Open Thread WE 27 JUL 22 ~

Submitted by QMS on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 6:00am

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okamura-3-640x958@2x-4.jpg
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The Japanese-Canadian artist, who recently moved his studio from Brooklyn to Queens, centers his practice around storytelling and honing in on the distinctive energies of those he paints.

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Welcome to the humper day episode of the grande open thread here on the vertiginous C99. It is not exactly like the soaps, but does have some continuity. Requires special spectacles to read
between the lines.

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Today, I thought of shining a little light on a local diversion called the Newport Folk Festival. Starting in 1959 as an adjunct to the Newport Jazz Festival, it is a venue of many talented, sometimes new,
acts in the folk traditions. This year it was held on 23 July with features such as a bicycle powered stage, and a surprise appearance by Paul Simon.

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The music fest has a very, very long and storied history. And for you of a certain ripe vintage you may remember some of these folks ..

Per Wiki ..

In 1969, the Johnny Cash troupe was to perform on opening night of the festival. Cash had recently become aware of Kris Kristofferson, a young, relatively unknown country singer-songwriter, and convinced George Wein to allow Kristofferson to join him onstage. Kristofferson's performance of "Me and Bobby McGee" and other songs gave him a launch into his musical career. The 1969 festival also included the debut festival performance of James Taylor, who performed "Carolina in My Mind" to a standing ovation during a "young performers" showcase. However, Taylor only performed for 15 minutes before Wein ended the festival early with the announcement that Apollo 11 had landed on the Moon.

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1959: The Kingston Trio, Pete Seeger, Bob Gibson with Joan Baez, Odetta, Earl Scruggs, Jean Ritchie, The New Lost City Ramblers, Bo Diddley, Reverend Gary Davis, Barbara Dane, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, John Jacob Niles, Tommy Makem, Oscar Brand, Ed McCurdy, Cynthia Gooding, Leon Bibb, Martha Schlamme, The Stanley Brothers.

1964: Bob Dylan, Jose Feliciano, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash, Peter, Paul & Mary, Phil Ochs, Theodore Bikel, The Stanley Brothers, The Staple Singers, Jesse Fuller, Robert Pete Williams.

1965: Bob Dylan, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Joan Baez with Donovan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Gordon Lightfoot, Maybelle Carter, Pete Seeger, Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon, Oscar Brand, Richard and Mimi Fariña, Reverend Gary Davis, Son House, The New Lost City Ramblers, Theodore Bikel, Lightnin' Hopkins, Jean Ritchie, The Chambers Brothers, Hamilton Camp, Ian & Sylvia, Bill Monroe.

1966: Chuck Berry, Richie Havens, Judy Collins, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Pete Seeger, The Lovin Spoonful, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Skip James, Bukka White, Son House, Dixie Hummingbirds, Dorothy Love Coates & The Original Gospel Harmonettes, The Swan Silvertones, Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard, Jim & Jesse

1967: Muddy Waters, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, The Chambers Brothers, Arlo Guthrie, Maybelle Carter, Janis Ian, Mimi Fariña, The Staple Singers, The Incredible String Band, Jean Ritchie, Gordon Lightfoot, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Theodore Bikel, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Dave Dudley, Merle Travis, Grandpa Jones

1968: Big Brother and the Holding Company, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, B.B. King, Joni Mitchell, Arlo Guthrie, Taj Mahal, Ralph Stanley, Elizabeth Cotten, Roy Acuff, Theodore Bikel, Tim Buckley, George Hamilton IV, Jerry Merrick, Janis Ian, Buell Kazee, Eric Von Schmidt, Doc Watson, Mimi Fariña, Jim Kweskin, Fred McDowell, Joe Heaney, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, John Hartford, The Young Tradition, Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Pete Seeger, Bread and Puppet Theater.

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Last time we went, Billy Joel dropped in when he was motoring his yacht (built in Rhode Island) from Long Island and happened to stop-in and sang an 'off the cuff' rendition of "I'm in a Newport State of Mind". Many of the locals raft-up on their crafts in the harbor to catch the music, thereby avoiding the hassles of traffic, parking and shuttles to Fort Adams. Fun stuff ..

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Chime-in if you have something worth sharing - subject matter doesn't matter so much as the
heart you put into it Wink

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Credits ~
“Nurse Tracy” (2021), oil on linen, Tim Okamura
https://www.timokamura.com

~ there is a music channel dedicated to the Folk Fest sponsored by Martha's Vineyard Radio
https://www.accuradio.com/mymvy/
cheers!

