Longtime readers know I don’t think that much of Bruce Springsteen. Politically, I regard him as an idiot; and he’s also IMO a hypocrite as well (take a look at his “agriculural exemption” for his multimillion dollar mansion in NJ).
Still, when youre on the road for a loooong time, a change of pace musically is sometimes needed. So I recently popped Brucie’s “Greatest Hits” CD into the player.
I generally find Springsteen’s music shallow and at best listenable; but it’s also generally nothing I’d go out of my way to hear. But I’d forgotten about this tune – which is IMO certainly worth listening to.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally. Ya done good there, Brucie.
The Atlantic writes today about Fake News sites that targets Vietnam veterans. One of those websites is Veterans Today ran by our old friend, Gordon Duff. A few years ago he got his funding from PressTV, the Iranian mullahs’ news organization. Now the Atlantic claims he’s in the pocket of the Russians;
The U.S. military community is not a new or unusual target for foreign influence operations. A study published in October by the University of Oxford found that three websites linked to Russia—Veteranstoday.com, Veteransnewsnow.com and Southfront.org—engaged in “significant and persistent interactions” with veterans during the election, concluding in part that veterans are targeted because they tend to be “community leaders” trusted by the public. Russian operatives went as far as to use advertising tools to target users by demographics and geography throughout 2016, prompting House and Senate investigators to question Facebook, Google, and Twitter executives about how foreign actors were exploiting their platforms to conduct influence operations.
These days, Gordo is focused on pinning the chemical attacks in Syria on Trump and John Bolton. When he’s not blaming aliens for stuff, it’s the Republicans, who apparently, have their own Air Force that they can use against everyone – because everything is a false-flag attack. It’s his favorite line;
Unfortunately Western corporate media, with financial resources far beyond VT, has played Mickey the Dunce on this whole story, the case usually being that the respective country intelligence agencies have warned them to stay away from it all, or suffer the consequences.
VT has also followed closely the long series of false flag chemical weapons attacks, both sarin and military-grade chlorine because we knew the Syrians would never be so stupid as to hand their heads to the US Coalition in a silver platter by doing something with no chance of any gain, but exactly the opposite.
We were also concerned that the longer “they” got away with doing this, the more innocent people would be murdered by the alleged protectors of freedom and democracy in the world, but who we know to be currently among the worst enemies of mankind.
Unfortunately, despite our best labors, the citizens of these countries have done almost nothing to hold those accountable in their own countries.
So, now Gordon Duff is carrying Russia’s water under the guise of being news for veterans. It’s a jungle out there.
Well, I’m back home and off the road again. And as usual, while traveling I took the opportunity to listen to some music.
Hey, I was behind the wheel for a bunch of hours. What the hell else was I supposed to do while driving to help pass the time?
And yeah, that means you’re about to get another musical walkabout. Consider yourself forewarned. (smile)
. . .
It’s no secret that our tastes change over the years. I think that’s largely due to the fact that we ourselves change over time.
As we change, so do our druthers. Our experiences in life give us new perspectives, and that modifies what we like.
Why? Well, for starters we change physically. But that’s only part of the reason – the smaller part, IMO.
My theory is that the main reason is that when we’re young, we haven’t yet had the experiences necessary to understand certain things fully. We haven’t yet been hurt – physically or emotionally – to the degree, or in the particular way, necessary to always “get it”. Or we haven’t had some other experience that’s a prerequisite to understanding a particular idea, or concept.
When we’re older, we’ve generally had those necessary experiences. So it seems to me that as we age, we develop the framework to interpret and appreciate things we couldn’t before. I can’t speak for others, but I’ve seen that in myself. I’ve become far more introspective and reflective over the years.
Hell, I could well be wrong about all of that; I’m no shrink. But it makes sense to me. So: “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” (smile)
“So . . . what’s yer point?” you ask? Well, sometimes that means revisiting old favorites yields a completely different experience. In fact, it can mean you discover treasures you’d formerly overlooked for whatever reason.
And since Jonn lets me “play in his sandbox” here, well, here ya go.
. . .
During a recent move, a number of CDs “went into hiding”. One of those AWOL CDs was my copy of The Who’s Who’s Next.
I recently acquired a replacement copy which was a later version (the first copy was the original version). And the new version contained a number of tracks absent from the original.
The Who are known as a rock band; they’re best known for their uptempo numbers. However, they’re English – and England has a long tradition of ballads. Pete Townsend on occasion would write slower tempo ballads; “Behind Blue Eyes” from Who’s Next is an example.
