It's good to see you. Come on in, leave your shoes in the hallway, we've got fire on the stove preparing lunch for later. In the meantime, browse the bookshelves and plunk down on the sofa with one, or pick out some tunes from the music library or come in to the kitchen to help with the cooking. Our special blend of tea is steeping and will be right up.

Make yourself at home...

In honor of May Day yesterday, and because I was traveling last week, I offer an essay written by myself at The Other Place, which was a response to their and the MSM's refusal to acknowledge the massive May Day March of 2012 in NYC:

"May Day!May Day! Blackout on the Great White Way," OWS triumph ignored

A tree fell in the media's forest yesterday, but no one heard it.

Except everyone else who was there, in Madison Sq Park, Bryant Park, Union Square, on 5th Ave, and on Broadway. And who also happen to have cameras, twitter accounts and FB pages.

The NY Post and Fox News were so predictable in their prequel fear-mongering and vicious disparaging. What was unexpected however was the complete media blackout from the Rachel Maddow Show, CNN, Daily News, et al, a wall of silence from the entire mainstream or traditional media. Even here we couldn't be troubled to pull ourselves away from the ad nauseum preoccupation with two-party political inanity to acknowledge the day properly. Oh, there was plenty of great coverage to read. But if you're one of the many overworked Americans with limited time on your hands our "media" decided for you that the sound of 30,000 people marching through New York City, the world's media capitol, was indeed no sound at all. Where's the indignation?

And so yet again it seems the same media blackout at the beginning of OWS is likely to be the same m.o. again now. That is, until there's some violence they can use to sell papers and advertising with. Alas, there was no blood feast for the vultures yesterday so they took their ball home. I could find only one video about May Day on "librul" MSNBC. And the very next thing shown after it was, I shit you not, an advertisement from Goldman Sachs, with a vulgar, ironic, belching, claim touting their funding of a technology company was "impacting millions of lives." They sure have impacted millions of lives. The same way Marlboro has impacted millions of lungs.

Advertisers and news companies exist in a symbiotic world. Networks get paid from advertisers. Companies are beholden to stock holders, not to an inconvenient and idealistic notion of informing for the public good. BP comes on with images of beautiful sweeping images of landscapes and people producing "green" technology, while Bank of America submits their commercial with reams of footage of multi-ethnic people cooperating and smiling in feel-good camaraderie. Their purpose is intentional. The former to take the sting off their destruction of the Gulf of Mexico's ecosystem which is now producing shrimp with multiple eyes and the latter to ingratiate themselves after predatory lending schemes that made many of their employees filthy rich were found out by the public. And with each passing image in the tc commercial and with every gleaming new storefront they continue to throw up in our neighborhoods they attempt to soften their "image." The intention is they hope to buy us so that we forget. I don't. But It helps not watching tv or reading newspapers. The content of the commercial media is subject to the companies who pay to have their commercials run. It's that simple.

The consequences here are graver than my mere bitching rant.

You see, there were some erudite guys who put together the framework of this thing called America, which though a blossoming idea in the age of Enlightenment was still basically a bold experiment by people who had essentially emigrated to a "new" land from somewhere else hoping to devise a better system that recognized universal truths. And what they concluded was that in order to have true representative democracy the lifeblood of it will be the "Fourth Estate" of the press, its freedom and probing agility the most essential check and balance against overreach and tyranny. An unbiased, principled body of journalists upon whose integrity the public would have to rely in order to make informed decisions on how to participate in this new concept of collective responsibility. Yet today, the collusion of corporatism, monopoly, lobbyists and Citzens United's unleashing of unlimited campaign financing have literally suffocated whatever was left of a barely breathing media. To this mind tonight, as we witness yet another media blackout - despite tens of thousands of people airing their grievances on the streets of New York City, it cuts like a knife: We must become our own media.

I'm thinking that Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein must be breathing sighs of relief tonight, safe in the knowledge of not knowing one thousand protesters ended the night amassed at the foot of the Standard and Poor (a subsidiary of book-making giant McGraw-Hill, can it get any more insidious?) building last night. Though there were massive May Day protests all over the world, the national and local media chose to brush right over it.

Whatever was the trivial distraction of the moment or political news focusing on meaningless party bickering took up all the air in the room. Not surprisingly Rupert Murdoch's Wall St Journal chose a misleading headline of "Activists confront police," then began by identifying "hundreds" of protesters spilling out onto 5th Ave. Knowing the OWS protests have been aimed at the criminal practices emanating out the firms they lord over and had barely made a blip on the radar of the news media, they could take umbrage from the day's (non) events. But things are slightly different today.

Over the next few days, independent news sources, citizen journalism, videos and photo journalism will start popping up, being shared and forwarded - just as they had in Tahrir Sq. To that end, the corporate state-sanctioned message shall be circumvented. Truth is, they're sweating hard and hoping their media buddies will do them the favor of turning the corner on any unpleasant news.

As long as the media continues to ignore recent OWS actions, including activists following them into their shareholders' meetings, in front of their residences and outside their fund-raising events, they'll still be in possession of two golden get-out-of-jail cards and a conscience exempt from any self-reflection. I doubt I'll ever come in contact with these conniving sociopaths but that doesn't stop me whenever I'm walking downtown in those parts, surrounded by suits, from saying aloud to no one in particular, "Credit default swaps, Jail time. Thank You!" Nothing like catching eyes with an odious greedy clown who knows exactly what it means.

In the middle of the day yesterday protesters literally stopped traffic by sitting down on 5th Ave, a street attended to by rich and famous globetrotters seeking more and more opulent goods to fill up their scattered mansions and vacation homes.

Later that day thousands and thousands of people commandeered the corridor of the most famous street in the world for a total of more than three hours. It may be known as the Great White Way in midtown but downtown yesterday it was officially Occupied by a staggering dimension of people who saw the Occupy movement as not only a salve to a once-festering malaise, but a salvation of hope in a world gone mad.

I guess the motto is when a mammoth tree falls be there to record the thud.

Here's a sampling of the beautiful artistry and ingenuity inspired by Occupy in the form of posters for that occasion, and a couple of photos of the glorious gathering in NYC:

So, what's going on with you?

Back in the kitchen we're listening to:

Neil Young "Rust Never Sleeps"

(two of my all-time favorite Neil Young songs appear on the "acoustic" side this record, back-to-back: "Ride My Llama" and "Pocahontas.")

Reading/Browsing List:
"Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space"
"Occupying Wall Street: The Inside Story of an Action that Changed America" by Writers for the 99% (Haymarket Books)
"The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism" by Bernard Shaw
"American Dream: Lost a& Found" by Studs Terkel

Pan-Fried Cod with Turkish Rice Pilaf

Caramelize one diced onion, sprinkle in cumin seeds when they're starting to brown.
Add julienned carrots.
Add turmeric and a dash of cinnamon.
Add chopped garlic, after a minute add the rice and toast for a bit, constantly stirring (add water if it starts to stick).
Add water and cook through, tossing in midway a handful of currants or raisins, until the rice is cooked

In olive oil, cook cod in pan, only salt and pepper at the end.

Lemongrass Chai Blend

heaping scoop of dried Thai lemongrass
shards of cinnamon bark
a few cardamom pods
a few black peppercorns
A few cloves
fresh chopped ginger