Ye Olde American Death Panel

...."never once did I have a Medicare bureaucrat tell me what I couldn't do for a patient, but all the time we have bureaucrats from the insurance companies calling up and saying we're not going to cover this, we're not going to pay for that, we're denying coverage for that. The system we have now is broken. We need to fix it."
Dr. Howard Dean, former Democratic Presidential Candidate and former DNC Chairman

Based on my own family experience, I know this is a fact. I grew up in a solid middle class family that was destroyed financially by health problems. My father had Blue Cross and worked for Chrysler and Ford for 25 years, but died in debt because his insurance did not cover the costs of my mothers illness.
He died soon after of a chronic condition that was accelerated by his own personal stress. We were told after by a doctor that he could have been given more care, but it was decided that our insurance didn't cover it.

Needless to say, my teenage existence was not solid middleclass. I was a homeless kid for 3 years, because there were no real social services in Detroit to deal with my specific problem. No sweat, I survived...It was an educational experience and perhaps I should thank the insurance company for the golden opportunity I had to become a teenage pot dealer in Detroit.

The reality is that the most intrusive system to life-saving medical care is already occurring. Doctors daily have to contend with the regulation on their medical practice by the Health Insurance Industry that decides what treatment is acceptable for payment.

So while former Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin has called President Obama's health plan "evil" because it may lead to "death panels" that decide who gets to live and die. Unfortunately, we already have these death panels and they are insurance company executives that decide who will get to live and die based upon what they will pay for.

The absurdity of the rationale in which it is all right for a person to live or die based upon whether they have good health insurance, but it isn't all right for all people to have access to health care because the government might be involved is a type of American madness.

Americans have been conditioned for so many years to see the government as the enemy but never to question their own slavery to the Financial and Corporate interests that run America.

The real enemy is the not-so-invisible hand of Financial and Corporate power that not only calls the shots on who gets to live and die, but also gets to call the shots on how well Americans live and the way in which they will live.

The money system that has corrupted the American psyche to its very core views any form of care and help for others as a threat to the welfare of America. This allows for the fear mongering of near lunatics like Sarah Palin and the unbelievable willingness of many Americans to accept the insanity.

The seeming political insanity of Palin is more evident for what it really is when you read this Proclamation, issued by the then Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin on April 16, 2008 which she declared "HealthCare Decisions Day":

WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions. [...]

WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.

WHEREAS, the Foundation for End of Life Care in Juneau, Alaska, and other organizations throughout the United States have endorsed this event and are committed to educating the public about the importance of discussing healthcare choices and executing advance directives.

This is exact concept in the Administrations Health Care Legislation that Ms. Palin is now referring to Euthanasia in her attempt to shill for the Insurance Industry.

Much of the body of the proposed legislation to be included in the reform legislation has already been enacted into law under 2 Republican Administrations. Many of the same legislators who are using this issue, that end of life counseling is a form of euthanasia, supported and enacted the laws that we already have.

Ms. Palin has scrubbed her website of any mention of Alaska's Health Care Decision Day. She was proud of it when she did it, now it's a liability to her value as a lackey of the corporations she is paid off by.

Again, we already have death panels, they are the administrators of the insurance companies. They are making intrusive medical decisions based purely on profit.
How many more real solid American families will be destroyed by their greed?

One More For Lester

This is great! 1953...Les Paul and Mary Ford on the CBS Omnibus Program with Alistair Cooke. To dispel rumors that their performaces are sheer electronic gimmickry, Les proves that they most certainly were and much much more!

By The Time I Got To Woodstock...my Zip Drive Died

I think this will be one of the most posted YouTube videos this week end. Jimi Hendrix' grand coda for the Woodstock Festival. 40 years later still it remains an iconic statement about America at that time. The aftermath of racial riots, political assasinations of our leaders, the ever escalating War in Vietnam and the chasms of chaotic divisions in American society.
One man in total control of the expressive possibilities of music was able to somehow express the horror and the grandeur of it all.

I apologize because I was intending to post a few pictures of my own here, but they are stuck on a zip disk and I have a dead zip drive. I discovered the zip drive was kaput last night aftrer 11 years of faithful service and I actually have a bid for a new one as I write on ebay....

Many people who went to Woodstock remember it as if it was the ultimate spring break. I suppose it was and it was a watermark as far as defining the reality that Amnerica really did have a counter culture thatr was now officially main stream.
It became a defining experience for so many. Perhaps it was a glimpse of a reality denied. A collective conciousness able to control itself and harness the power of dreams.

I was a teen who had a very complicated life. I had been in trouble with the law and as a result of my attendance at Woodstock, I ended up in the Lucas County Jail for a week for a probation violation. I had told my Probation Officer that I was going camping in upstate New York. Too bad a little incident with the New York State Police made the evening news in Ohio.....
That's another story....

I think I had a real crash from Woodstock. There was very little rock music in the aftermath that I felt was interesting. I felt the sentiments of "hippiedom" were facile, trite and did not deal with the real world and how to really effect change.
Of course, it was all about change, but much of that change was based on fantasy and escape.

In the mid 70's I became involved in rock music again. I started to listen to Punk and started to play. I became very interested in experimental music and naturally the world of New Wave and No Wave. I moved to New York and played in rock bands for 20 years. Sometimes I believed that what I was doing could somehow be successful, but mostly, it was a personal journey into the world of expression and performance.

I never mentioned to anyone that I had been to Woodstock because to me, that was the old world and I was of the new world, I was not a peace and love drug addled relic, I was above all, a modern nihilistic punk boy.
It wasn't until 1994, the 25th anniversary of Woodstock, when I bought the New York Times as I did every morning that the historical evidence of my attendance began to sink in. There was an editorial and a picture of the crowd. Smack dab in the middle of the crowd picture was me.

