Things I like: Bluegrass music

My musical upbringing was all over the place. An Iowa-born father and west coast mother brought the music of those two arenas together in our household. Charlie Rich, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard intermixed with The Fifth Dimension, The Mamas and The Papas and Elvis. Growing up in small town Iowa, I was sheltered from more rebellious art forms like punk, so instead was exposed to a heavy dose of Kasey Casem Top 40 on my little transistor radio. Teen years ... New Wave, Duran Duran, The Police. In college, I finally got outside of the confines of programmed radio. Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Prong, Front Line Assembly and the real coming out party for college radio: REM, U2, The Smiths, Joy Division, The Pogues. Just as I was graduating ... Nirvana, Pearl Jam.

As I've gotten older, I still listen to most of those things but have developed a real appreciation for the most original of those American musical art forms: Jazz, Folk, and Bluegrass. Once you start listening to the older music, you understand that most of the later music that you like was greatly influenced by what came before. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones were just giving their interpretations of American blues music. Country music largely derived from bluegrass, gospel, folk and blues. Now, I can't really stand what is now called country music, save for those few acts that seem to understand where it all came from.

I'm by no means a historian, but I know what I like listening to and my recent fascination with bluegrass music spawned from a singular angelic voice, that of Alison Krauss. Those elements of bluegrass that I most like and that comprise most bluegrass is the vocal harmonies, and the great instrumentation of the banjo and the fiddle. And you get that in spades with Alison Krauss and Union Station.



I understand the real progenitors of bluegrass were players like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and I have listened to them, but they're probably a little too old school for even me. I prefer Ricky Skaggs and Vince Gill, the music of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the college age groups like The Punch Brothers:



The Punch Brothers are unique in that they are ostensibly playing bluegrass but their song structure are more classical. Mandolinist Chris Thile's earlier band, Nickel Creek, is also very good.

Bluegrass is not for everyone, but I dig it. It may seem like hillbilly music, and to a large extent it is, but to write it off as such would be selling it short. There's a lot of history of our country in those sounds and many other places that originally influenced it, including Africa, the UK and Ireland.

Next up, tomorrow: Philosophy

Things I like: Science Fiction

For regular readers here, this is no surprise. And I mean that I like science fiction in all its flavors: books, movies, TV, graphic novels. And it doesn't even have to be great science fiction. I've said this before, but I believe that even bad science fiction has merit. This is because even the worst science fiction is trying to make a point or send a message. It may fail miserably, but it's still trying.

Science fiction is allowed to address important social and political issues that traditional genres would not be able to without being considered preachy. Most recently we saw this with Battlestar Galactica, addressing torture, fundamentalism and terrorism, among other things.

My early beginnings in sci-fi were the novels of Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert. As I got a bit older, Larry Niven became probably my favorite hard sci-fi author. It might be cliche, but for a brainy and shy teenager, the escapism of science fiction was one of the few things that brought me solace and joy for those tough years.

In my adult years, I gravitated to the cyberpunk of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. But, I'm still discovering authors that are fantastic, like Greg Bear and Iain M. Banks, and fantasy authors like Philip Pullman and Neil Gaiman.

Obviously, as with all males of my age, one of the most formative experiences of my youth was seeing the original Star Wars movie. In those days, there was no Internet, no DVD's, and VCR's really weren't prevalent yet. Going to a movie theater and seeing something like Star Wars was an indescribable experience. It's so indelible that I remember that it was at a drive-in in Salem, Oregon and we watched it in the back of my folks Jeep.

It was through Star Wars, Blade Runner, the Alien movies and the books of my youth that my interest was cultivated. The 70's and 80's were, however, NOT the heyday of science fiction on television. You had the original Battlestar Galactica (which may prove wrong my theory of all science fiction having merit) and Space 1999, both unintentionally campy and embarrassing. I had no exposure to Doctor Who until I was in college. It's really just been the last 15 years or so that science fiction has come into it's own through things like the X-Files, the Stargate shows, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, the new Doctor Who, and many other shows. Something that was often an afterthought in programming now has a channel dedicated to it (SyFy) and just about every traditional network has at least one program that could be considered science fiction.

