Happy Holiday

Happy Holiday,
Karmafae!

Merry Christmas, all!

Chanuka, too!

Not to mention Kwanzaa,
Solstice and New Years Day!

Making a list, checking it twice

Joe who?

http://rogerhollander.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/10-democrats-who-should-go-away/

Yes

He did.

Congratulations, America. Nice re-boot . . .

Comes the Tick-tock Man for America

Forget the cyanide pie. There won't be time to bake it.
It is suddenly long past midnight. An illegal coup has been in effect as of October 1, so everything is on schedule -- their schedule.
Stop it. Arrest the traitorous bastards now. That is legal . . . and American.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XgkeTanCGI

We owe it all to Dr. Milton Friedman

The key to the American economy, in case you were wondering:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/6/naomi_klein

email

For Susan:

baileywing1@carolina.rr.com

slbrownccc@carolina.rr.com (Margie)

Greetings

You can forget all about it for a little while up in Saugerties, where I finally touched the sacred wall of Big Pink.
Hello and get in touch, loveliest Susan and Shondra . . . please. We'll not be forgetting YOU.

Words fail me

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/99433/

Your SS in action.

Doing Another World

This is "Phoebus Apollo, playin' on his lyre . . ." (Jupiter Hollow)

The lovely cover-girl is my grand-daughter, Kennally Thompson. The music room looks about normal -- scene of the crime. The session photographed is "Plaisir d'Amour," recorded for Dianne Birmingham, who is Margie's sister. She is the photographer.

Doing Another World

photos of cover girl Kennally courtesy of her parents, Mike and Jamie Thompson.

Thanks, Arianna

Guess who . . .

Dick Cheney with lipstick!

Yes!

Hello? Anybody home?

Welcome to the ruins. That sound you hear? Just investment banks collapsing . . .
Don't look at me. Y'all elected these sorry bastards.

I mean this should have been obvious decades prior to Black Monday. Some of us, though obviously not enough of us, have been shouting it for decades:

. . . former International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Kenneth Rogoff: "You can't just make money out of thin air like this."
Spiegel Online . . . today.

Welcome to St Paul

It was only a matter of time before we brought our war crimes home to our own streets, apparently. It is very difficult to imagine how America will ever again be able to face the world and hold her head up.
If nothing is done about St Paul, we are truly lost.

WTF

What in god's name is going on in St. Paul? Is this it? Is it all over? Police intimidation tactics? Is this the Third Reich? Throwing nuns in unmarked vans? "Probable cause" arrests?
What the hell is next -- concentration camps?
Is there anything else you don't believe?
Why aren't you out in the streets screaming?
Open your eyes.

Trophy VP

Maybe, but thanks to Ed, the photo that was here isn't anymore. Apologies to all. This lady has quite enough problems without me perpetuating hoaxes against her.

Those old a-political blues

"There aren't enough people stupid enough to re-elect that son of a bitch," I said in 2004.
Well, maybe there were . . . and maybe there weren't, depending upon whether the count was honest and accurate or not. I'll give us the benefit of the doubt, since it appears the neocons owned the voting machines.
There do, however, seem to be enough idiots to elect John McCain; though the Clintons' final acceptance of how things are going may have helped the Obama-Biden ticket immensely. Bill's speech last night may have been enough to get the trolls scrambling to make sure they still control enough voting machines and have decimated enough voter rosters to allow their hero, Captain Jet Exhaust, to prevail by a, uh, hair.
If he does, I'll just crawl into my hole with my guitar and kick my political junk habit for good. I could use the time.
I'd like to feel all warm and fuzzy about Bill and Hillary (no problem with Chelsea -- but that's a different story, not the least of which is Limbaugh's mortification), and about Joe, and all that we're-all-family feeling going on in Denver.
But there are other things going on in Denver. Grateful telecoms are wining and dining Blue Dog traitors, cops are herding protesters into "free speech zones," where they can say anything they want to say -- as long as they can't be heard. As a blogger pointed out recently, "I thought America was supposed to be a free speech zone."
And of all the lovely speeches going on inside, only one rang out with total truth from beginning to end -- the one delivered by Dennis Kucinich.

No, my vote in November won't mean as much as it could have before (among other betrayals)Obama voted for FISA. It will mean, I assume, that I am not an idiot. Other than that, it is merely my umbrella against a potential shit storm.

Just to be clear . . .