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Submitted by Lookout on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 8:30am
Lookout's picture

Been out mowing this morning while it is cooler.

The Newport folk fest is considered by many the best. Certainly has featured great artists.

I found this sad to see and hear one of my faves in such a shape, but we age, what can you say...
It brought tears to several folks.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiluPSmAF8]
Both Sides Now from Joni Jam at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival
The crowd still loves her.

Hope you all have a nice day. Thanks for the OT.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by QMS on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 8:47am
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@Lookout

gotta give Joni credit for keeping on for just one more song
cheers!

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Submitted by usefewersyllables on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 9:21am
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@Lookout

aging. It's part of life; and it sure beats the hell out of the alternative.

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by QMS on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 9:40am
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@usefewersyllables

is like an-anti aging balm

least for the spirit/mind
body not so much

thanks for checking in!

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Submitted by usefewersyllables on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 10:56am
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@QMS

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is "nope"ing right the heck out of here more and more often, seems like.

I got to see B.B. King and Diane Schuur at a show not long before his passing in 2015. Man, that was a *fine* show. Kept it going right up until he just couldn't.

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by CB on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 11:52am
CB's picture

@QMS @QMS
He was born in 1933!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpKaCGhD8Sk]

Mick Fleetwood was born in 1947 - same age as me...
Albatross still tugs at my heart strings. Lots of sweet memories... and heartbreak...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPJZygFYTKI]

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Submitted by Blue Republic on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 8:02pm

@Lookout

The class song for my 1971 graduating HS class.

I had proposed this:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkaKwXddT_I]

but it was outvoted... Didn't know till just now that the pedal steel was Jerry Garcia - apparently got this on the first take when recording, too.

"What people want, mainly, is to be told by some plausible authority that what they are already doing is right. I don't know of a quicker way to become unpopular than to disagree."

Professor Xavier Conroy in
John Brunner's "The Jagged Orbit" (1969)

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Submitted by enhydra lutris on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 11:33am
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but got a kick out of those performer lists. Seems that they had not so much a Jazz festival and a folk festival as a Jazz festival and an "other" festival. Of course, parts of both were always materializing 3,000 miles away on FM radio out here at the other extremity. Looking at those lists I couldn't help but note the number of those performers I've never seen live as well as those that I have, but such is life, as the man said on the gallows.

Cloudy and cool here, threatened thunderstorms of yesterday, of course, never made it. Still dry, or should that be sere?

Question of the day: Is perhaps the question of the age "what to tune out and what to tune in?"? Well skip "how?" for now.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by QMS on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 1:58pm
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@enhydra lutris

almost everything but jazz and rock

guess it comes with age, we learn to tune out the garbage and tune into
the other Wink

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 1:54pm

link

On Monday, the Venezuelan Finance Observatory (OVF) confirmed that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 12.3 percent during the first half of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021, when it contracted 28 percent.
As explained by this independent organization, the expansion of the Venezuelan GDP is the result of the increase in oil production and public investment, which has been accompanied by the end of hyperinflation.

The Observatory also registered an increase of 16.6 percent in the country's GDP during the second quarter of 2022, highlighting that oil production increased by 36.3 percent. Currently, Venezuela is producing some 700,000 barrels of oil per day.

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Submitted by Lookout on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 1:58pm
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@gjohnsit

Both Russia and Venezuela's economies doing well as ours is in free fall.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by QMS on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 2:42pm
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@gjohnsit @gjohnsit @gjohnsit

so why are they the US sanctionable enemy again?
oh, yeah -- nationalized oil

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Submitted by CB on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 3:10pm
CB's picture

@gjohnsit
in Venezuela's GDP has to with their increasing relationship with Russia and China? I have been noticing that these relationships have been extremely beneficial over the last decade unlike the US government which brings debauchery, debt and destruction.

Russian Mir Payment System to be Operational in Venezuela this Year
June 17, 2022

According to information that the president of the Central Bank of Venezuelan, Calixto José Ortega Sánchez, shared with Sputnik News, Venezuelan officials expect the Russian Mir payment system to be operational in the South American country as early as this year.
...
When referring to the projections for the gross domestic product (GDP) of Venezuela, Ortega Sánchez pointed out that for this year the Central Bank has a “projection of two-digit growth.”

“We hope it will materialize, we are cautiously optimistic, but that is what we are hoping for, that the growth behavior that the economy has had since the last half of 2021 will continue throughout 2022,” he said.