I just don't find issues of science, philosophy, consciousness, religion, the environment, war, etc. being addressed in such an entertaining manner as I do in science fiction. I don't read a lot of fiction, but when I do, about 75% of it is science fiction.

Top 5 favorite science fiction/fantasy books, no particular order: Dune, Lord of the Rings, Snow Crash, Neuromancer, Contact

Top 5 favorite science fiction movies, no particular order: 2001, Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Children of Men

Next up, tomorrow:  Bluegrass music

Things I like: Chess

Over the years, I've immersed myself in both the mythology and history of chess, which is endlessly fascinating, but also the actual playing of it. I probably own about 100 books on arcane chess theory and have went through entirely too many of them.

The main reason that I started reading so much about chess theory was that as a teenager I was tired of my dad handing me my ass on a plate every time we played. He'd never studied chess but is much more of a natural chess player than myself. Learning some theory helped me to level the playing field a bit.

An upcoming documentary on HBO on Bobby Fischer was what got me thinking about chess again. Fischer, a nut job and possessing of unforgivable opinions on many things in the real world (Jews among them), was, nonetheless, a genius and probably the best chess player of all time. Both his play and his unusual life made for great drama and the documentary should be interesting. Another movie that delves into Fischer, but more tangentially, is Searching for Bobby Fischer. It's the true story of chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin. It's a great movie with a nice cast: Joe Montegna, Joan Allen, Laurence Fishburne, William H. Macy and Ben Kingsley.

For all my interest in chess, I don't play a lot. The wife knows how to play but usually does not want to. My ingrained competitive nature does not make for an enjoyable leisurely game for her. My son seems to be developing a similar interest in chess and tries hard.

I'm not sure what fascinates me so much about chess. It's not a game or sport in the traditional sense. Chess prodigies have more in common with math and music prodigies than those that excel in other games.

The rules are relatively simple but the possibilities are endless. You could play all your life and never master it. Maybe that's what attracts me ... chess as a metaphor for life.

"That's what Chess is all about. One day you give your
opponent a lesson, the next day he gives you one." -- Bobby Fischer

Next up, tomorrow, Science Fiction

Things I like: Modern Design

I'm going to start a new series of posts about the things I like. Nothing necessarily deep, but rather an idea, a concept, a movie, an artist, whatever, that I like. One a day for as long as I can stand it. I'm not going to overthink them. I'll just pick something and riff on it for awhile. Too often I use my blog to complain about something ... and that's definitely necessary and not something I'm going to stop ... but it's important to talk about those things we have a positive view of also.

Of course this seems incredibly narcissistic. Why, you would rightly ask, would anyone really give a shit what I like? And I would answer ... wait, I don't really have a good answer to that. Ultimately, it's an exercise to encourage me to write more often. Through exploring what it is in daily life that I truly enjoy, I might better use my time.

First up is Modern Design

And by Modern Design, I mean that architecture, art, furniture, etc. that rejects tradition. I'm certainly not an expert in any of those but I know that I really like the modern architecture as demonstrated in the works of photographer Julius Schulman and the design of architects like Wright, Philip Johnson and Frank Gehry. I like the furniture designs of Eames. Of course, I can't afford either. My tract home with Ikea furniture is a far cry. But the names aren't the point. The aesthetic is the point.

Modern Design appeals to be because of the practicality and functionality, especially as it pertains to sustainability. It's the classic "form follows function". In my own life, I try to get to what is essential and get rid of the clutter. We spend every day wasting time and money with those things that are not really essential to us.

My interest probably started with my interest in Frank Lloyd Wright. Growing up, my family lived in Oregon for a time and some friends of the family were architects. And they designed very much in the Wright style. I was hooked and well into high school, I thought I'd go to college for architecture, but life and finances derailed me into the more generic engineering. But, my interest never waned. Some day, when money is no object, I'll have that modernist house and that Eames chair:






For the 2nd year in a row, I'll be going out to LA for the Dwell on Design show. We go out to LA a couple times of year anyway because of having relatives in Manhattan Beach but the show is a compelling reason for me to go out at that particular time. We're hopefully going to get to the Getty Museum as well.

I've subscribed to Dwell Magazine for several years and it is a great source for ideas on modernist design.

