Musical Hair's Musings

The recent events in the Islands of Southeast Asia are probably a lot more devasting than I'm even aware of. Still it seems this might be the worst natural disaster in anyone's recent memory at the very least. Our prayers should of course be with the victims and with the aid workers. Let's keep our eyes open for oppurtunities to give legitimate aid where ever we can as the global community mobilizes to provide relief for the victims.

In a recent dialog with Kurt Maddox, Kurt essentially cut to the chase and asked in essense: getting past just saying what is going wrong in our society or in our government, what do we do solve it.

No, I was taken aback by the questions, which I'm paraphrasing above. My first reaction after a shocked silence was: read my blog's archive (yeah, I did think that for a moment). Then I realized, especially in the light of recent stylistic criticisms of my writing-- which, no, I won't let go ^:) -- that he ain't gonna find nothing digging through there. My next reaction was: well it is a little too late to say "vote for Kerry" as that was the immediate plan of action. I then wanted to say, well we are regrouping at the moment after the election. I was failing to realize that it has been some time since the election. I also failed to realize that-- as I hold out only a fool's hope that the Ohio recount will save us from the impending doom-- we do need to plan for the future or we will lose more and more ground to the forces of greed and oppression and war and class warfare.

My next reaction was: well, we are always scurrying around trying to put out little fires started by those with all the wealth and the power to ever really succeed in pushing them back any real distance. To make a LOTR analogy we may "kill and orc or two" but will we ever destroy "the ring? There is a lot of truth in that. Social Security is just one big example. The right has always hated social security. I'm not going to waste my time with why a someone not born into the wealthiest of family's is dupped into hating it, or why they'd buy into any of the ideas always tossed around about why or how it needs reform. The very wealthiest don't need it, and while that would be a reason to oppose it it doesn't generate the real steam that any of the new deal seems to set off in these guys.

We average folk don't see anything wrong with a program that dishes out 99 1/2 cents on every dollar collected back out to those that contributed, many of whom need it. The few cents on a dollar earned it takes from us we see as just part of a civil society. We don't have the vision they have, our lives alone are struggle enough to contend with. But if we had the resources to dream, we'd see that few cents on a dollar earned by every working man and woman (and child? I forget, I've not seen any pays stubs from when I was 16 since I was 16 and very very stoned) as a vast pool of untapped funds that could be given over to us. Somehow. Hmmmm .... How?

That has been the blinding lust since the new deal was dealt, and a portion of the government's funds wasn't just dished back out to firms with political influence, which right now are mostly the millitary-industrial complex and the prison-security industry, and as we are finding out "our" creditors in China. The fight over this money will never be about who wants it more, it will be about how stupid and how lethargic we as a people will be over it. And even if we win, we will only find out how determined the enemy really is. We may survive Helm's Deep, but all that does is tip us off to what massive evil we are facing (yeah, I just got the ROTK extended DVD, can you tell?). But, this is no time to question what good it is to know what is right and wrong but to act. Not just act as individuals but with some sense of the collective good and the evil collected before us. We must continue putting out the fires but we must identify and destroy the ring itself.

There is some good coming out of the stolen election (if you got issues with my calling both of Bush's "victories" stolen, get over it as I'm not going to change). The democrats might actually be an opposition party and not just a weak combs to an increasingly violent and evil and yet-- to me anyway-- more tangibly pathetic Hannity. Not that is is good enough in and of itself. The worst thing that ever happened to the Democrats was Clinton,but that is ancient history now. It seems the second party now realizes they are desparate for survival, so maybe they will actually serve the people's will.

But in any event we can see oppurtunities for gain in the coming year. In the next couple of days I hope to put together a game plan that will answer's Kurt's questions. What I'm asking is for any specific proposals, post them in a comment below. Any laws that are obvious in needing to be repealed or changed or amendments worth attempting to get passed will be worth posting as comments as well. An example would be the obvious Taft-Hartley Act, a second go at the Equal Rights Amendment (I think anyway), a whole host of changes that take back some of the power ceded to the Executive Branch, and perhaps most importantly a restriction or repeal via ammendment of the "corporate personhood" that came about in a case between the County of Santa Clara vs a railroad company (I think, anyway). What ever restrictions on "rights" a corporation ends up with after we succeed on effecting changes (or before) should be extended to labor unions and what ever other entities exist.

Anyway, here are Kurt's questions which "we" all need to answer and tackle as a team:


What specifically do you propose?

What laws do you change?

What structural changes do you propose to make?

How do we get from where we are to where you want to take us?

Now that we all agree on bush -- now what?

I edited only a bit. I left the "we all agree on bush", because if we "buy" the election results: we don't all agree. We will. Nixon won reelection in a legitimate landslide, and while he got run out in disgrace too many people now think Oliver Stone's portrayal of him was too harsh. It took centuries for the evil lord Sauron to come back in JRRT's books, our global ruling class is patient but it seems perhaps not that patient. We do need to shine the light of truth on Bush and his team.

Anyway, we will need to fight a definate number of fights this coming year. Let's set up a game plan NOW and hit the ground running this coming year.

Hey everybody-- ok, the four or five of you :^) -- I added a poll at the bottom left side of the page. I stole the idea from Kurt Maddox's blog (kurtmaddox.tblog.com I think it is). Anyway, I'm hoping to get a feel for just how lame my blog is :^) .

