Thursday, September 8, 2011

Love Is Strange. . .

. . . as is Life and Death, which shortly following the anniversary of his birth, brings us to. . . Buddy Holly!

from Celebritology
Posted at 01:03 PM ET, 09/08/2011
Buddy Holly honored with star on Hollywood Walk of Fame (Photos)
By Sarah Anne Hughes

"Buddy Holly received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Wednesday, on what would have been the musician’s 75th birthday.

On hand for the dedication ceremony were Phil Everly (of the Everly Brothers), Holly’s wife, Maria Elena Holly, and Gary Busey. The actor played the singer in the biopic “The Buddy Holly Story” and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for the role.

Holly, who along with the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens died in a plane crash at age 22, is now the 2,447th celebrity to be honored with a star.

That same evening, Stevie Nicks, Chris Isaak and other musicians performed in a tribute concert at the Music Box Theater. . . "

Just listen . . .




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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Three charts in an email. . .

. . . each one seeking happiness . . . well, I ain't no Sinatra, but. . .

From Three Charts to Email to Your Right-Wing Brother-In-Law
Monday 29 August 2011
by: Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future | Op-Ed
http://www.truth-out.org/three-charts-email-your-right-wing-brother-law/1314626142

Couldn't reproduce the charts here (you can see them by copying-and-pasting the hyperlink above to your browser), but Dave Johnson advocates something in which I believe very strongly, FACTS!

The chart shows Bush increased spending 88%; Obama increased spending 7.2% and Johnson says says, "Government spending increased dramatically under Bush. It has not increased much under Obama. Note that this chart does not reflect any spending cuts resulting from deficit-cutting deals."

"Deficits
Bush-Obama Deficit Chart
Notes, this chart includes Clinton's last budget year ($128 billion surplus) for comparison." Bush, $1.4 trillion deficit. Obama, $1.2 trillion and headed downward.

"The Stimulus and Jobs
Bush-Obama-Jobs-Chart
In this chart, the RED lines on the left side -- the ones that keep doing DOWN -- show what happened to jobs under the policies of Bush and the Republicans. We were losing lots and lots of jobs every month, and it was getting worse and worse. The BLUE lines -- the ones that just go UP -- show what happened to jobs when the stimulus was in effect. We stopped losing jobs and started gaining jobs, and it was getting better and better. The leveling off on the right side of the chart shows what happened as the stimulus started to wind down: job creation leveled off at too low a level.

It looks a lot like the stimulus reversed what was going on before the stimulus.
Conclusion: THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH!

More False Things
These are just three of the false things that everyone "knows." Some others are (click through): Obama bailed out the banks, businesses will hire if they get tax cuts, health care reform cost $1 trillion, Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme or is "going broke", government spending "takes money out of the economy."

Why This Matters
These things really matter. We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has. But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them. Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse. If you get tricked into thinking that Obama has made things worse and that we should go back to what we were doing before Obama -- tax cuts for the rich, giving giant corporations and Wall Street everything they want -- when those are the things that caused the problems in the first place, then we will be in real trouble."




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That GREED thing again. . .

. . . it comes back, over and over. Something to it?
YE - AH!!!!

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
The New York Times
updated 8/31/2011 5:12:26 AM ET 2011-08-31T09:12:26

"At least 25 top United States companies paid more to their chief executives in 2010 than they did to the federal government in taxes, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The companies — which include household names like eBay, Boeing, General Electric (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft Corp. and NBC Universal, which is jointly owned by Comcast Corp. and General Electric) and Verizon — averaged $1.9 billion each in profits, according to the study by the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal-leaning research group. But a variety of shelters, loopholes and tax reduction strategies allowed the companies to average more than $400 million each in tax benefits — which can be taken as a refund or used as write-off against earnings in future years.

The chief executives of those companies were paid an average of more than $16 million a year, the study found, a figure substantially higher than the $10.8 million average for all companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index.

The financial data in the report was taken from the companies’ regulatory filings, which can differ from what is actually filed on a corporate tax return. Even in a year when a company claims an overall tax benefit, it may pay some cash taxes while accumulating credits that can be redeemed in future years. For instance, General Electric reported a federal tax benefit of more than $3 billion in 2010, but company officials said they still expected to pay a small amount of cash taxes.

The authors of the study, which examined the regulatory filings of the 100 companies with the best-paid chief executives, said that their findings suggested that current United States policy was rewarding tax avoidance rather than innovation.

“We have no evidence that C.E.O.’s are fashioning, with their executive leadership, more effective and efficient enterprises,” the study concluded. “On the other hand, ample evidence suggests that C.E.O.’s and their corporations are expending considerably more energy on avoiding taxes than perhaps ever before — at a time when the federal government desperately needs more revenue to maintain basic services for the American people.”

The study comes at a time when business leaders have been lobbying for a cut in corporate taxes and Congress and the Obama administration are considering an overhaul of the tax code to reduce the federal budget deficit.

'Repatriation holiday'
Many business leaders say that the top corporate statutory rate of 35 percent, which is higher than any country except Japan, is hobbling the economy and making it difficult for domestic companies to compete with overseas rivals. A coalition led by high-technology companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers have been pushing for a “repatriation holiday,” which would let them bring as much as $1 trillion in foreign profits back to the United States at substantially reduced rates.