Next up, tomorrow: Chess

Bring 'em Home

"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein

The best way we can honor our soldiers on Memorial Day is to bring them all home.

Dear Human

This is good (click the pic to see the whole comic strip):

Tweeted by @michaelshermer. Webcomic by Zach Weiner at SMBC Comics.

There's nothing like a Guinness ...

You gotta like a man that drinks a Guinness:

There but for the grace of God ...

Roger Ebert tweeted about this a day or so ago. It's a short film/documentary about the Salton Sea in California called The Accidental Sea:



The clip's only about 6 minutes, so take a look. Powerful stuff about the hubris with which we fuck with nature and how nature will ultimately fuck us back. Some of the scenery you will recognize if you've ever seen Into the Wild, as Chris McCandless' adventures led him to the Salton Sea for a time. I couldn't help but think of The World Without Us as well because of the manner in which the desert reclaims the land ... and quickly. One of my favorite lines from the clip:

It's easy to look at the Salton Sea and say, 'Of course it failed' ... But I look at it and think 'there but for the grace of God go the rest of us'. (paraphrasing)

And by this he means that basically anywhere we try to alter nature for our purposes, we are in danger of some push-back. We need to work in harmony as much as possible so as to mitigate these wild swings. This has been said before but it bears repeating: "Saving the planet" is really a misnomer. The planet doesn't need saved. It'll be just fine and will outlast us. We are merely a blip in its timeline. What we do need to do is make sure that we do our best to make it livable while we are here.

"... in the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - our houses." -- Alan Weisman in The World Without Us

Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead ...

Laura posted a link to this on Facebook:

Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says

It's hilarious! Be sure to read the comments as well. They're even better than the article.

Going Green Update

Short of me getting into a completely different line of work and abandoning my company, I'm going to drive a lot of miles. Undesirable, but unavoidable at least for now. So, to make the best of it, we finally got a Prius today. 90% of my driving is city driving at about 40 - 45 mph and that is in the sweet spot of a Prius. At this speed and slower, it primarily runs as an electric car and thus gets some crazy good gas mileage. Our Hyundai that we traded in (may it rest in peace ... 186,000 miles) got pretty good gas mileage, about 30 in the city. With the Prius, I'm hoping to double that. I'll report back here after a month or so with my results. One of the nice things about the Prius is the on-screen readouts that report whether you are running from the gas engine or electric, or both and what your current MPG is. It's very easy to see how your driving habits, the road conditions, and even having the A/C on can affect the gas mileage. So count on me trying some "hypermileage" techniques.

The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris

Jeez ... I never blog. Gotta change that.

As I mentioned earlier, I just recently finished Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape.

Of the Four Horseman of "New Atheism", Harris is probably my favorite author. I've previously read his Letter to a Christian Nation, a very good book and I highly recommend it.

That book, as the title implies, is shorter and is a good introduction to Harris. The Moral Landscape is significantly more scholarly and incorporates a lot of research from Harris particular field of expertise, neuroscience, which he has a PhD in. In The Moral Landscape, Harris not only makes the compelling argument that morality can be defined scientifically but also takes on the criticism of atheists as being moral relativists. If anything, a morality that depends on the well-being of others, as his science-based morality does, is anything but. There are right and wrong answers to moral questions, completely independent of religion. For example, murder is not wrong because the Bible says it is. People would know it is wrong if there were no Bible. The Bible merely reflects many of the universal moral truths that we already know. When religion seeks to dictate morality outside of that is where it runs into problems. Now, obviously, his explanation is not as simple as mine, but that is the general gist of it.

One of the most important things I took from the book was that the morality of separate cultures is not necessarily equal and should not be respected as such. This is a valid criticism of many liberals and where the charge of moral relativism often comes from. As he says, "the moment we admit that we know anything about human well-being scientifically, we must admit that certain individuals or cultures can be absolutely wrong about it."

The "moral blindness in the name of 'tolerance'" allows "highly educated, secular, and otherwise well-intentioned people to pause thoughtfully ... before condemning practices like compulsory veling, genital excision, bride burning, forced marriage ..." This learned confusion is the same thing that blamed Salman Rushdie for his fatwa or the Danish cartoonists for the Mohammed controversy.

