Monday night (headed back out to sea)

Monday May 18, 2009

. . . .Today's playlist? Eclectic to say the least, but it is thematic. I invite you to just go ahead sometime and fire up the website, let it run and just give it a listen all the way through. There's a definite theme that runs throughout it, and you'll figure it out. You're hearing Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Kings of Leon, U2, Ben Harper and Buddy Miller all mixed in there together. I'll give you a clue. One of my favorite songs of all time is In the Garden by Van Morrison for the line "No Guru, No Method, No Teacher ". Yup, it's a typical cryptic Van the man koan, but listen to it done live, with the joy he can put into it and go back to another one of his best songs "Did Ya Get Healed". You're all smart people, you'll get it.

. . . .My particular love for music is well-known. It goes a lot beyond "I like the beat". I like all types and styles of music, as long as the artist is putting their heart and soul into it. One of the most important events in music occurred here recently. Pete Seeger's 90th birthday party was held in New York at Madison Square Garden as an All-Star Jam. The list of artists who gathered to honor Pete and his contributions to American music is breathtaking; Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Joan Baez, Richie Havens, Tom Morello, Roger McGuinn, Warren Haynes, Dave Matthews, Kris Kristofferson, Taj Mahal, Steve Earle, Ben Harper, Emmylou Harris and Arlo Guthrie only start the list. It was impressive, but what was more impressive, according to those who were there, was the sheer admiration each of these people had for Pete, who is still incredibly humble, despite his career and contributions.

. . . .We're fortunate here in America with the vast array of artists and musicians that we have, and the ability they have to reflect our social fabric and mirror back to us that things we have going on around us every day. Harkening back to Pete Seeger, who along with Woody Guthrie gave such a rich catalog of Dust Bowl and Depression era music and who stood steadfast and strong against the Red Scare of the 50's and House Anti-American Activities Committee and it's fascist actions, a host of current artists have given us a new catalog of songs to chronicle and document the current hard times that so many people are experiencing. I'll link out to each one, go ahead and download and build a decent playlist for yourself:
- The best of the current crop of songs has to be John Rich's Shuttin' Detroit Down, a quiet, very moving tune with a great video starring Kris Kristofferson and Mickey Rourke
- Neil Young's Cough Up The Bucks from his latest album is a rocker, and a good one.
- The Flatlanders Homeland Refugee is the bleakest of the bunch, and a damn good song.
- Cam'ron doing I Hate My Job is a good reflection of what it feels like to be underemployed, disrespected and kicked in the teeth everyday just to get a paycheck.
- Wilco has been covering The Jolly Banker every night at their shows.
- While Lucinda Williams has been covering Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
- Even Jimmy Buffet, whose music I normally hate, has chimed in, penning A Lot To Drink About, (like a song about drinking is a surprise from Jimmy)
- Prince has one too, Ol' Skool Company, but I dont' which of the three new albums it's on.
- Jadakiss' Hard Times has relevance.
- Bruce Springsteen, who was so full of optimism at the start of the year, has changed his set lists to include Johnny 99, Seeds, This Hard Land and The Ghost of Tom Joad. As well, he's picked up a turn of the century tune, Hard Times Come Again No More, and been covering it each night, preceding it's playing with a pitch for the local food banks.

. . . .Reminiscient of 40 years ago, when Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young did 4 Dead In Ohio in 24 hours in response to the Kent State Shootings, and the 45 was on the street 10 days later.

. . . .We're coming up on another 40 year anniversary this summer, Woodstock. There's going to be a reissue of the movie as a DVD and more importantly, at least to me, a reissue of the album, only this one has every song from every artist over those 4 days.

. . . .As long as I'm doing an wide scope on music today, Tom Morello, one of my favorite young artists, one of the founders of the Axis of Justice, and former guitarist for Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, who has most recently been acoustic as The Nightwatchman, has picked the electric guitar up again and has formed a new band with politically charged rapper Boots Riley. The band's name is Street Sweeper Social Club and their new album is due out June 16th.

. . . .And just to put two other notes in here, Steve Earle's album Townes, a tribute to his late friend Townes VanZandt, (which is a much deeper and somewhat twisted relationship than a simple friendship) is out, and Eminem's new one is out as well. For those of us who have struggled with our own addiction problems and gotten cleaned up, Mr. Mather's new album has some great tracks, he's at his best when he's doing what he does best, tearing himself down.

. . . .In Part 8 of NPR's series on upgrading the grid, which is one of the most important, and simplest things we can do to improve energy efficiency in this country and become less dependent on foreign oil, we take a look at the workforce that's going to be required to maintain it, which in these perilous economic times, is good news really, as a new workforce will have to hired and trained:

Many in the utility industry worry that the most vulnerable part of the power system is its work force, as a wave of retirements is depleting the supply of linemen and other craftsmen who keep the lights on.

