"Traditionally, Labor Day is celebrated by most Americans as the symbolic end of the summer. The holiday is often regarded as a day of rest and parades."
"Only Jason Isbell could so eloquently explain the significance of and provide contemporary context for the Tennessee Valley Authority as an early arm of FDR’s New Deal while also singing about rounding second base for the first time in the same song."
What most impacted me about Patterson’s artistic vision was that it helped me understand being a white man in the south. Pride and guilt expressed to the sound of Crazy Horse with a few other guys sitting in. There is an apology that many southerners have prepared for the world. It’s an explanation to outsiders about how this place isn’t at all what they think it is, and if it is, then it has nothing to do with them. And then there is the tough, conservative old southerner types with their hands clenched to the stars and bars and a dedication so dear to the past that they’d probably tell you they’d ride a horse to work if somebody else didn’t have a problem with it. And if the past was that good, we probably should all ride horses and shit in the woods. Those rights are, after all, somewhat protected. And then there is that person, much like a Patterson Hood, who is self-aware as an individual and clever as an artist. His take on being born here shrugs the shame and guilt away, embraces the people and the will that has endured unwarranted ridicule and deserved blame, and understands that, either way, this is who I am. I think that much of his brilliance is in the personal concern for his geographical place in the world and the ability to treat it with an objective and educated, yet loving and compassionate hand. It is a painterly stroke that has, finally, made a musical connection from my father’s south to mine.
"Do the Drive-By Truckers know something we don’t?"
"In March 1999, George Jones slammed his SUV into a bridge abutment, and Drive-By Truckers got a song out of it. Jones wasn't reeling from alcohol, nor was he being chased by an angry ex, nor did any of the hard-living country tropes play into the crash. Instead, he was simply talking on his cell phone to his daughter. He was in critical condition but recovered eventually. Which is fortunate, because a legend like Jones shouldn't go out that way. Part joking and part shaming, the Truckers' 'George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues' acts as a biopic of sorts, framing a consideration of his life and legacy with details from the crash. 'He almost stopped loving her today,' Hood sings, before admonishing the legend: 'Better leave that cell phone alone.'"
"Clich�or not, Drive-By Truckers’ leftovers really are better than most bands’ main course."
"In the wake of the Drive-By Truckers’ split with New West Records this past spring, it’s hardly a surprise that the label is churning out whatever previously unreleased DBT-related material they can scrounge up. And after all, who can blame ‘em? Since picking up the Alabama-bred, Georgia-based band in 2003, the Drive-By Truckers have gone on to become one of, if not the most popular band on the label’s roster, and with a large fan base built solely from years of extensive touring, the demand for new product is definitely there."
"If ever a band seemed to demand a full bio documentary, shedding light on member comings and going, musical evolution, et cetera, it’s the Drive-By Truckers, but pending that ever happening, we get performance DVD"
"Police are reviewing the death of Rolling Stone Brian Jones – 40 years after his body was found at the bottom of a swimming pool.
The dramatic move by Sussex Police follows new evidence unearthed by The Mail on Sunday about the mysterious death of the rock legend which suggests he was murdered by his minder"
"5) Alabama Ass Whuppin' Not only does this blog keep me up to date with the doings of The Drive By Truckers, but the anonymous author of this blog is, like me, a member of that rare breed: southern liberals."
"“When people are anxious and angry, they look to their leaders for a way to channel that anger that is productive. That is part of what leadership is. (But) this president and his leadership team believe that leadership is channeling hope, and even touching anybody’s anger and anxiety is off limits. It’s the politics of Dukakis,” Westen said.
“What I think the White House hasn’t gotten is that if the public is angry and anxious and you don’t talk about that anger, and it doesn’t look like you feel it, you start to look like George H.W. Bush in the recession (of the early 1990s). Out of touch,” Westen said."
"Police said he hit her four or five times. 'See, I told you I would shut her up,' the suspect allegedly told the mother.
Authorities described 'slight redness' to the toddler's face. Before he was arrested, Stephens apologized to the mother for striking the girl, the incident report said."
"And when the going gets tough, the weird go pro ."
"'What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing,' said Bachmann. 'This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn't pass.'"
"Bartiromo's response to this argument was a true head-scratcher. In a mocking tone, she pressed the congressman: 'How come you don't use it [Medicare]? You don't have it. How come you don't have it?'
Rep. Weiner, who turns 45 this week, tried to walk Bartiromo through it. 'Because I'm not 65.' But she was insistent. 'Yeah... c'mon!' she exclaimed, laughing incredulously."
"The AFL-CIO, America’s largest federation of labor unions representing over 11 million members, is digging its heels in and telling congressional Democrats they will not enjoy the union’s support unless a public insurance policy emerges from the current debate.
