Khaela Maricich, AKA: The Blow, dropped her greatest work to date with 2007's Paper Television. It is a titanic record that I just can not get over. I take a couple weeks off from it, and another song calls me back. Right now it's "Pardon Me". This is the music I always wanted to invent. Thanks to Khaela and her erstwhile collaborator Jonah, I don't have to imagine it anymore.
This is Khaela doing "Pardon Me" live in Houston.
A conservative with a sense of
decency would vote for Bob Barr
If you wonder how the The Walrus Speaks supports Bob Barr, here is what the Station Agent said just the other day.
"How do you want to support Barr? The way I do it is word of mouth. Every belligerent person I meet that wouldn't vote for Obama no matter what, I say four words to them, "Bob Barr Dot Com."
Notice the Station Agent and I are not supporting Barr for President, we support Barack Obama. We are simply assisting Barr's campaign staff in getting the word out to Republicans and other conservatives who are dissatisfied with Bush, and don't want another four years of that. Barr has the right and duty to run for President if he thinks he can do a good job, and we all have to support the civil rights of Republicans and other conservatives to vote for Barr. The Republican establishment does not want people to know about Barr, so anything they don't want we do and vice versa--because they realize that it would be mostly conservatives voting for him.
I feel there must be some conservatives that visit the The Walrus Speaks and who do not want to vote for Obama, and the Station Agent and I are appealing to you folks, for love of country, to vote for Barr. This way you are expressing your honest grievances against liberals by not voting for Obama, at the same time you are sending a clear message to the Republican party that you will tolerate no more of their insane policies. As Americans, we all have the duty to stand against McCain, whether Democrat, Republican, Independent, or whatever--at the very least because McCain is more or less a W clone.
Before closing let me point out that if conservatives do not vote at all, that is good, but voting for Barr sends a stronger message to the party of great Presidents like Lincoln and Eisenhower. Of course, voting for Obama sends an even stronger message, but Barr will do. This election is not about simply Democrats vs. Republicans, it is about America.
I'm Hector Diego, and I approve of this message.
This song is among the most frequently and deservedly played on "Classic Rock" stations--unlike "Judy In The Sky With Glasses" and its ilk.
Here's Ringo singing the fifth song from the first Beatles album, Please Please Me. Ringo was a good singer and it is a pity we didn't hear him more. He was also an innovative drummer.
His critics don't know jack (I suspect they are people who prefer the Stones to the Beatles).
Best (center) was an ordinary musician and Sutcliff (far right) was no musician at all. After the dross was removed, the three stood together and then the fourth was added. This is the earliest known photo of the five Beatles. Harrison was 17.
I have no idea who Fusion Presents is, the performers or some other concern. Anyway, if you are a Beatles person or someone who is perhaps not as emotionally involved with the Beatles as a Boomer is likely to be, but you still know that the Beatles are special (to say the least), listen to this music for the spiritual side of the Beatles.
The Beatles gave enormous gifts to humanity. Just hear these folks harmonizing. I'm talking about ordinary folks. The Beatles gave people a good time, made them smile. They gave far, far more to us than we gave to them. We made them rich and famous, but considering how many people bought their records no individual gave very much by comparison. The Beatles, on the other hand, are the band that keeps on giving.
The Beatles made ordinary people harmonize. To me that's spiritual.
I give you Fusion Presents, winner of this month's TWS talent contest. Sometimes talent is about spirit more than anything else.
In 1969 Paul would have been 28 if he was alive
This selection of Beatles covers by a dude who calls himself Why Fidelity sounds like a radio show. It's about half an hour's worth of everything from muzak to jazz to novelty, and concludes with a number about the Paul is dead craze.
Interest in the Beatles was and is so great that the British license plate LMW 28IF for the white Volkswagen on the cover of Abbey Road has become the most famous license plate in history. It would be interesting to know how much the owner was offered for the car, or even simply the license plate.
The picture above is not on the section of Abbey Road that appears on the album cover, and this means that the kid quite likely did not see the Beatles crossing the street, he simply memorized the number and when he saw it somewhere else in London he had to get down and stare reverentially at it--he took darshan, as Hindus would say.
In his intriguing book The Politics of Ecstasy Timothy Leary declares that the Beatles were avataras of God. That could very well be because in Hinduism there is such a thing as saktyavesa avataras--humans so empowered by divinity to do great things that in a sense, they are incarnations of divinity.
The kid took darshan of a Volkswagen!
It looks like there is an image of a Visnu avatara (nothing to do with computers) on Elliot Smith's shirt.
