"Now you will receive us. We do not ask for your poor or your hungry. We do not want your tired and sick. It is your corrupt we claim. It is your evil we claim. With every breath, we shall hunt them down."
Proudly descended from Irish-Scots-Welsh clans, I'm the son of Norman, who taught me my trade and gave me the company and the name to carry, so I can pass it to my son, who wants it and wants to carry it on. Norm was the son of Anthony, who was born of a Canadian Dakota and an Irishwoman and left home at 13 during the Depression to fend for himself in the world and did. On my Mother's side, descended from Gladys and Dennis, who was legendary, beginning with his birth, born in the hold of a ship at Ellis Island. These things I know, I've got a few friends and I'm damn lucky to have them. For your family, for those you love, you stand and you hold, no questions, no penalty or cost too great, you do what you have to do, not what's legal, or convenient, but you do what your soul knows is right.
New Dawn, New Day (and God, the coffee's good this morning!)
Saturday February 28, 2009
. . . . . Good Saturday morning to everyone! The addition of the podcast (embedded at the very bottom of the page, scroll down) has been fun this week. If you don't want to hear me, or the music, just scroll to the bottom, there's a narrow horizontal bar near the top of the podcaster with the words "Podbean.com" on it, there's three little green symbols on the left side, just click the one in the middle with the two horizontal bars, that'll pause the Podcast. If you'd like to turn it back on and let the music provide a soundtrack for your day, just click it a second time and it'll start to play again.
. . . . . .Today's movie magic moment brought to you courtesy of Mr. Clint Eastwood - "Hell is coming to breakfast" - Chief Dan George in The Outlaw Josey Wales
. . . . . .Right off the bat today, we go to the President's weekly address. He explains how the budget he sent to Congress will fulfill the promises he made as a candidate, and lets special interests know that he's ready for a fight. He basically lets lobbyists know that he's ready and asks them to bring it on.
. . . . .In the other momentous news (beyond Tuesday's address to a joint session of Congress and the American People, and the budget he sent to Congress on Thursday) he announced his plan for a drawdown of troops in Iraq to a level of 50,000 by August 2010. . . . . .The interesting part on this one is the inverse partisan reaction to the plan. President Obama basically let the Democrats know that he's not going to just trot along party lines no matter what. This plan has been hailed already by Republicans, with the majority of the support being led by John McCain. The plan is not being readily hailed by the Dems, and House Speaker Pelosi is especially trepidatious. . . . . . .Only 44 people in history have ever sat in the President's chair. We can't know everything he knows, and shouldn't. I'm sure that the Intelligence briefings that he received in the transition week altered some of his outlook and perspectives, and let him know what essentially the real deal is overseas and in the Mideast.
. . . . . .Another one I found fascinating this week is the reaction of the Jewish community world-wide to Hillary Clinton's message on Israel. I said it before, she is nobody to screw with, and I knew that she would be the person to take on Israel and let them know that they are a member of the World community, and needed to behave themselves. The Palestinians have a right to exist and a right to a homeland too. We forget that in 1948, the U.N., with Britain and the U.S. leading the charge showed up and basically told the Palestinians "get out". We didn't seem to care that it had been their homeland for 3,000 years and treated them the same way we've treated every other indigenous native person, no matter where our ethnocentric, Euro-American butts have been.
. . . . .Bobby Jindal still hasn't apologized to Kenneth the Page.
. . . . .I work in New Orleans, Bobby Jindal made that entire damn story up. He wasn't anywhere near the city during the hurricane or the 5 days after.
. . . . .Stephen Colbert has challenged Michael Steele, the new Republican National Committee chair to a freestyle rap battle. No shit, really he has. . . . . . My money's on Colbert
. . . . . .While on that one, my favorite ultra-right wing conservative nutbag, Michelle Bachman, U.S. Representative from Anoka, Minnesota at the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Committee) meetings this week looked at Michael Steele, on the open floor, on an open mike and proclaimed "you be da man". Talk about fuckin' clueless!
. . . . .Some important links for you to mark in your "Favorites" and "Bookmarks" - The White house website itself, White House.gov - The page where the White House give transparency to the stimulus package, Recovery.gov - The page where Timothy Geither is tracking bailout funds, Financial Stability.gov - One of my personal favorites, Bailout Sleuth.com. This guy tracks every penny and where it's spent, whether they want him to or not.
. . . . .Some other important links to consider in these tough times: - 12 million kids go to bed hungry every night in this country. Share Our Strength.org makes ending childhood hunger their mission. - Our vets have given it their all, and many of them leave significant pieces of themselves behind. The Wounded Warrior Project makes it their mission to go beyond the VA and help severely wounded, severely traumatized veterans, those who've lost limbs, suffered massive head injuries, suffered third degree burns over much of their body, back in their transition to mainstream society. Give them a click and see what you can do to help.
. . . . .U2's new album comes out Monday. As with Bruce Springsteen's new one, I've read the reviews before it came out, and it sounds interesting. Why do reviewers want the same old, same old? I happen to believe that in the case of both bands, their heavily produced, anthemic sounding work is their best. In Bruce's case, he captures our hopes, our dreams, and has written the entire arc of what it means to be an over-50 baby boomer, from his earliest work on, chronicling that story. In U2's case, they capture our hope, our faith and our soul. Sorry critics, but these two pieces of work will remain, for me, two of the best of this decade.
. . . . .More cultural TV boogaloo, Holly Hunter in Saving Grace comes back on TNT on Monday, if you haven't caught this one, don't miss it. It's exceptional. Holly's character, her raw humanity, her conversations with angels, her occasional drunkeness, her needy promiscuity to connect with another human being, her ability as a detective to feel the victim's hurt, pain and anguish is a very real performance and well-imagined.
. . . . .I was watching Battlestar Galactica last night, and wondering afterwards to myself just how many people have missed out on this one, due to their own prejudice against "sci-fi". It ain't science fiction folks, never was, and it definitely wasn't a remake of the original. It's as if the writers studied the underpinnings of every religion and spiritual thought system in the history of the Earth; i.e. Christianity, Greek and Roman pantheism, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, every damn indigenous tradition going and decided to make those the backdrop for a stunning video essay on the nature of what it means to be human, what it means to make choices, what it means to have faith, what it means to feel and what it means to question who you are and where you came from. If you haven't watched it up until now, watching the final 3 episodes will do you no good. Just go ahead, rent it at your video store from Season 1 on, and go for it.
. . . . .And finally, (you'd have to live up in the Great Lakes or in the Northeast to get this one)
You know you have had enough of winter when -
. . . . .Outta here, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments with an open hand and change your world, and in so doing, change the world around you.
. . . . It's the end of another long hard week and today, it's going to be all contributor day. . . . . .Huge week, momentous week. The President's address on Tuesday, the budget roll-out on Thursday, and now Friday, CitiBank is Nationalized, the U.S. now owns a controlling portion of it.
. . . . . Earlier this week, I was sick, a good friend of mine Gary, sent along the following video clip, wherein the mayor of Lansing, MI absolutely takes a Fox News anchor apart. Given, I hate Fox News and their slant, but this was a well-deserved take-off and hilarious to boot.
. . . . .Gary followed it up with this reaction:
I liked it when the mayor pointed out that instead of insisting that 3rd world countries raise their standards closer to ours we are asking our workers to give up the decent standard of living they deserve and turn our country into a 3rd world work environment. Seek their level to benefit the stockholders and create huge profits for the CEO's and owners. Our country cannot continue to seek the lowest common denominator and reduce workers to poor people with no healthcare and no security and no ability to support the economy. These actions of corporations effectively eliminate the middle class the US created by paying fair wages and decent benefits to workers so their families could participate in the economy, put their children in school and consume at a level that supports the people at all levels and 'classes". Nothing wrong with some tariffs and a bit of regulation. How can people be so short-sighted? The Tri-lateral Commission concepts of the world order can no longer hold true.
. . . . . Yesterday, LuLu sent this along to me:
Kip...check this out man....this is REAL! and the statistics in our head line news say that 1,236 is the number of active duty military personnel who have committed suicide (1/03 to 12/08), 3,398 military personnel killed in Iraq (3/03 to 1/09), 400 military personnel killed in Afghanistan (1/03 to 1/09)...something just ain't right here man...we are killing our guys....some ghosts that haunt are bigger than anything we could imagine....I cry for them, I pray for them..it is what I was knowing we were doing to them....just another useless war.
Indianz.Com, New Report , Indianz.Com, Posted: Feb 19, 2009
President Barack Obama will sign the national economic recovery bill that includes $2.5 billion in stimulus funds for Indian Country.
Congress finalized the bill on Friday after cutting some of the funds from the massive package. But most of the money for Indian health, education, water, transportation and other projects remained intact.
"It is important that we honor the government-to-government relationship with Indian tribes in this bill and that the funds intended for reservation economies be provided directly to Indian tribes so that they may begin to address their dire economic conditions," said Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Michigan), the co-chairman of the Congressional Native American Caucus.
In addition to the $2.5 billion, the legislation includes provisions to expand tax bonding authority for tribes. Supporters said it would spur $2.2 billion in economic development and construction on reservations.
"This funding will go a long way toward providing jobs to Native communities while addressing the most basic and pressing health care, infrastructure, housing, education and safety needs," said. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-West Virginia), the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over Indian issues.
With Obama set to sign the bill at an event in Denver, Colorado, on Tuesday, tribes and their advocates are poring over the package to find out how they will benefit. Two blogs run by Indian law practitioners -- Turtle Talk and American Indian Policy -- provide the most detailed information about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Based on the blogs and information provided by Congressional Democrats, the bill contains the following amounts: HEALTH CARE • Indian Health Facilities – $415 million • New construction - $227 million • Maintenance and improvements - $100 million • Sanitation Facilities - $68 million • Medical Equipment - $20 million • Indian Health Services - Health Information Technology - $85 million BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS • BIA Office of Indian Programs - $40 million (housing improvement and workforce & training) • BIA Construction - $450 million (schools, roads repair, jails, irrigation, dams) PUBLIC SAFETY AND JUSTICE • Department of Justice Grants (DOJ) - Indian Jails construction - $225 million (coordinate with BIA, consider violent crime rates and detention space needs) • DOJ Community Oriented Policing Services – tribes eligible to compete - $1 billion program • DOJ Violence Against Women Prosecution Grants - $22.5 million (result of a 10% tribal set-aside) TRIBAL ROADS AND BRIDGES • Indian Reservation Roads (DOT) – $310 million • Tribal Transit Set-Aside (DOT) – $17.25 million INDIAN HOUSING • Indian Housing block grants (HUD) – $510 million (conference note to use funding to rehabilitate and improve energy efficiency in houses maintained by Native American housing programs) EDUCATION • Head Start - $10 million (tribal set-aside) • Early Head Start - tribes eligible for a portion of the $1.1 billion program • Special Education (IDEA) – tribes eligible for a portion of the $12.2 billion program • Impact Aid – language urges targeted funding to military and Indian reservations from the $100 million program ENERGY AND WATER • Bureau of Reclamation Tribal Water Projects – $60 million for water intake and treatment facilities • Safe Drinking and Clean Water Revolving Funds – $120 million (permissive set-aside) • Tribal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Black Grants - $56 million (result of a 2% tribal set-aside) • Weatherization Assistance Program – tribes are eligible to compete for competitive grants under the $5 billion program OTHER PROGRAMS • Indian Reservation Food Distribution (USDA) – $5 million • Native Elder Nutrition (DHHS) - $3 million (Older Americans Act, Title IV) • BIA Indian Loan Guarantee Program - $10 million • Tribal Community Development Financial Institutions (Treasury) – $10 million BONDING AUTHORITY FOR TRIBAL GOVERNMENTS • Tribal economic development tax-exempt bonds - $2 billion in bonding authority • Qualified Indian school construction bonds - $400 million in bonding authority OTHER • Bill language permits Indian Tribes to contract and compact to build projects and create reservation jobs pursuant to the Indian Self-Determination and Self-Governance Acts • Includes $5 billion for the Emergency Contingency Fund for State Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Tribes are treated as states in this section of the bill • The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall include a representative of a national urban Indian health organization and a representative of the Indian Health Service on the Tribal Advocacy Group within the Centers of Medicaid and Medicare Services • Tribes are eligible for the broadband technology opportunities program at the Department of Commerce
. . . . . . .Three groups near and dear to the Angel's heart: The working stiffs, veterans and First Nations people. Now let's start taking care of them the way they deserve. Enjoy your Friday. Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments with an open hand, and change your world, and in so doing change the world around you.
. . . . . .Today's Green tip: Turn off your dryer and line dry your clothes, it'll save tons on your electric bill and help the planet.
. . . . .Wooaahh! Radical new changes today in the Angel's rants and raves. The podcast is now embedded in the website as well. What this means for you is that those of you who have had problems with the flash player that embedded one song at a time, will experience those problems NO LONGER! The podcast, which is embedded all the way down at the bottom of the page, is a direct draw from the Nomad's musical archives. This means that you'll be listening to music drawn straight from my library, things you probably haven't heard, but should be listening to. It also is completely controllable, so during the videos, you can scroll down, push the little green "pause" button in between the two green arrows, and then play it later. I recommend leaving the webpage up, and give yourself a little soundtrack during work, or at home. Tomorrow? You'll begin to get commentary as I get the audio and MP3 mixer program working and up. Hah! The podcast is courtesy of Podbean, these folks make it really easy to get your own podcasts up and running.
. . . . . .For those of you who do live part of your time over in the Twitterverse, LeWar between Levar Burton and Michael Ian Black is over, the truce negotiated between them over tea and crumpets. They plan on joining forces and advancing on that poor sap, Wil Wheaton. . . . . . I can always be found on Twitter at @kip_williams . . . . . From Twitter this AM, George Stephanopolous reports that right now, CIA Director Panetta is preparing a daily report for President Obama on the economic (banks/housing/jobs/credit markets) crisis, that's how serious it is.
. . . . . .As this country begins to redefine and reimagine itself, as it finds it's soul and it's center again and we start to shed ourselves of the detritus and flotsam that gathered on the edges of our collective national soul, some interesting things are beginning to take shape as the dragon that gripped our heart starts to lose it's grasp.
. . . . . .Rush Limbaugh is convening a "female summit" to figure out why women don't like him, Think Progress is reporting this morning. . . . . . .But then, it could be extraordinarily simple. Think Progress reports further that Republican Governor Sanford of South Carolina simply implied that dear ol' Rush is an "idiot" for wanting President Obama to fail!
. . . . . .Along the same lines, the response to Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's rebuttal of the President's Address on Tuesday night has been absolutely brutal: - Even Fox News, that bastion of conservative, Republican, Right wing thought and support:
BRIT HUME: "The speech read a lot better than it sounded. This was not Bobby Jindal's greatest oratorical moment."
NINA EASTON: "The delivery was not exactly terrific."
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: "Jindal didn't have a chance. He follows Obama, who in making speeches, is in a league of his own. He's in a Reagan-esque league. ... [Jindal] tried the best he could."
JUAN WILLIAMS: "It came off as amateurish, and even the tempo in which he spoke was sing-songy. He was telling stories that seemed very simplistic and almost childish.
. . . . . . .David Brooks, the conservative columnist for the New York Times absolutely slammed Jindal and the rebuttal, calling it "nihilism" -
BROOKS: Not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I opposed the stimulus package - I thought it was poorly drafted - but to come up at this moment in history with a stale, "government is the problem...we can't trust the government"...it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic, now. They may not like the way the Congress passed the stimulus bill. The idea that government is going to have no role in this...in a moment where only the Federal government is big enough to do stuff...to just ignore all that and say government's the problem...corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending - it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate: some people say the Republican party lost its way because it got too moderate, some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and he's making that case. I think it's insane. I think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.