I was an Elvis fan before most of you were born.
I stopped being an Elvis fan before most of you were born.
When he was brand new, he was real -- a true king of rock, a founding father. I damn near worshipped him.
That didn't last long. Within what seemed like minutes, he suddenly became the Colonel's whore -- mired in mindless commercial pig crap. Tragically, that's where he left it.
So the quotations under Wisdom of the King are kinda tongue-in-cheek.
They are also courtesy of Garrison Keillor.

Life is good

Is there anything more charming than a baby raccoon?
Three baby raccoons.
Clumsy and comical among the branches, kitten-like and, indeed, smaller than full-grown cats, they are already practiced in the art of theft.
Like their parents, they are unintentionally destructive in their endless quest for anything and everything edible.
But when they run out of steam, as they seem often to do, they curl up wherever they are (the gutter at the edge of the roof, for example) and drift into coon dreamland.
I'd swear I lullabied them the other night . . .
I certainly and instantly forgave them their many trespasses.

One more step

The Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives, soon to be followed by the Democratic leadership in the Senate, has now qualified itself to occupy space next to the neo-conservative movement on the trash heap of history. The new FISA "compromise" is an unspeakable travesty which carries us one more step down the dark path to fascism. When I ask myself how people we sent to Congress in 2006 could even consider amnesty for telecoms, I very stupidly keep forgetting that they are bought and paid for by (among other commercial monsters) telecoms.
Well, thank God for Obama!
Not!
After coming out seemingly strongly against amnesty, he caved, too.
We are what we are, I suppose -- and thus apparently we will remain. Perhaps we'll muddle through one way or another once again.
But there is an end to muddling as surely as there is an end to oil.

Voting Day

On the day that North Carolina did the Right Thing, I arose only slightly earlier than usual. I had intended to get up early enough to make it to the polling place just as it opened; but I missed that by a good hour -- and I had a good half-hour walk to get there.
I loaded my canvas Unshelved shoulder bag with water, an apple, Deighton's London Match to read while waiting in line (record anger and disgust-fueled voter turn-out expected!), Stones and My Morning Jacket to entertain me on the walk. Setting off down the Greenway, I was greatly appreciative of the loveliness of the morning in spite of the pollen count. Tree pollen has a way of making one feel as though he has ventured out of the ship without his space helmet. Other than that, the day was filled with promise.
There is something . . . bracing . . . spiritual . . . quaint, maybe even patriotic, and certainly reflectively meditative, about walking down a tree-lined path next to a wonderfully photogenic creek to get to your voting place.
O America!
Yeah. I was on my way to exercise my God-given right to actually participate in the governing process of this great nation. It didn't even matter that my vote is usually cancelled out by my mother-in-law's vote: it's the principle of the thing, you know. Who knows . . . perhaps the outrage engendered by the last eight years will work towards having my vote actually counted this time. Maybe the person who gets the most votes will win! What a dizzying prospect.
My voting place is a Christian school. It's bigger than some colleges I have known. The Lamb, it is well known, prospers in Charlotte. Making my way through acres of parked late-model SUVs, idly counting the many fish symbols displayed there, it occurred to me that the line was going to be quite long indeed -- and most likely very Republican.
I was wrong about that. I don't know where all those SUV owners were. Classes were cancelled for Election Day, and though the poll workers vastly outnumbered the voters present at the time; there were barely a dozen people in the polling place.
The sweet little old lady registrar ran her index finger down the list several times.
"Uh-oh."
"Excuse me?"
"There seems to be a problem . . ."
She looked around anxiously for some sort of assistance from someone real, imagined, or from on high. Here we go, I seethed to myself. It's really happening. They know I'm a Democrat. They're out to get me. Everything I read and heard is the ghastly, evil truth . . .
"Oh, there it is!"
It didn't take long, was very simple (yes, an idiot could do it), and you could see the paper ballot being generated by your button choices. But I was wary. I checked everything twice.
Later -- much later -- I watched Ma Clinton celebrating her apparent two-point Indiana triumph as though she had been vindicated once and for all -- and found myself once again fantasizing about Chelsea.
Here and there bits and pieces seen through political-junkie hangover haze on America's morning "news" dump: Reverend Wright, Hillary's need to pull this thing out and heal the Democratic party, Reverend Wright, race isn't an issue, Reverend Wright, Bill worked his heart out, Reverend Wright, race is an issue, race, Wright, white, Thank God for McCain who is serious, honorable and white . . .
And so it goes.

The Supreme Court does it again

Well, it won't be the first time this group of withered old reactionary farts interfered with the election of a US president. They've now awarded Assholio Gonzales his ultimate victory, scoring a major hit on fictional "voter fraud" (it's time to redefine that term -- if this "decision" isn't real voter fraud, I don't know what is).
So, who's it gonna hurt? Who's it supposed to hurt?
Between that and the vote-counting process, looks like they've got another one in the bag. How long, dear God, how long?

