Texan Love Song - Elton John

There I was, with my head all full of politics, during an hour drive to watch / play with my niece & nephew today, and this old Elton John song comes on the radio.



And, I was thinkin' how much it reminded me of the Teabag / mob Right, shouting down /shutting down discussion between the American people and those in congress who were elected to represent 'em. (And don't buy into the spin; it isn't that they disagree with the healthcare plan or whatever, but how disagreeable they're acting while doing it. I'm fine with folks expressing disagreement, and even booing "bad" statements, but shouting a speaker down, following him to his car, or not allowing her to answer the question isn't discussion/debate, it's rudeness and thuggery.)

Anyway... except for that "...kids still respected the President's name" part, (an interesting switch, that) it's a pretty accurate portrayal...

Besides, it'd been AGES since I heard the song. I used to listen to dad's copy of this album all the time, and certain songs stayed with me... I loved this one back then--I think it was the irony of it, and the potential violent confrontation--but confess to having lost touch with it over the years... Hearing it today was like being reintroduced to a person you once knew intimately (a one time lover, or your best friend from 7th grade). I had that glow of "Hey... I remember this song, I think..." before the vocal started, and it didn't take me more than a line or two to be singing along (some lines I knew, and some I only thought I knew...), and having all those other memories come flooding back (singing along in dad's music room & elsewhere, the cover art, the song before/after it on the record, and the other songs in the "redneck set" I put together on a mixed tape--a few southern rock tunes, Lonesome Cowboy Burt, and a really obscure "cowboy" song from the early 70's that made fun of homophobia/judging folks you don't know, that I can't recall the name of, anymore). After that came the political stuff, above.

So, there it is... Enjoy the song.

For Cons, teabagging may only be the beginning...

Rene Marie & the (Black) National Anthem

Updated, 7/12/08



My initial reaction--which hasn't changed, much--was that this singer was wrong for doing what she did, but that the song, and the idea behind it, is beautiful. She was hired to sing a particular song and, while I agree with artistic expression, and really dig the version she offered, this wasn't the proper venue for it.

Given Rene Marie's penchant for blending such songs in past (see/hear below), the city probably should've taken the extra step to be sure she wasn't going to do so in this situation. It's not as though this information wasn't available...

Still, while I agree that she shouldn't've done it the way she did, I'm glad I heard her sing this (& hope I can find an mp3 of it to add to the iPod), and I will be buying some of her music.

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UPDATE: 7/12/08: I found a place to hear/download not only this piece, but the whole three part composition--"Voice of My Beautiful Country" that the "Star-Spangled Banner/Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" piece is a part of... Go here to hear it, and (while it lasts, anyway) to Rene Marie's site to download it.
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'Black National Anthem' brings City Council president hate mail :
Local News : The Rocky Mountain News:

Hickenlooper said in an interview that he spoke to Marie after the ceremony and that she apologized profusely.

The mayor also said that Marie told him she meant no disrespect.

"She blended the two songs together," Hickenlooper said. "She was trying to make an artistic expression of her love for the country. She did not intend to make a political statement or anything."

Marie sang the first verse of James Weldon Johnson's "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," also known as the "Black National Anthem," but adapted those lyrics to the tune of the "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Marie said she had no regrets. She deliberately didn't tell anybody about her song choice "because I don't think it is necessary for an artist to ask permission to express themselves artistically," she said.

"I would not change a thing," Marie said.

"You have to risk things. You have to. Otherwise, you might of well live your life by a script."

Rene Marie breaks out :
Music : The Rocky Mountain News:

Marie calls herself a "GRITS" ("a Girl Raised in the South") but no one below the Mason-Dixon Line, or anywhere else, knows what to think the first time he hears the most daring medley in her repertoire.

When she first sang it in Mississippi, every jaw in the place dropped. When she called the tune, using its short name, in early rehearsal at the recording studio, drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts, who came up with New Orleans-born trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, dropped his sticks and said, "I'm not playing that."

Not playing what?

Marie, who relishes the drama of the unexpected, had thought to pair the traditional white anthem Dixie with the heartbreaking meditation on lynching Strange Fruit. She brought off the collision of opposites as an ironic comment on the way the world still works.

In Mississippi, black and white audience members approached her afterward with tears in their eyes and tragic stories to tell. The same thing happened everywhere else, too. Born in controversy, Dixie/Strange Fruit became the emotional centerpiece of Marie's much- praised CD Vertigo.

Anyone shopping for symbols can find one right there, illustrating the purposes of Marie's unblinking, semiautobiographical work.

"I want to make you laugh and cry," she says. "I want you to squirm uncomfortably in your chair, think of a loved one, get angry, hang your head in shame and raise your hand in protest. . . . I want you to take that leap, make that change, turn that corner."