So this 40th Anniversary is sort of a coming out party for me. I contributed to the best selling book, Woodstock Peace, Music, Memories by Joanne Hague and Brad Littleproud. I was happy to see how much of my narrative they wove into the book.
They also used a few of my photos and there is are pictures of me, then and now.
Yes, I am happy to have been there and I am happier to be around today feeling in so many ways that though I was young then, I'm younger than that now....

How High The Moon

On June 9,1915 in Waukesha, Wisconson, a red headed child, Lester Polsfuss was born. Lester started to play guitar at an early age and when he was 17, he quit school and began to perform professionally in St. Louis as Red Hot Red. He played in a number of country bands and became a regular recording musician. He changed his name to Les Paul, though, sometimes, Les would release novelty country songs under his alter ego, Rhubarb Red.

In the 30's, Lester formed The Les Paul Trio. They were a jazz trio and Jim Atkins, the brother of country guitar legend and innovator, Chet Atkins played bass. Les became dissatisfied with the performance of amplified acoustic guitars and began to experiment on his own. He invented his prototype, The Stick, which was actually a solid piece of wood with a microphone which was machined and strung like a guitar. This was essentially the first solid body electric guitar.
He dismantled an Epiphone accoustic and glued the "wings" on his stick to give it a more orthodox appearance.

But this was just the beginning. Les developed the design and made an instrument which is essentiually unchanged almost 70 years later, the classic Les Paul Guitar. The guitar became more refined as the technology of designing and winding pickups became more sophisticated.

Les became obsessed with what he could accomplish with this new instrument and pretty much invented much of the recording techniques we take for granted today.
He invented the concept of multi tracking, stacking instrument tracks to create the effect of a larger ensemble. He began by cutting acetate disks using a self designed recording rig employing a flywheel from a Cadillac Automobile. He would play the disc and record a second with the first as an accompaniment...and so on...
Part of his "sound" involved manipulating the speed of the guitar tracks and inventing the first real echo effect, which involved drilling a shaft into the face of the cliff his Los Angeles home was built on.

With the development of magnetic recording tape, he was able to use tape recorders in tandem and was able to take his sound on the road. He and his wife, vocalist Mary Ford, would perform live over a multitracked recording. Mary would start singing and then her voice would multiply iinto a tightly woven chorus. They created a new sleek, modern sound. Les' playing created a new sonic playground that would spawn generations of artists. Les and Mary had many hit records during the 50's and early 60's. I used this 1953 tape of How High The Moon to display the sound and effect they had at that time.

All this was accomplished inspite of the 1948 car accident in which he was seriously injured. His left elbow joint was destroyed. In the hospital, he was told that what ever position it was set in, it would remain for the rest of his life. His response was to tell the doctors to get his guitar.

Gibson manufactures the Les Paul Guitars and Les became involved in the recording industry in the 60's as an executive as well as his life long friend, Chet Atkins.
Les told the story of driving to New York with his son in 1965 and stopping at a roadhouse in New Jersey. His son went in to buy some beer and came out raving, "Dad, you gotta ssee these guys!" Les went into the bar and a group called Jimmy James and the Flames were burning the house down. This guy, Jimmy James was one of the best guitarists he had ever seen and a true showman, playing his guitar behind his head, with his teeth....
They had to get to NYC, but Les said that on the way back, they had to stop and sign this band. On the return trip, when they stopped at the bar, the manager said the band had been fired because they were too wild and he didn't know where they went.

The next time Les saw Jimmy James, he was on a plane and the fellow he was traveling with opened his briefcase and told him, "Man, you gotta check out this record. This guy is unbelievable!" Les looked at the record and his jaw dropped. There was Jimmy James, but he had changed his name to Jimi Hendrix and the record was Are You Experienced?

Hendrix always said that he idolized Les Paul. Jeff Beck claimed Les was his spiritual god father. In some ways, Beck is the logical extension of Paul...the humor, the obsession with trying to discover new tricks for the instrument...the legacy of Les Paul will live on in his guitar and the music he gave to the world and continues to inspire generations of musical explorers.

Les played every Monday night in New York for the last 35 years. He played at Fat Tuesdays on 2nd Avenue until the place closed and then moved uptown to the Irridium Club at Lincoln Center. I saw him quite few times and half the show was Les joking and playing jokes on the musicians who wanted to see him and play with him
If there is a heaven, Les Paul is going to be jamming on Mondays forever...
Les Paul, June 9, 1915...August 13, 2009.......

NO HOPE WITH A DOPE

Perhaps Sarah Palin made that ridiculous statement about "Obama Death Panels" because she knew this story was going to break -- it was happening in her own state, right under her nose:

State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found.

The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements. No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

In the meantime, frail and vulnerable Alaskans who desperately need the help are struggling. One elderly woman is stuck in a nursing home, for lack of care at home. Another woman, suffering from chronic pain and fatigue, said she's so weak, she often can't even pop dinner into the microwave.

This is the GOP's alternative to a public or universal option. Sarah wants to talk about evil socialist plans that will kill people, but I betcha she doesn't want to talk about the hundreds of Alaskans who died waiting for these services.

A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help. Read on...

In honor of the people of Alaska who died on her watch, Sarah Palin needs to stop makin' stuff up about health care reform, and apologize for screwing things up and then running away when the going got tough.

Hedy Lamarr

In 1938, an Austrian film actress, who had been called the most beautiful woman in Europe came to the United States as part of the wave of artists like Fritz Lang and Peter Lorre, who left Germany to pursue their craft in America.
Hedy Lamarr was born Hedwig Eva marie Kessler in Vienna Austrian to a haute bourgeois Jewish family in 1914. She started acting in films in the early thirties and soon made a reputation for herself as a major German cinema star. In 1934, she shocked Europe in the Czechoslovakian film, Ecstasy where she appeared in nude scenes and probably portrayed the first orgasm ever filmed in a movie. She later claimed that the acting in the scene was abetted by the director, Gustav Machaty, who poked her with a safety pin to induce the expressions he filmed.