A couple of things

Many of us would do very well to -- and, indeed, benefit from -- taking a more detailed look into the Reverend Wright issue. There is a lot of information out here on the 'Net. Don't be content with the msm version: you should be getting wise to them by now. Don't forget that they're happily in bed with a drooling warmonger!
And for God's sake, don't go by Hillary's people, either.
There are indications that it ain't, of course, all it's cracked up to be. I was just reading, for example, one account of the good Reverend by a white member of his mostly-black congregation. This man is much impressed with the Rev and lists a number of civic programs the Rev has instituted that have worked far better than any comparable government program could have.
But more touching is how this white man's life was affected by the Rev. "Between engagement ring and altar," he says, his black bride-to-be suddenly decided that there was simply no way that she could marry a white man. It would be a betrayal of her race.
Fortunately, she was a member of Wright's flock. When he learned of her change of heart, he called her in for a conference in which he highlighted the folly of racial isolationism.
And he presided at the ceremony.
As for putting the blame for 9/11 at America's doorstep . . . well, I got in trouble for that myself, and I'm a true patriot. Telling the truth in George W. Bush's America can get you in trouble.
There is very wise corroboration to the charge that America brought 9/11 upon itself. Read Chalmers Johnson's Blow-Back Trilogy. There is even more proof available, but that excellent work of non-fiction is more than enough.

Speaking of 9/11, I am painfully aware of the bad rep suffered by Truthers and conspiracy nuts; so I have approached that area with great caution. Even so, I have felt the blast-furnace heat of believer revulsion. That can hurt.
Nevertheless, it needs to be said that the contradictions, the miraculous coincidences, the historic firsts and the ever-changing scenarios all point in a certain direction, and that is not towards the truth. You don't have to be a conspiracy nut to know this.

Memories

I remember that day when Robert Byrd of West Virginia took the Senate floor and begged his colleagues and our idiot-boy President to reconsider the brash and ill-conceived rush to war in Iraq. That speech nearly brought tears to my eyes.
Tears of despair.
Tears of rage.
And tears of frustration and disbelief.
I had experienced the disbelief and frustration for many a year -- from the unbelievable spectacle of a b-movie cowboy as President to the present shabby and criminal climax of George W. Bush, his minions, his rancid propaganda machine: the permanent stain he, his father and that imbecilic two-bit actor have left upon this country.
As the images of Shock and Awe glowed that weird green on my TV screen, I mourned the death of America.
From that day until this, to quote Dylan:
If my thought dreams could be seen,
They'd put my head in a guillotine.

4000 dead is part of the price -- a big part; and yet only a part.

I'm getting old. I hope I may live, however, long enough to see justice done. That will be small enough comfort . . .

Happy Birthday, Iraqi Freedom

We got your joyous occasion

Right here, George.

My God, we owe it all to you,

George!

Rivers of blood on a sunny

Afternoon,

Covered up corruption,

Conveniently concealed coffins

By the thousand;

All of it costing at least

An arm and a leg.

But who cares,

George!

It's literally

Raining

Arms and legs!

Thanks to you.

Even more not news

If the choir will resume their seats -- quietly, please -- I will begin the sermon.

Now that things are going better in Iraq . . .
Excuse me?
Let me finish, then you can follow up.
. . . we can turn our attention to the economy. We need to do that.

What part of the war being an integral part of the economy is it that you don't understand?
Oh, and you might want to check with an Iraqi or two about how much better things are going in Iraq.

Not News

A study in national priorities:

Estimated cost of the 9/11 investigation: $14,000,000
(Originally budgetted: $3,000,000)

Estimated cost of the Monica Lewinsky investigation: $41.000,000

Got me in big trouble, too . . .

Raw Story: Our government has not learned that violence begets violence. Ward Churchill lost his job as a professor at the U. of Colorado for pointing out that when you cause over 500,000 children in Iraq to die from sanction-related causes, you may expect a 9/11 out of revenge.

Monkyboy Mind Poop

I know I said I no longer give a crap; but every time this jerk opens his mouth, I get a little madder (angry AND crazy). The irony of his Obama criticism is overwhelming. Jon, are you paying attention?
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush29feb29,0,2678090.story?track=ntothtml

Watch this

It will take about 2 hours . . .

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5547481422995115331

Waterboarding

Waterboarding is torture. Torture is illegal, inhuman and immoral. Torturers are not human. Torturers are not fit to live.