A historic jump in the number of power-related jobs is boosting demand for classes such as one called Power Production and Operation at Centralia College in Centralia, Wash.

"Many people who went to work in the electric power industry were there for 25, 30, 40 years," instructor Rulon Crawford says. "Now that they are leaving the industry, there's a ton of opportunity for this generation that's coming along."

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers says nearly half its members nationwide are up for retirement in the next few years, and in response, Centralia College has formed the Center of Excellence for Energy Technology to train young workers like 19-year-old Haley Keithan — one of a handful of women in this class.

She comes from an energy family — her dad worked for the local coal-fired plant. But, she says, "I want to go into more renewable resources, more so than coal or oil or anything like that."

That's a common theme in the Pacific Northwest. Like many states, Oregon and Washington require local utilities to boost the portion of the power they produce from renewables. Travel up the Columbia River, which has long supplied this area with cheap electrical power, and you can see and hear what's luring students into the energy field.

Wind turbines seem to be sprouting from every hilltop, and if you get close, you can hear them spinning lazily in a light wind. This is what's drawing students like A.J. Quackenbush to Columbia Gorge Community College, on the Oregon side of the river.

Quackenbush is a muscular, curly-haired student in the renewable energy technology program. Students like him may be keen on renewables, but this program is meant to prepare them to work on the aging transmission grid as well. Quackenbush says he might end up expanding the system that connects those hilltop turbines to power-hungry cities: "I know there's been a lot of talking about installing a transmission superhighway, and I think having the chance to work on something like that would be pretty fulfilling as well."

Local utilities here say that, at times, they are already producing more wind power than the electrical grid can handle. That means the viability of those wind turbines may depend on the eagerness of these students to help upgrade the electrical grid.

Training Young Workers On Antiquated Equipment

But at a training facility in Vancouver, Wash., you can see just how resistant the old electrical grid is to change, and why it's so difficult to train new workers in this field.

Two apprentice linemen have just made their first mistake as they try to replace a huge glass insulator 30 feet up on a telephone pole at the Bonneville Power Administration's Technical Training Center. On the ground, instructor Craig Froh razzes them, as he sees they have lost their focus and let the wire slip from their grasp. Froh is a burly utility guy, right down to the sticker on his hard hat that reads, "Drink til she's cute."

"Now we're going to have fun," he shouts up to the apprentices, as they struggle to correct their mistake.

In real life, the wires these guys are working on would be live with 115,000 volts. Workers spend three to four years working as paid apprentices before they become journeymen, going through a ritual that dates back many decades. This is why people here refer to this business as a "craft" — while it doesn't require a college degree, it is both dangerous and arcane.

In another part of the facility, 31-year-old apprentice Zack Banks is deciphering a roomful of dials and getting the juice flowing again during an imaginary blackout. Bells ding and meters flash in a central control room that's meant to replicate a real, working substation. With its old-style dials and clicking alarms, this place looks a lot more like a World War II-era submarine than a key node on the power system. Banks dials up the trainer in the exercise — using a rotary telephone.

Bonneville hopes to get federal funding to help build a smart grid for the region. If that happens, workers here could someday be staring at computer screens and digital interfaces. But for now, the next generation of electrical workers will have to get started on some very 20th century gear.

. . . .The absolute idiocy of the last 7 years is coming to light, and in a very scary way. While we invaded Iraq and got 4,000 good young soldiers killed based on Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney, the true perpetators of 9/11, Al-Quaeda, were allowed to roam free and run rampant in Afghanistan and build a power base, and expand further into Pakistan. Now, in the most unstable region of the world, in it's most unstable country, Al-Queada and the Taliban are 60 miles away from Islamabad, the capital and control of a nuclear missle force. As Pakistan falls into absolute chaos, the extremists will win, and will be in control of nuclear weapons, not what we need or want.

. . . Now here's a stunning revelation from the Reuters newswire; "Blue collar males lose ground".

. . . It's about time. The two women who tried to warn about the impending economic implosion and meltdown were given the JFK Profiles in Courage medal today.

. . . And we rank as the least green consumers in the world, again.

. . . Why should we repair and maintain the Hubble Space Telescope, take a look at the images at this link here, and you tell me.

. . . And on the subject of the political firestorm of the moment emanating from the Beltway, Matthew Yglesias from The Daily Beast on how the Right is misfiring again:

Just when it seemed to many that the right had lost its mojo, give conservatives credit: They're still enormously good at ginning up controversies and controlling the news cycle. Thus a story that was once about the Bush administration's decision to authorize barbaric and illegal acts of torture has successfully been morphed into a to-do about Nancy Pelosi's account of CIA briefings.

