From: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org (JMDL Digest) To: joni-digest@smoe.org Subject: JMDL Digest V2007 #212 Reply-To: joni@smoe.org Sender: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-joni-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk Unsubscribe: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe Archives: http://www.smoe.org/lists/joni Website: http://jonimitchell.com JMDL Digest Tuesday, May 29 2007 Volume 2007 : Number 212 ========== TOPICS and authors in this Digest: -------- Lord Jim's in B.C. [] Re: (NJC) One Minute Each Night... [jeannie ] She's everywhere! [Chuck Eisenhardt ] Fenway!!! (njc) [waytoblue@comcast.net] gas prices, njc ["Patti Parlette" ] Re: NJC Gas prices/troops ["AJ" ] Re: NJC gas prices [LCStanley7@aol.com] (NJC) One Minute Each Night... ["Marianne Rizzo" ] I have inspired another! [Motitan@aol.com] Re: I have inspired another! [Bob.Muller@Fluor.com] Re: NJC gas prices ["Lori Fye" ] (NJC) Music to lift weights by ["Lori Fye" ] Re: (NJC) Music to lift weights by [Bob.Muller@Fluor.com] njc, Vaya con Dios, Cindy, y gracias! ["Patti Parlette" ] Re: njc, Vaya con Dios, Cindy, y gracias! [Em ] Re: njc, Vaya con Dios, Cindy, y gracias! ["Lori Fye" ] (NJC) Part of why I'm so crabby lately ["Lori Fye" ] New York Times ["Gerald A. Notaro" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 00:04:44 -0700 From: Subject: Lord Jim's in B.C. Great Joni riff, as always, Patti! Funny you should mention that gin drink. One of the testimonials on the resort web page comes from an elderly couple who celebrated the husband's 80th birthday there and they particularly commended the bartender on an "excellent martini." LOL I almost imagined they were those rockin retirees that barged in on Joni way back ;-) I look at the photos and they all look straight off the album art on FTR. Yes, it is as beautiful as it looks - even more so. I have some photos of the place and area and maybe can post them at some point. Now if we fill up the whole place, the overflow can always stay down the road at another Joni story place - the Jolly Roger Inn. I don't know if they have renovated, too, but the place also sits right on a gorgeous cove. "I'm lookin way out on the ocean - love to see that green water in motion..." Kakki ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 02:20:59 -0700 (PDT) From: jeannie Subject: Re: (NJC) One Minute Each Night... Lori Fye wrote: Someone said that if people really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have. Thank You. Whoa! Awestriking thoughts that leave me without words. Dreaming Dreamland, Jeannie jjj . - --------------------------------- Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 04:32:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Em Subject: Re: NJC Gas prices/troops I discovered that I don't support the troops. I learned this after reading the words of one wounded soldier at Walter Reed, following their rejection of Joan Baez. He basically said that if you don't support my mission over there, and what I have to do to accomplish it then you don't support me. So, guess what? I don't support him. I continue every once in a while to send phone cards and magazine subscriptions over....but that's about it. No support from me, above and beyond taxes and a small gift or 2. There's too much information right now. Too much swirling around. Its the opposite of the 60's. Back then there was one way to be, and your job was to bust out of it. Now there's 30 zillion ways to be and your job is to find one that leaves you not nauseated. That's my goal for today, the next and the next. And if its not enough for someone, then bite me. We have the hawks on one hand - you're not doing enough to support the troops, and on the other hand some supposed peace people - you're not doing enough to end the war....and in the end a person feels terribly unbalanced, and with no one to follow. C'mon, can't a leader step forward? I see no leader. Em - --- Lori Fye wrote: > > People do take our freedom for granted. Why do they/we do this? > They/we > don't know any other way. > > Why do they/we do this? Because we're overfed, isolated, > unappreciative, > lazy slobs. We're supposedly such a smart bunch, but we don't know > any > other way? That's friggin' sad. > > I've been thinking that I'll create some new bumperstickers: > > "I support the troops, but only with these words." > > "I support the troops, but I'm not willing to make any sort of > sacrifice." > > "I support the troops with my taxes -- isn't that enough?" > > "I support the troops, but don't take away my iPod!" (or my SUV, or > whatever ...) > > "I'm proud to be an American, but this isn't my war." > > (Ha. That's not how the rest of the world sees it -- or Americans.) > > Again, my comments aren't meant to be personal to anyone. But some > points > have been raised, and, peppered with my own petty annoyances, the > above > statements are what I'm "hearing" right now. > > Lori > Santa Rosa, CA > Stand, don't you know that you are free?well at least in your mind, if you want to be......Sly Free your mind and the rest will follow....En Vogue ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 07:56:18 -0400 From: Chuck Eisenhardt Subject: She's everywhere! Recently the Boston Globe ran a story about an increase in coyote' sightings around the city neighborhoods and the region. Coverage included a picture of a concerned resident of Roslindale searching the neighborhood with a baseball bat (presumably to dispatch this animal and her pups.) Several readers seem to feel this response, and indeed the tone of the coverage to be inappropriate, and wrote letters to the editor. These letters were published under the headline "Regrets, Coyote" ChuckE ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 12:40:14 +0000 From: waytoblue@comcast.net Subject: Fenway!!! (njc) Made it to Fenway Park last night for the RedSox vs. the Cleveland Indians. It was an awesome night to be at the ballpark. I had bought a ticket that day from StubHub who seemed pretty reliable. When I got to the gate however, they told me my ticket had already been used. Initially, I was a bit freaked out but I didn't worry too much as I learned a long time ago, not to read too much good or bad into