next up, gram was with the byrds. following the ISB, chris hillman of the byrds had gram come on board for the final, and best, byrds album sweethearts of the rodeo. his masterpiece from the album was “hickory wind”. covered many times by many greats. here’s the aforementioned jay farrar doing it up.

this is a classic. after the byrds, hillman teamed up with gram to form the flying burrito brothers. here’s the FBB’s with “christine’s tune” (which actually has hillman sharing lead vox, but it’s one of the few videos of the band out there, plus you can see gram’s sweet nudie suit).

this is a great cover here, gillian welch, david rawlings & steve earle with the FBB’s “sin city”.

after the FBB, gram went solo & toured with his fallen angels, which included ms. emmylou harris. of course, no one has carried on gram’s greatness more then his former collaborator, whom without parsons we may likely have never heard of. so now it’s time for gram & emmylou. a gem of a rare live performance here, “big mouth blues” circa 1973.

this is actually a cover of lucinda williams, but the video is a tribute to gram & emmylou. here’s the high priestess of alt.country/americana, ms. emmylou with “sweet old world”.

i need me some more emmylou. with ryan adams, who as frontman of whiskeytown was seen as a possible second coming of gram (he’s long since disproven that by going on to make crap music), here’s arguably gram’s theme song “return of the grievous angel”.

speaking of whiskeytown. this is one of the best GP covers, “a song for you”. i think caitlin cary kept adams sane & centered, explaining how he was able to harness his amazing talent & not go off the rails. gillian welch would do the same on heartbreaker. but now…alas. anyways. the good days are captured here.

as mentioned, sadly there is very little live gram online. idk why. i wish i could change it. c’est la vie. here’s GP & emmylou with “in my hour of darkness”.

to end off the tribute, here’s the man alone at the microphone with one of his best, “she”.

“Let’s bag it.

I’m talking about the tenth anniversary ceremonies for 9/11, and everything that goes with them: the solemn reading of the names of the dead, the tolling of bells, the honoring of first responders, the gathering of presidents, the dedication of the new memorial, the moments of silence.  The works.

Let’s just can it all.  Shut down Ground Zero.  Lock out the tourists.  Close “Reflecting Absence,” the memorial built in the “footprints” of the former towers with its grove of trees, giant pools, and multiple waterfalls before it can be unveiled this Sunday.  Discontinue work on the underground National September 11 Museum due to open in 2012.  Tear down the Freedom Tower (redubbed 1 World Trade Center after our “freedom” wars went awry), 102 stories of “the most expensive skyscraper ever constructed in the United States.” (Estimated price tag: $3.3 billion.)  Eliminate that still-being-constructed, hubris-filled 1,776 feet of building, planned in the heyday of George W. Bush and soaring into the Manhattan sky like a nyaah-nyaah invitation to future terrorists.  Dismantle the other three office towers being built there as part of an $11 billion government-sponsored construction program.  Let’s get rid of it all.   If we had wanted a memorial to 9/11, it would have been more appropriate to leave one of the giant shards of broken tower there untouched.

Ask yourself this: ten years into the post-9/11 era, haven’t we had enough of ourselves?  If we have any respect for history or humanity or decency left, isn’t it time to rip the Band-Aid off the wound, to remove 9/11 from our collective consciousness?  No more invocations of those attacks to explain otherwise inexplicable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our oh-so-global war on terror.  No more invocations of 9/11 to keep the Pentagon and the national security state flooded with money.  No more invocations of 9/11 to justify every encroachment on liberty, every new step in the surveillance of Americans, every advance in pat-downs and wand-downs and strip-downs that keeps fear high and the homeland security state afloat.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 were in every sense abusive, horrific acts.  And the saddest thing is that the victims of those suicidal monstrosities have been misused here ever since under the guise of pious remembrance.  This country has become dependent on the dead of 9/11 — who have no way of defending themselves against how they have been used — as an all-purpose explanation for our own goodness and the horrors we’ve visited on others, for the many towers-worth of dead in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere whose blood is on our hands.

Isn’t it finally time to go cold turkey?  To let go of the dead?  Why keep repeating our 9/11 mantra as if it were some kind of old-time religion, when we’ve proven that we, as a nation, can’t handle it — and worse yet, that we don’t deserve it?

We would have been better off consigning our memories of 9/11 to oblivion, forgetting it all if only we could.  We can’t, of course.  But we could stop the anniversary remembrances.  We could stop invoking 9/11 in every imaginable way so many years later.  We could stop using it to make ourselves feel like a far better country than we are.  We could, in short, leave the dead in peace and take a good, hard look at ourselves, the living, in the nearest mirror.

