May you live all the days of your life.

~ Jonathon Swift

It takes a long time to understand nothing.

Edward Dahlberg

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world

~ Albert Einstein

Menhaden has been overfished for decades. Take action now to deliver your comment to the ASMFC via @greenpeaceusa

The grand total of arrests made in connection with Occupy Wall Street protests stands at 2,750. The people actual accountable for the mess got million dollar bonuses - yea America!

The protesters will go to houses where the homeowners face eviction and 'occupy' the homes to highlight the ongoing mortgage mess....bravo!

Occupy Minneapolis successfully pressured U.S. Bank this week to postpone a Twin Cities woman's eviction. Now they're planning 'Operation F,' a campaign pushing for a foreclosure moratorium by occupying foreclosed homes.

If there's a book you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

~ Toni Morrison

If it weren't for the last minute, a lot of things wouldn't get done.

Michael S. Taylor

Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding.

~ Yehuda Amichai

And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles

Walt Whitnam

Harnessing the wind off Virginia's coast could provide enough energy to power 700,000 homes by the end of this decade. But that's if, and only if, Dominion leads the way with that clean energy development.

Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.

~ Sigmund Freud

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they will never cease to be amused.

~ Anonymous

...as the fruits of the spirit...man becomes aware of the infinite penetrating, or inter-penetrating the activities of all forces of matter, or that which is a manifestation of the realm of the infinite into the finite--and the finite becomes conscious of same.
Edgar Cayce - Reading 262-52

Beauty is not caused. It is.

~ Emily Dickinson

Time is not a line, but a series of now points.

Taisen Deshimaru

Tell @lisapjackson and the #EPA: We're counting on you to reject the @StateDept's #Keystone XL sham http://bit.ly/pSXYT3 #tarsands

Love the country but hate its government and people; Patriotic but won't pay war tax; Love the unborn but hate the children; Love religion but ... commit sin and lie at will...(republicans) - R. Nguyen

Congratulations Libya may you ALL live in prosperity!

let the commercial news media and pundits twist in the wind - at the end of the day we/they all know what its all about - the middle class is getting screwed.

reducing it to one byline marginalizes the myriad of problems that need addressing -

all of this and much more is all so very important to get out onto commercial airwaves -

the environment gets brought up, too expensive education, price rigging on pharmaceuticals, medicare for all, ending the wars -

I think the movement should remain demand less that way you neutralize the spin machine - in the meantime Glass Stegall gets brought up,

The most important mechanism for containing the financial sector is a modest financial speculation tax. The idea is that a modest tax on financial transactions -- sales of stocks, bonds, credit default swaps and other derivatives -- would discourage excessive trading in these assets.

By contrast, investment banking means underwriting stock and bonds issues and other activities that are inherently risky. Government insured deposits should not be tied up in more risky activities that can be less easily monitored.

Commercial banks were restricted to a relatively narrow set of loans -- business loans, home mortgages, credit card debt -- in principle these could be easily monitored and the risks controlled.

It also make sense to restore the separation between investment banking and commercial banking from Glass-Steagall. The logic here is that the government is insuring the deposits of commercial banks. If a bank wants government insurance, then it should not be taking big risks with the money that is insured.

What the financial industry wants -- and what conservatives generally support-- is to have these incredibly valuable government safeguards without restrictions on the banks' behavior.

in every area of public policy we see, conservatives are often happy to have the government intervene.

These are not people who care about free markets, they care about redistributing money upwards.

The right is about getting more money for the wealthy -- full stop.

Conservatives who claim to have a profound love of free markets have no use for them; professing fealty to the markets is only a rhetorical strategy. They favor policies that distort the market in such a way that income and wealth flows back to them.

105 US cities occupied. 1500 MeetUps around the world. 50,000 people in the streets of New York and tens of thousands more in cities across the country. Wall Street occupied continuously for one month.

"Money ruined democracy."-Bill Moyers

The Rena, a cargo ship stranded off the northern coast of New Zealand, has dumped more than 350 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into the water, killing more than 1,000 seabirds.

Occupy Wall Street, Apple Pie, America and Democracy!

The democracy that we have right now needs to be strengthened because it is not democracy it is a corrupt republic. Keep your eye on practical reality when you skew off into ideology whether cloaked in religion or the verbiage of politics you miss the point.

Corruption and the lack of accountability, the absence of a level playing field, and the rules already on the books not being enforced or being tenaciously done away with is what Occupy Wall Street is all about. In fact I draw the conclusion Occupy Wall Street is a strengthening of democracy in our Republic by the exercising of the right to assembly, the right of free speech and the right of petition.

