Omens and Portents

First, I'll talk about the Omens (For the purposes of this post; omens will refer to "real and verifiable" events, and portents will refer to subjective events such as dreams, hallucinations, and inner thoughts). Then I'll look at a couple of Portents.

Omen #1) The disappearance of the crows. As anyone who has talked to me on the phone when I am on my deck can tell you, the crows that live in my neighborhood are as much a part of the local soundscape as the reggae-jazz-blues-country-pop-triphop jukebox that is my computer and the playlists it uses to satisfy my need for music. Well the other day after work , I was enjoying a very peaceful beer and cigarette to the tunes of Count Basie, when I noticed that something was a little off. It took me a while, but I finally got it: no crows. The crows around here are constantly bickering about some shit that matters only to them. Like old queens who have lived together for far too long, there's no real argument; its just the way they talk to each other. After a little refection, I realized that the crows had been gone for a couple of days. Like the demise of the Anasazi, the disappearance of the crows raises questions. Why did they leave so completely and suddenly? Where did they go? Is there something they are aware of in the future of our area that humans cannot perceive? Were they banished from our area by some frightful avian Deity? Will they be back? (They are back, but fewer and quieter than before the Exodus.)

Omen #2) The four needle bundle. A day or so after I noticed the absence of the crows, I was enjoying my usual after work outdoor idleness with the requisite soft core drugs, when LO! into my lap fell a pine needle bundle (a pine needle bundle refers to the way the needles are attached to the tree: there are two, three, or five needles to a bundle, the needles are held together at the top [tree or branch end] by a wrapping of bark like material). On a windy day any number of such bundles are blown off the trees and fly about a while before coming to rest on the ground, where they stay until they rot. The cover of pine needles on the forest floor is essential in helping the soil retain what little moisture it gets from rainstorms. Once again, I digress. What qualifies this needle bundle as an omen is that it consisted of four needles. I have pretty good success at identifying the trees around here and I have never seen a four needle bundle before. I am in my sixties and have already forgotten more than most people will ever know, but the idea that there was a tree that I didn't know in my stomping grounds intrigued me, so I dug out my copy of the Rocky Mountain Tree Finder by Tom Watts. Well, turns out I was right. There are no pines in the Rockies that produce four needle bundles (or anywhere else as far as I could determine). More questions: Are four needle bundles like four leaf clovers; rare but not unknown? Is there a mutant tree in my area? What are the odds of a four leaf clover anomaly flying around on a fairly calm day during an exodus of crows and dropping out of the sky right into the middle of my lap? This has got me puzzled, but it's not freakin' me out. (yet)

Portent #1) An audio -visual hallucination. One week ago today, I was looking through my email and just generally piddling aound on my computer when I heard what I thought at the time was some one walking by outside the window across the room behind me. Then the sound seemed to be at the window itself. I got up to see what was going on. As I rose from my chair and turned toward the window, which is next to my bed, I saw and heard what appeared to be a small cat or ground squirrel run out from under the bed and then back again. At this time both the the front and back doors to my digs were closed. The bathroom window was open, and it has no real screen. What it does have is a mesh of spider webs (being the only way in or out for insects it is the perfect spot for a web, and the two spiders that live in the window frame reap a rich harvest). Anyways I looked high and low for the animal that I had seen. Not a trace. Spider webs intact. My living unit is tiny. If anything larger than a dormouse was in my apartment I would be able to locate it in less than five minutes. I searched for half an hour for the critter that I was certain I had seen. Now, in my younger years I have taken many mind altering and hallucinagenic drugs, some of which could pruduce vision and sounds that could easily mistaken for reality. So you might say that I am on speaking terms with things that ain't there. This was different than a drug induced vision. I may just be going nuts. If I am, it's a very subtle process.

