant half-heard alarum to the local psyche -- at least so far. Obviously, all things pass.
A few finches cling like golden bugs to the slack shrouds of thistle seed bags hanging from the dead tree a little way down the slope out back. The resident pair of Carolina wrens are head-bobbing and playing their usual demented game of tag, and a paranoid squirrel is warily stealing sunflower seeds from a feeder he doesn't realize was placed there for his benefit. Finches thicken and cardinals continue to flaunt their colorful disregard for pomp and decorum. All is quiet as nourishment flourishes.
And I am worshipping Satan. That is to say, I'm reading progressive blogs.
But even the mainstream is greeting the morning with the news -- not so new -- that our country is on the rim of economic collapse.
Not to mention the moral decay gathering speed, mass and odor at a dizzying rate. Who would ever have dreamed that we'd be accused of torture or, worse yet, be guilty of it? And then, when we are exposed as torturers, we actually try to justify it, qualify it, rationalize it . . .
One can hope that we're headed for a major change.
So there's this little guy running for president. Going around flashing the peace sign and talking all kinds of pipe dreams about defending and living up to the US Constitution and redistributing wealth and preserving the environment . . . and just all kinds of impossible dreams.
Yeah, we're ready for that.
A few finches cling like golden bugs to the slack shrouds of thistle seed bags hanging from the dead tree a little way down the slope out back. The resident pair of Carolina wrens are head-bobbing and playing their usual demented game of tag, and a paranoid squirrel is warily stealing sunflower seeds from a feeder he doesn't realize was placed there for his benefit. Finches thicken and cardinals continue to flaunt their colorful disregard for pomp and decorum. All is quiet as nourishment flourishes.
And I am worshipping Satan. That is to say, I'm reading progressive blogs.
But even the mainstream is greeting the morning with the news -- not so new -- that our country is on the rim of economic collapse.
Not to mention the moral decay gathering speed, mass and odor at a dizzying rate. Who would ever have dreamed that we'd be accused of torture or, worse yet, be guilty of it? And then, when we are exposed as torturers, we actually try to justify it, qualify it, rationalize it . . .
One can hope that we're headed for a major change.
So there's this little guy running for president. Going around flashing the peace sign and talking all kinds of pipe dreams about defending and living up to the US Constitution and redistributing wealth and preserving the environment . . . and just all kinds of impossible dreams.
Yeah, we're ready for that.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Good night and good luck
Just forget whatever I might have said. This guy is much more eloquent . . .
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_chuck_ad_071207_keith_olbermann_s_sp.htm
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_chuck_ad_071207_keith_olbermann_s_sp.htm
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Guess who I voted for . . .
There's a new website that enables independent and independent-minded voters to have a voice in the 2008 Presidential Elections. It's exciting to see that independent and independent minded voters are doing something about American democracy.
You can cast your vote as well. It's easy -- just go to http://www.independentprimary.com/ and let your voice be heard.
From their blurb: We are part of a movement bringing together ordinary Americans who think that the good of the country is more important than the good of the political parties.
Frustrated by the lack of genuine and inclusive dialogue about the issues that are critical to the future of our nation, IndependentPrimary.Com is uniting independent-minded Americans into an organized force to challenge the partisanship and special interest control of policy-making which is endangering our democracy.
We are committed to find a new way of doing politics that is free from the domination of big money, political party bosses and the corporate-owned media.
Spread the word.
You can cast your vote as well. It's easy -- just go to http://www.independentprimary.com/ and let your voice be heard.
From their blurb: We are part of a movement bringing together ordinary Americans who think that the good of the country is more important than the good of the political parties.
Frustrated by the lack of genuine and inclusive dialogue about the issues that are critical to the future of our nation, IndependentPrimary.Com is uniting independent-minded Americans into an organized force to challenge the partisanship and special interest control of policy-making which is endangering our democracy.
We are committed to find a new way of doing politics that is free from the domination of big money, political party bosses and the corporate-owned media.
Spread the word.
The lyingest liar
Monkey Boy stood there at that news conference with his face hangin' out and said that he'd learned about NIE only last week. "Last week" was not August, Gawge! August was when you were told.
Oh, but you were told in August only of a possible change, you say? So why, all of a sudden, did you change your emphasis to denying Iran the knowledge required to make a bomb from denying it actual possession of the bomb?
He even went so far to say that he didn't really pay it much mind in August. Nice try -- at least that one is believable!
But believable only for the short interval it takes to remember how thirsty this administration is for Persian blood. You'd better believe that George W. Bush was paying attention last August.
It's just that if he were to once tell the truth, he'd shatter like a rotten egg.