Who was the last President to invoke the Sherman Anti-Trust Act - why was Glass Stegal overturned? Why is our so called democracy trying to eliminate class action law suits? Why isn't medicare for all law because the status quo wants more and more of our tax dollars for their own private accounts. That's why there is this decades long push to "privatize" everything. The for profit motive is not a panacea for all of our problems and in fact is at the root of many of them.

Practical reality teaches us that Washington D.C. is just a huge bucket of tax dollars getting re-allocated. There's plenty of money but how it is allocated is the question. Lately the bucket has been drained and the money siphoned off to individual accounts - its not being re-invested back into the Country its being hoarded in individual accounts. We have to re-invest in America that means the people through education, health, and infrastructure. But we truly have pigs at the trough with little to no accountability.

The system is a broken feeding frenzy by the richest corporate powers who are so busy trying to corner their individual markets that they have crippled the macro demand side of the economic equation (supply and DEMAND) and weakened all the worker bees muscle.

Homes get seized, disposable income - the grease to our economic wheel - dries up. Graduates are saddled with debt and can't go out on their own (buy homes, cars or even rent). Without the rest of us (99%) carrying the water the macro economy crumbles and the tangible results are everyone who was encouraged to buy into the capitalist system are just indentured servants to the banks.

Taking to the streets is the only way to get the corporate minions (politicians) to actually do something for the 99% of us WITHOUT representation. Why? Because just like back in the days of Nixon when he looked out his window what did he see - not only draft dodgers, and hippies, and pacifists with acoustic guitars who he tried to denigrate in an effort to kill the message by invalidating the messenger, but hundreds of thousands of people representing millions of motivated VOTERS who weren't going away until the changes they wanted were met.

So the politicians can either flip flop from appeasing those who finance their campaigns to appeasing the people who pull the levers at the voting booth.

They can save their own skin (which is what they do best) and follow the will of the majority, or loose at the polls to those who represent the middle class, main street, livable wages, good working conditions, not for profit health care, the revision of corporate person-hood, the reinstatement of glass stegal, and enforcing and strengthening the laws and regulations that keep everyone honest and create jobs.

That's the only way capitalism can work and the 99% for whom capitalism isn't working for right now - know this. Its just a shame that we have to take to the streets and non-violent protesters have to get beaten and arrested for the powers that be to wake up and go oopps.

We better make sure the economy works for all and know that employees are our partners not our enemies. We shouldn't cheat them, marginalize them, give them cancer, or destroy their neighborhoods and we need to put back into the system what we take out. It's simple, its basic, its practical and its been lost sight of........Too bad our so called Captains of Industry aren't the geniuses they think they are. Lost in the minutia of gaming the system, power tripping they have wrecked it even for themselves.

Don't let auto dealers sell us a lemon. Tell them to support new clean car standards: http://j.mp/rtA1NM

A knowledge of the path cannot be substituted for putting one foot in front of the other.

M. C. Richards

Think on This...
Do not rail at anyone. Do not hold grudges. Do not hold ANY of those tendencies that have so long made for disturbing conditions in the experience.

Reading 1311-1

Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.

Aesop

Defend 1st Amendment or we'll see Denver-style end to Occupy in every city. #occupyeverywhere @roots_action http://bit.ly/pRaJWz

By way of comparison, jobs in the overall economy grew at just 0.7 percent over that same time period, while jobs in fossil fuel electric generation subsector actually shrank by 2 percent.

Overall, there are now an estimated 100,237 people working in solar energy in the United States, an increase of 6.8 percent since 2010.

Solar sales and distribution jobs are growing the fastest with nearly 6,000 new jobs created since last year, and employers predict 35 percent growth in those jobs over the next year.

Solar jobs are growing in every part of the value chain. From manufacturing line workers to electricians to sales associates, all 31 solar job categories experienced growth over the last year.

Silent gratitude isn’t very much to anyone.

Gertrude Stein

“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” Voltaire

Scott Brown is trying to adopt someone else's life and experiences as his own. According to a report from the Boston Globe, a section of Brown's autobiography posted on his website was ripped from a speech given by Elizabeth Dole in 2002.

Tomorrow is the deadline for mere-mortal committees to present their budget cutting plans to the super committee. The ranking House Democrats have all submitted plans. The Republicans haven't.

Last year the average consumer spent 365 dollars on Black Friday, with a total US holiday spending estimated at 45 Billion, for that weekend. That spending benefits corporate america directly but they don't want to pay taxes. Vote with your dollars!

What you give you get, ten times over.

