Spring Storm

Looking out the driveway with my wifes new camera today as a huge storm approaches. One of those days, brilliant sunshine, black clouds, thunder and lightning, hail and then brilliant sunshine...then the cycle is repeated again and again.
I hope this clears up next week. We are supposed to be back in the high 70's this weekend, but I am waiting for a phone call to go and work for 2 weeks at Chateau Vieux Chevrol performing l'empaphrage and l'embourgeonage on 20 hectares of grape vines.
I expect to be out of touch again for the duration. I just had to share this photo......

Read Your Insurance Policy

22 years ago today, a deadly cloud rose up from the heart of the Ukraine from Unit 4 at the Chernobyl reactor site. For the next few hundred generations, life on our planet will be affected by this man made radioacxtive fallout which was much worse than the fallout from Nagasaki or Hiroshima.
Conservative estimates of oc this disater's cost are in the $500 billion range. Down wind of the plant, there are still regions to dangerous to live in and the ultimate death toll from cancer and birth-defects is impossible to estimate.
If another Chernobyl type of disaster hit today, you are already slated to pay for it.
We are experiencing a "Reactor Renaissance" and it is being sold to you with lies and public liability.
There are 104 Reactors in the United States and many on line to be built and not one of them has or can get insurance from private sources.
For the last 50 years, since 1957, your tax dollars have protected reactor owners with the Price-Anderson Act.
Look at your homeowners policy for it's specific exclusions against liability for nuclear reactor-related radiation. If there was a Chernobyl type accident in the United States, like Three Mile Island almost became, it would bankrupt the government and you.

The real place our future energy investments should be made is in the renewable technologies. Wind, solar, hydro....there are new breakthroughs and discoveries weekly, but if they are not promoted and they are suppressed, the progress is slow and will never happen. These are the solutions to Global warming.
Every dollar invested in increased energy efficiency saves seven times the energy a dollar invested in nuclear can produce.

Now nuke pushers want to load the Lieberman-Warner “Global Warming” Bill with still more taxpayer subsidies.

But from the start of the fuel cycle to plant decommissioning and waste management, reactor technology is a serious greenhouse gas emitter. The final “bootprint” is unclear because there’s no actual solution to the waste problem, and no firm price for final reactor decommissioning.

A French “new generation” project in Finland is already two years and $2 billion over budget. French nukes are gargantuan tax pits, Europe’s most notorious radioactive polluter, and an ecological and public health nightmare.

In Florida, ratepayers may be gouged for up to $24 billion for two new reactors that would destroy the Everglades, and still more billions for two more north of Tampa. The utilities involved don’t know what kind of reactors they want to build, can’t guarantee when they would come on line, or what they’ll ultimately cost.

All that money should be going to renewables,but renewables don't return the immediate investment and generate the construction revenue that the heavily subsidized Nuclear Industry does. The Gulf Emirates are now putting their oil billions into renewable energy research. They will be at the forefront of this new industry as we are still fighting for the last drops of Iraqi oil.

22 years after the biggest nuclear disaster on our planet and we are still playing with the dragon.

Diamanda Galas

In my continuing attempt to document my favorite female rock artists, I found a clip that isa a double treat for me. This is the piece, Do You Take This Man? by Diamanda Galas, an incredible vocalist and performance artist who teamed up with John Paul Jones, the ex bass player for Led Zepplin for the 1994 Recording, The Sportting Life.
Madame Galas is a Greek born singer who can sing anything. Together with Jones, they constructed a minimalisst record full of violence and powerful imagery.
I saw them perform in New York at this time and walked away thinking that Jones was one of the greatest musicians I had ever seen.
I thought Galas was one of the most poweerful emotional vocalists I had ever seen.
They performed as a trio, Jones playing assorted bass guitars , Pete Thomas on drums and Galas, vocals and keyboards on some songs. When they performed just bass, drums and vocals, Galas would perform violent scat that took the place of any twenty great rock guitarists. This was definitive!
John Paul Jonews was one of the great arrangers of early British Pop, he has alsso been contributing to contemporary music as a producer and arranger. He has done orchestral strings for REM and Ben Harper among others.
His 1999 album, Zooma is one of the greatest rock bass records I have ever heard...