Let's play all of Smith's Beatles covers.
Jenny and her cohorts inject a little tap and stomp action into this sweet ballad about their hometown.
News of the record federal deficit for 2008, has produced a spate of articles, like this one from The Washington Post that point out that the promises being made by both campaigns will continue to ring up massive deficits in the years to come.
"This is going to make it extraordinarily difficult for whoever's going to become president," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). "I don't care who the president is -- when they come in and meet with their secretary of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve chairman, their top economists, it will be a sobering moment."Neither of these campaigns are oblivious to the realities of the situation. Therefore, each campaign must have an approach they intend to use once their candidate is in the White House that they are not willing to tell the voters about now. In McCain's case I would say that his plan is to continue not giving a flying crap about budget deficits. Worked for Reagan.
But there's no way Barack Obama is seriously considering this approach. He has to have a target in mind where a great deal of spending cuts can from. It's obvious that defense spending is out of control. Could it be that Obama has a plan for the defense budget that he's unwilling to get into? Obviously, I'm purely speculating but I believe that he does. Since I don't think he's going to make the mistake Bill Clinton made when he allowed bases to close, the question becomes how do you keep a huge standing army and manage to cut defense spending?
Appears that the two surviving members of The Who hate each other's living guts and are only performing select gems from their catalog live these days because they're being paid approximately $100 million to do it. That's sad. Of course the source is a bit dubious, but if it is true, isn't it better to just call it a day? I guess not.
On the upside, at least Ringo's kid, who is The Who's current drummer, is getting a sweet payday out of this.
Here's "515"
What we need is more artists like Elliot Smith. Unfortunately, I don't think we are going to get them.
At one time this was John Lennon's favorite song.
That's right, Oliver Stone has made a film about George W. Bush, to be released in late October.
Morning in Sefton Park, Liverpool, England
This one was requested by our good friend Derek, a very intelligent dude from...well I don't know where he's from. In cyberspace, we are all from the same place.
You can request something too.
If you are a Beatles person you must hear this.
Someone asked John Fogerty why he sang like an African-American. Fogerty replied that when he opened his mouth to sing, that's what came out.
When I was back there in seminary school...
I couldn't resist adding a live version. Morrison kills me.
This song is dedicated to Jay Allbritton--the Station Agent--and his beautiful lady.
"Chains", written by Carole King and Gary Goffin, is the fourth song from the Beatles first British album, Please Please Me. It was released as Meet The Beatles in America by Capitalist Records (don't even get me started on the way they misrepresented the Beatles and ripped off customers).
Stay tuned for all of the Beatles songs from all of their albums.
That's www.thewalrusspeaks.blogspot.com on your cyber radio dial.
I have been driving 55 now for a few months, and only in the past few weeks have I noticed anyone else doing the same. What will it take for people to realize how much money they could be saving just by leaving the house a bit earlier and driving slower?
Many people have argued with me against driving slower, but I consider it a no-brainer. Am I missing something here, or are they? It seems that driving slower and using less fuel would also make the price of gas go down because of less demand.
Senator John Warner (R-VA) — elected in 1978 — recently expressed interest in the idea of a national speed limit to conserve gasoline. Warner, who is not running for re-election this year, wrote to U.S. Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman, asking "at what speed is the typical vehicle traveling on America's highways today most fuel efficient?" Read more.
This was state of the art comedy in those days, so don't laugh. NO...laugh.
1970.
Captain Joan Darrah, United States Navy, retired early because she realized that if she had been killed when the Pentagon was attacked on 9/11, her lesbian partner of many years would be the last to know--because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Captain Darrah was standing at the bus stop when the airliner slammed into the building. The area where she was working inside just a few minutes earlier had been demolished.
I think Don't Ask, Don't Tell has served as a useful transition period in homophobic America, but now it is time to put this hatred aside and honor gays and lesbians who have honorably served their country.
Blast scene in Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Indian Mujahadeen, an Islamic group, has claimed responsibility for yesterday's bomb blasts in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India. Read more.
So McCain is smarter than Bush, so what? Intelligent people can be dumb too. McCain thinks the old ways are good, and that is dumb. He doesn't know what he doesn't know, he barely gets online, he doesn't do email. Why not? What is he afraid of?
Perhaps he is afraid that if he expands his horizons he won't understand it--he doesn't want to get out of his comfort zone. I'm afraid many of his supporters are in the same boat, unless they are cynical.
Do we need another four years of the Bush Administration?
It's those damned hippies again, with their infernal peace symbols. How naive.
Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side shows the Bush Administration for what it is. Perhaps old Numb Nuts is not as stupid as he appears. He was smart enough to get Dickhead Cheney to do his dirty work.
Read more.
Barack Obama visited the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem just recently and left this note to God, as Jews have done for thousands of years. Obama, by the way, is not Jewish, nor is he a Muslim. It doesn't really matter to me what the man's religion is, and his note to God was certainly universal. After all, when we finally come face to face with our Maker, what else could we say?
Lord,
Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins and help me guard against pride and despair.
Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just.
And make me an instrument of your will.
Harrison chose to have these men by his side when he left this world. I wonder why.
Californians are snobs. California is an addiction. Those who have lived in California have probably left it only because they couldn't afford to live there. If you don't understand this it's because you have never lived there.
Your average Safeway in California is better than the best specialty produce or health food stores anywhere else. California grows one fourth of the world's fresh fruits and vegetables.
America imitates California, never the other way around--unfortunately, it does not imitate it enough. Even Republican Governors of California are more advanced in their thinking than other Governors (Reagan is the exception), and as if all the above is not enough, California has San Francisco. It has U.C. Berkeley...and although I hate to say it, it has Stanford. I dream of California at night, and during the day too.
The smog is bad and so is the traffic, and it is absurd that 9/10ths of its population lives within 50 miles of the ocean. Other than that, California rules. Even conservatives there care about the environment. And it has the heaviest concentration of vegetarians in the Western Hemisphere.
I'm a California snob and I always will be, can't help it. If God is kind I might live there again. What a homecoming that will be, to Mother California.
This is a sentimental piece by Brill Building composer Carole King. King wrote many of the hits of the 1960's and most of us didn't even know it.
Artwork by the American Impressionist, Mary Cassatt.
How did I miss this? Probably because today's music scene is so dense. And if you are a geezer like me, it's way too dense to get the good stuff. I just stumbled upon Belle and Sebastian.
From Scotland.
This is the Beatles as they are gaining speed, right before they take off.
Some men see things as they are and ask 'Why?'
I dream things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'
Robert F. Kennedy, 1968
On the San Francisco beach just south of Birdrock
My wife dedicates this song to her younger brother Travis.
I want to take you far from the cynics in this town/and kiss you on the mouth.
We'll cut our bodies free from the tethers of this scene/start a brand new colony.
Where everything will change, we'll give ourselves new names/Identities erased.
The sun will heat the grounds, under our bare feet/in this brand new colony.
This Brand new colony/Everything will change.
--"Brand New Colony" Postal Service
I'm optimistic that we can make life on planet Earth work out, but evidence is mounting that we may need to get the heck out of here. We're gonna need a really bad ass space ship to get us to another planet that might work out better.
Not sure how long that space ship is going to take to put together, but we may have found the planet we're looking for.
From Scientific American:
Of course when we get to this new Earth, it might be occupied. So, maybe it's a good idea to look into that ahead of time.A team of astronomers announced they have discovered the smallest and potentially most Earth-like extrasolar planet yet. Five times as massive as Earth, it orbits a relatively cool star at a distance that would provide earthly temperatures as well, signaling the possibility of liquid water.
"The separation between the planet and its star is just right for having liquid water at its surface," says astronomer and team spokesperson Stephane Udry of the Observatory of Geneva in Versoix, Switzerland. "That's why we are a bit excited."
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Pete Best, on drums, just didn't live up to his name. So they got Ringo.
I rode a tank, held a general's rank, as the blitzkrieg raged, and the bodies stank...
We are going to post the entire album.
A woman in Utah, Kaziah Hancock, honors military people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by painting their portraits from photographs, and then sends them to the relatives of the fallen soldiers without payment. She has given up her lucrative landscape painting to do this, and even pays the postage. Watch the video.
What can you say about such a person? She is doing God's work.
Now we also have to do God's work and end these wars.
Andrew Malone of the Daily Mail has an article about the ongoing exodus of Chinese people to Africa and how the Chinese government are taking neocolonialism to the next neo. This is neo-neocolonialism and it's a ruthless social experiment being waged by the Chinese to alleviate their population's massive burden on their resources.
Malone's description of the Chinese government's intent here is chilling. He indicates that they are fueling genocide and oppression, even slavery, in Africa, that they have nothing but utter contempt for the people living there, and that they will not stop until every resource is sucked out of that continent.
Get this. McCartney is playing a free gig in Quebec City in celebration of its founding four hundred years ago--and some people are upset that an English performer is expected to draw 200,000.