Portent #2) A dream with a voice-over at the end. I had a dream a day or two before I noticed that the crows were gone. In the dream, I was given (by whom I know not) a series of puzzle-like tasks to complete before I could rejoin my visit with a woman I had been learning some semi-magical skills from earlier in the dream (she was also introducing me to people that it was important for me to me to meet). Since I like puzzles and enjoy solving them the dream was not at all distressing, but every time I thought I had completed the task more puzzles would be presented. (I know, I know, Nothing more boring than other people's dreams.) Now for the portent: my alarm went off to wake me from the dream. Then when I was fully awake and getting out of bed to go into the kitchen and make coffee, I heard a voice (not mine I assure you) say, "you've got 'til (I'm not gonna publish the date) to figure this out, or we're all in deep shit!" Who can imagine what that's all about. As ones gets older do dreams persist into wakefulness? Am I hearing angels finally, after all my years of self denial and piety? Somehow I doubt it.

There's more, and lots of it, but some is too personal and some is just too fantastic to put in this blog. Let's just say that I have reason to believe somethin's up but I'll be damned if I can tell you what it is.

Todays music pick: Serve You Right To Suffer by John Lee Hooker. Just great blues!

Today's recommended read: Find some more of Jim Harrison and read it. I guarantee you won't be wasting your time.

Today's Quote:

The moon comes up,
the moon goes down.
This is to inform you
that I didn't die young.
Age swept past me,
but I caught up.

Excerpt from Jim Harrison's poem " Barking "

Thanks for stoppin' by.