anything. So I went back to the StubHub office down the street, told them what had happened and they were super nice, told me not to worry, that this happens with printout tickets sometimes, and they refunded some of the money I paid and upgraded me to an even better section so all in all, it worked out rather well. Instead of being in the outfield bleachers on row 1 I was now in the infield grandstand on row 4, near third base. From where I sat I had an excellent view of the field. Just being there was a complete religious experience. I got to see Manny Ramirez hit a homerun into the green monster and Kevin Youkalis hit an inside the park homer, something I'd never seen before. There was even a little drama in the 9th when the bases were loaded with Indians but the Red Sox prevailed! There was so much to soak in and words are probably insufficient to express but it was truly a rich experience and one of those extended moments where you think to yourself, this is what life is all about, seeing the Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston. There was servicewoman (airforce maybe, can't remember) who had an amazing voice and sang the national anthem as well as God Bless America in the 7th which was incredibly moving and a great way to remember all of the fallen heroes...sent shivers down my spine. It's all well and good to hate George Bush and find fault with America but at other times I feel how much I love this country and think of all the beautiful things that are here, in this case, being at Fenway Park at the Red Sox game, listening to God Bless America. I've never felt it a good thing to buy too much into hate, hate of anything. Cause it will destroy you, or at least impede your ability to just enjoy life and be thankful for things that are good and wonderful. And this night truly was! Victor ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 12:50:18 +0000 From: "Patti Parlette" Subject: gas prices, njc Chelsea Morning! Muller, in his search to impress Marianne, which don't seem to cease, wrote: >(Of course the REAL reason I got it was so that Marianne would be impressed with me.) And our rainbow girl wrote: been impressed since day 1 XO See, Bob? The times you impress her the most, are the times you don't try. When you don't even try! Now just don't go laying down an impression of your loneliness on her! Love & Peace, Patti P., late for Morning UConn Town NPIMH: I Want to Be Bobbys' Girl (cuz two Bobbys are better than one, sitting in the backseat thrilling to the Joni-like things that they said as they got lost on the Roundabout on the way to Joni Fest) _________________________________________________________________ PC Magazines 2007 editors choice for best Web mailaward-winning Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_pcmag_0507 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 08:05:31 -0500 From: "AJ" Subject: Re: NJC Gas prices/troops - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Em" >I discovered that I don't support the troops. I learned this after > reading the words of one wounded soldier at Walter Reed, following > their rejection of Joan Baez. > > He basically said that if you don't support my mission over there, and > what I have to do to accomplish it then you don't support me. So, guess > what? I don't support him. The solider's probably young and not very well educated and hurt and buying the party line. I think most of the military knows the public supports them. In fact I believe that while apparently the president and the people around him learned NOTHING from Viet Nam, the American public did, namely that one can be against a pointless destructive war and at the same time support the men and women who are fighting it. The possibility that one can hold complex feelings at the same time (which is what Keats and F Scott Fitzgerald described as true intelligence) is too difiicult a concept for the Fox crew et al to get. I myself have been grappling with it since I was a child, when a war I knew was pointless, and which I later as a teenager protested in college, was a war my father was fighting and which several of my friends' fathers had died fighting. Aaargh. Every time I watch the news I think of Yeats's line (Joni content), "The best lack all conviction / While the worst are filled with passionate intensity." Seems to sum up the leadership of this country, on both the liberal and conservative sides, pretty well. - --AJ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 09:51:43 EDT From: LCStanley7@aol.com Subject: Re: NJC gas prices A little bit of a flag flyer wrote: > Btw, Em, I agree with you about some sort of service being required. > Doesn't have to be military, imo. But SOMETHING should be required, and for > a long enough time to make a dent in person's psyche. > taxes big dent " I am proud to be paying taxes in the United States. The only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money." Arthur Godfrey NPIMH: Tax man Love, Laura ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 11:24:28 -0400 From: "Marianne Rizzo" Subject: (NJC) One Minute Each Night... let's do it. . that's beautiful, Lori. could someone remind me? From: "Lori Fye" Subject: (NJC) One Minute Each Night... I'm not a religious person, but I do believe in the power of collective thought (or prayer, if you choose to call it that). In the spirit of peace, I offer this, which came to me from elsewhere. I've modified it only slightly to include ALL people (rather than just Americans), as well as a comment about other time zones. *Subject:* One Minute Each Night... During WWII, there was an advisor to Churchill who organized a group of people who dropped what they were doing every night at a prescribed hour for one minute to collectively pray for the safety of England, its people, and peace. This had an amazing effect, as bombing stopped. There is now a group of people organizing the same thing in America. If you would like to participate: Each evening at 9:00 PM Eastern Time, 8:00 PM Central, 7:00 PM Mountain, 6:00 PM Pacific, stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of all troops, all citizens, and for peace in the world. (I guess this would be 1 AM Greenwich Mean Time, 2 AM British Summer Time so if you happen to be awake ...) If