Tag: war

Wednesday’s Theme Music

Here we are, as helpless as a kitten on a Wednesday. Yes, it’s April 21, 2021. Our friendly sun came around 6:21 AM, and will wave so long at about 7:59 PM, all times Pacific. Cool again today, despite a sunny, clear day. 54 F right now. Rain showers struck yesterday. They hit lightly as a kitten swatting for about six minutes. We’re behind on our rain. Simultaneous countdowns are in progress. When will water constraints be imposed? And wildfire season is coming. As there’s spreading, major drought throughout the U.S. west, a bad one is expected. Fingers crossed, hold your breath, children. Here we go again.

It’s just like shooting deaths in the U.S., isn’t it? Every day brings more news of such events. Then, here we go again. A cop shot a black. Here we go again. Someone armed with an automatic weapon went on a rampage somewhere. Texas. California. Wisconsin. Here we go ago.

No surprise that I’m stuck on “Holding Out for A Hero”. I featured the 1984 Bonnie Tyler song before, back in 2017. Well, what was true then is true now. We need a hero. None is on the horizon. We’re going to muddle through without change and plenty of outrage and hand-wringing, supporting the world’s largest and most powerful military while ensuring citizens have the right to fight back in case said military and government turns on the people. Yeah, like that hasn’t happen before here in the U.S. Check your history, please.

A friend shared a FB post that made me laugh and summed up the general sit. The post was essentially about why the Japanese didn’t continue on to attempt the invade the U.S. after bombing Pearl Harbor. The post was all about how the Japanese commanders were aware of American hunters. How many people have hunting licenses and are armed in the U.S. So think about that when you think about gun control. Sure, the Japanese were willing to take on the Chinese and Korean military, but not the American hunter. Okay. Even if we agree that might have some merit back in 1941, does it have any merit now? Look at how the police are armored up. If anything, the argument and discussion is more about the growing absurdity of war. Yet, we roll on, bombing and shooting, firing rockets and missiles, building bigger and more sophisticated weapon systems aimed at more effectively killing the enemy while killing the human race and the planet in parallel. Always wonder how they ever managed to reach that period of peace in Star Trek that allowed us to begin working together, harness technology, and move forward.

Here’s the music. Wear a mask, get the vax, stay positive, and test negative. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Blame it on the weather. Blame the pandemic. Maybe it’s the trumpshit surrounding the established routines of presidential elections, or December. Memories always clot Decembers. Maybe, though, it’s just my brain having fun with me.

However I finger-point, my mind was shuffling music this morning. After five or six songs (trying to remember how many but they were coming and going, doing a Waring blender mashup in my mind), “The Cisco Kid” by War (1973) found the groove and rose to dominance.

It’s a fun song to sing along with. The words are simple but the story told don’t make sense. That’s okay, it’s music. The funky sounds, solid bass, and steady rhythm will carry you forward. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the song, you can listen to it and let it start taking your body into dance moves.

Please enjoy, and remember to be positive, test negative, and wear a mask. Cheers

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Saturday’s Theme Music

After reading the news updates yesterday, I mourned the patterns, the things we keep doing and won’t change. Haven’t we seen this show before? Assassinating leaders and promoting greater violence while claiming to be de-escalating. We’ve changed centuries; shouldn’t we change our tactics and strategy. No; they continue to fight the last war and run the last political campaign. Of course, there are some that lap it up and beg for more. 

The timing was impeccable for this murder. Australia burning, glaciers melting, people fleeing wars and droughts as other nations turn refugees away, but hey, let’s de-escalate by killing others.

Out of that, I started singing Steve Winwood’s “Freedom Overspill” (1986).

Keep on talking all you want
Well you don’t waste a minute of time
Who cares, who knows what’s true
Coffee and tears the whole night through
Burning up on midnight oil
And it’s come right back on you

Freedom Overspill
Freedom Overspill

Force of habit, you could say
The way they talk you’re talking away
Who cares, who knows what’s true
Your wounded pride is burning you up
Burning up on midnight oil
And it’s come right back on you

h/t to Metrolyrics.com cuz’ cutting and pasting song lyrics is easier.

That ‘Force of habit’ line is what hooked me. Nations, like people, fall into habits, especially as leadership and thinking diminishes. Like marketing, they think, well, this worked before. Press drumbeats follow soon. We’ve seen it happen so many times already in this young century.

It takes strength and awareness to change. Does anyone out there have it?

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Today’s song is a natural for the times. I started to add, IMO – in my opinion – but isn’t that redundant? This is my post, so it should be my opinion. Yet, I took the time to writesplain that to you.

Ten Years After released “I’d Love to Change the World” in 1971 as a response to the violence, protests, emerging counter-culture, resistant establishment, and war. Gosh, does any of that have any echos in today’s world? Naw, probably just me.

