He Who Saw Hendrix

FOUR

2010-09-03T06:16:00.000-07:00

James Rector. Google him . . . and think Ronald Reagan, thank Ronald Reagan.

I'm really hoping Ronald Reagan is facing James Rector right now.

THREE

2010-08-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

I remember General Electric Theater. It, like Friday Night Boxing, was one of those things I was required to watch in order to gain the privilege of seeing stuff I wanted to see, like Victory At Sea or Omnibus. Ronald Reagan was a bore. I could never understand what anyone saw in him. It didn't matter, really: I gave him little thought -- wrote him off as what I would later term a harmless buffoon.
I was wrong about the "harmless" part.

TWO

2010-08-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

It's about time, folks, to realize, face the fact, that the sorry state in which we find ourselves has a cause and a very definite origin. Call it the Reagan Revolution. You know: that long-ago Morning in America. Not so much Reagan the man, however; but Reagan the idea, Reagan the symbol, Reagan the tool carried in the pocket of every man who owned him.
That steep oil-slicked slope down which all of us are sliding started with Reagan, the narrow-minded reality-deprived figurehead of the neocon slime that was even then festering deep within his administration and has now brought us to the limit of what the rest of the world can stomach of our imperial hubris and greed. That limit has resulted in increased blow-back from those we have senselessly offended most.
If all those justified and deserving of revenge against us were to suddenly have their way with us . . .
But that conflagration represents the bottom of that slope. We aren't there yet; though we're picking up speed on the slide.
On the way, we can watch with horrified fascination as other features of the Reagan legacy fulfill themselves. We can watch the Pentagon swell until it explodes, watch the national debt do whatever . . .
We can thrill with the horror of spending everything we have on useless wars. Then, long before we've quite spent it all, we'll start to syphon our own blood -- our welfare, our planet, our children -- until we, too, are gone.

And look who got the ball rolling. Didn't exactly start it -- just gave it a millennium's worth of a kick in the ass. The gods must be rolling in the aisles.

That's All, Folks!

All of his movies sucked. Every one of them, whether I saw them or not, for seeing one is seeing all. His speeches, his philosophy, his politics, his intellect, his life -- were all of similar quality.

He was a B movie

One

2010-08-07T16:23:00.000-07:00

I first heard of the New Hess Hay most likely in a comic strip. The New Hess is a place -- a place very close to home (or the Homeland, if you prefer the modern revival of Nazi jargon). The New Hess government is a creation of the New Hess Constitution, etc . . .

I don't recall which comic strip it was. Indeed, it could well have been in an episode of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
But it wasn't.

For one thing, it goes back a little further than Boris and Natasha. I've, in fact, narrowed it down to one of two Cold War comic strip sources: either Pogo or L'il Abner. In either case, it would be perfectly at home: a hick interpretation of how a Russian, European, or Asian might pronounce "USA." I strongly suspect Al Capp . . . from around the time that a fictional Asian power he created allowed its airlines to dlop slops (dump waste) over Dogpatch, USA. I think one of the pilots may have called us the New Hess.

The name has become a pretty snug fit over recent decades, has occurred to me many times as deserving of resurrection. What the hell -- it's more fitting now than it was when Stalin was reviewing all those endless military parades, and I was ducking and covering in the hallway, or in the cloakroom, or under my classroom desk.

I'm weird enough to just love the "Hess" part. Historic links and all, you know . . . all the more fitting. Savor the rich and heavy bass tones of pure fascism in New Hess Intelligence, New Hess Imperialism, New Hess racial policies . . .

Ever wonder how things got so royally fucked up? Or when? Both questions have the same answer.

Ronald Reagan.

Don't stop with Afghanistan

2010-03-11T13:16:00.000-08:00

Let's just conquer the entire fucking world and be done with it. No need to be half-assed, after all. We've got all that money we've stolen from our own people to give to the blood-soaked vultures to make bigger and better weapons. Let's bloody fucking GO FOR IT.

Message to Obama

2010-02-12T06:49:00.000-08:00

Get serious, Dude! How can you continually hear all the wrong voices, get all the wrong messages and make all the wrong decisions? Gawd, man!
You are making me crazy . . . batshit crazy!

Presidential appointments from Hell

2010-01-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

Not that I don't trust anybody . . .

Given the blood already on US hands in the matter of Haiti,
Has it not occurred to you, too,
That recent Obama appointees
Big Daddy Clinton and his a-hole buddy
Gawge Dubya
Are in fact co-viceroys in that
Unhappy land?

If you don't buy that,
You just don't realize how convenient,
What a Pat Robertson godsend,
That earthquake really was.

