Friday, November 21, 2008

Friday, October 3, 2008

Long train/Slow train


"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."




"Slow Train"

Bob Dylan

Sometimes I feel so low-down and disgusted
Can't help but wonder what's happening to my companions
Are they lost or are they found, have they counted the cost it'll take to bring down
All their earthly principles they're gonna have to abandon ?
There's slow, slow train coming up around the bend.

I had a woman down in Alabama
She was a backwoods girl, but she sure was realistic
She said, Boy, without a doubt, have to quit your mess and straighten out
You could die down here, be just another accident statistic
There's slow, slow train coming up around the bend.

All that foreign oil controlling American soil
Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed
Sheiks walking around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings
Deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris
And there's slow, slow train coming up around the bend.

Man's ego is inflated, his laws are outdated, they don't apply no more
You can't rely no more to be standing around waiting
In the home of the brave, Jefferson turning over in his grave
Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan
And there's slow, slow train coming up around the bend.

Big-time negotiators, false healers and woman haters
Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition
But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency
All non-believers and men stealers talking in the name of religion
And there's slow, there's slow train coming up around the bend.

People starving and thirsting, grain elevators are bursting
Oh, you know it costs more to store the food than it do to give it
They say loose your inhibitions, follow your own ambitions
They talk about a life of brotherly love, show me someone who knows how to live it
There's slow, slow train coming up around the bend.

Well, my baby went to Illinois with some bad-talking boy she could destroy
A real suicide case, but there was nothing I could do to stop it
I don't care about economy, I don't care about astronomy
But it's sure do bother me to see my loved ones turning into puppets
There's slow, slow train coming up around the bend.

Copyright ©1979 Special Rider Music

STOP THAT TRAIN!!!


Sunday, September 28, 2008

"Turn on, tune in, bail out."

Here's an anonymous email that I found post-worthy:


"I'm in an unusual spot: I rarely find myself aligned with the vast majority of Americans regarding any specific issue. Yet, it is my understanding that 3/4 of us oppose the bailout of Wall St., and that we have been making ourselves heard through a deluge of calls and emails to our congressmen.

Guess what? They aren't listening.

Enough is enough, folks. "The will of the people?" Don't kid yourselves. "The last act of any corrupt government is to loot the treasury." Once the act is complete, the curtain will fall on our republic.

As is always the case, the government (with help from the corporate media shills) are using fear tactics to ram this travesty down our throats, but it's not working. We, the People ain't buying the BS. Nevertheless, our (allegedly) elected "representatives" will ignore our pleas, they will defy their oaths, abuse their power, take a giant dump on the constitution, abdicate thePeople's last vestige of authority over the control of currency, and permanently enslave us to an elitist cabal of international bankers.

We are left with one card to play: it is time for Us - the People - to bail out from this stinking corpse of corruption.

No need to make their acts of thievery any easier than necessary - Why participate in allowing the federal government to use payroll deduction to collect income tax? "Just Say No." Or in this case, "Just Check Exempt." Whennext April 15th rolls around, what would happen if one million Americans simply forgot to file? From a practical, realistic standpoint, how many people can the IRS audit, investigate, possibly charge and then, eventually attempt to prosecute? I'd say a few thousand at most, and quite possibly less than that. You don't even have to fully refuse. Most Americans are well experienced in various stall tactics when somebody calls and says, "Where's the money?" Tell 'em the check's in the mail. Send 'em a dollar a week, and promise to cover the rest when you decide you can afford it. If you receive any mail from the IRS, mark it "return to sender" or "not at this address."

The current law may consider such activities less than acceptable. I'm not a tax lawyer, and frankly, the point is moot. The current federal government is fraudulent by any reasonable definition. The Rule of Law is meaningless if the spirit of the law is being held hostage. The federal government cannot prove - even to its self-imposed standards - that the results of our elections are legitimate. They show no regard for the constitution, and even less understanding and/or respect for the Framer's intent. The judicial branch has shown no inclination to reverse the trend; in fact it has done quite the opposite. See the Kelo and Raich cases for recent examples. In short, this government no longer derives just power from the consent of the governed, but rather claims authority as it sees fit, with total disregard for the legal and constitutional processes that were origanally, specifically designed to prevent such tyranny.

Don't let them scare you into supporting their treachery. Paulson claimed, ten days ago, if a bailout wasn't approved immediately, disaster would strike. Yet here we are, ten days later, no deal has been struck, the sky hasn't fallen upon our heads, and neither has the banking industry or the market in general. Don't buy into the fear and panic. That is the worst thing we can do. Fear clouds rational thinking.