Also, the president of the Central Bank of Venezuela expressed his conviction that it is necessary to prevent, as soon as possible, that international companies from the West dominate the sector of payment systems.

“We cannot delay it any longer, because if we continue to wait for these international companies, from the West, to dominate the monopoly they have in payment systems, sooner or later they will be used by some country against another country as a political weapon and it will affect the daily lives of our citizens,” said Ortega Sánchez.

Therefore, the president of the Venezuelan Central Bank stressed that it must be “avoided at all costs.”
...

Venezuela and China Boost Ties Between Caracas and Guangzhou
23 July 2022

On Saturday, Venezuelan authorities discussed with the Chinese ambassador, Li Baorong, the strengthening of political, economic and social relations between Caracas and the city of the Asian giant Canton (Guangzhou).

The Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for Asia, the Middle East and Oceania, Capaya Rodríguez, underscored the excellent relations between Venezuela and China, consolidated and maximized - she stressed - during the Bolivarian Revolution.
...

Iran, Russia & China to Carry Out Military Drills in Venezuela
July 7, 2022
Iran, Russia, and China are preparing to carry out a series of trilateral military exercises in Latin America, in a show of force against the US.

“Russia and its allies Iran and China are about to make a big show of force,” national security analyst Joseph Humire told the Washington Free Beacon. Humire also predicted the increased normalization of military movements and the presence of adversaries of the United States in the Caribbean, following the military exercises.
...
As Iran and Venezuela increase their military and economic relations, the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, an ally of Venezuela, last June renewed a military pact with Russia that authorizes Russian troops, planes and ships to patrol the borders of the Central American country and carry out joint military exercises.
...
China has also been active in the region, although these efforts have received little media attention. For his part, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi signed several economic agreements in Latin America last month, making calls to Uruguay, Nicaragua, and Ecuador.

In addition, in April Argentina formalized its inclusion in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, a program that involves development and investment initiatives in more than 100 countries and will greatly increase China’s global partnerships.
...

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 3:34pm
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@CB

the members of the Belt and Road Initiative are banding together to repel western hegemony.
For the sake of these nations that have been sanctioned almost to death, I hope a new, vibrant
phase is replacing the debt and destruction of western policies. US will not back down and will
fight the new alignments. At a cost. We will suffer the consequence of resistance, as in other
ongoing confrontations. Whenever the price of fighting for a unipolar ideology reaches a breaking
point, the non-hostile nations will have already established a new world order.

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Submitted by gjohnsit on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 4:26pm

@QMS defiance to their hegemony is causing this rebellion.
Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela are NOT natural allies. Normally they would never work together.
But they have a common enemy, and that enemy is unwilling to allow them to run their nations as anything but a puppet state that exists to maximize profits for the West's capitalists.

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 5:57pm
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@gjohnsit

this domestic intolerance will come back to bite us big time
when the world around us is making alliances and we are only
making enemies.. this is a dead end road

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Submitted by Blue Republic on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 8:49pm

@gjohnsit

with gjohnsit -

The West's intolerance of even the most minimal
@QMS defiance to their hegemony is causing this rebellion.
Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela are NOT natural allies. Normally they would never work together.

Wow. More or less, anyway.

The more the US and W. Europe piss away their power and influence trying to control everything the sooner they exhaust it and end up with nothing - pushing countries that might otherwise be adversarial to one another to suspend their differences, and cooperate in pushing back. Of course that could be intentional if the enemy is within - the level of destruction of the US and Canadian economies that has occurred within the last couple years is difficult to attribute to simple incompetence and chance...

In a saner world where the interests of American people and respect for the sovereignty of others were prioritized, the US would have long since been attempting to make nice, or at least normal, with Iran, Syria, Russia (and screw the Saudis and Israel if they don't like it)...

Unlike some here, I don't harbor warm and fuzzy feelings toward the CPC that some here do - so can hardly support US policies that actually facilitate its agenda - which is what we've mostly had, Trump years being a partial exception.

Worth asking what the real motivations are for the US pursuing these self-defeating policies, Not to underestimate stupidity and hubris, and greed on the part of US capital, but I'm unconvinced that that can explain anywhere near all of it.

If the agenda was elimination of the dollar as reserve currency, destruction of the the US economy and promoting domestic chaos there I guess it could be viewed a policy success. But from whose perspectiveould that be from?

