winter soldier, pt 2

so mercury is retrograde again, my site went down temporarily and communication is... underground. it seems to swim backwards in the sky at times of retrograde, much like movement forward, as though standing still. but its not, and the movement is just deeper and harder to detect. that's what my friend judith used to say.

the pre release song will be up shortly, fyi. you can check out the austinmusicdownload.com site or minstrelsdaughter.blogspot.com in the coming week for it.



http://www.youtube.com/v/C0YFaLN_LFs&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/8DeszyFWL_g&hl=en&fs=1

if people dont vote in a trick election, or enlist to do rich men's dirty work, or allow their children to be recruited by the us army to do it, well, you do the math. maybe we'd pay artists instead? and there'd be a whole lot less karma cleanup for all of us. i am no less guilty than these.

have you read rilke's book of hours, love poems to god? there's one:

my voice grew in two directions
and became a scenting and a cry;
one will prepare the distances,
and the other must be face and blessedness
and angel of my loneliness.

may both voices accompany me
when I am scattered again in city and fear.
they will serve me in the fury of our time
and help me to make a place for you
wherever you need to be.

winter soldier

http://www.youtube.com/v/-iTdxBECos8&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/Y6iLoXIpJFQ&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/y_cjkWevHNM&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/Ymd2KiP-PqY&hl=en&fs=1

http://www.youtube.com/v/Clq4Z3Qc2jo&hl=en&fs=1

so you thought war was a patriot's act? who could blame you? unless of course, you go on thinking it. well just to cheer you up, here's some democracy from leonard:

democracy music video on youtube

and mick put it this way, in sweet neo con:

you call yourself a christian
i think that you're a hypocrite
you say you are a patriot
i think that you're a crock of shit

and listen, I love gasoline
i drink it every day
but it's getting very pricey
and who is going to pay

how come you're so wrong
my sweet neo con.... Yeah

it's liberty for all
cause democracy's our style
unless you are against us
then it's prison without trial

but one thing that is certain
life is good at haliburton
if you're really so astute
you should invest at brown & root.... Yeah

how come you're so wrong
my sweet neo con
if you turn out right
i'll eat my hat tonight

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah....

it's getting very scary
yes, I'm frightened out of my wits
there's bombers in my bedroom
yeah and it's giving me the shits

we must have loads more bases
to protect us from our foes
who needs these foolish friendships
we're going it alone

how come you're so wrong
my sweet neo con
where's the money gone
in the pentagon

yeah ha ha ha
yeah, well, well

mckinney, baldwin, nader and paul

ok, so maybe youre not so into ms mckinney, have you heard of baldwin? me neither. heres biden riffing about the other candidate for president:

http://www.youtube.com/v/955Y3NJTRIE&hl=en&fs=1

alls im sayin is, theres one more month or so before the voting. how do you counteract so much mind control and dollarsense? thats, sense made by dollars, paid for by the Campaign to Elect Who We Can Buy.

voice mail

kennedy/nixon debate

i was working on a track for the record today and didnt hear the phone ring, but i got a message later from a college student who was supposed to be at a friday night party but didnt get there because there was a crowd on campus watching the "presidential debate" in the common room, and they stopped to listen. i had heard yesterday on my way home from teaching a class listening to kut radio that the "president" had arranged a conversation with obama and mccain, regarding the "financial situation". ?? really? why those two? why not other candidates as well? have the elections already happened and i hadnt heard? i suppose the ratings are already in and its a shoe-in? why hold the elections? and the two fellows "put aside" their bipartisanships and got on with talking about the "financial". anyway, here in the caller's words (excluding some color which some folks wont read as feeling or emphasis or emotion, which is what it is) is what was left on my message machine:

"just watching the presidential debates....man! it's all a game, its so depressing. dear god! you know, they're like debating back and forth, back and forth, and obama's saying,'yeah, man, we've gotta get in there, we gotta kill the taliban, we should never have taken our eyes off of afghanistan to go into iraq, blah blah blah, we gotta kill osama bin laden, we gotta find that ...., we gotta take him down!' while, um, while other [dude] mccain is saying 'no, man, we have to get to iraq, we have to kill THOSE ....., i mean come on, let's prioritize here!' anyway, it's all a game, what are they talking about ALLIES, allies for our country? what does our country STAND for anyway? who cares who our allies are? and can i ask you something? um, no matter which president we get, will it change anything in our own lives? do WE actually matter? do ANY of us in this country, actually matter. or is it just the silly little game that we play in middle school and high school, except on a bigger scale with a huge budget, dealing with international affairs with countries they know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about. but they think they have the right to mess around in their political games? it's so, it's just ... insane, i've - i don't understand. i don't understand, how'm i supposed to vote? how'm i supposed to vote for obama? i don't understand how i'm gonna do it. im so sad, i haven't even been able to register to vote, i don't know what to do. anyway, i had to leave, i could only take, i guess i was there, from .. for (looking at watch).. oh my god! i guess i was there for an hour and twenty minutes, i don't know how that happened. but it was painful. it just got to a place where i was like, allies? ALLIES? allies for our country? allies for our country which is about, WHAT? killing osama? (sad laugh) obama, osama, whatever, ok. anyway, love you, call me back, bye."

i couldnt have said it that well so im quoting again. i think its the heart of the matter, when a college student is thunderstruck by the horror show of the political circus prior to voting for the first time and particularly wondering if anyone gets heard. its a big deal. this isnt someone who was raised to have a particular view or other, just their own.

on the other hand, i was hugely influenced by the political climate in my own household, and the country at large, but at that time, when it most impressed me, i saw real passion, and engagement, because the ones i was watching knew they could make a difference and that their voices were being heard in an unprecedented way. not so now. i remembered being at the caucus back in march for the primaries and how several people voting differently from their counterparts (read race, demographic, etc) actually looked scared.

my view of watching the news is that it is a narcotic i dont happen to cotton to. its an inoculation against freedom to listen to the drooling drivel of that great tv show called THE NEWS. who's damn news? not mine. i dont actually believe i have to choose between two idiots arguing over what's the better political choice of targets. i dont actually think i need to vote for warmongers, no matter if theyre dressed up to appear like The Great New Hope or The Hip Conservative with a Spitfire Gal Running Mate. boring. sounds like another episode of law & order to me, with even better ratings. i wish this whole country would wake up and no one would attend the polls and see who gets voted in then, even if theyve already engraved the name on the new presidential door plaque, in bronze, to match the doorknob.

check out the little web site: http://www.bloggingthedebates.com, interesting discussions over there. just so's you know, there are alternatives to curly and moe dancing around like bloodthirsty bears on the abc/nbc/cbs affiliates.

we agree

it's my late grandfather tom's birthday, exactly a hundred years ago today. so, of course, some oliver wendell holmes:


"Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of it's hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps it's youth,
So far as i know, but a tree and truth."

but i'm quoting again, yes. the title refers to a posting on the daily paul page today.

the anti-mccain campaign, or how i stopped smoking and drinking and shooting at things and learned to love the world think tank

here, in it's entirety, is eve ensler's quote, for those who didnt click-thru yestididy, it's worth reprinting. three mules for sister sarah! (great movie, btw) and i quote


Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Vday site

d'ya like the taste of my broadsword, mountain-ninja?

so, it's colder. by 25 degrees. that's colder by far. i put on my boots for the first time since may. i think its harder to think in a hot climate, for me anyway. cant remember the last time i did some thinking. which doesnt mean there isnt worrying, but worrying's not thinking, or planning, but planning's not thinking either. no, havent done much thinking since i lived in upstate. it justnt hasnt been possible. on the other hand, there's a whole mess of doing, and also being, located in very different centers of the self than thoughts.

i only mention it because i think i miss thinking. its not possible to be crisp in this heat.

september's flower is the aster, have you seen those?

ps a friend, a young guy who included the note "im sending this to every woman i know", sent me an email with a quote by eve ensler about sarah palin worth checking out, its over on arianna huffington's page here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/drill-drill-drill_b_124829.html

the news that's fit to print... particularly good for anyone who's been inoculated by the endless prattle of the media blitz over the upcoming election, and who thinks that it has nothing to do with ratings and sweeps and keeping everyone glued, very good for you. and who hasnt?

iPod scrabble...

(from www.apple.com, of course)


is a big fat CHEAT and a LIAR!!!!!!! no sh*t! that thing is a total cheat! i swear to you, it 'developed' the words LORIS, RAX, etc. absoLUTE cheatage, no kidding. can't imagine what makes those folks think they can get away w that kinda stuff, man! unbelievable, and i aint got no memory for much, least of all spelling, but LORIS???????????????


dude. time to name that thing hal.

taconic parkway, fall

photos by juliet tondowski and devan mulvaney. landscape by some genius. new york by, well, new yorkers.

aint it great.

full moon

(photo absolutely ripped off by austin blogger mystic friendsy, check out the page.)



louis armstrong once said, "we all play 'do re mi', but you got to find the other notes yourself."

so im working on a couple covers for the record, one of them his and the other, a new piece by stephen mccarthy. mike doughty stole the other cover id been thinking of doing, and he prob did it better so its worth hearing. that was the book of love by peter gabriel; stephen's is just called love.

works for me ;)


ps have you listened to "break it down baby" by robinella????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! god! very nice, and also "press on", sweet.

ike and lincoln, and liberty, too

(pic here of louvre dido © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons)

one thing can be said for hurricanes, they are very impressive when viewed as satellite orange over the ocean blue or traveling some fine inlet like the gulf of mexico, just slouching towards bethlehem and all like a crude beast. before we were viewing weather like that, the prediction would come in the form of news at sea or impending skies or whatever, or animal behavior. I remember noticing, sitting in the kitchen of a girlfriend's house in sunset junction in LA, watching the morning anchors on the weather channel find new words to describe the upteenth storm that season while my sister on the phone was telling me they were driving out of the state. florida was really hit that year, everyone there remembers it, but most people don't remember what year it was.

i remember because it was the same year i split up with my husband, and the summer had been filled with hunting for a new place while staying at my friend's house.

but this year, there are again storms and in between, life. recently someone i know had to go for some basic tests that they were denied because they didnt have medical insurance and the emergency rooms in their state are not required to provide care and absorb the cost; it happened more subtly earlier this summer to another person i know, subtly because here in texas hospitals are required to provide 'indigent care'. that's pig latin for, 'you gotta give a shit'. in the classical version of the hippocratic oath, physicians would say this:

"i swear by apollo physician and asclepius and hygieia and panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that i will fulfill according to my ability and judgement this oath and this covenant: [and here some commitments to be decent and respectful to the one who taught the art of medicine, followed by this very significant phrase:] i will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick [that's diet and nutritional measures, you know] according to my ability and judgement and keep them from harm and injustice."

hippocrates was a doctor in athens during the time of the peloponnesian war. its more or less the same in the modern version, the oath, only without apollo and all. hygieia? goddess of health. panaceia, goddess of healing and daughter of asclepius, god of medicine. you know apollo surely. but the physicians are not really more than pawns in a major schematic to completely dehumanize and unsoul and systematize private human affairs in this ridiculous way to where people aren't even sensible anymore and defer consistently to things like this:

"well, my computer screen is saying...." or "you're not in the system" and "that's just not our policy, miss". to whatever degree there is a malevolent, money-grabbing mind behind these changes in the practice of--well everything, medicine, voting, driving, smoking in a restaurant, on an airplane, keeping your shoe laces tied from when you leave home until you finish travels, etc-- really it's a condition of the times to get dumbed down by meanness and stupidity but dont do it! ;) hospitals are the new healthcare program in america and all the private practice doctors are... out of private practice. i know two doctors who had to leave medicine and go into the insurance business, just to support their families! ??? as for diet and nutrition, that is the medicine.


this summer i wrote a song that i called the dido song. i had been reading (or trying to read) the aeneid and got stopped by the impression after book 1 that the entirety of the modern civilization was what rose up out of the trojan war and the start of what was to become rome and all things of and out of rome began on the journey between troy and tunisia and that new city. the story of dido queen of carthage and aeneas is a terrible story and i think is an amazing and precise depiction of what we have done with the divine aspect of the feminine in our brave new rome--er world, and it appalled me so much i had to write a song about it. i read it like the original sin or crime of our current paradigm, knowhatimean? ts eliot called their meeting in the underworld where aeneas tries to explain himself "the most telling snub" in western literature. its a damn bad premise for a brave new anything nevermind world.

ok ok, shep's gonna.... shep! (uh oh)

mmhhhhnnh.

wow, shep!

yeah.

i know i know you dont have to say it: lay off. i know. how r ya, shep?



