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Simon and Garfunkel are touring. I date myself, but S&G were the very first album I possessed on CD when they came out. The grizzled double CD case that held not two, but three, CD’s filled with a healthy sample of the delicious goodness that S&G had to offer at the time.
What a heady introduction to music. Although at the time, it did not much to increase my reputation among my peers.
“So, what are you listening to. It had better not be that classical crap!”
The arbourist stating proudly: “Why no, it is Simon and Garfunkel.” Expectant smile…
*groans from my peers*
I’m glad now that I did not follow the musical herd, as most of the songs from the 80’s were utter shite.
So when I heard they were coming to town I immediately bought tickets to the the single show here in Edmonton. Much to my shigrin, Art blew a vocal chord and the concert scheduled for the second of may has been pushed back to July.
*sigh* I just hope they don’t die before they get here.
Elected by and abiding by the will of the people. Obama should try it sometime.
Bolivia once again is beginning to assert itself as a independent national entity. More importantly, a democratic entity that actually resembles a democracy.
From Al-Jazeera:
“Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, signed a decree authorising the nationalisation at the offices of one of the companies in the city of Cochabamba on Saturday, hours after police had moved in to secure them.
“We are here to nationalise all the hydroelectric plants that were owned by the state before, to comply with the new constitution of the Bolivian state,” Morales said.”
Taking back what once belonged to the people, for the benefit of the people. What a unique idea!
“Basic services can not be a private business. We are recovering the energy, the light, for all Bolivians.”
Thank you Mr.Morales, thank you for stating the obvious. The wave of privatization and the idea that private ownership is the best only way for a nation to function has engulfed North America presently needs examples to show that the private ownership model is not a one size fits all solution.
“This is essentially what Morales, the Bolivian president, was elected on,” Alex Van Schaick, a Bolivia analyst, told Al Jazeera.
A government doing what it promised to do….*cough*…yes we can… *hack* hope and change; others should try that.
“It is the state’s obligation to compensate investors for their assets, we made an effort to reach an agreement with the private, multinational companies, but they were unwilling to reach an accord,” he said.
Several companies have launched legal action over the compensation they were offered as part of the nationalisation.”
Essentially, “how dare they take away my golden egg laying goose?” I would be surprised if there was not a tooth and nail dragged out process of wresting Bolivia’s energy sector away from the robber barons who infested the country circa 1994.
Bolivia is doing it right. Running its country for the people, as a opposed to the wealthy elites. Bravo!
Did you ever want to see a society remade into the corporatist mode? Greece is going down that path right now. The IMF is gleefully setting out conditions and ‘austerity measures’ necessary for Greece to qualify for the bailout package. How much would you wager that the Public Sector is going to take a beating? Today’s news is part of a cycle of the forced privatization of the Greek economy.
“Hundreds of youths rioted in Athens on Saturday, throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at police who responded with tear gas at a large May Day rally against austerity measures needed to secure loans for near-bankrupt Greece.”
The youthful vanguard responds, but until the middle class in Greece responds their efforts will be in vain.
“Greece’s additional austerity measures are likely to include raising consumer taxes while docking pensions and public service pay. Unions are furious.
“These measures are death,” said Nikos Diamantopoulos, participating in a rally organized by unions. “How people are going to live tomorrow, how they’re going to survive, I do not understand.”
The people will live for tomorrow but will they accept the dismantling of the state in order to ‘save’ their country? Some resist:
“The Greek people do not owe anything to anybody,” Left coalition leader Alexis Tsipras told reporters at one of the Athens rallies, assailing “those who have brazenly robbed public money and pension funds.”
Virginia Kalapotharakou, an accountant who joined striking seamen and dockworkers rallying in the port of Piraeus, called the potential measures “very reactionary.”
“They’re trying to do away with all the rights we gained through struggles in previous years,” she said.
Because breaking unions and cutting the public sector is obviously the first choice in fixing a country. How about raising corporate taxes and income taxes for the rich? Austerity plans seldom mention these strategies.
Stay tuned, hopefully the workers in Greece can resists the undoing of their country.
How much destruction needs to be caused before we understand the concept that greed does not equal ‘good’. Our relentless hunt for oil has potentially sacrificed a great big chunk of the Louisiana coastline to unctuous death.
The CBC reports:
“British energy company BP Plc. said it was “unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur” from the well it was proposing to drill 80 kilometres off the Louisiana shore. And if such a spill did occur, the company said, “due to the distance to shore and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected.”
Ah ha! Well, I mean the oil that down there is pretty easy to reach, and we can make a great profit by extracting it. Let’s lowball the safety concerns and work our corporate connections to the EPA and US government and see if we can grease the right palms and get this bad boy going to make some money.
“Last week, the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and then collapsed into the Gulf of Mexico, rupturing the wellhead and sending forth 5,000 barrels a day of oil into the sea.”
“At least six million litres of petroleum have spilled so far, according to U.S. Coast Guard estimates, making it one of the worst U.S. oil spills in decades. Tens of thousands of animals, including birds and marine life, living along the southeast U.S. coast are at risk.”
Well, the other shoe just dropped. Guess who is going to get the short end of the stick? Can you even put a price on wiping out a large portion of the biosphere? Wildlife be damned.
“Remaining oil from the slick, which measures about 1,500 square kilometres, is expected to wash ashore in Mississippi on Saturday before reaching Alabama on Sunday and Florida on Monday, putting those areas at risk of environmental catastrophe.”
“BP officials have said it could take as long as 90 days to stop the leak, meaning as many as 71.5 million litres of petroleum could ultimately get into the water — far more than the 41 million litres dumped by the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, the worst oil spill in U.S. history”
Hmmm. It seems this is making the Exxon Valdez look like small potatoes. I wonder, once the southern US shores are coated with oil, how silly renewable energy is going to be looking? Probably just as silly, because those damn hippies do not know what they are talking about.
“London-based BP, which had contracted the drilling rig, is fully responsible for funding the cleanup.”
I wonder if the US government is going to charge them for the cleanup efforts undertaken by government agencies. I certainly hope so.
Thunderfoot ran into some censorship issues with ytube about showing some southpark footage in one of his videos. Thanks viacom, your spineless twerpitude is noted. Thunderfoot’s video is a good approximation of my feelings toward religion and why I treat it with such disdain.
This is the age of reason, not the age of religion and we should act accordingly.
Bonus: The incensed Thunderfoot comments after all the censorship drama.
It is always nice to start the weekend off with poking fun at the mythology and silliness that masquerades as religion. Arguably one of NSC’s finest works to date about the christians and their funny book.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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