Even though they have twice the population.
read more | digg story
Sunday, 3 June 2007
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty
Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Severe reverse culture shock : "What the **** are you looking at?"
Coming back from Japan after a year comes with its fair share of moments like these....
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, 17 May 2007
Jailed Scientology Critic Keith Henson In Danger
Keith Henson is being denied his lawyer and medication. His visitors are being jerked around, often waiting for hours, then told he cannot see them.We who know him are very concerned for the future of his well-being, as he needs medication for heart and blood pressure problems. This whole situation is horribly wrong, and nobody is listening.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
Give ‘Em Hell, Mr. Terkel
The acclaimed host of “Democracy Now” pays tribute to one her most prolific and passionate forbears, Studs Terkel, who turns 95 this week. “Ordinary people are capable of doing extraordinary things,” Turkel says. His life proves that fact.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, 14 May 2007
This Perfect Storm Will Finally Destroy The Neocon Project
Americans are sick of the unrepentant arrogance of this elite. But the realisation has come at a very heavy cost.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Scientology row, bbc reporters youtube shouting match with scientology
BBC reporter tells how Scientology spied on him, shouted at him, harrassed him, members of his family etc, broke into his hotel room and many other acts during the making of a bbc documentary on scientology
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, 5 May 2007
Solving Einstein's Puzzles
Walter Isaacson’s 704-page, 2.4-pound biography of Einstein may not provide a solution to the great question that nagged the physicist to the day he died – but thanks to Isaacson's access to a treasure trove of letters released just last year, "Einstein: His Life and Universe" provides the most definitive word yet on Einstein's personal puzzle
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Bush administration proposes retroactive immunity for phone companies
As a small note in a lrger funding bill, the administration is asking Congress to pass legislation that would grant telephone companies immunity from all prosecution related to their assistance of the intelligence community. The intent is to protect those companies that have assisted the government with its illegal wire-tapping activities.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
The impeachment train is starting to roll.
The impeachment train is starting to roll. Last week, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), started things off by filing a three-article bill of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. Initially largely ignored by the mainstream media, and even ridiculed by some leading Democrats in Congress, that bill, HR 333, today garnered two co-sponsors, Rep.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, 27 January 2005
Saturday, 11 September 2004
Tuesday, 3 August 2004
Monday, 2 August 2004
Sunday, 18 January 2004
Some Jonny Lang (always feels good)
RHAPSODY Link
Thank you Jonny it was worth the wait and then some; congrats on one FINE album!
(a big fan LL (tommi) T
Thank you Jonny it was worth the wait and then some; congrats on one FINE album!
(a big fan LL (tommi) T
Monday, 12 January 2004
Friday, 9 January 2004
Thinking of Woody Guthrie (and here's a Leadbelly playlist Woody would have loved)
RHAPSODY Link
When i absorb enough Ledbelly ... (and that's a lot of listening time for me); i'll tell a true story about Woody that might interest some.
I came across a rare book up for auction by Bauman's Rare Books. It was a copy of "American Folksong" (1947) with a hand-written inscription by Woody: "for Margo and Eddie / Woody Guthrie / Aug. 1949". Quoting from the Bauman's auction listing the book at 7,500$; "In the 1930's, actor Eddie Albert shared rooms with singer Burl Ives -- who one evening invited home an undernourished family of four who had been living in a boxcar, and fried some chicken for them. "The man can really play a guitar and sing," Albert was told, and he really could: he was Woody Guthrie. Guthrie and Albert remained close for many years. In addition to Woody's autobiography and his essay on Leadbelly, "American Folksong" includes the texts of some of his greatest songs.
I wonder how many realise that Woody wrote and sang "This Land Is Your Land" as a strident protest song against the "love or leave it" message the recent (1930's) release of "God Bless America" had engendered for the lucky few who then or today are able to share in the bounty that is America. All was not well then and it is very little better today. Bruce Springsteen recorded his rendition of Woody's most famous song along with a biting vocal commentary in solid agreement with it's true meaning. The only recording I can find of that live recording by "The Boss" or of Woody's original are to be found on the Rhaposdy music service. It may sound like I work for Rhapsody or get paid by them; I want to state here and now that I have never received any payment from anybody (like my voice is worth money...NOT!); by Rhapsody or by anybody else. In fact I pay 100$ a year for it like anyone else. That said, I pay the sum gladly. It's one of the few inet services (besides Blogging), that are worth probably more than they cost. Anyway my Leadbelly playlist linked above was a big influence to Mr. Guthrie and is well worth a listen or four.
When i absorb enough Ledbelly ... (and that's a lot of listening time for me); i'll tell a true story about Woody that might interest some.
