Tag: war

Monday’s Theme Music

We’ve been plopped into a Monday, in a very merry month of May, on a day — 23 — in a year — 2022. For most of us, it feels about the same as the day before, except, you know, the ones who lost something or someone the day before, or the ones whose crimes were revealed, whose cheating was exposed. Also different for those who awoke to gunfire and explosions.

Here in Ashland, the sunrise came at 5:43 and sunset will take place in our valley at 8:33 PM. It’s 57 F and a high of 77 is anticipated. Clouds? Yes, we have no clouds. The cats are happy. This is floof weather.

The morning neurons didn’t drop a song into my morning mental music stream. I went looking for one. I’d met to do this before, but one thing led to another, and the next thing that I knew, a few weeks had shot by underfoot. Remembering today, I sought out “Hey, Hey, Rise Up” by Pink Floyd. Released in 2022, it’s base on the Ukrainian anthem, “Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow“, and features the Ukrainian singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk. David Gilmour wrote the song to support Ukraine and its people as they fight against the Russian invasion.

Stay positive, test negative, and so on. Rise up, vote, make a difference. Help set us on a better path, one where equality, freedom, and rights are respected. And yes, I’m pro-choice: her body, her choice. Not my business.

Forward, he cried from the rear. Forward. Now, I’m off for coffee. Can’t move forward without my coffee. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Friday’s Theme Music

Time is suddenly slowed for me. Like I was on Chronos Highway, speeding along, making, um, good time, when suddenly everything slowed down. Wonder how many others are feeling it?

Today is Friday, May 20, 2022. Sunrise spidered in through leafy boughs at 5:45 this morning. Sol will skedaddle from these environs at 8:30 PM.

It’s a clear sky, empty of clouds, but haziness hovers on the western horizon. Reflecting that clear sky, temperatures dropped to 35 F last night and sit at 42 now. We expect a high of 68 F. The cats are out digging the sunshine. I told them, “Don’t you put holes in the sunshine.” They were like WTF you talkin’ ’bout?

The neurons put nothing into the morning mental music stream. First no dreams are remembered, and then the neurons abandon their musical motif. Interesting Friday. Well, I lie a bit. The neurons did have “Time Is On My Side” sliding around the music stream for about seventeen seconds. I sat and wondered, what song should I put out there today? As I did, I came across a video of Tears for Fear playing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” in 2022. With the primary elections in full swing in the U.S., Ukraine trying to fend off Russia, Putin threatening Finland and Sweden, Turkey saying “Nyet” to NATO, the GOP trying to undo established precedent and foster election corruption, and billionaires attempting to become trillionaires, I thought, “Why that’s a perfect song for this age and time, innit?”

Sure, the neurons said, yawning. Go for it. Which I did.

Regardless of the little neurons’ mood, I’m going for coffee. Care to come? Here’s the music while you decide. Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Today finds us at the juxtaposition of winter and spring and the week called Thursday, April 14, 2022. Snow on the mountains is a hopeful sign for us in our drought-struck state while the buds and flowers remind us of spring’s promise of life and growth.

Sunrise was a solid showing of light and warmth at 6:32 AM. Showers have drifted away, the clouds moving on for the moment, muttering about, “maybe coming back later,” perhaps after they go off to chill and have something to eat or drink, maybe even coffee. Although just 41 F right now, the sun’s presence makes it feel warmer to me. A 44-degree high is all they say we can hope for before sundown at 7:51 PM.

Reading the news, I can’t stop the conclusion from jumping into my head that Putin is a terrorist. “Don’t you dare join NATO, or I will nuke you,” he metaphorically shouts in his cold, threatening tone. Isn’t that the way of war, though, “don’t do that or we’ll do this,” pressing an escalation of tension with fear and the threat of violence. If not a terrorist, he’s certainly a bully. I know, the U.S. has its own version of bully tactics, too. At least we haven’t overtly attacked another nation recently.

The neurons have planted “My Sweet Lord” by George Harrison in the morning mental music stream. Released when I was fourteen, its slide guitar, rhythms, and lyrics mesmerized me. Yes, I know of the later copyright infringement action and the obvious connection between “He’s So Fine” and “My Sweet Lord”. While “He’s So Fine” is an excellent song, its lyrics and slide work didn’t have me sitting there listening again and again.

Stay positive, test negative, drink coffee, wear a mask as or when needed, and get the jabs as, when, etc. Sorry about the coffee bit; it just jumped in there because it’s that time. Not trying to influence you or anything, no, about the promise of what that hot, dark beverage can do for the body and soul, no, not at all.

Here’s the music. Look – sunshine! Hey, it’s raining. Cheers

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Rewriting History

In the Smithsonian Magazine’s excerpt of Narrative Tension, Inc.. From the forthcoming book Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past by Richard Cohen to be published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission, Richard Cohen writes this:

‘Around the same time, between 1934 and 1936, the Politburo, or policy-making body, of the Russian Communist Party focused on national history textbooks, and Stalin set scholars to writing a new standard history. The state became the nation’s only publisher. Orwell had it right in Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Records Department is charged with rewriting the past to fit whomever Oceania is currently fighting. The ruling party of Big Brother “could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”’

He is writing about the old U.S.S.R., the Soviet Union, and how Putin’s Russia draws from the lessons learned from Lenin and Stalin about rewriting history to control the narrative.