~ Yoruba Proverb

Defend the Occupy Wall Street protesters from eviction by Mayor Bloomberg: http://bit.ly/pkSZBi #ows #occupywallstreet #p2NY

Demand the release of student leaders in Iran! - Act w/ @Amnesty http://bit.ly/oS7cat

Defend the Occupy Wall Street protesters from eviction by Mayor Bloomberg: http://bit.ly/pkSZBi #ows #occupywallstreet #p2NY

In Florida, not just one, but a few beekeepers lost millions of bees suddenly in one day. The bees are being tested for chemicals because pesticides are suspected. Irreplaceable hundreds of thousands of dollars were lost instantly.

Nearly 100,000 U.S. millionaires pay lower tax rates than more than 10 million middle class families, according to the Congressional Research Service.

I for one am ditching Bank of America - investing directly without using a broker, pulling all my big bank credit cards and refinanced with a local bank screw their "new world order". I'm not a pawn in their game and refuse to be one.

Too Big to Fail - yeah right - another campaign slogan like "free trade" in the two worlds of america - corporate and the rest of us - we the people need to flee the big banks and head to credit unions, and local community banks - strengthen your neighborhoods - not their global domination agendas and watch them fail, bail and shed salaries.

The House will move forward on three trade deals that are billed as job creators. Yet the pacts come along with assistance for workers whose jobs will be lost.....they assume we don't know or care....What a bunch of idiots.

All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.

~ Samuel Butler

"When shall it be said in any country of the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance or distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive...when these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and government."
~ Thomas Paine

"Good luck on the book, I wrote it on my list of books to pick up. Also watched your snippet of guitar and harp playing. Good for you, keep up the energy of life, we need more people like you - Mitakuye Oyasin" - Dandelion

“G.E. doesn’t pay any taxes and we are asking college kids to take on even more debt to get an education, and asking seniors to get by on less. These aren’t just economic questions. These are moral questions.” Elizabeth Warren

The #OccupyWallStreet movement has spread to some unlikely locations. Namely, there's now Occupy Waikiki, Occupy Puerto Rico, and Occupy Nova Scotia to name a few

Paths cannot be taught, they can only be taken.

~ Zen Saying

It takes a long time to understand nothing.

Edward Dahlberg

Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.

Rumi

What I have to say about this book can be found inside the book.

~ Albert Einstein

The Government gave $16 trillion to the banks. And nobody else is talking about it. Page 131 of GAO Report No. GAO-11-696.

Tell the #SuperCommittee - if you want to #cut the #deficit, start by ending the big #oil bailout http://bit.ly/pqUXTl via @USAction #p2

This is what needs to be done. Congress isn't listening. I'm with #occupy_DC #occupywallstreet http://bit.ly/nsn0VZ RT @roots_action

Help protect @OccupyWallSt protesters' constitutional right to peaceful assembly http://bit.ly/ppUtUE @CREDOmobile @other98

“Bank of America paid zero dollars in taxes last year but they got a $1 billion tax refund,” she said. “The CEO got a bonus of $3.4 million, even as he slashed 30,000 jobs. How’s that for a ‘job creator?’ - Karen Brown-Norfolk, Va.

Tomorrow the republicans will still only be worried about one thing and one thing only - winning the next election - losers.

Occupy Wall Street is spreading like wildfire. There are now supportive groups for the protests in over 250 communities in the United States and Canada.

Tomorrow, 300 children under the age of five will die in the Horn of Africa because of famine.

Tomorrow, 400 million children will still lack access to clean water.

Tomorrow, three billion people around the globe will still be living on less than $2.50 a day.

Tomorrow, one in four American children under the age of six will still be living below the poverty line.

Tomorrow, one in seven U.S. households still won’t know where their next meal is coming from.

Tomorrow, the homes of more than 2,500 new U.S. families will enter foreclosure.

Tomorrow, almost 14 million Americans will still be unemployed.

Tomorrow, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be more than $1.259 trillion. Talk about unfunded mandates!

The American Jobs Act could spur 2% in economic growth and create up to 1.9m jobs. Will the republicans stop playing politics and vote for YOU - better pick up that phone amigo and start calling.

If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.

~ Albert Einstein

Help protect @OccupyWallSt protesters' constitutional right to peaceful assembly http://bit.ly/rcfaGl @CREDOmobile

Last night the people of West Virginia elected Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin to serve as their governor. Democrats were outspent by national Republicans two-to-one.

There is always music amongst the trees in the garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.”

Minnie Aumonier

What do the protesters want? A solution to the jobs crisis, corporate money out of politics, fairer tax rates, and policies that work for 99% of Americans instead of the 1% at the top.

