Monday - Ghost Train just keeps on rollin'

Monday June 1, 2009

. . . .The question is never change, change is a constant in the universe. The question that I always have on a Monday like this one, is how much of a seismic shift can occur in only 24 hours?

. . .Right now, it's not an exaggeration to say that this country is on the precipice of total insanity. It's time for everyone to draw back, take a deep breath, calm down, say a prayer of your choosing, and think? Not react!

. . . .One note that I need to put in here up top. The yahoos and sharks at Gibson, Dunn, Crutcher in New York, the band of vampirish lawyers that the Right regularly uses to shut down columnists, bloggers and writers download this every morning. So, to keep everything legal, the music that you hear in the playlist and podcast is music that I've bought and the artist got paid for, it's for your enjoyment while you're reading, and not for download, which you couldn't do anyhow. Any opinions expressed here are strictly my own, and do not represent any other person or legal entity. All quotes that I use are linked and attributed to their original author and are set aside in block quotes. (Yes, guys, I have code programmed in that tells me when someone likes you download this, which by the way, if you're downloading the words, is protected by a Creative Commons copyright license).

. . . . .Right up top here I'm going to put a disclaimer, I put some reviews up the other day that Cody did of current music and graphic media/comics. He did put a strong recommendation in for the The Boys, but he reminded me today of something he didn't tell me. If The Boys was a television series, it'd be on cable, most likely HBO or Showtime, and definitely have a TV-MA rating for LSV; language, sexuality, and violence. So be forewarned, as opposed to offended.

. . . .There's going to be some changes going on down at Hawkwind and the Blue Star Times in terms of their web addresses, but they'll still be easily accessed to find out about their programs, and the wonderful work they do (being Charla, Tarwater, LuLu and crew). They're e-mailing folks as these changes wrought by AT&T occur, and I'll keep the addresses current here as well. Those links up above in the paragraph are good links, and you can check them out at the jump. These folks are good friends, and have been providing a safe place and not just teaching about, but living, sustainability for a long time down there, over 2 decades. They're all about personal transformation and healing, and they do deserve your support and good intent. The Rev. Charla has just started a new program centered around personal growth and transformation, replete with webinars, workbooks and bridge calls, check 'em out.
- Along with a shout-out to The Red Queen and Lulu and Tarwater in Chattanooga and the killer ink they do there.

. . . .The first step in healing is recognizing that there is a need for it. Not on an intellectual, or head basis, but down where you live, down inside.

. . . .Playlist in the podcast today is all singer/songwriters. Some you'll recognize, some you won't.

. . . .I'm hesistant to take on this first topic, but I will, and it needs to be taken on. I need to say this first and most prominently. I am not taking a position on abortion, nor will I. I am not qualified to. So let me repeat that, I am not taking a position on abortion. Though I may have an opinion, that's private. What I am taking on is yesterday's murder, in public, in church, of a doctor who performed abortions.
. . . .You can check below, you can check the archives. This type of action is exactly what I've been worried about in this country as the extreme Right has amped up the hyperbole and hysteria through their media mouthpieces and outlets. (More below on further insanity this morning).
. . . The extreme irony here is that the very same "violent action" that the Limbaugh/Hannity/O'Reilly/Savage/Beck/Malkin/Coulter brand of entertainer have been trying to stir people up about and get them worried about (refer to the Limbaugh/Beck/O'Reilly ongoing conversation about the Obama "master plan") is the type of insanity that has now been set in motion by Right wing extremists.
. . . One of the best reaction pieces that I've read this morning comes from Frank Schaeffer, a columnist, author and writer. His most recent book is Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived To Take All (or Almost All) Of It Back. He's the author of another forthcoming book; Patience with God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (Or Atheism).

My late father and I share the blame (with many others) for the murder of Dr. George Tiller the abortion doctor gunned down on Sunday. Until I got out of the religious right (in the mid-1980s) and repented of my former hate-filled rhetoric I was both a leader of the so-called pro-life movement and a part of a Republican Party hate machine masquerading as the moral conscience of America. . . . . .

. . . . .Like many writers of moral/political/religious theories my father and I would have been shocked that someone took us at our word, walked into a Lutheran Church and pulled the trigger on an abortionist. But even if the murderer never read Dad's or my words we helped create the climate that made this murder likely to happen. In fact that very thing has happened before. In 1994, Dr. John Bayard Britton and one of his volunteer escorts were shot and killed outside an abortion clinic in Pensacola, Florida. Paul Hill, a former minister, was convicted of the killings and executed in 2003. Paul Hill was an avid follower of my father's.
Hyperbole from the pulpit from religious leaders, be it from my father or from President Obama's former pastor the Rev. Wright, is par for the course. But once in a while someone "does something" about it and then everyone says that they were only speaking metaphorically or "spiritually" when they called for violence or for the overthrow the state or when they said things like "God damn America!" or that "abortionists are murderers like Hitler!". . . . . .