Facing up to reality

Nobody wants to believe it, of course; but more and more people are questioning the accepted explanation of the events of 9/11/01. No one wants to stare that horror in its hideous face.
I sure don't.
But something is leading me to that precipice and forcing me to look down into that hellish pit. Could it be the growing numbers of questioners? Could it be the ever-increasing credibility and impeccability of their credentials?
I don't want to know about this. I'm cynical enough to believe it.
I know how most folks feel about this particular theory -- it's irresponsible and disgusting.
But what if . . .

See what YOU think: http://www.ae911truth.org/

Welcome back

I now pronounce myself once again a-fucking-political.

Thanks. It's good to be back.

Kucinich drops out

Here's a line -- more or less -- from I think it was one of those old Death Wish flicks. I can kinda see it coming out of Bronson's mouth:
It's like killin' roaches. Ya gotta kill 'em all; or what's the use?
No surprise, folks. This has been going on one way or another as long as we have. Even the American Revolution was a business deal gone sour.
Every now and then it appears that something might just come along and change it for the better. Ho ho. Think again, Bozo!
Maybe when the bills finally come irrevocably due . . .

Music

If guitar-players are a dime a dozen; old fogey guitar-players are a dime a gross. One of our greatest problems, of course, is that we land in a genre or two fenced in by our memories of other times. And we get stuck there . . .
Well, some of us.
That's when some of us might be lucky enough to have a younger friend who inspires us to venture into territory a little closer to modern times.
And be glad we did.
I have at least two such friends: Ed and Wendell. Check out a few of Ed's YouTube music videos and you'll see what I mean.

http://zzazazz.blogspot.com/

Excuse me?

What I've been hearing lately is that the economy has become a bigger issue with voters than the war. Come again? THE WAR IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF, AND THE MOST RUINOUS FACTOR IN, OUR SORRY EXCUSE FOR AN ECONOMY!
For God's sake, people, wake the hell UP!

War changes people

It's a source of wonder. See the homeless shelters, the grates, the benches and those cozy areas under bridges filling up with a new generation of veterans, people whose lives, relationships and minds have been fatally raped by war. They have to share these spaces, of course, with far too many victims of the last war -- that previous adventure in imperialism, that last idiotic attempt to shove "democracy" down somebody's throat.
What to do, what to do? How . . . why?
Big puzzle, right? Just sigh and call it the inevitable dues of modern life. Do what you can to try to absolve yourself of guilt.
Continue to pay CEOs salaries and benefits hundreds of times more than their employees make or thousands of times more than they are worth, and continue to give tax breaks to people who neither deserve nor need them.
Just go on along your merry sorry-ass American way . . . idly wondering why, among a host of other things, more can't be done for those poor, crazy-ass, suicidal, homeless veterans.

Ghosts and Flapjacked Graves

T'was with a vague sense of unease
I walked surrounded by what seemed
Eddies of unrest
Where once peace had been
Exposed upon the air
Like an image captured on film.
A half-heard, half-felt murmur -- a tremor
From deep below my wavering footsteps
Accompanied a brief bright moment
That cleared the mist and cobwebs
So familiar a sight
Along my inner path.
A man in a white suit and shoestring tie
Approached me purposefully,
Apparently on some somewhat urgent mission --
Which, of course, distressed me;
For I presumed I could be
Of little help, if any.
As he drew near, his bushy mustache
Drooped curtain mid-rise over scowling lips,
I recognized him.
My hero, Mark Twain.
Sam . . . Mr. Clemens, I stammered.
You must help me, he said.
How can I possibly help you? You are,
After all, long dead. Why, in fact and pray tell,
Rest you not?
Who could rest? he said.
Do you not feel the rumble?
Hear you not the roar?
Did you think it merely a tectonic shift of some sort?
Well, it isn't. It's the tossing and turning of men in their graves:
Men dead long before I died,
Men who built this country, men who wrote your Constitution,
Men who are awakened outraged and overwhelmed with grief
By some fool who would rewrite that Constitution
In the King James Version
Or more or less, or worse.
Now their clamor, their gnashing, their roar and growl
Have stirred me from my long sleeping voyage,
Rocking my raft to a most distressing degree.
It is enough, I tell you, to cause a famously honest man
To lose his celebrated sense of humor.
And as if
That were not
More than enough,
They tell me that
They call that fool "Huck."

Musical roots

About 40 years ago this happened the first time. It hasn't changed much; but then it's timeless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvT_f_lVyNQ

No, no, it isn't that they don't care . . .

