Happiness is love of something outside of self! It may never be obtained, may never be known by loving only things within self or self's own domain!

Edgar Cayce Reading 281-30

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

~ Albert Einstein

Rupert "Fox News" Murdoch is in meltdown mode. Three of his aides face sanctions from Parliament for lying, another has been charged by UK prosecutors with "conspiracy to pervert the course of justice," and Murdoch himself is accused of having instructed then-Prime Minister Tony Blair to block the phone-hacking investigation.

Another study, released Monday by the U.S. Geological Survey, found that sea levels along a stretch of the East Coast from North Carolina to Massachusetts are rising 4 times faster than the global average, putting major cities like New York and Boston at severe risk of flooding.

Buzzfeed reports that dozens of patriotic Americans are vowing to flee to Canada – with it's tax-payer funded universal health-care system because “the United States is entirely too socialist.” At the time of this writing, there are no reports yet of Canadian authorities moving to shut down their Southern border.

Despite the media's intense focus on the mandate, it never represented a terribly onerous burden on those who refused to carry health insurance – the penalty, after all, was pretty small and many poorer Americans were exempted from the requirement (according to the Congressional Budget Office, the mandate will impact only 16 percent of Americans).

Both CNN and Fox News had 'Dewey Defeats Truman!' moments when they reported, immediately after the ruling was handed down, that the mandate had been struck down as unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court made conservative heads explode and lots of legal experts look clueless today when Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's moderate wing to uphold ObamaCare in its entirety

BBC News - Syria unrest: Explosions rock Damascus court complex

BBC News - Syria unrest: Explosions rock Damascus court complex
 Whats that old story about the hens coming home to roost?  After decades of giving safe haven to terrorist organizations - scratch that - lets just call them political organizations who chose rather than to promote their causes peacefully but rather with violence; suicide bombers, rocket launches, stone throwing, intolerant inflamed rhetoric, hostage taking, and road side detonations claiming scores upon scores of innocent civilians as their actual targets - Syria is now exploding internally.  Small wonder - you reap what you sow.  

BBC News - Turkey sends anti-aircraft guns to Syrian border

Whats that old story about the hens coming home to roost?  After decades of giving safe haven to terrorist organizations - scratch that - lets just call them political organizations who chose rather than to promote their causes peacefully but rather with violence; suicide bombers, rocket launches, stone throwing, intolerant inflamed rhetoric, hostage taking, and road side detonations claiming scores upon scores of innocent civilians as their actual targets - Syria is now exploding internally.  Small wonder - you reap what you sow. 

BBC News - Turkey sends anti-aircraft guns to Syrian border:

BBC News - Big increase in Scottish renewables output

BBC News - Big increase in Scottish renewables output: Scotland's renewable energy output increased by 45% in the first quarter of this year, compared with the same period last year.

Your word matters more than your opinion!

"If you get too big for your britches you'll get exposed in the end" Aunt Zip

"You can't lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse" Uncle Dave Macon (recorded over 170 songs between 1924 and 1938)

I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.

~ Rita Rudner

Why go further and further, / Look, happiness is right here.

Goethe

"No, Mitt, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick,... they live and they die. Learn the difference. And Mitt, learn this: we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people," Elizabeth Warren

If a group is trying to influence your vote, then you should know who is paying it to do so

News Corp "Warned" Lib Dems over BSkyB bid'

This is the power they wield over politicians - we can fix this problem by ignoring, abandoning and not subscribing to anything Murdoch or Roger Ailes is associated with - follow the money and know your news sources - mostly corporate they don't represent the people but rather they represent their owners and financiers and represent very narrow corporate interest - blow them off - I don't even watch Fox Sports - and dropped the Simpsons

BBC News - News Corp 'warned Lib Dems over BSkyB bid'

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

¯Joseph Campbell

If I think, everything is lost.

~ Paul Cezanne

we want senators who belong to the people

"There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart." Celia Thaxter

Last week, buried within a trade association filing, CREW discovered health insurance giant Aetna had contributed over $7 million to the American Action Network and the Chamber of Commerce.