I came across a rare book up for auction by Bauman's Rare Books. It was a copy of "American Folksong" (1947) with a hand-written inscription by Woody: "for Margo and Eddie / Woody Guthrie / Aug. 1949". Quoting from the Bauman's auction listing the book at 7,500$; "In the 1930's, actor Eddie Albert shared rooms with singer Burl Ives -- who one evening invited home an undernourished family of four who had been living in a boxcar, and fried some chicken for them. "The man can really play a guitar and sing," Albert was told, and he really could: he was Woody Guthrie. Guthrie and Albert remained close for many years. In addition to Woody's autobiography and his essay on Leadbelly, "American Folksong" includes the texts of some of his greatest songs.
I wonder how many realise that Woody wrote and sang "This Land Is Your Land" as a strident protest song against the "love or leave it" message the recent (1930's) release of "God Bless America" had engendered for the lucky few who then or today are able to share in the bounty that is America. All was not well then and it is very little better today. Bruce Springsteen recorded his rendition of Woody's most famous song along with a biting vocal commentary in solid agreement with it's true meaning. The only recording I can find of that live recording by "The Boss" or of Woody's original are to be found on the Rhaposdy music service. It may sound like I work for Rhapsody or get paid by them; I want to state here and now that I have never received any payment from anybody (like my voice is worth money...NOT!); by Rhapsody or by anybody else. In fact I pay 100$ a year for it like anyone else. That said, I pay the sum gladly. It's one of the few inet services (besides Blogging), that are worth probably more than they cost. Anyway my Leadbelly playlist linked above was a big influence to Mr. Guthrie and is well worth a listen or four.
Sunday, 4 January 2004
ETHNIC CLEANSING (Andrew Jackson Style)
RHAPSODY Link
"A little night music" (sorry Amadeus); my compilation of Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls"; was just the bit of emotional escape I needed THIS SAT night in particular. I was born in the tiny scrap (a few counties) of NE Oklahoma left to Cherokee after U.S. President Andrew Jackson's inglorious statement that "The only good Indian is a dead Indian"; and his order of the forced march in the harsh mid-winter of 1838 of the only N.A. indigenous tribe with a written constitution and extremely literate population. My ancestors there (in a good fraction of what now makes up the U.S. states of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee); had the misfortune of being in a position to embarrass the US image of the "savage" and worse to stand in the path of some vainglorious notion they call "manifest destiny". The truth of that 19th century "ethnic cleansing" is as shamefull as it is "whitewashed" in the historical record. Men, women and children were forced by the might of the US Army to abandon their homeland of thousands of years standing and hearded into pens like cattle or sheep for preparation for their forced march to the section of Indian Territory assigned them. More than 30% of those that walked the "The Trail Where They Cried" died on the way. As accorded by Cherokee tradition, those who died on the path could not be buried in an unknown and unmarked place so their bodies were carried in the arms of their mother, fathers, brothers, and sisters. It is tradition that nobody can take from you what you do not allow them access to. The Cherokee along that path refused to look the armed soldiers in the eye and thus allow them to take anything of their immortal spirit. Also inconvenient to historical US record is the fact that within 20 years of that monstrous and criminal "ethnic cleansing"; the Cherokee were generally agreed to be among the most literate of peoples on earth and regained some affluence in what many considered worthless land. Taking nothing away from the sensible claim of multi-ethnic origins of modern Quebec; Cherokee government and all public periodicals were published in both Cherokee and English simultaneously and a large fraction of the people were literate in both.
"A little night music" (sorry Amadeus); my compilation of Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls"; was just the bit of emotional escape I needed THIS SAT night in particular. I was born in the tiny scrap (a few counties) of NE Oklahoma left to Cherokee after U.S. President Andrew Jackson's inglorious statement that "The only good Indian is a dead Indian"; and his order of the forced march in the harsh mid-winter of 1838 of the only N.A. indigenous tribe with a written constitution and extremely literate population. My ancestors there (in a good fraction of what now makes up the U.S. states of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee); had the misfortune of being in a position to embarrass the US image of the "savage" and worse to stand in the path of some vainglorious notion they call "manifest destiny". The truth of that 19th century "ethnic cleansing" is as shamefull as it is "whitewashed" in the historical record. Men, women and children were forced by the might of the US Army to abandon their homeland of thousands of years standing and hearded into pens like cattle or sheep for preparation for their forced march to the section of Indian Territory assigned them. More than 30% of those that walked the "The Trail Where They Cried" died on the way. As accorded by Cherokee tradition, those who died on the path could not be buried in an unknown and unmarked place so their bodies were carried in the arms of their mother, fathers, brothers, and sisters. It is tradition that nobody can take from you what you do not allow them access to. The Cherokee along that path refused to look the armed soldiers in the eye and thus allow them to take anything of their immortal spirit. Also inconvenient to historical US record is the fact that within 20 years of that monstrous and criminal "ethnic cleansing"; the Cherokee were generally agreed to be among the most literate of peoples on earth and regained some affluence in what many considered worthless land. Taking nothing away from the sensible claim of multi-ethnic origins of modern Quebec; Cherokee government and all public periodicals were published in both Cherokee and English simultaneously and a large fraction of the people were literate in both.
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