I have to admit that I've written primarily to get ideas off my chest or out of my mind and down on "paper". I've not been very considerate of the people that actually slug their way through this stuff. Still, I didn't think what I was writing was so tough to understand. It seems that my habit of long twisting sentences are the biggest problem-- even bigger than my spelling.

Anyway, I've got to run but let me know what you think. Over the next year I'm going change how I write so that I make more sense to more people. I'll start now.

There once was a guy that liked music.
Each fart on a tape, he'd excuse it.
He bought a guitar
not to be a pop star
but to crank up the amp and abuse it.

This is one of my favorite Neil Young song. For a couple of months I've been listening to it a lot. I don't know what it means, but recently I've heard it on the radio and on "Sirius" radio and as a background or transition between segments on talk shows. I've heard this maybe once in my life on the radio before this.

Oh, I realize the song is political in nature but just up "up" the politics in this blog, call your senator and tell them to send Alberto Gonzales packing. He is evil and with no real experience for the gig. I've been to court more than he has.

Go to this link below and check it out:

www.ccr-ny.org

Peace my Christian brothers and sisters standing against empire and evil in all it's forms.

HA! I really did just want to post about the song, but I can't help myself. sorry

This started as a comment at Dianne Maries's blog, but I feel guilty making her read sooooo much, and it grew into something way beyond a simple comment. Her blog is excellent and in the off chance you who are reading this is not already aware of her blog, the link is on the left here.

Right wing "christians" are not the only ones out there, and even in the "history" of christianity or religious thought there is also a long list of people on our side.

It is like rap. When rap started in the Bronx and spread around NY and the surrounding area they spoke about their problems and what to do about them. Once a media mogul realized he could make a lot of money selling it the "discovered" gansta rap and marginalized all others. Subsequently "rap" became "gansta rap". In NY there is still a tradition of "real" rappers that aren't posers always talking about how "tough" they are or any nonsense. I'm not going to say their art is completely without any "tough guy" stuff but they are not one trick ponies.

Same with religion. We forget that Martin Luther King merged political action with religion. In fact I'd say that the modern religious right is a reaction against his work. They are shouting and hating and fighting away the truth he served. At my blog I link a site that goes more into detail about Akhenaton. As I poked around that guys site he had more lectures summarized in essay form and he details "catholic" reformers that have popped up through history in opposition to exactly this right wing tendency in the misuse of religion. Right click this later after reading my blog and leaving thoughtful commentary about my vast intelect and how I look like I've been working out lately ( a good compliment goes a long way). http://mars.vnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lect ures/catholicreform.html


Religion has always been mis-used by the powerful to serve their greedy purposes and the stupid and the greedy have always fallen in line. I'll never understand it, the stupid when given every oppurtunity to choose something good and fair and right will choose against it right up until the moment they can see obviously that their life is threatened. That will be the burden of the environmental movement to overcome.

But, as we really do know their is a connection-- spiritual, quantum whatever-- between all of us, we lose nothing by calling that connection "God". In fact, I think we gain a foothold in the public discourse on those grounds, especially as the forces of greed have apparently retreated to "God" as there is no other justification for their actions. We on the left have always lamented the fracturing of our causes, saying "there is one movement with many struggles", why can't we see that the struggle over the word "God" is part of our movement too. Many of us know that language can be a tool of the oppressor, in many different ways. Let's liberate the word "God" and use religion, I'm saying that God is on our side, and we win this battle as we win using science and morality and everything else. Greed and stupidity are backrupt, our resources are the endless "quantums" of the universe.

Monotheism was some poor man saying to the king, "Fuck you, you are not "a" god, there is a God but it ain't you and there is only one God and to God we are all equal." This democratization of "God" lead-- in spite of all the greed and misuse that has accompanied it along the way-- to where we are today in a manner of speaking.

I was talking to my kid about Lord of the Rings today, and how art is like a lie telling a bigger truth. The point (well one of the points, I guess) of the Lord of the Rings is that in spite of greed God's will is served. All we have is to choose right from wrong, struggle from ease, etc. In the LOTR, Frodo and Golum fight over the ring-- each falsely serving their own greed but really serving some greater greed because if the get the ring they lose and we all lose. In their fight the ring is destroyed anyway, so God's will (and JRRT was very Catholic and was trying to make a statement of faith at least in part) is done regardless.

We so easily build on the works of Marx, Jefferson, Chomsky, and even Gary Webb and Amy Goodman. Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, are also parts of our struggle for the people against the false god of oligarchy and greed, as are Jesus, Moses, and Akhenaton.

Of course the religious right are: wrong, greedy, selfish, hateful. but if we let them hold the word God we lose a battle we can win. Their god is Ceasar and the Phaoroh disguised as the God of monotheism. God, as a singular monotheistic entity started as the rays of the sun which Akhenaton apparently saw as above any king any war any river. He recognized the quantum reality spread by the sun and he was crushed by tradition. Yet here we are seeing his idea come full circle, the quantum energy we all share and that unites us is the one God that says the oligarchy is false and we are one people.

It is kind of amazing, I think. In spite of defeat after defeat and misuse after misuse, we are stumbling into the latest quantum physics and the monotheism (that either Akhenaton started or picked up on) completing their circle. This is in spite of the Jerry Falwells and GW Bush's and the Crusades.