Have a happy

2009-12-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

Look at all we have to be grateful for! We are very close to passing health care reform that will make the insurance industry and Big Pharma even richer than they are right now, thanks so much to our two-faced, double-dealing President. Oh, but don't give him all the credit. Traitor Joe the Blivet Lieberman -- insurance agent extraordinaire -- also gets a big shitload of credit, too. So do the heroic fear-mongers -- the teabags and The Craziest Man on Fox and In The World.
But not as much credit as is due our sterling President.
Just consider the pure artistry: after promising to bring the workings of government out into the open, he makes secret deals with Lieberman's paymasters. After calling bankers Fat Cats -- too gentlemanly to call them what they really are (what real cats leave in the litter box) -- he grins and plays Let's Make a Deal with them.
Just the revelation that the surge in Afghanistan is really about India and Pakistan and is actually expected to involve our national and (even bigger) private armed forces for a decade or more is resounding proof of the man's honesty.
That's why I voted for him . . . isn't it?

Shutting down

2009-09-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Inconvenient silence

Well, yeah, it just about bugs the hell out of me. How can no one be looking into the questions that have gone unanswered for so long? How does it get to be so unfashionable and so unpatriotic to ask certain questions . . . questions that can not be avoided if we are to remain a free people.
Or perhaps I should say . . . were ever a free people.
Questions like: how did that 757 bank, turn, and dive, then skim mere feet above the lawn and enter a doorway at the Pentagon while simultaneously disappearing (literally disintegrating) -- with a guy at the stick who could barely fly a Cessna?
That’s just one. There are many, many more . . .
But don’t ask. It ain’t the American thing to do.
And think of the implications . . .
To which my reply is screw the implications. This isn’t about implications. It’s about truth and a deeper sense of real patriotism than we’ve seen in many a decade – long enough to become, apparently, numb.

In a nutshell

2009-07-31T14:01:00.000-07:00

Matt Taibbi puts it as succinctly as it can be put: "Our government doesn’t exist to protect voters from interests, it exists to protect interests from voters."

"It's almost immoral, what they are doing."

2009-07-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

"Almost" my ass, Nancy!
Ms. Pelosi was referring, of course, to the Insurance Mafia. Oh, no, my bad -- the Mafia didn't deserve that.
Thank them and Big Pharma for the shameful offense against all that is decent and human that continues -- and, it appears, will continue -- to call itself American health care.
When a vast majority want and deserve (at long last) freedom from the fear of death and misery and the poverty that results from the usual failed attempt to conquer death and misery, all for the sake of the comfort and greed of a select few scum who long ago lost the moral right to call themselves human, America can do nothing but compromise?
Compromise with greed?
Compromise with corruption?
Compromise with evil?
Call me Philip Nolan . . .

I want to live in America

2009-05-17T09:31:00.000-07:00

Margie was sworn in Thursday, May 14. Lee Greenwood's propaganda commercial pap patriotic so-called music was featured just after the ceremony. The Department of Seig Heil Homeland Security hosted the show: a supremely long and horrible affair.
So my New Jersey-born Canadian wife has turned American.

Happy Holiday

2008-12-25T10:14:00.000-08:00

Happy Holiday,
Karmafae!

Merry Christmas, all!

Chanuka, too!

Not to mention Kwanzaa,
Solstice and New Years Day!

Making a list, checking it twice

2008-12-08T05:25:00.000-08:00

Joe who?

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

Yes

2008-11-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

He did.

Congratulations, America. Nice re-boot . . .

Comes the Tick-tock Man for America

2008-10-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

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

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

email

2008-10-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

For Susan:

baileywing1@carolina.rr.com

slbrownccc@carolina.rr.com (Margie)

Greetings

2008-10-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-19T09:01:00.002-07:00

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

Your SS in action.

Doing Another World

2008-09-19T09:01:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-19T09:01:00.000-07:00

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

Thanks, Arianna

2008-09-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

Guess who . . .

Dick Cheney with lipstick!

Yes!

Hello? Anybody home?

2008-09-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-01T05:21:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-31T11:18:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

"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 . . .

2008-08-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-08-16T06:05:00.000-07:00

Life is good

2008-07-19T19:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-07T05:38:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-29T04:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-29T12:05:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-26T21:25:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-03-08T14:45:00.000-08:00

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

2008-03-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

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 . . .

2008-02-29T08:56:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-29T06:56:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-26T07:59:00.000-08:00

It will take about 2 hours . . .

