Friday, February 23, 2007

Lovely music



Check out Andy Mckee, acoustic guitar and handslap percussionist on You Tube.
Then go to CandyRat records on the web and buy his music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4MGaS3N4

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Your government at 'work'









Condi Rice is a pathological liar, a genocidal maniac, a killer of American soldiers and a traitor to American ideals.
Don't believe me?
Read this.













Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney are pathological liars, genocidal maniacs, killers of American soldiers and traitors to American ideals.

Don't believe me?
Read this or this.






Our government at 'work'.

I never supported the Iraq War/Invasion


While so many on-line bloggers, journalists and politicos are busy doing the currently fashionable 'mea culpa' genuflection, begging for forgiveness for supporting the American invasion of Iraq (while carefully qualifying that they couldn't tell the truth from all the lies), I want to say loudly and clearly that there were tens of thousands of us who marched on the streets of America risking arrest and worse to protest this illegal, devastatingly destructive and immoral war before it began.



Your mistake is directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Your mistake is directly responsible for the deaths of more than three thousand American soldiers. Your mistake is directly responsible for the permanent injury of tens of thousands of American soldiers. Your mistake is directly responsible for the $400,000,000,000 looting of America's treasury. You are responsible.

Now what?!

If not you, who?
If not now, when?

Saturday, February 10, 2007

It (was) a Saturday matinee

Kids may say the darndest things but they've got an excuse.
There's no excuse for this.

Sorry, the corporate clowns that own the world you live in have demanded that remove their copyrighted material showing exactly how horrifically uneducated the average American citizen actual is. The video that used to link here was of dozens of average Americans being asked about the world we live in. Needless to say, most of the folks interviewed were astonishingly ignorant while at the same time incredibly belligerent, insisting that we bomb countries such as France, Italy, and especially Iran, because those countries had 'attitude,'even though most of them had no idea where on the globe those 'bad' countries were located!
Frightening.


By the by, this is John Howard.


He's the Prime Minister of Australia, which is a country and continent located in the Southern Hemisphere, often referred to as 'Down Under' or 'Oz.'

Australia also is a member of what President Bush called the 'Coalition of the Willing.'As of today, February 10th, 2007 3,121 American soldiers have given their lives in Iraq for Bush's lies. Two Australian soldiers have paid the ultimate price for John Howard's lies.

This weekend P.M. Howard criticized American Presidential candidate Barack Obama demanding that we immediately begin to end the American war on the people of Iraq.

'If Prime Minister Howard truly believes what he says, perhaps his country should find its way to contribute more than just 1,400 troops so some American troops can come home,' said Robert Gibbs, spokesman for Senator Barack Obama. 'It's easy to talk tough when it's not your country or your troops making the sacrifices.'

Thursday, February 08, 2007

puke

Sometimes, while reading the news (mainly on the internet because the newspapers in the SF Bay Area are so absolutely inconsequential that I can read each of them in less than ten minutes, including the time I spend carefully analyzing and appreciating the funny pages and the advice columns) I feel like puking.

While every day I think of several stories that should be brought to the public's attention, in following those stories I'm forced to wade through deep pits of decay and decrepitude, the rotten flesh of a corrupt and immoral press. Too often I'm so sickened by the inadequacy and the complicity of the so-called professionals of the press that I'm literally taken ill.

Is it any wonder that so many Americans don't bother to read the news?
Why care when the most incredible corruption results in nothing?

Why bother when blathering-idiot Chris Matthews and 'nationalist' propagandist Brit Hume and disgraced former NY Times reporter Judith Miller and Dick Cheney's favorite lap dog NBC bureau chief Tim Russert are avidly covering the blatherings of psychopathic liars like Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, rather then reporting news.

Hey, give us another story of Speaker Pelosi's giant airplane without bothering to fact check anything. (Yeah, her's is bigger then his but who's surprised? While Dennis Hastert is a prick, it's clear he doesn't have one.)

I guess it's all just so much entertainment...

...unless the bombs falling, are falling on you and me.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Picture this.....


click me

Thank you, Lucas Gray.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

By the time...

... you read the headline of this post, more than 3,100 American soldiers will have given their lives for this immoral, illegal and unnecessary war. (3,097 as of February 2nd, 2007)

As of January 10th, 2007, more than 47,657 American soldiers have been injured in the American war on the people of Iraq, 6,670 requiring immediate medical air transport (indicating grievous injury).

The projected costs of caring for these injured veterans is estimated to be in excess of $660 billion.

If every war supporter, every surge supporter, logged on to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count every day and read the names of the dead, American soldiers would not be in Iraq.

Truly...
Honor our commitments.
Act with honor.
Acknowledge the sacrifice others are making.

...try not to cry.

Noise washes you clean



I keep an electric guitar and an amp next to my computer whenever I can. Five years ago, while working at the SF Examiner, I purchased a cheap acoustic Fender guitar from the pawnshop around the corner to leave beside my desk for anyone who might pick it up in need of those moments that require the inner solitude and introspection a guitar can bring in a place of chaos. Several months after I’d left, a former co-worker told me what she missed most was the quiet sound of the guitar while she wrote her daily quota of news.

