Heat lifts moth and mosquito
above the frenetic crossroads;
swallow dances between the roaring cars,
thankful for the feast.
By Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA – 2017.01.21 Women’s March Washington, DC USA 00094, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55208311
Are you living one Social Security check away from substituting Alpo for corned-beef hash? Then you’d better not push your damn taxes on the billionaires!
Is it just me, or does anybody else wonder why the brain surgeons in Congress and the White House won’t give us peons some KY for the shagging we’re getting while they play chicken with the debt ceiling and Republican dogma? Seriously, given all of the economic woe we’ve already endured in order to make sure that the poor bastards at Goldman Sachs can keep playing “credit swap hide-the-ball” without having to downsize their yachts, is a little lubricant too much to ask?
Apparently the Republican majority in the House is so beholden to ideology that they can’t bring themselves to avert the looming train wreck they’ve conjured. According to CNN, “At the heart of the Republican resistance is a bedrock principle pushed by conservative crusader Grover Norquist against any kind of tax increase. A pledge pushed by Norquist’s group, Americans for Tax Reform, has been signed by more than 230 House members and 40 senators, almost all of them Republicans.” Brilliant!! By God we won’t accept any tax hikes on billionaires, the workers and economy that made them billionaires be damned!
Are you living one Social Security check away from substituting Alpo for corned-beef hash? Then you’d better not push your damn taxes on the billionaires!
Have those chemotherapy treatments drained your reserves? Could Medicaid help take the edge off? Then shut your trap about raising taxes on the billionaires!
Food stamps? Are you serious? Do you realize how expensive caviar has gotten these days? Pauper please! Don’t forget, hobos don’t vote!
If any of the above (admittedly) inflammatory rhetoric has you feeling a little light in the wallet, then call your Congressman and ask them if they could spare a little KY. Here’s a great website for tracking down your elected officials: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/
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congress, politicsThe latest release by Gillian Welsh may not be everybody’s cup o’tea, especially those who are fans of hard-driving, maniacal mandolin musicality. For the rest of you, go buy this album, right now!
From beginning-to-end, The Harrow & the Harvest fills the room with sweet notes and smoky melody. Gems include Scarlet Town, Hard Times and Silver Dagger. What marks the entire album is a sparseness and a pace the can’t imagine fast food or fast talk; perfect for sitting with your lover and watching the sun come up over a cup of coffee.
Below is a short video detailing the creation of the beautifully evocative cover for the album. The fact that Gillian and David decided to have the cover art produced via letterpress printing [a true, traditional craft in an age of digital everything], speaks to their own desire to imbue the album with an artisan’s eye, ear and hand.
folk music, gillian welch
“Hey Dudes, what’s with those humans playing raven speak at us out of those little handheld things?”
“I dunno. And why do they keep repeating the same thing over and over again? Buzz bomb the black and white dog….”
I heard a couple of ravens laughing the other day,
maybe the real joke was that I didn’t know
if they were real ravens…
or my ring tone!
sharp and green
as silver needles
tugging raw linen thread,
the smell of sun
on wet juniper
draws me back tight
to sew the scent
to my memory.
Sky, complex to the eye
and palette, grows dark
and angry (in our minds),
yet threatens only
to give the earth
a drink.
poetry