As political gamesmanship, it's been masterful. I particularly like the way the right has managed to trot out an endless procession of figures willing to express outrage that anyone would ever hint that the CIA might mislead a member of Congress. From conservatives' incredulous responses, you'd think Pelosi had suggested that little green Martians stole her briefing memos. Obviously, I wasn't in the room with Pelosi and whoever briefed her, but anyone with any recollection of history should be aware that it would hardly be unusual for the country's marquee intelligence agency to do something like that. Indeed, deception of Congress has been a common occurrence in the agency's history, and one former director, Richard Helms, was even convicted of lying to Congress.

None of which has anything in particular to do with a unique CIA penchant for dishonesty. Rather, the crux of the matter is that the CIA is typically a president's tool of choice when he wants to get someone to do something illegal. When you do something illegal, there's typically a need for a coverup, and with the coverup comes the deception.

And here's where the right's tactical acumen comes up short. Various conservative commentators have expressed their hope that gunning for Pelosi will blunt progressive calls for a "truth commission" to thoroughly investigate what really happened on Bush's trip to the "dark side". Fox's Neil Cavuto said we might be in a "Mexican standoff" wherein Pelosi would agree to drop the idea of investigations to prevent herself from attracting scrutiny. Steven Hayes, Dick Cheney's official biographer, said, "Democrats who have been so enthusiastic about truth commissions have to be stopping and saying, OK, wait a second." What conservatives are missing here is that this is a fight they were winning before they started gunning for Pelosi. Their best ally in this fight was Barack Obama, whose desire to "move forward" rather than focusing on the past had been the subject of much consternation. Had conservatives simply reached out to grab the hand that was being extended to them, they could have gotten what they wanted.

But in their zeal to score a tactical win, the right has made a truth commission more likely not less likely. Obama wanted to avoid a backward-looking focus on torture in part because it distracted from his legislative agenda. But if we're going to be looking backward anyway, thanks to conservatives' insistence on complaining about Pelosi, then the move forward strategy lacks a rationale. And far from forcing a standoff in which Pelosi will abandon her support for an investigation, the right has forced her into a corner from which she can't give in to moderate Democrats' opposition to such a move without looking like she's cravenly attempting to save her own skin.

There's no sign that Pelosi or anyone else is backing off the truth-commission idea. And, indeed, by suggesting that Pelosi could be a target of an investigation, conservatives have helped cleanse the idea of the odor of victor's justice. The question of CIA briefings of congressional leaders would, after all, be a legitimate subject of inquiry. And it's very possible that, done rigorously, Pelosi and other Democrats, such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), could wind up getting a black eye or two. But however bad an investigation might make the members of Congress who were supposed to be preventing illegal conduct look, the people actually doing the misdeeds are going to look even worse. Today, the congressional Republicans look extremely clever. But in a few months' time, we'll look back on this as yet another example of a conservative tactical victory that winds up backfiring. After all, selecting Sarah Palin looked brilliant for a week or two. And the anathematization of Obama's stimulus proposal seemed like an unexpected coup until it wound up pushing Arlen Specter into the arms of the Democrats. Gamesmanship, in short, can only get you so far. But conservatives sure are good at it.

. . . .What I get sick of in this country, since I have absolutely no use for either the Extreme Right Conservative movement or the Extreme Left, is the need we all somehow feel to reduce everything to a cartoonish caricature, with black hat wearing bad guys, and good guys. Nothing, especially in the governance of a country as large and complex as ours is black or white. There are a tremendous number of shades of gray, that's reality.

. . . .Krugman (who along with Roubinni are the only two economists left that I respect, since they are both loyal oppositionists and realists with the new Adminstration) in yesterdays' New York Times:

In a way, it was easy to take stands during the Bush years: the Bushies and their allies in Congress were so determined to move the nation in the wrong direction that one could, with a clear conscience, oppose all the administration’s initiatives.

Now, however, a somewhat uneasy coalition of progressives and centrists rules Washington, and staking out a position has become much trickier. Policy tends to move things in a desirable direction, yet to fall short of what you’d hoped to see. And the question becomes how many compromises, how much watering down, one is willing to accept.

There will be a lot of soul-searching later this year for advocates of health care reform. (For me the make-or-break issue is whether the legislation includes a public plan.) But right now it’s the environmental community that has to decide how much it’s willing to bend.

If we’re going to get real action on climate change any time soon, it will be via some version of legislation proposed by Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey. Their bill would limit greenhouse gases by requiring polluters to receive or buy emission permits, with the number of available permits — the “cap” in “cap and trade” — gradually falling over time.

It goes without saying that the usual suspects on the right have denounced Waxman-Markey: global warming isn’t real, emission limits will destroy the economy, yada yada. But the bill also faces opposition from some environmentalists, who are balking at the compromises the sponsors made to gain political support.

. . . .Outta here for now, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments before they slip through your hands, this rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one gets out alive, and we don't get to dictate terms and circumstances on how the ticket gets punched. It's not about yesterday or tomorrow, it's about right fucking here and now, this ain't no dress rehearsal.
Got your back out there in the night.

The Desolation Angel
[where: New Orleans, Louisiana]