But, what side are we on. Do we try to ignore the "ring" or pretend it isn't there or that there is nothing we can do? Do we want to try to take it for ourselves, or worse do we want to take just to give to the evil lord? Do we want to destroy it in the only way it can be? Is the ring the duality of on one side what we know in our hearts about our quantum inter-connectedness and that connection to true monotheism and on the other the denial of it?

MQuinn, whose blog I'm long over due in putting a link to, one said that we are in a reality where duality is being explored by the "universe". If we are talking about a duality of good and evil, greed and community, freedom or slavery, maybe there is a "point" to the struggle beyond just trying to get the poorest of the poor fed. Maybe as the Zoroastrian religion points to a struggle between good and evil but the victor is not pre defined, maybe we need to get in the game and not either pretend there is no struggle or that our participation is pointless. You know, as I'm typing this I'm only making the connection between Zoroastrianism and what MQuinn said about duality-- yeah I'm dense like that. wow ... I've got to go and think ... and take the kids ice skating .... and get ready for the snow .... hmmmm

Are we as individuals sitting saying "mine, mine, mine, mine, mine" or "ours, ours, ours, ours, ours"?

In one of the blogs below I mention Akenaton. I want to draw a line down the middle of religion. I want the people of good will and that seek peace and love as an affirmation of God on on side and those that cling to "tradition" and greed and division of the people according odd things like the name of God or strange idiosyncracies on the other. It seems that this was what some beleive Akhenaton started. If you right click the following link and open it in a new window, you can read an essay that paints Akhenaton in a very favorable light. The essay is probably more historically accurate than mine, but I think it confirms some aspects of what I suspected.

http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/" title="http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/" target="_blank"http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc1/lect ures/03akhenaton.html

My point is that we need to see that God is separate from the religious forces that seek to divide us. As I've said all along, Jerry Falwell, GW Bush, Bin Laden and the Saudi Royal family are all on the same side of traditional religion and warmongering and division and greed. We are not on that side and we are on the same team: that of God. Not the god of lies and myth and tradition, but the God alive in all our hearts.

Please, the handful that read these things: if I don't make sense let me know and I'll try to 'splain.

later.

PS, I suspect Jesus essentially continued Akhenaton's work-- as did Moses.

Gary Webb died in what we all should suspect was as murder meant to look like a suicide. His book Dark Alliance expanded on his newpaper articles detailing collusion between the Contras, agents of the US government, and LA street gangs was work that picked up on an investigation started by John Kerry-- that great American patriot that has actually served his country his entire adult life, unlike that spoiled brat that got elected because of the media likes it's industry deregulated-- into the Iran-Contra Scandal. Iran-Contra was one of the worst scandels in our countries history only dwarfed now by Bush's failures prior to 9/11, the lies that lead up to invading Iraq, and the two stolen elections that gave an idiot son of an oil baron the white house.

We should thank God for great Americans like Gary Webb for exposing the evil forces of empire for what they are.

I'd suggest that for anyone that is reading this blog and doesn't know who Gary Webb is, that maybe you don't know all that you need to know about our government, it's intelligence activities, and the war on drugs. His work, if you're not familiar with it, can be like a touchstone for your political awareness. For those that knew about the CIA sending heroin from Vietnam back to the states in dead soldiers body bags, his work is a reminder that very little has changed and it hasn't changed because we collectively haven't forced the change to happen. For those that just don't know what I'm talking about, well this country was founded one the principle that the most important job in government is that of citizen. A good citizen that isn't manipulated by his employees (politicians, police, etc) is well read and considers every possibility-- and not just the ones our employees self-servingly feed us.

Read up on Gary Webb, go to democracy now's web site (linked on the left) and listen to monday's show and search the archive for information. You'll be glad you did. If shocked and disappointed and uncertain about the true nature of the government can be mixed up with "glad".

Ireland should be one nation. The Unionist paramillitaries and the various IRA factions have been fighting off and on for a very long time, but when we hear talk about negotiations and the "peace" process all that is discussed is the IRA misdeeds. The Irish people suffer becuase all you need is one guy ready to fight and kill and all the reactionaries on either side jump up and start killing. At the core of the fight is one simple fact: Ireland is occupied by England and England must leave Ireland for their to be peace and justice.

The oppression of the Catholics in Northern Ireland is never openly discussed in the media. What we hear about is a fight over religion, but religion is not what the fight is about. The "protestants" are either the decendants of the English occupiers from long ago or the current English soldiers and servants of the English government in Ireland. The Catholics are in essense the Irish that were oppressed from the first English invasion to this day. The Nation of Ireland in it's creation left the six counties with the highest consentration of English decendants as part of England but their were supposed to be mechanisms for unifications. What didn't change in the six counties is the oppression these Catholic Irish face from their colonizers and their decendents.

When the various parties negotiate the English use every means at their disposal to exclude legitimate representatives of any group that seeks to free the six counties and create a single unified Ireland. The do it through their proxies in Northern Ireland. While time and time again Catholics are killed and terrorized by off or on duty RUC or gangs that do their underhanded bidding, these criminals are rarely if ever brough to justices and their crimes are ignored. When a Catholic retaliates the press and those in power erupt in false indignation. Until those that support "two separate Irelands" admit this, there can never be justice. To take your foot off a man's neck you first must admit you're choking him, but these bastards want to protect their power more than seek any kind of justice. The violence gets played to their purpose, and is used as an excuse to continue the status quo.