. . . . .And of course for those of you who watched it on MSNBC, Chris Matthews uttering "Oh God" as Jindal walked into camera range was a priceless, live TV moment that will live forever. Link here.
. . . . . .And finally, Kenneth the Page from "30 Rock" reacted to the accusations of being compared to Bobby Jindal, it's raw, emotional, sad and important for you to see -
. . . . . .Again, the GOP and the extreme Right wing still don't get what last November wasn't about. It was just as much about change in this country, about wanting to move things in a different direction as it was about electing Obama. It was about moving us away from the 8 years of neo-conservative ultra-right wing exclusion, hate, separation and imperialism. It was about having hope and faith again. And they still don't get it! First they run Sarah Palin at us, now Bobby Jindal, who up until Tuesday was supposedly the new hope of the Republican Party? Come on guys, you still don't get it! Off to detention for you!
. . . . .Still more reaction rolling in last night and today centered around the President's speech on Tuesday night - - Jim Wallis, who is the editor-in-chief of Sojourners, a great blog author at www.godspolitics.com, and one of the true progressives who understands the place of God and faith in progressive liberalism -
This wasn't really a budget speech, or even a State of the Union. It was a call to rebuild a country -- from its infrastructure, to its economy, to its values. Last night, Barack Obama called a new generation to a new American future. And from the "twittering" and Facebook status updates I am aware of going on last night, the new generation stayed up late to watch and got the speech they wanted--a vision for the new America they hope to raise their children in.
- Former Sen. Gary Hart, at this one here, has this to say.
Now, in a new time of national peril, rather than considering it a luxury, we need to see national service as a necessity for the rallying of the national community behind our common good and our common goals. No single step would revitalize our fearful national spirit more than a new era of civic republicanism
- Robert Creamer, an activist, author and strategist, in this one here, says this:
Last night Barack Obama spoke to Americans as adults. He told America that responsibility for others is not just a stupid value for chumps -- but the definition of begin a grown-up. He told us that the era of "where's mine" -- where success is defined by seven-figures salaries and five-thousand dollar designer suits -- is over. He challenged America to once again take charge of our futures and fulfill our potential -- to invest in future generations. And he pledged to lead us there.
. . . . .The next economic domino to fall? The credit card markets, where many Americans are now reaching to in order to make minimum payments on mortgages, gas, heat and lights - - Arianna Huffington on it here, Senator Robert Menendez on it here.
. . . . . . .Robert Borosage, one of the current leading progressive thinkers and president of the Institute for America's Future, had this to say about the fundamental shift in American thinking about governance shown in Tuesday night's speech -
But the president demonstrated clearly once more that he is a leader who can educate and inspire Americans. And he uses that mastery to make the case for a progressive and active government investing in our future. No longer will the president scorn the government that he leads.
. . . . .Today's mini-controversy? The introduction of the budget, wherein the President will announce higher taxes on those who make $250,000 a year or more to fund the basics of universal health care. This ain't no controversy, I've never made $250,000 in a year of my life and never will, and as an independent contractor and consultant who pays his own medical bills, the whole shot, give me health care and make those who've been having it easy start to pay some of their own fair share.
. . . . .Tomorrow, we'll go back after energy efficiency and what you can do at home to lower your own energy bill, and help the future generations and keep coming back later this week for more links to help those around you in need. . . . . . .Today, I"m going back into the vaults for more video of those great rock and rollers now playing in the great greasy blue joint in the sky and serenading us from there, just scroll down and turn the podcast to pause while it plays, and then turn the podcast back on and enjoy the music! Today, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins & Eric Clapton from Johnny's TV show in the 70's playing "Matchbox". Enjoy
. . . . .Outta here for now, will update throughout the day. Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments with an open hand and change your world, and in so doing, change the world around you.
. . . . .I put it up top because I think it's that important and resonated that strongly. It can be found at White House.gov, as can the following.
. . . .Key excerpts: -
While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.
"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.
We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.
Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.
Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that’s what I’d like to talk to you about tonight.
The recovery plan and the financial stability plan are the immediate steps we’re taking to revive our economy in the short-term. But the only way to fully restore America’s economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world. The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care; the schools that aren’t preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit. That is our responsibility.
In the next few days, I will submit a budget to Congress. So often, we have come to view these documents as simply numbers on a page or laundry lists of programs. I see this document differently. I see it as a vision for America – as a blueprint for our future.
My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we’ve inherited – a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.
Given these realities, everyone in this chamber – Democrats and Republicans – will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars. And that includes me.
But that does not mean we can afford to ignore our long-term challenges. I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves; that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity.
Yesterday, I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time. But we’re starting with the biggest lines. We have already identified two trillion dollars in savings over the next decade.
In this budget, we will end education programs that don’t work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them. We’ll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use. We will root out the waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.
I know that we haven’t agreed on every issue thus far, and there are surely times in the future when we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed. That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months, and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground.
. . . . .Between that and the brilliant performance by Fed Chairman Bernanke in front of Congress yesterday, there really is a little bit of hope this morning.
. . . . .I am in absolute disbelief at two things still: (1) The number of people I run across who want the President to fail. If President Obama fails, we all fail. This is truly a "live together or die alone" moment for this country. We are all citizens of this Republic, members of the body politic of the great American experiment. Abandoning the President at a moment of crisis, or because there is somehow a twisted belief that he isn't looking out for ours and the country's best interests is tantamount to treason in my mind. Disagreement, yes, perfectly acceptable, and necessary in a democracy to grow it. Outright working and hoping for the failure of the Commander-in-chief at this, one of our country's darkest hours, is not acceptable. We must all pull together on the same oar on this one. (2) The number of people who still don't get it that the banking/financial/housing/job crisis is the linchpin on which this whole thing succeeds or fails. I've heard everything from "I don't understand it" to "It's just numbers" to "It's not important, it's only an illusion." WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!!! There can be no help for schooling and education, no rebuilding of the infrastructure, no help for the homeless, the hungry, no advancement in scientific research and technology, and most importantly, no funding for green research into answers for climate change without some solid underpinnings in the currency, banking and financial markets.
. . . . .Which leads me to two things. I am soooo glad that he gave a history lesson last night at the beginning of the address on the history of the current financial/banking/credit crisis so everyone can begin to understand how important it really is, and can begin to understand the paramount importance of fixing it. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama was on Morning Joe this AM and instead of being the loyal GOP opposition, mirrored the first 10 minutes of that speech as well, talking about how important fixing the banking system is as a first priority. The other thing is the message of responsibility and accountability delivered last night to Congress, and more importantly, to the citizenry of this Nation.
. . . . .Yes, barter and trade work on a local, micro scale. But to have the entire system collapse at once would harm or kill far too many people, innocent people who are already on the razor's edge, and it would only push them over the edge.
. . . . .If Bobby Jindal is the best that the GOP can deliver as the response, it was weak. Bobby don't bring that crap to that ball court, that's a game of true street ball being played there and don't bring that weak shit. My good friend Gary reminded me this morning, as has most of the Twitter and Facebook world, that Governor Bobby Jindal's response most closely resembled some quality time spent with Kenneth the Page from "30 Rock".
. . . . .If you didn't catch Rahm Emmanuel on NBC on the post-address show, you missed it period. I love him, it's like having a TV character that close to the President.
. . . . .I'll update throughout the day as more reaction rolls in. Outta here for the moment, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments with an open hand, change your world and in so doing change the world around you.
. . . . .Kudos right off the bat to last night's Oscar win for Sean Penn, one of my favorite actors, who is never afraid to take a risky part, and who is fearless and courageous about being his own man. Absolutely loved his acceptance speech, and yes he laid a gauntlet down:
"You commie homo-loving sons of guns," the sometimes truculent actor began, to laughter. "I did not expect this, and I wanted to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me often. But I am touched by the appreciation." Watch Sean Penn talk about his win »
After a series of thank-yous, he turned serious in talking about gay marriage. "For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think it's a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect on their great shame and their shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that support," Penn said. "We've got to have equal rights for everyone."
. . . . .The fact that we have to talk, in this country, in 2009, about human rights (I refuse to use the words "civil" or "equal" anymore, it's about basic human rights) for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, for my brothers and sisters who are a race other than Caucasian is absolutely sickening. This was a country founded on equal rights for everyone, and I truly believe that the Founding Fathers meant everyone. They were brilliant enough to know the times they lived in, but knew that over the centuries, that those rights, that society would grow to encompass everyone. I live all over the country, I call Michigan, Alabama, Louisiana, the road and out to sea "home", but if there is anything that I can do to support a repeal of Prop. 8 in California, I will.
. . . . .And while I'm at it, congrats to the Academy for recognizing "Slumdog Millionaire". We've been far too egocentric and ethnocentric in this country for too long. If we truly believe in "one world, one people", then we need to start recognizing what exists outside our own borders. The Indian continent and nation is home to more people than the population of the U.S., and it's one of our major economic trading partners. We need to begin to understand cultures other than our own.
. . . . . And while on that topic of cultures, Barbara Vitale sends this along for an update this morning on Michelle Obama, and relationships with the Interior Dept. and First Nations here in this country.
First Lady Michelle Obama models a handmade shawl she received from Director of Public Affairs for the Bureau of Indian Affairs Nedra Darling. (Photo: Lawrence Jackson/Associated Press)
First Lady Michelle Obama continued her getting-to-know Washington tour on Monday with a visit to the Department of the Interior where she announced that President Obama would soon appoint a White House policy adviser dedicated to tribal issues such as sovereignty, health care and education. Mrs. Obama said the new policy adviser – whose name is expected be announced in a few weeks — would focus on “the well-being of Native American families and the prosperity of tribes all across this country.” “For those of you focused on meeting the federal governments obligations to the Native Americans, understand that you have a wonderful partner in the White House right now,” she said. This was Mrs. Obama’s third speech before a crowd of federal employees. Mrs. Obama has promised to visit all of the cabinet-level agencies to thank employees for their service and to listen to their concerns. Last week, she visited the Departments of Housing and Education. On Monday, she again pitched the president’s economic stimulus plan as she did during her agency visits last week. “At a time when so many Americans are out of work, sound energy and environmental policies are going to help create thousands of jobs through the economic recovery and reinvestment plan that Barack is out there promoting today,’’ Mrs. Obama said. The first lady was greeted by hundreds of workers, celebrated with a traditional Native American “Honor Song” and wrapped in a bright lavender shawl. Nedra Darling, a spokeswoman for the office of the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs and a member of the Pottawatomie tribe, draped the shawl over Mrs. Obama’s shoulders. “It’s a hard place to live and work,” Ms. Darling said of Washington. The song and shawl “will provide her strength and courage and duration through her tenure and beyond,” Ms. Darling said.
Ron S. Lee
Native Policy Group
1955 W. Baseline Rd, Ste. 113-190
Mesa, AZ 85202
Cell: (602) 319-4419
. . . . .No lesser a conservative light than George Will yesterday joined the chorus of people who are now talking "nationalization" of banks. Citi bank today will sit down with the Feds and talk about the government buying up a 40% stake in troubled bank, Politico reports this morning.
. . . . . .Just a few moments ago, President Obama addressed the National Governor's Association. Pretty sobering. Jist of the message - "You're not free to spend the stimulus money any old way you want to." Later on this afternoon, the Fiscal Responsibility Summit convenes at the White House, bringing together both supporters and adversaries in an effort to find common-ground solutions to the burgeoning deficit. Story here.
. . . . .Yes, for those concerned about that complete lack of oversight from Paulson and Bush on the first portion of financial bailout money, there is going to be a stimulus package "sherriff", someone in charge of oversight. He's a retired Secret Service agent who was the one who exposed Jack Abramoff:
President Barack Obama plans to announce Monday a former Secret Service agent who helped expose lobbyists' corruption at the Interior Department as his pick to oversee the $787 billion economic stimulus plan.
Obama is set to name Earl Devaney as chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, an administration official said Sunday. Vice President Joe Biden also will be given a role coordinating oversight of stimulus spending.
Rest of the story here. Sunday February 22, 2009 (laid out solid with this same upper respiratory thing everyone one else has).
. . . . .Today's music - The Day John Henry Died from The Drive-By Trucker's Dirty SouthCD. Give the link a click here, and check out their tour dates, latest news and all the rest. Patterson Hood and the band do some good work, and are some of the more interesting characters on the scene today, give them a look.
. . . . . .Of course, tonight is Oscar night, and today's movie magic moment comes from one of the finest movies of all time, in my humble opinion, Forrest Gump - "And cause I was a gazillionaire, and I liked doin it so much, I cut that grass for free"
. . . . . .Right off, as always at the start of the week, let's put Saturday's weekly Presidential video address up, this week he announced that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will start having an impact in only a few weeks, as the broadest and most sweeping tax cuts in history come into play:
. . . .The two important takeaways from this week's address, if you don't want to watch the whole video are:
#1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will start having an impact as soon as a few weeks from now, in the form of the quickest and broadest tax cut in history:
"Because of what we did, 95% of all working families will get a tax cut -- in keeping with a promise I made on the campaign. And I’m pleased to announce that this morning, the Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks -- meaning that by April 1st, a typical family will begin taking home at least $65 more every month. Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hardworking Americans."
#2, once the economy has recovered and we’ve laid the groundwork for a sustainable future, the President is committed to taking on the massive deficits we inherited:
"That work begins on Monday, when I will convene a fiscal summit of independent experts and unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress to discuss how we can cut the trillion-dollar deficit that we’ve inherited. On Tuesday, I will speak to the nation about our urgent national priorities, and on Thursday, I’ll release a budget that’s sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and that lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline."
. . . .Mike Allen over at Politico.com this morning reports that in answer to stimulus package critics, the President, on Thursday will reveal a budget plan that is designed and intended to cut the national deficit in half by the end of his first term.
. . . . .For those that missed it, Gov. Arnold Scharwzenegger on both ABC's This Week with George Stephanolous and on CNN's State of the Union said that he would take any stimulus package monies refused by his Republican Governor cohorts (as Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Lousiana have both threatened to do.) Governor Schwarzenegger calls the stimulus package "terrific". If you want to watch for yourself, the link to the video itself is here.
. . . . .I beat the drum, constantly, to excess, about the link between the current global financial crisis and the #1 lurking problem, climate change. Lord Nicholas Stern, the former chief economist of the World Bank, released a sobering report over the weekend at a conference in South Africa, where several of the world's leading economists and climate change experts were due to travel to Antarctica. He paints a dire picture, if something isn't done, and quickly, that by 2050, the world faces mass migrations and wars of land, food and water. Read the full report here.
"It would "transform where people can live," Stern said. "People would move on a massive scale. Hundreds of millions, probably billions of people would have to move if you talk about 4-, 5-, 6-degree increases" _ 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. And that would mean extended global conflict, "because there's no way the world can handle that kind of population move in the time period in which it would take place."
. . . . .In the New York Times this morning, Frank Rich tackles the problem that we seem to have on a national level, of complete denial of any problems:
"No one knows, of course, but a bigger question may be whether we really want to know. One of the most persistent cultural tics of the early 21st century is Americans’ reluctance to absorb, let alone prepare for, bad news. We are plugged into more information sources than anyone could have imagined even 15 years ago. The cruel ambush of 9/11 supposedly “changed everything,” slapping us back to reality. Yet we are constantly shocked, shocked by the foreseeable. Obama’s toughest political problem may not be coping with the increasingly marginalized G.O.P. but with an America-in-denial that must hear warning signs repeatedly, for months and sometimes years, before believing the wolf is actually at the door.
