Not to be outdone by the cowpunks, here is James Hetfield throwing down on a Waylon Jennings classic.
Cowpunk
Dwight Yoakam gave an interesting interview on his early years in Los Angeles. The music he did was quite different from the Outlaw Country being produced in Nashville and in the East.
Merle Haggard once said to me, when we were doing an interview for the Country Music Hall of Fame, and they were doing an exhibit on Bakersfield, he said that the difference between the country music from Nashville and the country music from the West Coast was that country music in Nashville came from churches, and the country music in the West Coast came from honkytonks and bars. And it really was about that.He hooked up with punk rockers who were fading out of that scene, and rediscovering the older sound. It became something that sounded a bit like this:
Every 10 years, there's a cycle, and the young rockers will rediscover their heritage, if you will: the Okies, John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath heritage on the West Coast -- the country music that came out of here during the end of the dustbowl and led to the Bakersfield sound -- in greater Bakersfield, actually. It's around all the San Joaquin Valley, and its labor camps.
Oath Keepers Interfering with Racial Grievance Narrative
The Oath Keepers are a network of current and former military and police that exists to defend Constitutional rights against government overreach. There are a small number of them -- four or five according to reports -- who have deployed to Ferguson on the anniversary of the riots there. They are going among the protest groups lawfully armed. Police may have a duty that requires them to be in opposition to the protesters in terms of controlling violence and lawlessness, but in this way some of the police can show that off-duty they have an equal concern for the rights of black citizens. Although the police leadership has suggested it would prefer they go away, on the ground officers seem to have worked out an understanding with them that's keeping both sides cooler than they might otherwise be.
Naturally, this is unacceptable. It's important to remember that armed white people are scary and unwelcome. Anyone who suggests that the rights being defended first came to be realized because of similar armed citizens -- many of whom happened to be white -- are dangerous history nuts.
Naturally, this is unacceptable. It's important to remember that armed white people are scary and unwelcome. Anyone who suggests that the rights being defended first came to be realized because of similar armed citizens -- many of whom happened to be white -- are dangerous history nuts.
I Don't Want A Pickle
You can ride all year in Georgia, but I love to take the long road. The weather's getting better. School has started. The road, ah, the road...
Growing Salads in Extreme Environments
Inspired by James' comment in the second salad post: How about Iraq? Here are some photos I took myself back in the day.
A model farm our Civil-Military Ops cell and ePRT were helping the Hamdani tribe set up. Traditionally Iraqis would irrigate the way the ancients did: they'd route water from the Euphrates or Tigris to flood a field in great trenches. The sun evaporated much of it. We taught them to make small mounds of earth, and lay tubes with holes in them atop each mound. Evaporation was reduced substantially, meaning that much more land could be irrigated with the same water.
The guy in the blue shirt and ACU armor was (and is still) a US State Department diplomat. At that time he was head of the ePRT. I will withhold his name. He was a good guy, though. The guy in the khaki pants is one of his people. I mention this because the State Department gets a lot of the blame for what happened later, and its leadership deserved it. Not all of them deserve it. Some of them were right there outside the wire with us.
A simple pump moved the water from the old irrigation channel to the overhead tank. Once it was overhead, opening the valve would cause it to gravity feed to conduct the irrigation.
An American soldier attended by children, name also withheld, in those salad days of 2009 before the precipitous withdrawal plunged the nation back into war.
Traitor!
Chuck Schumer is the latest example of the reflex to label as traitors those who dare to dissent from the President's opinion.
The Israeli flag is a nice touch -- without needing words it gets in a very classic 'dual loyalty' smear against him, and warns other Jews what to expect should they dare to speak up in opposition to the One.
The Israeli flag is a nice touch -- without needing words it gets in a very classic 'dual loyalty' smear against him, and warns other Jews what to expect should they dare to speak up in opposition to the One.
Beset with salads on every side, Part II
Personally I'm all for salads, but I prefer the old-fashioned way of describing them to the sort of style that's de rigueur now: "According to NASA’s research, fresh vegetables 'could have a positive impact on people’s moods.'"