Hear: "Dixie/Strange Fruit" here

More info:

Another perspective on the controversy: Rene Marie’s patriotic lesson - Colorado Independent

rene marie ~ Q & A

The history behind the 'Black National Anthem' - Cleveland Lifestyles – Living, Food, Health & Fitness News from The Plain Dealer

iPod Semi-Random 10 - 8/19/07

1) Better -
Antigone Rising -
From the Ground Up



Antigone gets a little extra oomph because my wife's known two of 'em (the sisters) since they were all in diapers or so... I've been regailed with tales of houses almost burned down and similar female preteen hi-jinx... Aside that, they're very, very talented...

2) I Walked Away -
Sunfall Festival -
NPR: Open Mic Music Podcast

3) Congress...Your Fired -
Jason Brock -
The PEACEPOD Podcast

4) Whole Of The Moon -
Mandy Moore -
Coverage

5) "To Elsie" or "The pure products of America / go crazy" -
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) -
In Their Own Voices: A Century of Recorded Poetry (Disc 1)

6) Play That Funky Music -
Wild Cherry -
The Disco Box [Disc 2]

7) Like Castanets - Bishop Allen -
KEXP Song of the Day Podcast

8) I Will Move On Up A Little Higher -
Mahalia Jackson -
Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack for a Century - Folk, Gospel & Blues: Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Disc 1)

9) Americano -
Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers -
Paste Magazine Issue #9

10) Llama -
Phish -
Picture of Nectar

John Gibson: Heartless scumbag (with audio)

Fox News' John Gibson calls Jon Stewart a phony after mocking his post-9/11 return to air comments and show of emotion. What kind of a heartless bastard does one have to be to make fun of another person's grief? I never had much respect for this guy in the first place... ...but now I have even less. Follow the link for the audio...

read more | digg story

Here's a link to a video of the original show opening, September 20, 2001. Have tissues handy (unless you're more the heartless Gibson type...)



I suggest watching the video, particularly if you've never seen it. (I hadn't, until tonight.) The transcript doesn't do it justice:

September 20, 2001

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Good evening and welcome to the Daily Show. We are back. This is our first show since the tragedy in New York City and there is really no other way to start the show then to ask you at home the question that we asked the audience here tonight and that we’ve asked everybody we know here in New York since September 11, and that is, "Are you okay?" And we pray that you are and that your family is.

I'm sorry to do this to you. It's another entertainment show beginning with an overwrought speech of a shaken host--and television is nothing if not redundant. So I apologize for that. Its something that, unfortunately, we do for ourselves so that we can drain whatever abscess is in our hearts and move on to the business of making you laugh, which we haven’t been able to do very effectively lately. Everyone has checked in already. I know we are late. I’m sure we are getting in just under the wire before the cast of Survivor offers their insight into what to do in these situations. They said to get back to work. There were no jobs open for a man in the fetal position under his desk crying. . . which I gladly would have taken. So I come back here and tonight’s show is not obviously a regular show. We looked through the vault and found some clips that we think will make you smile, which is really what’s necessary, I think, right about now.

A lot of folks have asked me, "What are you going to do when you get back? What are you going to say? I mean, jeez, what a terrible thing to have to do." And you know, I don’t see it as a burden at all. I see it as a privilege. I see it as a privilege and everyone here does. The show in general we feel like is a privilege. Even the idea that we can sit in the back of the country and make wise cracks. . . which is really what we do. We sit in the back and throw spitballs--but never forgetting that it is a luxury in this country that allows us to do that. That is, a country that allows for open satire, and I know that sounds basic and it sounds like it goes without saying. But that’s really what this whole situation is about. It’s the difference between closed and open. The difference between free and. . . burdened. And we don’t take that for granted here, by any stretch of the imagination. And our show has changed. I don’t doubt that. And what it has become I don’t know. "Subliminible" is not a punchline anymore. Someday it will become that again, Lord willing it will become that again, because it means that we have ridden out the storm.

The main reason that I wanted to speak tonight is not to tell you what the show is going to be, not to tell you about all the incredibly brave people that are here in New York and in Washington and around the country, but we’ve had an unenduring pain, an unendurable pain and I just. . . I just wanted to tell you why I grieve--but why I don’t despair. (choking back tears) I’m sorry. . . (chuckles slightly) luckily we can edit this. . . (beats lightly on his desk, collects himself).

One of my first memories was of Martin Luther King being shot. I was five and if you wonder if this feeling will pass. . . (choked up). . . When I was five and he was shot, this is what I remember about it. I was in school in Trenton and they turned the lights off and we got to sit under our desks. . . and that was really cool. And they gave us cottage cheese, which was a cold lunch because there were riots, but we didn’t know that. We just thought, "My God! We get to sit under our desks and eat cottage cheese!" And that’s what I remember about it. And that was a tremendous test of this country's fabric and this country has had many tests before that and after that.

