Announcing: a Leak!

Why does Wikileaks announce that they're going to release leaked material they have? Doesn't it at least kind of defeat the purpose of the leaks? Especially in the case of a private entity like "a big U.S. bank"? Doesn't it give those being leaked from time to fix the damage that might be caused? In the case of the government, if the leaks could actually put people in danger, this is understandable, but even then you wouldn't have to announce it publicly. I don't get it.

Trying to Touch and Reach You...

Just for that one line, a beautiful George Harrison folk song for my beautiful far away girl.

Richie Havens: "License to Kill"

This song has possibly the weirdest line Bob Dylan ever wrote: "man has invented his doom, first step was touching the moon..." What, Neil Armstrong let loose the curst of the moon sphynx? Or is it space travel? Or am I missing something?

Probably missing something.

Anyway, it's a beautiful and haunting song, and the odd and slow tempo for some reason suits Richie Havens'guitar style in a very nice way.

It was legal "because the lawyer said it was"

You know, we really needed another one of these:



Thank you, George W. Bush. Thank you.

Twenty-Nine Dollars (and an Alligator Purse)

I'm not sure how I feel about this song on the cassette player for the ride to work on an early morning. I may not be right all day:

Tracheotomy

I wrote a song many years ago called "I Can't Wait to do a Tracheotomy." It's a love song. Some of my friends here might know it. I was just thinking about that song, and about my father, while looking out over a wide expanse of our Rogue Valley from the deck of my friend Eric's house - he's in Argentina - smoking a Seneca brand filterless cigarette that I bought on the Tonawanda Indian Reservation in Western New York recently. I was in Western New York to visit my father, and various other wonderful elements of my family. 


My father, it turned out, actually had a tracheotomy some years after I wrote that song. Some years after that he presented me with the metal tracheotomy contraption that he'd had to wear during that episode. The grandkids tell me he blew bubbles through it now and then. Dad gave the device to me because I'd written a song called, "I Can't Wait to do a Tracheotomy," and he thought I might like to have it. 


I still have that metal tracheotomy contraption; I saw it recently while going through my possessions in preparation for our move to Australia. I found it in a sandwich bag. Still shiny as ever. I think I'll take that contraption with me to Australia. Why not? 


I tell you this only because: There are some moments, some events, some memories, some combinations of moments, events, and memories, that make this weird painful thing called Life worthwhile. For me, that's one.

Thought for the Morning: Tax Cuts II

America, if Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Kobe Bryant, Alex Rodriguez, and David Beckham have to pay a bit more in taxes, they'll only have hundreds of millions of dollars left—and America will be destroyed.

This has been another Thought for the Morning.

Thought for the Morning: Tax cuts

What we need now in America - what we really, really need the very most - is for people with secret bank accounts in Switzerland to pay less taxes. That would make everything perfect. It would be especially good for the unemployed.

Redux: Health Care Reform SAVED Money

Because it's being said again, and louder now that Republicans have taken the House, I have to go back to this post from last January:

Democrats have done a terrible job countering the "It costs too much!" screams from the teabaggers and other Republican miscreants regarding health care reform. How difficult is it to get this across:

• Passing a health care bill, say the Senate bill, which will cost $849 billion over ten years, SAVES money- billions and billions - because the government would spend MUCH MORE than $849 on health care over the next ten years without the bill.

• Again: The government already spends money on health care. We just do it horribly. Passing the bill would save billions and billions of government dollars.

• Passing the bill would save money - while providing thirty million more Americans with coverage, and ending the odious practice of denial of coverage due to preexisting conditions.

How hard is that to get across to the "It costs too much!" crowd?

More here: How Health Care Reform Reduces the Deficit in 5 Not-So-Easy Steps; here: Budget office says health care bill saves money; and this is just interesting.