Other parts of the book delve into the neurological reasons for belief and why those who believe reason in a certain manner. Creationism and general Christian distrust of science can be explained by the fact that "people tend to seek evidence that confirms an hypothesis rather than evidence that refutes it. This strategy is known to produce frequent reasoning errors. Our bias toward belief may also explain the 'illusory-truth effect,' where mere exposure to a proposition, even when it was revealed to be false or attributed to an unreliable source, increases the likelihood that it will later be remembered as being true."

Why people initially pick up their beliefs is due to several factors that are "more emotional and social than strictly cognitive. Wishful thinking, self-serving bias, in-group loyalties, and frank self-deception can lead to monstrous departures from the norms of rationality. Most beliefs are evaluated against a background of other beliefs and often in the context of an ideology that a person shares with others. Consequently, people are rarely as open to revising their views as reason would seem to dictate."

People often have certain beliefs because they want to feel good or as Harris says, "to hew to a positive state of mind - to mitigate feelings of anxiety, embarrassment, or guilt ..." Because their happiness is dependent on those beliefs, any evidence that runs counter is ignored.

The ideas that he espouses here are not necessarily new, and I believe most of us already know them to be instinctively true, but he does a good job of establishing a scientific basis for studying and quantifying morality.

In my next post, I'm going to try and touch on some of the possible evolutionary reasons for belief and will also go further into Harris' criticism of noted science/religion reconciler Francis Collins.

"We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach." -- Bertrand Russell

Saved! ... or not

I just finished Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape (a great book BTW) and I will review it later, probably doing several posts on different topics, but, in honor of Good Friday, I thought I'd tease with the following bon mot. Harris was speaking of Francis Collins, the head of the NIH and a scientist that Christians like to parade out when trying to say that religion and science are compatible, because Collins professes to be a Christian.

Thus, Collins’s faith is predicated on the claim that miracle stories of the sort that today surround a person like Sathya Sai Baba and do not even merit an hour on cable television somehow become especially credible when set in the prescientific religious context of the first-century Roman Empire, decades after their supposed occurrence, as evidenced by discrepant and fragmentary copies of copies of copies of ancient Greek manuscripts. It is on this basis that the current head of the NIH recommends that we believe the following propositions:

1. Jesus Christ, a carpenter by trade, was born of a virgin, ritually murdered as a scapegoat for the collective sins of his species, and then resurrected from death after an interval of three days. 
2. He promptly ascended, bodily, to “heaven” -- where, for two millennia, he has eavesdropped upon (and, on occasion, even answered) the simultaneous prayers of billions of beleaguered human beings. 
3. Not content to maintain this numinous arrangement indefinitely, this invisible carpenter will one day return to earth to judge humanity for its sexual indiscretions and skeptical doubts, at which time he will grant immortality to anyone who has had the good fortune to be convinced, on Mother’s knee, that this baffling litany of miracles is the most important series of truths ever revealed about the cosmos. 
4. Every other member of our species, past and present, from Cleopatra to Einstein, no matter what his or her terrestrial accomplishments, will be consigned to a far less desirable fate, best left unspecified. 
5. In the meantime, God/Jesus may or may not intervene in our world, as He pleases, curing the occasional end-stage cancer (or not), answering an especially earnest prayer for guidance (or not), consoling the bereaved (or not), through His perfectly wise and loving agency.

Just how many scientific laws would be violated by this scheme? One is tempted to say “all of them.”

"... And you stare at me
In your Jesus Christ pose
Arms held out
Like you've been carrying a load
And you swear to me
You don't want to be my slave
But you're staring at me again
Like I need to be saved, saved ..."

Jesus Christ Pose by Soundgarden

Pregnant with knowledge

Again, from Roger Ebert's Journal, on the importance of reading:

"... At the end of the day, some authors will endure and most, including some very good ones, will not. Why do I think reading is important? It is such an effective medium between mind and mind. We think largely in words. A medium made only of words doesn't impose the barrier of any other medium. It is naked and unprotected communication. That's how you get pregnant. May you always be so."

What to do when meeting an alien ...

