Tin soldiers and Nixon coming We're finally on our own This summer I hear the drumming Four dead in Ohio Gotta get down to it, soldiers are cutting us down Should have been done long ago What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know? -Neil Young Still reeling over the week we've endured, and the murder in Minneapolis two days ago. At least they've identified the murderer. Hope you and your family don't get a peaceful night's sleep for wha

Bad news on my TV screen Bad news on the magazines Bad news on the newspaper Bad news on the elevator Bad news on the street Bad news in my car Bad news under my feet Bad news at the bar All over my clothes Under my head On the radio In the laundromat Hanging in the air Laying on the ground Walking up the stairs Bad news all around No matter where I go I can't get away from it Don't you know? I'm knee deep in it Who's gonna believe liars and lunatics? Fools and thieves and cl

"Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful the shadows are! Alas! It is the nature of their kind to be so. The loveliest things in life... are but shadows; and they come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these." - Charles Dickens It's in the upper 30s out there, with higher temps forecast for the balance of the week. The snow is mostly gone, leaving barren hills under slate grey skies. This is shaping

"If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism." - Vladimir Lenin The news lately is just so, so bad. I find myself thinking that the narrative about "American exceptionalism" on which my generation was raised indeed highlighted the exceptions. Birthed as a representative democracy, to be sure, but only for white males with property. We sent 600,000 to their graves in a