Oh, but you were told in August only of a possible change, you say? So why, all of a sudden, did you change your emphasis to denying Iran the knowledge required to make a bomb from denying it actual possession of the bomb?
He even went so far to say that he didn't really pay it much mind in August. Nice try -- at least that one is believable!
But believable only for the short interval it takes to remember how thirsty this administration is for Persian blood. You'd better believe that George W. Bush was paying attention last August.
It's just that if he were to once tell the truth, he'd shatter like a rotten egg.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
They just don't get it, do they?
First, there was Monkey Boy's press conference, in which he said the NIE was essentially meaningless. Then there was this, thanks to Salon's Tim Grieve:
Giuliani advisor: Doubt the NIE!
In an NPR radio debate going on right now, the Democratic candidates are taking turns explaining how the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran underscores the ways in which the Bush administration has failed the United States. "You cannot trust this president," Joe Biden says. "He is not trustworthy. He has undermined our security in the region. He has undermined our credibility in the world. He has made it more difficult to get cooperation from the rest of the world."
Norman Podhoretz has a different reaction. Podhoretz -- a "founding father of the neocon movement" who is currently serving as a senior advisor to Rudy Giuliani -- says the NIE is proof that we cannot trust ... the intelligence community.
As Think Progress reports, Podhoretz says he can't shake the suspicion 1) that the "intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view ... that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons"; 2) that "having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal"; and 3) that "the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again."
"This time, the purpose is to head off the possibility that the president may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations," Podhoretz writes.
If you're thinking that it would be a good thing to "head off" such airstrikes -- particularly if Iran is not, in fact, developing nuclear weapons -- well, you don't think like Podhoretz thinks. In an interview earlier this year, Podhoretz said that he hoped and prayed that the United States would bomb Iran -- really, he used those words, "hope" and "pray" -- even though doing so might "unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the world that will make the anti-Americanism we've experienced so far look like a lovefest."
Did we mention that Podhoretz is one of Giuliani's top advisors on foreign policy? Once Mitt Romney is done giving his "Mormonism" speech, perhaps Giuliani ought to be called on to give one on what Podhoretzianism means to him.
And, finally there was ol' lovable down-home Huckabee who didn't know anything at all about it.
What a world. Small wonder that, when asked whether he thought he had lost credibility with the American people, Monkey Boy replied, "I'm feeling pretty spirited, pretty good about life."
Giuliani advisor: Doubt the NIE!
In an NPR radio debate going on right now, the Democratic candidates are taking turns explaining how the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran underscores the ways in which the Bush administration has failed the United States. "You cannot trust this president," Joe Biden says. "He is not trustworthy. He has undermined our security in the region. He has undermined our credibility in the world. He has made it more difficult to get cooperation from the rest of the world."
Norman Podhoretz has a different reaction. Podhoretz -- a "founding father of the neocon movement" who is currently serving as a senior advisor to Rudy Giuliani -- says the NIE is proof that we cannot trust ... the intelligence community.
As Think Progress reports, Podhoretz says he can't shake the suspicion 1) that the "intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view ... that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons"; 2) that "having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal"; and 3) that "the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again."
"This time, the purpose is to head off the possibility that the president may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations," Podhoretz writes.
If you're thinking that it would be a good thing to "head off" such airstrikes -- particularly if Iran is not, in fact, developing nuclear weapons -- well, you don't think like Podhoretz thinks. In an interview earlier this year, Podhoretz said that he hoped and prayed that the United States would bomb Iran -- really, he used those words, "hope" and "pray" -- even though doing so might "unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the world that will make the anti-Americanism we've experienced so far look like a lovefest."
Did we mention that Podhoretz is one of Giuliani's top advisors on foreign policy? Once Mitt Romney is done giving his "Mormonism" speech, perhaps Giuliani ought to be called on to give one on what Podhoretzianism means to him.
And, finally there was ol' lovable down-home Huckabee who didn't know anything at all about it.
What a world. Small wonder that, when asked whether he thought he had lost credibility with the American people, Monkey Boy replied, "I'm feeling pretty spirited, pretty good about life."
Monday, December 3, 2007
Oh, yes; it could happen. We could go to war yet again . . . and we could put this one in the White House. A nation of sleep-walkers can do more amazing things than you can possibly imagine.
Take a good look at, and give a good listen to , Dennis Kucinich. Other things are possible if we could just wake up.
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2007/12/03/tomo/
Take a good look at, and give a good listen to , Dennis Kucinich. Other things are possible if we could just wake up.
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2007/12/03/tomo/
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