Here in this obscure corner of Southwest Central france where I live, many people still speak and are reviving the traditional pre French language, Occitan. It's a patois, and it changes from one region to another. In fact in the late 1800's it varied from village to village, so people from region to another had a very hsrd time understanding each other. Basically, it declines like latin and it is a degraded form of latin with many Celtic, Germanic and yes, French words.
The culture is very much alive and today I spent the afternoon in a place called Yssandon, which is a hilltop village in the Correze that is clustered around the ruins of huge fortress. The villages in this area are like little islands on the top of the hills that jut out of the valleys.
I listened to some great amateur musicians playing bourrees on the vielle, cornemuse and violin between rainstorms this afternoon.
Bourrees are for dancing. The cornemuse is the local version of a bagpipe and the vielle has a disk which is turned by a crank which vibrates a drone strings. There are wooden keys which depress the strings to create the notes. A great vielle player can inject a lot of vibrato and rythmnic accents to the sound.
There were a few pieces on YouTube, notably quite a few by Patrick Bouffard which really show the range of Occitanian music, but I thought that this rather informal piece here portrayed the wild sound of the players I saw today.
As Ronald Reagan drifted into the haze of Alzheimers during his presidency, it was no secret that both he and Nancy consulted astrologers daily. Nancy became more and more protective of access to the president and was active in pushing policies and deciding who was in or out. Reagan Administration Secretary of State,Jim Baker was just one victim of Nancy's vindicativeness.
Reagans involvement with the occult started early and he was well versed in the writings of occult scholar, Manly P. Hall. Hall is most noted for his book, " The Secret Teachings Of All Ages". This is from Mitch Horowitz's book, "Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation". An interesting counterpoint to the conservative christians who insist that the christian religion is the guiding force behind the formation of The United States.
Hall's concise volume ("The Secret Destiny of America") described how America was the product of a "Great Plan" for religious liberty and self-governance, launched by a hidden order of ancient philosophers and secret societies. In one chapter, Hall described a rousing speech delivered by a mysterious "unknown speaker" before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The "strange man," wrote Hall, invisibly entered and exited the locked doors of the Philadelphia statehouse on July 4th, 1776, delivering an oration that bolstered the wavering spirits of the delegates. "God has given America to be free!" commanded the mysterious speaker, urging the men to overcome their fears of the noose, axe, or gibbet, and to seal destiny by signing the great document. Newly emboldened, the delegates rushed forward to add their names. They looked to thank the stranger only to discover that he had vanished from the locked room. Was this, Hall wondered, "one of the agents of the secret Order, guarding and directing the destiny of America?" At a 1957 commencement address at his alma mater Eureka College, Reagan, then a corporate spokesman for GE, sought to inspire students with this leaf from occult history. "This is a land of destiny," Reagan said, "and our forefathers found their way here by some Divine system of selective service gathered here to fulfill a mission to advance man a further step in his climb from the swamps."
Reagan then retold (without naming a source) the tale of Hall's unknown speaker. "When they turned to thank the speaker for his timely words," Reagan concluded, "he couldn't be found and to this day no one knows who he was or how he entered or left the guarded room."
Reagan revived the story in 1981, when Parade magazine asked the president for a personal essay on what July 4th meant to him. Presidential aide Michael Deaver delivered the piece with a note saying, "This Fourth of July message is the president's own words and written initially in the president's hand," on a yellow pad at Camp David. Reagan retold the legend of the unknown speaker - this time using language very close to Hall's own: "When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors."
This video was suggested to me by occasional commentor, Steve. I had only heard Tool on the radio here in France, on a late night alternative fm station out of Perigueux.
This video has graphics by the artist, Alex Grey. Reflection is a cut from their 2001 album, Lateralus. From what I have gathered after listening to their music, they seemed to have always been experimental, but originally in a more metal sense.
I might call this art rock, but it is truly adventurous progressive music.
Tool has always worked on the edge artistically and intentionally courted controversy with their imagery and lyrics. The more I listen to them, the more I want to hear.
I read an interview with Maynard Keenan, the singer and he talked about touring with a reunited King Crimson as a high point of his carreer.
So Steve, what kind of bass guitar do you prefer? I love Fender Precisions and I own a black Yamaha b350 which I bought in 1984 at Mannys in NYC. It's set up like a P bass and Jazz bass hybrid. It's still in pretty good shape except for the stupid metal stickers I put on over the years. Next question: thumbs, fingers or pick?