The Lizard's Funeral

Here it is finally; the story of the lizard's funeral.
As a custodian in a rural elementary school, I take care of about half the school (head start, kindergarten, first grade, fourth grade, and fifth grade plus some other stuff). When working around kids this age there is always something new going on. As I have mentioned elsewhere in this space, I don't have any kids myself, and I have only been at this job for one full school year. The younger kids are really a trip. They have not yet been molded into a uniformity of thought and action that destroys spontaneity and imagination. My favorites are the kindergarten tots. In some ways they often seem, to me at least, like willful little adults who haven't yet learned to read or reason, but nevertheless have their own agenda and are by golly stickin' to it. I found one little girl carrying a book back to the library, very upset and on the verge of tears. I asked what the trouble was and she replied (as close as I can recall) that she had mistreated the book and had to go to the librarian to face the music and dance. Well, I have had some experience with this girl when she found herself on the wrong side of the rules. She was the sort of kid who thought misbehaving, and the consequent punishment, was all a part of going to school and took her "time-outs" with good cheer. This episode with the library book was different; she was in genuine distress. So I had to ask her what the big deal was. Her reply "*teacher* says my mom may have to pay for the book and (here come the tears) I know she just doesn't have that much money!" Now in rural southwest Colorado there is plenty of poverty to go around, but I didn't think this girl's mom was in dire straights. I asked how much she thought the book cost. She said "I don't know, but it's a whole lot! Look!", and ready with more tears showed me the back of the book and pointed to the ISBN number. A very large number indeed! I explained that the number she was looking at had nothing to do with the price, and that the book almost certainly cost less than ten dollars. The girl seemed doubtful, but her usual good cheer returned in an instant. That's how she is. Gloom has no chance against this kid.
But I digress. One of the kindergarten classrooms had two pets. One was a hermit crab named, oddly enough, Hermit. I don't know if anybody reading this has ever had such a pet, but I will tell you for nuthin' that a hermit crab is not the most active of pets. He lived in a dry aquarium with another empty shell (his second home ((they're very popular in this neck of the woods)) ), some food, a couple of rocks and some water all on top of an inch or so of sand. I never saw him move, and I was in that room at least three times a day every day of the school year, and I always checked. Never a twitch. He did move about though. He would be in different places and some of his food got eaten. The main evidence of his motion though, was the lovely track he left as he traveled, a series of identical half circle ridges in the sand about a quarter inch deep. I know not whether he took any pride in the perfection of his trail.
The other pet in that classroom was a lizard with the astounding name of Mister Lizard. I don't know Mister lizard's origins , but I suspect that he originally lived outside on the school grounds or somewhere close by because lizards of his type are quite common in the high desert. He was a sand colored specimen about ten inches long, about half of that was his tail. Compared to Hermit, Mister Lizard was a real live wire. He lived in very similar digs to those of Hermit with the addition of a small branch to climb on and of course, crickets. (Crickets are kind of a minor plague in our school. I'll bet I have vacuumed up about a half bushel of cricket husks this summer. They are everywhere in the building.) I would check on the lizard when I checked on the crab as they lived next door to each other. I actually saw M L flick his tail a few times and every now and then I would catch him bobbing his head (I think they do this to enhance depth preception).
One day toward the end of winter (I believe it was early March) one of the kids from this classroom came to the door of my janitor's closet, which is right across a tiny alcove from the classroom door, and announced that she and her classmates had a big favor to ask of me, and would I please come into the classroom for more details. I assured her that I would try to help if I could, and showed up a few minutes later as promised. When I arrived there was a tumult. Voices of four and five year olds in a babble: "Mister Lizard died!" "His head caved in!" "His eye popped out!" "We have to have funeral!" "Yes, Mr Birch, will you make a funeral?" and more along those lines. At first, I was kind of dumbfounded. Then I realized the logic of it. Who better to be the grave digger than the custodian. In for a penny, in for a pound. I agreed to dig the grave, lead the procession, inter the casket, and come up with a little ceremony. The teacher and I agreed that the ritual would commence at about 10:45 the next morning.
After a little thought, I decided that Mister Lizard's mortal coil should moulder beneath the creaky limbs of the apple tree that the the kindergarten adopts as its own every fall. This tree is quite old and gnarly, its untrimmed branches are a confused tangle, and its bark is scarred and scaly. It does however produce an abundance of fruit, probably because it sits near an irrigation ditch. All in all this tree is a pretty fair example of heaven's generosity and the toughness of things that survive in the high desert. So I picked a spot and dug a hole about a foot square, and about a foot deep. I then gathered a bunch of small stones about three to four inches in diameter. The next morning at the appointed time I arrived at the classroom to find that Mister Lizard had already been sheathed in a Ziploc bag and, along with letters of farewell and sorrow placed in his cardboard casket. Let the funeral begin. I led the way with the pall-bearer behind me and the rest of the class following. We crossed the service driveway and went up the small rise to the apple tree. There we all gathered around the grave: seventeen or so young children, their teacher, and an ersatz funeral director, to mourn the passing of a reptile. I took the casket from the pall-bearer, placed it in the hole, and covered it with about one fourth of the dirt I had taken from the hole. then I asked the kids to all take a turn putting more dirt in the hole, and once the hole had been filled asked each one step on the dirt to tamp it down. Then the stones I had gathered were passed out and the children used them to build a little cairn as a grave marker. As the class went about these activities, I talked a little about how what we were burying was not a lizard at all but the stuff that remains when the life leaves a lizard and the lizard is no more. Much to my surprise they all seemed to get it. They were somber but not distraught. One little girl mentioned that the apples would probably be very tasty this fall. The teacher and her charges went back to class and I went back to sweeping.

sheeple

Joan Walsh's post at Salon.com on Saturday, July 11th is about The Attorney General of The US of A finally holding some folks to account for the torture of detainees in the "war on terror". Even though there is clear evidence that people high in the Bush/Cheney committed serious crimes in the sanctioning of Torture, it seems clear that none of them will ever be prosecuted or even investigated formally. These guys trashed our Constitution and hardly anyone is aware of it or even gives a damn. Please take the time to read this post and some of the accompanying letters.

