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.

Put this in your pipe and smoke it

For what it's worth

I'm not a leftist. Not a corporatist. I don't fly or drive to anti-fracking rallies in vehicles powered by fuel derived from such practices. I won't march on Monsanto while eating a bag of Cheetos, or fueled by a piece of chicken bought at whole foods. I grow non-genetically modified grain, but nevertheless, I still feed my milk cows and my chickens and my horses the same products everyone else does. My tractor burns diesel derived from fracking, as does my pickup truck. The electricity coursing through my house and powering the water well in my yard was derived from natural gas, also a product of fracking. I was born into a slow motion train wreck over which I have very little control. But I will not bury my head in the sand to accommodate practices that are killing us and dooming present and future generations. As a hopeless addict and a hypocrite, I know our only chance of redemption is an honest evaluation of our condition.

So if something I write or post offends you, know this: the offense was intended.

We are a fucked up lot.

Chuck Bowden has died

I just read an email that says Chuck Bowden, my mentor, my dear friend, has died.

Words fail.

Eagles, the last resort

Probably due to copyright issues, this is the only non-cover version I could find on Youtube. Nobody does it like the Eagles: