James Brown.
At least that’s who I’m thinking about when I see the lowered flags.
A couple of years ago they were lowered for Ray Charles.
But I’m really getting sick of old presidents stealing the spotlight when great musicians are making their final exits. Before Ray Charles, Kurt Cobain was the previous victim of this. There are probably more.
We’ve got things to say, so *#!$&%#!*, we’re gonna say them.
The world’s going too crazy to keep quiet any more.
The streets are filling up with people in Chilean cities.
All I can visualize is their singing this song.
(If you click on the above link, you may end up in iTunes.)
Being kinda new to this blogging software, I thought that check-boxes would do what they say they do. That is, when I ask the blog to send me an email when someone posts a comment (so that it can be approved and posted in a timely manner), I expect an email when someone posts a comment. So one day last week I peeked in, and lo and behold, there’s a comment that’s been languishing for weeks.
Sorry about that. Now I know not to believe everything my computer tells me.
I also know to pay attention to this creature more regularly.
I should feel happy, but it’s hard.
This week, a lot of Bad Guys were flushed out of the political system. We have a new House and Senate that will keep a leash on the thieves and thugs in the executive branch. Yet I do not scream with joy. On the other hand, I’ve stopped screaming in disgust.
The winners of this latest political punch-up are an improvement on the vipers they vanquished, but they are not Good Enough. We must now hold THEIR feet to the fire, just as we did with the neocon fascists who still lurk in the background.
This election is not a step forward. It merely applies the brakes on the backward momentum. There are many more battles to be fought to stop our national decline before we can begin to repair the damage and move forward.
In spite of the brighter overall picture, there was plenty of Bad News this week. Many states – including my home state – voted to deny rights to citizens based on who they like to sleep with. It gravely disturbs me that bigotry is now enshrined in the Constitution of my home state.
It bothers me that money is more important than ideas in our elections. It also bothers me that the voting process in some parts of my country is more corrupt and inefficient than in a lot of third world countries. How can we have free and fair elections in Iraq if we can’t have them in the United States?
And why can’t opposing candidates be as respectful and gracious with each other before the election as they are afterwards?
So even though this political battle was won, it’s hard to celebrate when the political war is so far from over. Our opponents may be wounded, but they are still dangerous. We must remain vigilant and tenacious in our pursuit of all that is Right and Good.
There’s a popular bumper sticker that says a lot in three words: “Mean People Suck.” Because the world would be such a better place if it weren’t for the small minority of mean people we have to put up with.
Most of us are not mean people. I’ve been lucky enough to have travelled overseas, and there are nice people all over the world, just as there are nice people all over La Crosse and the rest of America. But the actions of our government reflect badly on us as a people.
The following is the transcript of A Different Reality #602 – After Mardi Gras…
Listen to the 34-minute ‘podcast’ here:
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Here is the channel file for A Different Reality:
broadband … dial-up
Lassiez les bon temps rouler… let the good times roll. If only. Ever since Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma hit, the good times have not been rolling for many of the people along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the major damage that occured along the gulf coast and inland for 100 miles still hasn’t been fixed. During the week of Mardi Gras more people were evicted from their hotel rooms across the country. Some people who’ve been offered jobs in New Orleans can’t go because they don’t have anywhere to stay. Read on
During a recent public hearing, a leader of the La Crosse County Republican Party made references to the Green Party that fell somewhere between fighting words and slander.
This is something we can expect to see a lot of during the upcoming debate on the Bring the Troops Home referendum: with no rational arguments to support their case, they will resort to irrational ones. Expect a lot of lies, distortions, distractions, insults and personal attacks.
The following is the transcript of A Different Reality #508 – The Next Wave…
Listen to the 32-minute ‘podcast’ here:
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Here is the channel file for A Different Reality:
broadband … dial-up
Our last show was a reaction to the immediate aftermath of Katrina and the abandonment of the people of New Orleans. In this program we reflect on the horrific and heroic things that have happened since. We’ll talk about things that everyday people are doing to take care of each other, the variety of ways we can each take part in the recovery, and the competing visions that are out there for rebuilding and resettling the Gulf coast region.
And shouldn’t this parade of hurricanes be enough to motivate our leaders to do something serious about global warming? We’ll talk a bit about where they’re at with that.
The following is the transcript of A Different Reality #507 – Nyawlins…
Listen to the 28-minute ‘podcast’ here:
Broadband (38.4 Mb mp3) … Dial-up (4.8 Mb mp3)
Here is the channel file for A Different Reality:
broadband … dial-up
1) The Place
We pulled out our pictures of New Orleans the other day. RoZ had some from when she was there in 1988, and we had a bunch from when we went there together in ’98. Seeing these photographs while hearing the post-Katrina news coming from that city was hard, knowing that some of the things we were looking at were under water.
In a past life, I used to travel the country selling underground newspapers on the street, and in that life I worked in New Orleans several times. Most of my time there was spent in the French Quarter, which is the part of New Orleans that newcomers and outsiders tend to gravitate to. For most of us who have never lived there, the French Quarter is our image of New Orleans.