I see Dead People

Do some politicians actually believe that America isn't waking up? Why else would Joe Lieberman pull the same stupid stunt that John McCain pulled... Going to Iraq and declaring it safe while surrounded by troops and helicopters and wearing better body armour than the military people who are having to protect his life?


Joe Lieberman in Iraq: “what I see here today is progress, significant progress.”

What I see is a bigger ass than even John McCain. April 2007 is the third deadliest month for American Troops in this stupid and tragic war's history.

A soldier in Iraq: “We’re not making any progress,” Hedin said, as he recalled a comrade who was shot by a sniper last week. “It just seems like we drive around and wait to get shot at. … It’s just more troops, more targets.”

Lieberman was given a note card with questions from the troops. The number one question?

"When are we going to get out of here?


An Iraq veteran may lose his honorable discharge for wearing his uniform to a war protest. I don't understand this one. We had discharged vets at a highschool football game wearing their uniforms without permission. This man served in Iraq. He's worthy. He has every right to say "I am a vet, here is my uniform that I still wear proudly. The Iraq war is simply futile and wrong."

Will this man be another victim of Authoritarianism? Why can't America remember that every time we let the Authoritarians take charge, it means more tragedy and tears for our country?

Here's a clip on Authoritarianism just in case you can still sleep at night. Recognize any country you are familiar with?

Authoritarian regimes grant wide powers to law enforcement agencies; in the
extreme this leads to a police state. Authoritarian regimes may or may not have a rule of law. In the former case laws are enacted and though they may seem intrusive, unjust or excessive, they are applied to common people. In the latter case laws do not exist or are routinely ignored — government actions follow the judgments or whims of officials.

Democracies rarely exhibit much authoritarian behavior, except in transition to/from authoritarian states or when martial law is imposed (during war, for
example). Many (if not most) citizens of authoritarian states do not perceive
their state as authoritarian until late in its development. ....Wikipedia

Peace,

Steve

Why do they hate Our Health?

Republican administrations simply cannot be trusted to do anything to protect the common good and safety of America. I've said it over and over but nothing puts it in the headlights any better than this:

A small beef supplier wants to test every single head of beef for mad cow disease and provide only guaranteed safe beef. The Bush Administration is going to stop him.

So what's wrong with a supplier offering 100% testing on his product? Isn't that a "free market" concept?

"No freekin way!" says the Bush administration. That would mean that all beef suppliers would have to test their beef because consumers would prefer to buy the "safe" stuff. It would cost corporations money.

"WASHINGTON: The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease."

Republicans...Keeping America Safe for Corporate Profits!

Peace,

Steve

BUH NAH NAH

Watching America is like watching an old Monte Python routine.

"You killed him!"

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did...You dropped a five thousand ton weight on his head."

"Well... he was armed with a banana."

You can apply that to about any situation the Bush Administration has gotten us into, like the Iraq war. Saddam, as it turned out, was pretty much armed with a banana.

"You lied!"

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did...You said he was going to make a mushroom cloud on America with Weapons of mass destruction."

"But I was right all along...See! He had this banana."

The Dick Cheney revelations just keep on coming in a similar vein.

"You revealed the name of a covert CIA agent in a time of war."

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did...The reports were issued yesterday proving it beyond any doubt."

"She had a banana!"

Everything Cheney has said turns out to be a lie and everything everybody else has said turned out to be true. Now it comes out that Cheney has ordered the Secret Service to destroy the official records of visits to his house, which is illegal.

So illegal act after illegal act comes to light and where is the oversight? Who protects America from a criminal in high office?

Congress.

Look out!

They're armed with a banana!

Peace,

Steve

The Media and the Immorality Play

Our civilization is conducting an extremely risky science experiment with the chemical composition of the very air we breathe. The results are predicted to be overwhelmingly disasterous but we, as a society, have yet to accept the need for action.