Lapel Pin

One of the tools of Fascism is the outward display of symbols. The constant reminder of the identity and power of the state. The pomp and imagery of the Third Riech and their invention of modern propaganda techniques is a sterling example of this.
When France to the Germans in the early days of World War Two, it was divided into 2 zones and the Southern Zone was a French State that collaborated with the Germans.
It was ruled by Marshall Petain, an aging hero of World War One who was able to embody the fantasy that there was still an independant French State. Of course it was nothing of the sort, but the Germans allowed life to continue in Vichy France as long as it cooperated and they did..
When France fell, hundreds of thousands of French soldiers were taken prisoner. One of those soldiers was a young Francois Mitterand, who later went on to become the first post war Socialist President and was truly loved for the 12 years he ruled in the 1980's..
In the 1990's a book came out that spoke of his life during the war, a subject he had never publically commented on. There were photos of him with Marshall Petain and wearing a lapel pin that identified him as a supporter of the Vichy Government.
The book detailed his life as a functionary with the department that provided aid to French Soldiers imprisoned in Germany.
Mitterand had escaped and made it back to France and through his family connections got the post.
This knowlege was used to create a huge scandal. France was outraged that their beloved ex President had been a collaborationist. The opposition party created a huge wave of propaganda against Mitterand and tried to portray him as a Crypto-Nazi..
By this time, Francois Mitterand was dying of the cancer that would kill him, but he publically came forward and provided the details of the period of his life of which he hadn't spoken of. The details his friends kept quiet according to his wishes, but were easy to verify.
While Mitterand worked for Vichy as a valued functionary, he was recruited by the French Anti German Resistance. He was able to forge thousands of false papers for Jews and provide inside information to those on the outside fighting. He played the part well and wore his Vichy lapel pin!
In 1943, he disappeared and ended up under an assumed name in Algeria with General DeGaulle. Then his publically acknowleged history begins, as a coordinator of the Resistance in Paris and his heroic involvement of the Liberation of Paris.
But, to me, the way his past was used in an attempt to destroy him, using the outward display of political affiliation, which was a disguise, is very ironic in the context of America today and it's obsession with another Lapel Pin in an attempt to smear the patriotism of Barack Obama.

Aaron Neville

Here is another video, but I'd like to dedicate this to Barack Obama and affirm my belief that he will prevail against Hillary. The Pennsylvania Primary is over and I am reading a few different numbers as far as her "win" goes. Between 8 and 10%, which doesn't mean anything in the big picture and Barack has narrowed her touted Superdelegate lead to 26 with the declaration of the Governor of Oklahoma as a Barack committed super delegate. The New York Times in an editorial just as much as diss endorsed her this morning. he has picked up almost 85 super delegates in the last 2 weeks, he leads in the overall delegate count and the popular vote.
Last night was the last primary that Hillary will win. With her bizarre pandering statements about obliterating Iran and the clumsy attempt to spin the damage, it's more apparent that she has become more like John McCain in her attempt to be everything to every one in her shameless performance to get votes.
We've heard her repeat the name of Reverend Jeremiah Wright like a litany in her attempt to play the race fear card over and over again.
To Barack Obama's credit, he has never mentioned that Reverend Jeremiah Wright was the spititual advisor that the Clintons turned to in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
So here is a great song by a great writer, God On Our Side by Bob Dylan.
The interpretation by Aaron Neville is spine chilling and raises it to another dimension. Aaron Neville is a national monument, a great original American artist as Edith Piaf is to the French.
The arrangement and accompaniment by Daniel Lanois is absolutely spiritual!
Keep On Keepin' On!