you know anyone who would like to participate, please pass this along. Someone said that if people really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have. Thank You. _________________________________________________________________ More photos, more messages, more storageget 2GB with Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_2G_0507 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 11:30:09 EDT From: Motitan@aol.com Subject: I have inspired another! By talking about Joni's music and quoting lyrics here and there I have inspired a friend of mine to get a bunch of her albums. He was telling me he was getting some Joni albums today and I asked him, why the sudden interest? And he said, "well you always talk about her..." This brings me joy as I just want to spread the joy! What's wrong with that? More Joni in the world makes it a better world.....! - -Monika NP: Banquet-Joni ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 13:29:29 -0400 From: Bob.Muller@Fluor.com Subject: Re: I have inspired another! Congratulations, Monika - it is far easier for you to influence your generation than old fogies like me. Speaking of more Joni in the world, I just heard "Conversation" at lunchtime - it played on XM's "Deep Tracks" channel. It's not exactly ideal music to lift weights by, but it was still pretty cool. Bob NP: Elvis C, "Pay It Back" - ------------------------------------------------------------ The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain proprietary, business-confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that any use, review, retransmission, dissemination, distribution, reproduction or any action taken in reliance upon this message is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and may not necessarily reflect the views of the company. - ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 10:46:38 -0700 From: "Lori Fye" Subject: Re: NJC gas prices I wrote: >> Btw, Em, I agree with you about some sort of service being required. >> Doesn't have to be military, imo. But SOMETHING should be required, and >> for a long enough time to make a dent in person's psyche. Laura replied: > taxes > big dent Nope, I don't buy that. You may believe your taxes to be expensive or excessive (I don't think mine are either, I'm glad to pay them, would pay more and have paid more, willingly). You may think the money you pay into the system is mismanaged (I agree, but that's a hazard of bureaucracy, a hazard of having allowed the tax code to run to 90,000 pages, a hazard of not at least attempting the use of a flat tax rate). However, paying taxes -- regardless of whether you think you pay too much, the right amount, or too little -- is a relatively painless procedure. You pay when you buy things, you pay through payroll deductions, you pay a couple of times a year when you write a check for property taxes, etc. Those payments are routine, and you expect them. I'm talking about a requirement outside of the everyday expected stuff. Something that sticks in your craw and makes you appreciate all that you have. Maybe paying taxes does that for you. It doesn't it do it for most, though, and certainly not for me. Btw, for the record, when I hear people complaining about paying their taxes, the first word that comes to my mind is: Republican!! ; ) Lori Santa Rosa, CA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 10:54:25 -0700 From: "Lori Fye" Subject: (NJC) Music to lift weights by > Speaking of more Joni in the world, I just heard "Conversation" at > lunchtime - it played on XM's "Deep Tracks" channel. It's not exactly > ideal music to lift weights by, but it was still pretty cool. Okay, there's a new thread idea ... What IS good music to lift weights by? Lori Santa Rosa, CA NPIMH: "We come for [lift & exhale, hold that weight] ... conversation [lower, hold] ...." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 15:14:22 -0400 From: Bob.Muller@Fluor.com Subject: Re: (NJC) Music to lift weights by I just like to have something with some energy behind it. I don't try and do reps in time with the music, though I admit that the opportunity to do so does present itself from time to time, just like when I'm running and a song comes on the ipod that is just at the pace I want to run to (for instance, "Wednesday" by the Drive-By Truckers or "The Sound of Settling" by Death Cab For Cutie). That being said, Foo Fighters and Van Halen are great to lift to - lots of energy there. Bob NP: Joni, "Both Sides Now" (orchestral version) - ------------------------------------------------------------ The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain proprietary, business-confidential and/or privileged material. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that any use, review, retransmission, dissemination, distribution, reproduction or any action taken in reliance upon this message is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and may not necessarily reflect the views of the company. - ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 19:49:14 +0000 From: "Patti Parlette" Subject: njc, Vaya con Dios, Cindy, y gracias! Warning: very long and heavy and political. If there's no good reception for me, then tune me out. It was very late last night when this walked into my in-box: CNN) -- Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who became an anti-war leader after her son was killed in Iraq, declared Monday she was walking away from the peace movement. She said her son died "for nothing." Sheehan achieved national attention when she camped outside President Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, throughout August 2005 to demand a meeting with the president over her son's death. While Bush ignored her, the vigil made her one of the most prominent figures among opponents of the war. But in a Web diary posted to the liberal online community Daily Kos on Monday, Sheehan said she was exhausted by the personal, financial and emotional toll of the past two years. She wrote that she is disillusioned by the failure of Democratic politicians to bring the unpopular war to an end and tired of a peace movement she said "often puts personal egos above peace and human life." Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in an April 2004 battle in Baghdad. His death prompted his mother to found Gold Star Families for Peace. But in Monday's 1,200-word letter, titled, "Good Riddance Attention Whore," Sheehan announced that her son "did indeed die for nothing." "I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful," she wrote. "Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. "It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years, and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most." Cindy Sheehan's sister, DeDe Miller, told CNN that the group would continue working for humanitarian causes, but drop its involvement in the anti-war movement. As for her sister's letter, Miller said, "She cried for quite a bit after writing it." Sheehan warned that the United States was becoming "a fascist corporate wasteland," and that onetime allies among Bush's Democratic opposition turned on her when she began trying to hold them accountable for bringing the 4-year-old war to a close. In the meantime, she said her antiwar activism had cost her her marriage, that she had put the survivor's benefits paid for her son's death and all her speaking and book fees into the cause and that she now owed extensive medical bills. "I am going to take whatever I have left and go home," she wrote. "I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. "I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble." - ------------ Oh, I was so heartbroken to read this late last night! It was like a sucker punch. I am on a lonely road and I am processing, processing, processing this news. I can understand her weariness. Waging peace against this humongous ugly war machine takes energy and dog-eat-dog determination, day after day. I experienced this in miniature last Wednesday. I didn't share this at the time, but I felt drained and exhausted and helplessly hoping after the demonstration in New London. It is hard work, physically and mentally. I had blisters on my feet and was tired from lugging home all these big signs to share with others. And mean people calling us names. Just like when I worked for Lamont last year. You have to get yourself really pumped up, and you CARE so much you can feel it in your bones and soul, and then when it all comes down to smoke and ash, it's so hard to pick yourself up again and carry on. And all the people who refuse to listen to the truth (finger in their ears), or think, or see -- it can be maddening. So God bless Cindy for her work, day after day after day after day. The hope and the hopelessness she's witnessed nearly 30 months (or so). Joni said there's a wide world of noble causes and, in my opinion, Cindy picked the noblest of all when she camped out on the land next to that ranch in Crawford TX demanding to ask Bloody George: "What is the noble cause?" Yeah, George. WTF is the noble cause? Money. He said it himself, in a rare slip-up moment of honesty during his press conference on Valentine's Day this year: "Money trumps peace." He said that! No, you didn't hear it replayed on the news, or in the newspapers. It was pretty much ignored. But I heard it with my own ears and went into orbit (heaven above and astronauts!). I could not believe it. I even looked up the verb "trump" in the dictionary to make sure of what I was hearing. When I met Cindy on December 5, 2005, the first thing I saw in her face was this terrible weariness/grief. But I also saw tremendous dog-eat-dog determination. The both-sides-now of her face was amazing. I have never been so inspired by one solitary person in my life. After our semi-private dinner (15 people), and her public talk, she signed her book "Not One More Mother's Child" w/ this: "Patti, nice to meet you. Love and peace, Cindy" I then told her that I pray for her and Casey every day (oh merde, here come those tears again) and she abruptly lifted her head and looked into my eyes, almost startled, and grabbed my hand and kissed it, with her eyes closed, for about 10 seconds. Some special mother to mother connection. One lucky mother whose precious son beat the bullet, one grieving mother whose precious son did not. Her grief-fueled energy went all through my circuits like a heartbeat and I feel the electricity to this day. Talk about a rich exchange! She certainly deserves some rest and I wish her every ounce of love and peace she can find, but at the same I am blue and sad that she is so discouraged. I have to beware of contagious emotions, because I am prone to that. Maybe it's sensitivity. No. I will not be broken. I just told my dept. head that I am quitting my job to carry the torch, and she said she would quit and be right behind me. Ah, at least some of us remain...to carry on. It's down to us, folks. Thank you Cindy, over and over and over again my friend, for all you have to done to spark the peace movement. Now you rest. You deserve it. Maybe Tina doesn't need another hero, but I do. I need some sweet inspiration. Joni, please hurry and "Shine" on us! Love & peace, Patti P. NPIHM: We Don't Need Another Hero Tina Turner Out of the ruins Out from the wreckage Can't make the same mistake this time We are the children The last generation We are the ones they left behind And I wonder when we are ever gonna change Living under the fear, till nothing else remains We don't need another hero We don't need to know the way home All we want is life beyond Thunderdome (substitute Houston Astrodome here?) Looking for something We can rely on There's gotta be something better out there Love and compassion Their day is coming All else are castles built in the air And I wonder when we are ever gonna change Living under the fear till nothing else remains All the children say We don't need another hero We don't need to know the way home All we want is life beyond Thunderdome So what do we do with our lifes We leave only a mark Will our story shine like a light Or end in the dark Give it all or nothing We don't need another hero We don't need to know the way home All we want is life beyond Thunderdome P.S. Cindy's "resignation letter" (in the hopes that got so slim, she just resigned) is here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/28/12530/1525 Just my 25 cents in the Wurlitzer! _________________________________________________________________ PC Magazines 