I once was a conservative and thought that the terrorist palestinians were the obstacle to peace in the middle east. The more I learned about Ireland the more I saw parallels in Palestine and elsewhere in the world. Do you see the death count on the right side of my blog? Many of us here using TBlog have them, and I got the idea to put it on mine from someone here (I think it was Dianne Marie). The Irish death count is similarly uneven. It puts into context just who are doing the killings and who are truely the victims. It also says something else: those that benefit from the chaos and unrest and killing see the smaller number on these scorecards as acceptable sacrafices to maintain their power.

Once you get past the surface on any of the news about these "peace talks" in Ireland or Palestine or anywhere else, one thing jumps out at you: the dominant power will point to any relatiation or any act against their own as reasons to call off talks and declare the process and the participants illegitimate. If the oppressed side pulled the same tactic they are called obstructionist and said that they don't want peace-- as if they can't see the same scorecard or feel the same oppression their people suffer.

In any of these situations there is always a powerful side and a weak side. As we know, power conceeds nothing with out a struggle. The powerful misuse the news to avoid any concession, and all those that die on their side are acceptable losses to the power structure.

In Isreal, who is the most powerful person to be killed in this kind of dispute? Who killed him? As we can see, an Isreali killed one of his own leaders out of fear that he might actually make a concession towards peace and justice. Now, who is the most powerful or important Palestinian killed-- or take the top 20 as their have been so so many? Who killed them? Now one could say "but with the Isrealis doing so much killing over their the numbers are of coarse going to be skewed so that any group-- powerful or not-- will be mostly or even exclusivly killed by Isrealis." Yes so that doesn't invalidate the point it only makes it more clear that it is always the powerful that does the most killing and the most injustice. The obstacles the powerful point to that prevent peace are merely ways to avoid negotiation or to increase their power and exploitation.

In Ireland the Catholics will soon be the outright majority in the six counties. Will we see Isreali style genocide in Ireland? Will America buy into the justifications that will be given if it does happen? Will the Irish, now that they are white (because the always weren't considered "white" and do a search at Amazon dot com later for "when the Irish became white" if you don't know what I'm talking about) be spared such treatment?

In the service of God and of Justice and of Freedom we should look at Ireland in a new light. Once you see it for what it really is, try applying the same logic to Palestine, Chiappas, Kurdistan, Tibet, Chechnia, and what ever the Basques call their home.

All those that cheered Lithuania and such states as they sought freedom should extend the logic to all peoples. Like the song says "people every where just want to be free". Freedom and self determination is the opposite of empire and proped up dictatorships or monarchys or false democracies. If Christianity's arch enemy was the Romans and their Judean collaborators and proxies, what have we learned?

If liberation and freedom isn't the true message of Christ that martyrs died for, than what was it? Christ's deity was in direct opposition to the Emperor's deity, but the Emperor's deity was just a concept used to avoid admitting that his power was unjust and exploitative. Rome was threatened by Christianity. There is no coincidence in the "fact" that the greatest pharaoh in history, Rameses, was the pharaoh most "cursed" by God. There is no reason to consider him cursed at all if we look at his successes and wealth and what he did "for" Egypt, or what he did to that "cult" of montheisism of Akhenaton. But there it is, the God and religion that lead to Judaism Christianity and Islam declares Rameses as cursed by God. Yet he died a rich and powerful man.

Let's not kid ourselves: it is our duty as thinking and justice seeking people to oppose empire and if we are also "religious" then we have yet another higher reason to oppose empire. All of these places I listed above and so many others boil down to self determination and freedom versus power and empire.

If you are atheist or just not "religious", I ask you to not throw away a label you could choose if you define it for yourself. Christ wasn't "religious" if you were within the power structure of his time. He redefined it. If you are opposed to oppression and injustice and the preservation of privilege then I say you are a Christian and you should find out why I say it because it just makes you that much better armed for the struggle for peace and justice. Those in power have taken everything and redefined it to serve their puposes, we need to take back these words and I say we need to start with Christian.

When we look at the world before Christ and the changes towards justice and freedom that only came after him, we need to see that the "Christian" world we are a part of or the "Chrisitian" part of the world isn't the one hiding behind bible doing recon for the oil companies in the Amazon jungle. It isn't the force that killed the indians or fought the crusades. It is the force that said "we have more in common than our earthly masters want us to know", and the force that said we define for ourselves "clean" and "unclean" and we seek to heal and join and leave punishment to God and do not recognize as legitimate any earthly force that oppresses or selectively punishes it's enemies.

So I say the following are uniquely Chrisitan as they could never had existed or lasted "BC": Communism, Anarchism, liberation theology, socialism, universal civil and human rights, and abolition. So, when we look at the problems in Ireland are the about Catholic versus Protestant? Not really, it might be Univeral Christianity versus empire if we take a different definition of "Catholic" and re-define the force they are up against. When we do this we see many many struggles as the same thing. In seeing our univeral equality and the justice that all oppressed deserve, we acknowledge Christ. If we view these various populations as separate, confuse oppressor as oppressed, and drop our overiding concern for justice and freedom, we deny Christ. I don't care what Jerry Falwell tells you: I'm telling you if you love freedom and peace and justice then you are Christian and in Ireland you are Catholic! If you think I'm twisting the words, I say no they were twisted to serve the purposes of empire and that is the meaning behind the idea that language is a tool of the oppressor.