The Knoxville News Sentinel's recent Citizen's voice feature was the source of much ridicule in my circle of friends, as we dismembered Pete Stevens irrational piece on climate change being a "Liberal" hoax. His lack of factual argument was obvious but there was a greater question that must be asked. Why do media outlets, such as KNS, give letters with glaring factual errors the same space as you do those that have been carefully checked and which provide references for verification? I'm referring to peer reviewed journals as opposed to the circular firing squads of conservative blatherers, whose quotations of each other go round and round and end up with a nonexistant basis in reality.

I think we can make fun of the outrageous claims all we want and nothing changes, unless we speak out. Those who understand truthful analysis must act to counter the hyperbole, wishful thinking, and fantasies of people like Mr.Stevens, whose main arguments consist of demonstrably false statements, which ultimately degenerate into the only real argument against climate change:

"Doing something will cost us money."

Was there ever a more immoral argument?...It's not even true!

But then there is the part that the Knoxville News Sentinel plays in this immorality play. Is there a greater immorality than giving voice to the irrational discourse of those who apparently do not care about our children's future, except to hope that their own die rich?

A news outlet that allows its pages to provide intentionally misleading information is shirking its Constitutional duty to inform the electorate. They would never allow someone to make the case that small pox was caused by demons, for instance. And yet they allow discredited information on something that will more than likely change life as we know it on this planet.

News outlets have allowed themselves to be pawns in the mass marketing of destructive ideas for long enough. I wonder how your editors can look themselves in the mirror. In more superstitious times, we might wonder if there was a reflection there.

After all, even If essentially all the scientists in the whole world could possibly make exactly the same errors in analysis, and we follow their advice and do something before it is too late to reverse its effects, it won't cost us much on average.

If we don't act now...It could cost us everything.

AS a subscriber to the Knoxville News Sentinel, I only ask that KNS be a vehicle for factual information. I would like to trust my newspaper's information. At present, I cannot. Our future is at stake here. It is important.

I use the analogy of the disasterously ill informed man who stood in the stairwell shouting through his bullhorn as the World Trade Towers burned,

"Go back to your offices, it's under control."

Those who believed him are dead, and now, The Knoxville News Sentinel is the bullhorn. Our world is on fire but it hasn't collapsed...

Yet.

Peace,

Steve

I'm Sorry

Memorial Day is celebrated in very different ways by Americans. One group does the pomp and circumstance thing, pins medals on war veterans, and continues on their merry way starting wars for economic rather than moral reasons.

Another small but growing very fast group of people honors our warriors by asking for peace.

I think Memorial Day ought to be a National Day of Apology.

Instead of placing a wreath in the unknown soldier's grave or whatever, I think the President ought to stand before the American people and say he's sorry for being so inadequate as a human being that he started the worst war in American history for all the wrong reasons and is simply incompetent at this point and unable to fix anything whatsoever, much less this war.

We, the People, should then look each other in the eye and apologize to each other for being so inadequate and undeserving of our freedom and comfort that we would ever elect such an inadequate person to the Presidency of the United States in the first place.

We have a "sorry" President and I'm sorry.


Peace and happy Memorial Day. May History forgive us.

Steve


The Bush War Theory Explained


Prairie Weather on how the Troops feel about the War



From our "I Hate Dick Cheney" Department:

"As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who
oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright
conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and
living for. Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the
protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States.
Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem
to fall away."

Cheney is the kind of guy who gives slime a bad name. He must think the American Electorate is the enemy. I mean after all...We, the American People, would also like to be reassured that he would grant us the protections of the Constitution of the United States...Don't you think?

Is this a problem, Mr. Cheney?


Digby points out a fine detail:

"One more thing: the West Point honor code says, "a cadet will not lie, cheat or
steal or tolerate those who do." How in the world did they justify having Dick
Cheney speak at the commencement?"

And just to clear up one little detail...Dick Cheney isn't Not on the DC Madame's contact list.

What a piece of scum. (Hey Scum...If you're reading this, it;s a figure of speech, OK? No insult intended. What else would you prefer that we compare Cheney to? We're flexible, and always willing to do right by an honorable piece of scum. We had to take back that coment about slime mold, for instance...How were we to know slime mold was a colony of very liberal and progressive amoebas?...Sorry...The massive group sex thing had us confused...and a bit envious, actually.)