;)

the new colossus

is the title of a sonnet by emma lazarus, which got partially quoted on the base of the statue of miss liberty... i didnt know til recently so i couldnt have told you sooner. ;)

"give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
i lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

calls the mother of exiles. emma was of portuguese sephardic jewish descent and a new yorker.

the sonnet was referenced by lew rockwell introducing ron paul's new platform counter-convention in minneapolis on tuesday. he called it rally for the republic. here he addresses the convention:

http://www.ronpaul.com/events/ron-paul-convention/

did you know that it is written in our original constitution that only those born in this country or its lands are allowed to be sworn in as president? i think i remember hearing that. you can fact check the constitution of the united states, article two, section one, paragraph five. apparently ron may be the only person who might be legally nominated, according to our own laws if we are abiding by those, and sworn in: he's the only one actually born here, except for hillary of course. she was born in illinois. he in texas. plus he's a leo--actually so is obama, who was born in kenya (have you read his book about his father?) even though now he is getting some press about his neat little birth certificate to say something about hawaii, with the certificate number crossed out in smart black ink. mccain? born in panama. leastaways, thats what i know from wikipedia. wiki doesnt even reference a place of birth for mccain- how many bios do you know of internationally known personalities on wiki that have no place of birth? check for yourself. all three guys were born in august so apparently that's indicated for the upcoming election. has a sort of conspiracy of the stars and planets feel, hunh? ;)

ive said a lot about all this presidency stuff, and meant every word. it has become one hell of a debate. have you heard about sarah palin?!?!!!! could this whole thing get anymore interesting?!?!!!! "thank god our time is now!" (dot dot dot)

the whole human race

(photos from austinist.com)

sorry about the lamo thing using another site's pix for this entry, its just 1) i did see some signage downtown when we were registering up under one of the tents that no cameras or video or whatev would be allowed at the race---????--- that's what we thought, and 2) since i still have this concussion thing i knew that even though i wouldnt be dashing heavy off the startline that i still didnt want to have to keep track of my little digi since i hate carrying anything at all walking around. otherwise i wouldve brought it just to discuss one of my goddamn amendments with the nazis when they asked for my papers. man! no smoking in outdoor queus, no taking pix of public events (tiananmen sq or what?), etc etc. damn. however,

austin came in second for average running time worldwide--how groovy is that ;) not that i was in a hurry--ive got this little recovery thing on with my concussion and spine etc so i walked the event and came in at the tail end with the official cop cars trailing us in. it was a gorgeous evening in austin even though apparently the gustav storm was worrying folks along the gulf. there was a moment given to friends there, at the start. apparently the governor was due to turn up and then didnt because of preparation for the effects of the storm. and lance armstrong whose org livestrong was on the list of groups to run for was supposedly somewhere among us; i didnt see him. but apparently he came in at 5 minutes under the best time at 34-something. i was at 2:10'05" ;) not exactly yer five-minute mile. there was a blackout on picture-taking too or i might have some shots...how odd is that? a blackout on a public event. or was it a media/sponser promo (nike, champion, etc?)

it was a river of runners and we were all there ostensibly to support one charity or research organization or another. i dont believe much in charities or most medical research organizations. i try to make sure to have charity as often as possible. sometimes i suppose i fail but i try not to wait for a major holiday or to make a donation -- mostly just respond to people around me when they cross my path. which is why i loved the name of the event so much and being in that group felt.. well, just like joining the human race. there was a rendition of the national anthem (which maybe we need to rethink?) which i was confused about, supposedly sung for friends along the gulf. i am as uncomfortable with organized patriotism as i am with organized religion, ive seen and heard about the abuse of the format enough to be mighty circumspect. but getting to stand in a large crowd of people lending human concern? smiling and jostling and looking a little serious and getting ready for a collective activity? --so much better than war! so much better than pro sports! but of course a great idea! maybe we need to congregate-- i do! and to stand together. sure is nice. not against something, for something. running towards it, in fact.