Glen Greenwald's post at Salon on Monday, July 13th is a clear recap and analysis of how Goldman, Sachs harvested BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars, and is now reaping record profits by engaging in the same unregulated and risky practices that caused the financial meltdown in the first place. To anyone who has been paying attention it should come as no surprise that these guys not only own your government, they own you and your future. Who cares? Please read Glen's post. Just click his name in the sidebar.

There is a great video clip at this link: http://www.wimp.com/manpower/ This is a man speaking truth to power (for all the good it did). What I find interesting is that this man is not an angry congressman or senator, or even an outraged American citizen. He is a former politician from anther country. He is however clearly angry.

"I'm Mad As Hell, And I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore" has been trivialized into a joke. The only people who are angry with our government are the rightwing nutjobs who think the the second amendment is in peril, or that people of color and abortionists are responsible for all our ills.
Where is the anger of eloquent Americans. Like the bumper sticker says: "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention". I blame it on the TeeVee. Television is the most popular medium in the nation, and it is probably the major source of news and misinformation for most Americans. The so-called journalists of TeeVee are not about to shit in their own nest by saying anything controversial about the public figures their corporate masters have bought and paid for (with the possible exception of Bill Moyers, who is seen by far too few viewers). The talking heads and their puppetmasters all seem to agree "Everything is fine." Well I got News for ya - EVERYTHING IS NOT FINE!
The world's economy is in awful shape and our government's solution is to give more money to people who already have way too much.
Our Constitution has been violated, obviously and consistently, and those who have sworn to uphold it refuse, with ho-hum hypocrisy to do so .

Not mad yet? So go to OpenCongress.org and see what your representatives in Washington are up to. If you don't like what they're doing tell 'em so! (This site makes it easy to find email links to Senators and representatives.) Go to whitehouse.gov and give Obama a little advice. Email your lacal paper and vent a little rage. Tell everybody you know to do the same. Get a little outrage out there. Who knows maybe we can rouse the sheeple before every last one of us is sacrificed on the alter of greed.

I've only scratched the surface of what I intended to say in this post, but I am too tired and angry to go on just now.

Thanks for stopping by.

Three Emails, Two Replies.

On Sunday evening I sent emails to the congressman from my district, John Salazar, and to the two Senators from Colorado, Michael Bennet and Mark Udall. The emails were all pretty much the same; I urged them all to work for and vote for a strong public option in the health care reform package. Mr. Salazar's office responded almost immediately with a confirmation em about his newsletter (which I had signed up for at the same time that I emailed him), but no reply to my email. I'm O K with that. The third district in Colorado takes up a huge area on both sides of the divide (literally and figuratively). He has offices in Grand Junction (a city that named itself when the Colorado River was known as the Grand River),Pueblo, Alamosa, and my nearest town -Durango (the third, not the fourth). Look on a map and you'll see what I mean. As near as I can tell John is an upfront guy who tends to put rural interests first, because rural is what he is and what he does. Like most good rural people he doesn,t try to make a lot of useless noise.

Anyways, what I want to tell you about is the responses I got from my two Senators. The first response, which came in Tuesday around 5pm really had nothing much to say. The first sentence thanked for my message regarding the public option. Then this: "As I travel across Colorado, there is a strong feeling all over the state that the status quo is not working. Coloradoans are deeply interested in finding a solution to our health care crisis." Then some blather about "almost 800,000" Coloradoans currently uninsured, and businesses dropping coverage for their workers. Followed by this non sequitor: "Colorado leads the nation in entrepreneurship and innovation and we cannot allow health care costs to be such a burden on our businesses."
Then comes stuff abot ending rising costs, keeping ones current doctor and better access. Just before the close comes the kicker: "and they want these changes accomplished in a fiscally responsible way." and being open to any and all options. Finally he concludes with this: "I view this issue with a sense of urgency and moral obligation and will keep your concerns in mind as I continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate to address this crisis." These are weasel words Mr Bennet should be proud of as a first term appointee. (He is replacing Ken Salazar ((John's brother)) who is now serving in the Obama cabinet) He will keep my concerns in mind. Great! He will work with his colleagues in the Senate to address, not resolve but address the crisis. But where does he stand on the public option? Who can tell? Weasel words seem to be the main currency in Washington.