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Submitted by CB on Thu, 07/28/2022 - 2:23am
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@Blue Republic
and the MICIMATT deliberately set up Ukraine over a period of eight years to entrap Russia into invading to protect the ethnic Russians that were being systematically destroyed by the NATO backed Ukrainian army. In the week prior to the Russian SMO that started 24 February 2022, the Ukrainians had amassed tens of thousands troops and was escalating the shelling of the Donbass. Putin had absolutely no choice but to intervene. Washington had refused to respond to his concerns in the preceding months.

Ukrainian Bombings Displace The Population Of Donbass
18 February 2022

On Friday, people living in the Donbass region began to displace themselves towards Russia due to Ukraine’s bomb attacks on their territories.

“Russia is prepared to host 1,5 million people. So far, 500 women and children have been refuged,” stated Denis Pushilin, the head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), which integrates the Donbas region with the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR).
...
LPR Head Ivan Filiponenko condemned that the Ukrainian Army systematically opened fire on the territory of his country to provoke the People’s Militia to respond to the fire and create a pretext for the start of Ukrainian aggression in Donbass.

Moscow accuses the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) of supplying arms to Ukraine and stoking tensions about the Donbass region control in favor of their geopolitical interests.

"In the past, we repeatedly warned that this situation could present a great danger. Now, we see that provocations turned into real attacks," Putin’s press secretary Dmitri Peskov stated.

But, the war did not go as planned. Russia's economy was not destroyed - in fact it was greatly strengthened. Putin did not become a pariah other than in the Five Eyes and the EU. Putin's respect and esteem grew exponentially with the non-aligned countries whose population and economies in total now far outweigh the "west" who have held sway for a half millennium.

The neocons have badly misjudged Putin and Russia. He has checkmated them. What will the "crazies" now do? Pick up the game board and fling it against the wall?

Will The Crazed Neocons Bring Us Nuclear Winter?
October 21, 2015

As readers know, I have emphasized that the declared neoconservative intention of achieving global hegemony has resurrected the threat of nuclear armageddon as Russia and China are most definitely not going to submit, as every European country, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Columbia, and Japan have submitted, to being Washington’s vassals.

The president of Russia and the president of China have made this completely clear.

If the arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of the Western political systems permit the continuation of the crazed, totally unrealistic, neoconservative agenda, the planet will die.
...
What the neocons have done is to throw away every treaty and violate every agreement that had the world on the path to nuclear disarmament. These evil persons have caused massive modernization of Russian and Chinese nuclear forces. There is no prospect whatsoever of American hegemony over the world. Yet, the insane neoconservatives continue to speak as if the world is subordinate to them, a collection of arrogant two-bit punks who could not subdue a few thousand lightly armed Taliban after 14 years of effort and American sacrifice and whose disastrous policies have made, until Vladimir Putin’s intervention, the Islamic State the most potent military force in the Middle East.

The damned neoconservatives have destroyed seven countries, and the bastards and bitches walk around free!
...
If the insouciant Western population sits on its sofa watching “reality shows” while the insane neoconservatives who control Western foreign policy drive us to Armageddon, the inattentive dumbshits that comprise the Western populations will find themselves exterminated by nuclear winter. It would be their just reward.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world would go with them.
...
The neoconservatives should be quickly rounded up, arrested, tried, convicted, and executed for their massive crimes before they destroy the world.

Life hangs in the balance. It is the neocons or us.

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Submitted by Blue Republic on Thu, 07/28/2022 - 6:42am

@CB

But do you not find it interesting that the official narrative is near-hysterical trying to convince people that they should hate and fear people like Donald Trump or Michael Flynn (and by extension, anyone daring to voice support for them) - who actually pushed back on at least parts of the neolib/neocon agenda?

Is it because they are insurrectionists and a mortal threat to all we hold good or because they threaten to expose and deal with the real insurrectionists and real authoritarian threat?

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/22/trump-2025-radical-plan-second-term

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Submitted by QMS on Thu, 07/28/2022 - 6:51am
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@Blue Republic

anyone expressing a push-back against the neocons/libs agenda are cast as dangerous enemies
of the state. National insecurity demands these voices be silenced lest they gain traction.

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Submitted by janis b on Wed, 07/27/2022 - 11:57pm
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for the powerful paintings of timokamura. They are intensely expressive portraits and are the perfect compliment to a book I just loaned from the library -Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces Of A Man.

I enjoy, vicariously, your proximity to the Newport Jazz Festival. I had the pleasure of being there multiple times in the 70s, and if I had a bucket list that would be on it ; ).

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