Tag: freedom

Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: giddy

Beautiful windy, cloudy, sunny Saturday morning in Ashlandia, where the drivers are average and polite, but getting hit while you’re walking is close to happening all the time. The temperature is 54 F. Light rain might visit, and our high temperature will only be 57 F, but that’s better than 47 F.

It’s November 18, 2023, already. Counting down to all those things that are growing more and more imminent, from tests for students to mark the year’s end or term’s end, to buying presents and cooking foods for different holidays, to making travel arrangements to visit family or run away to somewhere warmer. All of these things speak from positions of privilege and having the money and food security to make these plans. Too, too many people will be scrambling as they have for years, trying to be safe, have a warm place for themselves and their families to sleep, and a decent meal. Their reasons for those situations are many; some are from choices made, but others arrived at their precarious situation through discrimination and bias, personal disasters, or mental health matters. Hope you can keep them in mind and help them out some during this season of celebration.

It’s time for the Leonids meteor show again. I went out to look for them last night, but the sky wasn’t cooperative. While Thursday night was fantastically clear, Friday night was hopelessly overcast. Bummer to me as I like watching the streaks and think about where they’ve been and what they represent. Three trips outside were done, and nada was seen but clouds and light pollution.

The Neurons popped an Isley Brothers song from 1970 into the morning mental music stream (Trademark marginal). “Freedom” is a song off an album called Get Into Something. I first heard it at the house of a girl I was seeing, but it was her mother playing the album. Her mom was about my mom’s age, but their musical selections seemed very different. As a thirteen-year-old heading for fourteen, I found myself listening intently to the vocals and the lyrics, and enjoying the instrumental elements of this R&B sound. I’d heard R&B previously but this was like, wow, there is such energy.

Let me tell you, this particular song, “Freedom” is so apropos as today’s theme music. Check out these lyrics.

Well, I wanna say, I wanna tell you
I wanna say when you can do what you wanna do
And go where you wanna go
And live where you wanna live
And love who you wanna love

And be what you wanna be
Join what you wanna join
Well, well, well, that’s freedom
Yeah, yeah, freedom, yes sir

When you can learn what you wanna learn
And read what you wanna read
(Free, free, free)

And write what you wanna write
(Free, free, free)
Do what you feel is right
(Free, free, free)

h/t to Songlyrics.com

Because, I’m remembering this song at a time when a group of misnamed people called “Moms for Liberty” are getting books banned, so students can’t read what they want to read. Red state school systems are pushing to limit what is taught so you can’t learn what you want to learn. And you can’t be who you want to be when state legislatures are making shit up and declaring that people who aren’t binary can’t decide what pronoun they will use or love who they want to love because these narrow-minded cultural dictators think that love and sex is only between a man and a woman. So, “Freedom” by the Isley Brothers is a solid theme music choice for this new wave Era of Repression and Fear that Republicans are pushing.

Stay positive, be strong, and lean forward with optimism and courage toward a brighter future of freedom, equality, and justice. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, as written in a 1918 book, “Readings from Great Authors”, attributed to Theodore Parker, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” h/t to quoteinvestigator.com.

Ah, the sun is shining and rain is falling. There’s a rainbow somewhere. Here’s the music. See you at the coffee maker. Cheers

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

It seems like the United States’ GOP is working hard to divide the nation. Through actions like dictating what pronouns and genders must be used, and what can be read and taught in schools, they’re narrowing the boundaries of freedom and undermining intellectual thought and creativity.

Once the Republicans were happy to merely oppose the Democrats. Now they oppose personal freedom and choice, forging deeper and sharper divides based on the formulation of ‘us’ and ‘them’, far from the Founders’ vision of ‘we, the People’. Congress under the GOP, and as en extension, the Federal government, is obstructed from governing as Republicans do all they can to stop anything and everything the Democrats attempt to do, treating everyone outside of the GOP’s narrowing scope as enemies. They demand compromise while offering none. Even Republicans who do not heel hard to the line, “Our way or no way,” are ostracized as enemies.

It is one thing to disagree and debate, and another to throw tantrums and hold parts of the government hostage. Holding the government hostage is the modern Republican way, whether it’s:

  • the US military (Senator Tuberville’s ongoing blocking of senior officer promotions until they make changes Tuberville wants);
  • the Federal budget (the GOP Freedom Caucus threatening to shut down the government again and again, as the GOP has done before);
  • reading and education (the GOP embraced ‘Moms of Liberty’ and their advocacy against school curricula that mention LGBTQIA+ rights, race and ethnicity, and ‘critical race theory’, as well as Governors Abbott (Texas) and DeSantis (Florida) and their bids to ban books and forbid teaching certain aspects of history);
  • or the ability for the Federal government to execute and enforce laws (Speaker Johnson’s moves to cut funding for IRS agents and their investigations of tax fraud).

In the GOP’s latest vision of the United States, the vision of who the people are and who may vote, and what rights ‘they may have’ is diminishing in front of the GOP’s idea of God, their idea of religion, their idea of science, and their idea of culture and history.