If you read this and say "I really wish this guy wrote a poem about vodka", sorry. Please vote for my blog anyway.

This topic is all over the news, so I dont' feel I have to include a link.

A couple of guardsmen asked Rumsfeld some tough questions and essentially Rumsfeld lied in at least one answer. The media (right wing, there is no liberal media in this country outside "The Nation" and no progressive media outside "Democracy Now") has latched on the fact that a reporter helped with the two big questions, as if this is bad.

There are at least one of the two following underlying assumptions in their "issue" with the questions. One assumption is that the soldier, apparently doing a bad imitation of Chris Tucker, essentiall couldn't "understand the words that were coming outta his mouth". That the soldier asked a question he didn't want to ask or was too stupid to know he was asking. If that were the underlying assumption or the frame of reference the media is using in floating the idea that the soldier didn't ask his own question, that it some how invalidates the question, they are insulting the soldier. Of coarse he knew what he was asking. The reporter simply helped get the kid's ideas into as single question.

The other possible assumption is that Rumsfeld is above being asked such questions. This is also typical of right wing thought, that our imperial leaders are above scrutiny. I was recently challenged by a Bushophile to offer a plan on what I would do different in Iraq, since I'm always so quick to attack Bush. I cooked one up in five minutes and all the guy had to say was there were some good ideas there. The next day he comes back with a couple of tired right wing talking points knocking my five minute plan. The fact that he had not either an original idea nor a real valid criticism revealed more to me about this "four more years" attitude than anything else. I'll post a blog about that some other time.

Who said the only job more important than president in our country is that of citizen? It is more true today than ever, and sadly we are doing a worse job than any of our politicians. By resenting the question the media is essentially saying Rumsfeld is above us and should not be asked such questions. If we give up the right to question our politicians we may as well crown the whole lot of them, the media already has.

It is like a building contractor, he will rip you off every chance he gets. That is not a knock, but I've seen enough really big contracts in action and it always happens. They want to get paid for twice for the same work very often and want to take short cuts when ever you're not looking. If you let them get away with it, you're worse then they are. Same with our politicians. Since they've never had to answer for BCCI, the Savings and Loan Scandal, Iran Contra, Eron scandals (rolling black outs in California was a political issue and a corporate corruption one), allowing and creating off-shore tax shelters, lying about going to war, whose fault is it? Ours.

Rumsfeld lied about the armoured vehicle production. One firm said they can increase production by 20%, told the millitary and haven't been authorized yet to do it.

Meanwhile the cost for this war is beyond belief and the costs aren't half way in yet. The money is long gone out of our pockets and is being drained from our grandkids and poured straight in to Cheney's pockets and his cronies in Haliburton. Haliburtons profits are being paid through "loans" from China, and China will be paid by your grand kids. Imagine if the politicians had to answer that question instead of a simple one about armour.

So, what is elitism? Assuming a soldier is too stupid to understand what he is saying is elitism. Assuming a politician is above answering questions is elitism. Rich people taking public funds through loans from foreign governments that will paid back by poor people's grandkids,that is elitism.

Never in a million years would I have thought I'd blog about Dimebag Darrell. I'm not so sure I'm spelling his name write. A lot of guitarists my age or up are saying "what a shame, though I wasn't really a fan", and I'm among that lot. There definately an age line somewhere about ten or so years give or take a couple where the big fans of his and the guys that ... well ... just weren't I guess.

My younger cousin is of the "fan" age group and all his musician buds were big fans. I don't even know if he is a big fan or not but all his buds were. Pantera were really big, and I guess Dimebag was the leader-- not singer but guitarist and I think the most famous member.

There is a generation that really dug his riffs and his playing and tone and choice of guitars. I know he used the old Furman green rack mount PEQ. I have one and should have too but I didn't get back to the store that was selling it (very cheaply I might add) soon enough. That PEQ really is great for tone shaping and I guess the "all heavey all the time" thick bottom end with the tailer-made mid scoop was what he used it for-- I'm assuming actually as I really wasn't a big fan. I use the device a bit differently, i like a notch over a scoop and I cut my bottom end to let the bass player have extra room. I'm all about my high mids with just enough bottom to keep it honest and for the single note stuff in the lower register.

To be up on stage and shot to death is just too shocking. I never would have imagined such a thing. Even if you think you are prepared for anything, you certainly are not in that circumstance. I heard that a fan was holding Darrell telling him that it was going to be alright, when the guy shot him again. Man o man. God Rest his soul.

I might have made a mistake a while back. I told my oldest kid that I'd never lie to her. This was to get her to do things that she suddenly was afraid of doing, or eat things she didn't want to eat, or generally to get her to do something or accept a deal that she would have to wait to see the benefit to her otherwise.

Then one Christmas rolled around and everyone was telling that if she was good that Santa would bring her gifts. I knew I had to come up with something fast. "Daddy is Santa real?", was a question I had to tackle much sooner than I had prepared to. I came up with my way out: the truth.

I said Yes. Along time ago the bishop in charge of the church around Antioch would secretly give toys to the children of the chruch to celebrate Jesus' birthday. His name was Saint Nicholas and as the name was translated from language to language it has become "Santa" for saint and Claus which is short for Nicholas. We carry on that tradition and in honor of Saint Nick, Santa Claus gives presents to good children on Christmas. That is the story I stick to, and she hears something between what I'm saying and what "kids beleive" about santa.