Today, in a sense, we missed a bullet. Last week at this time, we were sweltering. I am already tan. About 2 weeks ago, we were congratulating ourselves that this was the earliest we had ever had our garden ready. We have some tomatoes, I planted the potatoes and we put in peppers, eggplants and zuchinnis. The strawberries have already set fruit and it is beginning to look like the biggest raspberry harvest yet. That is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
The neighbor who turns over our garden with his tractor, Dede, is an old farmer who has a magnificent garden up the road. While I was busy planting, Dede's plot sat idle.
Then it hit me, La Lune Rousse. None of the old people around here have started to plant yet. Not any of those who really know about stuff anyway....
La Lune Rousse is based on the period of the first new moon after Easter. It ends with next new moon. The start of the period was April 14 and it ends May 13th.
In the peasant folklore, the date May 13th is the last date that a frost will occur on. Hence, for them it is just common sense, based on centuries of collective wisdom. You just don't plant until La Lune Rousse, no matter how nice it is.
So, Monday, it clouded up and the wind really began to blow and temperature dropped. There was a huge storm in Southern france that did lots of damage on the Mediterrenean coast. It was pretty chilly yesterday and today, to my horror, the light rain began to turn into sleet around 2 pm. It snowed heavily for 3 hours! I looked out the window in despair and took this picture of the garden coverend with snow.
Then the snow stopped, a heavy fog settled over the area and kept raining lightly. In the next few hours, the temperature began to rise almost 3 degrees celsius.
The high tomorrow is in the 60's...the plants will just shake this off and resume growing, but I will never ever never again ignore the lesson of La Lune Rousse!
I invite you to travel with me on a journey. A journey to a place somewhere between reality and fantasy, near Cleveland yet far from Akron...a place where things are all too familiar yet never quite what you think they should be, a place where the whites are dingy and the blacks are faded. A place that could use a good washing with a name brand laundry product that whitens and brightens and leaves them smelling springtime fresh...
Let us Journey to The Microdot Zone!
(theme music and bongos)
Tonight, let us voyage inside the mind of one, George Alan Rekers, Professor Rekers as he is professionally known. You might have heard of Professor Rekers in his role as cofounder in 1983, along with the Reverend James Dobson, twho is he biggest homophobe in America, of the ultra conservative, vehemently anti gay Family Research Council. Professor Rekers is one of the master minds of the constant war against homosexuals. He is a Baptist Minister and a distinguished Professor of Neuropsychiatry and a proponent of the idea that homosexuality is an abberant condition that can be cured. Rekers is also the author of the blog teensextoday
Rueben, a professional male escort from the website, rentboy.com and promotes himself on his profile as "sensual", "wild" and "up for anyting". He lists his job qualifications as the owner of a "smooth, sweet, tight ass" and a "perfectly built 8 inch cock".
Professor Rekers, when questioned about the seeming seedy circumstances of his vacation, gave a statement to the effect that he recently underwent surgery and needed an assistant to carry his luggage. He did admit tht he found Rueben at the rentboy.com website. That didn't seem to stop him from wheeling his baggage around the airport personally, according to witnesses.
Rueben, when asked about Professor Rekers statement about his terms of employment, and how he was hired, said, "He should have been able to tell you that, but that's up to him".
(cue bongos)
Hmmm...the farther I travel on this voyage into the tortured psyche of Professor Rekers, the more I want to get off at the next stop. We seem to have taken a turn at Self Loathing and gotten on the Expressway of Denial and are now stranded at the rest stop of Greed as we spin our wheels.....But for George Alan Rekers, this was a wrong turn onto his private highway to hell somewhere south of Toledo, but closer to Gary, Indiana, but not really in The Microdot Zone.....
At 12:24 pm, May 4, 1970, The Ohio National Guard opened fire and shot 64 rounds into a crowd of unarmed protestors on the Kent State University Campus. Four students were killed and quite a few protestors and bystanders were seriously wounded.
The protests were in response to the escalation of the Vietnam War and the invasion of Cambodia after Richard Nixon had told the nation he was tryng to end the war.
The atrocity was a move to intimidate and quell protest. It had quite the opposite effect, as all of the calculations of the Nixon regime. Vietnam remained a communist state after waging a successful guerilla war against both France and the USA. Cambodia's government was toppled by the vicious Pol Pot Communist Regime which went on to commit one of the greatest genocides in history against its own people!
Nixon, of course, self ignited and flamed out in public.....
"Time travel was once considered scientific heresy. I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank. But these days I'm not so cautious. In fact, I'm more like the people who built Stonehenge. I'm obsessed by time. If I had a time machine I'd visit Marilyn Monroe in her prime or drop in on Galileo as he turned his telescope to the heavens. Perhaps I'd even travel to the end of the universe to find out how our whole cosmic story ends.