Vote for jobs, schools, and small businesses—vote for the American Jobs Act. #passthebill

Center for Biological Diversity - get involved - your activism is needed - http://ping.fm/rqQLT

The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a game-changing lawsuit against the EPA targeting more than 300 of the nation’s worst pesticides, including atrazine.

These pesticides kill 72 million birds each year, but the EPA and Fish and Wildlife Service are pointing fingers at each other instead of taking action, allowing pesticides to kill or deform wildlife such as polar bears, Florida panthers, sea turtles, condors and salmon.

Two billion pounds of pesticides are sold in the United States every year, and chemical giants Monsanto, Syngenta and others are heaping the pressure on Congress to keep these dangerous pesticides flowing.

"When you do the right thing, for the right reason, right things happen!" - Paul Burke

My God is IT!

My god is IT and yours isn't IT. That pretty much sums up the stupidity of IT mankind and all of the different religions, cults, factions, and parties vying for power, profit, and control over the naturally occurring people wondering about IT the who, what, when, where and why of life - not to mention the how.

So anyway settle down all of you - settle down I've got a surprise. My God is IT and unless yours is IT too then yours isn't IT! Time to rethink IT.

That's right my god is IT. IT is my god. IT is the only one. IT is everywhere and IT is everything. IT is my god. IT is your god. IT is wonderful. IT is terrible and IT is in everything.

IT is your name, IT is your being, IT is your soul, IT is your laugh, IT is your humor. IT is comedy, IT is tragedy, IT is your face. IT is your tears, IT is your mind, IT is your heart, IT is your love, IT is your sex, IT is your anger, IT is your hatred, IT is your envy, IT is your greed.

IT is your breath, IT is your eyes. IT is your ears. IT is your voice. IT is the water, IT is the rain, IT is the ocean, IT is the streams, IT is the rivers, and IT is the mountains. IT is the forest, IT is the trees, IT is the dirt, IT is the rock, IT is the street, IT is the road, IT is the journey, IT is home.

IT is the tiger, IT is the bear, IT is the hawk, IT is the fox, IT is the wolf, IT is the bird, IT is the trane, IT is the music. IT is the earth, IT is the moon, IT is the stars, IT is the universe, IT is the air, IT is lunch. IT is listening, IT is speaking, IT is hearing.

IT is everything. IT is your life, IT is your friends, IT is your neighbors and IT is your enemies. IT is your balls, IT is your ass, IT is your tits and IT is your intention. IT is your meaning, IT is why, IT is how, IT is where, and IT is your plans. IT is your dreams and IT is two different things.

IT is your guitar, IT is your horn, IT is your drum, and IT is your canvas, IT is your clay, IT is your body, IT is your soul. IT is your thoughts, IT is your memory, IT is your library, and IT is everywhere.

IT is your life, IT is your desert, IT is your iguana, IT is your lover and IT is sad, and IT is hungry, and IT is full and IT is happy, and IT is amazing. IT is and IT is not.

IT is your brothers and IT is your sisters. IT is your children and IT is your parents. IT is the north and IT is the south. IT is the west and IT is the east. IT is the sunset and IT is the sunrise. IT is the canyon, IT is the surf and IT is the wind. IT is everyone and everything and everything and everyone is IT. IT is finITte and IT is infinITe.

We are all IT and IT is all.

So when dividing up the world, arguing over borders, waring over resources, bribing each other over profit, robbing each other over money, killing, stealing and lying to each other about any of IT, or all of IT remember your are doing IT as surely as IT is doing you.

Be careful what you say and do because IT knows about IT and this my friends is IT! Get IT? IT is and IT will always be no matter what IT is.

So be IT, Live IT, Love IT, Enjoy IT but there is no getting away from IT. IT's got you and IT's got me......and that be the truth of IT.

You cannot kill time without injuring eternity.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Stunning Statistics of the Week:

* 12: Number of members of the supercommittee charged with reducing the debt
* $41 million: The amount the supercommittee lawmakers have received from the finance, insurance and real estate sector while they have been in Congress
* $900,000: The amount given by JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo alone to these members

Music Maker Foundation - The Real Deal

Recently my path crossed with a Foundation down in North Carolina called the Music Maker Foundation. We ended up doing a fundraiser on their behalf. Music Maker came about through the initial efforts of Tim Duffy. He had been studying folklore in North Carolina and discovered a whole vein of untapped and forgotten talent and started to document and promote the artist he re-discovered and discovered.