This cultural pattern of denial is hardly limited to the economic crisis. Anyone with eyes could have seen that Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire resembled Macy’s parade balloons in their 1998 home-run derby, but it took years for many fans (not to mention Major League Baseball) to accept the sorry truth. It wasn’t until the Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame saga caught fire in summer 2003, months after “Mission Accomplished,” that we began to confront the reality that we had gone to war in Iraq over imaginary W.M.D. Weapons inspectors and even some journalists (especially at Knight-Ridder newspapers) had been telling us exactly that for almost a year.
The writer Mark Danner, who early on chronicled the Bush administration’s practice of torture for The New York Review of Books, reminded me last week that that story first began to emerge in December 2002. That’s when The Washington Post reported on the “stress and duress” tactics used to interrogate terrorism suspects. But while similar reports followed, the notion that torture was official American policy didn’t start to sink in until after the Abu Ghraib photos emerged in April 2004. Torture wasn’t routinely called “torture” in Beltway debate until late 2005, when John McCain began to press for legislation banning it.
Steroids, torture, lies from the White House, civil war in Iraq, even recession: that’s just a partial glossary of the bad-news vocabulary that some of the country, sometimes in tandem with a passive news media, resisted for months on end before bowing to the obvious or the inevitable. “The needle,” as Danner put it, gets “stuck in the groove.”
. . . . .Over at the Daily Beast, Mark Miller points out another peculiarly American cultural phenomenom that seems about to end, that of "American capitalism being a meritorcracy where people wind up where they deserve to be". -
"At about this point in the resentment-anger-outrage cycle, a quieter question naturally occurs. What if this is the way of the world, and that stuff about capitalism being a meritocracy was always baloney? And what if to fix our economy right now we actually have to get over the idea that people end up where they deserve to? Admitting that “merit” is less connected to economic destiny in an age of crisis and globalization can liberate us from old bromides and inspire fresh approaches to assuring opportunity and security in a global era.. . . . . . . . . .In the United States, this harsh philosophy of Social Darwinism eventually yielded to a subtler, more pervasive and institutionally administered belief in meritocracy, via the rise of intelligence testing, the SAT, and the all-consuming college admissions craze. Over time, it became an article of faith that those with “merit” in these narrow terms would deservedly enjoy the best of society’s material rewards."
. . . . .I don't want to go any further today, without providing the links to Recovery.gov, the site put up by the White House where you can track stimulus package spending. . . . . I also want to put the link in here to FinancialStability.gov, Treasury Secretary's Geithner's site that is designed to allow to track bailout monies, which is overdue in being fully up and functioning. . . . . .So, I'm also providing the link to White House.gov, so you can contact Geithner directly, (scroll to the bottom of the page and go to the Treasury post) and ask him when the site will be fully functioning. . . . . .And don't forget to keep Congress.org bookmarked in your "Favorites" so you can contact, track and communicate with your Representative and Senators, and track what bills they'll be voting on.
. . . . . .We talk so much about the financial crisis, stimulus, bailout, nationalization of banks, etc. that it sometimes is easy to lose sight of just exactly what is happening and why it's happening, and why it's important. David Fiderer put together a brilliant little precis as to what happened, in order, to lead us to this point:
"CNBC's David Faber confirmed that the problems all occurred during the Bush Administration. "There was a precipitous drop in [residential mortgage] lending standards that took place in this country... from 2003 until 2006," Faber told Charlie Rose. "Wall Street [] became a much larger player in those securitization markets, beginning in 2003 right through 2006. They did not apply the same lending standards that did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to originators, and that is where the balance shifted significantly..."
Why was there a drop in lending standards? Several reasons:
The rating agencies stopped performing independent analysis of mortgage pools. In March 2001, Standard & Poor's started rating real state investments without first going through the analytic review process. As reported by Bloomberg, S&P and Moody's would rely on each other's analysis and "substituted theoretical mathematic assumptions for the experience and judgment of their own analysts. Regulators found that Moody's and S&P also didn't have enough people and didn't adequately monitor the thousands of fixed-income securities they were grading AAA."
Then, in August 2004, reports Bloomberg, Moody's took another step to subvert the independent ratings process. It removed the diversification criteria used for rating collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. Subprime mortgage CDOs, of which about 3/4 were rated AAA, took off.
The investment community's reliance on AAA ratings cannot be overestimated. Although bankers and regulators are obligated to do independent analyses, they still tend to reference the agencies' opinions as a benchmark. Trillions of dollars of AAA securities were held by banks and others in the belief that they would pay out at close to par.
In 2003 the Bush Administration opened the floodgates to predatory lenders.
"Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye...[though] the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
"In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules...But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks." "Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime," By Eliot Spitzer, The Washington Post, February 14, 2008
As for unregulated mortgage lenders, Greenspan ignored his duty to provide regulatory oversight. In the aftermath of the S&L crisis, unregulated lenders were becoming a major force in mortgage lending, so in 1994 the Democratic congress passed the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) directing the Federal Reserve protect the public against predatory lenders. Greenspan, warned repeatedly about the problem, refused to do anything.
How did the drop in lending standards play out?
Fraud and predatory lending took off. The primary participants of the fraud, the mortgage brokers and mortgage lenders, were not subject to any real regulatory oversight. Consumers went to mortgage brokers, who got bigger upfront fees from steering their customers to subprime mortgages. The loans were issued by mortgage lenders like Countrywide Financial, which then packaged and sold the loans to investment banks. Because there were no protections against predatory lending, consumers got mortgage loans that they could not afford to repay. Loans had teaser rates of 3% for the first two or three years, before the monthly payments doubled or tripled.
Banks relied on AAA ratings and credit default swaps. The subprime mortgage pools were sliced and diced into mortgage securities that were sold to various investors. About 80% of the securities were rated AAA by S&P or Moody's, and a huge chunk of those securities were held by American and European banks. Why? Bankers thought if a bond is rated AAA, they could always sell it at something close to par. Also, residential home values had held up fairly well during the Great Depression. Finally, because of rules related to regulatory capital, the mortgage bonds received a lower weighting on mortgage securities than on ordinary corporate loans.
The real estate bubble burst and bond prices collapsed. Most subprime mortgages were extended for 80% of the appraised value, but many home buyers in California and elsewhere financed 100% of their home purchase.
Because so many people were buying homes they could not afford, market discipline was lost. California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona experienced a real estate bubble. When the bubble collapsed, almost everyone who bought a home in those markets from 2005 onward saw their home equity wiped out.
Three years after private label mortgage securities took off, they started collapsing. Because of the non-standard documentation, the suspicion of underlying fraud, and the difficulty in restructuring the loans with the borrowers, the securities became very difficult to value and market for them dried up.
How did this steady deterioration suddenly become a global financial meltdown? The two-word answer is Hank Paulson.
9/12 Changed Everything. On September 12, 2008, just as Lehman entered into final negotiations to find a buyer, Hank Paulson announced that the government would not backstop Lehman's solvency. What was the difference between Lehman and Bear Sterns, or between Lehman and the other banks? The prices of mortgage securities had declined since the Bear Stearns bailout, so the level of government support for Lehman would have been higher. Also, Lehman's fiscal quarter ended one month earlier than the other banks, so the magnitude of its problems was disclosed before those of other banks.
Paulson's refusal to support Lehman was extraordinarily reckless, because there was no transparency in the financial markets, given that vast amounts of money tied up in hedge funds and credit default swaps. Markets became destabilized right after Lehman declared bankruptcy on September 15, 2008.
Lehman suddenly defaulted on 900,000 derivatives, hedge fund assets were frozen, and countless hedged positions suddenly became unhedged. Nobody knew who was solvent and who was not. The different capital markets started freezing up in succession: the interbank lending market, money market funds, the commercial paper market. Banks cut back on extending trade letters of credit, thereby slowing down shipping and the trade of raw materials around the world, and further pushing down commodity prices. Global trade declined for the first time since World War II.
Paulson's TARP bait and switch. To stabilize the markets, Congress forked over $700 billion to Paulson, who then gave the banks another sucker punch on November 12, one week after Obama was elected. Paulson said he would not apply TARP funds to help abate the foreclosure crisis, and the prices of mortgage securities plunged further, effectively forcing the largest banks into insolvency."
. . . . .The Daily Beast's Cheat Sheet for today tackles the President's deficit reduction plan, Rahm Emanuel's straight forward, straight talking agenda, the lost Pakistan-India peace accord and Hillary's trip to Asia and it's results, among other things. Check it out.
. . . . .Today's video from the way back machine, with musicians in it who are now playing their gig in the great greasy blues joint in the sky, Bonzo, (John Bonham, one of the greatest rock and roll drummers of all time) and the rest of Zep with, of course, Rock and Roll.
. . . . Outta here for the day, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments with an open hand, change your own world, and in so doing, change the world around you.
. . . . .This is the one day of the year that I stop the normal flow of commentary, politics, videos, etc. Today is the day of the year that I stop, not for a moment, but stopping to listen, to hope, to hear something that I know I will never hear again in this life, on this Earth, my Father's voice.
. . . .On February 20, 2003 one of the most extraordinary men that it has ever been my privilege, my honor, my blessing to have known left this Earth. I use the word "my", but more properly put, it was mine, my Mother's, my Sister's, our spouses, his grandchildren, our families on both sides, and anyone else who had ever spent time with Norm Williams, all of us; it was our honor, privilege and blessing to have known him. He was, and remains, a man whom others can be measured against. He lived a life of service, honor, duty, loyalty and love to his family, his friends and his country.
. . . .It would far too easy to list his accomplishments, but accomplishments do not reflect a man. They fail to paint the picture of who he was, of how he affected the world and those around him. To do that, we need to tell the story of the man, tell the story of the "who" and not the "what".
. . . .At 16 years old, he and his friends decided to have an adventure up North. Not a normal adventure, this group of 16 year old boys decided to into the far North of Canada and take a couple of canoes, and make their way back South to civilization, foraging for food and shelter along the way. No one told them they couldn't, so they did. 4 boys from Kalamazoo, Michigan took off for the North country. It wasn't filmed, it wasn't documented, they just did it, period, because they knew they could, and survived just fine.
. . . .When his hitch was up in the Air Force, an Air Force buddy of his told him that there were a bunch of airmen signing back up and heading out West, there was a crazy rumor about putting men on the Moon and Chuck Yeager was putting together a good bunch of pilots and airmen who would be needed to start testing the new planes and equipment for this crazy program. Norm said "No" packed the car and headed back to Kalamazoo with his wife, my Mother. Jane and Norm were a love story for the ages. She came from the small town of Bangor, Michigan and her aunt owned a resort on Crooked Lake in Delton, Michigan, where much of the family spent the summer. The cottage next door to the resort was owned by our Grandfather, Tony and Grandmother, Ethel. Jane had started noticing Norm when she was 11 and he was 16. After they'd grown up and married, and my father entered the Air Force, it was time to go home. She was a small town girl who wanted to get back home and start raising a family, as did he, so the car was packed, and headed out from Topeka, Kansas back to Kalamazoo, with the bird in it's cage swinging all the way back, repeating the same inane phrase they'd taught it over and over, in the summer heat. The bird, if I recall the story right, did not survive the trip well.
. . . . . . When Norm returned to Kalamazoo, he apprenticed as an electrician and learned his tradecraft. Myself and my sister came along soon after. Dad was determined to own his own business, so that's what he did, he started a contracting business. It was during that time, growing up, that I began to learn my first lessons from him. There were times, as the business was starting that were pretty lean, macaroni and tomatoes was not an unknown main dish, but we always were fed and food was always on the table. Our lives were measured in events centered around family. Summer evenings were spent at the Little League ballpark for me, my sister's events for her, followed immediately by getting home to get the boat and trailer hooked up to make the short drive out to the cottage and get some fishing in as the sun went down, and check on Tony and Ethel while we were there. Saturdays I spent with him, starting to learn, even then, my trade. Sundays were spent either out in Delton at Grandma Ethel's and Grandpa Tony's place with cousins, aunts and uncles or out in Bangor at Grandma Gladys' and Great-Grandpa Dennis's place with more cousins, aunts and uncles. It was, looking back in reflection now, a unique and special way to grow up, as he reinforced those values over and over, through the way he lived and by example.
. . . .When his older brother, my Uncle Bob, contracted brain cancer and his wife deserted him, there wasn't any question that night, I gave up my bedroom, Bob was moving in with us for a while. When my Grandpa Tony started that long road that Alzheimer's brings on, after my Grandmother Ethel had passed on, there wasn't any question, Grandpa Tony lived with us until Dad could find someplace for him that was near to the lake he loved so much and brought him so much comfort.
. . . . .It was watching him successfully grow and run his business that taught me the value of hard work and believing in yourself. I remember one trip to Minneapolis that was a "vacation", where my father found a man who had owed him money and then skipped out of Kalamazoo. You didn't do that to my Dad. He was a man who operated on a handshake and his word, and both were unfailingly good, and he expected you to do the same. There was another "vacation" to Florida, if I recall right that was for much the same reason. In Southwest Michigan, my Dad was respected by everyone who knew him. It didn't matter to my Dad if you were a millionaire or poverty-stricken, he treated everyone the same, with respect, fairness and honesty and he always gave more than was expected of him, and if you contracted him for a job, the job got done, on time and at budget.
. . . .One time, at a State run facility for boys out in the Galesburg-Augusta area, my Dad had contracted a job and was there every day for a while. One boy, in particular, caught his eye. He was a "little person" who had lived in the facility since just after birth. My Dad noticed this boy's ability on a pool table in the recreation room to stand on a step stool and calculate angles. After inquiring about him, Dad was told that Danny had been there since just after birth, was hopelessly retarded, unable to learn and would probably spend the rest of his life institutionalized. My father's response was typical Norm, he flat out told the authorities and doctors that ran the facility that they were wrong, because the boy was figuring out angles, doing trigonometry, on a pool table with no education. It wasn't long after that Danny came to live with us, fostered for a while, until he could find permanent placement. Danny made up 9 years of schooling in 1 year, and graduated from Comstock High School with me in 1975. I've lost track over the years, as people do, but I do know that he went on to college and gained an accounting degree and was working for one of the larger food chains in the area.
. . . . .It was my Father who taught me my trade, who apprenticed me. It was my Father from day one who told me that electricians were the only trade listed as "professionals", the same as doctors, lawyers and dentists. It was my Father who trained me to be a Master Electrician, who taught me that it takes the same equivalent education to attain a Master's Degree in college. He was flat-out the smartest man I ever knew. There wasn't a problem that he couldn't figure out an answer to. When people in the area ran across something that they couldn't figure out, the answer was always the same - "Get Norm", because if he didn't know it right off, he would admit it, then go do the research, ask the right questions, ask the right people and find out the best way to do it. My Father should have gone on to college, but as life turns out, it just wasn't his time to. I enrolled in college right out of high school, a sure bet myself, who promptly shot myself in the foot, and it was my Father who picked me back up, dusted me off and taught me my trade. It was also my Father, who in 1994, at 36 years old, when I finally completed college and got my degree, who sat in the stands with my Mother that day and sobbed. Cried for happiness, for joy, and for believing in me all those years.
. . . .My Father was unflappable, I'd only ever seen him panic once. When we were small, living in Parchment, my sister fell into a ceramic vase, she must have been only 3 at the time. The jagged edge of the vase basically cut my sister's face from the middle of her forehead down to her jawline, it was pretty gruesome. My father grabbed her, threw her in the car and we raced off to the hospital where the doctors stitched her up. That panic never occurred again until some years later, when my sister was involved in another life threatening accident. As she lay in the hospital, comatose, with the entire left side of her body shattered, I saw my Father lost and unable to know what to do. My Father's forte was troubleshooting and diagnostics, and here, was his heartbeat, his lifeblood, a piece of himself that he treasured and he was unable to do anything but wait for specialists to tell him if she was going to live or not. My Father did not like that at all, if he didn't know an answer, he always wanted to know how to get to one, and to be told to wait and see what developed, especially about someone he loved so much and was so precious and dear to him was killing him. She did eventually recover, but that road was long and hard, and he was there for her every step of the way.