This tune is another example; it’s one you might not have previously heard. It’s titled “Too Much of Anything.”
Like Who’s Next, it was recorded in the early 1970s. But it wasn’t released until some years later, on the collection Odds and Sods. It was included on later releases of Who’s Next as well.
I think anyone past their 30s (or maybe their 40s) can probably relate to it. And I don’t really think further explanation is necessary.
. . .
Another CD that went “in hiding” during the move was U2’s The Joshua Tree. I also recently acquired a replacement copy of that one as well. And here, it’s strictly a case of changed perspective due to age. The two tunes I’m about to discuss were there all along; I just wasn’t ready to appreciate them properly when the original was released 30 years ago.
Like The Who, U2 is known as a rock band; they’re best known for their uptempo songs. But like England, Ireland also has long turned out ballads – and U2 has as well. These are two slower ballads from U2. They’re both IMO beautiful; and they both hit home.
The first of the two is titled “Running to Stand Still”. While the song’s subject matter is quite dark, the underlying metaphor (e.g., being caught in a bad situation requiring extreme acts that merely gain temporary respite while not knowing how to cope over the long term) is universal. I daresay that anyone who’s ever served in uniform has felt at times like they were indeed executing the song’s title – albeit not in the same manner as the song’s subject.
(For what it’s worth: if you are close to someone who’s engaged in self-destructive behavior (or have ever lost someone close to such behavior and haven’t fully come to grips with that loss), maybe you should pass on viewing the vid.)
The second tune is titled “Red Hill Mining Town”. The song was based on the closure of many British coal mines in the mid-1980s and the effect that closure had on the towns’ inhabitants.
This one especially hits home for me. As I’ve written previously, my father was a first-generation American; his parents were both immigrants.
After coming to America, my immigrant grandfather was a coal miner.
The mines and steel mills in and near his adopted hometown closed; as a result, the town damn near died. Today, it’s recovered somewhat – but you can tell it’s still just a shell of its former self.
Medical issues associated with coal mining shortened the man’s life substantially; because of that, I never met that grandfather. I don’t think he lived long enough to see his adopted hometown slowly fade and nearly dieas , the namesake town for this song did. But I think he lived long enough to see the decline begin, and to perceive what was coming.
I wasn’t as concerned 30 years ago about family history as I am today – so 30 years ago, the song didn’t really register. But today it connects.
Given all of that, let’s just say that listening to this tune while driving through an old, now partially (but not totally) defunct industrial area in different city was . . . a rather intense experience.
. . .
Well, anyway, that’s all for today. Walkabout’s over now; hopefully it wasn’t too boring.
. . .
Postscript: The two U2 tunes are intense and powerful live, too. The first can be viewed here (from Rattle and Hum) or here (Chicago, 2005, from the Vertigo tour). The latter can be viewed here. This was first public live performance by U2 of “Red Hill Mining Town”; it happened on the opening night of the Joshua Tree 30th Anniversary Tour in Vancouver, BC, on 12 May 2017. The audio was taken from the concert’s mixing board – complete with what appears to be some timing chatter for the accompanying brass band. (smile)
Someone sent us the above picture of Arthur Jones speaking at a Neo-Nazi rally. If you don’t know who Arthur Jones is, he ran unopposed for the Republican primary slot for Illinois Third Congressional District and he has been shunned by the Republican Party, according to the New York Times.
We noticed the Combat Infantryman Badge in the top picture and wondered about his military service. It turns out that he isn’t lying, as much as we’d hoped he was being untruthful. He was in the Army for five years, two years of active duty service, including 12 months in Vietnam with the 4th Infantry Division from October 1969 – September 1970.
“Arthur Jones is not a real Republican — he is a Nazi whose disgusting, bigoted views have no place in our nation’s discourse,” Tim Schneider, the Illinois Republican Party chairman, said in a statement. He said the party had urged voters “to skip over his name when they go to the polls” and moving forward planned on “vehemently opposing Jones with real campaign dollars.”
It’s not likely that Jones will win any election, especially as a Republican in the Chicago District, not to mention his ties to Illinois Nazis.
The New York Times reports that Nicolas Sarkozy, former French president, has turned himself into police custody over questions about his funding sources for his campaign in 2007. One of the charges is that he received money from the late Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya;
The suspicions behind this case first emerged in 2012, when the investigative news website Mediapart published a report suggesting that Mr. Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign had received up to 50 million euros, or nearly $62 million at current exchange rates, from the regime of Colonel Qaddafi, the longtime Libyan strongman who was killed in 2011. Such support would have violated France’s strict campaign finance laws, which cap spending and prohibit foreign funding.