The music industry is rife with stories about the screwed up priorities and underhanded manipulations of the king pins of corporate america. They are an unkind suitor who gets it wrong more often than right. We all know local and regional talent that was homogenized and laden down with strings to make their sound commercial, destroying uniqueness, auto-tuning voices, lip syncing live performances, and serving up the same old sounds in the name of mass marketing and the biggest bang for their investment buck.

What happened to art, and fun, and music as life? Well along the way it got botox, a lip job, and boob implants making the search for authenticity damned near impossible over the commercial airwaves.

That's why it takes almost a researchers drive, dedication, and interest to find any music worth listening to, let alone purchasing or seeing live. The commercial music world is largely devoid of originality and soul but by the power of repetition, marketing and cross marketing profitable for a few.

Music Maker comes about by love. Love of music, love of the people and a sense of justice. Long forgotten players who may have had a glimpse of fame, a hit, or a television appearance or two back in the 50's live in forgotten squalor. Their guitars in hock, their homes often just a trailer without heat or running water living on the bare minimum on a forgotten lane, down a country road or stuck in a ghetto.

Music Maker as a non-profit foundation helps to get the musicians they discover back up on their feet, touring and producing CD's. The talent they have uncovered is miraculous, authentic, salt of the earth, genuine, fun, real, historic and although left for dead by the industry, full of life.

Its a wonder that corporate america can be so dense as to not cultivate niche markets and corner them all. Instead they create one market and flood it out in every direction through radio, television, magazine, and the news outlets they control. Leaving the rest of us to tune out.

Even satellite radio is depressingly familiar with generic content. That being said run don't walk over to the Music Maker Foundations website and be blown away by their story, videos, and overflowing catalog of under represented and forgotten American Treasures.

I recently bought five discs from artist know as Precious Bryant, Cool John Ferguson, John Dee Holeman and Eddie Tinger.

Precious Bryant: This disc has 26 cuts of standards and originals. It reminds me of the best songs Bonnie Raitt did on her first album when she was featuring Robert Johnson and Sippie Wallace. From Talbot County Georgia she still lives on the old farm she was raised on. I absolutely love this CD!

Cool John Ferguson: Scorching blues guitarist that Taj Mahal calls one of the best he's ever heard. John is one of those guys who can play what he's thinking in real time. It doesn't seem like there is a nano-second between the thought and the execution. He defines playing from the heart. I have two discs of his. One is a surprising jazz effort that is just sweet, vigorous and flat out perfect for this genre of guitar jazz. The other is a righteous blues work out. They both will leave you wondering how the heck this guy isn't on the cover of Rolling Stone. He tours look him up, check him out - your jaw will hit the floor.

Eddie Tinger: Eddie's a real tour veteran and performed with Elmore James - whoa - Elmore James - if that isn't street cred I don't know what is. He's a keyboard player and his disc is chock full of standards that you'll listen to at the office, in the car and at dinner. Its a wonderful CD widely accessible to all with a lot of spirit and humor. He does a version of Goin Down Slow and Stormy Monday as well as Route 66. This is a great piano album that will make you smile.

John Dee Holeman: Out of Durham North Carolina his fingers pop on that old national steel. Country blues pickin that rocks he has several albums out on the Music Maker label. The music is soaked with wisdom and backed by a rockin band that never gets in his way. Great, great authentic playing by a man that has lived the blues, played the blues and loved the blues his whole life.

Here's more of the Music Maker Story in their own words all I can say is that I'm blown away. I am championing their worthy cause the best I can and it just goes to show you; When you do the right thing, for the right reason, right things happen!
________________________________________________



Music Maker Relief Foundation keeps our culture vital by directly supporting senior (over 55) American roots musicians in need. We provide for basic life essentials while expanding their professional careers so that our rich musical heritage can be shared with the world and preserved for future generations.

Since the organization’s founding in 1994, Music Maker has assisted hundreds of musicians who represent the traditions of Blues, Gospel, Old-Time String Band, Jazz and more.

Music Maker’s programs ensure the talents of these cultural treasures are accessible through hundreds of US and international live performances, multi-media documentation and outreach initiatives.

Music Maker Relief Foundation, Inc. is a tax exempt, public charity under IRS code 501(c)3.

Programs

* Musician Sustenance - grants to meet basic life needs and emergency relief.
* Musical Development - grants and services for recipient artist professional development and career advancement.
* Cultural Access - supports the preservation and proliferation of American musical traditions.

"We’ll be playing as long as there’s somebody there to listen.” Gregg Allman

A house is just a place to hand your clothes, brush your teeth, and get some sleep. Then you’re back out in the world. - Dickey Betts