Ab goes to Hippie Jack's Farm

Ab the Flagman




WhitesCreek's Brother, Les





Somewhere in the "lost" part of Tennessee, between Monterey and Livingston, Jack Stoddart has a lovely farm on the bank of the Obey River. Jack is a noted photographer of Americana and maybe some bluegrass. You've seen his work...most likely a picture of John Hartford, or Doc Watson, or both. Or if you've been to any number of big time photo galleries or the home of someone too rich to let me inside, you've seen something of his.


Jack also produces an Americana music series on PBS called "Jammin at Hippie Jack's." This year it will be recorded at his Americana musice festival on his farm this weekend. The artist my brother plays with closed down the show last night and I simply had to be there. Family duty, you understand...

Brothers and all.


Plus, I got to drink beer from the musician's tent and tour Jack's private gallery, while Jack was giving the Flying Pig trophy to the winner of the barbecue cooking contest. Did I mention the food was good?

In spite of the fact that there was no beer being served (officially...I mean, come on...it's a music festival...a "family" music festival) one gentleman, who I turned out to know from days gone past, managed to maintain a solid staggering drunk from 4:30 until midnight. Last I saw him he was lying face up in the grass after dancing right over the top of one of the funeral home chairs they'd rented for the crowd. His brother had asked him if he was all right?



"How the hell would I know?" he answered.


He was the exception. Mostly it was an old hippie crowd. You know...Folks who have jobs and families and aren't about to come clean to their kids about the early years.

"Don't ask me 'cause I won't tell and anyway, I'll lie if you try to corner me"... old hippies.


There were also a bunch of gray ponytails and one beard that went to the man's knees in a well done braid. I had to wonder how he dealt with it during certain personal moments but I moved on before my mind could arrive there.

The music was varied but good. One group to note was a trio of highschoolers from Greensboro , NC called Beaconwood. Young and quite accomplished, musically. I'm a fan.


At the end of the night, when everybody was tired and ready to crash, the sound checks and video checks, and whatever other kind of checks they do got done and Ab the Flagman and the X Miss Americas finally started.



Jon Schwenke on Bass.

Gabe Pline is stuck in the back on drums...but he got the Drummer Cam to make up for it.























Ab Ivens






Ab is either an Americana Artist who plays music or an Americana Musician who plays art. Both his music and art are of note and folks got to enjoy both kinds of notes because the stage had his art installed all over it. He's big on the American Flag but doesn't wrap himself up in it. Quite the opposite.




Ab wrapped the American Flag in his own self and dedicated "Drunk and Crazy" to all the women in his life. "Either you're Drunk...Or you're crazy...For loving me." Or something like that.

Anyway, the band rocks!




Creek Brother put on his skin tight super hero suit and flew his guitar around in the night.


I took pictures.

Saturday Bird Blogging

This fledgeling Jay wasn't very happy with me and his mom and dad were sitting in the trees above, waiting to dive bomb anything that messes with Junior.

Ah, Spring.

Oh Seven

It's the Class of Oh Seven.

And it's a senior party.

Next year they will be at six different universities in at least four different states. This day they were finding out how much fun they could have with a 100 foot roll of plastic, two bottles of Dawn soap, ten bales of hay, a garden hose., and a hill

Thomas will make a big Splash at ETSU.























Bill slides over to High Point.



















UT, University of the South, Saint Louis, MTSU, Pellissippi State, Roane State, and ETSU get a prime crop this coming year.


















That's what two Valedictorians,
8 Varsity Soccer players (3 All District, One All Region, One MVP, One All State Nominee) ,
5 Highest Honors graduates,
4 High Honors graduates,
several senior superlatives, including Best Smile, Best Looking, Most Intelligent, Miss Roane County High, etc.

and well over a Quarter of a Million Dollars in College Scholarships

Look like.

Good Luck to an unusually great group of kids.