In so doing, they drive the United States further and more deeply away from being a welcoming melting pot of freedom, independence, and equality for all. Their tools to accomplish their vision are fear, intimidation, discrimation, and bigotry, fortified and encouraged by lies and hypocrisy, often done under cover of ‘religious freedom’, citing the Bible as the source for things it never mentions, in a nation where separation of church and state are supposed to be a foundation of our nation’s existence.

Ironically, the GOP marches down a path that is directly against the words of their party’s founder. President Lincoln declared in his House Divided speech (June 15, 1858), “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.”

It’s an insight which the GOP in its right-wing, short-sighted zeal, has chosen to ignore.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: caring

We’ve come upon a rare beast: Thursday, October 12, 2023. It only happens once.

47 F in Ashlandia, where the air is clear and the people are refined. Never fear, the rain has stopped, and the skies are clear deep blue. With the sun and air working together, we’ll reach 69 F before sunset comes at 6:35 PM. This sunset gives us an swath of daylight just over eleven hours long. The clock is running.

There’s a great deal to care about in the news, as usual. Several wars and politics just edge baseball and football. Best news heard this week is that my little sister looks cancer free after having her rectum removed in September. Hurrah for that. As another friend privately noted, but once you’ve experienced a close encounter of the cancer kind, the fear it’ll return haunts you.

The Neurons have plugged a 1982 Donald Fagen song into the morning mental music stream (Trademark petrified). I heard “I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)” on the car radio a few days ago. The song is a riff off of an International Geophysical Year – IGY – which Fagen read about. The IGY was in the 1950s. Fagen then contemplates a beautiful future.

Standing tough under stars and stripes
We can tell
This dream’s in sight
You’ve got to admit it
At this point in time that it’s clear
The future looks bright
On that train all graphite and glitter
Undersea by rail
Ninety minutes from New York to Paris
Well by seventy-six we’ll be A-OK

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free

Get your ticket to that wheel in space
While there’s time
The fix is in
You’ll be a witness to that game of chance in the sky
You know we’ve got to win
Here at home we’ll play in the city
Powered by the sun
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There’ll be spandex jackets one for everyone

What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free

h/t Genius.com

The words and sentiment kept pestering my thinking. Simplifying, part of the IGY philsophy was to bring scientist together to discuss problems propose solutions.

Hearing this song, though, about how science and technology could advance and help us, I’m dismayed. Science and technology is under attack by many. Witness what’s been going on with the COVID-19 vaccines, along with other vaccines. (Point of order, many have derided vaccines for decades, so that’s not a clearly new development.)

So, let’s point out that people doubt what scientists are saying about global warming. This, despite the rise of sea waters, drought, melting ice caps, and increased extreme weather which scientists warned us about.

Led by hard right conservatives, people doubt the potential benefits of solar and wind power. Most focus on the negatives, ignoring the negatives behind the accepted energy sources like fossil-based fuels and nuclear energy.

Fagen talks about new technology like undersea trains taking us from New York to Paris in 90 minutes. I can’t help but wonder who that might help besides the people who can afford it. We already have space travel for the wealthy developing. Of course, they like to say that if space travel can become common enough, prices will come down.

But how much does space travel help the masses? For my end, I’d prefer to see high speed rail built in the United States so that it doesn’t takes days to cross the country and a small fortune, as it does now. Perhaps electric trains to move people and cargo so we’re not all crowding into commercial aircraft like sardines in a can.

And I’d rather see money and technology spent on solving problems that affect people every day, such as we saw happen with vaccines. Let’s do the same to battle cancer.

While saying all of this, I do remember a television show called “Connections“. James Burke hosted the show. The subject was about unexpected uses and benefits derived from technology, and how these improvements were connected through science and medicine, and the continual quest for improvement. So, while I poo-poo space travel for the wealthy, perhaps unexpected benefits will be derived to solve some of the problems our world faces.

Finally, Fagen mentions, “What a glorious time to be free.” Yet, war is on the rise. So are challenges to people’s basic rights.

Book banning is on the right, as is racism and white supremacy.

Doesn’t feel like a glorious time to be free.

Anyway, “I.G.Y. (What a Beautiful World)” is today’s theme music. Please listen to it and contemplate the ideas in it. I’d enjoy hearing what others thing. Perhaps, I’m just emerging as a pessimistic as I lean in toward my geezer years.

Time to saddle up this day and ride on toward the sunset. Be strong, stay safe and optimistic. Here’s the music. I got my coffee and I am a go. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

I’m sitting at my desk at home, sipping hot black coffee. A cool breeze washing over my back through the window. Machine noises are carried in. Sounds like excavating equipment is hard at it in Ashlandia, where wine is made on one side of the valley, and beer is brewed on the other.

It’s a summer morning, Friday, July 7, 2023.

A weary state of mind has overtaken me. Just read about dark waters and the pollution causing cancer to humans and animals. Companies like DuPont do this to communities and fight against taking responsibility, while manipulating laws and lawmakers to make more money, more profits. They epitomize the worse of corporate greed. Unfortunately, they’re one of many. And our hugely right wing Supreme Court goes and guts laws to protect water and people and animals, and the right wing shouts, “Hurray. Freedom.”