Now here is what I think happened. When you go to contact your senator to tell him your views, you fill out some contact information and the you are asked to choose a "topic" from a dropdown menu and then enter a "subject" in a subject box and then write your message in the comment box. So what I figure is that his office computer gets an email with the topic "health care", the subject "the public option" and it reads the message as nonexistent. The computer just fires back a message thanking you for your comments about "subject" and a short letter with a bunch of weasel words about "topic".

Mr. Bennet, correct me if I'm wrong but I think I'm pretty close to the mark on this.

The response I got from Mark Udall's office was a lot more straightforward. In a nutshell:
I get a lot of email. I'm a busy guy. Go to my website and read my position on this issue.
So I went to his website, read his position on health care reform, and decided that even though he did not say that he was going to vote for the public option it sure looks like he's leaning that way. Not so many weasel words. (Or maybe they were weaselier and more subtle, but I don't think so.)

Todays Music:
One Night in Paris by Diana Krall

Today's Fiction:
Diary of a Whimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Today's Quote:
You can help your self baby,
all you gotta do is try sometime;
then you won't have to go round baby,
worryin' other people's minds.
Jimmy Reed

Happy Independece Day

I didn't get to writing the promised post yesterday. I was being bemused, bewitched, and bemildred by the Sarah Palin resignation, among other things. (apologies to Walt Kelly)
I have been all over the web trying to figure out what gives with the Palin speech and just
can't seem to make sense of it. Voices cry from the opposite loft: "You should talk!". I know,
I know. But I'm a blogger not a politician. You would think that anyone who is at all qualified to be a governor of the great big state of Alaska could speak for eight and a half minutes without going all over the place, contradicting herself, and throwing mixed metaphors around like birdfeed.
The best attempt at unraveling Palin's wild riff that I could find is Geoffrey Dunn's post at the Huffington Post. It's definitely worth reading. Joan Walsh at Salon.com caught the tenor of the speech perfectly: "...a stunning example of a bizarre public meltdown..."
If McCain had won the election, would she now be resigning because of "a full court press right now on the national level picking apart a good point guard"? The Rightwingnuts just keep getting weider and weirder.

Yes, today is Independence Day. Read the Declaration. Read the first ten amendments to the Constitution (The Bill of Rights). Think about what a bunch of blow hard wimps we have running our country today, compared to the courageous, idealistic men who founded it and who were willing to work together to make it succeed. Our leaders today are for the most part small-minded and selfish, but the citizens are generally upfront and generous. There may be hope for us to restore our principles.

Today's Music Pick:
Listen to that most American of bands: The Greatful Dead.

Quote of the day:
"The power of religion and the fascination of psychology are that they try to explain character. What gives men standards of responsibility, called honor? What is it that, in extremity, forces some men to betray those standards in the hope of escaping death, and what forces other men to hold by them, let death come? Why does danger paralyze the will and intelligence of some men, and why does it vitalize the will and make purposive the intelligence of others? Why when death must be faced, do some personalities disintegrate whereas others abide by the qualities of resolution, fortitude, and courage which have persuaded the human race that it has dignity?"
Bernard DeVoto - The Year of Decision 1846

Footnote: Bemused, Bewitched, and Bemildred wre the names of the three bats in Waly Kelly's Pogo comic strip.

No posts lately

I've been kind of busy makin' jewelry, CDs, and beauty in our public schools by stripping and waxing the floors. That sentence makes no sense ; but I think you get the gist.
Long post coming on Friday. I've got that day off, so I'll bore you all with stories of my favorite hallucinations. (just kidding about the boredom)

A note on birdsong.