The reason I don’t despair is that. . . this attack happened. It's not a dream. But the aftermath of it, the recovery, is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King's dream.

Whatever barriers we put up are gone. Even if it's just momentary. We are judging people by not the color of their skin, but the content of their character. (pause) You know, all this talk about "These guys are criminal masterminds. They got together and their extraordinary guile and their wit and their skill. . ." It's all a lie. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters and these policemen and people from all over the country, literally with buckets, rebuilding. . . that’s extraordinary. And that's why we have already won. . . they can't. . . it's light. It's democracy. They can't shut that down.

They live in chaos. And chaos, it can't sustain itself--it never could. It's too easy and it's too unsatisfying. The view. . . from my apartment. . . (choking up) was the World Trade Center. . .

Now it's gone. They attacked it. This symbol of. . . of American ingenuity and strength. . . and labor and imagination and commerce and it's gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. . . the view from the south of Manhattan is the Statue of Liberty. . .

You can’t beat that. . .

Political Tests & Quizzes: Have you been tested?

Earlier today I stumbled into an online argument about Fascism. The "debate" occured here: News Hounds: Dennis Kucinich Debates Hannity And Colmes On The Fairness Doctrine (in the comments section), but there is really no need to follow the link, fascism-wise, anyway. Pretty much the whole "debate" was downright silly. A few right wing trolls began tossing out insults & whatnot, and few of my fellow lefties--who I gather had some time to waste--returned fire. (Ok... I admit that I've been sucked in to these kinda things once or twice, myself... But my contributions usually consist of a single good(?) one liner that I'm compelled to type & post. These newshounders were makin' a COMMITMENT, as though they were defending... (I don't know... What would we crazy liberals be willing to fight real hard to defend?) ...the right to spit on Sparling. What I'm tryin' to say is, they were really goin' at... My usual view on these things is, "Don't feed the trolls, and they won't multiply.")

So, anyway... Somewhere in the middle of this melee, someone accuses the opposing political philosophy of being fascist. (Yeah, I could go check the transcript so as to be more precise, but my head hurt just reading it the first time. Besides, a representitive of the aggrieved political party pretty quickly suggested that no, it was the accuser's party that're really the fascists, so it doesn't really matter. If the trolls/lefties didn't say it first, they said it second.) The Communists were added to the battle, followed quickly by the Nazis. It was a typical troll-induced mess. (I'm convinced that political trolls--regardless of their outward political philosophy--secretly ARE Nazis, or at least employees of a promotion firm out to increase everyone's exposure to the Nazi party. Were it not for the trolls, how often would anybody discuss the Nazi party on the internet? But with 'em... Well, have you ever seen a trolling that didn't involve the Nazis? Me, neither.)

As the original topic was the Fairness Doctrine (government control of the diversity of political speech over the broadcast airwaves), the folks doing the arguing above were not completely off topic. As with much troll-induced verbiage, they were streching the topic to it's illogical extremes.
The Fairness Doctrine will give us one state run radio station, offering one point of view.
No Fairness Doctrine will give us many radio stations, all owned by one corporation, offering one point of view.

Between the "who's the real fascist?" argument, and the control factor (state or corporate) inherent in the Fairness Doctrine topic, I got to thinkin' about political philosophy. All this talk, finally, brings me to my actual topic...

When I first started crawling around political newsgroups & "egroups" (remember them?), someone started talking about how the spectrum of political thought is really more than just left - right. That scale describes economic political thought, but says little about how one feels about government power and control, the authoritarian - libertarian scale. S/he says s/he got the idea from this site: Political Compass (It's been upgraded at least a few times since I was first there). And along with the thinking, there's a quiz you can take to determine where you fit on their political graph. (As many have pointed out, including the political compass folks themselves, there does seem to be a bias to the questions. But it's still kinda interesting...)

Here's how I scored on Political Compass:
Economic Left/Right: -7.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.30

These scores set me pretty far LEFT and fairly LIBERTARIAN. It's difficult to compare myself to others, as I've only had 2 occasions:
1) when I heard about this test (see above), many folks took it, and posted their scores on whatever group it was, and
2) more recently I saw a whole list here,
but I can say this much;
On the left - right scale, I've seen relatively few (-8's), and only 2-3 (-9's) that I can recall.
On the authoritarian - libertarian scale, (-5) or (-6) was/is more common, both then and now.

If you want more info: Political compass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

While I was redscovering the Political Compass, I found other political tests and quizzes. I won't describe them all; you can check 'em out for yourself.

Political Survey. (Follow the "Take the Survey" link from this homepage.) ((Not crazy about this one, myself.))