"Be good to your friends without them you'd be a total stranger" Aunt Zip (David you need to put out a book of these)

"Don't make love by the garden gate love is blind but the neighbors aint" Aunt Zip

"If you get too big for your britches you'll be exposed in the end" Aunt Zip

EVIL only hath its appearance in the mind, in the shadows, in the fears of those that know not the light in its entirety.

Edgar Cayce Reading 689-1

A single-use plastic bag introduced just 25 years ago has become an environmental monster

Last Century Republicans Obstructionists of the Future

I've owned businesses you want to lower your overhead as far as possible.  Doesn't the wind blow in the mountains doesn't the sun shine there as well?  The status quo is wedded to a hundred year old technology and will continue to make money on it unless new technologies are developed. 

The problem is that their dirty technology is not only giving people cancer but giving people asthma downwind.  That affects our national bottom line/productivity and inflates our health care cost as well as the acidification of the oceans killing our food chain.

It is the exact role and purpose of government to manage and mitigate our national economy when its not working for everyone - why you may ask - because that's the difference between a civilized nation and Somalia or Syria and don't doubt that for a second. 

If you were a patriot you would care about your country and your neighbors.

You live in a fantasy world if you think deregulation means anything other than unlawful behavior. 

Our corporate CEO's aren't benevolent Christians bestowing generosity upon us - they are business men plain and simple focused on their own bottom line. 

We would get nothing not one residual penny from them for our labor and resources if they could arrange it so and they never stop trying to arrange it that way 24/7. 

Like it or not the democratic party is the only friend you have unless your net worth is a billion a year.  And you better wise up to that pretty fast. 

For the record the Obama-Gore vision is the vision of the majority of the people but for the republican obstructionist representing the old ways we would be well on our way to achieving that vision.  But some so called patriots prefer giving our tax dollars away in the form of "subsidies" to the already profitable oil industry.  That's just plain mismanagement and something for real to be mad at the government  about.

"I think God made me blind to humble me. I think the handicap made me realize I have to depend on others. It mellowed me out, especially in my older years. There was a time when I had a persecution complex because of the handicap...when I was much younger. That is one of the things I have looked back at in later years. But what brought me out of feeling sorry for myself was life itself - and realizing that I loved somebody I was responsible to and who needed me. Life is the best teacher of all." Doc Watson

"Visually handicapped people create this box of safety around them and remain aware of everything in that box. This has helped me become more aware of my surroundings. In many ways they are more aware than those of us who can see. Sometime sight gets in the way of seeing." T. Michael Coleman on Doc Watson

"He puts his personality into every note. No matter how fast he's playing, you always have the sense that he could go out for a cup of coffee between notes!" Mitch Greenhill on Doc Watson

The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others.

Vincent van Gogh

Virginia possess great wind energy potential, according the National Renewable Energy Lab, enough to create 4.5 times the amount of electricity Virginia uses!

"I found Jerry Garcia and a Navajo Medicine Man going over the transcript nodding with approval and making eye contact with me as I floated in on them." Paul Burke

"Promoting everything from the Allman Brothers Band to Doc Watson was a mission. Sticking it to corporate radio a duty!" - Paul Burke

Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 close to a million signatures please sign! http://ping.fm/ilexb

Love is all and love is everyone

Lennon/McCartney

All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.

~ M.C. Richards

Why go further and further, / Look, happiness is right here.

Goethe

Think on This...
Arguments will seldom change the aspects or the views of any. And truth itself needs no champion, for it is of itself champion of champions - and needs no defense; only for self to live according to that which IS the truth!

Edgar Cayce
Reading 1669-1

Think on This...
Then the awareness in patience, for this entity, is to become more and more aware of thy relationship to the Creative Forces. Do not grow anxious because those about thee deny thy faith. Only live it and be it; not in finding fault with others, not in condemning others.