2007 editors choice for best Web mailaward-winning Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_pcmag_0507 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 20:06:13 +0000 From: "Sherelle Smith" Subject: RE: njc, Vaya con Dios, Cindy, y gracias! Dear Patti, Thank you for sharing your heart. I knew it was something you had to do and was indeed done from the heart. I also thank you for including me personally on this as I am still wading through digests and trying to catch up. You and I had been sharing our hearts and I am glad to see your strength and courage to do so publicly. i think many of us are weary and tired of this situation. My heart and my thoughts go out to Cindy. Thank you for sharing this article. Love, Sherelle Patti wrote: > >Warning: very long and heavy and political. If there's no good reception >for me, then tune me out. > >It was very late last night when this walked into my in-box: > >CNN) -- Cindy Sheehan, the California mother who became an anti-war leader >after her son was killed in Iraq, declared Monday she was walking away from >the peace movement. > >She said her son died "for nothing." > >Sheehan achieved national attention when she camped outside President >Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, throughout August 2005 to demand a meeting >with the president over her son's death. > >While Bush ignored her, the vigil made her one of the most prominent >figures among opponents of the war. > >But in a Web diary posted to the liberal online community Daily Kos on >Monday, Sheehan said she was exhausted by the personal, financial and >emotional toll of the past two years. > >She wrote that she is disillusioned by the failure of Democratic >politicians to bring the unpopular war to an end and tired of a peace >movement she said "often puts personal egos above peace and human life." > >Casey Sheehan, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in an April 2004 >battle in Baghdad. His death prompted his mother to found Gold Star >Families for Peace. > >But in Monday's 1,200-word letter, titled, "Good Riddance Attention Whore," >Sheehan announced that her son "did indeed die for nothing." > >"I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful," she >wrote. "Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the >next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few >months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. > >"It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many >years, and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and >that hurts the most." > >Cindy Sheehan's sister, DeDe Miller, told CNN that the group would continue >working for humanitarian causes, but drop its involvement in the anti-war >movement. As for her sister's letter, Miller said, "She cried for quite a >bit after writing it." > >Sheehan warned that the United States was becoming "a fascist corporate >wasteland," and that onetime allies among Bush's Democratic opposition >turned on her when she began trying to hold them accountable for bringing >the 4-year-old war to a close. > >In the meantime, she said her antiwar activism had cost her her marriage, >that she had put the survivor's benefits paid for her son's death and all >her speaking and book fees into the cause and that she now owed extensive >medical bills. > >"I am going to take whatever I have left and go home," she wrote. "I am >going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain >some of what I have lost. > >"I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I >have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to >repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this >single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am >afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble." > >------------ > >Oh, I was so heartbroken to read this late last night! It was like a >sucker punch. > >I am on a lonely road and I am processing, processing, processing this >news. > >I can understand her weariness. Waging peace against this humongous ugly >war machine takes energy and dog-eat-dog determination, day after day. I >experienced this in miniature last Wednesday. I didn't share this at the >time, but I felt drained and exhausted and helplessly hoping after the >demonstration in New London. It is hard work, physically and mentally. I >had blisters on my feet and was tired from lugging home all these big signs >to share with others. And mean people calling us names. Just like when I >worked for Lamont last year. You have to get yourself really pumped up, >and you CARE so much you can feel it in your bones and soul, and then when >it all comes down to smoke and ash, it's so hard to pick yourself up again >and carry on. And all the people who refuse to listen to the truth (finger >in their ears), or think, or see -- it can be maddening. > >So God bless Cindy for her work, day after day after day after day. The >hope and the hopelessness she's witnessed nearly 30 months (or so). Joni >said there's a wide world of noble causes and, in my opinion, Cindy picked >the noblest of all when she camped out on the land next to that ranch in >Crawford TX demanding to ask Bloody George: > >"What is the noble cause?" > >Yeah, George. WTF is the noble cause? > >Money. > >He said it himself, in a rare slip-up moment of honesty during his press >conference on Valentine's Day this year: > >"Money trumps peace." > >He said that! No, you didn't hear it replayed on the news, or in the >newspapers. It was pretty much ignored. But I heard it with my own ears >and went into orbit (heaven above and astronauts!). I could not believe >it. I even looked up the verb "trump" in the dictionary to make sure of >what I was hearing. > >When I met Cindy on December 5, 2005, the first thing I saw in her face was >this terrible weariness/grief. But I also saw tremendous dog-eat-dog >determination. The both-sides-now of her face was amazing. I have never >been so inspired by one solitary person in my life. > >After our semi-private dinner (15 people), and her public talk, she signed >her book "Not One More Mother's Child" w/ this: "Patti, nice to meet you. >Love and peace, Cindy" I then told her that I pray for her and Casey every >day (oh merde, here come those tears again) and