My scores:
left/right -5.1350 (-0.3091)
pragmatism +0.5082 (+0.0306)

(Hard to tell what they mean, really... But there they are...)
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OkCupid! The Politics Test

According to this test,

I am a Social Liberal (75% permissive)
an Economic Liberal (10% permissive)
& best described as a: Socialist.
====================================

Moral Politics - A Morality-Based Political Test (Long version)

My Score:
-2 on the Moral Order axis and +3 on the Moral Rules axis.

Matches
The following items best match your score:
System: Socialism
Variation: Moderate Socialism
Ideologies: Social Democratism
US Parties: No match.
Presidents: Jimmy Carter (84.07%)
2004 Election Candidates: Ralph Nader (80.24%), John Kerry (77.47%), George W. Bush (53.02%)
Statistics
Of the 280620 people who took the test:
0.6% had the same score as you.
12.9% were above you on the chart.
82.4% were below you on the chart.
48.6% were to your right on the chart.
30.5% were to your left on the chart.
=================================

World's Smallest Political Quiz

According to this test I am a LIBERAL
LIBERALS usually embrace freedom of choice in personal
matters, but tend to support significant government control of the
economy. They generally support a government-funded "safety net"
to help the disadvantaged, and advocate strict regulation
of business. Liberals tend to favor environmental regulations,
defend civil liberties and free expression, support government action
to promote equality, and tolerate diverse lifestyles.

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 90%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 20%.
================================

Millennium: Social Attitude Test

My scores:
Radicalism: 80 percent
Tenderness: 39.5 percent
Socialism: 62 percent

These scores indicate that you are a tough-minded radical; this is the political profile one might associate with a liberated atheist. It appears that you are cynical towards religion, and have a balanced attitude towards humanity in general.

To round out the picture, your attitudes towards economics appear neither committedly capitalist nor socialist, and combined with your social attitudes this creates the picture of someone who would generally be described as left-wing.
======================================


If I'm not mistaken, that's all of 'em. If you want still more info (Believe it or not, some political spectrum theories don't have a quiz.), go here: Political spectrum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My advice; get tested. 8>)

Book Revue & Bias

One of the best independent bookstores on Long Island has just lost my business...

A few years ago, I began to notice that they hosted more rightwing authors than leftwing ones. At first, I thought it was a fluke... Perhaps no liberal author wrote a book the same month Bernie Goldberg released Bias...
Maybe Jim Hightower wasn't doing a book tour for Theives in High Places...
But gradually, I came to realize that month after month, there were more rightwing authors showing up at Book Revue than those from the left.

So, about a year ago, I sent them an e-mail letting them know I'd noticed this trend, and requesting that they do something to set my mind at ease... Have more authors from across the social & political spectrum (preferable) or host less from the right. In short, show me that this wasn't intentional...

I got no response to my e-mail. Not only didn't they respond directly, nothing changed as regards the authors doing the appearances. Hannity has had a signing for every one of his books, and also shows up to help sell the books of others he supports, like Goldberg, above. O'Reilly. E.D. Hill. Pat Buchanan. And the final straw, at least for me, Ann Coulter (again, with Hannity, who even did a live broadcast from my formally beloved bookstore.)

So, with sadness in my heart, I bid farewell to my bookstore, by sending them this email last night:
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In honor of yet another appearance by Fox News (Hannity, together with Ann Coulter, this time), I hereby revoke my patronage of your establishment.

I was a resident of Huntington from 1969 through 1996, and spent many hours and a good chunk of money in your store in the late 70s & throughout the 80s. One of my good friends, Jeff B, was an employee of yours. I worked in Chartiers, right behind your building. (I also spent a lot of time in Oscars, but preferred your store.) In the last few years, I've occasionally driven in from Mastic to shop in your store (it is among the best independent bookshops on Long Island, and my politics urges me to spend my money in line with my values--including my disdain for the big boxes that're slowly destroying our local main street businesses.) I even have a frequent buyer card, even though I don't spend nearly the time or money in your shop that I used to.

It was that history, along with your selection & status as an independent, that allowed me to forgive your seeming penchant for hosting right-wing authors a good deal more often than similarly prominent authors from the left. Hannity (HOW many times can this guy appear?), O'Reilly, ED Hill, The Bias guy, Pat Buchanan... ...and the list goes on, I'm sure... (I'm going from memory...)

In a similar period, you've had Amy Goodman, & (perhaps) Al Franken. I'm sure I'm missing a liberal or two from the last 5 years, but the number has got to be half that of conservative appearances in the same period.

The final straw was Ann Coulter. She is trash, and I will not continue to support any person or entity that gives her (& the Fauxes) a platform to spew that kind of bile. There are other independent bookstores that are more in line with my personal, political and social beliefs, and thus have earned my patronage. I will always value the books & the memories I have because of Book Revue, but I cannot continue to give money to an institution that allows the likes of Coulter & these creeps from the Murdoch/Moonie media to spew their harmful, hateful views, and then fails to present authors from the other side to rebut them.


W. James Casper

Mastic, NY 11950
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