Ceremonies of Hubris

Within 24 hours of the attacks of September 11, 2001, the first newspaper had already labeled the site in New York as “Ground Zero.”  If anyone needed a sign that we were about to run off the rails, as a misassessment of what had actually occurred that should have been enough.  Previously, the phrase “ground zero” had only one meaning: it was the spot where a nuclear explosion had occurred.

The facts of 9/11 are, in this sense, simple enough.  It was not a nuclear attack.  It was not apocalyptic.  The cloud of smoke where the towers stood was no mushroom cloud.  It was not potentially civilization-ending.  It did not endanger the existence of our country — or even of New York City.  Spectacular as it looked and staggering as the casualty figures were, the operation was hardly more technologically advanced than the failed attack on a single tower of the World Trade Center in 1993 by Islamists using a rented Ryder truck packed with explosives.

A second irreality went with the first.  Almost immediately, key Republicans like Senator John McCain, followed by George W. Bush, top figures in his administration, and soon after, in a drumbeat of agreement, the mainstream media declared that we were “at war.” This was, Bush would say only three days after the attacks, “the first war of the twenty-first century.”  Only problem: it wasn’t.  Despite the screaming headlines, Ground Zero wasn’t Pearl Harbor.  Al-Qaeda wasn’t Japan, nor was it Nazi Germany.  It wasn’t the Soviet Union.  It had no army, nor finances to speak of, and possessed no state (though it had the minimalist protection of a hapless government in Afghanistan, one of the most backward, poverty-stricken lands on the planet).

And yet — another sign of where we were heading — anyone who suggested that this wasn’t war, that it was a criminal act and some sort of international police action was in order, was simply laughed (or derided or insulted) out of the American room.  And so the empire prepared to strike back (just as Osama bin Laden hoped it would) in an apocalyptic, planet-wide “war” for domination that masqueraded as a war for survival.

In the meantime, the populace was mustered through repetitive, nationwide 9/11 rites emphasizing that we Americans were the greatest victims, greatest survivors, and greatest dominators on planet Earth.  It was in this cause that the dead of 9/11 were turned into potent recruiting agents for a revitalized American way of war.

From all this, in the brief mission-accomplished months after Kabul and then Baghdad fell, American hubris seemed to know no bounds — and it was this moment, not 9/11 itself, from which the true inspiration for the gargantuan “Freedom Tower” and the then-billion-dollar project for a memorial on the site of the New York attacks would materialize.  It was this sense of hubris that those gargantuan projects were intended to memorialize.

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, for an imperial power that is distinctly tattered, visibly in decline, teetering at the edge of financial disaster, and battered by never-ending wars, political paralysis, terrible economic times, disintegrating infrastructure, and weird weather, all of this should be simple and obvious.  That it’s not tells us much about the kind of shock therapy we still need.

Burying the Worst Urges in American Life

It’s commonplace, even today, to speak of Ground Zero as “hallowed ground.”  How untrue.  Ten years later, it is defiled ground and it’s we who have defiled it.  It could have been different.  The 9/11 attacks could have been like the Blitz in London in World War II.  Something to remember forever with grim pride, stiff upper lip and all.

And if it were only the reactions of those in New York City that we had to remember, both the dead and the living, the first responders and the last responders, the people who created impromptu memorials to the dead and message centers for the missing in Manhattan, we might recall 9/11 with similar pride.  Generally speaking, New Yorkers were respectful, heartfelt, thoughtful, and not vengeful.  They didn’t have prior plans that, on September 12, 2001, they were ready to rally those nearly 3,000 dead to support.  They weren’t prepared at the moment of the catastrophe to — as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld so classically said – “Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”

Unfortunately, they were not the measure of the moment.  As a result, the uses of 9/11 in the decade since have added up to a profile in cowardice, not courage, and if we let it be used that way in the next decade, we will go down in history as a nation of cowards.

There is little on this planet of the living more important, or more human, than the burial and remembrance of the dead.  Even Neanderthals buried their dead, possibly with flowers, and tens of thousands of years ago, the earliest humans, the Cro-Magnon, were already burying their dead elaborately, in one case in clothing onto which more than 3,000 ivory beads had been sewn, perhaps as objects of reverence and even remembrance.  Much of what we know of human prehistory and the earliest eras of our history comes from graves and tombs where the dead were provided for.

And surely it’s our duty in this world of loss to remember the dead, those close to us and those more removed who mattered in our national or even planetary lives.  Many of those who loved and were close to the victims of 9/11 are undoubtedly attached to the yearly ceremonies that surround their deceased wives, husbands, lovers, children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters.  For the nightmare of 9/11, they deserve a memorial.  But we don’t.