she abruptly lifted her >head and looked into my eyes, almost startled, and grabbed my hand and >kissed it, with her eyes closed, for about 10 seconds. Some special mother >to mother connection. One lucky mother whose precious son beat the bullet, >one grieving mother whose precious son did not. Her grief-fueled energy >went all through my circuits like a heartbeat and I feel the electricity to >this day. Talk about a rich exchange! > >She certainly deserves some rest and I wish her every ounce of love and >peace she can find, but at the same I am blue and sad that she is so >discouraged. I have to beware of contagious emotions, because I am prone >to that. Maybe it's sensitivity. > >No. I will not be broken. > >I just told my dept. head that I am quitting my job to carry the torch, and >she said she would quit and be right behind me. Ah, at >least some of us remain...to carry on. It's down to us, folks. > >Thank you Cindy, over and over and over again my friend, for all you have >to done to spark the peace movement. Now you rest. You deserve it. > >Maybe Tina doesn't need another hero, but I do. I need some sweet >inspiration. Joni, please hurry and "Shine" on us! > >Love & peace, > >Patti P. > >NPIHM: > >We Don't Need Another Hero >Tina Turner > >Out of the ruins >Out from the wreckage >Can't make the same mistake this time >We are the children >The last generation >We are the ones they left behind >And I wonder when we are ever gonna change >Living under the fear, till nothing else remains > >We don't need another hero >We don't need to know the way home >All we want is life beyond >Thunderdome (substitute Houston Astrodome here?) > >Looking for something >We can rely on >There's gotta be something better out there >Love and compassion >Their day is coming >All else are castles built in the air >And I wonder when we are ever gonna change >Living under the fear till nothing else remains > >All the children say >We don't need another hero >We don't need to know the way home >All we want is life beyond >Thunderdome > >So what do we do with our lifes >We leave only a mark >Will our story shine like a light >Or end in the dark >Give it all or nothing > >We don't need another hero >We don't need to know the way home >All we want is life beyond >Thunderdome > >P.S. Cindy's "resignation letter" (in the hopes that got so slim, she just >resigned) is here: >http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/28/12530/1525 > >Just my 25 cents in the Wurlitzer! > >_________________________________________________________________ >PC Magazines 2007 editors choice for best Web mailaward-winning Windows >Live Hotmail. >http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_pcmag_0507 > _________________________________________________________________ Like the way Microsoft Office Outlook works? Youll love Windows Live Hotmail. http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_outlook_0507 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 14:11:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Brian Gross Subject: Gas/petrol prices (njc) I know that this thread has drifted into other areas (like national service) but I just learned of a very cool site related to fuel prices here in the US and in Canada too. You might want to check it out: http://gasbuddy.com Glad my car get 30mpg (13km/L)with prices the way they are! Brian nw: rosie vs elizabeth - ----------------------------------------------------------- Politicians and diapers both need to be changed often. And usually for the same reasons. - ----------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 14:43:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Em Subject: Re: njc, Vaya con Dios, Cindy, y gracias! She must be so weary. I hope she can recharge. Just for her own sake, at this point, if nothing else. To sort herself out. I hope she feels better soon and can find some sort of peace. She will not be forgotten, and Casey won't either. Em ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 15:50:13 -0700 From: "Lori Fye" Subject: Re: njc, Vaya con Dios, Cindy, y gracias! From Cindy's letter on the Daily Kos ( http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/28/12530/1525): "I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither. If an individual wants both, then normally he/she is not willing to do more than walk in a protest march or sit behind his/her computer criticizing others." Yep. Em wrote: > She will not be forgotten, and Casey won't either. Actually, I think you're right and not-so-right. My predictions, sad as they are, are these: Cindy Sheehan will become the subject of a Trivial Pursuit question/answer (maybe for the Trivial Pursuit: War Edition), and her name will remain on the fringes of American memory. But I'll bet that, by this time next year, almost no one will be able to recall Casey's name. Or maybe he will become the subject of a Final Jeopardy! question/answer. How much would you wager? Personally, I salute Cindy for everything she tried to do. She did far more than most ever would. Lori Santa Rosa, CA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 16:25:06 -0700 From: "Lori Fye" Subject: (NJC) Part of why I'm so crabby lately This afternoon, a newer model VW Beetle caught fire in front of our office building, which faces a busy five lane street. The fire began inside the vehicle and at first was so small you had to really look to see it. Very quickly, large flames were shooting from the car. A man from an office in our building grabbed a fire extinguisher, ran outside, and attempted to put out the fire, which had real momentum by then. At just about the same time, a fire truck arrived and the fire was soon completely extinguished. Our receptionist, a young woman of 25, remarked that she couldn't believe the guy with the fire extinguisher had risked his own safety to try to put out the fire. "That was stupid," she declared. I explained to her that he no doubt quickly weighed the risk to himself versus the damage that would have been caused by an exploding car, and decided the risk was worth it. Afterall, had that car exploded it would have behaved as a bomb, causing -- at a minimum -- the windows in the front of our building to shatter, and most probably flinging the equivalent