“The AFL-CIO’s incoming president, Richard Trumka, outlined ‘three absolute musts’ in any overhaul package: a public option, an employer mandate and no tax on employer-provided health benefits,” reported Politico.
“Asked if the union would work against any bill that did not hit those targets, Trumka told reporters during a briefing: ‘That means we won’t support the bill if it doesn’t have the public option.’”"
"The party included three hours of dancing, drinks and booths filled with items ranging from 'Cougar Kits' to 'Cougar kitty' T-shirts for $20 sold by Becky Aguilar of Mountain View, recently divorced and looking for fun, but not necessarily younger men, she said.
Miss Cougar America was selected by a vote of the men in attendance.
Watching from a distance was hotel guest Mark Friedman, 45, of Boston, in town for a wedding.
'I've never seen so many useless 20-year-olds in my life,' he said. 'This is a uniquely American phenomenon.'"
"Catholic League President Bill Donohue presented a paranoid side of his personality to Fox News Monday morning, declaring that “militant, dogmatic” atheists are “out to get” Catholics and dismantle American society.
“I’m talking about the extremists within [liberal] ranks who have become very, very vocal,” Donohue said. “And over the last several decades what we’ve seen is an all-out assault. This kind of new atheism. This militant dogmatic fundamentalist atheism out there to get us.”"
"Part of the answer is that the right-wing fringe, which has always been around — as an article by the historian Rick Perlstein puts it, “crazy is a pre-existing condition” — has now, in effect, taken over one of our two major parties. Moderate Republicans, the sort of people with whom one might have been able to negotiate a health care deal, have either been driven out of the party or intimidated into silence. Whom are Democrats supposed to reach out to, when Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who was supposed to be the linchpin of any deal, helped feed the “death panel” lies?
But there’s another reason health care reform is much harder now than it would have been under Nixon: the vast expansion of corporate influence."
"A few years ago I heard about a band that was doing a kind of updated country-rock thing and went to seem them play Irving Plaza. They played for about an hour and half, dazzling what otherwise would have been a jaded New York crowd with their proud, aggressive songs and the brutal realism of their lyrics. After the last chord was struck and the world started spinning again, I went over to their merch booth to pick up as many of their records as I could fit in my pockets."
"Baseball through the eyes of Centro-matic singer/guitarist Will Johnson looks like that. On panels of wood, he paints portraits of the men who've served the beloved sport with their life stories, such as Willie Mays and Cool Papa Bell. Johnson frames their faces with words, sometimes words the players famously said and sometimes Johnson's own wide-eyed biographies of the figures.
The night before they set out to record Centro-matic's next record, Johnson and drummer Matt Pence, who's a photographer, will share their work Sunday from 7 t"
A couple of us from the band have started blogs so that we can share our photos, stories and whatnot. We're always taking photos on the road and elsewhere. If you're interested in seeing what's going on inside and outside of the band check them out.
Patrick's:
www.two-bitwonders.blogspot.com
Chris':
www.dailyspamart.blogspot.com
word is bond,
-Patrick"
"Welcome to Hobbyland, Montgomery's Sheffield store - a pack rat's nirvana.
But there is a history behind the guy selling those aged prom dresses and greeting cards.
He's penned more than 70 songs for country legend George Jones."
"Bob Dylan, the singer-songwriter who has taken his fans down Highway 61 by way of Lonely Avenue and Desolation Row, is in negotiations to voice a satellite navigation system.
"Bob Dylan has made his latest unpredictable career move: Rolling Stone has learned that Bob Dylan will release a Christmas album October 13th. Entitled Christmas in the Heart, the collection will feature holiday standards including “Must Be Santa,” “Little Drummer Boy,” “Winter Wonderland” and “Here Comes Santa Claus.” All U.S. royalties from the collection will benefit the charity Feeding America, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity. Other proceeds from the disc will benefit hunger relief organizations around the world. Get a first look at the album art here."
"A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday.
'I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work,' Woolley said."
"But Shante, then 19, remembered a clause in her Warner Music recording contract: The company would fund her education for life.
She eventually cashed in, earning a Ph.D. in psychology from Cornell to the tune of $217,000 - all covered by the label. But getting Warner Music to cough up the dough was a battle.
"TOPEKA, Kan. – U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins told a recent gathering in northeast Kansas that the Republican Party is looking for a 'great white hope' to help stop the political agenda of the Democratic party and President Barack Obama."
"He flew in corporate jets to industry meetings to plan how to block health reform, he says. He rode in limousines to confabs to concoct messaging to scare the public about reform. But in his heart, he began to have doubts as the business model for insurance evolved in recent years from spreading risk to dumping the risky.
Then in 2007 Mr. Potter attended a premiere of “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s excoriating film about the American health care system. Mr. Potter was taking notes so that he could prepare a propaganda counterblast — but he found himself agreeing with a great deal of the film.