To see how this might be possible, we need to look at time as physicists do - at the fourth dimension. It's not as hard as it sounds. Every attentive schoolchild knows that all physical objects, even me in my chair, exist in three dimensions. Everything has a width and a height and a length.
But there is another kind of length, a length in time. While a human may survive for 80 years, the stones at Stonehenge, for instance, have stood around for thousands of years. And the solar system will last for billions of years. Everything has a length in time as well as space. Travelling in time means travelling through this fourth dimension."
All comfy on your little botty now? Good...I Said, GOOD! You know you won't be able to listen to me with your fingers in your ears while simultaneously caterwalling God Bless America.
Yes, I know you thought it was part of the vast left wing conspiracy, an attempt to disrupt your already scattered short range attention span. I read a comment at Free Republic which stated:
"To me, it sounds like a liberal charade to take the heat off Barack and put it on the Tea Partiers"
On the same site:
"They are going to hang this failed bomb plot on some fat, white guy who was alleged;ly seen at a Tea Party Rally. The construction of the device was so botched it almost seemed like a set up and some sad nutter was talked into driving it to Times Square. I know, you think I wear a tin foil hat to bed, but I really don't trust our present government."
When the Tinmes Square security video first appeared, there was a comment on Raw Story from a reader:
"I'm white, I'm fat, I'm over 40! I fit the profile! So why don't you arrest me?"
The majority of the comments I read on a number of right wing sites echoed the meme that the perpetrator must have been a white man who converted to Islam.
Sounds like an admission of guilt to me...Book 'em!
I said BOOK 'EM! Hah, you aren't listening! You've still got the fingers in your ears and you're singing America The Beautiful and it's off key!
This kind of stuff is like brain lice, it's mental dandruff. The hysterical claims of persecution is the first resort of fascists! This is irrelevant, pointless, non productive noise!
Today, a suspect was arrested at Kennedy Airport, less than 48 hours after the failed terrorist attack on Times Square. He is a naturalized American citizen of Pakistani descent. Oh, you're listening now, I see. That's what you thought all along...an Islamic terrorist. Yes, well I guess if you're going to be labled as a terrorist, it helps to be Islamic.
But, you whine endlessly, as you have since September 11, 2001, "Why Do They Hate Us So?"
You might ask yourself, why does a once discredited organization like the Taliban seem to be gaining in power? Why are they like the Road Runner, out witting the Coalition forces who employ all their technological warfare gadgets, like Wiley Coyote? Why is Barak Obama trapped into failed strategies and unable to extricate himself from the tar pit of the insane foreign policy decisions of the Bush Administration? I used Colin Powells "Pottery Barn" policy analogy a few times. You break it, you own it. But to go ahead and smash more china isn't exactly positive. You know the answer. It's because little jerks are sitting in chairs with their fingers in their ears singing God Bless America off key at the top of their wheezing lungs.....
You can get up now...I SAID,YOU CAN TAKE YOUR FINGERS OUT OF YOUR EARS, STOP SINGING AND GET UP NOW AND LEAVE! NEXT!
After 234 years the State of Virginia has finally dealt with the moral turpitude and havoc caused by the irresponsibely shameless and sinful exhibitionism displayed on
their Great Seal.
Since 1776, the Roman Goddess, Virtus has been exposing her naked breast and causing red blooded Virginian men and may I say, all normal manly men, such as myself to
occasions of sinful lust. When I see the exposed and shameless breast of the old seal, I have to admit, I become aroused and feel I have to get into my limousine and find an unmarried and perhaps underage virgin to defile. Just like any normal Virginian manly male!.If you look real close like, you can see the nipple of the Pagan Goddess's Breast! Look!...You have to look real hard, but it's there!
I have to give as hearty, manly, Thank You! to Virginia's State Attorney General,
John Cuccinelli. I'd shake your hand, but perhaps that isn't really manly.
Virginia may have been led astray by the Godless atheist, Thomas Jefferson, who designed the original seal and his version was even more sinfully butt naked, but manly men like John Cuccinelli, and the former Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft have put us back on the right path of morality and saved the honor of countless underage virgins by protecting them from the uncontrolled lustful desires of normal manly men who could be aroused to an occasion of sin by the ripe, luscious, full mature bosomly beauty of the seductive pagan goddess...uhhh...excuse me.......
Look, this is not a paid endorsement for an ice cream maker, but I own a machine like the one pictured here.