But the Obama administration has said it will consider lowering the corporate rate only if Congress agrees to eliminate enough loopholes and tax subsidies to pay for any drop in revenue. Many policy experts estimate that the United States could lower its corporate rate to the high 20s if it eliminated the maze of tax breaks that favor specific industries and investors. . ."




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Sunday, September 4, 2011

The Main Attraction. . .

Every hair on your head has got to be in place for the camera. Every place you happen to be the people stare. But you are not the main attraction. You are not the main attraction. You are not the main attraction. But oh how you wanted to be.

Don't equate each little thing that happened in the past to the present. Don't expect each person to see the things you see 'cause you are not the main attraction. You are not the main attraction. You are not the main attraction. But oh how you wanted to be.

Do you ever think of anyone else? Does concern come crossing your mind. There's enough conceit under your own belt to last a lifetime.

If your dreams should ever come true, I'll see that spiteful face on the cover of a tabloid where the headline reads, "She wants to be. . . be. . . nothing but the main attraction." Nothing but the main attraction. You are not the main attraction. But oh how you wanted to be. But oh how you wanted to be.

MAIN ATTRACTION (from "CRITIC'S CHOICE")
©2005 Raymond M. Jozwiak


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Mental cobwebs, misspellings and regeneration. . .

Granted, I did and DO love playing music. Make no mistake. And the band REFLECTION did, as does any living, growing thing, EVOLVE. First our guitarist Keith moved to another band, an earthshaking experience for the drummer Bruce and myself at the time. We were just getting musically comfortable with ourselves as a unit and finding a fair amount of work. I don't now for the life of me remember how did it, but our drummer Bruce and I connected with Eddie (saxophones and flute), Rick (trumpet) and Rick H. (guitar). Since one out of two Ricks and Eddie were music students at the local university, our approach to music became a bit more academic with the use of arrangements, charts, some jazz inflections and the addition of some newer, current songs; even one or two by Chicago- one of my favorites. I was doubling as an occasional substitute in Keith's new band and working on arrangements and trying to secure gigs with REFLECTION at the same time. (It's good to be in demand!)

Again, mental cobwebs prevent my accurate recollection, but it seems that Bruce, Keith and I reunited and the academic incarnation of REFLECTION complete with horn section came to an end. After utilizing the services of various reedmen, including Bruce's brother Charles, we expanded our original trio into a quartet with the addition of a permanent saxophonist/vocalist named Greg, with newly revitalized energy. At this time we thought our regeneration would be more thorough with a name changed and finally settled upon the catchy moniker FUL TREATMENT (yes, ONE 'L') which accurately captured our ability to navigate the crosscurrents of musical genre and essentially play ANYTHING that ANYBODY wanted. This gloriously selfless intention was more true in theory than in practice, but our intentions were sincere, particularly at the start, although that facet of our existence did deteriorate somewhat in time.




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Saturday, September 3, 2011

War criminal? . . .

. . . how many OTHERS are there out there Mr. Rumsfeld???

from msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 8/31/2011 5:11:31 AM ET 2011-08-31T09:11:31

"Dick Cheney was "president for all practical purposes" during George W. Bush's first term in office and "fears being tried as a war criminal," according to Colin Powell's chief of staff during his time as secretary of state.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who has known Cheney for decades, told ABC News that Cheney was a "very vindictive person." "I simply don't recognize Mr. Cheney anymore," he added.

In his memoir, "In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir," which was released Tuesday, Cheney claimed Powell had undermined Bush, by criticizing policy to people outside the administration. Cheney told NBC News that the book would see "heads exploding all over Washington."

Speaking to CBS Sunday, Powell accused Cheney of taking "cheap shots" at him.
In the ABC interview, Wilkerson suggested Cheney was adopting a tough stance in an attempt to forestall criticism or even prosecution.

"What really sort of got my attention was this way in which he characterized it (the memoir): it's going to 'cause heads to explode,'" Wilkerson said. "That's quite a visual. And in fact, it's the kind of headline I would expect to come out of a gossip columnist, or the kind of headline you might see one of the supermarket tabloids write. It's not the kind of headline I would have expected to come from a former vice president of the United States of America.

"I think he's just trying to, one, assert himself so he's not in some subsequent time period tried for war crimes and, second, so that he somehow vindicates himself because he feels like he needs vindication. That in itself tells you something about him," he added.

"He's developed an angst and almost a protective cover, and now he fears being tried as a war criminal so he uses such terminology as 'exploding heads all over Washington' because that's the way someone who's decided he's not going to be prosecuted acts: boldly, let's get out in front of everybody, let's act like we are not concerned and so forth when in fact they are covering up their own fear that somebody will Pinochet him," Wilkerson added. . ."

I think the former administration failed to answer MANY questions after the events of 9/11/2001. . .




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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The media is now. . .

. . . NOT ONLY the message. I think its safe to say that the media manufactures the message.

The message, designed for the public in general, is now a 'one-size-fits-all' (or as they say in Texas, "One-size-fits-y'all") message. This 'new' gospel is foisted upon us by a media so large and powerful, both physically and fiscally, that the preponderance of the general population happily and readily accepts it without qualm.

Rest assured, the doctor is NOT ALWAYS RIGHT and the priest, minister, rabbi or reverend is NOT ALWAYS HOLY.




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