As I more or less predicted, the Kucinich vs NBC decision was quickly overturned. That pissed a lot of good Americans off. I'm glad. I hope it pissed enough of them off to make a difference in this morbid joke of a presidential election.
It probably won't.
A lot of those pissed-off people are saying, "Oh well, same old same old . . . another boring choice of the lesser of two evils. The media should be fairer and not force these clowns upon us and suppress the people who would do us the most good -- but they don't care."
There's your big mistake, folks. They most definitely do care.
Think about it: non-profit health care works against the interests of big pharma and insurance parasites, the pursuit of diplomacy and peace robs arms makers and private armies, fiscal responsibility impoverishes the rich and other social leeches. These are the people who own the American media. Damn right, they care! It's a matter of life or death for them.
It is "us," apparently, who don't care. "We" are the ones who aren't doing anything about it.
Am I pissed off?
You bet!
Who cares?

Temporary setback for the Nazis

"A judge in Nevada has just ordered MSNBC to include Rep. Dennis Kucinich in Tuesday's Democratic Party presidential debate in Las Vegas or he will cancel the forum.
Senior Clark County District Court Judge Charles Thompson vowed to issue an injunction halting the nationally televised debate if MSNBC failed to comply. Kucinich had filed a lawsuit seeking to be included just this morning.
The judge ruled it was a matter of fairness and Nevada voters would benefit from hearing from more than just Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama. Kucinich had been invited to participate in the 6 p.m. Pacific debate Tuesday, but that invitation was rescinded last week ... So set up a fourth podium."
Andrew Malcolm, correspondent - The Los Angeles Times

Well, now let’s see how much money the bastards will spend on appeals. Unfortunately, they can outspend Dennis and put him completely out of business. That’s when the uprising is called for. But, of course, the uprising's a dream, too: nothing must disturb America’s sleepwalk into fascist corporatism.

Conspiracies, conspiracies

Was the New Hampshire vote tampered with? Paul and Kucinich have both been informed by the state that they'd have to pay for an investigation.
The collapse of the twin towers was a classic example of deliberate demolition -- you can see the charges going off in the videos of the event.
How could that airliner circle the Pentagon slowly and then seemingly pick its spot to crash (carefully avoiding Mr Rumsfield's office) without being blown out of the sky by anti-aircraft batteries or jet fighters?
How in God's name did George W Bush become President of the United States?
Conspiracies here, there, under the bed, in the closet, everywhere . . .
Idiocy? Unpatriotic and destructive fallacy?
I'm gonna tell you right now: I don't put anything -- I mean ANYTHING -- past these bastards.
It is time for a benevolent inquisition . . . a revolution and a reckoning. Find the truth, no matter what it is.

Garrison rocks.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2008/01/09/change/index.html

Another year of slumber?

I tuned in to kucinichtv.com to attend the only new year's eve party that was happening as far as I was concerned. Like any political event in America, it had its modicum of hokiness, and Dennis wins no prizes in stage presence. There was, of course, no big frikkin' balls dropping and -- thank all that's holy -- no commercials. I suppose that's why the streaming sucked so badly, certainly enough to drive anyone not fully committed to the cause away -- and those who are, totally afroth with frustration and ire. That's what happens when you're not given a chance by America's big-money, totally bought, totally corrupt media.
Too bad. It was a great show -- and unless somebody like Dylan or Clapton or Springfield or Neil Young was playing on some tv channel somewhere, it was the best performance of the night on any small screen.
Even the lousy streaming couldn't completely destroy the music. The poetry, too, was great, and the political talk was limited and, as usual, straight from the heart. And, as usual, Elizabeth was beautiful in every sense.
The day before, I talked with three visiting members of the family who had literally never heard of Dennis Kucinich. A short time before that, two others visiting for Christmas had no knowledge of him. All these people read American newspapers. I don't.
Here is a man who reflects the closest issues to the American heart -- a man with definite plans to address this nation's biggest problems. A man who would save the Constitution from the wanton destruction it now faces. No true American could look into his or her heart and not support -- hell, elect, Dennis Kucinich!
Why aren't you more familiar with him? Because he isn't in anyone's pocket. He doesn't have all that wealth, all that money big business pours into the coffers of politicians who will subsequently owe it all back them and thus keep them big and powerful.

Blonde Faith

That golden Celtic princess
Of a sun that will not fade
No matter how much the orbit
Falters and degrades
Shrugging me further
Out into space than I ever meant to be
Astride my tired dispirited nag
Who still dreams himself
Some bygone steed he never really was
As I dream of emerald green seas
In which I never really bathed
But out here there is that oft-rumored
Freedom
I dimly suppose