How do you say stupid in French?
Clinton Administration Vice President Al Gore has challenged the nation to rely exclusively on renewable and clean energy sources by 2018. Critics say that this is impossible. What about President Kennedy's goal to reach the moon before the 1960's were over?
Now if we can send a man to THE MOON...
What the critics are really saying is that Gore's challenge is impossible to meet and still allow the rich to get richer.
No?
Barack meets with very enthusiastic troops in Kuwait.
He then displayed his sweet outside touch.
Lennon and his mother Julia
I didn't know what to make of Lennon's first studio production with the Plastic Ono Band. There simply was no precedent for such minimalist music such as "Mother", at least with the Beatles, what to speak of the primal scream element. But I was quickly addicted to the 1970 album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. It's a true classic.
Dylan manages to make sadness happy, and philosophical. "She knows where I'd like to be, but it doesn't matter..."
Now that's sad.
The Beatles first album, Please Please Me
I was sad when the The Beatles 1 project, in which I took almost a year to post all of their #1 songs from that album, came to an end.
So now I'm doing something even better. Stay tuned for every single Beatles song studio recorded and officially released, in chronological order. This is the kind of excellence in music that The Walrus Speaks is dedicated to.
That's www.thewalrusspeaks.blogspot.com on your cyber radio dial.
Now here is "I Saw Her Standing There", the very first song of the very first Beatles album, Please Please Me, released in the UK, March 23, 1963.
I was seven years old.
China is on the look out for dangerous subversives like Bjork, who may be out to undermine the regime. This is not a good note on the eve of the Olympics.
Here's some old school Bjork for the weekend.
"Joga".
No, we don't want to be American idiots. Some of us don't, anyway.
If you like Led Zeppelin even just a little, I recommend this one.
The political cause of the South was absolutely terrible, for as General Grant remarked, never had so many died for such a bad cause. However, America's Civil War marks the beginning of the end for its rural way of life, and cities became typical of where one lived.
Only about one percent of the American population now works in agriculture. As bad as the Southern plantations were, today's corporate system is not that far behind them. I don't see how this can be reversed without a cataclysm that we do not want to see.
When they drove Old Dixie down, they drove the good part down too.
This one made the rounds a few months ago.
STEPHENVILLE, TX (IWR Satire) - NASA spokesperson Jim Needles today released a photo of the so-called "Texas UFO". As it turns out, the mysterious oblate spheroid seen by locals was only John McCain's big fat bloated head propelled by his own excessive hot air generated from his recent primary victories. "At first we thought it was a giant rotten cantaloupe from the way it smelled or perhaps some hideously malformed space potato, but to our relief, it was only John McCain's head," said Needles.
Not the idiot President. I'm talking about George Washington Bush, the state of Washington's first African American settler.
From Wikipedia:
George Washington Bush (1779-1863) was one of the first American settlers and the first black settler in what would later become the U.S. state of Washington.I haven't read much about the guy, but based on what I've read so far, it would appear that history views him favorably.
George Washington Bush was born in Pennsylvania around 1778. An only child, he was raised as a Quaker and educated in Philadelphia.[2] Bush’s father, Matthew, was born in India but was of African descent. Matthew Bush worked for a wealthy English merchant named Stevenson for most of his life. At Stevenson’s home in Philadelphia, Matthew Bush met his wife, an Irish maid who also worked for Stevenson. George's parents served Stevenson until his death. Stevenson had no other family and so left the Bushes a substantial fortune.
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Not a political clone of Bush? What a joke.
Do we really want to elect a candidate for the Presidency of the United States who would tell the the following joke? And he told it in public. We hate to repeat it but it is necessary so that Commander McCain can get the publicity he desires.
"Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'"
This was McCain's idea of humor in 1986 when he was running for the Senate. This guy goes way beyond simply belonging to the old school.
He invented the old school.
The announcement of Jenny Lewis's new album, called Acid Tongue, is getting significant buzz. The album comes out September 9.
The song "Big Break" has been stuck in my head a lot lately. Partly because I'm moving to Baltimore and starting a new phase of my life, and I guess I'm attached to the idea of adventure and success with a healthy dose of postmodern skepticism of those grand narratives, but I digress.
In Lewis's case, if this album does result in stardom, it will be because she and her cohorts put in significant heavy lifting for many years. The video montage I put together that accompanies "Big Break" in this clip shows her and her band in a variety of tour photos (from the RKNet vault) going back to the early part of this decade. In Jenny Lewis's case, fame--or even meeting high artistic expectations--may or may not happen, but hard work and commitment certainly will.