. . . . .Angry speech has become the norm in American religion from both the right and the left. Words are spoken which -- when taken seriously -- lead directly to violence by the unhinged and/or the truly committed.

When evangelicals on the right call President Obama a socialist, a racist, anti-American, an abortionist, not a real American, and, echoing the former Vice President, someone who is weakening America's defenses and making us less safe, the logical conclusion is violence. If you take these words literally you might pull the trigger to "make America safe" and/or free us from communism or to even protect us from -- what some "Christian" leaders claim -- Obama as the Antichrist.

The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as "murderers." And today once again the "pro-life" leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I'd like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for preforming abortions that I -- and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.
I am very sorry.

. . . .I want to make it clear, that upon examining and reading this piece, the author takes on both the Right and the Left and it's extremists. Both sides are increasingly at fault in the ever-escalating war of words that is going on right now between these two ends of the spectrum. Human nature being what it is, there are those at either end who will take what they see as "logical" action that is in "agreement" with whatever leader or media figure they choose to follow.
. . . I'm going to say it again. It's time for everyone to take a step back, take a deep breath, and then think! It is what differentiates us, the ability to think and make choices. Ultimately, it's all about choice, the choices each person makes every day that they walk on this Earth.

. . . .Cody attended the NINJA (Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction) concert last night. Full report on that tomorrow, but the most important thing. Opening act was Tom Morello and the Street Sweeper Social Club. I'm a big fan of Tom's and was a fan of his electric guitar work with Rage Against The Machine. Now, by combining his two loves, that being electric guitar and finding a kindred soul in political rapper Boots Riley, Tom can continue to fight the power and get young people politically involved in his ongoing effort towards social justice and support the organization he co-founded The Axis of Justice.

. . . .One of the bills I'm tracking right now over at Open Congress is H.R. 676 The United States National Health Care Act. Regardless of what else is going on in the world or the Nation, I believe that the President and the House and Senate will go after health care this year. For one, I'm for it, and don't give the Canadian argument, or the "I want my choices" argument. You don't have one now, it's completely decided by private insurers and boards of HMO's, in secret, and you have no say.

. . . .The other crippling blow to the United States economy, and especially the State of Michigan occurred this morning, as General Motors filed for bankruptcy. At one point in time, at a point when the United States led the world, GM could arguably have been called the bellweather for that. The old saying was "As General Motor goes, so goes the Nation". If that still holds true, the bumpiest part of this economic freefall is still ahead of us. There will be endless examinations by major news outlets of this, and especially being affected due to living at it's epicenter and having spent 4 years working for GM, I won't go into it today, but will start examining it's effects tomorrow. In the quest I've been on to get at the true root of what can now be arguably be called a Depression, yesterday's column by Paul Krugman in the New York Times does a credible job of tracing the true roots. In my own mind, the quantum singularity, the root cause of the current collapse can be traced back to that fateful day last September when Joseph Cassano's (of London's AIG financial investments office) insane gamble failed and the 5 major banks had bought into it (for further examination of that, read the archives of this column, or go online to RollingStone.com and check some of Matt Taibbi's pieces). Doing true Root Cause Analysis however, we need to go even further back and look at what allowed Cassano to play craps with, and lose, so much currency and punch a real-dollar $50 billion dollar hole in the fabric of the Universe. What were the conditions that nurtured this and set it up. Krugman argues that it's roots go back 30 years. I'm in agreement with him, not just because I've said over and over that the true problem lay with Reaganism, but because he's right, and adds further to that argument:

“This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years. It provides a long-term solution for troubled thrift institutions. ... All in all, I think we hit the jackpot.” So declared Ronald Reagan in 1982, as he signed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act. . . . .

. . . . He was, as it happened, wrong about solving the problems of the thrifts. On the contrary, the bill turned the modest-sized troubles of savings-and-loan institutions into an utter catastrophe. But he was right about the legislation’s significance. And as for that jackpot — well, it finally came more than 25 years later, in the form of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
For the more one looks into the origins of the current disaster, the clearer it becomes that the key wrong turn — the turn that made crisis inevitable — took place in the early 1980s, during the Reagan years.
Attacks on Reaganomics usually focus on rising inequality and fiscal irresponsibility. Indeed, Reagan ushered in an era in which a small minority grew vastly rich, while working families saw only meager gains. He also broke with longstanding rules of fiscal prudence.. . . . .