Paris 1919

Here's a video from a concert given last year by John Cale in Amsterdam. The song is Paris 1919 from the 1972 album of the same name. It was a magnificent work and has remained one of my favorite works since then.
I first saw John Cale playing with The Velvet Underground. I saw them at the Michigan State fairgrounds in 1966. At that time Nico was performing with them and they were an entire experience called The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a collaboration with Andy Warhol. It was quite an experience for a 15 year old kid, at the time, with the very bad accoustics, the effect was like an Arab woman screaming in fear over an air raid siren with a beat. John Cale played Viola, Lou Reed played guitar, Sterling Hayden bass and Mo Tucker as the primitive percussionist and of course, Nico wailing away.
There were strobe lights, smoke and dancers with whips. I enjoyed it immensely.
I really was a fan of John Cales post Velvet work and have been discovering his pre Velvet work as a composer and film maker with Lamonte Young.
Here he is in 2007 looking rather good and voice still intact recreating one of the great lost records of all time.

Opening Doors Instead Of Slamming Them

Over the objections of the Bush Administration and after 8 years of its failure to make any headway and losing any sense of direction towards real peace with their famous "roadmap", Jimmy Carter visited Israel and Syria this week.
There were calls in Congress by some to revoke his passport for daring to talk directly with the leadership of Hamas. You see, George W. Bush doesn't deal with terrorists or governments who sponsor terrorism, unless it is terrorism that we support or terrorists that we can use to terrorize the terrorists or...uhh...
So the reactionary yahoos in Congress condemn Jimmy Carter for ignoring their prejudiced half formed ideas and forging ahead and trying to build bridges..
He was denied security in Israel because they were so upset that he would perhaps actually talk to Syria. Carter thinks that the American Administration influenced Israels decision.
He was not empowered to broker any type of deal, but he walked away from his meetings with Assad and the leaders of Hamas with much more than any negotiation team has done since his days in office.
He actually got Hamas to say that if The Palestinian Authority and Israel can agree on a two state solution and it is ratified by the Palestinians, then Hamas will go alog with it and officially recognize Israel. That is much more than they have have ever given and he has it on paper.
Carter also believes that Syria would like to have good relations with America and the present attitude of the Administration is what is driving them towards Iran. It's a matter of praticality. Assad wants peace with Israel.
Israeli Officials opposed Carters meeting with Hamas leaders saying that doing so legitimatizes a group they consider to be a terrorist organization. Mr. Carter said, "The problem is not that I met with Hamas in Syria, the problem is that the Israelis and the Americans refuse to meet with these people."
Of course, this is far from a simple solution. There are many problems, one of the biggest stumbling blocks is in Palestine. Hamas and Fatah would have to be able to come to some sort of agreement about governing Palestine and resolve their differences before any kind of agreement could begin.
But in 72 hours, one committed man made more real progress in opening doors and building bridges than all of the beligerent posturing and false poses of the last 7 years!
This is why Carter deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

You Knew All Of This Anyway....

This is an excerpt from a pretty damning piece of journalism by David Barstow in Sunday April 20's New York Times:

"Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse — an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.

Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military leaders, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters, records show. They have been taken on tours of Iraq and given access to classified intelligence. They have been briefed by officials from the White House, State Department and Justice Department, including Mr. Cheney, Alberto R. Gonzales and Stephen J. Hadley.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

“It was them saying, ‘We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,’ ” Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. “This was a coherent, active policy,” he said."

But you knew all this anyway, Didn't you?

How Hillary Can Still Win!

You do the math!

Death Cab For Cutie......

Well, as I am too emotionally charged to write about politics and it's raining, raining, raining here in La Sechere, I am cruising the internet.
In the last week and in the last year, I have presented a number of videos featuring the Bonzo Dog Band, and their rather unique, ahem, influence they had on humor, music and well, blurring the lines between idiocy and art.
Here is their biggest appearance ever! In the Beatles film, Magical Mystery Tour, the bus stops for a bit of entertainment at a rather low music hall. The passengers come in for a drink, some chips and a chance to see a sequined covered Vivian Stanshall warble the now legenday song, Death Cab For Cutie!