"Have I ever seen Santa"?

"No, sweetheart I haven't"

I'm hoping that as she grows older the truth as I told her it and the myth that kids are told make for-- not just-- an easier transition-- but a more meaningful appreciation of giving and tradition and remembering of those that came before us-- than the overly simple "is there is or is there ain't a santa" that most kids grapple with.

I'm putting this in the "religion" catagory because it is about Jesus' birthday and a saint, and I guess that is the best catagory for it but really it is as much about parenting as anything else.

This is one of my non political blogs, and maybe the first not about music-- but I think all art is political in nature, but that is another topic.

I like progammable thermostats because you can not worry about leaving the heat on if you know your schedual. So, I found on that works on my electric baseboard room heaters that run off a doubled 20 breaker giveing 240 volts. The old one and the new one were built by Honeywell-- and I just realized tht this will get political afterall, so I'm batting 1.000. I found the manual for the old one as a PDF file on honeywell's site, and the new one came with a manual.

It looked like a straight switch since both had four wires: T1, T2, L1, and L2. I switched what was on L1 on the old to the L1 on the new, and continued through all four. Put the Thermostat back on the wall and flipped my breaker back on. No heat. Hmmmm. Did the breaker really flip? Do I have a load on it that I can't find? I didn't schedual this for an all day job.

See, I had a doctor shoot some cortizone in my left hand (and since I play guitar lefty, from a musician perspective it is my "right" hand) and my had was not very useful. I have to be honest here, my left hand was weak and I don't know why. I couldn't open certain doors with it or open tight jars with it since about late october when I dug a 31 foot trench to run electricity out to my shed with will be a work shop that I'll be all sorts of proud of but David Marks or Norm Abrams would goof on endlessly. Anyway, something happened to my left middle finger at it's base plam side where it closes. I was really convinced it was a calcium deposit since I've gotten a few of them in my arms (elbows and wrists). Finally when I saw the doctor he said I did something to a tendon's sheath (sounding a little too much like Kurt Schilling's deal) and I had a cyst of some kind there. He found a tender spot in the knuckle at the base of the finger and shot me up there and said that the finger will be OK. If it gets worse then that would become a problem but not yet.

Here is the joke I didn't get to use in the doctors office. "Dr. I really need you to fix this finger because it is my left middle finger and I do a lot of driving in the city, I can't drive without it".

So, the day after the shot and that evening my hand was useless. I don't react good to drugs or any chemicals anymore. So, I had work to do but it needed both hands. I figured I could change out the thermostat.

The nights comes and I ain't got it working, don't know what I did wrong, couldn't trouble shot it on my own, and the wife is flipping out. It is kinda cold in NJ now, and even though the electric heat is just a back up, the way our forced air is set up and our ducts run (our ducts are all in a row btw) our bedroom really uses the electric heat.

The next day I call Honeywell. I get some useful insight: I didn't blow the new one, the old one might work off lower voltages but the new one only off 240 V, and some HVAC contractor numbers. I called the HVAC guys becasue ran out of ideas shortly after confirming there was no other load on the circuit. None got back to me (busy time of year for these guys).

I found an internet forum for Do-it-yourselfers and posted in great detail what I did and what I was working with and what I had. The next night I get a simple response. I take everything apart and so now I have just four wires sticking out of the wall. I hook up a multimeter to the wires and find two that across them have 240 V, the others dead. I'm told to treat the black one of the 240 as L1 and the white as L2, and hook up the dead black wire to T1 and the last one to T2. No sweat. I get it working, a hapiier wife, and the satisfaction that I-- and an appliance salesman from Minnesota-- got it done.

Here is a link to the whole thing:

http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=190575" title="http://forum.doityourself.com/showthread.php?t=190575" target="_blank"http://forum.doityourself.com...

The advantage of programmable T stats are many, but saving energy and money are one big one. Your local utility company might give you a rebate or something for making the switch too.

here is the political point. The only people I know that might know what I did wrong and how to fix it would be professionals. I'd pay them at least $150 to fix it-- does anyone doubt that number?-- and there'd be no savings for us. I could have called up all my freinds and asked and been a pain in the ass, and someone might drive out here to help me out and we probably would watch my Ren and Stimpy DVD and get nothing done unless they knew what to do.

The internet let me float out my problem in writting and in detail and I got the help I needed. I saved money and got the work done and learned something that will benefit me in the future and I can teach to my kids-- 7 and 3 1/2, not like they'll get it but I can teach it.

By using the internet I saved myself money and a contractor lost money. Think about that. We have over these phone or cable lines our collective knowledge. It informs us on current events and news and lifestyles and arts and everything else. It also can help us do the things that we'd like to do our selves but normally need a contractor for. Now if I can only get someone on the internet to help me striip paint!

Anyway, all's well that ends well.

I feel a little cheesey doing this, but: please vore for my blog in the "featured blog" thing. I know in the past I've seen some of my "T-Blog-buddies" on the list and I've stayed out and voted for my freinds when I was over there, so if I'm running against one of my freinds here well I'm sorry. I won't make a habit of it.

I had T-bucks to spare, hoped to find someone stumbling in that might be able to answer the second questionon my "disclaimer" pop-ups, and felt like this voting thing might get mor people here to read my nonsense.

So, if I'm begging you too much to vote for over the course of the week just rest assured that it will end in about a week and I'll go back to being aloof and confusing.