I can’t help but think of the United States. GOP led legislatures in several states are fighting hard to rewrite history or ignore it, battling against teaching critical race theory, solidly misrepresenting it as they do. Alabama passed HB 312 earlier in 2022, 65 to 32. Pushed through by Republicans, the bill bans teachers from broaching subjects that Republicans find divisive, like ideas that the United States is now or was ever racist.

Ignoring facts or history that is painful or inconvenient has become the GOP standard. It’s been going on in Texas for over twenty years. The Texas textbook controversy erupted as Republicans attempt to color the United States in white, Republican, Christan hues. Trump leans hard on this idea of changing history to fit his needs, denying that he fairly lost the election in 2020, accusing everyone he can of voter fraud, lying, and cheating, without offering evidence. Officials and lawyers working on his behalf have had their cases and lawsuits rejected as lacking merit in courts across the United States. The most prominent cases of voter fraud involve Republican and Trump lackeys being caught while illegally voting or tampering with the process. Search the net for proof of this. Of course, deep Trumplicans hold that anyone saying or printing anything except their version of the truth is guilty of spreading false news.

This is all supported by ‘Evangelicals’, a group that holds the world is only six to ten thousand years old, depending upon which group you hear. They ignore all evidence and facts to the contrary. Listening to such would distort their reality.

This operating process of distorting reality and twisting and denying history is just like Russia and the old U.S.S.R. It’s sad but not surprising that several Republicans are admonishing the world for not embracing Russia’s excuses and lies as the truth for why they invaded Ukraine. Why, paraphrasing their thinking, Russia is only destroying Ukranian cities and killing Ukrainians to protect them. Doesn’t that sound like thinking right out of 1984?

And the one excusing Putin and Russia most of all? That would be the dear GOP leader, Donald J. Trump.

The GOP has become a shallow party, bereft of principles, and desperate to remain meaningful. The only way they can now make history is by pretending what has happened — and is happening, in the case of climate change, and LGBTQ rights and equality — didn’t happen. Deny, deny, deny.

It’s been a long, sickening fall to watch for the party begun by President Lincoln.

13

An Afternoon Music Break

While I was cleaning and writing in my head, my thoughts drifted through news and current events. The neurons then said, “Alexa, put on “Zombie” by the Cranberries.”

Zombie is an apt song for the current era. War is deeply ingrained into human existence. While the United States and others keep trying to revitalize war as an extension of capitalism diplomacy and seek ‘limited military actions’, Russia has reverted to an earlier stage of aggression in attacking Ukraine. I say, Russia, because this is the aggressor nation, but all know it’s Putin pushing the buttons that launch the weapons of destruction and killing. “Zombie” is the right song for it, because of those lyrics alluding to tanks, guns, and bombs, and, of course, what’s in the killer’s head.

Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And if violence causes the silence
Who are we mistaking
But you see it's not me
It's not my family
In your head in your head
They are fighting

With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns
In your head in your head they are crying

In your head
In your head
Zombie zombie zombie ei ei
What's in your head
In your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie ei, ei, ei, oh do do do do do do do do

Another mother's breaking heart is taking over the violence causes silence
We must be mistaken
It's the same old thing since nineteen-sixteen
In your head in your head
Their still fighting
With their tanks and their bombs
And their bombs and their guns
In your head in your head they are dying

h/t to Lyrics.com

Yes, Putin is a killing zombie, fighting an old-style territorial war.

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If I

If I had to drink some wine

You know I think I could find the time

And if you want to make me dance

I would probably be willing to take that chance

If I had to work today

I’d ask if maybe there’s not another way

And if I were asked to write a song

You know it wouldn’t last too long

If you told me I need to find joy

I’d laugh and sing, oh boy, oh boy

But if you tried to start a war

I’d walk away

Because war’s a bore

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Friday’s Theme Music

Spring must be ready to take the scene. My sinuses said something is in the air. I guess it could be love.

We’re getting ready to ‘spring ahead’ on our clocks this weekend in the U.S. Spring ahead and win a prize: one hour of ‘lost’ time. Where will you subtract your hour?

Today is March 11, 2022, Friday, in weekspeak. The sun came for our valley at 6:30 this morning, bold, bright, and welcome, dragging warmth out the cold air and earth. Twas 31 at my house this morning but now the desk weather station claims it’s 49 F. We saw 60 yesterday and anticipate 67 today. Looks like good walking weather. Might even do some yard-tidying and weed pulling. The sun will take its light and warmth and go on at 6:13 PM.

Today’s morning mental music stream inhabitant is “Livin’ On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi from 1986. It’s cat music. Yes, it’s a repeat from back when the coronavirus kicked in on a massive global scale While Papi seems very recovered, singing a rousing rendition of “The Breakfast Song” this morning, (and more than one verse), sick cat, whose RN is Boo (our bedroom panther), seems to be losing his cancer fight. I raise a glass to all the sick and diseased, fighting wounds, diseases, sickness, and chronic pain, and their caretakers.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed, get the vaxes and boosters when you can, and send out some peace energy toward Ukraine and its people. Send them some hope that the invaders won’t kill or maim all of their people, that all of their buildings and lives won’t be destroyed, that Russia will stop this assault on their rights and lives. Pray for them if that’s what you do. Ask the Universe to make Putin come to his senses, or for Russians to rise up and rein him in.

That’s a lot to do. I’m gonna need more coffee first. Here’s the tune. Cheers

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