I bought it last year at a vide grenier sale in St. Cyr La Roche near Objat in the Correze for 6 Euros. I rarely ever buy used appliances, because I figure you are usually buying someone elses problem....but....
This machine looked absolutely new.
It came with an instruction manual in Dutch. When I got home, I looked it up on line and I found it was the latest model by the brand. I was able to download the maual in English.
I bought it because my wife and I had bought a number of cheap ice cream makers over the years and they never did what they said they would do. Then I saw the newer models, with the double walled bowls filled with the freezer gel stuff they use in ice packs. I wanted one.
So, we tried it out and it worked great. We started to research and invent ice cream recipes. Vanilla? Chocolate? Nutella Swirl? Mint? Maple Pecan? You name it, we tried it.
We started to eat ice cream everyday and...I know it sounds crazy, but since I started eating Ice Cream every day, I have lost over 12 pounds and not only kept it off all winter, but continued to lose weight. I have no idea what the mechanism is, but I think that the recipes we are using are pretty low fat and a little ice cream seems like a lot.
I have recommended this to friends and they tell me that it seems to be working for them.
Suddenly jeans that were a source of grief, relegated to the bottom drawer seem to fit again, in fact perhaps better than ever. Don't just take my word for it, try it!
WARNING! THIS WILL NOT WORK WITH HAGEN-DAZ!
YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE ICE CREAM YOURSELF!
So to start out, here's a fantastic recipe for something I can only describe as Chocolate Sorbet. It seems a little tricky, but we have done this a few times now and everytime, it turns out perfect. To me, this is more satisfyingly chocolaty than ice cream....
Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 8 1/4 hr (includes chilling and freezing)
Yield: Makes about 1 quart
INGREDIENTS:
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 cups water
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-process
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
Special equipment: an ice cream maker
PREPARATION:
Cook sugar in a dry 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, undisturbed, until it begins to melt. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally with a fork, until sugar is melted into a deep golden caramel. Add water (caramel will harden and steam vigorously) and cook over moderately low heat, stirring, until caramel is dissolved.
Add cocoa and salt, whisking until dissolved, then transfer to a bowl and cool, stirring occasionally. Stir in vanilla, then chill, covered, until cold (about 2 hours).
Freeze in ice cream maker, then transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.
Let me know if you want more recipes...Tomorrow night we are having a dinner party and the dessert will be home made raspberry ice cream (not sorbet) and vanilla. The raspberry ice cream is just pureed frozen raspberries. I strain out the seeds, sugar, lemon juice and whipped cream...then frozen in the ice cream maker....
If you have been following my posts on my hopes for the future of clean energy on this planet, you know that I dream of the day that we can halt our addiction to petro chemicals. I was upset with the Obama administrations decision to open the shoreline of America to off shore drilling, but I realize that it was part of a multi prong plan to make America less dependant on foreign oil.
The disaster off the coast of Louisiana, which is evidently becoming the worst oil spill in history could make the administration radically rethink its strategy. Off shore drilling is not safe and government regulations are a good thing.
But, the conservative media's attempt to portray this as Obama's Katrina is purely manipulative and cynically dishonest. It is the administration which has reacted and also revealed the true scope of this disaster. The leakage rate is 5 times the amount that BP reported.
Limbaugh,Buchanan and every other right wing hack has jumped on the bandwagon to portray this as the failure of the Obama administration.
Problem is, it's just not true. The Wall Street Journal has some interesting facts to contradict this set of Frank Luntz/Karl Rove talking points.
Halliburton is directly linked to the failure causing the spill and explosion.
In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, workers had finished pumping cement to fill the space between the pipe and the sides of the hole and had begun temporarily plugging the well with cement; it isn't known whether they had completed the plugging process before the blast.
Regulators have previously identified problems in the cementing process as a leading cause of well blowouts, in which oil and natural gas surge out of a well with explosive force. When cement develops cracks or doesn't set properly, oil and gas can escape, ultimately flowing out of control. The gas is highly combustible and prone to ignite, as it appears to have done aboard the Deepwater Horizon, which was leased by BP PLC, the British oil giant.
Concerns about the cementing process—and about whether rigs have enough safeguards to prevent blowouts—raise questions about whether the industry can safely drill in deep water and whether regulators are up to the task of monitoring them.
The scrutiny on cementing will focus attention on Halliburton Co., the oilfield-services firm that was handling the cementing process on the rig, which burned and sank last week. The disaster, which killed 11, has left a gusher of oil streaming into the Gulf from a mile under the surface.
It's not the first time for Halliburton, either.