In most of the science fiction I've ever read, someone was growing veggies somewhere on the spaceship. It's got to beat MREs.
In most of the science fiction I've ever read, someone was growing veggies somewhere on the spaceship. It's got to beat MREs.
Report from the Red State Gathering
Yours truly, though a lifelong Southern Democrat, is enough of a "Reagan Democrat" to have merited an invitation to the Red State Gathering this weekend. I was there with Uncle Jimbo, and we had an excellent time. The main feature was a set of speeches and Q&A with many of the Republican Presidential candidates. (Jim Webb, the leading Southern Democrat, did not attend and was probably not invited, but it would have been nice if he had been.) I'm going to give you my sense of them.
Donald Trump was going to speak on Saturday evening, but did not appear because Erick Erickson told him he was no longer welcome. This was because of Trump's remarks about a female reporter, which were as rude as they could possibly have been. We don't speak of ladies in that way in Georgia, and Erickson properly told him not to darken the door.
Before that, however, Trump had already made a small splash. What I heard from a sponsor was that the conference had been trying to get him to appear early on the first day, as Trump has his own 757 and could be there before anyone else. Trump's people refused, as they didn't want to have him speak early in the morning. So they the conference tried to schedule him at some other time, but his people put them off until all the slots were filled. Then Trump's people decided they wanted him to come, so the conference tried to help him by allowing him to speak at a separate location from the conference proper (the College Football Hall of Fame) where they were having the closing party. Trump's people accepted, and immediately began to tell reporters that he was the "keynote" speaker, and that Red State 'had to rent a larger hall to accommodate all his crowds.'
Nice.
Of the serious Presidential candidates, Jeb Bush was clearly the media favorite. The press mobbed him like no one else. He had almost no support in the hall, though: I only met one professed Jeb Bush supporter, a guy in a red-white-and-blue suit and tie ensemble who had purchased red, white, and blue custom leather wing-tip dress shoes to go with it.
Fiorina was a crowd favorite, but everyone is worried about her experience problem. She could help herself a lot if she could put together a kitchen cabinet because people would be much readier to support her if they knew she had top, competent people who had committed to being in her corner.
Rick Perry was there without a security detail. But, you know, he carries.
Uncle J was pleased by Walker, long his favored candidate, whom he thought presented himself as competent, experienced, and a proven winner.
For me, the two best speeches were given by Rubio and Cruz. They were quite different speeches. Both of them sounded like Ronald Reagan, but different Reagans.
Rubio's was a solid General Election speech. It was warm, hopeful, moving, filled with references to family and hope and economic progress. It reminded me of the later Reagan, the Reagan of his Farewell address in which he summed up all that America had accomplished in his tenure. You came away feeling like Rubio had a similar Morning-in-America vision, and honestly believes he could turn things around and make the place shine again.
Cruz did not give a speech of that kind. Cruz is out for blood.
His speech was a Reagan Insurgency speech, the kind of speech Reagan might have given before he won the nomination in 1980. Cruz is as angry at the Republican leadership in the Senate as he is at the Democrats. He outright accused them, in exactly these words, of "playing for the other team." He is furious about the direction of the country, and is committed to overthrowing the Republican leadership, gaining the Presidency, and overturning everything Obama ever did.
The crowd was really feeling it. They reacted to that speech like no other thing I saw. These people are out for blood too.
Good.
Donald Trump was going to speak on Saturday evening, but did not appear because Erick Erickson told him he was no longer welcome. This was because of Trump's remarks about a female reporter, which were as rude as they could possibly have been. We don't speak of ladies in that way in Georgia, and Erickson properly told him not to darken the door.
Before that, however, Trump had already made a small splash. What I heard from a sponsor was that the conference had been trying to get him to appear early on the first day, as Trump has his own 757 and could be there before anyone else. Trump's people refused, as they didn't want to have him speak early in the morning. So they the conference tried to schedule him at some other time, but his people put them off until all the slots were filled. Then Trump's people decided they wanted him to come, so the conference tried to help him by allowing him to speak at a separate location from the conference proper (the College Football Hall of Fame) where they were having the closing party. Trump's people accepted, and immediately began to tell reporters that he was the "keynote" speaker, and that Red State 'had to rent a larger hall to accommodate all his crowds.'