of schrapnel in many directions. Someone in one or more of the cars driving by the burning vehicle could have been injured or killed. I think her eyes glazed over, as they always do whenever the subject isn't about *her*. She just doesn't get it. She doesn't seem to have a clue why someone would do something that might put themselves at risk, for the possible benefit of someone else. (I swear, just this minute she remarked to another one of our staff that the guy with the extinguisher was, "Chivalrous, maybe, but ... hm" like the dude must have been completely out of his mind. To the extent that "chivalrous" can mean courageous or courteous, she's right. However, I told her a more appropriate word would be "selfless." I'm sitting here just shaking my head ...) I keep running into young people like this. What the hell is going on, that they don't think of anyone but themselves? Are they just reflections of their parents, or are they reflections of American society as a whole? And can we ship them all off to somewhere else? Lori Santa Rosa, CA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 20:01:27 -0400 (EDT) From: "Gerald A. Notaro" Subject: New York Times From the Sunday Times article The New Tributes, and an Old Triangle HAVE all the great songs already been written? That might justify the latest outpouring of tributes and tribute albums: remakes, with and without conceptual overlay, of material that other musicians admire but aren't afraid to transform. In the age of the sample, the remix and countless YouTube parodies, entire songs and sometimes entire albums are still being recycled and reclaimed, and musicians are presenting themselves as critics, curators and -- above all -- fans. Among a wave of tribute albums released this season, ''A Tribute to Joni Mitchell'' (Nonesuch) does just about everything right. Immediately recognizable performers -- Prince, Annie Lennox, Bjork, Emmylou Harris -- take on Ms. Mitchell's idiosyncratic songs with a balance of humility and chutzpah; they are fans who won't reduce themselves to disciples. On tribute albums, musicians show the world the songs they care about. But with the narcissism that every artist needs, they assert that they see themselves reflected in their idols. When a tribute album works best, musicians reveal both what they learned and how they made it their own. Tribute albums have always been exercises in memory and continuity, mapping connections of sound and style. They trade on familiar songs or famous names, but what they promise is not an oldies experience (or for that matter, the experience provided by tribute bands that mimic name-brand acts). They aim for relevance, not nostalgia. And now, in the era of the isolated MP3 download and the randomly shuffled playlist, tribute albums aren't just homages to musicians. They are also tributes to the vanishing idea of the album itself: that a collection of songs can still mean something as a whole. That is the strategy behind another worthwhile tribute album, ''The Sandinista! Project'' (00:02:59), a song-by-song remake of the Clash's 1980 album ''Sandinista!'' by indie-rock and alt-country stalwarts and unknowns. The reasons for tributes are as varied as the performers, and they are rarely pure. Remaking someone else's music can be a shortcut to surefire material, ancestor-worship, a collegial embrace, an endorsement, a way to rewrite history, a generational rivalry and an attempt at one-upmanship, all in the same song. Collectively, tributes are canon-builders: musicians declaring, with respect and envy, which songs deserve another listen. And musicians will have the last word, since they're the ones who will decide, over time, what's worth learning or cribbing. But lately they've had help and second opinions. Sample-happy producers can push an old song back into the canon with a three-second snippet. And fans who aren't performers are also having their say, as music blogs, recommendation engines, shared playlists and other word-of-Web supply canon fodder of their own. (One kind of tribute album, where stars rally behind a cult favorite like Roky Erickson, Jandek, Victoria Williams or Vic Chesnutt, is disappearing as fewer geniuses remain unheard.) The interaction between songwriter, performer and audience is becoming three-sided again -- almost as it was in the days before recording technology, when a song's only means of survival was to have new people learn it. With tribute albums, musicians have to admit that performers are audience members too. Tribute albums have been part of pop at least as far back as Ella Fitzgerald's celebrated songbook series, each devoted to a particular Tin Pan Alley songwriter. Thematic collections have long since been taken for granted in jazz. Rock has also been developing that kind of self-conscious hindsight. Tribute albums are often benefits for charitable causes, but a second cause also looms behind them: rock itself. Rock is gathering its own repertory movement -- perhaps a sign, as with jazz and Tin Pan Alley pop, of an endangered music consolidating its best stuff as it rallies to survive. Lately, rock repertory has developed some cachet beyond the jukebox musicals on Broadway and doppelganger tribute bands -- from the affectionate and mocking songwriter revues of the Losers Lounge in New York City to events like the Bruce Springsteen tribute at Carnegie Hall in April. Across pop, interpreters are regaining ground after a mere few decades in which performers were generally expected to come up with their own material. The isolated single, not the album, drives music sales, and no one seems to mind if the producer is a song's strongest creative force. Authorship is growing less important and more tangled in a cut-and-paste culture that thrusts all digital information into a public domain, heedless of copyright. Fans project themselves into songs they love; interpreters do the same thing, louder and, presumably, more skillfully. Every interpreter has to decide what the essence of a piece of a chosen song is: the tune? the words? the hooks? the inflections? the textures? And sometimes the way to respect a song is to tear it apart, if only to show that what's left is still distinctive. ''A Tribute to Joni Mitchell'' is what might be called a peer-to-peer