Please keep pestering your congresspeeps. Promise to vote against them if they betray you on this issue. Follow through on your promise. Remember the reasons our founders declared independence. Note the similarity between the "long train of abuses and usurpations" which they revolted against and the growing list of despicable, tyrannical acts of our current established government.

Recall the principle upon which the new government was instituted: "to secure" "certain inalienable Rights."

Remember where our government derives its just power: "from the CONSENT of the governed."

Remember the one Right we still retain and may still choose to exercise at any time:

"Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [securing our rights], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."


Our federal government, through legislative dictate and supported by judicial review, has expanded the concept of eminent domain to include the forcible seizure of private property if a case can be made (often by ethics-challenged high-powered special interest attorneys) that said seizure somehow serves the "greater good." Much of our current debt is held by foreign (government owned) banks. The value of the debt far exceeds the value of real assets held by the federal government. So when the debt gets called in, there is nothing to stop our government, or anyone carrying the debt, to seize any and all private property to cover the indebtedness. I say let the government fail. We can always create a new one. But don't let the government permanently enslave you by buying into the fear that if we don't do what they say, we're all doomed. That was the mindset that got us mired in Iraq. Other examples are too numerous to list.

Don't be swayed by the "bipartisan support" of some compromised form of bailout. "Bipartisan support" is best likened to the act known as "double penetration." Bipartisan support gave us the spiraling debt during the Reagan years, and during the Clinton administration it gifted us with welfare "reform" that costs more but serves fewer people, banking manipulation that led to the stock bubble/burst that "necessitated" the housing bubble/burst that has ballooned into the current fiasco. bipartisan support has given us NCLB, NAFTA, McCain-Feingold, congressional "authorization" for presidential use of force in Iraq (rather than the constitutionally mandated congressional Declaration of War), the anti-terrorism legislation of the 90's that was the framework and foundation for the Patriot Act, the Patriot Act itself and it's numerous successive expansions, telecom immunity, A failed War on Drugs, a farcical War on Terror, and, as Sonny and Cher used to sing, "the beat goes on."

Any proposed taxpayer-funded/backed bailout of the financial sector is nothing short of treachery. In fact, it is tyranny. Furthermore, the way it is being forced upon us is nothing short of economic terrorism. If it weren't for the sad fact that "all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed," we'd be running the dirty bleeps out of town with torches and pitchforks, with their complicit corporate cronies close behind. But we're too soft, too cowardly and too comfortable in our crumbling, consumption driven house of cards to take any action. We'll be queitly marched into economic slavery like the Jews were marched into Auschwitz. Don't kid yourself. It's already begun. The wheels are in motion.

A little more wisdom from my favorite political philosopher, and I'm out.

"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. "

"Every generation needs a new revolution."

The only good fight is the one that is fought with love in one's heart. I love liberty; I love humanity. Fight the good fight, people! Our common enemies are fear, cowardice and ignorance.

'Turn on, tune in, bail out.'"

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Life Imitating Art?

From NYT:

New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers

A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.

The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations...

Michael German, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union and a former F.B.I. agent, said the plan appeared to open the door still further to the use of data-mining profiles in tracking terrorism.

This seems to be based on the idea that the government can take a bunch of data and create a profile that can be used to identify future bad guys,” he said. “But that has not been demonstrated to be true anywhere else.”

Sound familiar?

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

God and Bacon

Is this a subject for a Jerry Seinfeld bit, or a topic worthy of a doctoral thesis? Does the righteous man hold fast to tradition:
...or are the times a' changin'?

This week in Politics

Joe Lauria speculates on the significance of the McCain/Georgia relationship here. Similar sentiments from William Lind, Eric Margolis and Pat Buchanan (listen here.) Seems that sanity makes for strange bedfellows these days.

Monday, August 18, 2008

How "DEWYA" Got His Name


Once upon a time in the summer of 2002,my wife decided to liberate a nameless garden gnome from his big-box prison. We were in the planning process for a trip to "SalmonFest," a three day music festival held at Bearcat's Getaway on the Black River in Lesterville, Missouri, featuring Leftover Salmon as headliners. Included in the festivities at SalmonFest was the "Parade of Judgment," a meandering, late-night parade/campsite judging contest that was more about extending the party through the wee hours until sunrise than it was about passing "judgment" on anyone or anything. Since this was our first music/camping festival of the New Millennium, we did not invest the time, energy and creative effort to have a "competitive" campsite, but thought that, at the very least, our recently adopted gnome would add a bit of character to our temporary home-away-from-home. As time has passed, we've continued to find fun festies to serve as our version of the summer vacation, and our little gnome always comes along for the ride.