HILLARY/THEODORA

I can see the cracks spreading across her face and body. As time passes now, the cracks become more intensive and finer, breaking up what had been a solid into a million small, squarish pieces. As this process culminates, her hair becomes darker, her eyes ever more dark and piercing. Her clothing too morphs from modern pantsuit into richly embroidered, flowing robes, embellished with sown-in gems and thread of gold. The same process traps and changes her usual retinue, as consultants become courrtiers, assignment reporters become goat-bearded eunuchs, and female aides become laides-in-wating. As the process finishes, she is frozen and now timeless, and a crown of gold and gems, now sits upon her head, with marble-sized pearls on golden cords dangle and frame her face.

Behold the new Theodora, Queen and Empress, chosen of God, Autocrat, a woman not to be defied, or taken lightly. From a bear-tamers daughter from the circus, she now rules at the center of the known earth at her husbands side. Co-ruler in effect, she now demands coins, doucments and acclaimation as ruler in her own right.. And frozen in time, her image, in golden and rich-colored mosaic survives for nearly 1500 years because to look at her and the matching image of her husband, no shrinking violet in terms of his own megalomania, is to look at raw power and sacred majesty.

This is what Hillary has become as her democratic candidacy has spun out of control into an entirely different reallm of ambition, delusion, and re-creation of self and mission.

Who Is The Real Patriot?

In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.

In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)

The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was assigned to the Navy's premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the commander in chief's medical team, and helped care for President Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery. For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White House awarded him three letters of commendation.

What is even more remarkable is that this man entered the Marines and Navy not many years after the two branches began to become integrated.

While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/sailor, received five deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate student and one for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through family connections.

Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?

After leaving the service of his country, the young African-American finished his final year of college, entered the seminary, was ordained as a minister, and eventually became pastor of a large church in one of America's biggest cities.

This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, who has been in the news for comments he made over the last three decades.

Beautiful Zelda

I am posting this because there seems to be on a thread here. I have posted a few videos by the Bonzo Dog Band. Truly unique mix of DaDa Humor and Music, they lived in a world that has very little relationship to the world we live in today.
I just posted a few pieces with John Cleese and Graham Chapman in their pre Monty Python days. I posted a piece last year called Love Is A Cylindrical Piano by the Bonzo Dog Band and Eric Idle from the 1966 BBC Program called Do Not Adjust Your Set.
This is another Bonzo Performance of Beautiful Zelda, a poppy 60's Sci-Fi Romance number sung by Neil Innes, from the same television series, Do Not Adjust Your Set.

Racism In America, 2008 style!

You don't call a black man a "boy" when you're from the south, unless you're intending to harken back to the racist language of slavery, and then segregation, when all black men were called "boy" as a prejudiced pejorative. Even worse, the GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell was there when it happened. Here's what Rep. Geoff Davis (that's really his name, talk about irony) R-KY had to say about Obama:

"I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button," Davis said.

Again, in southern speak, everyone knows what "boy" means when it's said about a black man
I would hope you go to the link and read the entire post and I hope you are able to see inot the mind set of the reportage. If you don't believe that the specter of a Barack Obama candidacy has not sent the fear of death into the very spines of the entrenched racist establishment in America after reading this, then you must be "one of them". I hope Barack has a crack security team guarding him because he is dealing with sheer naked hate and a few hundred years of organized insanity and they are crazy mad!


Thank you Americablog for this item!

A Comic Book Cover from the days of the Korean War. Back in the days when Dick Cheney was a young guy and suicide bombing was okay, if it was one of "Our Guys".
Thanks to Boing Boing! (click to enlarge)

SURRENDER DOROTHY!

I have been watching the increasingly frantic movement in the Clinton campaign and the attempts to take out Barack Obama at any cost including deriously damaging the Party.
I watched her try to spin Obama's comments on the bitterness of Middle America and embracing gun owners rights, in her attempt to pander on a level that is beginning to equal John McCain.
I have always said that I would support the Democrat candidate, who ever he or she was, but I admit, Barack Obamna captured my imagination as soon as I realized what an inspirational orator he was. He has convinced me at least that he represents a real chance to do business dfferently.
The pile on by the McCain cmapaign, Hillary and the media in an attempt to portray his remarks in the most negative way they can possibly be spun seems to indicate to me that this is the candidate the white, entrenched establishment is in total fear of.
I was depressed as I watched and read one piece after another that analyzed why Baracks attempt to portray reality was going to hurt him.
I think the mere fact that McCain called him "Elitist" is beginning to back fire on him already. Suddenly the marriage to the Beer Heiress is under scrutiny, his 10 homes and attempts to waffle on any economic issue is too obvious.
Hillary, is another thing altogether and I think this is the beginning of the end for her. She is misfiring more and more often. She is obviously vunerable on so many points.
Watch this speech by Barack Obama in Steeltown, PA on Saturday. He shows how to attack and defend himself in a way Hillary would never be capable of.
He shows why, for Hillary, it's over.

THE REVOLUTION'S HERE!

Here is the closing scene from the Movie, The Magic Christian. It was written by Terry Southern with additional material by John Cleese and Graham Chapman who make their first film appeances in great small roles,
The film stars Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, with among others, Raman Polanski, Raquel Welch, Spike Milligan, Christopher Lee...you could no assemble a cast like this today.
The song to this scene is Something In the Air by Thunderclap Newman...I profiled this band last year. The 50 something barrel house style Pianist and the 15 year old Jimmy McCoulough with drummer Speedy Keene, Produced by Peter Townsend made some music that was of no other time or place.
I thought it was an oddly apt clip to watch...
because, THE REVOLUUTION'S HERE! AND YOU KNOW IT'S RIGHT!

Four Yorkshire Men

Here is a classic sketch which I had seen performed by the Monty Python Group, but this is the original version from a British Television show called the 1948 Show produced by David Frost..
It was written by Grahamn Chapman and John Cleese who perform it with Tim Brook-Taylor and Marty Feldman. This must have been from 1966. Very Funny Stuff!!!!

Ernie Kovacs/Mr. Science

This is a skit by the great Ernie Kovacs from 1956.
I'm a little burnt from physical reality today. Home alone and it's spring.
I also have spent too muuch time ranting and raving on other peoples blogs and I want to be entertained!
Ernie Kovacs was the technical and intellectual innovator of early television. He was a great comedian who died too young but the amount of work he accomplished in the media in a short amount of time is only now being unraveled and truly appreciated!

Consumer Confidence Hits 26 Year Low...

Screw the war....America might not be happy about or want to know what is going on in the Middle East and as the Republicans have demonstrated, fear is the soft underbelly of the majority of voters...so,
Let's just say America isn't very impressed with Republican economics. Surely the public will be impressed with McCain's lack of understanding on all economic matters except "reading Greenspan's book", "more tax cuts and less regulation" and of course, the Keating Five. What a record...please run with that and let us know how it all works out.
If there was an issue that can inspire real and immediate fear and it touches each and every American personally, it is the economy and the absolute anarchy that Republican policies have produced. Americans get Hallmark Card Happy Meal Media Messages 20 times a day or more about the war, but nobody but George Bush is trying to put a Happy Face on the economy and McCain has done nothing to demonstrate that even grasps the complexity or seriousnesss of the problem.
Some personal perspective: 26 years ago, in 1982, I lived in an apartment in NYC that cost $175.00 a month and I thought it was too much. Now that same apartment would rent for at least $1800.00 a month. This was an unrehabilatated railroad tenement apartment with the bath tub in the kitchen. If people were pissed off then, how pissed off should they be now?