Tomorrow I'll write about my adventure changing my thermostat. i also might cut and paste a proposal for our policy in Iraq that I cooked up in about five minutes which is clearly five more minutes Bush spent past that moment he said "yeah, let's get that fucker" when someone mentioned Sadaam Hussein to him.

If you're just checking out my blog for the first time, please dig through the archives or-- better yet-- go to the link on the left where it says "A collection of blog of my own that I actually like. The one below called Pesticides and Warfare and the other one called A Little Bit of This and A little Bit of That will probably get added to the list as I like them a lot. I'm not too proud of the Alabama one though. I'm hoping to just let it slide (bad week I picked I guess).

Also please dig on the extensive comments. Some comments are more interesting and informative from a "sharing of information and opinions and experiences" perspective that the blogs. Lastly I should ask you to check out the linked blogs also on the left (both on the computer window and politically it seems). There is a lot of good info out there. I've got more people I need to add there. someday I'll get around to it.

Anyway, thanks for checking in.

There was a manufacturing plant of a surprisingly big company here in New Jersey that moved their operations south, breifly before taking off for Mexico, because the didn't want to pay their workers enough to live good lives. They, like all industries played with some dangerous and harmful chemicals. I was brought in to sample ground water wells my company put in on and around their site. The plant was like a ghost town. There was essentially a grounds keeper, security guards and not much more. The trees around the property were so think I didn't get a sense of the neighborhood except in a couple of places. When we got out and sampled the wells in the residential area I was in for a surprise. I've thought about this little event a lot since the days I worked there, and the connection from what I learned there and what I've seen in other situations is striking.

Normally you sample wells from "clean" to "dirtiest", and while there is an assumption that goes into that, over time you can predict where the contamination plume is and where it is going. We sampled these wells basically going from the plant out into the town. In many places that is no surprise. There is a lot of industry and homes dotted in between and rivers and you'd not be surprised by and twist or turn a plumbe might take or how big it is or intermingled it might be with other people contaminants in a three dimensional war for toxic supremacy. This plant was situated in a very nice area with beutiful homes and perfect lawns and not even any litter around on the street.

I had a variety of reasons to be surprised the the plume from the plant moved out to the town in the manner it seemed have. This was one of the most laid back gigs I had when I did this sort of work, which was nice but not typical for the amount of sampling we were doing. I chalked it up to the fact that there was no high ranking corporate rep over our shoulder. Still driving around this overly manicured neighborhood was weird for me even without all the tyveks and gloves and sampling equipment. I was never comfortable in "rich" towns, even less so when I realized that they were just "middle class" and my rung on the class status ladder was lower than I'd ever thought.

I didn't think these middle class people would suffer from pollution and contamination like I did where I lived. I was a little pleased that at least they'd be able to do something about it and saw these wells as evidence of some kind towards that. I was a little disapointed that the people in the poorer areas where I worked probably would never gain political power needed to combat polluting industries like "these" people. Well so much for assumptions like that.

There was a childhood cancer cluster there. The residents didn't come up to us at all and that was kind of odd. The place was almost as empty as the plant. We were sampling because the area's residents were raising hell about their kids cancers and the fingers first pointed to our client. See it was always like that. I got into Geology and the Environment because I wanted to clean up toxic sites and make the world a better place with clean are and beaches and drinking water. Most often I worked for companies that either tried to pretend the stuff I was finding wasn't there, tried to get me to send workers into situtations that were more dangerous then they'd ever admit, shift the blame
onto others, and pretend expensive solutions wouldn't really do anything to fix the problem. This job was a big exception.

The pollutant we were finding was pesticides and herbicides. The breakdown products of the most common herbicides used on lawns and gardens. It wasn't something the company either made, distrubted nor used all that much if at all. Additionally, the ground water flow wasn't bringing anything from the plant, which did have it's own contamination problems like they all do, out into the area yet. Their problem was slow moving because of the amount of clay, and rather small which is a credit to their operation and another big exception in these cases.

Apparently the people in the town really wanted to blame some industry for the cancers. Why this company and not their own herbicides and pesticides? I don't know. In their huberous and arrogance over their lawn and their unwillingness to appear anything less than in complete command of their perfectly manicured landscapes they poisned their kids.

See, these people are not your run of the mill granola eating, hemp jeans wearing, green party voting, organic hippies. No, they are educated, successful, and you can tell that as soon as you turn up their block. If they got Bees the killed them. If they had a weed they killed it. What is all this talk about "Integrated Pest or Weed Management" or the balance between health plants and their natural environment? How has time for all this compost and lime and egg shells and praying mantises that run away-- and what the hell is a nematoad anwyay? Kill 'em all. It is so much easier and the lawn looks better. No dissenting crab grass, in fact there is one species of grass over the entire town it seemed. I think the cloesest to a natural thing they used was a two-cycle gas powered edger as they didn't come in four cycle back then.

Now, we've all heard that these chemicals are "bad" and that there are other ways to get what you need out of nature and that perhaps those with the most extreme views on how to tame nature might need to adjust their view of the world and our part in it. But that kind of thinking is typical liberal nonsense to some people. Tree-hugging America-hating hippies might be a way some people use rhetorical imagery to dismiss points of view that might otherwise chip away at one's world view, but such smugness stopped helping this town's population when they admitted they collectively had a cancer problem.