Like most of TYA’s offerings, the song features some powerful Alvin Lee guitar work, which is always good to hear. Beyond the rock essence of guitar and dream, these lyrics, and how they’re presented in the song, plaintive, accepting, and reflective, spoke to me as a fifteen-year-old when the song came out, but still talks to me as a sixty-three-year-old.

I’d love to change the world

But I don’t know what to do.

So I’ll leave it up to you.

I think most of us want to change the world. We also know what to do, but it’s an embattled, relentless, and exhausting process. It seems more so in the Internet era, where lies and bullshit gains instant traction and never seems to die, like the Terminator rising again and again.

So I’ll leave it up to you.

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Killing in the Name

Here’s an explosion from the past. One thousand musicians assembled and played Rage Against the Machine’s song, “Killing in the Name” (1992) in Frankfurt. Pretty damn good time for such a song. Repeat after me, “Now do as they told ya. Now do as they told ya.”

Hah. Now the outre:

“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.”

Repeat.

Louder.

LOUDER.

Rage against what’s going on and how the world is twisting. Stop the killing in the name. Insert whatever conclusion you want for the name – hate, nationalism, religion, money… There’s quite a list of absurd reasons for why people kill for you to select from.

 

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I’m stuck in a sour war mood, which prompts recall of my military days.

This song, “Civil War” by Guns n’ Roses, came out two years before I retired from the U.S. Air Force. I retired because the military personnel powers-that-be wanted to move me to a new duty station. I was first offered a position with Air Force Space Command’s Inspector General team. A prestigious position, it would mean a lot of traveling, but it would take me to places that I’ve always wanted to see. Although I was keen, my wife was weary of me being away all the time.* So they instead wanted to send me to manage a missile site command post in the northern boonies. No, thanks.

It’s curious. We stood ready for war, but we didn’t want war, right? That’s what we told ourselves. But we spend all of our time and money preparing for war. That leaves us little prepared for anything else. This trend has gotten way out of hand since I retired in 1995. More and more resources are turned toward preparing for war and fighting war; less goes to social nets, education, infrastructure, etc. And we’re constantly being told that preparing to fight and going to war is what must be done to keep us safe, but as we do so, we’re fighting to save a collapsing nation.

Guns n’ Roses’ lyrics sums it up better than I do.

Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they’ve always done before

Look at the hate we’re breeding
Look at the fear we’re feeding
Look at the lives we’re leading
The way we’ve always done before

h/t AZLyrics.com

 

* Ironic side note: I retired from the Air Force, and became a customer service/sales operations manager for a medical device startup. Two years later, the company offered me an associate marketing product manager position, and I ended up on the road visiting hospitals, doctors, and trade shows…

 

 

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Reading news about the Middle-East puts me in a martial mood. Military.com wondered if war between the U.S. and Iran is inevitable, and have thoughts on how that war would play out.

*snark alert* I know that most believe that war with Iran can be avoided because John Bolton is on Trump’s team. One of the architects of PNAC, Bolton was a prominent voice in demands for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He thinks that went well. He also wants preemptive war with North Korea. With Bolton in place, surely the lessons of other wars will be learned and war will be averted.  *end snark*

All that reflecting introduced a 1970 Black Sabbath tune called “War Pigs”. A taste of the lyrics that Ozzie sings:

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait ’til their judgement day comes
Yeah!

h/t to lyricsfreak.com

 

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TGIF

It’s been a week, hasn’t it? Peggy Lipton, Doris Day, and Tim Conway all passed away this week.

Losing stars isn’t anything new. Although I didn’t know them, they were part of the magic that we thought we had going for us after World War II. They helped us cope as the shit started happening. McCarthyism and the red scare. Korea. JFK’s assassination. Demonstrations and riots. Gulf of Tonkin incident. RFK and MLK’s assassinations. Vietnam. University of Texas shootings. USS Pueblo. Kent State. Watergate. Recessions and energy crises. Iran-Contra scandals. Iran hostages. John Lennon’s murder. Attempted assassination on Ronald Reagan. KAL 007 shot down. Beirut Barracks bombing. Challenger disaster. Operation Just Cause. Desert Storm. Oklahoma City bombing. Monica Lewinsky. Move On. Columbine. Hanging chads. Enron. 9/11. Hurricane Katrina. Virginia Tech University shootings. Housing bubble burst. Global banking meltdown. Umpqua Community College shootings. Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. Global warming. Isla Vista, 2014 shootings. Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Wildfires. Sutherland Springs Church shootings. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings. Sante Fe High School shooting. Las Vegas shooting. Thousand Oaks shooting. Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting. Measles outbreak. College cheating scandal.

And that’s all just a small bit of America’s piece of it. To think of what’s happened in the rest of the world during those years is numbing.

Now, Conway, Lipton, and Day gone. What a week.

Thank God it’s Friday.

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