Woody's resolutions

(via Shaun Usher twitter)

here are Woody Guthrie's New Year's resolutions, 1942: http://www.listsofnote.com/2011/12/new-years-rulins.html

Thursday Night Music Club (Decemberists ed.)

I know I'm a little late to this party (in more ways than one), but for a band w/ echoes of REM/Smithereens/Whiskeytown/Jayhawks you definitely want to give a listen. Enjoy.

Lennon, interrupted

note: I began to draft the following on the anniversary of John Lennon's death and just stumbled upon it. Seems like a good time to post in light of the tragedy at Sandy Hook.

* * * 

David Corn of Mother Jones recently posted a link via twitter to his piece from a few years ago re the anniversary of John Lennon's death--you can read it here: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2010/12/john-lennon-30-years-remembrance

Full disclosure: I voted republican for many years because of a perceived threat that gun control was just around the corner if democrats won the election. I was (nearly) a single-issue voter when it came to the WH. Then I noticed that like a like a lot things--the thing that was supposed to happen, didn't. Bill Clinton didn't show up w/ the FBI to take our shotguns and hunting rifles. Like many instances, a culture of what if (aka slippery slope) was propagated--we made to fear what might happen ironically enough, it was the thing that was happening that we should have been afraid of the whole time.

As someone who knows, it's still much easier for me to buy a handgun than it is to buy healthcare for my family. Yes, I know they're two different things (one is enshrined in The Constitution, for goodness sake!--ignore, of course, the part about the usage of "militia") but how many lives could be saved if we did the sensible thing in each case: universal healthcare for all citizens (the only industrialized country in the world w/out it) and sensible gun control legislation.

In each instance, what is sensible and right for the majority of American citizens does not happen--the NRA won't allow it. Big Pharma won't allow it. If we have any doubt that we've become a corporatacracy or at least a plutocracy, we can just look here.

Sen. Dan Inouye, R.I.P.

 (from the Daily Kos)

HI-Sen: Sad news: Democrat Dan Inouye, Hawaii's senior senator, has passed away at the age of 88. Inouye was recently hospitalized for what were described as respiratory complications, related to emphysema and lung surgery he underwent in the 1960s; he succumbed on Monday. Inouye represented Hawaii in Congress from the moment it achieved statehood in 1959, first in the House and late in the Senate. He had a long and extraordinary career that included military service during World War II of unthinkable heroism. I encourage you to read the Honolulu Star-Advertiser's detailed obituary, but if you're not familiar with Inouye's wartime deeds—which ultimately earned him the Medal of Honor—then Wikipedia's summary is a must-read:

On April 21, 1945, Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on a heavily-defended ridge near San Terenzo in Tuscany, Italy called Colle Musatello. The ridge served as a strongpoint along the strip of German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, which represented the last and most dogged line of German defensive works in Italy. As he led his platoon in a flanking maneuver, three German machine guns opened fire from covered positions just 40 yards away, pinning his men to the ground. Inouye stood up to attack and was shot in the stomach; ignoring his wound, he proceeded to attack and destroy the first machine gun nest with hand grenades and fire from his Thompson submachine gun. After being informed of the severity of his wound by his platoon sergeant, he refused treatment and rallied his men for an attack on the second machine gun position, which he also successfully destroyed before collapsing from blood loss. As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, Inouye crawled toward the final bunker, eventually drawing within 10 yards. As he raised himself up and cocked his arm to throw his last grenade into the fighting position, a German inside fired a rifle grenade that struck him on the right elbow, severing most of his arm and leaving his own primed grenade reflexively "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore." Inouye's horrified soldiers moved to his aid, but he shouted for them to keep back out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker reloaded his rifle, Inouye pried the live grenade from his useless right hand and transferred it to his left. As the German aimed his rifle to finish him off, Inouye tossed the grenade off-hand into the bunker and destroyed it. He stumbled to his feet and continued forward, silencing the last German resistance with a one-handed burst from his Thompson before being wounded in the leg and tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge. When he awoke to see the concerned men of his platoon hovering over him, his only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them to return to their positions, since, as he pointed out, "nobody called off the war!"

Our thoughts are with Inouye's family.

Rock Me, Mercy

(via Rich Gorham)

On Friday evening, Louisiana-born, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Yussef
Koumunyakaa wrote a poem in mourning after learning of the Sandy Hook
tragedy. He read it on NPR on Saturday afternoon.

Here is the link to the audio recording:
http://www.npr.org/2012/12/15/167346793/rock-me-mercy-a-poem-written-in-mourning

Rock Me, Mercy
(a poem written in mourning of the Sandy Hook tragedy, December 14, 2012)
By Yussef Komunyakaa (1947-)

The river stones are listening because we have something to say.
The trees lean closer today.
The singing in the electrical woods has gone down.
It looks like rain, because it is too warm to snow.
Guardian angels, wherever you're hiding,
we know you can't be everywhere at once.
Have you corralled all the pretty wild horses?
The memory of ants asleep and day lilies, roses, holly and larkspur?
The magpies gaze at us, still waiting.
River stones are listening.
But all we can say now is mercy, please rock me.