collection -- stars covering a star -- and it has representatives from multiple pop generations. Ms. Mitchell's face on the album package appears something like the Shroud of Turin: a revered afterimage, lingering in her absence as the songs' unheard creator. Fine print in the liner notes, which are mostly lyrics, gently directs the curious toward Ms. Mitchell's original albums like a hyperlink. The album welcomes younger listeners without daunting older ones. More important, however, is that the remakes of Ms. Mitchell's songs reach deep and far, complementing one another and extrapolating from her own versions. Each homage illuminates a different thread of Ms. Mitchell's songwriting. Prince finds a torchy R&B ballad in ''A Case of You,'' while Annie Lennox wraps the hippie decadence of ''Ladies of the Canyon'' in lush psychedelia. Caetano Veloso peppers ''Dreamland,'' a song about tropical exoticism, history and globe-hopping, with rhythms from his native Brazil. Sufjan Stevens turns ''Free Man in Paris,'' the complaints of a record-business mogul, into a suite of pop possibilities. Sarah McLachlan carries ''Blue'' into a cathedral of multiplied voices and sustained sounds, while Emmylou Harris treats ''The Magdalene Laundries'' as a plainspoken Celtic-Appalachian ballad. Until the album loses steam in its final tracks, ''A Tribute to Joni Mitchell'' elegantly draws the present out of the past. Beyond each track's individual thrills, a tribute album can illuminate a style and sensibility or reconsider a historical moment, as ''The Sandinista! Project'' does with contributions from Amy Rigby, Stew, Jon Langford and Sally Timms and dozens of others. The original ''Sandinista!'' filled three LPs with outsize ambitions: songs about violence, victims, revolution and drugs, delivered in a haze of punk, reggae, funk and glimmers of hip-hop. The remake, like most tribute albums, is hit or miss, but luckily it's anything but reverent. A few Clash imitations show up, but so do multidirectional time warps. Songs skew toward Appalachia with banjos, plunge into psychedelic loops and echoes, unleash theremin on ''The Call Up'' and the Persian wail of Haale on ''One More Time.'' Members of the Clash wanted their songs to reverberate worldwide; ''The Sandinista! Project'' proclaims that they succeeded. And it not only insists that the original album hung together but goes on to take the sprawl of ''Sandinista!'' even further. The Joni Mitchell tribute and ''The Sandinista! Project'' share the tribute shelves with ''Endless Highway: The Music of the Band'' (SLG/429), on which jam bands slavishly emulate the Band's originals, offering only better enunciated lyrics. More tributes are on the way. A two-CD collection of John Lennon songs (with additional songs online), ''Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur'' (Warner Brothers), is due June 12, with major names like U2, Green Day and Christina Aguilera. Aerosmith (joined by Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars) delivers a whooping, raucous version of ''Give Peace a Chance,'' while underdogs like Regina Spektor and the Postal Service quietly make the Lennon songs their own. But unlike the Mitchell tribute, it's a scattershot collection and often a little too worshipful, treating Lennon, the Beatles' iconoclast, as an icon. On ''We All Love Ella'' (Verve), due June 5, R&B and pop singers take up Ella Fitzgerald's repertory -- mostly doing their best Ella imitations backed by a big band. The cozy ''Anchored in Love: A Tribute to June Carter Cash'' (Dualtone), is also due June 5. With Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Brad Paisley, Loretta Lynn and Elvis Costello, it's actually a tribute to multiple generations of the Carter family and their songs about love, mortality and faith. It stays fairly close to its country and mountain-music roots; there's a lot of autoharp, Ms. Cash's instrument. But the album's least-known performer, Grey DeLisle, unearths a June Carter murder ballad, ''Big Yellow Peaches,'' and haunts it with her high, whispery voice over eerie drones. A notable full-length album tribute is due in August: Zeitkratzer's ''Lou Reed: Metal Machine Music'' (Asphodel), which transcribes Mr. Reed's worst-selling 1975 album -- originally an opus of guitar feedback -- for chamber ensemble, followed by Mr. Reed himself with a climactic solo. Played by a live group, ''Metal Machine Music'' sounds even wilder and more frenetic, and Zeitkratzer's act of fandom -- countless work-hours involved in transcribing and orchestrating -- moves ''Metal Machine Music'' into a context where, perhaps, it always belonged: as an avant-garde piece of bristling minimalism rather than a rock musician's bizarre experiment. Tribute albums are proud to be keepsakes and to return nearly forgotten music to circulation. They insist that an old song can stand up against a new one or eclipse it; that cultural progress is not only linear but can loop back and rediscover what was almost missed. Countless music fans now join musicians in doing the same thing, posting their most recondite collectors' items online as MP3s, encouraging links. It is easy to imagine Tribute Album 2.0, sometime around 2027, as a collaboration of musicians and nonmusicians, fans working in tandem. Someone rediscovers a songwriter, a producer or an interpreter who deserves a little more attention: barely remembered figures from the past like OutKast or Arcade Fire. Someone else, by then, will have figured out algorithms that will replicate the latest hitmakers' tone, taste and quirks. And of course there will be a program to apply one to the other for an instant, up-to-the-minute tribute. All that will be left is for yet another fan to post, knowingly and ruefully, the comment that nowadays, they just don't write songs like they used to. [Photograph] Joni Mitchell, above, at her house in Los Angeles in 1970; on ''A Tribute to Joni Mitchell,'' Sufjan Stevens, left, sings one of her songs. (Photo by Henry Diltz); ------------------------------ End of JMDL Digest V2007 #212 ***************************** ------- Post messages to the list by clicking here: mailto:joni@smoe.org Unsubscribe by clicking here: mailto:joni-digest-request@smoe.org?body=unsubscribe -------