If September 11th was indeed a nightmare, 9/11 as a memorial and Ground Zero as a “consecrated” place have turned out to be a blank check for the American war state, funding an endless trip to hell.  They have helped lead us into fields of carnage that put the dead of 9/11 to shame.

Every dead person will, of course, be forgotten sooner or later, no matter how tightly we clasp their memories or what memorials we build.  In my mind, I have a private memorial to my own dead parents.  Whenever I leaf through my mother’s childhood photo album and recognize just about no one but her among all the faces, however, I’m also aware that there is no one left on this planet to ask about any of them.  And when I die, my little memorial to them will go with me.

This will be the fate, sooner or later, of everyone who, on September 11, 2001, was murdered in those buildings in New York, in that field in Pennsylvania, and in the Pentagon, as well as those who sacrificed their lives in rescue attempts, or may now be dying as a result.  Under such circumstances, who would not want to remember them all in a special way?

It’s a terrible thing to ask those still missing the dead of 9/11 to forgo the public spectacle that accompanies their memory, but worse is what we have: repeated solemn ceremonies to the ongoing health of the American war state and the wildest dreams of Osama bin Laden.

Memory is usually so important, but in this case we would have been better off with oblivion.  It’s time to truly inter not the dead, but the worst urges in American life since 9/11 and the ceremonies which, for a decade, have gone with them.  Better to bury all of that at sea with bin Laden and then mourn the dead, each in our own way, in silence and, above all, in peace.

[Note on further reading: I recommend two recent pieces that, amid the mountain of usual writing about 9/11 ten years later, have something out of the ordinary to say: Ariel Dorfman's “Epitaph for Another September 11” in the Nation magazine on the two 9/11s and how differently two American nations reacted to their disasters, and Lawrence Weschler's “Memory” in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the shame of a squandered decade.]

Copyright 2011 Tom Engelhardt

it’s also the birthday of johan sebastian bach. they didn’t make too many videos back in the 18th century, so instead, how’s about sebastian bach & the boys? you love it. & you know it.

in 1774 the first continental congress convened in philadelphia. ol’ ben franklin put forth the idea following britain’s response to the boston tea party in ’73, & he was joined by 55 delegates from 12 of the 13 colonies, which included the likes of george washington, patrick henry, john adams & his wicked pissah cousin sam. here’s to liberty.

in 1836 sam houston was elected first president of texas. apparently nobody messed with him. at one time the scojts-irish houston lived with the cherokee & was adopted by them, which is quite an honor for us palefaces. he also refused to follow the confederacy. take that, jeff davis! here’s a song about ol’ sam.

on this day in 1978 the camp david peace accord began between israel & egypt. these two hostile enemies were brought together by the man who is probably the most genuinely nice person to ever be president, jimmy carter. jimmy knew we got to have peace, & so did curtis mayfield. gimme some soul!

now for a couple of birthdays. first up, brad wilk, drummer of rage against the machine. happy 43rd. wow, that’s much older then i’d have thought.

ohhhhh sifl & olly. you were such good times on those vhs tapes my senior year in college. stealth, you are the coolest. today is the birthday of the creator of that show, liam lynch. WHATEVA!

with life comes death. on this day in 1877 lakota sioux chief crazy horse died. in homage to that legendary figure comes the name of neil young’s band. here they are with “hey hey my my”.

also passing away on this day was one of the greatest figures of the 20th century, agnes gonxha bojaxhiu, better known as mother teresa. a truly inspiring personification of what the gospel of christ is *truly* all about. shut your stupid alcoholic face, christopher hitchens (see that, that is a bad personification, i’ve got a long way to go…but srsly, to write a book attacking such a wonderful human being simply b/c you hate her faith…grrrr, he’s the lowest of the low). back to the love. the thing that made her so amazing. the love of christ. real, true love. love that creates real change. in honor of her memory, here’s “all you need is love” by four random englishmen.

and, to finish it off, a song for the working class. here’s merle the man haggard with “workin’ man can’t get nowhere today”. WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

oh neko. ohhhhhhhh neko. so sad still that i missed you in may. but, that one time i didst stand in your glorious presence i still recall. and how ye slayed me with your beauty and charms. oh, and that *insane* voice. so amazing. here’s “behind the house”.

chet atkins is the greatest guitarist ever. the end. here’s “orange blossom special”.

this lucinda williams’ performance is one of my favorite ACL’s ever. she’s been on a few times. here’s “drunken angel”.

i wish waylon jennings was still around, so he could punch the douches in rascal flatts right in their stupid faces & show ‘em what country really is. hell yes. here’s “i may be used (but baby i aint used up)”.