Peace,

Steve

"My Best Friend" by O. B. Laden

"The entire government has failed us on Iraq..."

"...And this President!

How shameful it would be to watch an adult... hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until he turned blue.

But how horrifying it is… to watch a President hold his breath and threaten to continue
to do so, until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm’s way, are bled white..."

"How transcendentally, how historically, pathetic."

Keith Olbermann



Now....

President Bush just declassified a report that showed Al Queda is now operating in Iraq.

"See!" he shouted. "Al Queda is in Iraq...We have to keep fighting in Iraq because Al Queda is in Iraq!"

"Al Queda!...Al Queda!... Al Queda!"

Are you scared now? Are you ready to keep sending money to Dick Cheney's corporate partners so that more American troops and Iraqi citizens die?

"Al Queda!...Al Queda!... Al Queda!"


Bush has not released THIS secret report that said the American presence in Iraq would be the biggest boost to Al Queda recruiting ever:

"WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence agencies warned senior members of the Bush
administration in early 2003 that invading Iraq could create internal conflict
that would give Iran and al Qaeda new opportunities to expand their influence,
according to an upcoming Senate report.

Officials familiar with the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation
also say analysts warned against U.S. domination in the region, which could
increase extremist recruiting. "

Got that?

George Bush is Osama's best friend...And he Knows it.

Peace,

Steve

***********

A Loonie friend of mine sent this response to my piece on Dark. Imagine a tall slowtalking Minnesotan tansplanted to deep deep South Carolina, where grown people are afraid of the dark, in more ways than one:

i used to think about it

then i realized that when i got up in the
night, out of the bedroom and went blind it was because of the giant WalMart
parking lot light that the neighbor across the street had in his
yard.

it's a rental, so between renters i went over and shot it
out

then i realized his neighbor past him had one just like it, was
also a rental, and did the same.

the side benefit was that i'd
been talking to another neighbor about the way his light shined on the
bedroom ceiling and when he found out about the ones i shot out, he turned his
off.

another one blinds me when i come out of the shop after dark,
so i set up "bean poles" by the neighbors driveway to grow a kudzu fence
on.

i get farther talking to people about Jesse Ventura (the mayor
of Wisconsin) than about dark.

Famous Actor for President

I think it's funny that republicans are trying to run Fred Thompson for president.

Fred is a competent character actor and a slightly less competent lawyer. Other than that, his credentials for the presidency can be summed up by the old line, "He's played one on TV."

I also note that Fred lists "Visiting Fellow" as one of the jobs he has held. He's talking about delivering his lines for the American Enterprise Institute which is a right winger's right wing talking point generator. Fred has also by his own admission, been a "visiting fellow" in another way. Says Fred, "I've chased a lot of women and a lot of women have chased me...And it's fair to say, if they chased me...they caught me."

Visiting Fellow, indeed. Fred apparently had a shotgun wedding at seventeen, but he did stay married for 25 years to the dear girl who worked to put Fred through Vanderbilt. I suppose that marriage couldn't survive his work as a visiting fellow, in spite of the three children involved.

Fred has a new wife and two new children. He's been a busy boy.

What got me going on old Fred is his acting career. Republicans have the tendency to elect second rate actors to important jobs. Their biggest hero was an actor. Ronald Reagan was best known for his movie death as the Gipper and playing second banana to a monkey. As President, Reagan was the figurehead for the most indicted Presidential administration in history up until right about now. On TV he was the announcer for "Death Valley Days." History now shows us "Death Valley Days" was also the role he played for America when he was supposed to be president.

I'm tired of incompetent figureheads who sell out my country so they and their friends can just get filthy richer.

So Fred Thompson is another second banana actor the republicans want to be president. I think that if they like actors so much, they ought to at least go for a leading man... maybe one with an Oscar?

Let me think...Hmmm...A man who played the leading role in an Oscar winning movie who has the qualifications to be President"

Hey, That would be...

Al Gore!

And by the time the election rolls around, Gore might have a Nobel Prize to go with the Oscar.