. . . .In our community, Comstock, it was my Dad who always decorated the big Christmas tree down by the VFW. It was his absolute delight to take his grandsons down there on Christmas Eve and let them help him do the final work to get it lit. Christmas Eve was my Father's piece de resistance every year. The family would gather home, and my Father would slave away at the "hors d'ouevre's" every year. There were always crackers, cheese and salami, and as the years went on, meatballs, of two different flavors, and wings, of different varieties were added. My Dad got so good at providing the appetizers, dinner was often difficult to eat. It was that last Christmas, the one in 2002, that we all knew. We had known for some time, as the cancer he had battled for so long was finally taking it's toll. That was the year that he carefully decided which hunting rifles that had been with him for so long would go to which grandson. At the same time, it was the most incredibly touching, gentle moment to watch as generations changed hands, and painful as then we all knew.
. . . . .My Dad loved being a Grandpa. He saw unique qualities in each of his grandchildren and loved them all, and wanted only to see them blossom and become the young men and women that they are now growing into. He spent time with his grandchildren, loving them, playing with them, teaching them and inspiring them. Telling them stories of what he'd done and seen, things he'd learned, his spirit lives on in them.
. . . .In our community, after his death, much of my Dad's generosity of spirit was brought out into the open for all to see. My Dad was humble, and quiet and never wanted people to know what he had done. For you see, it was my Dad that was behind Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner baskets winding up on people's doorsteps who would never otherwise be able to afford them. It was my Dad who would put a good word in for someone who was down on his luck, and make sure that they had a job. It was my Dad who would employ people other folks had given up on, all it took was looking into my Dad's eyes and listening to his voice, and folks other people had given up on would find it in themselves to rise up , gain some self-respect and work for him hard and well. During the visitation and viewing, there were so many VFW members who wanted to stand Honor Guard for him, that 4 hour shifts had to be taken, with no man repeating a shift.
. . . .It was after his death, as we sorted the finances that we found out how well my Dad had taken care of my Mom. Those credit life applications we all get on our credit card statements, those offers and loose flyers that say for $25 you can get life insurance on your credit card bills? They work. I know, as we all were in the basement office sorting out the finances, we found out that he had taken absolutely every bill that came into that house, and in the year before he died, put credit life on all of them. My Mom didn't have to worry about a thing.
. . . .The night of his death, 6 years ago tonight, we had all been at the hospital for quite a long duration, as we knew the time was close. After I and my sister and our families had left, since we all needed to get some clothes, get some showers, and get some rest and regroup, my Dad, even in the end, showed what he was made of. He had never wanted us kids to be there when he finally went, we had already said our goodbyes, and the year preceding it had given us a lot of time to talk, all of us with him. Even though he was groggy with pain and medications, he took the moment offered to him to gently squeeze my Mom's hand and go, with just the two of them there, as it had been in the beginning of their lives.
. . . . .In the intervening 6 years, I've made many mistakes, knocked myself down a few times, and burned a few bridges. I sit here tonight surrounded by boxes, starting a new life in a new place, crying and missing my Dad so much. Just once more, I want to hear his voice, see him cock his head, bounce his finger off his upper lip, say "Hmmm", and then go on to explain the situation to me and give me possible alternatives and answers. I don't know how many times, especially in the last year, that I've driven over to Augusta National Cemetery and sat by his grave and talked to him alone. My marriage and family broken, my relationship with my Sister strained and distant, and just beginning to put my relationship with my Mother back together, with no one to fault, except my own actions and decisions made out of my own pain and anger at his loss. The one thing I know is this, my Father taught me to get up, dust myself off and get back on my feet and start moving forward again. A dear friend of mine referred a couple of mornings ago to my "resilience and stubborn determination". That's not me Gary, that's my Dad.
. . . . .It was 12:03 AM when I started to write this, which will be significant to no one except a few family members. I sit here now in the pre-dawn quiet of an unfamiliar place, and I heard his voice outside just now, a distant whisper, but I heard it. "Hey bub" in that calm, familiar, loving tone.
. . . . . .I miss you Dad, we all do. I love you now still, and will forever, as do we all. Thanks for teaching me that there's always another chance, another day, that every person is redeemable.
. . . . .So, no pen names today, no nom de plume, no alias. My sons names are Cody Jeremiah Williams and Caleb Joshua Williams. My grandfather's name was Anthony Jeremiah Williams. My name is Kip Richard Williams, and I am the son of Norman Richard Williams, and that is the proudest fact of my life.
Norman Richard Williams "He was a good man" - No better words can be said
. . . . .Today's song, I Believe You from Cross Canadian Ragweed's last effort, Mission California. Click the link here to catch up with what they've been doing and what the upcoming tour dates are. Who knows? They might be coming to your town!
.. . . . . . ."Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." - John Adams
. . . . .Wednesday evening, President Obama and the White House, launched another new website, Recovery.gov, that tracks and reveals where all of the stimulus package money is going. Play the video below to get an explanation from the President himself of how the website will work, and hear his invitation to participate. Click the links to get to the site.
. . . . .Treasury Secretary Geithner's site, Financial Stability.gov is still lacking in it's build-up, but on Wednesday it did post, in PDF format, the complete Homeowner Stability and Recovery Plan. Again, click the links here or two sentences above, to get to it, especially if you're a homeowner who is in that category, or know someone who is, so you can direct them to the right resources.
. . . . . The video playback of President Obama's announcement of the housing recovery plan can be played below, my particular favorite is his talking about people having to "learn to live within their means again" -
. . . . .CNN has already weighed in on the aforementioned Recovery.gov website, and has this to say -
The site, Recovery.gov, allows visitors to track efforts to jump-start a teetering economy in the midst of a slumping housing market and massive job losses.
It breaks down the $787 billion package by category: $288 billion for tax relief, $59 billion for health care, and so on. The site promises that more detailed spending information will be posted once federal agencies decide how they are going to allocate the money. Learn more about where the money is going »
Using graphs, charts and layman's terminology, the online portal is an example of how the tech-savvy Obama administration is taking its message to the American people.
. . . . .The current CD playlist rotation in the truck and wherever I'm resting my head these days: - Already Free - The Derek Trucks Band - Grandpa Walked A Picket Line - Otis Gibbs - Music From Big Pink- The Band (The digitally remastered one with 9 bonus tracks) - Working On A Dream - Bruce Springsteen - Mad Dogs & Englishmen - Joe Cocker (The expanded soundtrack from the DVD) - From The Reach - Sonny Landreth Clicking on any of the names will take you to the artist's official websites, where you can catch up on news, tour dates, order CD's (I believe in ordering direct from the artist)
. . . . .One of the greatest warriors to ever grace this continent, Geronimo, is being honored by his ancestors. His great-grandson, Harlyn Geronimo, is suing the secret Skull and Bones Society at Yale University to recover the remains of his great-grandfather. It has long been suspected and rumored that Skull and Bones, the powerful secret society linked to so many Presidents and politicians had stolen some of Geronimo's remains in Fort Sill, Oklahoma back in 1918 to keep in their crypt, which serves as their headquarters. It was long rumored that Yale volunteers stationed near Fort Sill in WW1, including Prescott Bush, George H.W. Bush's grandfather, dug up the grave of Geronimo and removed the skull for use by the society. Geronimo was one of the greatest horseman and warriors to ever walk this land. He and 35 other Apaches humiliated the U.S. Army for years. I give Harlyn Geronimo my prayers and intention. His great-grandfather's remains need to be honored and respected and I hope that the U.S. Government takes this seriously.
. . . . .Tina Brown, over at The Daily Beast, turns this one in, that is a reflection of national mood and analysis of the same, quoted in part below:
The sinister feeling that’s begun to take hold is that maybe this staggering, contagious collapse we’re living through is a necessary outcome that should not be thwarted. As consumers we’ve all been living on borrowed time as much as borrowed money—and deep down we knew it. . . . . . . . . . . Even as the whole world tries to hang on to its job, there is also this weird parallel sense—almost a covert longing—that the old corrupt structures on which that job depends needs to be, ought to be, swept away. A new beginning for America!
. . . . . .In typical Washington fashion, the very same Republican voting bloc of Senators and Representatives that voted against the stimulus package are elbowing their way to the front of the line to make sure that they get their fair share of it. Ryan Grim, reporting from Washington in the Huffington Post reports on it here.
. . . . .And along those same hypocritical lines, Media Matters points out something that I'd heard on Tuesday night, and was having trouble believing that my ears were actually working correctly. Glen Beck, on the Bill O'Reilly show, somehow managed to call President Obama a "socialist" & a "fascist" in the same sentence. I realize that I'm OCD and anal-retentive when it comes to use of language, and using exact words for exact specific meanings, but doesn't it strike anyone else that these completely, diametrically opposed political systems, socialism and fascism are 180 degrees apart from one another and that someone cannot somehow, magically, be both at the same time? C'mon Glen, if you're going to slander and libel the President of the United States, at least frame your rhetoric in logical language, or at least have someone with an understanding of the English language proofread your bombasts.
. . . . .This morning, Devlin Barrett over at HuffPo is reporting that Swiss Banking Giant UBS is about to turn their records over to U.S. authorities in an effort to go after about 19,000 ultra-wealthy Americans who have been using the Swiss Bank dodge in order to evade taxes. Read it at the jump here.
. . . . .The President makes his first foreign trip as President today. Yes, I know it's Canada, which for many of us absolutely does not sound or feel like a foreign trip, but it is. More importantly, they'll be discussing whether or not the U.S. wants to buy oil from the Canadian tar sands project. Yes, it reduces dependence on Mideastern oil, but it is one of the most environmentally destructive methodologies of retrieving oil that there is. Politico carries the trip here.
. . . . .Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on her first trip as well, by today, she's in Asia, specifically Indonesia and Java, the trip started with stops in the Mideast. Over in the New York Times, HRC gives an interview that talks about why she took the job, and how it's been so far. Story here.
. . . .Long as we're on the Administration, yes, over on Twitter@joebiden is really Joe Biden, the Vice President, if you're a Tweeter, you can find him in the users and follow him there. Of course, one of my personal favorite tweeters to follow is Rainn Wilson, better known as Dwayne Schrute on NBC's The Office
. . . . .More techno, for those of you who are my age or thereabouts and grew up with newspapers and still feel a nostalgic twinge for a Front page, you try this one here. It's a PDF of like every major newspaper in the world, all on one site, you can cruise through it just like your morning paper.
. . . .I want to put a plug in here for the website for a great non-profit, Do Something.org, which encourages younger folks to get involved and do something! Literally, there's thousands of ideas around great issues like climate change, hunger, poverty, racism, literally hundreds. If you're thinking that there's nothing that you or anyone else can do about some of these, there is. Give the link a click and check them out.
. . . . Very seriously, as a dog lover, and someone who hasn't had another pooch since my beloved Jake died, my heart goes out to Mickey Rourke, whose buddy, Loki, died on Tuesday. In my darkest hours, it was always my Jake who provided unconditional love and understanding.
. . . . Climate change is the largest and most threatening issue facing our children and grandchildren, and sometimes I know it seems so large and so overwhelming that it feels like there's nothing you can do. There is, click the link here to Fight Global Warming.org and sign up for updates and tips on what you, me, each of us can do to help. The site is filled with data and facts to base an intelligent discussion on. If we all do a little bit, then the little bits will add up to a big something that is a positive and can have influence.
. . . . .One of my personal favorite "green" sites to cruise is Planet Green, sponsored by the Discovery channel, it's literally packed full of hints and tips around everyday life issues like shopping, food, home health and housecleaning that can let you get a little greener everyday and do a part towards helping out.
. . . . .One of my other favorites, Treehugger, sponsored by the same people is a little more issues oriented, and again, being a Discovery channel sponsored website, does present some good facts and figures that you can carry with you, become informed about and learn about, so the next time someone wants to make a joke about snow, subzero cold and global warming, you can have an intelligent response around climate change.
. . . .The World Economic Forum just issued and published this report about the relationship between fresh clean water and energy, as they search to find answers for critical issues facing us as a species and race, in part to quote:
The marginal energy unit brought to the system is increasingly water intensive. Potential vicious circles strengthened by climate change require a risk-mitigation strategy
. . . . .Just wanted to give a shout out to the Rev Charla Hermann down at Hawkwind, those folks have green for a long, long time and have been trying to teach people how to green up their lives with simple, effective, high impact, low cost techniques for years. They built the entire place from nothing in a green way, and are very conscious, each and every day of our human impact on the land and the water. Click the links and check them out, drop by some time, there's an impressive list of classes and workshops available. They've got a good set of Men's Workshops lined up for this year that deserve a least a look and some consideration.
. . . .A dear friend, who follows the column, and has been watching the videos everyday with those musicians who are playing from the other side now, asked for Jimi. Lulu, you wanted Jimi, you got him! From Woodstock, his magnum opus, Voodoo Chile. While you're at it, when you're in the Southeast, don't forget to drop by Red Queen Tattoos on Lee Highway in Chattanooga, TN where Lulu and Tarwater are every day, (hint, don't drop by till around noon), holding forth, and dishing out awesome ink!
. . . .There are times (Times, hell! Try 24/7 for 365 days of the year) when I'm truly affected by music, Ali Akbar Khan wrote:
"Music is like a river or a stream that has come down to us through time, bringing nurture to man's soul. From the past masters, this music flowed to my father and through him to me. I want to keep this stream flowing. I don't want it to die. It must spread all over the world."
. . .Better than anything I can come up with.
. . . . .Outta here, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments with an open hand, change your world and in so doing change the world around you.
Wednesday February 19, 2009 (First 30 days of the 100 day sprint)
. . . . . .Today's embedded music comes from Jackson Browne off his new one, Far From the Arms of Hunger, from the Time The Conqueror CD, which I'm really loving. He hasn't lost his touch over the years, only gotten better. You can click the link here to go to his official website, order the CD, check on his upcoming Spring and Summer tour dates and catch him at a venue near you.
. . . . . . ."If there must be trouble, let it be in my time, so that my child may know peace" - Thomas Paine
. . . . .Yup, the grim news just keeps rolling in, but. . . . please click the link here to go check out the folks at World Hunger Year, who work at innovative local community-based solutions for hunger and poverty. It's a worthy cause to involve yourself in and someplace where you can take direct physical action yourself in your own local community.
. . . . .It's been said time and again, and it's so true. "Act locally, think globally". It all does seem really, really overwhelming at times, but it's like drops of water. Water is the strongest force in the universe, if you don't think so, look at the Grand Canyon. If we all act as one drop of water, but join together as a river, we can accomplish what we need to in order to preserve for future generations.
. . . . .Hunger is where it all begins. Food is a basic human necessity, as is water. I've always heard the Rule of 3's. 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. For me, it also helps order my priorities. Without food and water, there will no future for our children and grandchildren. The food and water are most directly threatened by global climate change, which needs our greatest attention. Without a viable national economy to attack the causes of global climate change, and fund solutions, then we can't concentrate on the larger picture. Without jobs and money, then people lose first their housing, then their ability to get water and food, and are unable to concentrate on anything except the daily struggle for survival and taking care of their families. See how it's all connected, and comes full circle?
. . . . ."Mitakuye Oyasin" - We are all related.
. . . . .Another great organization, Share Our Strength, which focuses on eliminating childhood hunger. 12 million children, in this country alone, go to bed hungry every night. Click the link here, and see how you can help.