. . . . .We weren’t always a nation of big debts and low savings: in the 1970s Americans saved almost 10 percent of their income, slightly more than in the 1960s. It was only after the Reagan deregulation that thrift gradually disappeared from the American way of life, culminating in the near-zero savings rate that prevailed on the eve of the great crisis. Household debt was only 60 percent of income when Reagan took office, about the same as it was during the Kennedy administration. By 2007 it was up to 119 percent.
All this, we were assured, was a good thing: sure, Americans were piling up debt, and they weren’t putting aside any of their income, but their finances looked fine once you took into account the rising values of their houses and their stock portfolios. Oops.
Now, the proximate causes of today’s economic crisis lie in events that took place long after Reagan left office — in the global savings glut created by surpluses in China and elsewhere, and in the giant housing bubble that savings glut helped inflate.
But it was the explosion of debt over the previous quarter-century that made the U.S. economy so vulnerable. Overstretched borrowers were bound to start defaulting in large numbers once the housing bubble burst and unemployment began to rise.
These defaults in turn wreaked havoc with a financial system that — also mainly thanks to Reagan-era deregulation — took on too much risk with too little capital.
There’s plenty of blame to go around these days. But the prime villains behind the mess we’re in were Reagan and his circle of advisers — men who forgot the lessons of America’s last great financial crisis, and condemned the rest of us to repeat it.

. . . Further follow-up on the sage of Caleb's truck and the Upper Peninsula. Talked to Dave today:
Me: "Dave, it's me, Caleb's dad, about the truck. . . ."
Dave: "Oh yah. . . .got dat one in the shop now, should be done by tomorrow morning."
Me: "Tomorrow morning at 6 Dave? Because that's when he'd have to leave to make it down here in time for class."
Dave: "Yah. . .no, it won't be done by then, and I'd like to have it a few days to make sure it runs"
Me: "Caleb, get ready to rent a car and drive down here for class"

. . . .I actually like Pat Buchanan's comments yesterday about North Korea, missle launches and such. He said that he doubts that North Korea has intercontinental capability, and the best methodology is to ignore them and let Kim Jong Il "sit and stew until he's dead". I can go for that one.

. . . Still trying to get my head wrapped around this one, but I'll give credit where credit is due. Dick Cheney went on record today at a National Press Club luncheon and came out in support of gay marriage. Not it's not a misprint. Catch it here.


. . . Spring is sure slow to come this year, slow.
. . .. Can anyone tell me why my landlord had the fetish for ferns that she did? My backyard now looks like the set from Jurassic Park. That of course hides the fence that's painted to look like a back alley at the Renaissance Faire.

. . . Sticking with Wired for a while and their take on upgrading the efficiency of the national electric grid, the cheapest, fastest way to (a) reduce our dependence on foreign oil (b) make energy more efficient, thus (c) making it more economical and (d) in doing the physical work on the infrastructure, put more people back to work:

Problem Establishing local-scale power near end users ranks high on everyone's spec list for Grid 2.0. That's one reason Obama's stimulus plan contains a grant that will reimburse property owners for 30 percent of the cost of a solar energy system. But utilities—former monopolies, after all—are reluctant to give up control over their antique, accident-prone grid. And people with enough rooftop real estate to squeeze out serious juice balk at the hassle.

Solution Create a new class of energy service providers that act as middlemen between power companies and large commercial facilities with big rooftops. For instance, SunEdison builds and maintains solar plants on the rooftops of operations like Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, and Kohl's in eight states. It's a win-win arrangement: Electric companies get a trusted partner in power generation, and businesses get green energy at a fixed, competitive rate—without additional investment. The secret sauce isn't photovoltaic panels; it's the networking gear, sensors, and software that let a SunEdison control room in California manage hundreds of solar sites cost-effectively. And that means it's suited for scaling up. Says Mark Culpepper, a veteran of Cisco Systems who is now CTO of SunEdison: "Generating power anywhere you can fit a panel totally changes the dynamic of the energy market."

. . . .Just a random thought here, but the tradition of the conservative "base" being willing to go after anyone whom they think is a "liberal peace loving activist" that is upsetting their apple cart actually goes pretty far back - around 2,000 years. Start with Jesus for an example.

. . . .Outta here for the day today. Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. This rodeo is a one-way ticket, and no one gets out alive. We don't get to dictate the terms and circumstances of how the ticket gets punched, so it's not about yesterday or tomorrow. It's about right here, right now. This is not a dress rehearsal. Change yourself, change your own world and in so doing, change the world around you.

. . . Got your back, somewhere out there in the night.

The Desolation Angel
[where: Hell, Michigan 48137]
. . . .Have I mentioned lately how much I miss my dog? Or how much I love dogs?

. . . If you want to do the Sunday talk shows lite, here's your opportunity. Daily Beast has the 7 best moments from yesterday's Sunday talk shows.