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Jose Feliciano sings the national anthem
National League Championship Series, San Francisco, 10/14/12
(via Latino Rebels, who provide the back story)

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Meat Loaf performs major musical malfunction
Romney rally, Ohio, 10/25/12

We need a real recovery.

Late last week we ended a wonderful stay in Maine, one where a quiet lake, the company of family, the calls of loons, the cracks of lobster shells, and the splash of kayak paddles were the dominant experiences of lazy days.

We returned, however, by driving straight home — in a minor family legend of a road trip that took sixteen hours to complete. The traffic wasn’t bad, but it took a little longer than anticipated, and it’s just a long, long way.  As time wore on, dusk turned to night, we found ourselves in the seemingly endless urban plain of New Jersey with a blur of highway stops, gas stations, exits, and a slow flux of neighboring cars and trucks to keep us company.  We talked, planned, argued, listened to music, read, drove.  And drove.  And drove.

And while we certainly weren’t on a quiet lake in Maine any more, there was a certain familiar but usually overlooked beauty to this, too: streams of red tail lights ahead, oncoming streams of white headlights, the rush of buildings, bridges, signs and overpasses, a giant civilization all around.

“Just Drive 2: New Mexico – New York,” YouTube video uploaded by ‘heraldstreet’, whose
description is “driving across america in 1995 with a super-8 and the radio. music by
jonathan richman and the modern lovers. pretty well unedited.”

More than 30 years ago, Jonathan Richman captured some of that in the underground rock anthem “Roadrunner” — one of his first recordings.*  While the exact lyrics could vary from performance to performance, the gist was that there is a beauty in the experience of … driving through the suburban sprawl around Boston Richman called home, at high speed and with the radio on:

I’m in love with the modern world
I drive alone when it’s late at night
I wanna hear now, the modern sound
so I won’t feel alone at night
I mean I’m in love with the modern world [...]

Read the rest of this entry »

This short, beautiful bit of music — one version of the theme for the PBS history series “American Experience” — has always sounded like a kind of poem to me, one in a language I didn’t know but wanted to understand.

Recently, I got to thinking more about it, and decided it was a hymn, and one I’d try to write some lyrics for. Here they are.

As a growing river flowing fast
as it rolls down to the sea
We live the future of our past
and pray that we grow more free

Over rock and fall
we together all
with our hearts
for our hopes
now
call

Mountaintop removal mining (MTR) is a particularly devastating variety of strip mining practiced in the Appalachian Mountains, particularly in West Virginia, in which whole mountaintops are pulverized to get at the seams of coal beneath. The “overburden” is pushed into neighboring valleys, resulting in ugly, scarred moonscapes and above all, buried, ruined streams that — when they do emerge from the rubble — are too high in dissolved pollutants to support life.

On April 1st, the EPA issued new guidelines that spelled out the downstream conductivity standards that MTR would have to satisfy in the future — standards described by Guardian reporter Susanne Goldenberg as “effectively call[ing] time today on one of the most destructive industries in America.”

But it’s not clear that’s what the guidelines do.  True, EPA chief Lisa Jackson appeared to back up that judgment:

“You are talking about either no or very few valley fills that are going to be able to meet standards like this,” she said. “What the science is telling us is that it would be untrue to say you can have any more than minimal valley fill and not see irreversible damage to stream health.”

While that sounds great, Ms. Jackson also said “This is not about ending coal mining,” and a look at the supporting EPA documents makes that plain:

Q. Will this memorandum stop mining?
A. No. EPA has recently approved permits for some surface mining projects in Appalachia and expects to continue to do so, where these projects are consistent with the guidance. EPA recognizes the importance of coal to Appalachia and to the nation’s energy mix, but also has an obligation based on the law and emerging science to prevent harm to our waters and environment. Projects that are damaging to water quality will be closely scrutinized, but mining companies that employ the best management practices contained in this memorandum and meet water quality protection standards should expect favorable actions on their permits…

The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. (“Coal Tattoo”) says the simple result is that EPA can block new permits or “demand significant changes” when downstream conductivity is projected to exceed 500 microSiemens. The “slightly more complicated” outcome?

Read the rest of this entry »

pale male the famous redtail hawk performs wingstands high above midtown manhattan circles around for one last pass over the park got his eye on a fat squirrel down there and a couple of pigeons they got no place to run they got no place to hide but pale male he’s cool, see ‘cause his breakfast ain’t goin’ nowhere so he does a loop t loop for the tourists and the six o’clock news
got him a penthouse view from the tip-top of the food chain, boys he looks up and down on fifth ave and says “god i love this town”	For Wall St., Question on Top Bonuses Is 7 Figures or 8 – (Story, Dash, NYTimes, 1/9/10) The bank bonus season, that annual rite of big money and bigger egos, begins in earnest this week, and it looks as if it will be one of the largest and most controversial blowouts the industry has ever seen.
but life goes on down here below and all us mortals struggle so we laugh and cry and live and die that’s how it goes for all we know down here below [...]
pale male swimmin’ in the air looks like he’s in heaven up there people sufferin’ everywhere but he don’t care	An Update on State Budget Cuts (Johnson, Oliff, Williams; Center for Budget and Policy Priorities; updated January 28, 2010) Governors Proposing New Round of Cuts for 2011; At Least 43 States Have Already Imposed Cuts That Hurt Vulnerable Residents With tax revenue still declining as a result of the recession and budget reserves largely drained, the vast majority of states have made spending cuts that hurt families and reduce necessary services. These cuts, in turn, have deepened states’ economic problems because families and businesses have less to spend. Federal recovery act dollars and funds raised from tax increases are greatly reducing the extent, severity, and economic impact of these cuts, but only to a point. The cuts enacted in at least 43 states plus the District of Columbia in 2008 and 2009 occurred in all major areas of state services, including health care (29 states), services to the elderly and disabled (24 states and the District of Columbia), K-12 education (28 states and the District of Columbia), higher education (37 states), and other areas. States made these cuts because revenues from income taxes, sales taxes, and other revenue sources used to pay for these services declined due to the recession. At the same time, the need for these services did not decline and, in fact, rose as the number of families facing economic difficulties increased.

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Lyrics in the left column are of “Down Here Below”, by Steve Earle on the album “Washington Square Serenade.”
The Pale Male photo is at and links to the excellent palemale.com site maintained by Dr. Ward Stone.

Sorry to be away so long. This seems nice in the meantime. Via my friend Valeria Ponte back in California, on her facebook page.

“Op zoek naar Maria” translates roughly to “Auf der Suche nach Maria” which translates to “In search of Maria.” You’ll figure out why in a minute. Pretty great stuff.

At 3 million plus views, this may not be the first time you’ve seen this, but it was new to me. The 3 million plus viewers are right — it’s pretty great. The video was produced by/for “playingforchange,” which you can find out more about here. Via dmcindc.

Via docudharma. (h/t Priscilla L.)

UPDATE, 10/30: Another version. Why? Because you can’t stop me:

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UPDATE, 1/21/09: The second video was first taken off YouTube for a while, and is now marked as “private, make sure you accept the sender’s friend request.” It was open to the public when I posted it here.