She married a Viennese Jewish Arms manufacturer, Freidrich Mandl, who was extremely possesive of her and tried to curtail her career. He even bought up copies of the Ecstasy film to try to prevent it from being seen.
She was confined in his castle and in spite of his Jewish background, Mandl frequently entertained German officials, including Hitler and the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini who attended his parties..
Bored and extremely intlelligent, she sat in on her husbands meetings. She was a very gifted mathematician and soon learned much about military technology.

In 1937, she decided to leave Mandl and in an ruse that would have made a great film plot in itself, she persuaded Mandl to let her go to a party decked out in her most expensive jewelry. She drugged him before she left and got out of the country with the jewels and made her way to London, where she obtained a divorce.
She met Louis B. Mayer in London, who invited her to Hollywood. Immediately, she started making films and was called one of the most beautiful women in the world.
Some of her biggest films were Algiers, Boom Town, Tortilla Flats and White Cargo, which is an iconic film which I remember seeing many times just for it’s over the edge campiness.Probably her biggest success was in DeMilles epic, Samson and Delilah.

But there is another Hedy Lamarr, this was the woman who in 1942 along with George Antheil, an avant garde composer who had invented a method to have multiple player pianos play his scores, invented the concept of Frequncy-Hopping Spread Spectrum Technology.
It was based on technology she had learned in Vienna at the Castle of her arms manufacturer ex husband. He had been trying unsuccesfully to develop radio controlled torpedos.

Lamarr and Antheil envisioned a secret communications system for the US Military which would be impossible for enemies to detect or jam. Their early system used a piano roll from a player piano to change between 88 frequencies. Why 88? That’s how many keys there are on a piano.

This was way ahead of its time. They were granted U.S. Patent 2,292,387 and gave the technology to the American military, but it languished forgotten and unused until the time of the Cuban Missle Crisis in the early 60’s by the Americans who made use of it during their blockade of Cuba.
By this time the patent had expired and neither Lamarr or Antheil, who died in 1959, made any money.

Lamarr was finally honored in 1997 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Today, Lamarr and Antheil’s Frequency-Hopping Technology is the basis for modern spread spectrum communication technology, such as COFDM used in WIFI network connections and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones.
Lamarr wantred to join the National Inventors Council, but wasn’t taken seriously as a glamorous female movie star during the war, so she went out and raised money selling war bonds.
She raised over $7,000,000 at just one event.

Three years after Lamarr was finally honored for her work, she died in 2000 in Altamonte Springs, California. Her son, Anthony Loder, took her ashes back to the Weinerwald Forest in Austria, where they were spread...

Cactus Break...

Tonight, the huge Hylocereus undatus that has taken over the corner next to the fireplace in front of the glass door started to bloom.
It is an orchid cactus from Guatamala and will take over what ever space you allow it to, given the right light. The plant normally grows in the tree tops of a rain forest.
This particular plant reaches from floor to cieling, a mass of wild vining foliage.
The flowers are gigantic, these are almost 8 inches across and pure white.
One of the most interesting things about the evolution of this jungle plant is its night blooming habit. It blooms in the dark and each flower stays open for only one night.
The pollinators of these huge nocturnal blooms are bats.
This particular plant has a strange history. I used to frequent a Chinese carry out at Avenue B and East 6th Street in the East Village in New York City, years ago.
When the carry out first opened, the windows were filled with exotic plants and as time wore on, through neglect and bad light, they began to suffer and die.
One night, while waiting for a some Szechuan Chicken, I pinched a leaf from the plant.
I took it home and put it in a pot in the window. I lived on the top floor and had plenty of light. In a matter of 2 years, it was flourishing and it soon covered the cieling of the small room it was in. One night, I realized the plant had a number of huge flower buds and woke up later smelling a strange fragrance.
I looked up the plant in a cactus book and realized what I had.
When I moved to France, I took a leaf in my luggage. It's 9 years later and the plant flowers regularly every year and I have started many plants to give to unsuspecting friends over the years.
I had to take this picture, to do it, I had to go outside and shoot through the doors.
I had to do it now, because tomorrow they will be gone.

Is It Now A Crime To Be Poor?

(Image from the CC-licensed Flickr stream of onurkiyak )

Snip from an op-ed by Barbara Ehrenreich (!) in the New York Times, which examines the moral and social impact of ordinances against the publicly poor. The op-ed is based on a new study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty which found that the number of ordinances against the "publicly poor" are rising. More American cities, according to the report, are enacting and enforcing laws against "the indigent."

How do you know when someone is indigent? As a Las Vegas statute puts it, "An indigent person is a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive" public assistance.

That could be me before the blow-drying and eyeliner, and it's definitely Al Szekely at any time of day. A grizzled 62-year-old, he inhabits a wheelchair and is often found on G Street in Washington -- the city that is ultimately responsible for the bullet he took in the spine in Fu Bai, Vietnam, in 1972. He had been enjoying the luxury of an indoor bed until last December, when the police swept through the shelter in the middle of the night looking for men with outstanding warrants.

It turned out that Mr. Szekely, who is an ordained minister and does not drink, do drugs or curse in front of ladies, did indeed have a warrant -- for not appearing in court to face a charge of "criminal trespassing" (for sleeping on a sidewalk in a Washington suburb). So he was dragged out of the shelter and put in jail. "Can you imagine?" asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate (himself a shelter resident) who introduced me to Mr. Szekely. "They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless."

Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor? (NYTIMES)

Read the report that was the inspiration for this op-ed, produced by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP) and the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH): Homes Not Handcuffs -- List Of "Meanest Cities" Released, and here is a direct link to the document (PDF)

KHALED/DUETS

THE BRAIN POLICE SUPER SUNDAY DOUBLE FEATURE!
That's right, two videos featuring the Algerian King of Rai Music,
Cheb Khaled
The first video is a piece by the great Cuban Artist Compay Segundo called
Saludo a Chango.
The second is a recent live performance of Khaled collaborating with Carlos Santana
performing the joint composition,
Love To The People.
Rai is Algerian Pop Music. It has evolved over the last 30 years and has embraced the world. It is rock, it is hip hop, it is Algerian soul...
Khaled has been one of its foremost artists from its roots and truly one of the great voices of world music!

A Short History Of America....

Robert Crumbs Klassik strip from the 70's.
In the late 80's he added three new panels.
Klik on them to enlarge them.
Crumb is still a giant in the world of cartoon art.
I suppose I felt like publishing this because we are about to celebrate the
40th anniversary of a seminal cultural event.
The Woodstock Music Festival.
I am going to be posting a bit about this anniversary because I am finally "coming out"
and admitting that I was there. I was in denial during the 70's and the 80's, well,
because I was a punk.
I have the pictures to prove it and my personal memories are
used in the new bestselling book,
Woodstock Peace, Music & Memories
by Brad Littleproud and Joanne Hague.
The anniversary is in one week and if you have any memories or thoughts that you would like to share on this blog, email them to me at
18speed@gmail.com.
I will share them.

But You Knew This...

Today, I ran across an item in the French Political Newspaper, Le Canarde Enchaine regarding a recent interview that Jacques Chirac gave. It was alarming to me that I had never heard the claims that Chirac makes here before, but it's not because it hadn't been reported. It was just never picked up on as relevant by the American Media. I did a little checking and in fact I found that a French News Blog, Rue89, which I regularly check out had in fact given the history back in 2007.

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”

After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

In 2007, Dr. Romer recounted Bush’s strange behavior in Lausanne University’s review, Allez Savoir. A French-language Swiss newspaper, Le Matin Dimanche, printed a sarcastic account titled: “When President George W. Bush Saw the Prophesies of the Bible Coming to Pass.” France’s La Liberte likewise spoofed it under the headline “A Small Scoop on Bush, Chirac, God, Gog and Magog.” But other news media missed the amazing report.

Subsequently, ex-President Chirac confirmed the nutty event in a long interview with French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice, who tells the tale in his new book, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny), released in March by the publisher Plon.

Oddly, mainstream media are ignoring this alarming revelation that Bush may have been half-cracked when he started his Iraq war. Oddly enough, The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia, is the only U.S. newspaper to report it so far. Canada’s Toronto Star recounted the story, calling it a “stranger-than-fiction disclosure … which suggests that apocalyptic fervor may have held sway within the walls of the White House.” Fortunately, online commentary sites are spreading the news, filling the press void.

The French revelation jibes with other known aspects of Bush’s renowned evangelical certitude. For example, a few months after his phone call to Chirac, Bush attended a 2003 summit in Egypt. The Palestinian foreign minister later said the American president told him he was “on a mission from God” to defeat Iraq. At that time, the White House called this claim “absurd.”

Recently, GQ magazine revealed that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attached warlike Bible verses and Iraq battle photos to war reports he hand-delivered to Bush. One declared: “Put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.”

It’s awkward to say openly, but now-departed President Bush is a religious crackpot, an ex-drunk of small intellect who “got saved.” He never should have been entrusted with the power to start wars.

For six years, Americans really haven’t known why he launched the unnecessary Iraq attack. Official pretexts turned out to be baseless. Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction after all, and wasn’t in league with terrorists, as the White House alleged. Collapse of his asserted reasons led to speculation about hidden motives: Was the invasion loosed to gain control of Iraq’s oil—or to protect Israel—or to complete Bush’s father’s vendetta against the late dictator Saddam Hussein? Nobody ever found an answer.

Now, added to the other suspicions, comes the goofy possibility that abstruse, supernatural, idiotic, laughable Bible prophecies were a factor. This casts an ominous pall over the needless war that has killed more than four thousand young Americans and cost U.S. taxpayers perhaps $1 trillion.

Mass Inanity...or how a once proud nation shoots itself in the ass

...the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology. ... The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. ... As yet there is only one country which has succeeded in creating this politician’s paradise.” - Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, 1960.

Russell wrote these lines in 1960 and the country he was referring to at the time was Nazi Germany...and yes, the Nazis became masters of political manipulation through the use of fear, prejudice and paranoia.

But, to go back a few years, to the rise of fascism in Italy after World War 2, we might be able to see some alarming connections with the world we are faced with today.
The manipulator in this modern world is not a charimatic personality, like Benito Mussolini, but it is a corporate entity which has the advantage of controlling media.
The charismatic figure is the hypnotic ranting of talking heads like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. The tools are the same, economic panic, racial fear, using loaded concepts which the public which has been trained to respond to in a Pavlovian fashion.

What is happening in America now, the violent suppression of speech and debate, the use of force to prevent communication is not new.
After the first world war, in Italy, as in most of Europe, there was real economic hardship. The labor movement was being born and the concept of Socialism was growing. In Italy, the Socialist Labor movement also had an ally in the Liberal/humanist elements of the Catholic Church. Italy was one of the first countries in Europe to have a Socialist Party.

This of course was percieved as deadly threat to the established order, the corporate and class interests of the ancient nobility and wealth. The fact that Socialism was an international movement made it easy to attack as being unpatriotic. Fear of socialism as being a foreign influence was played upon as the movement to suppress it gained momentum.
Benito Mussolini was a young officer in the first world war, like Adolph Hitler who was determined to create a political movement. Italy was an ally against the Germans, but after the war, the political realities of the repartioning of territories seemed to punish Italy. They lost territory to the Austrians.