Edgar Cayce
Reading 3459-1

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, pollinators including bees, birds and bats are involved in more than a third of the world's crop production

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

~ Albert Schweitzer

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, since 1979, income for the top 1% has increased by $700,000 a year, while income for the bottom 90% has declined by $900 a year. Between 1992 and 2007, income for the richest 400 Americans increased by 392%, as their taxes dropped by 37%.

And for the rich, the past 11 years has been one long party. According to the Paris School of Economics, the top 1% in America saw their share of national income increase by more than 13% from 2001 to 2010. The top 0.1% saw their share of income increase by 20%. The top 0.01% saw their share of income explode by more than 37%, from 2.4% of all of the income in America to 3.3%.

Bush claimed (as right-wingers always do) that tax breaks for the rich would create jobs in the private sector. Well, they haven't. There were 110 million private sector jobs in America in 2001. There are 110 million private sector jobs in America today. Despite a population increase of more than 25 million

You are in the majority. According to a November, 2011, Yale poll, 70 percent of Americans oppose federal subsidies for the fossil fuel industry (coal, oil and natural gas).

When you live in reaction, you give your power away. Then you get to experience what you gave your power to.

N. Smith

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.

Groucho Marx

Doc Watson We Say Goodbye For Now

It's like losing Mark Twain is how I try to explain it to the uninformed.  It's like losing a family member is how I express it to all of you.  I am in mourning. 

I was a lucky little kid taking guitar lessons from David Stark who along with an older brother turned me onto Doc Watson in 1973/1974 - I was even luckier to see him for the first time at the Main Point that winter.  I remember standing on ice covered sidewalks and sitting in a lovely little coffee house that held a hundred people tops.  We slid into our seats and Merle lead Doc in by the arm.  It was biblical and I hung on every note.  I also got to see him play in a ridiculous little sea side bar in NJ with maybe twenty people in the mid eighties.  I was soooo excited to be so close and have a beer as he, Merle, and Michael did a full show.  It was stunning to me that the place wasn't packed but the 1980's were a silly musical decade not with out its virtues and haircuts.

 

However, my fondest recollection took all of three minutes as I crossed behind the stage at the Culppeper Festival (1986) on the way to the port a john - and there he was behind a little riser waiting by the steps all by himself tuning up.  No handler no one hovering just me and a friend walking by on gravel.  He certainly heard us going by (that’s horse footing gravel that aint train) and I waited until he tuned the string he was working on then without breaking stride spoke the unplanned words of "God Bless You Doc" came tumbling out of my mouth. 

I was humbled by his single solitary presence, blind, but standing tall, calm but getting ready to play, alone but hundreds waiting for him.  Two more steps by me and I received the most surprising, unexpected response spoken clear as a bell in that voice that is uniquely his  “thank you - god bless you.”   I could write for pages and not get close to what came across in those few moments but I’ll try.

I will never forget the time of day, the bright afternoon sunlight, the sound of his voice, he had a vest on, the big huge horse farm we were on – neither of us stopping what we were doing - his solitary appearance – how startled I was to just see him appear and how I reeled in every urge to stop and stare, hover, speak, exclaim, trumpet and noticed he was tuning and let the man be knowing how much trouble that B string gives me. 

It was startling that no one and I mean no one was around.  I think he knew I waited to say something until he was finished tuning – and respected that and that we didn’t break stride or invade his personal space.  We both heard in the timber of each others voice respect and I didn’t feel the need for anything else.  Amazed that I was good to go so to speak I didn’t need to press for details.  What more could we say to each other?  What was going to top that and really mean anything?  How can someone one amaze you in such a short second – its not what you say but how you say it – It was a moment for me and one that will live on forever.  It’s as clear as the crescent moon and solitary planet that hung over the Blue Ridge as we left the festival the following fall night. 

What a spectacular time it was with John Hartford, New Grass Revival, Arlo Guthrie and The Seldom Scene.  I did to Sam Bush what I didn’t do to Doc – LOL.  John Hartford was a sweetheart.  