When your local Establishment rummages through your closet and hauls out a skeleton or two, you can always introduce them to Jeannie C. Riley.
I wouldn't have included the lyrical reference to Clear Channel--may it rot in hell--but otherwise this is some pretty good stuff. Welch is a Los Angeles gal.
United Nations building, center, New York City
The United Nations is frequently a joke, for reasons as varied as countries and their interests. But that doesn't mean that it is not or could not be useful.
Why didn't Bin Laden send those planes into the U.N. building? The answer is obvious. If he had done that he would have had the entire world against him, including nations where he is a now a hero.
I think that shows the potential significance of the U.N. so I'll say no more.
You might be someone who thinks you've seen one juggling act, and you've seen them all. I'm here to tell you that you haven't seen any juggling until you've seen Chris Bliss juggle the Beatles.
From stardust we come, and to stardust we return. What's all the fighting about?
It's hard to see, but people should know. These birth defects are the result of Agent Orange, a chemical weapon used by the US in Viet Nam.
Every human on the face of the earth should feel shame that such horrors are even possible.
No?
Neuroscientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor had the opportunity to study a stroke "from the inside out". Her conclusion?
"We are the life force power of the universe."
Barack Obama had an intelligent discussion with CNN's Fareed Zakaria recently.
The Carpetbagger Report: Steven Benen has been chronicling the AP's obvious slant toward McCain in their election coverage.
Kpete's Journal: Remember back in 2001 when George W. Bush gave the Taliban $43 million and then four months later their leader's brother in law killed 3,000 of our citizens? That's okay, no one does.
Crooks and Liars: New York Magazine is trying to tell people that Joe Scarborough is the darling of the left since he moved to the mornings to replace Imus on MSNBC. Sure he is.
The Young Turks: Cenk Uygur has a different opinion than me about the The New Yorker cover.
Shakesville: Jesus Christ spent some time helping a ball player knock around a baseball last night at the homerun derby. After propelling a record 28 baseballs out of Yankee Stadium during one round of the derby, Josh Hamilton, who is recovering from a horrific drug addiction, humbly thanked Jesus. Then ESPN's Rick Reilly took it to the next level by saying, "It's bad night for Atheists." Unfortunately the savior took off early, allowing the atheists to prevail when Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins beat Hamilton in the final round. Morneau incidentally is from British Columbia, Canada, so it was apparently a bad night for America too.
Wonkette: Word on the street is that Cheney's insanity stems from thinking he was a goner in a anthrax attack in 2001 that turned out to be a false alarm. I thought Cheney sent out the anthrax. Of course I have nothing to base that on, he's just so evil and all. Incidentally, Salon has the story of a guy who was framed for the attacks. That old story keeps popping up.
Before putting together his solo record, Mike Bloom spent a few years as the second guitarist for Rilo Kiley and The Elected. Sadly for them, he's just too good to play second guitar to anyone, even Blake Sennett, and his duties in RK were farmed out to the very capable Orenda Fink. Meanwhile, Bloom's record will be out soon.
Here's "Butcher's Paper" from a show he played in Tucson back in May.
Well, I'm certainly looking forward to this one. It has a cast of characters including Elvis Costello and her sister and Dad! Anyone who has read about Lewis' personal history should be intrigued. This could be very interesting.
The Station Agent and I are Jenny Lewis fanatics so we are really looking forward to the September release date of Lewis' second solo album Acid Tongue.
Here are some great selections from her first solo album Rabbit Fur Coat.
This video is a complete joke. Obviously Julian Lennon picked his advisers from a Cracker Jacks box. They didn't give a damn about his career, or apparently even their own. Julian could have had a stellar career, but he and his people blew it and I shall tell you why.
"Valotte" is not a bad song at all. John and Paul didn't compose any music as strong until 1962, after the Beatles had been together for five years and started hitting them out of the park. So I was very impressed with young Lennon's debut in 1984. The melody sounds like something his father would have written, and his voice is eerily like his father's.
So why didn't he hire the best in the business to be his Paul, or write songs for him? With his voice and professional song writers, he could have had a huge string of hits.
Instead he threw it all away and made some really terrible music. I reiterate that "Valotte" is a fine melody, but the lyrics are in the toilet. And the video!
From what I hear Julian Lennon is a very nice person, even though his Dad dissed him. The Walrus Speaks wishes all the best for Julian and the other kids of the Liverpool Four. Who knows what might eventually emerge from that gene pool? Especially if they marry?
That's a big if, but God does love us...