and a change in theme. it’s easy to get caught up in twangy with ACL. the mighty mos def is akin to what waylon was, a voice of reason & realness in a genre of music overwhelmed by buffoons. here’s dante terrell smith with “umi says”.

going to the indie rock side of town, here’s instrumentalists explosions in the sky with “catastrophe & the cure”.

here’s another visually challenging vid, but it’s a true legend so it’s worth it. it’s taj mahal doing “honey bee”.

my morning jacket. they pwn. that’s all. here’s “librarian”.

i think sufjan stevens might be the most amazing artist alive today. i’m biased, but still. here’s “jacksonville”.

hope you enjoyed. glad to be back

it’s also the birthday of tom araya, lead singer/screamer/growler of slayer. yes, the SAAAAAAA-LAAAAAY-AAAAAH! i have no idea how he is able to still thrash @ the age of FIFTY. kudos to you tom. here’s the classic “raining blood”.

jamaican pianist monty alexander was also born on this day in 1944. monty’s speciality was jazz, but he also worked with the island’s premier reggae musicians, teaming up with sly & robbie and jamaica’s greatest guitarist ernest ranglin. here’s monty, ranglin (w/ a gorgeous gretsch) & friends with some caribbean vibes. (embedding disabled but worth the trip to u-t00b)

on the 6th of june the united states lost two of its greatest heroes, patrick henry in 1799, & one of my own personal heroes, the man who would’ve changed this nation for the better i truly believe, robert francis kennedy, killed by operatives of our own government i am convinced (the same who killed his brother, MLK & various others who believed in the progress of humanity occurring in this nation). i dedicate this to them. johnny cash singing “this land is your land”, probably the greatest song about the u.s. ever written. thank you woody.

speaking of losing american heroes, today is of course the anniversary of one of the most important days in the 20th century, d-day. on this day in 1944 american troops stormed the beaches of normandy, france (where my father’s mother’s ancestors sailed to quebec from in the 17th century) to do what would ultimately swing the advantage in WWII & lead to the demise of the nazi regime. this song by whiskeytown is not explicitly about this, but the lyrics “eisenhower said in the war he kept her picture in the pocket that was closest to his heart & when he hit shore it must’ve been a target for the gunman” make me think of d-day. here’s to the greatest generation, “houses on the hill” by whiskeytown.

a few generations before this, the u.s. was at war with itself, and on this day memphis was taken by union soldiers in the civil war in 1862. one of the greatest songs about a city ever written, here’s mark cohn with “walking in memphis”.

emperor of ethiopia, descendant of king solomon (which is “shlomo” in hebrew, funny how the name of the wisest king ever to live has turned into a term for a dunce) & forerunner of ras tafari makonnen aka emperor haile selassie I, menelik II led the shewans over the gojjames in battle of embabo in 1882. it was basically a territorial dispute i gather. anyways, here’s a song by sir menelik w/ grand puba & sadat x, “7xl”.

june 6 is duanwu in china, the dragon boat festival. it’s an ancient celebration that i could go on about, but i really just want to play “heart of a dragon” by dragonforce.

the 6th day of the 6th month is also foundation day in western australia & queensland day in queensland, australia. in celebration, here’s one damn fine aussie, kasey chambers, with “barricades & brickwalls”.

and finally, it’s the national day of sweden, commemorating the coronation of king gustav vasa in 1523. i’d really like a certain set of swedish twins to stop messin’ with my bruins right now (and we’ve come full circle), but otherwise i’m a big fan of scandinavia. here’s my favorite swedish band, amon amarth, with “the pursuit of vikings”.

“b-movie”

“who’ll pay reparations on my soul?”

“lady day & john coltrane”

“home is where the hatred is”

rest in power, GSH.

well, a circumstance occurred the other day that was just far too clearly a personal slight on me…or a mere coincidence, either way. an opportunity arose, seemed perfect, and as suddenly as it did it was taken away. & consequently i lost it. i mean, i let every curse & blasphemous phrase protrude from my mouth. now, based on your own personal beliefs, which are based on your own personal experiences (therefore don’t waste your time trying to convince someone else to agree with you on such matters), i was indeed petitioning an empty sky, & therefore was the crazy hobo screaming at himself, or, i was acting like a spoiled brat toward a heavenly father who has some sort of “plan” or “something better” or whatever. that’s really not the point. where i find myself now is in some strange place of limbo. i know myself, bouts of disbelief, or what have historically been pouting, come & go. but, this feels different. i’m overwhelmed not just by my own burdens that have so worn me down these past 3 months, but also the questions that have either long plagued my mind or that i’ve given cliche answers to as to not have them plague my mind are running rampant. here are some.