I think it's time to elect a real President, and not just someone who plays one on TV.

Peace,

Steve

Dark

We don't usually think about the fact that it gets dark at night.

I'm serious.

Darkness has been essentially banished in America and is actually pretty difficult to find. One of my personal gripes is the nightlight, several of which seem to be beaming in every bedroom window around the USA. Stop almost anywhere on any road at night and you will more than likely see them, shining all night long. Shining to banish the Boogeyman. Why else?

Richard Nixon made a grandstand play when he was president. He claimed that bright lights around the nation's Capitol kept crime down. Turned out that drug dealers liked the bright lights because it meant fewer rivals hanging out in the shadows when deals were going down. Deals were made under the bright lights where everybody could watch everybody else and then disappear into the darkness beyond the glare.

Another "common sense" idea shot full of holes.

The ubiquitous night light has several evil side effects. The glare of a light, even hundreds of yards away, actually obscures visability into naturally lighted areas...The sky, for instance.

Here in the gorge I have been admiring an old night time friend during my treks for nocturnal relief. My friend is the Milky Way. Remember the Milky Way? It's still up there, honest. It's our view from home of our galactic disc, only most of us can't see it from our homes. We look up an instead of the Milky Way, we see...night lights.

There's no real reason for this. There has been a movement to eliminate the glare from our skies that originated with astronomers but has been picked up by ordinary people who just want the stars back. It is called Dark Sky. There is no rational reason why a light should shine on anything except whatever it is that needs lighting up. Billboards, street lights, night lights, and thousands of other area lights are wasted. All they need are the proper reflectors or lenses to greatly reduce the glare and wasted light. Sure this a global warming issue. Sure this is a wasted energy dollars issue. Sure it is an issue of privacy and that your neighbor really doesn't have the right to shine his night light into your bedroom window because he is afraid of the dark.

But I want my stars back.

Peace,

Steve

**************

There are actually places in the word where the night needs banishing from time to time. In parts of Africa, babies are often born at night by the light of fires, lanterns and torches. Burning valuable fuels this way not only costs scarce resources but is a health hazard costing tens of thousands of lives each year. One group has decided to give the gift of solar light to poor regions in Africa. It functions by asking people to buy a solar flashlight. well actually Two solar flashlights.

Buy One Give One becomes BOGO.

Fascinating...

BOGO

Increasingly Irrelevant?

I saw Al Gore on TV this morning and noticed that he's lost 15 pounds... And he's on the cover of Time.

"He's like the old boy friend you finally got over. He broke your heart.
You cried and cried. You worked hard to push thoughts of the tragic end of the
romance out of your mind. You promised yourself never to think about him or the
Dec. 2000 denoument ever again."

"But of course you did."

And he's still not running?
*********
Jimmy Carter? Little old ethical-evangelical christian Jimmy turns out to have the biggest balls in the Democratic Party:

"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this
administration has been the worst in history."

..the
president has presided over an "overt reversal of America's basic values,"

From deep in his bunker, White House, Bush spokesmen called it sad that Carter would issue such a "reckless personal attack" and that Carter was "increasingly irrelevant."

President Bush was bunkered up in his ranch davidian compound in Crawford Texas.

Yep, that's right...The worst president in history was on vacation again.

Why not?

Everything is going so well in America.

Peace,

Steve

A Fabulous Job

The Inner Circle of Roane County deviant political activists that I hang out with is having fun with the prospect of a Fred Thompson, Al Gore presidential matchup. Our elders think it is a sign of the apocolypse and salivate profusely at the very thought. Our brash youngsters think, "Huh?"

I've been wondering why people want certain other people to be president?

I think Republicans pick people for different reasons than Democrats. Dems look for a logial, thoughtful, visionary leader who can make good decisions...Republicans look for a father figure who can and will do whatever it takes to keep them in power.

Fred Thompson is a prototypical republican and fills the bill quite nicely. He is a professional liar in either of his two professed lines of work. He is an actor and a lawyer, neither of which is considered particularly respectable. He hasn't actually done anything particularly notable or worthy in his life, except pander to the financial interests of large campaign donors. He's chased a lot of women and run through several wives and at least one semi-famous country music star, and I guarantee Fred has spent just as much as, or even more than, John Edwards on what's left of his hair. In the Conservative world it is all about appearance and substance be damned...Fred LOOKS like a president, I mean, hell, he plays one on TV. No Democrat can touch that for a qualification.

Al Gore, on the other hand, started life as a rich kid but went on to make a gazillion bucks on his own. He also made an Oscar winning movie about trying to save the world...Al's silly ideas about "Saving the World" are apparently what get him high disapproval ratings with Republicans.

"Screw the world...It's all about MY money" the Republicans say...And about Cigars, and Gay Marriage, and multilple wives and girlfriends...That's what is really important for a president to understand.

Al Gore is also against torture. No way an anti-torture candidate is going to get the republican vote.

And Al thinks the Iraq war was a huge mistake. Fred says that makes him a surrender monkey. Even though Fred has no clue as to what constitutes "Winning in Iraq", Fred is all about winning. See. It's like this...Let's say Iraq is like a cliff and we are at war with the cliff, which makes about as much sense as why we are at war in Iraq. We can't surrender to the cliff...If we stop marching our American Troops right off that cliff...

The Cliff wins!

One more advantage Fred has over Al Gore...Al is married to the beautiful, intelligent, and well respected in her own right, Tipper Gore.

Right now, Fred is married to...Well, let's just say that Fred has a "type"...He's currently married to a woman who looks just like the "type" of woman Fred has always been associated with. That's the kind of consistency Republicans need in a presidential candidate.

A candidate who simply wants to "Save the World" for the sake of our children will never do. We need someone who can say to us...

"Listen, America...Sure I have no real qualifications for this job, but my current wife's boob job turned out fabulously well, don't you think?"

Peace,

Steve

Election Fraud Math made Simple

Here it is, all bundled together with a ribbon on it. This is a great job of tying all the vote scams and stolen elections together with Bush's purge of the honest republicans in the Justice Department. It is worth noting that of the 93 Federal Prosecutors, all of whom were republicans appointed by Bush himself, he only tried to fire 23 of them and wound up firing 9.

See! There just weren't that many "honest" republicans in the first place.

In the previous 25 years, only 5 Federal Prosecutors failed to complete their 4 year terms and none, not one single person, had been removed for "political" reasons. Actually, these 9 weren't removed for political reasons, they were removed because they weren't corrupt! Bush fired them because they would NOT bring false charges against Bush's political enemies and pursued real investigations against actually corrupt Republicans.

Anyway, this is long but it's a great resource to hang on to.

Steve

Vaccinium arboreum

Ah...Friday.

Mom and Pop eagle are bringing in everything they can find to feed junior. A lot of it looks like road kill but I've never seen them hauling a possum. I'm thinking an epic battle is going on between the crows and the eagles for the fine carrion bounty littering Tennessee's Highway 27.

Dead squirrels make live eaglets.

I think I've finally identified the native shrubs that grow around the house. The blooms are certainly in the blueberry family but the leaves are much more waxy than you would expect. Turns out there are several hundred native blueberries...even the cranberry is a blueberry. When I told my wife that what we had so much of was called "Farkleberry" she looked at me, paused, and simply said, "Call 'em something else."

The locals call them Mountain blueberries and they are sort of edible, though not exactly tasty if conditions are right, but they have tons of tiny seeds and simply aren't good enough for pancakes. Sparkleberry" is another common name but I like "Farkle."

Why not?

Well, I'm married and only rank as high as second in command on a good day.

The sparkle(farkle)berries closest to the house are in full bloom right now and they are gorgeous. In the Fall they turn a rich wine red and the leaves hang on forever. I'll post some pictures later on when I'm at a different computer and have a high speed connection. I'm glad to have a name to hang on them.

Actually, I just remembered that this flycatcher is sitting right outside my window in the very top of one of the sparkle(farkle)berries.