. . . . .I'm going to put the link here for Financial Stability.gov, though Geithner and team don't have the site fully up and working yet, but as promised, at least they're trying to give us some transparency.
. . . . .On that site this morning, new to it, is the PDF file of the Homeowner Stability Plan that was introduced this morning, separate and apart from Bank Bailouts and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, the stimulus package introduced yesterday. CNN is carrying the news here this morning, where the plan broke sooner than expected. What's known right now is that it's a $75B dollar plan designed to subsidize rates and give homeowners who are having trouble making their payments a break. Details are supposed to be given out this afternoon.
. . . . .In the Financial Times of London, Alan Greenspan comments in a column this morning and says that he doesn't how the U.S. cannot avoid nationalizing some banks. That it has to be done. That would eliminate the problem of "ghost banks". Nicholas VonHoffman over at the Nation expresses the same opinion, stating that it's time for us to face up to the fact that our largest banks are insolvent and it's time to put them out of their (and our) misery.
. . . . . .In related news, the bailed out banks, that were supposed to be using that money to help out troubled homeowners, (instead of having to put a separate package together) actually reduced their consumer lending in the 4th quarter. Story here.
. . . . .Go Whoopi! It was widely reported last week, here and elsewhere, about the campaign that the Women's Media Center had put together to force Bill O'Reilly to make a public apology to Helen Thomas, the veteran White House correspondent, for his mysognistic, hateful comments about her age and appearance. While Whoopi took him on full bore, and called him out for it. You can check that video out here.
. . . . . .When will the dim-bulb ultra-Right Repubs get it? The House GOP Reps that were acting as a voting bloc to oppose the stimulus package were blaring an Aerosmith song every time they walked into the House Chamber. Well, Mr's Tyler and Perry promptly got a hold of them and told them to knock it off, story here. Let's see, McCain using Mellencamp, Bush using Springsteen, all without royalties, all without permission, all being told to knock it off. Don't they get it, the rock and rollers are us, guys, they don't think like you extreme rightists, they don't agree with you and they don't support you.
. . . . .And one of my top two favorite GOP ultra-Right wing nutjobs, Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Anoka, Minnesota, explaining her opposition to the stimulus package - "We're running out of rich people in this country" - 'Nuff said, you can check the rest of the story out here.
. . . . .Coming in this morning, this report from the Reuters press agency that the City of Los Angeles will institute water rationing this month in reaction to the drought that the recent storms have done nothing to abate or help.
. . . . .This is today's video, I heard from some folks last week that they didn't have time to catch up with the old black and white from Japan with Delaney and Bonnie and friends, with the kicker being that the lead guitarists that day were a very, very young Eric Clapton and George Harrison, some I'm running it again. It's worth a look.
. . . . .Outta here for the day, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments before they slip through your hands, change your world, and in so doing change the world around you.
Look there men and women of the Lost 10th, the monument to one of our founders and our ancestors, to King Leonidas and the 300 Spartans.
. . . . .Today's musical soundtrack should surprise some of you. My distaste for and dislike of Jimmy Buffet's music is well-known. It's not for the reasons most people think. My personal belief is that he's wasted his talent on dreck like Cheeseburger and Margaritaville. Jimmy is an original pirate, born in New Orleans, and a sailor. He's capable of incredible songs, most of which don't get played, as exemplified by today's track A Pirate Looks At Forty. It's beautiful music, and a true buccaneer's theme song.
. . . . . ."The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money" - Alexis deTocqueville
. . . . ."I don't know if people value the thought of revolution anymore. I think it would be an enormously patriotic investment to invest in the possibility of revolution." - Sean Penn
. . . . .The morning round-up: - Over at Politico in The Arena, their roundtable blog discussion, the group takes on the elimination of the "car czar" and the formation of the Summers and Geithner team that will take on the auto industry. - Politico again, Carrie Brown reports on the varied and sundry external and internal reactions to that same decision on the auto industry. - Over at the Daily Beast, today's Cheat Sheet covers a few, including how truly the Republican Governors are loving President Obama, Cheney being absolutely furious with Bush for not pardoning Scooter Libby and Donald Trump, his daughter and the Trump resorts filing for bankruptcy this AM. - Over at the Huffington Post this morning, they're carrying the day's biggest story, that of the State of California going bankrupt. 20,000 layoffs this morning, public works projects halted. Forget the banks and the auto industry, this is the one that will put shock waves throughout an already very distressed national economy. - Over at the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson brings in some apt sports analogies while examining Obama's first 3 weeks in office and the amount that's already been accomplished to call it "Presidency on Steroids. - Love this headline by Kevin Hasset over at Bloomberg. "Harvard Nacissists with MBA's killed Wall Street." - Al Gore this morning, over at the Financial Times of London weighs in with an op-ed that goes directly to something I've been saying over and over, that stimulus in the "Green sector" of the economy is essential and can't wait.
. . . .I really do believe that this President takes global climate change seriously, and sees it for the threat it is to future generations. Check this one out in Rolling Stone that goes directly to that, Jeff Goodell, reports, ironically, on the state in this Republic that has the best "green" policies that protect the environment, while preserving jobs. Yes, I know what's being reported above. See how it's all interconnected, that we cannot isolate any one single thing, but must look at the entire matrix?
. . . .I'm going to put in a plug here for something really good you can do for yourself. The folks down at Hawkwind are my family, I love them, plain and simple, they are my blood. There are 3 Men's Retreats planned for this year with John Lee, who in 28 years of recovery, in countless therapies, is the only person that I've ever connected with. He has some keen insight into men's issues. The three weekends have a focused them, and the first one is coming up here in March from the 24th to the 26th. Click the links and check them out, I highly recommend them.
. . . .I'm going to keep the vein going of musicians playing in the great band on the other side. Today's selection, Little Feat with the late, great Lowell George.
. . . .I'll update more throughout the day, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments with an open hand, change your own world, and in so doing, change the world around you.
New dawn, new day, men and women of the Lost 10th! Time to strive and lean into it, let's keep pushing on!
. . . . .Today's embedded song - Hell Ain't Half Full from Chris Knight from his Heart of Stone Cd, his latest effort. For those of you who've never checked out Chris Knight, he's flat out one of the best songwriters going these days. Check him out at his webpage here.
. . . . .And I'm going to put another plug for Otis Gibbs in here too, the video below is an acoustic version of a song called "The People's Day" and has a really powerful line in it. "Someday our whispers will be louder than your screams."
Update 1:30 PM . . . . .I don't care what your political affiliation is, what your religious beliefs are, what your personal beliefs are, we are all citizens of this Republic, we are all members of the electorate and the body politic. It will only be our country, however, if we put focused effort and intent behind taking our own power back again as citizens, and raise our voices in unison and demand of those who are our public servants that they act as such, and not as obstructionist, elitist members of the some group that somehow perceives themselves as above us and above the interests of the Republic Update 9 AM -
. . . .Two things this morning straight away. The President is determined to sign the stimulus package into law on Wednesday in Denver, not because Denver was the site of the Dem convention, but because Colorado leads the nation in green-energy development. The next item on his agenda is for the White House to tackle directly the growing home foreclosure crisis by announcing directly, himself in Phoenix on Wednesday the plan for that. Steven Hurst reports all of it in The Huffington Post this AM here.
. . . . .His weekly video address on Saturday focused, of course, on the passage of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, but also gave a clear and sober warning about the road ahead. You can watch it below, and please remember to keep White House.gov bookmarked in your favorites to stay in touch with the White House and the President.
. . . .Unfortunately, instead of joining together as public servants to get us working again, and do their job, the Republicans and Democrats both are now drawing battle lines over the stimulus package and it's expected results. The Dems are using FDR as their avatar, whilst the Repubs are using Winston Churchill. Don't these idiots get it? Their job is to take care of the American people. Michael Sheare and Paul Kane have the full story on the jockeying for media position and the entrenchment of positions to either cast stones or take credit in The Washington Post this morning here.
. . . . .Along those same lines, the "We Are Watching You" movement, designed to let our politicians know that we're watching them, and it's our money, our future and our lives they're playing poker with got it's own Facebook Group home page this weekend, you can find that here.
. . . .Over in the Financial Times of London, Clive Crook gives the perspective from across the pond. Nobody looks good coming out of last week, not Obama, not the Democrats, not the Republicans.
. . . . .In a bit of good news, well before the market opening this morning, Albert Hunt over at Bloomberg.com says that the new President has started strong in his first 3 weeks.
. . . . .In the best news today so far on the national mood front, Bill Clinton was just on NBC's "Today" show and stated that the President has put a "strong" economic team in place, and praised Congress for finding a way to get the stimulus package passed despite the opposition. Politico.com provides the video below:
. . . . .On the climatic change front, I haven't commented at all last week, staying focused on the stimulus package but - The Australian wildfires, the tornados in Oklahoma and Texas, the incredible run of zero and sub-zero temps up in the Great Lakes, the incredible ice storms first in Kentucky, and now in the Northeast, the volcanic eruption near Tokyo that is coating the city with ash, the death toll in Australia, again, from the intense heat wave, the Chinese government now getting involved in an all-out effort to combat the drought that is hitting them, combined with the earthquake in California and the expected mudslides coming from the storm moving in . . . . .You're all intelligent readers, I don't need to beat anybody over the head with it, but think about it, ey?
. . . . .I was on a run last week with videos from musicians that are now playing in the great, greasy blues joint in the sky and letting us all hear those celestial licks. I'm not gonna quit now, today it's Humble Pie with Steve Marriott, one of the most intense little British blues-rock frontmen it was ever my privilege to hear. (Of course, then, after attending several Humble Pie shows and listening to his lead guitarist, Peter Frampton tear it up, I remember receiving the Frampton Comes Alive LP from Columbia, which I swear every household in America got for free and knowing that something in the Universe had gone horribly wrong, too!)
. . . . .Outta here for the moment, I'll keep updating throughout the day. Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments before you let them slip through your hands, change your world and in so doing change the world around you.
Now, men and women of the Lost 10th, you who have sailed for so long under the Black Flag, now hear the drums and horns! Now is our time, time to stand and not falter!
It may be easier at this point in the week, if you haven't caught up to scroll to the bottom and start there and scroll up and read that way, that captures the week in order, from last Monday to today. I realize that it may be backwards for you, but, hey, that's how I roll!
Sunday February 15, 2009
. . . . Great one that Barbara Vitale sent along this morning -
For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?
Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."
Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.
We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps.
But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster. But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying -- that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."
Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can - once and for all - get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?
How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?
I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?
How long before we starting "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?
Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem. But here's my three-point plan:
First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.
Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama.
Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome." It takes a Village to protect our President!!!
Andrew M. Manis is the author of " Macon Black and White: An Unutterable Separation In The American Century" and serves on the steering committee of Macon 's Center for Racial Understanding. This editorial originally appeared in the November 19, 2008 issue of the Macon Telegraph
. . . . . .And this one that Michael Jagod sent along the other day, I know that a large base of the readership is based in other states; California, Texas, New York, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Colorado, Maryland, Alabama, and North Carolina but there's a significant chunk in Michigan, and the concept applies everywhere. -
Hi Fellow Michiganians here is a fantastic idea from Hour Detroit Magazine followed up by some excellent info put together by a dear friend, former student and very bright person Lori Walsh......we could all do this...... think instead of moaning about how bad things are in Michigan . . . we could do something to make it better. LOTS BETTER.....Please not only pledge to act yourself but pass it along to your contacts and get them to Pledge to Act and to pass along also . . . don't wait for others to fix things....we can fix things....
In a recent issue of Hour Detroit magazine, I read the following quote:
'If we all spent $10 a week on Michigan products, we could put $36 million every week back into the state's economy'.
That was powerful to me. Every day I hear people bemoan the state of Michigan 's economy and here was a simple way for each of us to make an impact.
I contacted a woman named Jeanne Lipe at the Michigan Agritourist Department who confirmed that the numbers were correct and gave me some leads to get started on what has turned into this email today.
The idea is to shift $10 per week of your grocery budget to products that are from Michigan companies. I wanted an easy to use list of Michigan products that I could find at my local grocery store. I have attached a copy of that list to this email. It is in no way complete, but it will get you off to a good start if you should choose to help out.
Some things I learned along the way: There are a lot of Michigan owned grocery stores that are supporting other Michigan businesses on their shelves. Spartan stores are a cooperative; this means that if you buy a Michigan made product from a Spartan affiliated grocery store, you are getting a 'triple dip.' The product is made in Michigan , the grocery store is independently owned by a Michigan family, and Spartan Stores headquarters is located in Grand Rapids . Other independently owned stores are a 'double dip'. This includes stores like Randazzo's and Westborn markets. Meijer is based in Grand Rapids , so also counts as a double dip.
I also found a whole bunch of products that are not mass distributed, but are available online and in some specialty food shops. I have added them on a second sheet. There are some great treats and gift items there.
If you think this idea is a good one, and you have friends and family through out the state who might help out, please forward this email with the lists attached on to them. $36 Million per week could go a long way!
. . . . .If you're interested, e-mail me and I'll send along the attachment that lists everything.
. . . . .Outta here until Monday, when we start it all over again! Friday February 13, 2009 9 AM Updates
. . . .A word first, a prayer first and a quiet moment of reflection for the people who were killed this morning in the Continental Airlines crash in upstate New York.
. . . . .Thank you. These always cause me to pause and reflect. I fly regularly for work, both commercial jetliners, and helicopters. Unfortunately, I always fly Continental/Northwest/Delta. I have to catch a helicopter to work, and last month's crash of the helo that I regularly use back and forth to work, killing 7 aboard and leaving 1 in critical condition caused all of us there to stop and think. Folks, you can't dictate when your card's gonna be pulled, that one ain't up to us, the only thing we can dictate is how we live, and when it's my time to go, all I want to know is that I went down fighting for the right things, that there's still an incredible 3-chord lick ringing in my ears and that the people who know me, the ones I call friends, and my boys, my two shining stars knew that I loved them. I'm flawed and imperfect, like everyone else, but I think my boys, my family and my friends know that I love them, some of them so much that I'm afraid to show it.
. . . .Alright! Today's embedded soundtrack, Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad from the incomparable Derek and the Dominoes, it's one of the tracks on that album that highlights the complementary interplay between EC and Duane Allman. Don't forget that the music video waaaay down at the bottom of the column changes everyday, and most of the time has a musician in it that is now playing a gig in the great greasy blues joint over on the Other side. Today, it's Foghat, with both Lonesome Dave Peverett and Rod Price now gone from this Earthly place.
. . . . .Barbara Vitale sends this one along this morning:
"Obama Moving Forward Fast for Climate, Air, Species, Lands
It's already been a busy month for reversing Bush's push to destroy the environment. Last Wednesday, the administration cancelled 77 oil and natural-gas leases on Utah public lands, with the new Interior secretary declaring that move only "one of a dozen or so" planned to reverse bad Bush policies (including the gutting of the Endangered Species Act). Last Friday, the president asked the Supreme Court to dismiss a Bush appeal of an air pollution case, upholding the rejection of Bush's lax plans to "regulate" mercury air pollution; Obama is now delaying a rule that would let some expanding facilities avoid pollution control. This Monday, he declared he'd like to double the production of alternative energy under his economic recovery package. And this Tuesday, the administration announced it's shelving Bush's 11th-hour plan to open much of the coastline to offshore oil drilling. In a visit to the Interior Department this week, First Lady Michelle Obama affirmed that the new administration's top priorities include protecting the natural environment and using natural resources responsibly.
These (and yet other Obama actions) are all great steps -- but the administration has a long way to go if it wants to undo Bush's environmental sabotage. "The Bush administration did its utmost to do the least amount of protection possible," said the Center for Biological Diversity's Noah Greenwald. "For a while, we're going to have to be focused on cleaning up the Bush legacy."