They could pretend nothing was wrong when individuals had cancer but once they saw it as a problem which unified them, their world was shattered. They might have become less of an "afluent neighborhood" and more of a community in the way communities readily identify their unity over indivduality. They had to stop looking at the lawn in front of their house as their lawn and seeing each other as collectively creating the environment they shared.

Did they? No. They either pretened it was a series of unconnected misfortunes or blamed the nearest enemy they could find. Did they accept the truth once it was shown? No, the evidence was biased and they would be insulted at the suggestion that their own actions broght this on them. They saw no reason to change their attitude towards their lawn nor to their enemy. That is those that saw some kind of connection between the cancers.

I was never a big fan of pesticides or herbicides. I spent many days on the ground pulling weeds and couldn't understand how starting a car and driving to the store and buying the "weed killer" and driving back would be faster or easier than just pulling the damn thing out by the root. But I'm now so jaded that I'm only mildly disappointed when I see pocket sized books on how to speak to your employees in Spanish in building trades supply stores.


Do we look at the world the same as we look at our yards? Do we treat the people of the world either like weeds or rose bushes, or owners or landscapers or illegal alien employees of the landscaper? Do we look at every problem only when it blows up in our face, and when we do look at a problem do we only look to quickly get it out our way?

Why? Is it easier that way or is it "right" or is it self-serving, or does it preserve our world view? Is it truely "self" servig or ego serving? Do we live for the moment of cutting someone off on the highway because they dipped below the speed limit just to flip them off, without concern for the Trooper lying in wait or do we let it go?

Do we kill and kill and kill till we mutate the enemy into an insurgency that will lead to an apocalyptic showdown or do we seek harmony and peace as means to achieve our goals? Do we fall for the lie that seeking harmony and peace are not means to achieve our goals, cheering Karate and dismissing Aikido?

Each year two records are always broken, the amount of pesticides used and the amount of crop loss due to pests. The pests mutate faster than we do and faster than we can crank out poisons. Protecting our command over tracks of agriculture and neighborhoods and over third world peoples brews more and more monsters that confront us. Like a boxer with damaged hands we must find no shame in side stepping and tossing an opponent on the ground and seeking carve a new path through our world in peace.

I gain nothing in struggle, only through it's resolution. I gain nothing from spaying my grape vines and poisoning my family and my town to kill bugs, even if it "works", I gain from picking grapes. I don't care about the bugs only as much as I can keep them in balance and off of my grapes enough to have something to pick worthy of my effort. I don't want to kill and kill and kill for fewer and fewer grapes with poison all over them anymore than I want to kill and kill and kill for less and less oil with people trying to kill me over it. If you think the analogy is not "right on" then you think war is about more than resources and business. There would be no noticing of cultural or religious differences without economic insentive.

At least my grapes will feed me. Those saps with their toxic lawns are dying over status symbols no different then the fool that gets robbed for his sneakers. The soldiers and the civilians in Iraq? They die for other's status and cultural pride and political domination and wealth. They may as well be speaking spanish to their landscaper masters or their bosses clients-- our global ruling class.

Sorry "science" catagory, I picked you again.

This is altered from something I'm supposed to be writting as a book about my experiences in the environmental consulting business.

We all know that Bush's minions have done dirty things in service to their emporer, and they get rewarded for it. This is why Rico statutes were passed-- not to go after Presidents but to go after organized crime figures. It has been applied in other settings as well, and as I understand it many things we've seen over the last four years should fall under the rico laws if pursued properly and those rewarded for misdeeds would talk.

That would never happen, and all we have are patterns of behavoir and speculation like what I'm doing here. But, when you see the evidence in the movie "Unprecedented" you know some very illegal things were done and that they were done on behalf of a "boss". When Ken Blackwell pointed out that Catherine Harris wasn't in soup lines for what she did in Florida, he certainly wasn't contesting her alleged underhandedness and he was pointing that she was well rewarded for getting dirty for the Bush's. There is something very much like organized crime in all of that. Serve those in power and gain their patronage.

Right click on this and open it in a new window:

http://news.com.com/Former" title="http://news.com.com/Former" target="_blank"http://news.com.com/Former+Bush+campaign+official+i ndicted/2100-1028_3-54735 24.html?part=rss&tag=5473524 &subj=news.1028.5

Why did this guy do it? To get Sununu elected governor. Did he just do this out of his own ill will, or was it part of an coordinated plan whre others should be implicated? Should it be more deeply investigated? Yes, and maybe it will.

Now, I think both parties are guilty of dirty tricks but I really do fear that the republicans have kicked it up to a new level which could actually end our democracy. I'm pointing to the bad last census we had that undercounted the big cities in the North east which is serving a republican purpose, the electronic voting machines, and the biased behavior of the Catherine Harris' and Ken Blackwell's of the world, and dirty tricks which were all very well documented. Republicans dressing up like gay activists harrassing church goers, Intimadating voters, dumping voter registration cards, dumping provisional ballots, under serving poor districts with voting machines-- and potentially rigged one in some cases as it turns out--, and as it turns out even jamming phone lines.

We deserve better. I mean, the Republicans had the nerve four years ago to serve up the idle rich son of a former president-- a guy that didn't do anything in terms of public service till his daddy was president and he saw a chance to use his family name further and become a politician very late in the game-- and to serve him up to us again like they can't do better. We deserve a better system of voting, a better system of funding political races, and better leadership.