why would jesus allow a warmongering douche like constantine to ruin christianity? turn it into a militaristic state intertwined fallacy compared to what jesus *actually* taught. & for this trend to continue for the past 16 centuries. this has been the one thing that i’ve been the most troubled by for the longest time. all of the bad associations ppl have with christianity they have for good reason. does jesus want that? does he want ppl turned off to his gospel by douches? or…is he not actually there.

why is genocide & various human rights abuses allowed to run rampant & apparently not be corrected or stopped, but only allowed to just worsen? this is the age old “why do bad things happen to good ppl” or “why would God allow…”, but srsly, 48 women being raped every hour in the DR congo & the genocides over the past century in the ottaman empire/armenia, germany/poland, stalin’s soviet union, mao’s china, pol pot’s cambodia, the former yugoslavia, rwanda and right now the sudan. wtf, YHVH? where is the righteous indignation that smites the wicked? how can so much suffering be allowed??? just a few posts back i was consoling myself in the belief that God will rectify this very thing, & there are millions of christians in the sudan & DR congo who still have faith. idk how, but they do. & i’ve always stated that *if* there’s no justice for the wicked, for the likes of hitler, mao, stalin, al-bashir, kissinger, thatcher, ayn rand, nixon, various CEO’s, wall street fat cats, lobbyists, ben bernake, ken salazar, cheney, cromwell, fergie, etc., that i will just end my life b/c i could not bare to live in a world where we all just die & rot & there’s no justice. hitler can blow his brains out & get away with all he did. stalin & mao & pol pot can live long fat glorious lives of power & die with the blood of a combined 100 million deaths on their hands. & they all die & rot & face no judgement. no hell, no purgatory, no karma, nothing. i still feel that way. even if i am unable to return to the faith of my youth, i’ll never be able to believe there isn’t justice after this life.

but then i think of some of the questions so perfectly worded by my favorite singer/songwriter out today, david bazan. for those who don’t know, he was pedro the lion, the icon of christian indie rockers. & then, he lost his faith. the result was dropping the PTL moniker & using his name, & the amazing curse your branches album. of all the lyrical conundrums this album creates for those who still believe, & all the questions that bazan so clearly had wrestling with for so long, i think the most poignant is found in the song “when we fell“, where bazan asks “what am i afraid of? whom did i betray? in what medieval kingdom does justice work this way? if you knew what would happen & made us just the same, then you my lord can take the blame”. from the christian theological POV, God is eternal, and omni-everything. God knew what humanity would do, how we would turn out, so evil & corrupt & terrible to each other & everything we happen upon (one of my favorite movie lines is from the matrix, where the agent tells neo how humans are by definition a virus – i believe this to be very true). WHY WOULD SOMEONE WHO KNEW THIS GO AHEAD & ALLOW IT?!?!

it makes no sense. but, life with no spiritual context makes no sense to me. it’s boring, & makes me feel incomplete. how the freak am i supposed to come to some kind of balance of these diametrically opposed ideas? i’m perfectly comfortable believing in what is by definition absurd – i am kierkegaardian in that way. faith is absurd. and i like that, i prefer the absurd to basing everything on logic & reason & rationale. math is no way to find meaning. i don’t want life without a higher truth, a greater meaning beyond our sad, pathetic state of affairs. but, i don’t want to believe in what is completely non-sensical (a sliding scale, i realize) & seems outright…well, cruel.

so where does this leave me? idk. i had an interview today, & following in the elevator out of habit i did the ol’ in nomine patre et fili et spiritu sancti. then i realized, this isn’t going away. there’s basically over 3 decades of jesusology in my brain. it would take a concerted, thought out, daily correcting myself of such things for there to be a change. & even after years of that i’d probably still have certain habits. the fact of the matter is i do believe in jesus. i always will. the tattoos are there for a reason. they aren’t going away. it’s not going away. but, i am at a loss for reconciling that with all that’s gone on in my life, the pains of those close to me, the suffering of literally billions at the hands of merciless tyrants throughout this world. idk. i just don’t know. i suppose no one does. i do know the last thing i want to hear is “God has a plan”. that does not make all this suffering ok.

so, here i am. i have no idea where i am at & no idea where i am going. i have no idea what is going to happen in my life. i don’t know how much worse it can get right now. maybe i shouldn’t be thinking of such ‘meaning of life’ questions at this point in my life, b/c of the circumstances. it’s hard not to when that fundamentalist upbringing makes me think every single action & reaction, event & happenstance is divinely inspected (even if i don’t want to – i don’t want *any* of the fundamentalist tendancies of my upbringing to haunt me as they do, but that’s life i s’pose). i honestly am afraid God will not let me get a job to punish me. of course, that’s how this whole thing happened in the first place…

ugh. i have no friggin’ clue. thoughts?