Read a string of articles on recent Obama deeds and check out this Arizona Republic piece on last week's oil and gas lease cancellation (including an assessment of what still needs to be done)."
. . . .Thanks, Barbara
. . . . .The New York Times this morning starts breaking down the stimulus package on a much more personalized note, listing the tax breaks and benefits for individuals, it can be found here.
. . . . .I found this one pretty fascinating, Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post lists 15 very important provisions of the stimulus package, and taken as a whole, reading the tea leaves, it points to the "change" we all voted for and wanted. As a matter of fact, it comes right out and states that these particular 15 items go a long way towards restructuring our socioeconomic agenda as a nation:
"Here are 15 expenditures, as gathered from congressional and news sources, that seem likely to have not just the most direct impact but the greatest potential to fundamentally re-shift the nation's economy.
• $7.2 billion to "increase broadband access and usage in unserved and underserved areas of the Nation."
• $16.4 for transit projects and high-speed rail: this not as much as mass-transit advocates wanted (and the total includes grants to states). But it's an important step forward on this front.
• $6 billion "for local clean and drinking water infrastructure improvements." Not only will this promote better health, it will, House Democrats say, create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
• $15.6 billion to "increase the maximum Pell Grant by $500." Education staffers on the Hill insist this will do wonders in getting lower-income children into upper-level schools. Seven million students, they say, will be helped in their pursuit of higher education.
• $3.95 billion for job training. Much of this money will be funneled through the states. The funds will not only get people to work, but create the foundation for emerging industries and companies to blossom.
• $4.5 billion to repair federal buildings and increase energy efficiency. Think short-term jobs and long-term energy cost savings.
• $2 billion in "grant funding for the manufacturing of advanced batteries systems and components and vehicle batteries that are produced in the United States." This could help the U.S. regain supremacy in the car wars.
• $11 billion for "smart-grid related activities, including work to modernize the electric grid."
• $2 billion to provide quality child care services. More parents will be able to go to work as the cost of childcare falls.
• $29 billion for highways. The one area of agreement between Republicans and Democrats: infrastructure is the quickest way to get job growth immediately.
• Tax credits "for families that purchase plug-in hybrid vehicles." This could grow up to $7,500.
• $20 billion in tax incentives to spur the use of renewable energy over the next 10 years.
• $3 billion for the National Science Foundation. This stems from an Obama campaign promise to not leave science neglected. The money will provide for "basic research in fundamental science and engineering -- which spurs discovery and innovation."
• $19 billion to accelerate adoption of Health Information Technology (HIT). Another Obama pet-project, this will modernize health care and help save billions of dollars for hospitals.
• $10 billion to "conduct biomedical research in areas such as cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease and stem cells, and to improve NIH facilities."
Each of these items spurs job creation, saves money, or both. Taken as a whole, they represent an entirely new socioeconomic ethos among the powers that be in Washington."
. . . . .I realize full well that I've spent the week talking about the economy, the stimulus package, the bailouts, but it's for a reason. I still believe that the single largest issue facing, not me, but my children and my grandchildren is global climate change. It will, inevitably, lead to water shortages, food shortages, huge changes in arable land mass, population shifts, famine, diseases spreading, in whole, not a very pretty picture. In fact, the nation's new intelligence chief lists the economic collapse as the biggest threat to this nation, not terrorism. But we are a society, and these two fundamental problems, global climate change and the collapse of the global economic infrastructure have now grown so large that they can only be handled by large entities. Before the economic collapse started, 12 million children in this country alone were going to bed hungry, our elderly were neglected and those in poverty were invisible people. In the last 3 months, no, in the last two weeks, the numbers have increased exponentially, as those who were living on the edge slipped over it. Notice that I said that only large entities can handle these problems, not large government. We, as a people, as a group, as a society, as an organized culture, a focused group are just as capable of "doing something about it". That's why I'm putting so much energy into Gary's idea for "We Are Watching You", (read below), that's why I'm putting the information out there everyday, that's why we now have to focus not just on the problem, but on solutions, and work together as a people, no lines of demarcation around beliefs, race, age, geography to solve things now, not tomorrow. We worked for a year, believing in the mantra "Yes, We Can", and brought about change on one level. Now, it's time to believe again that "Yes, We Can".
. . . . . Spent the morning synching up this column, Twitter, Facebook, the Blackberry and the laptop, that's how we're gonna do it folks, use the techno-tools that have been given to us and build the neural network, the community. I'll update more through the day. Thursday February 12, 2009
Update 11:30 PM
. . . . .Two things that I want to put up here before calling it a day. The first is a link to and some quotes from a posting that Cenk Ugyur, the host of the Young Turks put up on Huffington Post tonight:
"I knew what Congress was doing yesterday by bringing the Wall Street executives in and scolding them in public was a dog and pony show. But I had not realized how profoundly full of shit these politicians are. They make a big display of yelling at the CEOs and then the very next day they quietly remove any cap on their compensation. These people are not on our side. This is why so many Americans are so damn frustrated."
. . . . The second is a pic that Gary Clark sent along tonight that thematically says it all for the "We Are Watching You" movement:
Update 7:30 PM . . . . .Now, I will freely admit to a couple of things. One is a complete distaste for Fox News, and especially a bias against Bill O'Reilly, whom I believe to be a complete and utter mouth-breathing moron. The other is an absolute fondness and admiration for Helen Thomas, the veteran reporter who has covered the White House back to the Kennedy administration, and was the groundbreaker for other women journalists. Iknow a lot of really cool, intelligent women and the remarks that Bill made about her are absolutely not acceptable. I will not, absolutely will not link to Fox News or O'Reilly, but his sexist, hateful comments about Helen Thomas can be found at Media Matters, the watchdog organization here. The Women's Media Center is demanding an immediate apology from O'Reilly, you can connect with them here and sign an on-line petition.
Update 5 PM
. . . . .There are heroes among us everyday. The woman who was talking to President Obama, Henrietta Hughes, described to him what it's like to be homeless and have a son to care for as well. Chene Thompson, the wife of state representative Nick Thompson, gave Ms. Hughes a home this morning, one of her own to live in. It wasn't a case of a millionaire giving something away they didn't need. It was the Thompson's first home after law school. Story here.
Update 2 PM
. . . .For me, this one that just came in from the Washington Post reinforces and symbolizes everything behind what Gary originally started out with on Sunday night/Monday morning (read below in Monday's postings) and has grown throughout the week. Meet the new Washington, same as the old Washington. Congress has folded on executive pay cuts for the bailed out financials and banks as the details of the compromise plans come out that the aides rewrote after last night's negotiations.
Updates 11 AM . . . . .Today's embedded soundtrack - Choctaw Bingo from the incomparable, enigmatic, brilliant Ray Wylie Hubbard from his CD titled Delirium Tremolos. Scroll through the entire column, and you'll find that the music video (yup, I'm still on that musicians who are playing in the great greasy blues joint in the sky jag!) at the bottom has changed out again after you catch up with the week's entries so far. Today, it's a performance from 1971 on BBC from the The Faces (Ronnie Lane, Ron Wood, Rod Stewart, Ian Maclagen & Kenny Jones). Watch it, and if you're younger than our generation, you'll understand why Rod Stewart gets a free pass for anything he's done since, this is what British blues-rock bands did during the 70's. There's been nothing like it since.
. . . .The House and Senate reached a compromise on the stimulus bill late last night , as reported on CNN, (yes, Sen. Harry Reid had enough Rep. Nancy Pelosi's antics and rolled her, more on that below), aides worked the night and rewrote the sections that were altered and vote is expected today. Follow the link here to CNN and watch the vote live and watch and see how the markets react as they open.
. . . . .Dan Rather, in today's Daily Beast, wrote a good piece on the national mood and the response to current conditions, quoted in part below:
"Where is the outrage from We The People? And where is the outrage—or sense of outrage—from the Treasury Department, from Congress, and, yes, from the White House and the new president himself?
We are in a downward economic spiral and the worst is probably yet to come. The situation threatens our own and future generations. Yet there is no transparency, no accountability, and no clearly-stated plan to pull us out.
Outrage is seldom justified and rarely wise, but in this fix it is both. Nevertheless, what we have gotten and are getting still is blather."
. . . .A moment here to celebrate the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln. Presidencies, and Presidents are defined externally, by the issues and crises they face, and what kind of person they are as they rise to meet them. We all remember Washington, Roosevelt and Lincoln, and we remember them due to how they met the crises that faced our Nation. Not a lot of people can readily tell you what Polk or Buchanan did. Lincoln faced an incredible crisis, that of the American experiment ending before it was 100 years old, and our nation fracturing apart. He also had an ideal, a personal ideal, built on Constitutional Law that "all men are created equal" and saw the office of the Presidency as a chance to change to nation's fabric to come more closely to that ideal. He both held the Nation together, and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This from a man who had barely a few months of formal schooling, yet was one of the greatest orators and writers that office has ever seen, doing all of his own speechwriting and authoring. Lincoln believed in America, and believed in what we could become. Take a moment today to honor and respect that. I, for one, don't care one bit whether he suffered from depression, or whether or not Mary Todd suffered from mental illness. Lincoln, like all of us will be, is remembered for what he did, and what he had to sacrifice to attain that ideal for all of us. In his case, his life. Ask yourself, are you capable of the same for an ideal, for a dream? - Good piece on Lincoln at 200 from Richard Brookheiser in a New York Post op-ed this AM. - Chicago Tribune turnes in a good op-ed piece on Lincoln as well this AM, read it here. - For one of the best takes on Lincoln, and his relevance to today, I recommend a book authored by Mario Cuomo titled Why Lincoln Matters Today, More Than Ever.
. . . . I've written here that, in my opinion, the current financial crisis, hell, let's call it what it is, a depression, is a refutation of unbridled, unregulated American capitalism, in the Adam Smith Wealth of Nations tradition and, in it's complexity and it's roots, is an endorsement of Keynesian economics with their emphasis on outside regulatory forces shaping the nation's economic fate. For a different take on that, and an argument for unbridled capitalism, Schramm and Litan, in The American make the argument that the current meltdown is actually an argument for further unregulated markets and banks and stock exchanges with no accountability. You can catch that here.
. . . .More on last night's negotiations on the Stimulus Package. Glenn Thrush over at Politico reports this morning that Sen. Reid has basically had enough of Nancy Pelosi's grandstanding and went in front of the camera's to announce the deal.
. . . . In line with what was posted here yesterday (below) from Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight, Andrew Leonard over at Salon turns this one in that says what a lot of us have been saying about the stimulus package, it isn't perfect, but it works, and we have to do something.
. . . .I'll post more and update throughout the day, remember that today's music video, (God I love YouTube) has changed and is at the bottom, it's The Faces from 1971 with I Know I'm Losing You. Scroll to the bottom of the post, catch up on anything that you've missed so far this week, and watch the video there. Wednesday February 11, 2009
6:00 PM Update
. . . . . Ah hell, I'm on a roll today. Given everything that is posted below from the last 3 days, I remembered seeing this John Trudell video a while back on YouTube, and given the action that is being started here, what's being mentioned below about starting a focused movement called "We Are Watching You", is a focused action with clear thought behind it with a purpose, it's one of those karmic ah-ha moments. Watch this, listen to what Trudell has to say, then read it all below and take action.
5:00 PM Update
. . . . .Kay Mejia sends this one along today, she wrote it this afternoon to the local MoveOn chapter -
"Greetings Justin,
Congratulations on your new postion at MoveOn.org (not clear whether Executive Director is the new position or the old!). You and my husband appear to share the same taste in movies (Grade B or below, Horror genre for hubbie), but both of us join you in your love of communing with nature. As the hotels & restaurants industry is, in my experience anyway, an extremely difficult industry to organize in (I lost my job and was beaten up trying to organize one), I am positive you have the hutzpah to lead us. And having been an active respondent to your request we take up our phones and fight, I know you have the required creativity and persistence. So happy to have you! :^)
As with any organizational transition period, I am sure you are swamped with training someone to take up your old position while conducting the daily business of your new one. So you're probably swamped! I did want to pass on an activism request/suggestion. MoveOn.org has chosen to become very specific in defining arenas and issues to respond to. This is the only practical approach to use when building a power base, but I invite you to be fantastic rather than pragmatic. What about a movement asking everyone to meet at the White House and at the NYSE building, silently holding signs with one huge eye on them. The message is "We are Watching YOU", and becomes slightly ominous when coupled with total silence. This could also take place at local gov't and big corporation offices instead of DC (a more "green" approach, but perhaps not as charismatic). What do you think?"
. . . .Kay suggests that others who live in the SE Mich area contact Justin at jruben@moveon.org as well. . . . . Gary contacted me this morning and is looking into pricing shirts. The Angel (that'd be me) is looking at (in order) the calendar for Congress and the House, we need to be there when they are; what permitting is required to do this within the legal framework of our Republic and already starting to look at logistics to get folks there. One other suggestion, since we have that connection down South, and since we need to "Keep our eye" on the media as well is looking at the studios of CNN down in Atlanta, just a thought.
Update 11 AM . . . . .Up and at 'em today kiddies? I'm going to keep this week's thread going, the ideas that it's sparking are right on the money and obviously keeping people thinking based on the e-mails I'm receiving. . . . . .Right to it, the CEO's of JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and 2 others have been hauled in front of Congress this morning to explain their use of the original bailout funds that Paulson handed them. CNN is carrying it here.
"I don't think he did well yesterday. I don't know that he's the right guy for the job. But what I do know is the following:
1. Nobody, absolutely nobody, has more incentive to get this right than the Obama Administration. If the economy collapses -- well, more than it already has collapsed -- then the Democrats get slaughtered in 2010, Obama is a one-termer, health care doesn't happen, the poverty rate increases by a couple orders of magnitude, and the imperative to fix the environment gets put on the backburner. To suggest that Obama or Geithner are tools of Wall Street and are looking out for something other than the country's best interest is freaking asinine. Maybe their ideas are wrong -- but their hearts are in the right place."
. . . . .This morning's blog round-up: - Jeffrey Feldman over at Frameshop turns in a good piece on President Obama's press conference the other night, comparing it's pragmatism to the cloudy conservative dreamworld of the Bush years. - William Cohan over at the Daily Beast turns in this timely piece, in light of this morning's hearings, that Wall Street should be allowed to fail on it's own, as the refutation of unbridled, unregulated capitalism. ( I tend to agree with him, the gulf between have and have-not grows larger, and it's time for a New Economy, and new theories) - Ben Smith over at Politico reports in his entry this morning that Americans United For Change is airing a 30 second spot starting today that goes after the GOP Leadership for standing in the way of change and wanting to go back to "business as usual". - Camille Paglia, over at Salon, writes her opinion of Obama's 1st two weeks in office, it's at the jump here. - Over at Real Clear Politics, in their editorial round-ups, they pull in an editorial from the Boston Globe this morning that cuts through the political chaff and cuts right to the chase, that being that our infrastructure is crumbling, and stimulus money spent rebuilding it is not only jobs, but an investment for the future. - Andy Kessler, over at the Wall Street Journal, turns in this one this morning that attempts to analyze the market's lukewarm reception to Timothy Geithner and his version of bail-out plan that he rolled out yesterday morning. - Andrew Sullivan coming in this morning with commentary, and links to just about everything. I just like reading him! - Over at Mother Jones, Jonathan Stein turns in this piece, and has done some pretty heady research, about the GOP's complete ignorance of, and refusal to talk about, the facts from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, in their own talking points around their objection to the stimulus plan.
. . . . .One of the things I appreciate about the good people over at FiveThirtyEight.com is that they're not locked into just doing the mathematical analysis on voting and voting trends. As true math geeks, they're able to take a pretty pragmatic, non-emotional look at the pertinent vital stats around pretty much anything, and do a critical analysis. This one, by Nate Silver, titled "Why We're Probably in for a Long Recession: isn't good, it's some econometric analysis around job loss in the current recession and what the trends mean right now based on past historical data:
Ask yourself the following: is momentum a good thing or a bad thing?
One of the more persistent trends in the United States' postwar economic history is that the volatility in the performance of the economy has decreased over time. For example, from 1948 through 1969, the median change in the real GDP growth rate from one quarter to the next was 4.0 percent. Since 1987, however, it has been just 1.8 percent. A similar, although slightly less dramatic trend can be observed in the behavior of the unemployment rate. The economy, over time, has become increasingly sticky, stubborn, robust, stable, or whatever synonym you prefer. It has more inertial momentum than it once did.
Median Quarter-to-Quarter Fluctuations Period GDP Unemployment Martin Era 1948-1969 4.00% 0.23% Volcker Era 1970-1986 2.91% 0.18% Greenspan Era 1987-2009 1.81% 0.15%
Decreased volatility -- momentum -- is generally thought of as a Good Thing. And it is a Good Thing -- if the economy is expanding.
Right now, however, the economy is not expanding -- it is contracting. And when the economy is contracting, reduced volatility may be an altogether different thing. It may mean that contractions are longer as well. Take a look, for instance, at Justin Fox's graph at Time.com about the behavior of the unemployment rate over the past six recessions:
. . . .Lost jobs appear to be taking longer and longer to recover with each subsequent recession. In fact, if we look at all recessions since World War II, the three most recent recessions (prior to this one) are associated with the three longest time frames for employment to return to its pre-recession peaks. The 1991 and 2001 recessions in particular were associated with so-called jobless recoveries. You can click the link in the paragraph above the quoted article for the complete analysis.
. . . . .On a musical note, I'm going to turn in a plug here for Otis Gibbs, a singer-songwriter from Wanamaker, Indiana who has been traveling and touring for a long time. I got turned on to him listening to Mojo Nixon the other night. The obvious comparisons are to Steve Earle, Chris Knight, John Prine and John Mellencamp here in his later years. Personally, I think he's unique and if anything, it's what Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger would do if they had electric instruments available to them. He is truly a champion of the working man and woman, and portrays the America we live in, not the one the media and Beltway politicians think we live in. Please, check him out here at the jump.
. . . . .Here's Otis captured on stage with his song "The People's Day"
. . . . . I'm going to keep the thread going that was started yesterday by Gary Clark and Kay Mejia, you can scroll down past today's and read it. It's a call to action for all of us.
. . . . .Gary wrote in again last night and had this to say:
Kip,
Here is my idea:
People from all over the country go to Washington and stand, silently facing of the houses of congress. Everyone holds a sign with a big eye on it. We will call the demonstration "We are watching you".
Gary Clark
. . . . .Seriously, it sounds like a great idea to me. Again, I'm volunteering this space for organization of it. Get a date, sign some folks up, etc. To me, in my mind's eye, it sounds like a very powerful demonstration of unity and letting the members of Congress know that it's our country, and they're our public servants, not the other way around.
. . . . . .When I voted for Barack Obama, I was not voting for the Democratic party, but for change. Personally, I'm sick and tired of the Dems whining that the entire problem occurred over the last 8 years of a Repub Congress and Bush. They were sitting in their seats then, and did nothing at all to stop it. I'm tired of the Repubs trying to re-brand themselves as conservatives as they presided over the biggest expansion of Federal Government in known history, a doubling of the deficit and a squandering of a trillion dollar surplus that they were given.
. . . . .It's like watching a bunch of people standing around a horse's carcass flailing away with sticks all trying to figure who killed the horse, when there's a bunch of desperate people who need a horse, any horse to get to town and get medicine for their kids. It doesn't damn well matter who killed the horse, it was everyone with a stick in their hands! Get a new damn horse!
. . . .I'm glad that the President is trying to take the terms of the debate over the stimulus package back and is taking the playing field away from the Washington beltway. Keeping the debate in that inner circle is what killed this country. Prime-time press conferences, town-hall meetings, taking it out to the people, that's what will change things.
. . . . .And who let that reporter into the press conference that wanted the President's opinion on Alex Rodriguez and steroids? Who cares? Out of 13 questions, this was one of the important ones?
. . . . . Geithner is unveiling the second half of the bank bailout package this morning, I'll watch with a jaundiced eye. The one thing that I think provides a hopeful note is the establishing of a new domain and website called Financial Stability.gov, which launched this morning, in an attempt to provide some transparency around where the money is going and how it's being spent.
. . . .I'll update more throughout the day, as the news starts to roll in, and more of your ideas around political & social activism, change and justice roll in. Keep writing, I'm going to keep this thread going.
Monday February 9, 2009 . . . . .Dear friend and reader Gary Clark sent this yesterday, and I'm asking you to read it in full.
Kip,
Please start a thread that talks about not letting the press and the politicians take away the man and the policies we voted for when we elected Barack Obama. When we voted for change we meant that the system, the way it operates and the people who are in it must change. If they do not get on the train and change the way things are done in Washington and in the press, then they must be made to understand that we the people will rise up against them until they either change or are gone. That goes for Republicans and/or Democrats who stand in the way, or who insist on Washington as usual. The dim brains that can't understand what we mean need to go. We are the voters, we are the citizens, it is our money and our time.
I hope that we the electorate are not naive or foolish enough to think that our job was done when we elected Obama. We have to follow up on the election with our words to friends and family, in publications of all sorts and in demonstrations if we need to do so. When we said we wanted change, and when we voted for change, we meant that things need to change. So, let's get in there and insist on support for intelligent policies, responsibility and cooperation in government and restrained and ethical business practices that focus on workers and their families.
Gary Clark
. . . . .I'm all for it Gary. Consider the thread started. What I'm asking you readers to do is act. I'll more than happily let this column serve as that forum for you readers. Send to me any reactions you have to what Gary wrote, any suggested actions, any web links, or organizations that need to be read and reacted to. Send along to me any news of our public servants or the media getting in the way of what you all worked so hard for back in the fall. Let's bring out in the open where our politicians and our media are falling back into "business as usual". Let's continue the work we all started and not let the generations behind us pay the price for our apathy and inactivity. We've proven once already last year, what as a group, we can do. Please forward the link to this column along to your progressive friends, don't assume that they're on the update e-mail address list and make the circle bigger than it already is, and make the energy we have become a cohesive force. Now are desperate times, and we do not need to fall into bickering over details, or letting the "other person" do it. I'll provide the space, and do the editing and posting, you all start feeding it to me, and let's make this column, and your virtual community here a positive force for political, social & economic justice. Individually we will fail, as a community, a positive force for change, we can make a difference.
. . . . .Any profound change in the paradigm of a culture, a society of people and their politics starts with two people sitting around talking and giving one another energy, faith and hope. The synergy of two minds together, two souls, begins something extraordinary that catches fire and transforms and brings others into the circle of the firelight until the whole is greater than the sum, and the vision, the thought, the idea has breath and life, and becomes real. So, wanna go change the world, boys and girls? I do.
Update 5 PM . . . . .It only took about 2 hours for dear friend and reader Kay Mejia (and one of the sharpest minds it's ever been my pleasure to enjoy a conversation with) to send this along:
Hi Kip,
Our nation cannot go back to sleep. Two poorly thought bailout packages have now passed. We cannot afford another one. We cannot afford to think our government is 'for the people' - we need to investigate and agitate and keep calling/sending email/sending letters/peacefully protesting. We finally found our voice in this election. I, for one, plan to continue using mine. Positive thinking is great, but only when followed up by real action.
. . . .The President addresses the nation on the stimulus package at 8 PM Eastern tonight, and is on the road today in Indiana, and then going on, campaign style to address the people directly on the stimulus package. I grew up in Michigan, near Elkhart, and it's a disaster zone there, the unemployment rate is 15.4%.
. . . .Going back to what Gary said, remember to keep White House.gov bookmarked in your Favorites links, and Congress.org will put you in direct contact with your Senators and Representative.
. . . .For media, I like to use Media Matters. They're non-profit, and non-partisan, and do a great job of fact-checking, and calling out lies when they're told in the media. Anyone can be a member and contributor to the site, and that's what makes it so successful. It's organic and fluid, and with so many eyes and ears, it's easy to keep an eye, pun intended, on what the media is doing. I'm sure there's others, just send them along to me.
. . . . .And it's Media Matters that pointed this one out this morning, calling "Limbaugh, Hannity and the GOP, an iron triangle of stimulus misinformation".
. . . . .If he wasn't serious, I would have fallen on the floor laughing yesterday morning at new RNC chair Steele as he completely confused George Stephanolous (and the rest of the watching audience) on ABC's This Week when he said the Republican opposition to the stimulus bill stemmed from the "fact" that "a job created by the stimulus package isn't a job. . . . .it's only work"??? Oh, and those 3 million jobs lost in the last 3 months? and the 7 million lost total? Don't worry, because, they're not really lost. "Private sector jobs never go away". Get the link to the video here.
. . . . .On a cultural note, picked up Bruce Springsteen's new one, Working on A Dream, and gave it a very serious listening party over 3 days. Like any artist who's been at his craft for over 3 decades, it's a masterwork. Yes, it's dense and thick, full of musical texture and meaning, and produced by Brendan O'Brien with a Phil Spector-ish wall of sound. It's not something to throw in the car and give a casual listen to at first take. Despite the full production, there's an incredible number of musical nuances in every layer of every song. I won't go into it song by song, but there are some truly beautiful lyrics in each song, especially two near the end "Surprise, Surprise" with the line "Let the rising sun caress your soul, surprise, surprise, open your eyes and let your love shine down" and the line in "The Last Carnival", honoring Danny Federici and his death, that refers to God calling all his own home. We're all that same age now, racing the clock to get the important undone things in our lives here done, before we're called home to do that work from that side. The last song, the bonus track, is the song he wrote for Mickey Rourke's movie The Wrestler, and won the Golden Globe for. It's a theme song for me, and lot of people like me who've walked the same roads and fought the same battles.
. . . . .The Guardian, out of London, reports that the Catholic Church is trying to regain some sense of self-respect. They ousted the British archbishop of a seminary in Argentina who taught that the Holocaust never occurred and denied that it happened.
. . . . .I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around this one. More GOP opposition to the stimulus package, this from Sen. Mitch McConnell "we know for sure that the. . . .spending programs of the New Deal did not work."
. . . . .David Axelrod, White House senior political advisor and former Obama campaign manager, on the flight to Indiana this morning, took on McConnell -
“One thing that we learned over two years is that there’s a whole different conversation in Washington than there is out here. If I had listened to the conversation in Washington during the campaign for president, I would have jumped off a building about a year and a half ago," Axelrod said, according to a pool report.
“The American people are desperate for us to act. They understand that we’re in crisis. They’re living it every single day. ... They’re not into the machinations that folks in Washington are. They’re not sweating this detail or that detail. They’re certainly not buying into the argument that, you know, the New Deal was a failure and we shouldn’t intervene," he said.
. . . . Senator Arlen Spector, whom I still remember from the Watergate Hearings, and is one of the true "mavericks" of the Republican party explains in an editorial in the Washington Post this morning explains his break away from his party and his support of the stimulus package -
"I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action."
. . . . You can read the rest of it after the jump here.
. . . . .Friday's music video comes from 35 years ago from Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. It's Foghat, still one of my favorite all-time groups. Lonesome Dave Peverett and Rod Price are definitely missed. Foghat was formed from the Savoy Brown Blues Band, and when Dave, Rod and Tony Earl left to form Foghat, they wanted to take a true rock and roll vibe to the blues based music that they'd been playing. Anyhow, it's Hate To See You Go.
. . . . .Outta here for today. Please re-read what Gary Clark and Kay have written above, and let's get this train rolling. Remember some of what was posted last week, a la the Rev Charla's contribution on Time Banks, let's get the energy back up and take our country back. Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments. Change your own world, and in so doing, change the world around you.
Step up onboard the Mystery Train, and ride these tracks to the horizon. It's time.
. . . . .Today's soundtrack - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face done by Johnny Cash, off the superlative American Recordings CD's. Gorgeous song, originally made popular by Roberta Flack. And if you read the whole column, I think you'll find a big surprise in today's video.
. . . . . .First up, President Obama's weekly address, which speaks directly to the stimulus package, and how important it was for the Senate, last last night, to reach a deal on it.
. . . .You can find this video over at White House.gov, and keep up with the current Administration as they try to juggle about 17 plates in the air all at once.
. . . . .As stated previously, the Senate reached a bipartisan deal late last night on the stimulus package, and CNN reports that a vote is expected Tuesday.
. . . . .I've talked to a few (very few) folks who aren't understanding the difference between the bailout money handed out by Paulson to the banks, and the stimulus package. The heart of the stimulus package is a jobs creation effort, aimed at our nation's infrastructure, roads, bridges, levees, and installing a broadband network in every school and medical care facility. The difference is simple, those without jobs would get a chance to go to work doing something that will have a lasting effect and a bump on the economy. That's opposed to bailout people, who had to make the choice between playing an early 18 holes, or getting the massage package, at their spa resort.
. . . . .And yes, this crisis has a long history and was a long time coming. But, remember, 8 years ago, G.W. Bush was handed a $3.6 trillion dollar surplus by Bill Clinton. That's what happens when you decide that your spending priority is $6 billion a month in Iraq. Add that up over 7 years, and the stimulus package looks downright tiny by comparison.
. . . . .Actually, I liked the change in tone that President Obama brought on Thursday in an impromptu speech to House Dems in Virginia, when the Republican Senators dug their heels in and wanted a return to those policies that brought us to this disaster. If you haven't seen it, I suggest you watch it below.
. . . . .The New York Times weighed in yesterday with a well-written editorial, backed by facts and figures, that opines on yesterday's jobless figures, but goes on to say that the numbers may be even worse than first reported, and that it's urgent to get people working again. I've complained about the condition of the roads for years, as I travel, putting people to work repairing them will be a good thing. The bridge tragedy in Minneapolis a couple of years ago underscores the need for a better bridge system. For schools not to be wired for high speed broadband in this day and age is criminal, it's not a frill, it's vital to the delivery of information.
. . . . . Over at the Daily Beast, at today's Cheat Sheet, they're reporting that Vice-President Biden, in speaking about a broad range of topics related to Europe, stated that it's "time to hit the reset button on relations with Russia". That's a statement that just cannot make Vladimir Putin a happy man this evening over in Moscow.
. . . . .And speaking of checking your brain at the door. Check this one out from the Huffington Post, where the GOP Senators are solidly against a pay cap for the CEO's of financial firms taking bailout money. Imagine that, they're against it. Why, doesn't the very essence of the Republican platform revolve around the word "conservatism". Now, what does that word mean again? Hmmmm?
. . . . .Today's music video is a tribute to Delaney Bramlett. Delaney and Bonnie and friends was the cradle, the birthplace of Derek and the Dominoes, a lot of the musicians who backed Joe Cocker on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen rolling road revue, and Bonnie Bramlett was the writer and composer of "Superstar", the song that Karen Carpenter rode to fame. Delaney went on over the years to become a respected and valued producer, who had an incredible ear for a lick and a good musician. This clip, pulled from old Japanese archives is notable for a couple of things, with Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon, Carl Radle all in the rhythm section, that was the beginnings of Derek and the Dominoes. Eric Clapton on guitar solidly cements that. Billy Preston on keyboards, who spent his career as the keyboard player off and on for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones takes it up one notch higher, and George Harrison on the other guitar, playing off of Clapton takes it over the top. Enjoy! . . . . . .
. . . . .Outta here, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments before you let them slip through your hands. Change your own world and in so doing, change the world around you.