But I tell you I have always felt honored to have exchanged those few personal moments and words with Doc.  His musical journey is second to none and to have him be a part of my musical journey well it’s the bedrock, the foundation, the essence of this land, gods land, the blue ridge, the great spirit, the good lord, the tree of life manifested, the well, the source, and Doc the hard working linchpin audible and personified with precision and joy, wisdom and heart, human and channeling through that man the spirit and his spirit nourishing our souls.  The Blue Ridge remains and so will his music.  We say goodbye for now and god bless you Doc Watson for he most surly did. What an honor to be alive during your time!  

Paul Burke

Author-Journey Home

No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap.

Carrie Snow

The beauty of the band was you never knew what was going to come out next.

~ Jimmy Page

Paths cannot be taught, they can only be taken.

~ Zen Saying

We're happy to announce that Lathem Family Farms in Pendergrass, GA has earned the Certified Humane® designation for their organic eggs!

Romney left Massachusetts residents with $10,504 in per capita bond debt, the highest of any state in the nation when he left office in 2007. The state ranked second in debt as a percentage of personal income.

Massachusetts lost 14 percent of its manufacturing jobs during Romney’s time in office, according to Sum. The loss was double the rate that the nation as a whole lost manufacturing jobs.

Only Louisiana, which was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, saw a bigger decline in its labor force than Massachusetts during Romney’s tenure as governor.

Despite Romney’s professed expertise in creating jobs, Massachusetts ranked 47th in job growth during his time as governor. The state’s total job growth was just 0.9 percent, well behind other high-wage, high-skill economies in New York (2.7), California (4.7), and North Carolina (7.6). The national average, meanwhile, was better than 5 percent.

Scott Walkers’ unfair budget cuts to the state's Earned Income Tax Credit will raise taxes on 145,000 low-income families with children

Scott Walker killed the creation of more than 15,000 jobs when he rejected $810 million in federal funds to construct a passenger rail system between Milwaukee and Madison.

Scott Walker has led Wisconsin to last place in the nation in job creation.

Scott Walker eliminated the collective bargaining rights of 175,000 public employees.

“There isn’t a musician anywhere who isn’t saying ‘My God, I’ll never even get close to that.’” – Mike Marshall on Doc Watson

Syngenta settles, but atrazine Kool-Aid still strong | Pesticide Action Network

Syngenta settles, but atrazine Kool-Aid still strong | Pesticide Action Network: Syngenta, for its part, still won't admit that the chemical is of concern despite handing over a hundred million dollars to make the lawsuit go away. And broken pesticide and agricultural policy keeps the chemical on the market, leaving farmers with precious few alternatives.

Take Action » Join us to build the groundswell needed right now to shine the light on the science on cancer and atrazine to fix what's broken in our nation's capitol and move us toward keeping chemical corporate feet to the fire — rather than their fingers pulling the strings.

Rethinking risk | Pesticide Action Network

Rethinking risk | Pesticide Action Network: But earlier this month a provocative Environmental Health Perspectives article argued that a "population approach" might be wiser — meaning that even when a health effect is not severe, if it's affecting a huge number of our children (think dropping IQs), we should be paying attention.

Soil health matters — a lot! | Pesticide Action Network

Soil health matters — a lot! | Pesticide Action Network: As the Senate is poised to vote on the 2012 Food and Farm bill, we're working with our partners in the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) to fight for those programs that best protect vital soil resources — and you can help.

20 yrs later, the Biotech Brigade marches on…. | Pesticide Action Network

20 yrs later, the Biotech Brigade marches on…. | Pesticide Action Network: After 30 years of publicly subsidized research and 14 years of commercialization, agricultural biotechnology — despite its aggressive promotion by the Biotech Brigade, and facing precious few of those “unnecessary regulations” — has failed to deliver its promises of higher yields for U.S. farmers, or drought-resistance for developing country farmers.