mel wants to hear journey’s “don’t stop believing” as the mediapocalypse failed to happen. here it is live. almost as good as me doing it karaoke style.

michelle wants to hear black flag. and who can blame her? the best hardcore punk band ever from cali. in spite of henry rollins. here’s “tv party”.

mikeshaw wants to hear roy orbison. happy to oblige! AND to make drea & cat happy, tom waits is with him! here’s “ooby dooby”. yeeeeeeeeooooooooow rockabilly time!

both michelle & mikeshaw give love to jackie wilson. rightly so. here’s “higher & higher”.

susan wants to send some genesis out to the rainy weather. i’m feeling a phil collins solo joint, well not solo b/c he’s joined by philip bailey from earth, wind & fire. best song ever? maybe. here’s “easy lover”.

shiggins wants fugazi’s “waiting room”. apparently uberwhiner was wrong, there are ppl who really do like fugazi.

yimmy said “story of my life”, then when i asked “social d?” he replied “what?” and went offline. well, i <3 them, so here’s frontman mike ness doing that song. coolest dude alive? probably.

cat loves the bowie & wants to be amazed by “prettiest star”. here ya go catherine!

to end things off, as mentioned at the top of the post, wishing a happy birthday t0 phil selway. here he & the boys from radiohead are with “all i need”.

i highly recommend internet monk‘s very thoughtful & biblically sound blog regarding this, as well as rev. dr. barbara rossing revealing it for the “fear-based spiritual abuse” it is here. i honestly wouldn’t care if this were something that people en mass *knew* was limited to a certain group that embraces a certain eschatology, but instead as it is associated with christians at large, i find it offensive. and frustrating. and needs to be set straight.

cliff notes for the uninformed: “The theological notion of a “rapture” was invented 170 years ago.  In 1830, in Port Glasgow, Scotland, fifteen year old Margaret MacDonald had a vision concerning the return of Christ.  Her vision was adopted by  John Nelson Darby a British minister and founder of a denomination called the “Plymouth Brethern.”  In 1909, an American, C. I. Scofield, pubished an annotated version of the “King James” translation of the Bible called the “Scofield Reference Bible.”  Scofield’s annotations were based on the theology of John Nelson Darby.  The “Scofield Reference Bible” popularized the teachings of Darby.  Fundamentalist Christians in the U. S. adopted Scofield’s Bible as authoritative.  With the rise of fundamentalism in the U. S. in recent years, the popularity of the theological notion of the “rapture” has also gained popularity.”

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

“But he shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.” ~ isaiah 6:4-5

“For the tyrant will be no more and the arrogant will have gone; All who are alert to do evil will be cut off…” ~ isaiah 29:20

“In justice shall you be established, far from the fear of oppression, where destruction cannot come near you. Should there be any attack, it shall not be of my making; whoever attacks you shall fall before you. Lo, I have created the craftsman who blows on the burning coals and forges weapons as his work; It is I also who have created the destroyer to work havoc. No weapon fashioned against you shall prevail; every tongue you shall prove false that launches an accusation against you. This is the lot of the servants of the LORD, their vindication from me, says the LORD.” ~ isaiah 54:14-17

…The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system; it must go. And in the work of abolishing it the Catholic and the Protestant, the Catholic and the Jew, the Catholic and the Freethinker, the Catholic and the Buddhist, the Catholic and the Mahometan will co-operate together, knowing no rivalry but the rivalry of endeavour toward an end beneficial to all. We reject the firebrand of capitalist warfare and offer you the olive leaf of brotherhood and justice to and for all…

…If you strike at, imprison, or kill us, out of our prisons or graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you, and perhaps, raise a force that will destroy you! We defy you! Do your worst!…

…the great only appear great because you are on your knees. RISE UP!”

on this day in 1916 james connolly ,one of the greatest influences on my socio-political views & a true inspiration to me, was shot by firing squad. he had been taken by military ambulance to kilmainham prison, carried on a stretcher to a courtyard in the prison, tied to a chair and shot. with the other executed rebels, his body was put into a mass grave with no coffin. the dream that he & the other ‘rebels’ had came true, and the republic of ireland would be born, though the dream of unification still eludes. until that day, tiocfaidh ar la. you can read connolly’s works here, and i highly recommend this article from the IWW. erin go bragh.

also, this is a good article: things the GOP won’t like about ron paul

the corries are one of the greatest traditional bands of scotland, and member ronnie brown (no relation…i don’t think) penned the unofficial anthem of scotland “flower of scotland” (now *that* is an anthem!). here the scottish lads do a cover of the traditional song “banks of newfoundland”.