He doesn't care what I call it.

Peace,

Steve

Flag Day

Flag Day

I like this guy

"Found myself a picker friend who's read yesterday's news"


There were some empty seats at the Tennessee Theater last night for the Tony Rice / Allison Kraus / Union Station concert. Not many but a few. I was greatly saddened for those folks who weren't there. They must be in the ICU hooked up to tubes too short to reach downtown Knoxville or they'd be there for sure.

Tony Rice is a superior guitar player in a world of superior guitar players..."Acoustic Bluegrass Transcendant" I would call it. The world's best still breathing dobro player, Jerry Douglas, joined Rice for a way too short set of trade licks and trade back instrumental amazement and the crowd was nearly silent through most of the playing, fearing that any sound of approval would make us miss something awesome that we couldn't get back. Rice even asked why we were so quiet saying it was making him "a nervous wreck up here." We obliged but the recent drunken rowdy crowd noise at the Theater was much more contained last night...not subdued because we went crazy between songs, just contained so we could hear what we came to hear.

Did I mention Allison Kraus, Barry, Ron and Dan? They were awesome, too. But I could take a permanent Tony Rice band member in Union Station. It would cost me a small fortune in cd's but whatever. I'm still hunting through my collection looking fto see if I have Tony Rice and Norman Blake doing Church Street Blues.

One thing I've learned to take with me to TT concerts is a pair of my small birdwatching binoculars. How else would I have learned how differently Rice uses a capo or that Allison wears six inch heeled boots that would make that other Rice, Condi, jealous. Tony also had a matching gold pen and pencil set in his coat pocket to set off the gold chain and three gold rings on his pick hand.

Tony Rice plays a beat up Martin but his suit and tie were immaculate. John Edwards got nothing on this guy.

"Get myself a rockin' chair

To see if I can lose

Them thin dime, hard times,

Hell on Church Street blues."

Peace,

Steve





Now......


Montana Governor Switzer:

...Tuesday, Schweitzer announced he had signed a bill to "re-regulate"
NorthWestern Energy, paving the way for the state's largest utility to build or
own power plants again and pass on the costs to ratepayers. The bill is a step
toward cheaper electricity for Montanans, he wrote in his signing statement.

It also protects Montana consumers from out-of-state corporations "that
place its profits above the economic health of this state and its people," and
is the first step toward lowering carbon dioxide emissions by limiting
pre-approval to power plants that sequester the greenhouse gas, he said.

Governor Switzer is a Democrat who faces a Republican majority in the legistature and faces them well. He has a 70% approval rating in spite of Montana being a red state.
He faces token opposition but points out that a few things about a republican group airing ads against his proposals:

"They’re good at that," he said of Republicans. "They do not appear to be good
at legislating.

They’re good at raising out-of-state money and saying mean
things about people."

Like I said...I like this guy!


Switzer

Report from Breakfast

It's officially summer for the college aged son and the "Last week ever" for the high school senior son. The nest will empty out in August but for now it is full and happening.

Breakfast is the only time everyone is in the same room. For some mysterious reason inside the human existence, work and school days start within minutes of each other, and we as a family actually get to see ourselves together.

All parents are proud of their own children and would give their own lives to protect them. That is why I feel so incredibly sad and angry about news of this man's loss. It is his personal pain and it is ours. It is a tragedy and it will happen again and again until we do something about it, since our leaders seem to be otherwise occupied.

George Bush was waving a stick at the band and pretending to be a conductor while the news came that 1st Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich was dead in Iraq. The band was playing "Stars and Stripes Forever." George Bush's own children are partying somewhere under protection of the Secret Service.

Andrew J. Bacevich, Sr. is a conservative republican who, nonetheless, has opposed the Iraq war from the beginning. Now, while our Commander in Chief acts like a complete fool, Andrew Bacevich senior must deal with burying Andrew Bacevich, Jr.

"I can only imagine the special agony reserved for a professional military man to lose a child in a war he has now spent years arguing was a mistake. "...Josh Marshall


My family has left the house headed for their various daily routines. My heart follows them leaving me incomplete until they return.