Since those first reports, aides to Mr. Sarkozy and middlemen who knew him and who acted as political and financial intermediaries between France and Libya have come under close scrutiny by the police and the news media.
In 2015, Claude Guéant, a top aide and former interior minister to Mr. Sarkozy, was charged in connection with the investigation.
Ziad Takieddine, the French-Lebanese arms dealer who had introduced Mr. Sarkozy to Colonel Qaddafi, told Mediapart in 2016 that he had personally delivered suitcases with €5 million in cash to Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Guéant shortly before the 2007 election. Both politicians denied the account by Mr. Takieddine, who has also been charged in the investigation.
In January, Alexandre Djouhri, a French businessman who is close to Mr. Sarkozy and who also acted as a financial intermediary with Libya, was arrested in London in connection with the investigation. The French authorities are seeking his extradition.
I suppose that Sarkozy’s eagerness to bomb Qaddafi’s government troops during the civil war there was to cover up his funding. If Qaddafi did send him cash, I’m sure the colonel felt cheated, you know, right before he felt the K-Bar in his ass cheek.
I guess that it shouldn’t be a surprise that Sarkozy expressed support for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US Presidential campaign, according to LePointe; Si j’étais citoyen américain, je voterais pour Hillary.
Probably the most famous theoretical physicist and ALS victim of our time has passed according to Stars & Stripes. Stephen Hawking lived an astounding 50 years after his diagnosis with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS – Lou Gehrig disease as it’s known in the US) in 1969. Many patients last only several months after the diagnosis.
A severe attack of pneumonia in 1985 left him breathing through a tube, forcing him to communicate through an electronic voice synthesizer that gave him his distinctive robotic monotone.
But he continued his scientific work, appeared on television and married for a second time.
As one of Isaac Newton’s successors as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, Hawking was involved in the search for the great goal of physics — a “unified theory.”
Such a theory would resolve the contradictions between Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, which describes the laws of gravity that govern the motion of large objects like planets, and the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, which deals with the world of subatomic particles.
For Hawking, the search was almost a religious quest — he said finding a “theory of everything” would allow mankind to “know the mind of God.”
“A complete, consistent unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence,” he wrote in “A Brief History of Time.”
In later years, though, he suggested a unified theory might not exist.
The ALS Association says that veterans are twice as likely to be afflicted with ALS as their civilian peers. There hasn’t been an official reason to the cause, but ALS is a presumptive condition for veterans as far as the VA is concerned, meaning that they’ll take care of most of your needs. Since most people don’t show signs of ALS until they are more than 50 years old, it’s nice to know that the VA will be there for you if you need help.
But, as far as Mr Hawkins is concerned, I’ll take 76 years old.
Military Times tells the story of Scot Cregan, a Navy public affairs officer whose identities have been replicated by thieves on Facebook about a hundred times by his estimate;
Cregan has seen himself on Facebook under the names “David Marc Cregan,” “Eric Cregan,” “Creagan Anderson,” “Cregan Diamond,” (um, okay) and his favorite, the ever-original “Cregan Cregan.” To date, he estimates there have been over 100 fake profiles on social media using his information.
Cregan, who is a reservist currently serving on active duty, routinely reports the fake profiles to Facebook but the automated format of the complaint process means in some of the cases Facebook comes back to him and claims the profiles don’t meet their criteria for removal.
“About 70 percent of the time they take them down right away, but if you can believe it, there are times I have to go back to them and say ‘Hey, this is really not me and I’m for sure not a “private in the Navy” as they have listed.’”
Hardly a week goes by that we don’t get messages from folks asking for help to get fake profiles removed. The only time that my own profile was replicated was when the DRG tried to troll for my friends. Facebook was pretty quick to respond. Now one of my daily task is searching on my name to find phony profiles.
But if these trolls weren’t successful, they wouldn’t do it.
Within a four-year period, men aged 18 to 49 who say they “closely” follow the NFL has dropped from 75 percent to 51 percent. That represents a major chunk of the sport’s main demographic.
“If I’m the NFL I’m freaking out about that a little bit,” said Republican pollster Micah Roberts. “They are the very core of the football-viewing audience. If they’re retreating, then who’s left?”