I got home from work today about the usual time (around 2:45 pm). As usual, I went out on my deck after tuning into my Lee "Scratch" Perry radio on Pandora dot com, (If you're not into Pandora, check it out.) to have a beer and a smoke. In a fully lethargic state after a full day of bustin' my as for the school district since 6 am. And what to my wondering ears should appear, but a pine siskin (or maybe a chickadee; I didn't have my binocs handy) going off on a full 90 second riff. I mean a nonstop tweettweettweetcheepcheepwhistlecheeptweetwhistle... you get the idea.
Now, I'm no expert on orinthology, but I do know that most birds that live in my part of the world have a geneticly implanted song to sing. That song is part of what identifies them as a species. As a first class porch sitter and general layabout who has lived in the higher elevations (above 7,500 ft) of Colorado nearly all my adult life, I am quite familiar with the birds hereabouts and can name nearly all of them from their customary tune. Once in a while, though, you can hear one go off like this; just yammerin' away to beat the band. I remember sitting on my deck about five years ago watching a pair of house finches perched on the wire than ran electric out to our barn light. There was a male and a female; the female was making such a racket that the male would hop a few feet along the wire to escape the noise. (At least thats my take on his motive) The female hopped along right behind, going full bore. It was quite something to see.
Anyways, this bird I heard this afternoon got me to wondering... Is there maybe some primordial jazz gene that makes some individuals go way beyond the norm of acceptable expression? I have known dogs that go off on quite a vocal binge upon hearing a ceyote, siren, or Ornette Coleman solo. Spike the wondercat used to do it too, for no appearant reason. Just go on and on until you'd think he must have three sets of lungs. Just something to think about when you're really bored.

Since you asked dept: The Oxford comma is the one after the penultimate word in a list and before the word "and".

Today's Music: To Bird With Love: Live at the Blue Note by Dizzy Gillespie

Quote of the day:
" What is the essential nature of these phenomena we call makyo? They are temporary mental states which arise during zazen when our ability to concentrate has developed to a certain point and our practice is beginning to ripen. When the thought-waves which wax and wane on the surface of the sixth class of consciousness are partially calmed, residual elements of past experiences "lodged" in the seventh and eighth classes of consciousness bob up sporadically to the surface of the mind, conveying the feeling of a greater or expanded reality. Makyo, accordingly, are a mixture of the real and unreal, not unlike ordinary dreams. Just as dreams do not appear to a person in deep sleep but only when he is half asleep and half awake, so makyo do not come to those in deep concentration or samadhi. Never be tempted into thinking that these phenomena are real or that the visions themselves have any meaning. To se a beautiful vision of a Bodhisattva does not mean that you are any nearer to becoming one yourself, any more than a dream of being a millionaire means that you are any richer when you awake.
Yasutani - Roshi

A follow-up on my post about the public option: Go to Salon.com and click the opinion button at the top of the home page, scroll down to "Memo To President Obama" Read it!

Solstice

I don't celebrate Father's day. I am not a father myself and my own father has been in the earth for more than ten years. I do, however celebrate the Summer Solstice. Unlike the Winter Solstice, which signals the rebirth of light in the dead of winter, This Day marks the beginning of high summer, the magical death and rebirth of the Barley King, and the first harvesting of the Bounty of Ceres (the Goddess of grain crops, whence the word cereal) if you doubt it, go someplace where alfalfa is grown; the farmers in my neighborhood are just now doing their first cutting of fodder.
This is a magical time - the light lasts long, nights are cool but short, and even those among us who have next to nothing are more comfortable. Long live summer!!

Quote of the day with a preface:
Durango (the third,not fourth) has a Father's Day event on Main Street this day called Who's Your Daddy. The Quote is from a bartender friend of mine: "Just what I need on Father's Day; a big reminder that I don't know who my father is!"

Here's to Miles Davis the father of cool. Birth of the Cool is today's music pick.

Enjoy the hell out of this summer 'cuz ya just never know...