Mussolini was elected to parliament, Italy st that time was still a monarchy and he used the rise of the Socialists and their strikes for higher wages and better working conditions as a springboard for his Fascist Party.

The Fascists were never a very big percent of the Italian population, but through the use of his organized gangs of "blackshirts" to violently suppress meetings, destroy the press, burn down their buildings and murder and maim the opposition and creating an aura of fear, he was able to cow a nation in to subservience.

The rhetoric he used was seductive as well, he spoke of the inherent nobility of Italy as a true vestige of Ancient Rome and promised a new Roman Empire. The aura of violent power and the dark power of totalitarianism was seductive to a young generation facing a bleak economic reality.

In 1922, he was able to stage a coup and sieze control of the government. he theatrically stage a spectacle with thousands of people recruited to be brought in to participate in his mass march of Blackshirts into Rome. The language he used was seductive to a nation, but the only ones who benefited were the upper classes and nobility, of course we know the end of the story...
A dictator hunted down and hung upside down and burnt by an enraged populace after he destroyed the country. These big dreams of power and control always seem to crash and burn, but that doesn't seem to deter a new generation of psychopaths from believing they are different....or are they?

Here is a video shot yesterday in Tampa, Florida of todays brown shirts, driven into a frenzy by the corporate mind controlling media drones. Thay are destroying a ttown hall meeting to discuss health care. They have been brought in and told what to do. This is the current state of Republican political discourse in action. They have nothing but hate and fear to bring to a discussion. This is Glenn Becks army of ignorant blackshirts shooting themselves in the ass:

I Put A Spell On You

I apologize, I have a few posts working, but today was the day of the suspicious smelliong leak in the cave that turned into the reason I excavated the septic tank.
Tomorrow, the truck comes and it gets pumped out...Now, that's entertainment!

Meanwhile, Screaming Jay Hawkins will put a spell on you! He ain't kiddin!

The Ad CNN Refuses To Air

MediaMatters, the unshakable organization that fights for accuracy and honesty in American Media, has produced this ad, CNN's Dobbs Problem, which CNN refuses to air inspite of its absolute factual content. CNN has taken the position that Lou Dobbs iss an actual legitimate News Reportage Program. The Ad is supposed to run on MSNBC and FOX. Youu can read more about the ad at DobbsConspiracy and sign a petition asking CNN to actually live up to its slogan as The Best Political News.
Dobbs now claims that MediaMatters is Swiftboating operation from the left.
Well, if the fair and unbiased American Media won't run the ad, I will!

Rene Princeteau

I spend about 2 months a year working around Libourne, France and have become aware of a great 19th and early 20th century artist from Libourne, Rene Princeteau or actually formally named Pierre-Charles-Marie Princeteau. I attended a great show of his work in Libourne in April and was very moved by this artist I had never really known before. After viewing the massive, powerful canvases on the walls of the museum in Libourne, which is a converted 16th century baroque church, I wanted to find out more about him.
He was born in 1843 to a wealthy vineyard owning family. The child, Rene, was deaf and dumb from birth, but the position of the family enabled him to be raised by teachers who enabled him to learn to communicate and to read. At an early age, Rene showed signs of becoming a talented artist.
After initial training in Bordeaux, he left for Paris in 1865 and recieved a formal, classical education at the Imperial School of Fine Arts.
From 1868 until 1904, Princeteau exposed art regularly at the Salon. His popularity and commercial success was gained by his depictions of sporting activities such as hunting and riding. As an equestrian painter, he was unexcelled.
His artistic career spanned a time of change in the nature of styles. He began to paint in the pre impressionist era and emulated the great Barbizon school of naturalists.
Looking at his simple landscapes you are reminded of Corot in his handling of trees and love of nature.
At the same time, you begin to see the birth of the impressionism, the loose handling of color and the implication of motion. In some paintings there are some rather startling sophisticated effects ; the transparency of mist rising from a freshly plowed field, looking as if it had been airbrushed, the reduction of figures and animals in a lanmdscape to become almost calligraphic.
He was able to convey the brute force of man and animal. Many of his massive canvases depict the seemingly mundane tasks of everyday country labor. The massive canvas, The Pressoir, which depicts men forcing a team of oxen backwards with a cart load of grapes for the press is almost overwhelming. It is immense, as many of his great country works, measuring over 6 x 12 feet
He became the friend and teacher of the Count Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. They remained friends and often worked and traveled together until Lautrecs death.
Princeteau became a teacher as well and was a mentor to many other artists through the 1870's. In 1880, he spent more time in his estate of Pontus in Fronsac, between Libourne and St. Emilion where he painted until the end of his life in 1914.
The reproductions of his work here are unable to convey the power of the huge paintings this deaf, mute genius created. The simplicity of his brushwork, the eloquence of his understanding and ability to convey color and light reflect a hightened ability to communicate beyond language.

SUM PLUGZ

And now for a little promotion of projects by a few friends....
If you are in New York City on Thursday, August 6 and want to hear some new music, check out Thru The Wire, a quarterly electronic music party at the Public Assembly in Brooklyn. The host will be Steve Bryant, who will be performing as well. Steve is a great drummer and he has been a member of Boomclique for years along with my friend Luca Bartocioli. They are performing under the name of Grancentral. Steve also performs with his other projects, Machinedrum and Textual. Michna and DJ Brazil are the DJs.
If you are interested in hearing Steves music, check out some of his new tunes at myspace.com/crujonezbeats. Let him know what you think!

I'd also like to point your nose in the direction of my friend Glenn Patscha's new cd. Songs From The Jefferson Highway. I've featured music by Glenn in the past. He is an eclectic musician who has played jazz, blues, New Orleans Funk and has fronted the group Ollabelle for a few years. Ollabelle is a great American Band playing gospel, county soul blues and traditional American music for the future.