A month later, Mr. Potter was back home in Tennessee, visiting his parents, and dropped in on a three-day charity program at a county fairgrounds to provide medical care for patients who could not afford doctors. Long lines of people were waiting in the rain, and patients were being examined and treated in public in stalls intended for livestock."
"DAVIE, Florida — When South Florida atheists held their first meeting, they were just five friends, having a beer at a bar.
Four years later, they’ve moved to a bigger place — still a bar — to hold their weekly meet-and-greets. Membership is up to almost 500, Darwin Day is in the planning stages and bumper stickers are on sale.
“There is no God, but ice-cream is great,” reads one. “What schools need is a moment of science,” reads another."
"Strikingly, they provide little evidence for Cheney’s claims that the “enhanced interrogation” program run by the CIA provided valuable information. In fact, throughout both documents, many passages — though several are incomplete and circumstantial, actually suggest the opposite of Cheney’s contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA’s interrogations."
"The purpose of sleep remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in science. Although we spend roughly one-third of life asleep, researchers still do not know why.
While sleep is often thought to have evolved to play an unknown but vital role inside the body, a new theory now suggests it actually developed as a method to better deal with the outside world."
"HYANNIS PORT, Massachusetts (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, a towering figure in the Democratic Party who took the helm of one of America's most fabled political families after two older brothers were assassinated, died at age 77, his family said."
"This afternoon in his town hall, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said he is “unalterably opposed” to using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform. “It would be a drastic change in the way that the United States Senate does business.” Fox News’ Shep Smith fact-checked McCain’s claim immediately upon the conclusion of the town hall. “The truth is Republicans used this in 2001, 2003, and 2005 to pass then-President George Bush’s tax cuts,” Smith said. Armed with some research, he then reported this quote from Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH):"
"Those smiles belong to Amber Willingham and her father, Cameron Todd Willingham.
Both of them were killed because of an accidental fire. Amber and her two sisters died in the blaze. Cameron was wrongfully executed by the state of Texas for setting it.
Today, Texas took the first big step in admitting it murdered an innocent man in its death chamber. And the implications are huge."
"It must finally be clear to us all that the stumbling block to successful health/disease care reform has been definitively reduced to two words. They're not 'public option' or 'single payer', they're 'Max Baucus'.
He was not elected to eliminate the Democratic Majority in the Finance Committee, but that's what he's done. It was not mandated that he exclude a representative expert on single payer from his 15-person advisory board but that's what he did. More than that, he's filled his campaign coffers with millions of dollars of Insurance Company money, for heaven's sake. Fine that he sits there holding the president's suit coat at that town hall meeting, great that he gets identified by the president a bunch of times. Great, because now we can all have a good look at who he is, sitting there squirming in the spotlight."
"A brief round of applause interrupted him, after which he continued, 'As far as peace goes, it seems to me that we ought to be defending ourselves when we’re attacked, not when there’s something we want out of somebody. As for justice, I’d sure as Hell like to see justice brought down on those people who’ve tried their best to ruin this country. I think any person that’s been shown to break the law, whether it’s a banker or a politician, they ought to be prosecuted and brought to justice.'"
Much of Europe closes up shop in August. From steelworkers in Spain to technology consultants in Germany, the European Union's workers head for the coast or other vacation hot spots, forgoing the sweltering heat of Europe's cities for some rest and relaxation.
Europeans on average pocket almost 10 more vacation days than their US counterparts. That's the findings from research by consultants at Mercer, which analyzed the minimum number of vacation days that companies across Europe must provide to staff with 10 years' service, as well as the number of national holidays in each country.The study reveals the average time off in European Union countries is now 34.4 days, compared with just 25 in the US. Overall, employees in Lithuania are entitled to the greatest amount of paid leave, with 41 holidays per year. France and Finland come a close second, with 40.
"In Europe, time off is enshrined in government legislation, so employers are forced to hire more staff to cover the gaps," says Matthew Hunt, a principal in Mercer's international team. "The US takes a different view; there's a focus on maintaining productivity."
"State Trooper John Reese said children of the 2 feuding families began arguing at the high school this morning and shotguns were found in their cars."
"A South Carolina woman has won a $2 million jury verdict against a dental clinic that mistakenly pulled 13 teeth. The State reported that 28-year-old Elizabeth Smith wanted three teeth pulled when she went to the Sexton Dental Clinic in Florence in 2006. Her lawsuit said a dentist at the clinic pulled all 16 of her upper teeth."
"Artificial life will be made to order in the laboratory within four months, a controversial biologist has claimed.
U.S genome expert Craig Venter, said his team have overcome a vital obstacle in the development of new man-made organisms.
The scientist, named as one of the most influential people in the world, said the first 'synthetic species' could be created this year."