Sorry this post is so short, but thanks for stopping in.

The Public Option

So I'm not going to talk much about the financial reform today, except to say that anybody reading this should go to whitehouse.gov and listen to today's Presidential radio address. If the Pres really means what he says this part of the plan makes sense. I think that protection for the not so well off from the rich, greedy, and unscrupulous is worth fighting for and I hope Obama is up to the task.

Another thing that is worth fighting for is including a "robust" public option in any health care reform plan. A good idea of what this public option should entail can be found at the Congressional Progressive Caucus Web Site http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/ . Click on the health care box on the right side of the page and then select "Principles for a Public Health care Option". Now, I am not so foolish as to think that this type of plan has a snowball's chance in hell of passing through congress, but it is what we need. Those who are currently uninsured or under insured will never be able to afford decent health care without it.
The Heath insurance industry will cry foul; but remember this: the key word is option. Everyone will still be able to buy health insurance from private insurers at insanely high prices if they so choose and thus make insurance company executives even richer still. For all their bogus blather about the free market what these guys really fear is competition. They can't abide the idea of competing with a well run,well financed institution that would provide the same products they do at reasonable cost. They fear having their immense profits dwindle as people choose the public option in a free market.
Doctors' organizations will cry foul; claiming a huge burden of paperwork and the pain of dealing with another bureaucracy. Hogwash. It can't be any worse than dealing with a big insurance company. Anyone who has had health problems and had to deal with an insurance company can tell you bureaucratic horror stories.
The aging buffoons of the right wing will holler "CREEPING COMMUNISM", "EUROSOCIALISM", and worse. Let 'em. This is an idea whose time has come and we better get on with it.

AND NOWW....on to the truely trivial

For today's music I have chosen a couple of albums that will appeal to those among you who were caught up in the rock 'n' roll revolution of the early '50s.

(a little personnal aside here: When I was about 8 or 9 years old, say 1955, I had a bad case of measles. Our family had no TV yet so while I was staying indoors my main entertainment was the radio. I listened all day to the radio. The top 40 station in Denver at that time was KIMN. I remember that the artists I liked most were Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. I was also a big fan of Jackie Wilson and Little Richard. These guys were the be-all and end-all of music as far as I was concerned. I didn't know what anti-establishment meant back then but they were sure it. They inform my musical tastes to this day, though not exclusively obviously.)

The first selection is by a cat that my older siblings were more familiar with than I. Although not a rock and roller or rock-a-billy rebel, he laid some strong foundations. The second selection is by a man who carries on the rock-a-billy tradition to this day (unless he died recently).

Today's Music
Are You Hep To The Jive by Cab Calloway
The Best of Joe Ely by Joe Ely

Today's Fiction
Tereza Batista -Home From The Wars by Jorge Amado
Another great novel of Brazil by the author of Dona Flor and her Two Husbands

Today's Nonfiction
The Natural Mind by Andrew Weil
A thoughtful treatise on drugs and the human mind.

Quote:
I sat my monkey on a log
and ordered him to do the dog.
He wagged his tail and shook his head
and then he did the cat instead.
He's a weird monkey.
-Bob Dylan

More Idle Ramblings

Last evening I spent some time at the White House web site. I watched the President's speech on reforming regulation in the financial industry. I also printed some pdfs from the site. One of these, titled "Requiring Strong Supervision And Regulation Of All Financial Firms", talks about creating a Financial Services Oversight Council. It would have eight members, with the Secretary of the Treasury serving as chair. Among the other members would be: the Chair of the FDIC, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the chair of the SEC. In other words, pretty much the same bunch who were asleep at the switch when this whole mess was being created by their greedy cronies. This council would, according to the document, "Have broad authority to gather information through the Chair from any financial firm to identify emerging risks to financial stability.", "Identify gaps in regulation and prepare an annual report to Congress...", "Recomend firms for indentificationas Tier 1 Financial Holding Companies...", "Provide consultation on material prudential standards...", "Provide a forum for discussion of cross-cutting issues...", and "Facilitate information sharing...". Does anyones else see a pattern here? What with all the gathering, identifying, recomending, and providing of forums they will probably be too tuckered out to make any real difference in the way regulations are enforced.

