Lucinda Williams -- Foolishness

With all the apparent ills and impending doom in this world, our worst enemy can be paralyzing fear. At some point, the symptom becomes the disease. It has afflicted me of late. Lucinda Williams sings a song on her latest that helps heal my wounded weary soul.

Dmitri Orlov: How to start a war and lose an empire

I somewhat infrequently read Dmitri Orlov. He's Russian born, but moved to the US as a child, was educated here and wrote a book called Reinventing Collapse which I found illuminating. He recently penned a piece about our indelicate handling of the rest of the world, taken from his Russian perspective. I don't necessarily share all of Dmitri's beliefs, but I do think it important to see how the world looks from the vantage points of others. How to start a war and lose an empire.

The silence is deafening: calling out musicians

During the lead-up to Dubya's war in Iraq, I found myself allied with strange bedfellows, so to speak: Democrats and the like, who opposed obvious lies and deceptions foisted upon the American public to lead us into war.

Among more vocal opponents were musicians whose work I gobbled up with glee.

People like Steve Earle. Bruce Springsteen. James McMurtry. Neil Young.

You produced excellent work.

But I have a beef with you today.

Why is it that when Barack Obama continues the same policies, on steroids, no less, he gets a bye?

Your silence is deafening.

I don't say these things to condemn you.

Just trying to wake your asses out of a slumber.