Halliburton also was the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea, off Australia. The rig there caught fire and a well leaked tens of thousands of barrels of oil over 10 weeks before it was shut down. The investigation is continuing; Halliburton declined to comment on it.
Meanwhile, the devastation spreads.
Offshore, cleanup workers struggled to contain an oily sheen spreading from a well ruptured by the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon exploration platform. Coast Guard officials estimate that some 42,000 gallons of crude continue to leak into the Gulf of Mexico each day. Remote submersibles have so far failed in an effort to close the shattered well's blowout valve, which should have shut off automatically. Boom crews plan to begin burning collected oil on the Gulf's surface as early as Wednesday.
The failed blowout valve? It was manufactured by Cameron International. One look at Cameron's board should tell you all you need to know. They're all Bush/Cheney contractor cronies, here and around the world.
Offshore drilling has been put forward by the Obama administration as one prong of a multi-prong approach to ending our foreign oil dependence. With thousands of barrels of oil spilling offshore, perhaps it's time for the administration to reconsider opening more wells to companies willing to overlook consistent records of failure like Halliburton's.
Natural disasters like Katrina are devastating and unpreventable. The best we can do is be prepared to deal with the fallout. This disaster is a man-made mess engineered by corporate interests. It isn't anyone's Katrina. It's just chapter two of the war waged on our coasts by Bush, Cheney, and their gang of corporate cronies.
I had to post this. The soundtrack is "I'm Glad" by Captain Beefheart and His Magic band from his 1965 record, Safe As Milk. The images are from the early German Expressionist Film, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.
I have been a fan of South Park since it's birth in the 90's. Anyone who can manage to offend everyone in such an extremely entertaining way gets my vote! Now, That's Entertainment! So I have been following the latest controversy over their recent episode that supposedly insulted Mohammed. Boy, censorship issues sure get confusing when American fans of the English-language version of South Parkhave to look to a Chinese broadcast of the episode to figure out what Cartman was saying in the closing speech of episode 201. Comedy Central/Viacombleeped out, against Matt and Trey's wishes, over threats from a small wacko wingnut group identified as "Muslim extremists" (but founded by a Jewish dude). Complicated! I can't wait till it is broadcast here translated into French....Leading me to my next posting... Live from Paris, Arizona!
Here is a clip of the Mahavishnu Orchestra performing You Know You Know in 1972.
In this clip, the drummer, Billy Cobham proves once again hat he was one of the greatest percussionists on the planet. The controlled dynamics and energy of his playing in an improvisatory format, the sympathetic communication, the pyrotechnic display without intruding on the other musicians is a supernatural phenomena.
I was a real fan of this band at this time. I followed them from concert to concert across the midwest that year and I cut my long hair off forever.
Here is a compilation by MediaMatters of the Tea Party Tax Day Protests on
April 19th, 2010.
I was a little disturbed by the Republicans Governors Association recently releasing an ad that tried to take some of the aura of the anti fascist fantasy movie V. They seemed to be embracing the mantle of 17th century British Terrorist, Guy Fawkes, who tried to assasinate the king of England and the Parliament by blowing it up.
I really believe that the Gun Lobby is involved in whipping up a lot of the frenzy.
The statement in the video by the woman in the video who informs us that Obama plans to ban fishing sort of took the cake....
The Republican Mainstream seems to have made a right turn at crazy and touched down smack dab on stark raving mad.....
This is actually a preview of Pat Metheny's latest album. If you go to YouTube, there are a few preview cuts up, but I found this presentation by Metheny, explaining his project utterly fascinating.
Metheny is another guitarist who's sound and approach is so personal that you can identifiy him with just a few notes. He has been performing his unique, lyrical jazz since the mid 1970's.
The Orchestrion is a one man jazz orchestra, controlled by solenoids that are triggered by Metheny's guitar. There are chiming guitars, a player piano, an xylophone, air powered pipes and percussion. This is technology that is pure Jules Verne Steam Punk on one hand and cutting edge futurism on the other. In Metheny's vision, it becomes extremely warm and human.
C'mon Big Boy, you man enough to roll with a pro? You wanna maverick? I'll give you a maverick! Too much maverick, hey, I'm a pro. Get tough on immigration? What ever you want big boy...I'm swing both ways.
Why don't we do a three way with my associate, Joe Joe Lieberman and Bomb Iran?
If you be payin, then I be playin!
Oh Yeah, you know you want it and it'll never get better than Johnny, babe....
Geezz, my achin' back....
You wanna tea party, baby I invented tea parties....
C'mon, big boy, it's gettin late and my truss is startin to chafe........