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

Waterboarding

2008-02-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

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

Facing up to reality

2008-01-31T16:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-30T07:56:00.000-08:00

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

Thanks. It's good to be back.

Kucinich drops out

2008-01-25T06:36:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-24T03:52:00.000-08:00

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?

2008-01-22T06:57:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-18T07:42:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-17T18:57:00.000-08:00

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 . . .

2008-01-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-15T08:04:00.000-08:00

"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

2008-01-11T10:36:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-01-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

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

Another year of slumber?

2008-01-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-01T08:59:00.000-08:00

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

part two of short-term memory lane

2007-12-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

The year what wuz . . .

Playin' in the band

2007-12-28T18:36:00.000-08:00

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.

Another look back down short-term memory lane

2007-12-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

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

A stroll down Short-term Memory Lane, part 1

2007-12-24T07:28:00.000-08:00

Never-to-be-forgotten golden moments from 2007.

Have a happy holiday

2007-12-19T16:36:00.000-08:00

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

Without comment

2007-12-14T17:00:00.001-08:00

http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/politics/2007/12/12/barneychristmas/index.html
Enjoy the video, but watch it on an empty stomach!

Why I live for music

2007-12-13T16:59:00.000-08:00

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.

Democracy at work

2007-12-12T20:41:00.000-08:00

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.

Feelin' poetic . . .

2007-12-11T06:08:00.000-08:00

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.

Sunday morning reverie

2007-12-09T06:52:00.000-08:00

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.

Good night and good luck

2007-12-07T17:02:00.000-08:00

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

Guess who I voted for . . .

2007-12-06T18:41:00.000-08:00

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.

The lyingest liar

2007-12-06T05:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Kucinich on NIE

2007-12-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know his wife is hot . . .
She's smart, too. So is he. In a world where folks are blessed with imagination and intelligence, he's the natural front-runner. He had the Iraq run-up for what it was, and was the only one to vote accordingly: then and ever since. He called the Iran run-up what it is, too.
It really is about time Americans started listening to him.
http://www.dennis4president.com/go/newsroom/new-intelligence-debunks-bush-arguments-on-iran-threat,-calls-dem-candidates%92-judgment-into-question/

Kucinich for President

2007-12-05T17:01:00.000-08:00

Don't tell me I'm wasting my time. Don't even tell me it's a hopeless cause. He's the only true Democrat among the Democrats. You want single-payer national health insurance? You want out of Iraq? You want an end to the corruption and the incredible stupidity? You want the U.S. Constitution? An end to torture? An end to the disrespect and utter hatred the very name of your beloved country inspires around the world?
Kucinich is your man.
You don't have to take this crap anymore. Imagine that!
http://www.dennis4president.com/go/newsroom/democrat-base-gives-kucinich-third-major-win-in-nationwide-poll/

They just don't get it, do they?

2007-12-05T06:47:00.000-08:00

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."

2007-12-03T09:47:00.000-08:00

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/

2007-12-02T09:58:00.000-08:00

There's a fawn in the woods at the right.

See?

Wilderness in the City: An entrance to McAlpine Creek Greenway lies less than a minute's walk from Margie's mom's back door and about three minutes from our place. We do our morning walks there. It's an inspiring place.

Photos by Margie

2007-11-30T17:28:00.000-08:00

That old Yamaha Red Label has seen better days. Note the rough blemish where the pick guard - a gaudy c&w design -- is missing. Like most of them on this model, it literally curled up and died: curled up to an extent that the instrument was unplayable until I very carefully ripped it off, taking a bit of wood with it. The glue on these guitars was so "good" that it couldn't be melted without incinerating the guitar. For that reason, I keep it tuned a full step below standard -- to keep the bridge from collapsing through the top, another design flaw not helped by unmeltable glue. But, damn it all, it sounds some kinda good! It was made in Japan by some people who were trying to reproduce Martin Guitars back in 1969-70 or so. They're considered collectors' items now. This one sounds better than at least one Martin I've heard. Imagine how it would sound played by a real guitar player.

Wife Margie took these pictures. Indeed, most of the pictures you'll see on this blog are hers.

2007-11-30T17:24:00.000-08:00

2007-11-29T19:15:00.000-08:00

2007-11-29T18:27:00.000-08:00

Or, for that matter, innocence . . .
First post, first typo.
Good start.

2007-11-29T18:14:00.000-08:00

OK
Ahem.
Clean slate. Blank sheet.
Invitation to creativity.
New beginnings.
Empty as far as the eye can see.
Endless snow field . . . no;
Vast desert.
And me with no canteen.
And now not even the last shred
Of the little innocense I had.