That article was atop reading about the proliferation of shootings across the nation on this holiday week. How these murders are enabled by the NRA, with right-wingers heartily going along with it, shouting, “Hurray. Freedom.” Death doesn’t mean much to the pretend ‘pro-life’ party called the GOP.

The GOP party has become the party of minority rule — meaning a rule of one. One person in many GOP led states can complain about a book and have it taken off shelves. One person can take up an automatic weapon and go shoot up a school, a synagogue, church, workplace, neighborhood, resulting in deaths and the ruination of many lives and that party will continue to shout, “Freedom.” They write into laws against others, and shout, “Freedom.”

Naturally, thinking of all of this, my neurons sink back to Janis Joplin’s magnificent cover of the Kris Kristofferson song, “Me & Bobby McKee” from 1970. The lines so many of us remember from the song, the one I was reminded of as we celebrated a nation’s beginning that is supposed to be founded on principles of freedom, democracy, and equality, are, “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose. Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free.”

Stay as positive as you can as we endure this era. Try to look forward to what we can build, and don’t be dissuaded or disheartened by those trying to create something other than a land of freedom and equality for all. Or as it’s written in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The coffee is half gone. The breeze is fading and the heat is rising. 71 F now, it’ll be in the low 90s before the sun slips out of view. Time to take this show on the road. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Tempting Tuesday’s Theme Music

Misty and 25 degrees F. Graylight bangs in through the windows. Gray stillness enthralls the landscape.

The cold outside works with the moment to tempt my spirit to cozy up under my duvet and covers and just hang tight in that warm cocoon for just a little longer, perhaps until March. The mists rule beyond a few hundred feet, depriving me of any mountain views. As far as I know, the lip of the world’s end is just over on the next street.

This is Tuesday, December 13, 2022. Not much of a holiday vibe rings the air. Sure, there’s Christmas music on store speakers. Holiday music thrills the coffee house ambiance off and on through the hours. Stores have some holiday items on display but overall, it feels like the holiday launch was premature and already peaked. Now we’re just waiting for the finale and the curtain fall so we can applaud and go on to the next big thing. Perhaps this is only my sentiments. Not many people seem jolly. Anxious is more how I’d color them. Anxious and tired.

It’s going to be 46 F as a high today. Of course, these are the same weather geniuses telling me that it’s sunny out there. Maybe it’s same zip code, different worlds. Sunrise entered at 7:31 but it was already light throughout the house by then. It seems like daylight is already showing up earlier in the morning. The sun show will end shortly before dark.

Freedom is on my mind this morning. I often feel constrained. Most of this is my own doing as I set up schedules to write, eat, exercise, and relax. Cats (2) and wife (1) add to this constraint, by their needs and wants. So does house and car mischief and the business of residing in the U.S. So I chaff. Even so, I know others have it much, much worse. It’s a fascinating thing, a web of emotions, logic, and expectations. Not complaining, I protest, just stating it as I see it.

The Neurons noted my subject on their radar. Their response was adding “Freedom! ’90” by George Michaels to the morning mental music stream. The song is about freedom and reflects his feeling that he’d lost freedom because of his stardom. Cry me a sea, right? But many celebrities end up on Michaels’ path, lamenting what success has done to their privacy. It’s a tricky labyrinth to follow, but that’s seen in most endeavors attempted where success is found. Success pulls admiration and brings more pressure to succeed and be. It ends up like golden handcuffs.

Now, I knew this song when it came out in 1990. Heard it on the radio all the time. Knew of Michaels and his success. But I’d never seen the video associated with the song. Seeing it today, I read more about Michaels’ reflections and frustration with success and freedom.

I know, waa-ville. Okay, I accept that. Stay positive and test negative. I’m up for a cup of coffee now. The cats are with me. Not that they’ll be having coffee — I shudder to think of them hopped up on caffeine — I mean, woof — but they’ll accompany me as I leave the office, make the brew, etc.

Here’s the tune. Hope your Tuesday works out well. Cheers

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

It’s a gorgeous day in Gotham City.

Wait, I’m not in Gotham City.

No, I’m in Ashland. It’s August 16, 2022, right? A Tuesday.

It’s a gorgeous day here, if blue skies and sunshine spell gorgeous to you. Sunbeams broke up night’s hold at 6:19 this morning. 8:10 PM will find the night returning as the world’s spin does its thang. It’s a comforting 64 F now but highs will take us to 93 F.

The Neurons implanted Joni Mitchell in the morning mental music stream. She’s singing her 1974 song, “Help Me”. This is cause of freedom. I said to my wife, “Well, we have the freedom to do what we want.” I was talking about a road trip we’re undertaking. The Neurons gloamed onto ‘freedom’ and started singing variations of the chorus, “But not like we love our freedom.”

Yeah, we’re on a road trip. Let me coffee up and get out there. You be safe, test negative and think positive. See you on the coast.

Cheers

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