Look yonder, on the horizon. Trouble comes, see the banners, hear the horns and drums. Rise up men and women of the Lost 10th, raise high the Black Flag, let them know that now, in this place, we will stand and we will do that which we pledged to ages ago, we will fulfill our destiny here, and those we swore to protect will know that it is our greatest honor, our wish to fall here, doing our duty.
. . . . Today's musical selection, The Weight, only as done by the Staples Singers, a little different take, and definitely uplifting. For today's music video, there's two of them below, one consecutive after the other. They're the film of the All-Star Jam Session that happened right at the end of the Last Waltz, only Scorsese never put it in the film. (Note: I was gonna put in Cross Canadian Ragweed doing Reckless Kelly's "Crazy Eddie's Last Hurrah" just because I like the song, but for anyone who knows the song, and knows me and my life situation right now. . . . .Naaah, not a good idea.)
. . . . . Right to the numbers. 600,000 more jobs lost in January. That makes 2 million jobs alone lost in the last three months, and the scary part is the hiring freezes announced everywhere, which means those that are out of work will have a hard time finding any more work. If you're one of those who's lost their job, it's small consolation but you're not alone. If you're still working, please bear in mind how fortunate you are and yes, it's time to dig a little deeper and find something extra for those around us who are now in a place of need.
. . . . ."Eco-crunch", it's a word, unfortunately, that many of us will become familiar with. With us as a human species consuming 1/3 more resources than the planet has the capability to keep up with, it will be crunch time soon. That's not 1/3 more annually, or bi-annually. That's 1/3 more every second, of every minute, of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year. When that crunch comes, it will make the current depression look like some kind of Golden Age. It's a reminder that the two are intertwined, the consumption of resources and the collapse of the global, human economy. I don't know any other way to put it, and it does sound like doomsaying, but it isn't. It's not too late, and we can turn it all around, it's a matter of living simpler, consuming less, and learning how to create and operate in a New Economy.
. . . . .Popular culture has given us soooo many clues. You all remember Tina Turner in Beyond Thunderdome, I know you do. It's about barter, it's about trading what one person can do for something someone else needs. It's about the Time Banks that the Rev Charla intoduced in this column last week. It operates on so many levels, because at that level, it's about a handshake and looking someone in the eye, and having enough trust to make a deal, it's about communication and helping one another, and there's no profit, there's only services rendered for a need, or a basket of tomatoes for a carton of eggs, or a pair of boots for a coat. It's really simple.
. . . . . The collapse of capitalism as we know it is a profound refutation of Keynesian economics and Adam Smiths' "invisible hand". In an ideal world, yes, it's entirely workable. But the world is made up of people, people are human, which automatically points to a flaw in the works. Eventually, those who are the greediest and the most self-serving will rise to the top and manipulate the system to their own advantage.
. . . . .Is it out of maliciousness? For the most part, I think it's not intended that way. It's ignorance, and it's brought on by the facelessness and impersonalization of a credit driven society. When you don't have to shake someone's hand and look them in the eyes and make a deal, then accountability goes away.
. . . . .I'm still in disbelief that the CEO's of the bailed-out financial institutions and banks are screaming over their salary cap. Let's see, they're the ones who ran it into the ground, took the first round of bailout money and used it for bonuses, spa vacations, office remodelings and jets, it's our money that they're getting to keep them solvent, but they don't want to pay for their misakes? Hmmmmm
. . . . .And speaking of stalling, don't the Republican Senators get it? We voted for change, sweeping change and it was a mandate. Their policies, over the last 8 years are what led to this. So no, stalling it and re-crafting it into what they think it should be is not, I repeat, not what the American people need.
. . . . .The 2 videos that I'm putting up today are classics. You need to play them both, first the top one then the other. It's an All-Star Jam Session from the Last Waltz, and is the only archival footage known of it. So, it's not only The Band, it's also Ringo Starr on drums, Dr. John on keyboards, Eric Clapton playing a wicked blues harp, and Neil Young, Ron Wood and Stephen Stills cranking out on guitar. This kids, for those of you, younger than us creaky old ones, is what made rock and roll so fabulous back then, it was organic and fluid, not programmed. Enjoy.
Part 1
Part 2
. . . .And yes, the Dead are reuniting and touring this Spring starting out on April 10th (I believe) somewhere's down Carolina way.
. . . . .Outta here for the day, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do, seize the precious moments before you let them slip through your hands. Change your own world, and in so doing, change the world at large.
Step on board, the Rock 'n Roll Pain Train Express is pulling out of the station . . . . .
. . . . Today's embedded musical selection? The one and only Rock and Roll Son of Detroit, Rock and Roll Jesus, Kid Rock with Amen from the Rock and Roll Jesus disc. Some of you didn't think he could write and sing a song like that, admit it. Today's music video embedded at the bottom? The Kid himself, out at the Buffalo Chip saloon during Sturgis a couple of years ago, doing Bob Seger's Travelin' Man/Beautiful Loser note for note just like the Live Bullet as a tribute to Bob. If you weren't born in the Midwest, you wouldn't get it, but that album is the one that put Bob and the Silver Bullet Band on the map nationally, but we'd been listening to him for years. If you're my age, you know every note, every lick, every crowd shout and nuance of those two songs. If you were lucky enough, you were at Cobo Hall that night. We'd grown up watching him tour relentlessly and give everything he had every night. When Bob was first starting out, he'd pull a trailer into a Burger King parking lot on a Friday or Saturday night and play for free. He'd do High School dances, the corner tavern, it didn't matter, as long as he was playing. Bob so believed, and still believes in the power of rock and roll to both transcend our minor earthly travails, and reflect the life of an everyday typical Michigan blue collar working person. And yes, Kid Rock does refer to Bob Seger constantly as an inspiration, and respects the hard work that the man put into his music, the relentless touring, the soul and grit that Bob put into rock and roll, and mostly respects the fact that Bob has never left the State, raises his kids there, and still calls it home. That's why the Kid won't leave either, no matter how bad it gets for us up there.
. . . . .As long as I'm on a cultural roll, and we're in the middle of an economic freefall, in which our President is forecasting "catastrophe" if the stimulus bill isn't passed, I'll talk a little bit about my home state. Highest unemployment rate in the Nation, highest foreclosure rate, we're supposedly some kind of symbol. We are, but it's not symbolic of what you think it is. We're tougher than you think we are. It isn't a secret, to anyone who knows me, what I do for a living, and where I work, out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico on oil platforms. I'm not the only one from Michigan, in fact there's a host of us, we could fill a couple of planes at Metro on crew change night if we all took the same flight, and we get along quite well down here with the Cajuns, outlaws, cowboys and renegades that all do this for a living from Louisiana, Texas, Alabama & Mississippi. In fact, they'll tell you that they can spot a Michigan person from a mile off, as opposed to anyone else from the Midwest or any other part of the nation for that matter. They'll tell you we're more like them than anyone else in the country, despite the distance. Why is that? I'll tell you why. . . . . . . . . .Back before the turn of the century, we were the nation's logging industry and copper mining industry. . . . . We're the only state to go war with another state over a city. (Ohio only thinks they won, it was for Toledo, we really won!) . . . . Henry Ford didn't invent the car, but he did invent automated assembly, high speed manufacturing, and the concept of controlling the supply chain from obtaining raw materials, shipping it yourself, manufacturing it and selling it, and along with it a middle class. First man to pay $5 dollars a day's work, no matter your color. The Model T was designed to be affordable for the average man. . . . . .Same company, Michigan gave the world unions in a time when they were necessary. We're not afraid to put our mistakes right out on front street. The Battle of the Overpass in Dearborn, Michigan was infamous, but it drove home the need for workers to organize and represent themselves, it was necessary at the time, despite what it's morphed into over time. . . . . . When the world needed it, during WWII, Detroit shut down car production overnight, and turned to tanks and bombers. They were also the first factories to put women to work, with all the young men overseas. That's where the Southern connection comes from. As everyone poured up from the South, first to become America's armory, then after the war, to work in the factories in the post-war boom. . . . . .We gave the world Kalamazoo, yes it's a real place, where I was born. . . . . . From Kalamazoo came Shakespeare rods and reels, and supremely important, Gibson guitars was located in Kalamazoo, the place where the Les Paul was born. . . . . .Michigan gave the world W.K. Kellogg, one of the greatest eccentrics in history, and his corn flakes as a health food. No Michigan, no breakfast cereal! . . . . . Michigan cherries. Need I say more? Blueberries? . . . . . .More inland fresh water lakes than anywhere else, even Minnesota, and the Great Lakes. . . . . . .3/4 of a million hunters that hit the field every fall deer hunting. . . . . . .Actors? We gave you James Earl Jones, Tom Selleck, Tom Sizemore, Lee Majors, Terry O'Quinn (John Locke of Lost), Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe on 24), Jason Robards, Gillian Anderson (X-files) & Robin Williams. . . . . .Sports? We gave you Muhammad Ali, Magic Johnson, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jerome Bettis, Kirk Gibson & the father-son racing team of the Kalitta's. . . . . . People? We gave you Malcolm X and Rosa Parks. Need I say more? . . . . . .Musicians? The list gets big. Dell Shannon, Tommy James & The Shondells, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross & The Supremes, The MC5, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Aretha - The Queen of Soul, George Clinton, Grand Funk Railroad, Alice Cooper, Iggy and the Stooges, Rare Earth, The Isley Brothers, Jackie Wilson, John Lee Hooker, Al Green, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, Eminem, The Four Tops, Della Reese, Mary Wells, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Smokey Robinson, The White Stripes, Rare Earth and the aforementioned Rock and Roll Jesus himself, Kid Rock. And as I was reminded by a reader this morning early, I can't forget (though I did in the original list) Ted Nugent, or the original political activist rock 'n roller John Sinclair. . . . . The message? It's simple. We're made up of people who are tough and resilient. We've been down time and again, and gotten back up. . . . . .So if you know someone who has Rock and Roll, Funk, the Blues and Soul in their blood, someone who stands up no matter the odds, someone who is just as much at home on the sea as well as deep in the woods, someone who can work the fire of a steel furnace or make a fire out in the woods, someone who can function just as well at 7 degrees and 3 feet of snow as they can at 90 degrees and 90% humidity, they're probably one of us. . . . . .So you all don't worry, we'll take the lead on this, just depend on us, we'll see you through it.
. . . . .Well, no political commentary today, but we still get the music!
. . . . .Outta here, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. Seize the precious moments, cherish them before you let them slip through your fingers. Change your world, and in so doing, change the larger world around you.
For everything that has an ending, there is a beginning, men and women of the Lost 10th, for every dawn that we see, living under the Black Flag, there is a sunset. The circle is always maintained, in ways far beyond our own limited influence.
. . . . . .For today's musical selection, of course, honoring the Boss and Sunday night's incredible Super Bowl half-time performance, let's go back in time a little and remember "to show a little faith, there's magic in the night". Thunder Road from Born to Run.
. . . . . .For the first time in my long, creaky rock-and-roll lifetime, the Grammy's appear to be attaining some relevance. With the additional performers named this morning. Now you can add U2 to Coldplay and Radiohead, (probably the 3 biggest bands on the planet right now). You've got the 3 biggest urban poets around (Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Kanye West) a Beatle (Paul McCartney), Led Zep represented (Robert Plant w/ Allison Kraus) and Rock and Roll Jesus himself, Kid Rock all of 'em performing. Add the Boss's half-time performance seen round the world by billions, and ain't it just a coincidence that with the election of the first Ipod carrying Rock and Roll President, music, real frickin' music has come back to the forefront.
. . . . . .Today marks the 50th Anniversary of "The Day the Music Died". 50 years ago today, the plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper went down in Iowa.
. . . . . Today's movie moment: "The question is not how far. The question is, do you possess the constitution, the depth of faith, to go as far as needed?" - Boondock Saints. a true cult classic.
. . . . .Yes, we'll get to the politics, but I can't go any further without providing some resources and some commentary. By now, we all now how bad it's getting. But if you're reading this on a computer, it means that (1) you have a computer (2) you're still in a home (3) the power is on & (4) you've to the time to get on the web. The numbers of lost jobs, failing businesses, the growing number of people losing their homes and number of people slipping to poverty, slipping through the cracks and people going hungry grows every day. I'm going to list some resources below, all highly rated, good organizations devoted to helping people and seeing that people don't go hungry. I'm not going to describe each one, but I will provide the links, and hopefully, you can find something locally for yourself to contribute some time and energy to. Share Our Strength OXFAM Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest) ACCION Action Against Hunger Habitat for Humanity
. . . . . .OK, here's our President with that whole accountability thing again. This link here takes off to a story this morning that talks about his administration is coming up with ways to limit Bank executives pay for those banks that are taking bailout money.
. . . . .Eric Holder was sworn in this morning as this country's first black Attorney General. On the whole justice theme, his first set of orders from the Obama administration - change Bush's policies. '. . . . . . . . the Justice Department will be "no place for political favoritism."
. . . . He said he was committed to remaking the department "into what it once was and what is always should be."
Vice President Joe Biden administered the oath to President Barack Obama's pick for the nation's top law enforcement officer, the first African-American to hold the post.
Biden said the department, under Holder, would return to a past standard of "no politics, no ideology. Only a clear assessment of facts and law."
.. . .. . . .The votes against Obama's stimulus package came, as a block from a Southern confederacy Republicans and southern Democrats, their apparent message to the rest of America? "Drop dead". The idealogical war in this country is no longer Dem vs. Repub, or Boomers vs. Gen X, nor conservative vs. liberal. It's a clear split along the lines of the old Confederacy. Now relax and breathe, I'm not branding the citizens or the people of those States, I'm merely calling out their Senators and Representatives to the House, and only those people. I work in the South, a large number of my friends are in the South, and I couldn't ask for a better bunch of progressive people. It's time their politicians caught up to them.
. . . . .On the cultural front, I'm absolutely riveted by the new season of ABC's Lost. I've been a junkie since episode 1, and followed all it's plot details intensely, watching most episodes at least 3 times, original, rerun and on the computer again. In it's next to last season, as it explores both why and how the Oceanic 6, along with Ben Linus and John Locke (Jeremy Bentham) must return to the Island, many seemingly meaningless pieces or apparently trivial players have come back to prominence in only it's first 3 episodes. I've said all along that it was a profound meditation on the dualities of life, of apparent good vs. evil, of the choices we all makes. The fictional 7 (yes, it's significant) characters of John Locke, Jack Shepard, Kate Wagner, Sayid, Ben Linus, Sawyer (James Ford) & Desmond have all shown that people aren't always simple cartoon cutouts, that they aren't purely good or simply bad, but contain elements of both within their personalities, and are capable of both rising above themselves and succumbing to their baser natures at the same time. Now, within 3 episodes it proposes and brings together theories that I've held my whole life:
- That time is a constant, always moving forward in a stream, and what has happened has happened, and even if we can move around it, get lost in the stream of time, the past absolutely cannot be changed. If it never happened, it can't be forced to happen. If it happened, it cannot, absolutely cannot be undone.
- That there are groups among us who are different, who aren't us, but are Others, and their entire job is to protect us, even if it means costing themselves something dear. Those Others who aren't part of the stream of things, but exist outside it and can jump around through it and whose job it is to ensure that existence continues.
- That death is only a different state in time. That we're always alive somewhere, someplace.
- That redemption is not only possible, but comes when we least expect it, if we just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
. . . . .Today's music video, Mickey & The Motorcars covering one Warren Zevon's best songs, Lawyers, Guns & Money
. . . . .Outta here for the day, kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do and make sure they hear you, seize the precious moments that life offers you, and cherish them. Change your life, change your own world and in so doing change the larger world around you.
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