That didn't take long. David Horsey takes it upon himself to supply the media with some healthy satire of John McCain that is about the equivalent of the The New Yorker's Obama as Osama Junior fist jabbing a militant, Angela Davis-ized Michelle cover.
Mission accomplished
...the more they remain the same. Read on.
The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5
inches. Why such an odd size? Because that's the way they built them in
England , and English expatriates built the US railroads.
Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were
built by the same people who built the prerailroad tramways, and that's the
gauge they used.
Why did 'they' use that gauge? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Why did the wagons have that particular wheel spacing? Because that was the spacing of the wheel ruts on many of the old, long distance roads in England and any other spacing resulted in broken wagon wheels.
So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England ) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard
railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
Bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a Specification/ Procedure/ Process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may be half right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. So actually it would be two horses' asses.
Now, the twist to the story:
When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB's. The SRB's are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah . The engineers who designed the SRB's would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRB's had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and the SRB's had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and therailroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.
And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important!
Ancient horse's asses control almost everything...
...and today's horses' asses are controlling everything else.
Earthrise for Apollo 11
David Bowie fans, please don't hate me. I recognize that Bowie is very talented, but I am not a big fan. This song is an exception. I believe it was his biggest hit.
Before all of that glam stuff.
Watch your back, people, because there are over a million Americans who may just be terrorists (h/t Majikthise):
The nation’s terrorist watch list has hit one million names, according to a tally maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union based upon the government’s own reported numbers for the size of the list.After Gozar Keeper of the Terror List gets a load of the cover of the new The New Yorker, we're going to have the next President on the damn list.Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other `suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon.”
Fredrickson and Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program, spoke today along with two victims of the watch list: Jim Robinson, former assistant attorney general for the Civil Division who flies frequently and is often delayed for hours despite possessing a governmental security clearance and Akif Rahman, an American citizen who has been detained and interrogated extensively at the U.S.-Canada border when traveling for business.
Zooey and M. just released their first music video. Stereogum has details.
Station Agent, if you haven't seen this one, please do so ASAP. It's a true cult classic.
The artist is Yusuf Islam, the former Cat Stevens.
If you want to sing out, sing out.
Their last album was recorded before Abbey Road,
but released a year later.
We have reached the Beatles swan song. About a year ago I began posting all of the songs from The Beatles 1, and just took my time. I guess I really didn't want it to end.
Anyone who grew up with the Beatles will understand this. Some of us might even claim that, in a sense, the Beatles raised us as older brothers in place of an absent parent. From "Please Please Me" to their last number one was a journey we can never forget.
"The Long And Winding Road", from their album Let It Be, is a fitting way to end the Beatles, the king of music. Just let it be.
The king is dead. Long live the king.
This week Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America spoke with Rachel Maddow about Senator John McCain's voting record on veterans' issues. McCain had the nerve to take credit for the new GI Bill passing, despite working to derail it for months on the flimsy grounds that soldiers would be harder to retain if they had education benefits waiting for them at the end of their service.
Melody, lyrics, musicianship (instruments and vocals), and production is the descending order in which I evaluate music, and this song is great in all categories.
The spectacular Thao Nguyen crossed my radar today. It's nice when you find a singer who you know you're going to spend a lot of time listening to. Recently she played on WXPN.
This is "Hills".
If you are interested in the academic study of religion in America, this new blog is for you:
"A Group Blog to foster discussion and share research, insights, reviews, observations, syllabi, links, new books, project information, grant opportunities, seminars, lectures, and thoughts about religion in American history, and American religious history."
I'm fascinated.
Should we keep the beat, or change it? What does McCain want to do?
Whether or not you like this song, all Americans must hear it at least once. It's a musical appreciation of our post-WWII, pre-Watergate history.
Mountain Goats singer John Darnielle relies heavily on bitter sarcasm and irony. But once you get past his bite the music is actually quite uplifting.
The anthem "This Year" has been a rallying cry for me the last couple of years. I keep pushing back the deadline on the big rally America and I both have coming.
The song "No Children" mocks friendship so thoroughly that it serves the opposite purpose. Darnielle's character in the song is desperate for real friendship, or too damaged to appreciate it. If you have real friendship in your life, hearing someone cry out for it really makes you feel fortunate to have it.
Last year Darnielle played a set at AOL. Here's "Woke Up New"
The dude aged well. But he was not to live long. Nelson had more talent than he is usually credited for--it wasn't his fault he was a teen heart throb.
"Garden Party" is a reflection on aging and change, Nelson's last hit.