Songs From The Jefferson Highway features some of the members of Ollabelle and a cast of others including Brian Cullman who co produced the cd with Glenn and Hector Castillo. Brians wife Melinda designed the cd. This is music with ambiance, a soundtrack for a movie you have to imagine.
Music of adventure and dreams. You can sample some tracks and download the cd or buy it from Amazon. Great music by good people!

Government Health Care

(this was posted on The Engineer of Knowledge blog and was written by Reality Wizard,
I was so impressed by it's concise digest of the 60 year devolution of the American Health Care situation that I asked if I could publish it here!)



In the 1940's Blue Cross was a Non Profit corporation that was Government regulated. During World War II, those who were not in one of the services, were working in the defense factories or supporting industries; and the vast majority of those Americans were covered by Blue Cross.


Those who were not covered by reason of age or other preventive factors had the availability of government funded clinics. The clinics provided the necessary care at hospitals and neighbor hood locations. Depending on your illness you went or were sent to the proper location.

At that time there was public transportation available. In fact there were not many cars. After WWII as the vets came home the GI Bill allowed them to get into training programs, Go to School, open a business, buy a house etc. Public housing and health clinics really made a difference and our economy boomed. Homes, cars, furnishings etc. were in great demand. The men worked and the wives stayed home and raised the children.

By the 1950's automobiles started coming in from Japan. For the manufacturers they were less expensive to build they had no unions, health care, no taxes, etc to pay for or manage.
The rest is history we lost our manufacturing base while our insurance and service cost escalated out of control. Insurance companies invested money in all areas with complete immunity to loss. If a stock dropped they just raised our insurance rates to cover it.

Greed soon got involved and it escalated out of control. Corporate bonuses, jets, foreign trips, gifts to politicians, donations to PAC’s and PRESTO we lost our economy, our government and our national dignity.

Now we have an opportunity to get back honest regulations in all the above factors. Not only health care but all insurances, manufacturing, transportation, investments, banking etc.

So in conclusion, "Common Sense" laws are NOT Socialism. They are regulations that provide for the public good. While providing for domestic tranquility and assuring the public welfare, as defined by law rather than a handout to lazy citizens.

(note: this post ties in very nicely with the propaganda piece below, the 1940's cartoon on Socialism and how the concept was "explained" to the American masses)

Socialism For Idiots

This is a classic example of the fear tactics being used by the Health Industry to discredit the idea of Health Care Reform in America.
This is how Americans "learned" about Socialism back in the 1940's and this cartoon is probably still the source of the hysterical factoids still being touted today.

Led Boots

Well, I'm in blog post recovery...I have so many things I would like to write about and am trying to write a piece about the artist Rene Princeteau, who I think deserves a piece in Wikipedia and there is none!
But blog I must, and as I gradually hack my way out of the middle ages where my head has been for the last 2 weeks, I find myself overcome by anger and frustration with American politics. It would seem in only 2 weeks, the political situation in America has decayed incredibly.

The last 2 weeks, I dealt with thousands of grape vines. The 19 hectares of the Chateau Vieux Chevrol were being assailed by a mildew plague. If things remain as we left them and there is good weather, it will be a reasonably good harvest, but many vines were totally decimated by the fungus which turns the grapes brown, then dries them as if they were burnt. All have to be destroyed.
So 8 hours a day, sun, cold, heat and rain, I was working with a family of Moroccans and have increased my Moroccan vocabulary. I also worked with 2 others, French and Dutch.

I got a chance to do a bit of bike riding around the Pomerol and Lalande Pomerol region and rode to St. Emilion one day. Biking in that region is so nice, it is so flat and you get pushed by the wind. I found it pretty humorous that everytime I passed by the Chateau Petrus in Pomerol, where the most expensively marketed wine in the world is made, I would find a group of tourists posing in front of the sign.
The last time I rode by, there was car with a Belgian license and I was compelled to holler, "Hey, You're too late! Yesterday they were giving out free bottles!"

So, after 2 weeks away from all media...well, I did listen to BBC4 occasionaly, but that hardly counts, I as starting to check out my favorite blogs and comment, but here, at my own home, there is so much to do. Just weeding the vegetable garden!
Imagine not cutting your lawn for 2 weeks in the midst of a rainy summer!
I'm exhausted just thinking about it....
Soooo, here's Jeff Beck from his latest record, Live At Ronnie Scotts, recorded last year with is lovely 22 year old bassist, Tal Wilkenfeld playing Led Boots.

Shatner Does Palin (07/27/09)

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Back home after nice little train ride back from the middle ages and splash down in the surreal swamp that our modern world has become. I listened to the BBC once in a while and heard that Plain had resigned officially, but it took William Shatner to recognize the true depths of the mind of Sarah Palin. A mind like a frigid lake with fragments of thoughts colliding like melting ice floes on a global warming challenged afternoon.
William Shatner again proves that sheer poetry hath no shame like unto a woman who seeketh a good book deal and a talk show, or uhhh, higher office or whatever...

More over, she has proved the utter lack of depth and real ideas and the sheer belief that baseless inuendo and relentless spin can turn the reality of an elected official turning her back on her responsibility and office, her utter lack of integrity by blaming the pressure of the press or whatever....
into the kind of billious crap that seems to be what passes for a vicarious glimmer of hope to a political party of sore losers.

If I Were Miss World...

Well, this time I'm really leaving! No, no, no...not like the last times, when I merely pretended to be leaving just to see what you would do! Jeeves! Pack my suitcase and call a taxi.
Show these bounders to the door! No, your cheap theatrics simnply won't have any effect on me this time! Stop sniveling! Oh, how I hate it when you start crying...Yes, I'll be back in 2 weeks, I promise...
Yes, I'll write....