From Roger Ebert's Journal:

click to enlarge

Philosophy/Religion Song of the Day: "New Dark Ages" by Bad Religion

Yeah can you hear the call in our rambling land
Susurrations that can expand beyond all hope of light
and plunge us into into unrelenting night

A pall on truth and reason,
It feels like hunting season
So avoid those lines of sight
and we'll set this right

Welcome to the new dark ages
Yeah, i hope you're living right
These are the new dark ages
And the world might end tonight

Now come ye children one and all, let's heed Ezekiel's call
And bide until the word is good and ripe and get plucked clean out
of sight

The world will be erased
Our kin will be immaculate ejaculate in space
Before the kind of king's love, he'll snatch us
From above, brothers help me sing it

Welcome to the new dark ages
I hope you're living right
These are the new dark ages
And the world might end tonight

So how do you sleep? “ there's nothing to keep“
This is deep
Because we're animals with golden rules
Who ... who can't be moved by rational views yeah

Welcome to the new dark ages
I hope you're living right
Welcome to the new dark ages
And the world might end tonight

"An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it." -- James Michener

The so-called "wrath of God"

A former Phoenix Mercury (WNBA player) tweeted this Saturday on the subject of the earthquake/tsunami in Japan:

"What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes."

"u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so u can't expect anything less."

And, to add insult to injury, in a remarkable example of Christian condescension, she tried to apologize:

"I wanna apologize to anyone I may hurt or offended during this tragic time," the tweet said. "I didn't realize that my words could be interpreted in the manner which they were. People that knw me would tell u 1st hand I'm a very spiritual person and believe that everything, even disasters happen 4 a reason and that God will shouldn't be questioned

..."

Besides revealing the obvious fact that celebrities should self-edit prior to releasing brain droppings to the world, it brings up the more important subject of religion.

Now, I want to get this out of the way right now -- I'm not intimating that this is how all Christians think. But, by the same token, we all know that this isn't just the lunatic fringe that believes that disasters are God's retribution.

But that isn't even the subject of my post. My beef is with how religion is deemed to be the source of morality when statements like this show it to be something very different. People that are bigoted, or racist, or in Pondexter's case, remarkably ignorant, use the veil of religion to justify themselves. When you feel that God himself is behind something, you have the moral certitude to make statements that an atheist would be pilloried for. After all, "he makes no mistakes". And that's exactly the point. I have no problem with an atheist being judged upon his statements and beliefs. But that is how all people should be judged.

Godless people are deemed to be immoral and anarchistic, but I suggest that most are the exact opposite. I believe that all my actions and statements must be held to an even higher standard and must stand on their own. I don't have the luxury of misinterpreting some ancient text of dubious origin to justify a belief that outside the protection of religion would be considered bigoted.

If any other segment of society had done the atrocities to children that Catholic priests have, imagine what would have happened.

Within the framework of religion, it is considered godly and moral to be against gays, or to subjugate women. Under any other criteria, those would be hate crimes or speech.

I am not saying that religious people are universally immoral. I am saying that they are not moral because they are religious. Religion does not define one's morality. A religious person can be good or bad, as can an atheist.

And natural occurrences like floods, and hurricanes, and earthquakes are not caused by God. And they do not occur to present a moral or punish us for sin. They may present a lesson or warning to us insomuch as our actions or inaction may contribute to them or our lack of preparation leads to additional suffering. If one feels that God is infallible and omnipotent, then every happening has to mean something. But most things don't mean anything. Life can be beautiful and wondrous sometimes ... but it also can be a cruel bitch. Learn from life, but don't attach causality to random events. To think that God would punish the Japanese for Pearl Harbor while letting the US off the hook for Hiroshoma, Nagasaki, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. is an example of not only Christian blindness but also a scary kind of nationalism.

So, Cappie, keep your tweets and your religion to yourself. You are entitled to your opinion and your free speech, but you are also entitled to be criticized for such.

There must be some kinda way out of here ...

"There must be some kinda way out of here"
Said the joker to the thief
"There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief ..."

Lyrics by Bob Dylan. Song covered numerous times, most notably by Jimi Hendrix

I'm not posting this for any particular reason. No tie-in to a current political or cultural event. The excerpt I quoted above certainly describes how I feel sometimes about work, life, the world ... whatever. But, I'm just posting it because it's a damn good song.