When I read on Wednesday that Molly Ivins had ‘walked on’ as the native people of California say about the dead, I picked up my guitar and ‘dimed’ it, reading the instant obits while making a holy noise. Far more news organizations noted Molly’s passing than carried her work but the thunderous noise filled me with peace where her departure had created a hole.

My guitars and amps give me great pleasure. I’m especially pleased with the instruments I've managed to rescued from dis(re)pair. Pictured above are a Gibson The Paul and a mid-60s Fender Showman cabinet I was able to resuscitate. The Hi-Mu 5.5 amplifier came to me whole and full of life.

I purchased the Gibson for $125 when I was working as a production artist for the SF Weekly back in the late 1990s. It was cheap because someone had started to dismantle it for future improvement.
The future turned out to be too far away for the fellow that started the project.
Originally the guitar was black but when I received it the former owner had scraped off most of former paint. The pickups and other hardware also were random replacements so I didn’t have any hesitation finishing his strip job, re-contouring the body, adding an after market mother of pearl headstock logo, refinishing the guitar in antique cherry, replacing the pickups with Fralin humbuckers and the hardware with vintage original gold plated Gibson equipment. It’s not collectible but with a decent set of strings it sings and looks good.

The Fender cabinet, sans speakers, was a similar find for $50 on Craigslist. A pair of inexpensive and dysfunctional mid 60s Jensen 15 speaker were sent to Audiovex for re-coning with Celestion Greenback cones and for less than $200 I had a great sounding if a tad ugly cabinet. Someday I'll recover it in new tolex.

The Hi-Mu wasn’t so easy, but then again, it didn't need anything. Using my research skills I traced down the original builder, Barry Breisch, at home. He stopped building amps in the late 1990s but it turned out he no longer was playing his personal amp and offered to sell it to me for a reasonable price. It arrived in immaculate condition, as though it had been carefully lost in the mails in the mid-90s and magically arrived on my doorstep a decade late.

Not a day goes by that I don’t turn the amp to ten, the guitar to a similar level, and create a quiet empty peace in my head, letting the amazing, cleansing sound wash over me. It’s renewing in a way that only holy music played loudly can be.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Supporting our troops?


The President of the United States, George W. 'Bin Bush' accuses the Iranian government of funding and fomenting revolt in Iraq, which has cost our soldiers lives. Now he wants to bomb Iran. Unfortunately the truth is much more disturbing.

As was the case with the '9/11' hijackers, 'Bin Bush's' good friends in Saudi Arabia have been picking up the tab, using money we spend on gasoline to murder our uniformed troops in Iraq.

In an unlikely act of media responsibility, USA Today has published a news report detailing how Saudi's most affluent families are funding Iraqi 'insurgents,' paying for the weapons responsible for so many America deaths.



Like Judas, President 'Bin Bush' betrays U.S. for pieces of silver.

How many American soldiers in Iraq will it take before the American people know too many soldiers have died?

For those with a shorter memory than mine, 11 of the 19 '9/11' hijackers were Saudi Arabian and most of the funding for the deadliest attack ever to occur on American soil came from Saudi Arabia's most affluent families. The Bin Ladin's are Saudi Arabians and were good friends and business partners with the Bush family, too.

For those with a limited knowledge of global politics, the picture at the top is of
President George 'Bin Bush' mouth kissing Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, a member of the Saudi royal family. The entire Bush family currently is ... and for generations has been ... like brothers to the Saudi family, for whom Saudi Arabia was named.

Fundamentally, Saudi Arabia is a Sunni-dominated country, their mortal enemies are Shia. Fundamentally, Iran is a Shia-dominated country, their mortal enemies are Sunni. Are there any questions about why Bush wants to bomb Iran, now?

Maybe the Repugnican traitors on the 'air' like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Anne Coulter and Michael Savage will get behind the move to change our nation's name to 'Bush America.'

Thursday, February 01, 2007

500 channels and nothing to watch?

Maybe there's a reason....
In 1983 there were 50 major corporations that provided the overwhelming portion of our daily media diet.
Today there are five!



Check it out: http://www.corporations.org/media/

Now would you be surprised if I told you the same people who own a major share of the corporations that make all the crap you think you want ...
also own a substantial portion of the corporations that tell you to buy that crap?

It gets better!

The same people who own the corporations that 'report' the news that makes you feel bad, that makes you fearful, with all those awful stories about those terrible evil-doers who want to do evil things to you and your family...
those same people own the corporations that make the crap we buy for our good guys so they can defend us against those bad guys!

Wow!

Isn't it great that life is so simple?

It's just kinda like a cat-and-rat factory.
For information on rats go to RatKill.com

or you can make your voice a vote for change.
By the by, they're trying to lock up the internet, too! Sign the petition. Let your elected representative feel a little fear for a change.

We're gonna miss ya, girl


Molly Ivins was one of our greatest commentator-journalists.
With wit and humor and a real beating heart, she defined the soul of our great country, a place big and generous enough to encompass all that is called America.



One American woman dies every 13 minutes from breast cancer.
We can do better. Someone you love deserves better than that.

http://breast-cancer-research.com/

http://www.bcrfcure.org/

Hysteria


here's a nice little story.

It's all about the context.
Fear, baby, fear!!!!