Another little gem from the same document:" The Federal Reserve currently holds regulatory responsibilities over bank holding companies and is best suited to take on authority and accountabilty for consolidated supervision of all Tier 1 FHCs." Great Idea! These guys did such a great job of overseeing the banks these past several years, they should oversee all the big (ie too big to be allowed to fail) financial firms. I am already sleeping better.

To be fair, there are some things in the document that make sense to me such as higher capital and liquidity requirements for "Tier 1 FHCs" and this: "Under the President's pla the SEC will have authoriy to require companies to allow shareholders to vote on executive-compasation packages to help ensure that compensation packagesare closely aligned with the interests of shareholders.' Sounds OK unless the guys getting those obscene amounts of unearned money can out vote the rest of the shareholders.

I'll have more to say about his later, but this one finger typing is so slow and I do want to move on to the truely trivial.

Why do all those right wing nut jobs on talk radio always whine about the liberal bias of the mainstream media? From my experience, trying to find liberal or even center-left opinion in mainstream media is like looking for gold in a dumpster. If you find some, you can bet it got there by accident. Those who gripe about liberal bias in media the obviously not reading, listening, or watching anything remotely "mainstream". More on this later as well.

Today's music recomendations:
Dvorak - Symphony #9
Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder
Sia - Some People Have Real Problems

Today's Fiction:
Let it Bleed by Ian Rankin

Todays Nonfiction:
The Year of Decision 1846 by Bernard deVoto
This excellent book has several threads, but two of them that I find most interesting are the selling of the Mexican-American War (President Polk could have been the prototype for George W the talking shrub) and the Donner party's trek to their fate in the high Sierras.

My first post - Ending With a Rantrant

This is my first attempt at blogging so there may be misspellings, tangental ramblings, and lots of non sequitors.
You will find that I nearly always use the Oxford comma. This blog will talk about all sorts of things. Often, I will mention the music that I have been listening to lately. If I do, check it out (I have great taste in music - everybody says so). This time its Duke Ellington, Sia, Deacon Blue, Elmore James, and Fred Eaglesmith. I will also share a lot of my cranky ideas on politics and the state of society in general. You will find that I use the phrase "I blame it on the teevee" a lot. This is because I really do blame it on television. Television has made these United States a nation of intellectual zombies where reasoned argument has given way to shouting matches filled with accusations, lies, ad homenim logic faults, and preposterous nonsense which people put up with because they are offered nothing better and are too lazy to search out facts and make their own judgements. Teevee is easy and free (in a sense); just what Americans have come to want and deserve. You can find some brerbirch letters at salon.com.

In addition to Salon, I like Huffington Post. A great jazz radio station can be found at KUVO.org; I really enjoy the R&B Jukebox on Saturday nights. Check it out. I also check out The White House website (thewhitehouse.gov) just see what sort of nonsense our government is up to.

The weather here in the four corners (the area where CO, NM, AZ, and UT meet) has been too cool for mid-June. I'm ready for hot. Shorts and sandals weather is what I want.

Alvin Youngblood Hart: "When I Was a Cowboy" from Big Mama's Door. Check it out!

And now for a little rantrant in the form of Questions:
How come the media aren't pissed about the way Bush at al led us into war with Iraq with lies?
How come President Obama after swearing to uphold the Constitution of the USofA does not go after those who so blatantly violated it?
How come the crooks who willfully ruined our financial system solely for personal gain were given tons more money?
Why are so many right wing nutjobs so bellicose?
Why are so many left wing nutjobs so timid?
Is there any hope that people in general will ever behave rationally again?