“The first Sunday I sang in the church choir, two hundred people changed their religion.” -Ethan Allen

Happy Sunday! No blue laws in Vermont that I know of, so let’s open the bar. Warning: we’re drinking, smoking, playing loud music, and thumbing our nose at the Establishment, so check your sanctimony at the frickin’ door. First round’s on the house.
The ale is cold below the fold.

I was cruising Seven Days, as I frequently do, (looking for a job as often as not) and found this piece about a litle bitty radio station in Bridport.

Having a passing interest in radio myself, I read on and discovered, to my delight and surprise, that I KNOW the guy, from years and years ago. From CALIFORNIA. So Vermont is where you ended up, huh, Chip? Smart man.

^{Photo credit: Matthew Thorsen at Seven Days}

When I was in my late twenties, I was doing the night shift at an AM oldies station in Stockton, CA. The engineer there was a guy by the name of Chip Morgan. One of the best engineers I’d ever known. Over the years, I’d seen him pop up here and there, writing technical columns for a little engineering trade called Radio Guide , formerly Radio Shopper.

Imagine my delight and surprise to discover that he’d settled in the Green Mountain State and created what I would call a dream existence, were it me.

“You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.” -Ethan Allen

On the one hand, Chip operates Wood Creek Farm.

Named for the southern section of Lake Champlain, Wood Creek Farm was originally a 1000 acre British land grant, and has been the home of generations of cattle since before the Revolution. Today it hosts a herd of Black Angus beef – the source of the most tender, juicy and flavorful meat money can buy. The farm is located in Vermont, across the lake from Crown Point – the Northernmost outpost of Revolutionary era America.

As if that wasn’t cool enough, Wood Creek Farm is also home to a radio station!

Talk about operating on another wavelength. But for Morgan and his wife Kathy, it’s commercial-free business as usual. At 89.3 FM (or www.wmud.org for the stream-inclined), this 24-hour station – a.k.a. “Mud” – has been intriguing listeners across the Champlain Valley and the Internet since 2003. And thanks to the on-site solar grid and wind turbine, WMUD’s console powers itself.

Acoustically Oriented Music
WMUD features acoustic Blues, Folk, Jazz and World Music, played continuously 24 hours a day. All of our music is based on acoustic instruments and/or traditional vocal styles. Well, most of it.

WMUD is on 89.3 FM and covers this area:

and can also be checked out through the tubes. Your listen links are here.

A sampling of what you’ll hear when you listen to WMUD:

  Atlantic Crossing, Rani Arbo and Daisey Mahem, Aztec Two-Step, Joan Baez, Mary Black, Rory Block, Eric Bogle, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Greg Brown, Capercaillie, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tracy Chapman, Clifton Chenier, The Chieftains,Slaid Cleaves, David Coffin, Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, Ry Cooder, Cowboy Junkies, Cox Family, Bob Dylan, Fred Eaglesmith, Steve Earle, Bela Fleck, Jeffrey Foucault, Jerry Garcia, Steve Goodman, Patty Griffin, David Grisman, Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, Emmylou Harris, John Hartford, John Hiatt, Sara Hickman, Holmes Brothers, Hot Club of Cowtown, Jorma Kaukonen, Leo Kottke, Alison Krauss, Leadbelly, Laura Love, Lyle Lovett, Taj Majal, Ashley MacIsaac, Dougie MacLean, David Mallett, Del McCoury, Suzanne McDermott, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Lori McKenna, Loreena McKennitt (w00t!), Keb’ Mo’, Bill Monroe, Van Morrison, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, Nickel Creek, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Northern Lights, Laura Nyro, Bonnie Raitt, The Roches, Richard Ruane, Tom Rush, John Sebastian, Pete Seeger, Richard Shindell, Chris Smither, Son Volt, Steeleye Span, Richard Thompson, Dave Van Ronk, Suzanne Vega, Jerry Jeff Walker, Doc Watson, Gillian Welch, Dar Williams.

Sweet.

Here’s a sampling of what you WON’T hear when you listen to WMUD. None of this sort of thing either. At least at WMUD, creatures such as myself have been rendered obsolete.
Oh well.
WMUD is listener-supported. Once you listen, you’ll see that is worth supporting, Underwritings are available and it seems to me this’d be great for a progressive-owned business to throw a little bit of change at. Take a listen. It’s quite addictive.

I’m pleased to turn you onto this website. Wilson’s Almanac is a progressive almanac that comes from Australia. Great to browse through while you’re listening to WMUD and drinking Magic Hat. Wilson’s Almanac features a Book of Days with birthdays, a progressive perspective on history, pagan holidays and more, including a Word Of The Day:

Serendipity

Definition: [n]  pure luck in discovering things you were not looking for

See also: fortune, luck

1754 Horace Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, explained how he coined the word `serendipity’. He said that he based it on the

title of a fairy story, The Three Princes of Serendip, because the princes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity,

of things they were not in quest of”.

I like that. I wasn’t looking for Wilson’s Almanac when I found it, but you ought to take a look. Satisfaction guaranteed or your bookmark back.

2003: The case of the talking carp

According to two fish-cutters at the New Square (30 miles north of Manhattan, New York) Fish Market, they were about the slaughter a 20-pound carp to make into gefilte fish for Sabbath dinner, when it suddenly began shouting apocalyptic warnings in Hebrew.

At 4 pm, Zalmen Rosen, a 57-year-old Hasidic father of eleven, and his co-worker, Luis Nivelo, a Gentile who does not understand Hebrew, were about to club the carp on the head when it began yelling “Tzaruch shemirah” and “Hasof bah”, which, according to the shop owner, essentially means that everyone must account for themselves because the end is near.

Nivelo was understandably so shocked at the sight of a talking fish that he fell over, then ran into the front of the store screaming: “It’s the Devil! The Devil is here!” Not all, however, believe that the talking fish was Satanic.
The Observer reported that many of the 7,000-member Skver sect of Hasidim in New Square believed that God revealed himself in fish form, or else the loquacious carp was channelling the troubled soul of a revered community elder who had recently died.

Just don’t carp at me if you don’t like it. But I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t.
Wilson’s also features a big compendium of Iraq War lies that’s worth looking at. It’s here.

And finally…uh..a checkup from the neck up. This one is a little…..edgy……but here goes.
One of the columnists I enjoy at SevenDays is Mistress Maeve. If you like that sort of thing, it’s just the sort of thing you’ll like. A
little easier on the sensibilities than, say, Dan Savage.
Now the Mistress writes with abandon about a website she recently discovered:

But what if you prefer something more subtle and erotic? It can be overwhelming and discouraging to sift through….to find something more soft and intimate.

As for me….well…….being a guy with a strong libido, I’d discovered this site while still in Bennington. But I’d forgotten about it, and was
happy to rediscover it. Imagine, if you will, the most titillating thing you could think of……all without going below the neck.
It’s a Mistress Maeve piece, so you either know what you’re in for, or you oughta. All you’ll see here is faces….but……wow. Just..wow.
(wipes brow)
OK, the bar, and the floor, is open. Use this as one of those open thread thingies. 
If this Tavern piece seems a little bit edgy, there’s a reason for that. I’m projecting. Our conservative Christian landlords are tired of inviting us to church and church functions, either personally or by proxy, and being rebuffed each time. Therefore, we have been asked to move. Over the last three weks, Amy and I have been almost singlehandedly running two radio stations while breaking in a new program director, and in fact, I’m on the air as I write this. The weekend guy called in sick. This is my 23rd consecutive day without a break, and I’m a little..weird. And this is ME talking.
Drink up, and smoke ’em if you got ’em. If I had ’em, I would………

“I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism make me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not, strictly speaking, whether I am one or not, for I have never read their writings; mine will therefore determine the matter; for I have not in the least disguised my sentiments, but have written freely without any conscious knowledge of prejudice for, or against any man, sectary or party whatever; but wish that good sense, truth and virtue may be promoted and flourish in the world, to the detection of delusion, superstition, and false religion; and therefore my errors in the succeeding treatise, which may be rationally pointed out, will be readily rescinded.” -Ethan Allen

“General Ethan Allen of Vermont died and went to Hell this day.”
  -Reverend Doctor Ezra Stiles, president of Yale College, on learning of the death of Allen. Diary entry (12 February 1789)

“Passed by Ethan Allyn’s grave. An awful Infidel, one of ye wickedest men ye ever walked this guilty globe. I stopped & looked at his grave with a pious horror.”
  -Rev. Nathan Perkins in his Narrative Of A Tour Through The State Of Vermont on 25 May 1789.

“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
– Denis Diderot

Rep. John Conyers’ (D-MI) single-payer health care bill – now HR 676, The United States National Health Insurance Act, (Medicare For All) – has been reintroduced. This from Health Care Now:

The United States National Health Insurance Act establishes an American-styled national insurance program. The bill would create a publicly financed, privately delivered health care program that uses the already existing Medicare program by expanding and improving it to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories. The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans, guaranteed by law, will have access to the highest quality and cost effective health care services regardless of ones employment, income, or health care status.

The mental block so many big business supporters have on this issue still amazes me. The freakish skyrocketing costs of health care are one of the biggest expenses cutting into corporate bottom lines. In terms of small businesses and start ups, health care costs can be crippling. Yet a business culture that demands handouts and free rides from government all the time can’t get its confused ideological head out of its ass long enough to see that universal healthcare would be among the most advantageous “handouts” they could hope for. From HCN again:

In 2005, without reform, the average employer who offers coverage will contribute $2,600 to health care per employee ( for much skimpier benefits). Under HR 676, the average costs to employers for an employee making $30,000 per year will be reduced to $1,155 per year, less than $100 per month.

Now make no mistake – this bill will not pass – this time, but the journey of a hundred miles starts with a single step, and I firmly believe progressive legislation like this must be proposed, even if its chances are slim to none. Getting it out there gives it credibility, starts discussions, and that can snowball.

The bill already has 45 co-sponsors, including the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee Charlie Rangel, which may give it a chance at actually getting a hearing, given that Health is a Ways and Means subcommittee. Here is a link to the current list of co-sponsors (and no, Peter Welch is not on the list. Time to harass him, methinks: 202-225-4115 and 888-605-7270). For those curious about the funding mechanism, here is another link to HCN’s page on that piece of the legislation.

An extra, more personal note: When you look at the sponsors of this legislation, you’ll notice that they are all Democrats. And yet, when the bill fails, the cry will inevitably be that “the Democrats” killed it.

Bull. Some “Democrats” may well kill it, but broadly saying “the Democrats” killed it (assuming it dies) is no more or less accurate than saying “the Democrats are all for single-payer!” given the sponsor list. If you’re activiely promoting a third party, this kind of one-sided, deceptive rhetoric may serve a purpose. Similarly if you’re striking some kind of internet pose as Vermont’s only free-thinking maverick, then yeah, go for it.

If, however, you’re trying to actually, you know – achieve universal health care, we would do well to use the stick on those politicians (of any party) that stand in the way, and use the carrot on those that don’t. Blanket condemnations that hit friend and foe equally – however convenient for pose-striking – alienate your allies and don’t help the actual cause.

< /rant>

Cross posted from Rational Resistance

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”

I’ve written about this before. If government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, the paramount crime that a government can commit is lying to the people, because it undermines the very legitimacy of the government and invalidating whatever consent it received from the people. This is especially true in matters of war, because the lives of thousands or millions, and the welfare of our country and other countries are put at risk.

This is what I keep thinking about when I read the two stories this week about the kidnapping and killing of American soldiers in Iraq this week.

The first story the government put out was that the Americans were killed trying to repel an attack.

As that story started falling apart, we have learned a new, and apparently true, version of what happened.

“The attackers went straight to where Americans were located in the provincial government facility, bypassing the Iraqi police in the compound,” he said. “We are looking at all the evidence to determine who or what was responsible for the breakdown in security at the compound and the perpetration of the assault.”

As the AP puts it, “The confirmation came after nearly a week of inquiries. The U.S. military in Baghdad initially did not respond to repeated requests for comment on reports that began emerging from Iraqi government and military officials on the abduction and a major breakdown in security at the Karbala site.”

This attack happened on January 20, last Saturday.

Now let’s see, what was happening this week?

Oh yeah, the State of the Union message. You don’t think that lying about the attack to keep the focus on Bush’s message on Tuesday had anything to do with it, do you?

If democracy means anything (and I know in this country right now it means little if nothing) then one administration or legislature cannot bind its successors.  Hoping as I do for impeachment and removal, I would like to see a successor before 1 20 09.  However, as an opponent to the invasion of Iraq, as Iraq under Sadaam had nothing to do with 9/11 and our presence in Iraq both fuels our enemies and distracts us from serious tasks at hand, my policy would be immediate and total withdrawal.  There is no reason we cannot withdraw everyone in a few hours.  This is what we should do.  That, yet another post WW 1 artificial state falls apart says more about the arrogance of the ‘peace’-makers of that era.  Yes, it would be better if Iraq could fall apart peacefully as the Czechs and Slovaks did. 

I am more and more convinced that the notion of a clash of civilizations is nonsense.  Why?  It takes two to tango, as it were.  I see the ‘civilization’ of the Islamic world as dead and dead for a very long time  probably since the writings of al-Ghazali. 

Name the Islamic Shakespeare or Bach or Mozart or …  Compare South Africa with any Islamic country and my point is made.  Where is the the Iraqi Mandela?

What bothers me most about Bush et al is that they want to kill our culture as dead as the Islamic world. 

My point is simple, get out of Iraq and lets talk about more important things.  Universal health care, the trade deficit, the income gap, bigotry and homophobia, the rise of India and China, a smaller and more flexible millitary,  and GLOBAL WARMING.  Frankly, Iraq is a waste of our time, treasure and military. 

I hate to see this, but there is bad news out of Fletcher Allen Health Care. According to a press release I got this afternoon, earlier this week a patient at the psych unit at FAHC committed suicide.  They haven’t released many of the details, but apparently, accoding to the release:

  “Through our review, we learned that Fletcher Allen made a mistake, and we apologize for that mistake.

We learned that we did not check on the patient at the prescribed 15-minute intervals that were required under the care plan.  We learned
that there was a gap of approximately one hour when the patient was not checked on, and it was during that gap, that the suicide occurred.”

The average patient stay in the psychiatric facility is nine days. While some patients are being held involuntarily, either before or after commitment, FAHC also treats voluntary patients.

WCAX has more.

Late update: on the 11:00 news WPTZ is reporting that the patient was a man, although no further details have been released.

ABC News has a pretty good article and video from January 25th which details some of the origins of the fake Insight Magazine madrassa story — and the Obama camp’s response to it.

But, one section should make Obama supporters* just a little bit nervous. Even if the tone might be unfairly reinforcing the "Obama is too green" media narrative that has developed…

"About three or four months ago, something  started surfing around the Web and it was a pretty scurrilous article  suggesting not only that I had gone to a Madrassa, but that my family  members were Muslim radicals," Obama said. "And we didn’t make much of  it … you can’t control what’s on the Web. What was surprising was that  it eventually bubbled up into the mainstream media."

Were Obama, and others in his campaign, really that surprised? I certainly hope not. While some commentators have expressed admiration for the way the Obama team responded to this smear attempt, others have wondered what took them so long…

"The Obama camp didn’t know whether to deny this, thereby making it a  legitimate issue for every media organization, or whether to ignore it  and hope that false rumor would simply go away," said Larry Sabato,  Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia.  "They actually failed to make a decision promptly, which probably  brought them the worst of both worlds."

Unfortunately, what we should all have learned from the numerous, unsubstantiated smears made against the Clintons, Al Gore, Howard Dean, John Kerry, and others, is that it doesn’t matter if it’s true.

As the close of ABC’s article suggests…

"Frankly, some of this will stick because no  matter how thoroughly you debunk a story, the allegation is out there,"  Ornstein said.
 

Mark Twain once said that a lie can travel halfway around the  world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. With the  presidential campaign season heating up so soon, those lies have  already begun their travels.

So far, though, it seems to have been a few members of the netroots (particulary JHC at Obamarama.org) who’ve been handling Obama’s rapid response… um… rapidly.

*Disclosure: I’m one of them.

[While I was writing  this, I did a little surfing and realized that the Carpetbagger is discussing the same issue.]

John Edwards will speak in Hanover, NH at Dartmouth’s Alumni Hall (second floor of the Hopkins Center, right across from the Green) next Wednesday 1/31 at 2:45 p.m. Arrive early if you want to get in.

From Freyne Land:

Saw the doc at UHC as soon as possible upon returning to Beautiful Burlap. Didn’t get my doc, the one who brought me back from double pneumonia in 1995, but others on his team. (In, fact, my old doc, age 43, called me two days ago to tell me he’s ceasing his medical practice.)

Anyway, it’s been bing-bam-boom after that. Quickly to blood tests and a CAT scan and biopsy and the discovery of a lymphoma – a cancerous tumor. Just like that. The oncologist, the one who specializes in this sort of stuff, looks me in the eye and calls it “75-80 percent” curable.

Hang in there and kick its ass, Peter. We need ya.

A few weeks ago, I let you know about a dimwitted Christianist named Frosty Hardison in Washington state who got his panties in a wad when his daughter was shown Al Gore’s global warming documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, because “The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.” Yeah, dumb, I know.
Sadly, it’s not over, because the science teacher was disciplined for not alerting parents that their student would be viewing something ‘controversial’. Well, the good news is that there’s been a backlash…

Members of the school board say they have been bombarded by thousands of e-mails and phone calls, many of them hurtful and obscene, accusing them of scientific ignorance, pandering to religion and imposing prior restraint on free speech….

In public comments at the board meeting, several riled-up Federal Way residents argued that “An Inconvenient Truth” was, indeed, scientifically true and that saying otherwise is “deliberate obfuscation.”

These residents derisively compared the search for “balance” in the global-warming issue to decades of phony claims by cigarette companies about the lack of “proof” that smoking is harmful to human health.

Yep, it’s all about ‘balance’, I guess. Just look at those mountains of tangible evidence the Holocaust deniers use, right? Good luck on that one…

His daughter’s science teacher, meanwhile, said she is struggling to find authoritative articles to counter the information in the Gore documentary.

“The only thing I have found so far is an article in Newsweek called ‘The Cooling World,’ ” Walls said.

It was written 37 years ago.

I think it was Dawkins who said, ‘Every one is entitled to their own opinion. They’re not entitled to their own set of facts.’ This case is a classic example of how this man (Hardiman) should be publicly ridiculed  because of the crap he’s slinging. There’s no way around it. Meanwhile, say goodbye to the glaciers in the Alps.

I’ve mentioned it before. We constantly hear when parents got up in arms when their kids are taught science in school that contradicts their fairytale beliefs about what really happened. Ed Brayton, over at ‘Dispatches from the Cultural Wars’, when speaking of this ‘parents always know best’ phenomenon, nails it on the head:

But legal issues are not decided on what taxpayers like or dislike, nor should they be. If you put up for a vote what should be taught in public schools, the results would be frightening. And why should such a thing be put to a vote? Why would we give credence to someone to make a judgment on what ought to be taught in a science classroom if they know little or nothing about science? We don’t put medical diagnoses up for a vote of the public, nor do we take straw polls to decide what is wrong when our car doesn’t work, we defer to the judgment of those trained in medicine or auto mechanics because they have a far better chance of actually knowing what they’re talking about.

The same is true in matters of science or history or mathematics, which just like auto mechanics or medicine require a good deal of study and expertise in order to be understood. Asking the general public to decide what ought to be taught in a class in which the vast majority of them would have a vanishingly small chance of passing a mid-term exam is as absurd as asking the janitors at the hospital the best course of treatment for a herniated disk; they simply do not have the knowledge required to make an informed choice.

And so the battle rages on.

The corruption has burst forth, like pus from an infected boil. The existence of taped conversations apparently reveals Bush has taken almost 280 thousand dollars in cash and other gifts, and a US District Attorney is investigating.
This could be the Big One.
Details on the jump.

The U.S. District Attorney’s office in San Diego has issued grand jury subpoenas to multiple witnesses in the probe since October, requiring them to appear before federal investigators.

Ah, the haggis is in the fire now, Bush.

Bush has said that he and his family did nothing wrong in regard to the allegations of receiving extra benefits. Bush has not talked to federal investigators in the extortion probe.

Well, of course he said he did nothing wrong. Has he ever admitted to any sort of mistake? Not that I know of.

Here, then, is the meat and drink of the thing:

SAN DIEGO – A federal investigation into extortion claims by New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush and his family has revealed the existence of taped conversations that could confirm Bush took cash and gifts while he was playing football for the University of Southern California.
Lloyd Lake, an investor in a failed sports marketing agency which attempted to launch with Bush as its first client, is the subject of a grand jury probe into the extortion claims. The agency – called New Era Sports & Entertainment – was founded by Lake and San Diego businessman Michael Michaels. Lake told Yahoo! Sports in August 2006 that he contributed a portion of the cash and gifts allegedly given to Bush and his family as part of an agreement to represent the then-USC running back when he signed an NFL contract.

My goodness. These people are supposed to be ROLE MODELS. What do we say to the CHILDREN? Dear God, what do we say?
I realize this is not a sports blog, but I just thought you should know.
SHAME on you, Mr. Bush.