Nice.
Of the serious Presidential candidates, Jeb Bush was clearly the media favorite. The press mobbed him like no one else. He had almost no support in the hall, though: I only met one professed Jeb Bush supporter, a guy in a red-white-and-blue suit and tie ensemble who had purchased red, white, and blue custom leather wing-tip dress shoes to go with it.
Fiorina was a crowd favorite, but everyone is worried about her experience problem. She could help herself a lot if she could put together a kitchen cabinet because people would be much readier to support her if they knew she had top, competent people who had committed to being in her corner.
Rick Perry was there without a security detail. But, you know, he carries.
Uncle J was pleased by Walker, long his favored candidate, whom he thought presented himself as competent, experienced, and a proven winner.
For me, the two best speeches were given by Rubio and Cruz. They were quite different speeches. Both of them sounded like Ronald Reagan, but different Reagans.
Rubio's was a solid General Election speech. It was warm, hopeful, moving, filled with references to family and hope and economic progress. It reminded me of the later Reagan, the Reagan of his Farewell address in which he summed up all that America had accomplished in his tenure. You came away feeling like Rubio had a similar Morning-in-America vision, and honestly believes he could turn things around and make the place shine again.
Cruz did not give a speech of that kind. Cruz is out for blood.
His speech was a Reagan Insurgency speech, the kind of speech Reagan might have given before he won the nomination in 1980. Cruz is as angry at the Republican leadership in the Senate as he is at the Democrats. He outright accused them, in exactly these words, of "playing for the other team." He is furious about the direction of the country, and is committed to overthrowing the Republican leadership, gaining the Presidency, and overturning everything Obama ever did.
The crowd was really feeling it. They reacted to that speech like no other thing I saw. These people are out for blood too.
Good.
Speaking well
The Earl of Chesterfield's account of a bill he introduced in the House of Lords in 1751 to reform the Julian Calendar:
I acquainted you in a former letter that I had brought in a bill into the House of Lords, for correcting and reforming our present calendar, which is the Julian, and for adopting the Gregorian. . . . It was notorious, that the Julian calendar was erroneous, and had overcharged the solar year with eleven days. Pope Gregory XIII. corrected this error [in 1582]; . . . It was not, in my opinion, very honourable for England to remain in a gross and avowed error, especially in such company; the inconvenience of it was likewise felt by all those who had foreign correspondences whether political or mercantile. I determined, therefore, to attempt the reformation; I consulted the best lawyers, and the most skilful astronomers, and we cooked up a bill for that purpose. But then my difficulty began; I was to bring in this bill, which was necessarily composed of law jargon and astronomical calculations, to both of which I am an utter stranger. However, it was absolutely necessary to make the House of Lords think that I knew something of the matter, and also to make them believe that they knew something of it themselves, which they do not. For my own part, I could just as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonian to them as astronomy, and they would have understood me full as well; so I resolved to do better than speak to the purpose, and to please instead of informing them. I gave them, therefore, only an historical account of calendars, from the Egyptian down to the Gregorian, amusing them now and then with little episodes; but I was particularly attentive to the choice of my words, to the harmony and roundness of my periods, to my eloquence, to my action. This succeeded, and ever will succeed; they thought I informed, because I pleased them; and many of them said, that I had made the whole very clear to them, when, God knows, I had not even attempted it. Lord Macclesfield, who had the greatest share in forming the bill and who is one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers in Europe, spoke afterwards with infinite knowledge, and all the clearness that so intricate a matter would admit of; but as his words, his periods and his utterance were not near so good as mine, the preference was most unanimously, though most unjustly, given to me....