the irish descendants are one of many bands from the city of st. john’s, newfoundland – basically from what i gather the only actual *city* on the island. my newfoundland trip will actually prolly be 2 – one up & down the west coast, for gros morne & the viking settlement, and another on the east coast with st. john’s. here’s the b’ys with “catch the wind”.

shanneyganock are a fun bunch of b’ys who celebrate the pride of newfoundland and love a scoff & a scuff. their name is loosely translated from the gaelic to mean “creature of the night”. here’s “the roaming ABC’s”.

back in the 70′s figgy duff emerged as one of the main traditional bands on the island. figgy duff is spicy pudding, if you were wondering where they got the eclectic name from. here’s “tarry trousers”.

i don’t know who the performer is, but this is a classic song from the island that you are not allowed to sing unless you get permission from a newfoundlander, as ‘newfie’ is a term of derision. i’ve been granted the special privilege here’s “the newfie stomp”.

“the night paddy murphy died” was written by johnny burke, “the bard of prescott street”, who in the early 20th century wrote many famous newfoundland themed songs, heavily influenced by his irish heritage. great big sea have famously covered the song, as well as this german band called fiddler’s green. honestly, i don’t get non-celtic people doing celtic music. ah, as we say in maine, “c’est l’hiver”. still sounds good, b’y.

there used to be a musical comedy duo called free beer, and a group called the wonderful grand band, they’ve been replaced by buddy wasisname & the other fellas, and i gotta say, this song is just as applicable here in mooseland maine as it is up in the land found new! here’s “got to git me moose, b’y!”. (they can also help with dialect)

hey this song mentions maine! dirigo! here’s “prohibition way” by the punters.

and to end it off, a pop punk band from st. john’s, mercy, the sexton doing a cover of bowie’s “rebel rebel”.

“We are the product of 500 years of struggle: first against slavery, then during the War of Independence against Spain led by insurgents, then to avoid being absorbed by North American imperialism, then to promulgate our constitution and expel the French Empire from our soil, and later the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz denied us the just application of the Reform Laws, and the people rebelled and leaders like Villa and Zapata emerged, poor people just like us. We have been denied the most elemental preparation so that they can use us as cannon fodder and pillage the wealth of our country. They don’t care that we have nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over our heads: no land, no work, no health care, no food, no education. Nor are we able to freely and democratically elect our political representatives, nor is there independence from foreigners, nor is there peace nor justice for ourselves and our children.

But today, we say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.” (the rest following the jump)

here is part 1 of 10 from the documentary a place called chiapas. watch it.

“We are the inheritors of the true builders of our nation. The dispossessed, we are millions, and we thereby call upon our brothers and sisters to join this struggle as the only path, so that we will not die of hunger due to the insatiable ambition of a 70-year dictatorship led by a clique of traitors who represent the most conservative and sell-out groups. They are the same ones who opposed Hidalgo and Morelos, the same ones who betrayed Vincente Guerrero, the same ones who sold half our country to the foreign invader, the same ones who imported a European prince to rule our country, the same ones who formed the “scientific” Porfirista dictatorship, the same ones who opposed the Petroleum Expropriation, the same ones who massacred the railroad workers in 1958 and the students in 1968, the same ones who today take everything from us, absolutely everything.

To prevent the continuation of the above, and as our last hope, after having tried to utilize all legal means based on our Constitution, we go to our Constitution, to apply Article 39, which says:

“National Sovereignty essentially and originally resides in the people. All political power emanates from the people and its purpose is to help the people. The people have, at all times, the inalienable right to alter or modify their form of government.”
Therefore, according to our Constitution, we declare the following to the Mexican Federal Army, the pillar of the Mexican dictatorship that we suffer from, monopolized by a one-party system and led by Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the supreme and illegitimate federal executive who today holds power.

According to this Declaration of War, we ask that other powers of the nation advocate to restore the legitimacy and the stability of the nation by overthrowing the dictator.

We also ask that international organizations and the International Red Cross watch over and regulate our battles, so that our efforts are carried out while still protecting our civilian population. We declare now and always that we are subject to the Geneva Accord, forming the EZLN as the fighting arm of our liberation struggle. We have the Mexican people on our side, we have the beloved tri-colored flag, highly respected by our insurgent fighters. We use black and red in our uniform as a symbol of our working people on strike. Our flag carries the following letters, “EZLN,” Zaptista National Liberation Army, and we always carry our flag into combat.

Beforehand, we reject any effort to disgrace our just cause by accusing us of being drug traffickers, drug guerrillas, thieves or other names that might by used by our enemies. Our struggle follows the Constitution, which is held high by its call for justice and equality.