The Atheist Camel Chronicles, again....even...

Since I am going away and there will be a 2 week break while I labor in the vineyard, I am posting the link for Dromeday Hump's new book, The Atheist Camel Chronicles.
You can buy his book directly from Amazon by clicking the link, but you might enjoy visiting his blog, Atheist Camel where you can purchase the book directly and see why he gives fundamentalists of all persuasions hairballs, neuritis, neuralgia and causes uncomfortable chafing and heat rash in the moist nether regions of their minds.
And, as long as I am pushin' other peoples books,
please consider checking out my friend, Suze Rotolo's great book,
A Freewheelin' Time
I have reviewed the book on thios blog twice, recently it was released here in France and it is to be released in Germany, Japan and Lebanon....
A really heartfelt personal and social history of the early 60's and the folk/rock
scene in New York as well as an over view of her life story up to and after her relationship with Dylan.
If you are even remotely interested in this time and place and the music, you need to read this book!

Decorum

Earlier this week David Brooks, the house conservative columnist of the New York Times wrote an editorial on the lack of "decorum" in Washington today and specifically how it is impacting on the perception of his own Republican Party.
In this interview on MSNBC, he recounts a personal incident that occurred at a dinner part in Washington that illuminates his point, I guess, or is this perhaps a case of too much information?
I have to admit that I have never been to any Washington dinner parties or sat next to a Republican Senator, so I am a little out of it when it comes to the social conventions that are now the norm at events such as this one in Washington that Mr. Brooks recounts. Perhaps some one could possibly advise me as to how to politely request the pepper mill when it is stuck up some ones ass?
Decorum? Of Course! It never hurts to be polite..........

DUM DUM

Back in the early 80's, I had a Band called Mr. Bubble in the East Village. One of the bands we kept running into and sharing stages with was The Butthole Surfers from Austin, Texas. Insanely inventive, totally original and creatively and morally uninhibited, there was nothing contrived about them, they made a squalling mess of feedback with two drummers. It was high art. I hear they have been touring recently and still releasing great music. I found this great video on You Tube of one of their songs from the early 90's. I think it was on their Electric Larry Land Album.
Someone used some real footage of a fundamentalist christian snake handling ritual...
The footage alone is the price of admission, but on second thought, it looks more like a typical night at the 8BC Club on East 8th Street over by Avenue C about 1983....

Selective Outrage

Conservative military coup in Iran BAD! Conservative military coup in Honduras GOOD! Both Coups are veiled in the trappings of trying to defend the legitimacy of the respective governments. The Iranian conservative military rigged an election, violently suppressed dissent, arrested foreign embassy employees, squashed freedom of the press and spew non stop beligerrence at the rest of the world and non stop propaganda to their people.

The Honduran Conservative Military ousted the legitimate president, used violence against the population to suppress dissent. They kicked out reporters from Telesur, the Latino version of CNN and have spewed nonstop beligerrent rhetoric at their neighbors and propaganda to their population. They murdered leftist opposition party leaders and took embassy employees and officials into custody.
So why the selective outrage from the American Conservatives?

Does it have anything to do with the fact that until the election of Jose Manuel Zelaya, Honduras was a stalwart outpost and bastion of America's power and influence in the region? Honduras recieves millions of dollars in military aid and the military is trained from the bottom up and controlled by the Pentagon.
The interim President, Michelletti, is a military appointee and when elections are held, he is expected to give way to the Conservative leader, Hector Rene Forseca, who has very deep ties and support from the American Christian Right.

Things become more interesting when you realize that the point man is the present US Ambassador, a hold over from the Bush Era, Hugo Llorens. Llorens is a Cuban American who was very active in the failed 2002 Coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. He has yet to be recalled, yet the OAS and the EU have recalled their ambassadors and frozen Honduran assets, which the USA has yet to do. The freezing of the assets would cut off the funds, choke the couup and discourage its wealthy backers.

Now, the disturbing part....
Last week, in a diatribe to the Honduran people, the interim foreign minister, "Chancellor" Enrique Ortez made some pretty outrageous statements directed at governments who dared to criticize and interfere with the coup. He said that President Zapatero of Spain should go back to "shining shoes"...a rather witless remark based on a pun referring to the Spanish word for shoes, zapata.

He went on to refer to Barack Obama as "Ese negrito que ne sabe nada de nada" That is a very insulting phrase that loosely translates to "that little black boy who doesn't know anything" . He continues to warn President Obama that he should be looking over his own shoulder because he could be next.

This was occuring about the same time that the rather large, obnoxious bag of slime known as Rush Limbaugh was making his statements about ho a military coup "like the on that just occurred in Honduras" might be a good thing.
Just what is the connection here? Because this was no coincidence. The pieces are all in place for a 2 bit conspiracy theory...from one 2 bit asshole to another...Rush??? You are treading on very shaky ground here...

United Breaks Guitars

I was a musician for 20 years in New York. Occasionally, I would actually play outside of New York. We played a few European gigs and in Canada. Usually, I took care of the moving with my pick up truck as well as moving most of the bands in Lower Manhattan in the early 80's.

I entrusted my instruments to airlines a few times and held my breath. I had friends, including the lead guitarist of one of the bands I played with who had their guitars demolished by airline luggage handlers. I read an interview with the guitarist, Larry Coreyell who spoke of watching his guitar destroyed on the tarmac as he sat in his seat on the airplane.

The same thing happened last year to Dave Carrol of the band, Sons of Maxwell.
Anyone who has flown frequently over the last few years has a horror story to tell of the arrogance of the airline companies and even if they are responsible, it is nigh on impossible to get compensated for damages. Their simple theory being: SO SUE US! WE'VE GOT A LOT MORE MONEY AND A LOT MORE LAWYERS AND YOU'LL DIE BEFORE WE STOP APPEALING!