Salad
From The Holy State, by Thomas Fuller (1642):
[A]t our yeoman's table you shall have as many joints as dishes. No meat disguised with strange sauces, no straggling joint of a sheep in the midst of a pasture of grass, beset with salads on every side, but solid substantial food . . . .From Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov (1962):
I am a strict vegetarian...The usual questions were fired at me about eggnogs and milkshakes being or not being acceptable to one of my persuasion. Shade said that with him it was the other way around: he must make a definite effort to partake of a vegetable. Beginning a salad, was to him like stepping into sea water on a chilly day, and he had always to brace himself in order to attack the fortress of an apple.
Choking shale
The Democratic Party may yet succeed in choking the life out of the shale-oil industry, but if that's what the Saudis were trying to do, it's back-fired:
Khalid Alsweilem, a former official at the Saudi central bank and now at Harvard University, . . . wrote in a Harvard report that Saudi Arabia would have an extra trillion of assets by now if it had adopted the Norwegian model of a sovereign wealth fund to recyle the money instead of treating it as a piggy bank for the finance ministry. The report has caused [a] storm in Riyadh.
"We were lucky before because the oil price recovered in time. But we can't count on that again," he said.
OPEC have left matters too late, though perhaps there is little they could have done to combat the advances of American technology.
In hindsight, it was a strategic error to hold prices so high, for so long, allowing shale frackers - and the solar industry - to come of age. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle.That's a funny aside about allowing solar to "come of age," though. I'm afraid that genie has only begun to think of peeking over the edge of the bottle.
This Is Alarming
I can't recall any time in years in which the US has had no aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf -- which, by the way, we call "the Arabian Gulf" in order to side with the Gulf States against Iran's claim to the waters. Just a coincidence that this first "gap" in years is going to coincide with Congress' Iran vote, but it does make it easier for Iran to be provocative if it decides to be. Maybe they'll be on good behavior in the hope of not provoking a no vote, but maybe not, and in any case hope is not a plan.
Apparently a Serious Concern in Sydney, Australia
"Dungeons and Dragons: sinister craze or good night in?"
You're a little late to the party. We did this like thirty years ago in America. Turns out, it's just good fun. Kids benefit from trying on various roles, exploring what it means to be heroic.
Some of them even go on to try out the lessons they learned in real life. Imagine.
You're a little late to the party. We did this like thirty years ago in America. Turns out, it's just good fun. Kids benefit from trying on various roles, exploring what it means to be heroic.
Some of them even go on to try out the lessons they learned in real life. Imagine.
Criminal
The NY Post is reporting that the FBI inquiry into Clinton's emails is a criminal probe. But the claim is qualified.
“My guess is they’re looking to see if there’s been either any breach of that data that’s gone into the wrong hands [in Clinton’s case], through their counter-intelligence group, or they are looking to see if a crime has been committed,” said Makin Delrahim, former chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, who served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Bush DOJ.The problem is that their CI branch and their criminal branches are separate. We could still be looking at merely a counterintelligence assessment, somehow separate from a questioning of her security clearance. But keep an eye on it. There's an outside chance that the Department of Justice might be interested, for a moment, in justice.
“They’re not in the business of providing advisory security services,” Delrahim said of the FBI. “This is real.”
MONKROCK
From a Real Clear Religion article I recently ran across:
And they have their own coffee, as well at t-shirts, art, etc.
There are obvious similarities between punk rock and religious monasticism.
Both are cultures that deviate from the mainstream. Both eschew high fashion in favor of simplicity. Both believe in a Do It Yourself (DIY) ethic. (Corporate label won't sell your record? Produce and distribute it yourself. The secular world is obsessed with fame and toys? Wear a robe and shave your head.)
Punks and monks are about a stripped-down opposition to a sinful world that can [b]e sermonized into making sense.
Enter MONKROCK. The all-caps official name of the company is the brainchild of Kevin Clay, a musician and artist who lives in Tennessee. Clay, who is a "lay monastic," believes that the most authentic expression of punk in 2015 is traditional Catholic monasticism.
...
And they have their own coffee, as well at t-shirts, art, etc.
It's True What They Say...
You know you've really got trouble when the soldiers stop complaining about the food.
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