Therefore, according to this declaration of war, we give our military forces, the EZLN, the following orders:

First: Advance to the capital of the country, overcoming the Mexican Federal Army, protecting in our advance the civilian population and permitting the people in the liberated area the right to freely and democratically elect their own administrative authorities.

Second: Respect the lives of our prisoners and turn over all wounded to the International Red Cross.

Third: Initiate summary judgments against all soldiers of the Mexican Federal Army and the political police who have received training or have been paid by foreigners, accused of being traitors to our country, and against all those who have repressed and treated badly the civilian population, and robbed, or stolen from, or attempted crimes against the good of the people.

Fourth: Form new troops with all those Mexicans who show their interest in joining our struggle, including those who, being enemy soldiers, turn themselves in without having fought against us, and promise to take orders from the General Command of the EZLN.

Fifth: We ask for the unconditional surrender of the enemy’s headquarters before we begin any combat to avoid any loss of lives.

Sixth: Suspend the robbery of our natural resources in the areas controlled by the EZLN.

To the People of Mexico:

We, the men and women, full and free, are conscious that the war that we have declared is our last resort, but also a just one. The dictators have been waging an undeclared genocidal war against our people for many years. Therefore we ask for your participation, your decision to support this plan that struggles for work, land, housing, food, health care, education, independence, freedom, democracy, justice and peace. We declare that we will not stop fighting until the basic demands of our people have been met by forming a government of our country that is free and democratic.

JOIN THE INSURGENT FORCES OF THE ZAPATISTA NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY!”

General Command of the EZLN
December 31, 1993

in 1776 on this day rhode island became the first colony to renounce allegiance to king george III. ironically, lil’ rhody would be the last to sign the constitution, for which george washington would loudly scold those in attendance upon his arrival afterwards. in celebration of the hope state, here’s the amazing (royal) crowns from providence bringin’ the rockabilly revival with “1965 GTO”.

in 1942 on this day the imperial japanese navy fought allied forces in the battle of the coral sea. which reminds me of the coral, the british indie pop band whose self-titled debut featured one of the catchiest damn songs you’ll ever hear, “dreaming of you”.

in 1948 on this day norman mailer’s first novel was published. mailer famously stated “i don’t care if people call me a radical, a rebel, a red, a revolutionary, an outsider, an outlaw, a bolshevik, an anarchist, a nihilist, or even a left conservative, but please don’t ever call me a liberal”. amen! in stark contrast -the polar opposite, really – to mailer’s progressivism, the 4th of may in 1979 brought the swearing in of the worst british person since cromwell, margaret thatcher. there are a veritable plethera of anti-thatcher songs, but few are as powerful as elvis costello saying “when they finally put you in the ground, i’ll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down”. here’s “tramp the dirt down”.

speaking of fascism, the 4th of may in 1970 infamously brought with it the killing of 4 students at kent state during protesting of the u.s. attacks on cambodia. no one put it more famously then the incredible neil young. here’s “ohio”.

onto may 4th birthdays. in 1930 katherine jackson was born. her son jackie would be born on the same day 21 years later. and of course a kid named michael would come into existence following that. here’s the jackson 5 with “i want you back”. so incredible.

in 1951 the pogues bassist darryl hunt was born (he preceded & followed cait o’riordan). i typically hate when artists & bands i love have their music used in corporate commercials, but i love this minivan commercial featuring “if i should fall from grace with God” b/c it’s got youth hockey all through it i’m a hyprocrite, i know. here’s “sally maclennane”.

in 1951, motley crue guitarist mick mars was born (that’d make him 1 month younger then my father…weird). oh motley crue. oh 1980′s. here’s “home sweet home”.

in 1959 one of the few male country artists to come out in the 1980′s (and since) who i don’t completely abhor, randy travis, was born. there are a few female country artists who i actually do like who’ve emerged in that time frame, namely the dixie chicks & martina mcbride (it’s hard to believe such an amazing voice is contained in such a tiny – and gorgeous – body). if i had to pick a favorite genre of music, it’d probably be old country music, and having johnny cash as my hero & patsy cline as my favorite singer, i am often expressing how much i abhor contemporary pop pseudo-twang “country” music. so, to actually kind of like an artist means a lot coming from me. here’s randy travis’ most famous song, a true country classic, “forever & ever amen”.

and to finish off this wicked wednesday, or “musique mercredi”, in 1972 green day bassist mike dirnt was born. here’s their classic “welcome to paradise”.

“You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love.”

“Love follows knowledge. One who knows more, loves more.”

“We trust and believe in what we love.”

“There will be love in proportion to faith and faith in proportion to love.”

transcript available here.