Hmm...on my last flight from the USA, I caught the Swine Flu from a BA Flight attendant...and I'm sure everyone on BA Flight 296, from Chicago to London Heathrow on April 28, 2009 did as well! I wrote a letter, but I haven't as yet gotten a response.

Anyway, in Dave Carrol's own words and his revenge (in which I'm only to pleased to participate in):

Full Story: http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/story... - In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise.

It's Always Something...

I'm in this picture somewhere. This was taken just this May while I was back in my medieval alter ego at Chateau Vieux Chevrol. We were working for 2 weeks performing le pamphrage and bourgeonage operations on thousands of grape vines on 20 hectares of land. Basically, we were removing the excess buds and cleaning the base of the vines, supressing the growth of the root graft. It's important because only 7 stems are allowed to develop and almost every grape vine grown commercially in France is grafted on a hardy wild American vine root stock.
Vieux Chevrol is located in the Lalande Pomerol regionnear Bordeaux. If you are familiar with the Lalande Pomerol, we are in Neac, not Lalande. There are two towns in Lalande Pomerol.
Vieux Chevrol is notable because they insist on traditional, natural methods in the production of their wine. All operations are done by hand and all treatments are the most natural methods available.
This is my 8th year working at Vieux Chevrol and I really enjoy the comaraderie, the work and the knowlege I aquire each time I go for 2 or three weeks.
I just found out that this year we are going to do a Vendenge Verte starting on the 15th of July...Just a week away. That is an operation where the excess bunches of grapes are removed and leaves are removed to allow air and light to reach the grapes.
The neccessity of the operation is controlled by the weather. Obviously, conditions have been very good and there are a lot of bunches of grapes and hearty foliage on the plants. Some years, it is not neccessary.
Again, it involves thousands of plants and I think we will only be 6 people.
So, again, I am going to close up shop for 2 weeks starting the 15th. I will be away from computers and television, living in the old chateau. I do have my Grundig Yachtboy Multi Band Radio!
The folks in the picture are me, Microdot, Cheryl Cook, Xeneb, Aveda and Mohammed.
(Mohammed is the guy wearing the Obama cap!)

Destino

In 1945, The Disney Corporation commisioned Salvador Dali to create an animated film.
This is it. I believe it was finished in 1946. Considered to be totally without commercial merit, it languished until 2003,
I had heard about it and remember hearing something about it finally being available.
I found it on YouTube.
....for your consideration.

2nd ANNUAL BLOG POWER AWARD!

Well, it's not quite and annual event, but the very prestigious Brain Police Blog Power is being awarded this evening to a young woman from Homer, Alaska, Shannyn Moore, who writes the blog, Just A Girl From Homer.

The previous recipient was a guy named Spocko, who authors a blog called Spocko's Brain and fought a one man war and won against San Francisco Radio Staion, KSFO and their non stop hate speech.

Shannyn is a journalist and radio commentator who has been onto Sarah Palin from the beginning and has chronicled the corruption that she has left in her wake as she rose to power in Alaska and has tried to assume a role in national politics.
After Miss Palin made her bizarre series of announcements this weekend, Shannyn became the focus of Palins' lawyers rambling series of incoherent threats to the First Amendment.

As if we the people do not have the right to ask "What The Fuck?" when some one exhibits the bizarre behavioral performance that Palin did on Friday, when she resigned the governorship of Alaska....
.
For the record, Palin threatened legal action against most of the Mainstream media and a number of blog news sites, but she singled out Shannyn for particular notice.
For this and having the guts to hold a news conference in front of the governors office yesterday and state, "Sarah Palin, if you have a problem with me, then sue me! Shannon Moore will not be muzzled!"
Shannyn will be on Countdown tonight and here is the segment....

Miserlou

Yeah, the Pulp Fiction song, but here it is from 1963 in it's original greasy glory performed by Dick Dale and The Deltones. Dick practically invented the genre of Surf Guitar. He was one of the brave new rock musicians who realized the power and possiblities of distorted amplified sound.
I needed to hear something like this for my summer heat wave sound track. We are having a real drought with 90 plus temperatures everyday. I have been watering for hours...
I am going to have my sister who lives in California and her husband as guests for a few days. I don't think I will be able to post very much...
These guys are real Orange County, Yorba Linda Republicans!
If they are nice, perhaps I won't steal their car keys and throw them down the well.

When David Met Bathsheba

The torrid seduction of a temptress by a ruler who risk all for his uncontrollable lustful desires, When David Met Bathsheba, has the making of America's next big smash reality series! Governor Mark Sanford is the candidly lustful ruler who embarks on a journey of sex, sin and unbridled passion in the sultry pleasure pits of Buenos Aires with his illicit princess of passion, Maria.

The first three episodes have taken America by storm! The governor disappears for a week and a nation suspects the worse.
Betrayed by his guilt and religion, he begs the citizens of the Great State of South Carolina for forgiveness. Will he stay or will he go?

In tonights episode, the Governor has a message from God telling him that he must stay and not give into his lustful pride. God tells him that it would be too easy to leave.
God says that is is his plan. Governor Sanford must stay in office because it is God's Plan!

Then, well, he admits to having other affairs with other temptresses and in spite of the fact that Maria is his soulmate, well, maybe he could try to fall in love with his wife again.....but then there's Maria, beckoning to him from the sultry steamy tango clubs of Buenos Aires, with a flower in her perfumed hair....

Meanwhile, back at the Governors Mansion, Mrs. Sanford gets a call from Michelle Obama who says, "Hey Girl, I hear your husbands mistress is so fat he just sticks a Segway handlebars up her ass and rides her clear across the Pampas yodelin' like a hyena!"
Mrs. Sanford, who is cruising on her third Percodan of the afternoon, smiles pleasantly and asks,"Which one?"

Personally, I hope he stays!