What can George Bush feel about the children whose deaths he's caused?

What must anyone who has ever supported this war feel?

I think President Bush lives in a fantasy world where all his decisions are right. I think it is up to the rest of us now.

PEACE,

Steve


Update (replies):

I'm READY - but what is the plan - I will be first in line !! ...charlie

The only time I ever saw your little boys was in 1989 at the first Rendezvous near Houston. Tempus fugits. My little boys are now 37 and 35, one with two kids and the other with their third being born this Thursday. Two little girls and three little boys. I'm sad for the world thats being made for them. I can't do a thing about it...bob

Mother's Day Proclamation

"From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up withOur own.

It says: "Disarm! Disarm!

The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe out dishonor,Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of homeFor a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace..."



From the original Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe


Peace,

Steve

Say what?

I am surprised at how ignorant we are.

Very few people I've spoken to know that the Iraqi Parliament voted us off the island this week. A majority voted to demand that Bush set a withdrawal date, which is pretty tough to do since a fair number of the Iraqi Parliament has been killed or has left the country. But for this vote, they got a quorum.

They seem to know that Dick Cheney went to Iraq and stood behind an armored podium surrounded by camoflaged sand bags and told an assembled group of our troops that he appreciates the sacrifice they are making and will get to see their families in a couple of years, maybe. Then he got in a jet and flew away. People know about this part of the Dick Cheney news but they don't seem to know that Dick Cheney's name has popped up in the DC prostitute scandal.

Talk about service to your country. Any whore that has to service Dick Cheney...OK, I'm too grossed out to go there, sorry.

And folks don't seem to know that a billion dollars worth of Iraqi oil is missing and that Halliburton's fingerprints were left at the crime scene...Dick Cheney again. Oh wait, I read the numbers wrong...Iraq is missing between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels of oil a DAY! Taking the lower figure of 100,000 times 365 days a year times 3 years ( I know we've been there for four years but hey...corruption on this scale takes a while to get going even if you're the vice president) times $60 a barrel is about 6.6 BILLION DOLLARS on the low end and maybe 20 BILLION DOLLARS on the high end.

Screw getting guns and robbing banks! Clyde woulda run for high office if he were around today! And judging from Clyde's absolutely weird sex life, he would have had to be a republican. "Normal" ain't in the picture for those people, as we've seen with Jeff Gannon, male prostitute, Ann Coulter (you tell me), Bill O'Reilly (falafel in the shower), Newt Gingrich(boat load of wives), Duke Cunningham(boat load of prostitutes), etc etc...The list of sex scandals from the republicans is topped only by the list of out and out corruption investigations.

Here's another little tidbit that people are ignorant about. The institution of marriage is safe. It's true...Gay people aren't going to destroy it. Actually the most destructive group as far as marriage is concerned would be Baptists and Evangelicals. a marriage is much more likely to last among catholics and muslims, who have very very strict religious laws governing divorce, and also Atheists. Yep...Atheists are very likely to stay married with a 20% divorce rate. The overall rate is between 30 and 36% so your chance of a failed marriage is at least 50% greater in church...I have just one thng to say about that...

Ha!

There's a reason we are gettin stupider and its all about the media. it's RIGHT WING! As an example, CBS just fired one of their military advisors, General Batiste because he pointed out that president Bush lied when bush said that he listened to his commanders about Iraq. They kept employed seeral advisors who regularly pimp the 'Surge". Well the surge aint working and CBS is pimping for the Bush administration just like the DC Madame did for her girls.

Anyone who won't service Dick Cheney gets fired.


peace,

Steve


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"Over the last seven years of the Bush Presidency, we have seen the abuse of government to promote a political agenda designed to benefit the conservative base of the Republican Party, special interests and major financial contributors. From holding secret meetings for the energy industry to re-writing science findings to cooking the books on intelligence to the firing of U.S. Attorneys, this Administration has shown time and time again that it will abuse its power and authority."

Michael Moore's letter back