I just heard Hendrix's version on the radio the other day and realized how much I love the song. Dylan's version is great as well, but Hendrix imbued the song with a fire that even Dylan had to acknowledge. Dylan has even admitted that the manner in which Hendrix played the song informs his own performances since that time.

The song has obvious allusions to the Bible (as do other Dylan songs), but what strikes me is the out-of-order manner in which the lyrics unfold. The thematic start of the song is at the end, both lyrically and musically. Kinda like you would expect if Quentin Tarantino wrote a rock song. This propels the song forward and gives one a sense of anticipation or urgency for it to repeat. It's this sense of bottled-up repetition that makes it perfect as a recurring plot element in season 3 and 4 of Battlestar Galactica and really an encapsulation of the series as a whole.

"All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again."

This is a performance by Bear McCreary, the composer for the series, with a little help from Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck):

Tyranny of the Fortunate

"Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone." -- John Maynard Keynes

Is it any wonder that we've lost our way (not that we ever really knew "our way") when tragedy happens and the things we are worried about are our stock portfolios? Capitalism is broken. Our media is broken. People are broken.

Larry Kudlow Devalues Human Life With Japan Earthquake Freudian Slip

In these tough economic times, isn’t it nice to know that calamitous natural disasters needn't have an adverse affect on your investment portfolio? After the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan failed to induce a market nosedive, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow expressed his relief in terms that seemed to appall even his fellow cheerleaders for capitalism: “The human toll here,” he declared, “looks to be much worse than the economic toll and we can be grateful for that.”

I detest the trolls that populate these channels and I detest the sheep that hang on their every word. Go and get real job. Build something. Make something. Help someone. Don't profit from the suffering of others. We need to stop rewarding people for just moving money around. Insurance agents, mortgage lenders, bankers, stock brokers, venture capitalists, CEO's ... my garbage man contributes more to society than you do.

"Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate." -- Bertrand Russell

Political Song of the Day: BOOM! by System of a Down

I've been walking through your streets
Where all your moneys are earned
Where all your buildings crying
And clueless neckties working
Revolving fake-lawn houses
Housing all your fears
Desensitized by TV
Overbearing advertising
God of consumerism
And all your crooked pictures looking good
Mirrorism, filtering information for the public eye
Designed for profiteering
Your neighbor, what a guy.

BOOM!

Every time you drop the bomb, you kill the god your child has born-

BOOM!

Modern globalization
Coupled with condemnations
Unnecessary death
Matador corporations
Puppeting your frustrations with a blinded flag
Manufacturing consent is the name of the game
The bottom line is money
Nobody gives a FUCK
Four thousand hungry children leave us per hour from starvation
While billions are spent on bombs
Creating death showers

BOOM!

Every time you drop the bomb, you kill the god your child has born-

BOOM!

Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom!

Why must we kill our own kind?
...

"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." -- Noam Chomsky

Look for me, Mom, I'll be there ...

" ... Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me.""

The Ghost of Tom Joad by Bruce Springsteen

100,000 strong in Wisconsin and huge groups across the country protesting the Wisconsin governor's (and by extension the Republican Party) attempt to bust public unions. No matter what they say, it's not about the budget. It's about the rich of one party (Koch brothers and the Republicans) breaking up the biggest funding source of the other party (unions and the Democrats). Remove their funding and the ability of the common man to organize and you will have a self-perpetuating Republican majority that can't be stopped.

But, maybe ... just maybe, the Republicans shot their load too soon. Underestimating the resolve of 14 brave state senators and countless people across the country that make up the backbone of the working class (teachers, firemen, cops and your average private union worker).

Those that are trying to sell you "liberty" and "freedom" are encouraging the exact opposite ... a government funded and dictated to by a small group of huge corporations whose goal this week may be fiscal in nature. But next week, when they have effective control, it will be the removing of environmental and civil rights protections.

We have a choice.

"Let the workers organize. Let the toilers assemble. Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices and demand their privileges. Let all thoughtful citizens sustain them, for the future of Labor is the future of America." -- John L. Lewis(President of the UMWA from 1920-1960)