“Many things are good, many are important, but only a few are essential.”
--D. Todd Christofferson

The pending Canadian rail strike is shaking the markets and already there is talk of toilet paper runs (pardon the pun) at supermarkets across North America, again.

So here's the story - World Humanitraian Day requires that I have some sort of relevant picture, so I went off in search of public domain pics relating to "humanitarian" . I got the above, a special military force chock full of SeaBees that is intended to be air lifted in to provide humanitarian aid when and where needed. The photo is them practicing, I guess, doing exactly that, U.S. style. It does fit the pattern, I suppose.

We Have Met the Terrorists
and They Are US!

After 9/11 we declared a war on terror which became a war OF terror as we destroyed nation after nation. Today we are supporting genocide and starvation as we continue to conduct coups around the world. Last week it was Bangladesh because we want their island in the Bay of Bengal for a military base. In Venezuela we refuse to recognize the President and pretend the president is the puppet of our choosing. We use NGO's like NED to foment trouble and destabilize any non-compliant country by paying protesters in Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Georgia, and of course in Ukraine. These foreign interventions have boomeranged back to the US with violence and murder in our communities. Our Dogma caught our Karma, and now we are paying the price.

Afternoon folks!

This week we've got a live (double) early 70's album from James Cotton, followed by a live album from Hound Dog Taylor - some serious high-energy Chicago blues for you guys. After that, it's The Kinks, with a compilation of singles from their early classic blues rock period. Then there's some New Orleans r&b from Cookie & The Cupcakes and an album from Little Feat. We finish off in the diversity department with a prog-rock band from Japan called The Sadistic Mika Band.

Enjoy the tunes and have a great weekend!

Good morning, friends!

We traveled a couple of weeks ago to Illinois, a state that feels almost foreign to a Texan!

This is our first trip anywhere that we saw no stray cats at the hotels. However, at a time when I had no camera, 6 raccoons in a straight line passed by the back door of the hotel on their way to the corn field that abutted the hotel parking lot. Corn fields everywhere!

Have you asked yourself where this is all headed?

I spent most of my life as a staunch Democrat. Raised in a blue family in a blue city in a blue state. I voted straight line Democrat starting in 1972.

The years of Republican rule, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush solidified my Democratic Party convictions.

Than along came Bill Clinton and after 12 years of Republican control I was ready for change. But, it didn't take long into his administration that I started to question it all. Clinton was a master of gaslighting the public. To me, that was the start of the Democratic Party's illiberal policies that have metastasized into the upside down party that we're dealing with today. They have lost their way.

How can a political party call themselves democratic, with a small d, when they do things like putting up a presidential candidate that no one has voted for? They do everything within their means to keep third party candidates off of state ballots. They've unleashed weaponized tech giants on their ideological opponents and non-conforming adherents. I thought democracy was about choice. Of course, all here know better, Bernie Sanders comes to mind. We are presented, election after election, with no real choices other than corporate lackeys that are only concerned about their own best interests.

Don't get me wrong, the Republicans are no better. In fact, they have helped in this climb to bastardized governance by playing a game of leapfrog with the opposition party that has contributed greatly to our current state of affairs. Every subsequent administration for decades has brought us closer to the constitutional crisis we are now facing. The constitutional crisis I speak of is the lack of adherence to said constitution. It is all but ignored by our supposedly duly elected leaders, and I say leaders with tongue in cheek.