Rove remains above the law. At least he had a good reason for ignoring a Congressional subpoena, you see, he was out of town.
The Young Turks break it down.
Paul has been a vegetarian since 1966, George was a vegetarian, John was a "soft" vegetarian (he took vacations from his vegetarian lifestyle), and although I have not been able to confirm it, they say that Ringo is now vegetarian.
My problem with PETA is that vegetarianism is not good enough for them. They insist everyone must become a vegan to the point that it seems they don't care if people give up on the innocent diet altogether because of the difficulty of being a strict vegan--PETA is not budging. They have also been associated with violence against carnivorous concerns. That's absurd because people deserve to be reasoned with, not attacked. When you lose respect for humans, what have you become?
OK, it is true PETA is advertising Paul McCartney as the vegetarian he is, but their reason must be that he is Paul McCartney. So it's really PETA they are advertising and using Sir Paul to do it.
Oh well, if Obama and Hillary can work together...
John McCain claims to be concerned for environmental issues. But if your dentist knew only how to drill and nothing else, would he or she be a good dentist?
Similarly...
They called the Ventures a guitar band, which they certainly are, but why not also a drum band? They all shred, as if they were...wiping out.
The Ventures are also known as one of the first surf bands. I'm not sure how much surfers were into "surf music", but no matter.
The Ventures rule.
These awesome pictures are making the rounds on the internets.
They take all the trees and put 'em in a tree museum, and charge all the people a dollar and a half just to see 'em...
The reunion
"Teach Your Children" was written by Graham Nash.
Come together indeed. Unfortunately, Lennon is not singing "shooka", he is singing "shoot me", but he was advised not to sing that, so "me" was edited out.
So sad.
If you like John Lennon, this is a beautiful demo version you don't want to miss.
Carl Jung knew what to do with Freud.
At approximately 10.40 am, July 9, 2008, I logged on to The Walrus Speaks to post Kimya Dawson's "Loose Lips". But lo and behold, when I got there I discovered that the Station Agent had posted "Loose Lips" only a moment previously.
Out of thousands of pieces of music that we both enjoy and have posted, what are the chances that this is mere meaningless coincidence?
Carl Jung taught the principle of synchronicity, contradicted by many in the scientific world, but supported by some scientists in peer review, published research. Synchronicity is the principle of meaningful, instead of meaningless, coincidence. It is related to other Jungian concepts such as archetypes and the collective unconscious, and reflected in the principle of universal mind important in some phases of Buddhism, and to a lesser extent, Hinduism.
No doubt Jung's mentor (and competitor) Sigmund Freud would have rejected synchronicity as unscientific (in the light of current criticisms of Freud, this is most hypocritical), but Freud, for all his genius, was a square.
Not so Jung. He took Freud's insights and added his own. I believe, then, that we have more to learn from Jung than from Freud, who was a very unspiritual guy.
What say you, Station Agent? We're on the same page in regard to Kimya Dawson, at least.
...might sink ships but loose gooses take trips to san francisco, double dutch disco, tech tv hottie, do it for Scotty, do it for the living and do it for the dead, do it for the monsters under your bed, do it for the teenagers and do it for your mom, broken hearts hurt but they make us strong and we won't stop until somebody calls the cops and even then we'll start again and just pretend that nothing ever happened...
That's right, folks, in many ways green technology is really catching on in India--and that's good for the rest of the world because the biosphere is a cohesive unity and India's population is over a billion.
This is a picture of the famous Tirumala Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh. The metal dishes you are looking at is solar technology for the huge amount of cooking this temple does every day--30,000 meals. It is the largest steam cooking apparatus in the world. From a Time article:
"Five years ago, Tirumala adopted solar cooking technology, allowing it to dramatically cut down on the amount of diesel fuel it uses. The temple now sells the emission reduction credits it earns to a Swiss green-technology investor, Good Energies Inc."
"India's faith-based organizations are also helping spread the gospel of green. The UK-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation, which works with the UN to involve religious groups in environmental outreach, is working on a conservation campaign in the holy city of Vrindavan, as well as pushing India's 28,000 Sikh temples to convert their kitchens to green technology. The combined potential of such efforts is limitless. India's religious groups have sizable incomes, own vast amounts of land, and have enormous influence on public opinion through their educational institutions. Indeed, with 99% of Indians professing to one faith or another, the country's green movement might not have a prayer without them."
Check it out.
The Walrus Speaks does not endorse the use of any illicit substance, what to speak of a dangerous drug like LSD.
However, LSD is merely illegal and dangerous, it is not addictive. LSD does not ruin peoples' lives--unlike dangerous legal substances such as tobacco and alcohol. So why do the fat cats want LSD illegal and the other stuff legal?
The answer is simple--they are fat cats.
Most people that agree with these fat cats about keeping entheogens illegal don't know jack about this subject, they are simply being taken for a ride--but they are being ridden, they're not riding.
Now there are a few intelligent people who agree with the fat cats for their own reasons. To these people I say leave your comments.
I'll debate you anytime. I dare you.
A friend has passed away, another is on the brink, we are all the servants of time.
Carpetbagger Report: Fox News sees to it that taking them on in the media is a pain in the ass.
Blue Gal: BG has something she wants you all to see.
The Hill: With Karl Rove in mind, California Rep. Henry Waxman wants a law that would keep political operatives out of policy work.
Vagabond Scholar: Bats has a good post up about how we're laying the ground for war in Iran despite the looming fact that Iraq was a disaster. To that I would like to add: What are they doing? So are we attacking Iran soon? Have we already? And by the way, Iraq! Iraq, Iraq, Iraq! It's still going, you lunatics. How can you eat your meat if you haven't had any pudding. Arrrgh!
Tom Green: This is just weird. It has nothing to do with politics, it's just... surreal. Tom Green, the MTV guy, found Fred Durst, of Limp Bizkit, dusted him off, stuck him on a couch and spoke to him for a while. "It's just one of those days..."
Zaius Nation: Get ready for the Republican National Convention with this useful guide.
Monkey Monk: The Doctor looks at the Bush legacy.
China Rises: Enough with the stories about how someone somewhere is hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. It's insulting and untrue.
The future of the internet is not secure. I have long been concerned about net neutrality threatening the free exchange of ideas or whatever it is that's going on here. And, as always, there's the fascism problem with our courts. Of course, the sheer idiocy of that exchange of ideas, illustrated here, is a much more immediate threat, but I digress.
Other developments may end the web as we know it, or enhance it considerably. One thing is for sure, the internet you're using now is not anywhere near finished and we, the people, could very easily be screwed out of our stake in it.
Someone found an ancient post-it note that's allegedly going to re-write the Bible. Well, that's what all the screaming links all over the internet are saying. This piece of evidence might mean that the Jews may have had a tradition at the time of Christ of expecting a messiah who would rise after three days.
As a student of religion I am intrigued to see how this discovery pans out, but the implication in the news coverage--that this discovery somehow might alter Christianity or even the Bible is pretty ridiculous. Assume for a moment that the argument emerges that the story of Jesus loses some historical credibility because there was a ready-made narrative just waiting to be slapped onto the true biography of Christ. So what?
Christianity in America is in flux, to be sure, but no matter which competing version of Christ American Christianity adheres to, Christians' faith will not be assailed by what amounts to a minor historical nuance.
The religious right is wrong because they want to impose their religious values on people of other religions, or people with no religion at all. Read this passage below, written by one of the most influential politicians of the 20th century. See if you can guess who it is before clicking on the link at the bottom.
"On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'"
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
To learn the identity of this phantom politician--really pissed off because of religion's intrusion into public affairs, and who, by the way, supported the legalization of marijuana--click here.
Just as Florida passed a new law effective July 1 that allows the government to seize your house if you grow twenty-five cannabis plants, even if you are a person with medical need; some of your plants are male; and you don't know how to grow it very well so all you get it is less than mid-grade; Oregon is trying to legalize the sale of cannabis in liquor stores.
The public demand to legalize cannabis will not go away. It hasn't gone away since the 1960s, so what makes the red people think it will ever go away? The powers that be understand this, so they are trying to steal all the property and incarcerate as many people as they can to make license plates before the whole stupid thing is ended. Unfortunately this stupid thing will last a long, long time if people don't do something about it.
Like electing anti-stupid-drug war officials. Might as well become a one-issue voter if it comes to that, let's get it over with.
Because our Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves.
Read more.
The Walrus Speaks honors Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) on his birthday. He was born in Liverpool, like John Lennon, under a Luftwaffe bombardment.
We're sure glad he made it.
When you get back you better butter my bread.
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Fake campaign ads are fun. Here's one from the pretend McCain camp making a very real point about their ridiculous attempt to make Obama look like a flip-flopper on Iraq. He's not flip-flopping and I know this because I was not happy with his stance on this when he said it the first time in 2007. He has not moved an iota since and I don't know why McCain wants to remind America that there even is a place called Iraq. What kind of strategy is this?