In the spring of 2007, we returned to Lesterville and Bearcat's for "Festivaaaal," a smaller two day, mostly bluegrass/newgrass/jamgrass fest that featured Vince Herman (former and current member of the recently re-united Leftover Salmon.) We set up our campsite as always, with the gnome playing the role of Welcoming Committee, front and center. Later that morning, Vince was strolling through the campground, stopping here and there to say hello, strum his mandolin, and make small conversation. He took one look at the gnome and cackled.
"What's his name?" Vince inquired.
Caught off-guard, I replied, "Ummm... I dunno... he doesn't talk much. We just call him 'Gnomie.' "

Vince stood in thoughtful silence for a moment, then blurted out, "DEWYA!!"

"Huh?"

"Dewya! Dewya Gnomie!!!" Again he began to cackle, and the rest of us joined in as we caught on to the meaning of Mr. Herman's declaration.

Assuming his silence to be acceptance of his new moniker, we adopted the corny-but-catchy pun, and that's how Dewya Gnomie got his name.

Friday, August 15, 2008

infinite regress/degrees of separation

I'm amused (though seldom impressed) by trends in television. One is the concept of "reality TV" which tends to follow the self-contradictory nature found in its very name. But more about that some other time.

Another trend is seen in their portrayal of politics and entertainment, where the story devolves by degree from reporting/analysis of an original subject to analysis of the analyses and on down the line ad infinitum/nauseum. Instead of an objective, or at least multi-perspective view of current events, we get Keith Olbermann's smug blabbering about Bill O'Reilly's self-righteous ranting regarding a NYT op-ed commenting on a campaign spokesman's press release dealing with a candidate's response to a current event.

In celebration of this newfound approach to disseminating information, I thought I'd blog about this blog.

The who and what:

The title is self-explanatory and self-descriptive.

My avatar, "DEW U. GNOMIE," while an actually physical entity with distinct physical properties, was chosen to "represent" the joviality with which I attempt to ride the changes inherent in life, while allowing me to maintain a thin veil of anonymity.

The information I provide in the profile is a snapshot at best, and probably a bad one that chops/crops the top of my head and most of my left arm. For every "favorite" I could probably add five more, and these choices change with my state of mind/emotion/spirit. Ex: I didn't mention the Clash, Beethoven or the Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band in my list of "favorite" music, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy these artists.

I put an RSS feed for Antiwar.com for its exhaustive coverage of all things political.

The listed blogs, for the most part, are chosen for their contoversial (and at times extreme) perspectives, and don't necessarily reflect my own views so much as an alternative to the (IMO) obsolete "left vs. right," "con vs. lib," " dem vs. rep" dichotomies.

The two notable exceptions are "The Floor," which chronicles the behind-the-scenes goings-on of the up-and-coming rock sextet Umphrey's McGee. The band is also featured on the video bar at the bottom of the page.

The second exception is "This Way to Texas" which is the personal blog of Lou Antonelli, a talented writer of SF short stories whom I remember fondly from our association as classmates in high school.

The Where, When, and How:

Here. Now. Point, click, type.

And that leaves the Why:

Forrest Gump would say, "No pa-TICK-lah raisin," or you can choose from the list below:

1. Everyone else is doing it.
2. Self-expression is necessary and cathartic.
3. My ego supplies me with an overblown sense of self-importance, and a blog enables me to strut my superior intellect.
4. I have too much time on my hands.
5. Nobody will actually read this blog, so really it's just a "Dear Diary" left open in a dusty attic.
6. None of the above.

As I looked for a knob to close the door on these current musings, I realized it was Friday, and TGIF came to mind. And I had to ask, Why T "G?" Why not F for Frior, the g that F took its name from? Besides, most of those who are in the Habit of T'ing G already have a day for that, usually Sa or Su depending on their sabbatical proclivities. Maybe we should T the IWA for the forty hour week that eventially evolved into "9-5, M-F." Since that particular time grid has little relevance to my own schedule, I'm just thankful to wake up each and every day breathing and with a pulse. Whether or not there's a G who deserves credit is a discussion for another day.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Georgia on My Mind

"May we live in interesting times." seems we do.

I watch this reckless chess game for global domination of the world's resources and I can't help but remember those many nights as a high-schooler when my best friends and I would play RISK while becoming dangerously and belligerently shitfaced. The outcome was inevitable. Rather than lose, somebody would dump the board of its contents and call the match over.

Regarding the latest chapter in Georgia, opinions are many but patience and wisdom seem to be in short supply. I'm reminded of the closing observation in John Godfrey Saxe's poetic rendition of the ancient parable of The Blind Men and the Elephant:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

I hesitate to rush to judgment, but think it prudent at the very least to educate ourselves before we unquestionably accept the prevailing sentiment that dismisses an extremely complex situation as a casus belli for war with Russia.