Schemes to Gain the Motherland

I recently bought Jackson Browne's SOLO ACOUSTIC, VOL. 1.

I'm in awe of it. And I don't know if it'll ever come out of the CD player in my car.

It's a live recording, and it feels so righteously intimate. It’s like he sits in my passenger seat every time I drive somewhere, serenading me with his smart lyrics and spellbinding musical phrases.

The CD showcases Jackson's songwriting and performing, as he shifts between his guitar and a piano -- engaging the audience in one long conversation for which he supplies the soundtrack.

Whether the gentle aural massage of "For Everyman," or the yearning infused throughout "Your Bright Baby Blues," I'm simultaneously captivated and disappointed. But, my disappointment is rooted only in my assumption that too many people younger than I have missed out on his formidable talents.

I'm reminded, though, of that inspiring and poetic induction speech Bruce Springsteen delivered, as he ushered Jackson into the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame.

Just because I think you ought to, read this excerpt:

In seventies, post-Vietnam America, there
was no album that captured the fall from
Eden, the long, slow afterburn of the sixties --
its heartbreak, its disappointments, its spent
possibilities -- better than Jackson's masterpiece,
LATE FOR THE SKY.

…Jackson was always the tempered voice of
Abel. Toiling in the vineyards, here to bear
the earthly burdens, confronting the impossibility
of love, here to do his father's work.

Now, I always thought that in our fall from Eden,
…our real earthly task was that an unbridgeable
gap, or a black hole was opened up in our ability
to truly love one another and so our job here on
earth, the way we regain our divinity, our
sacredness, and our general good-standing is by
reconstructing love and creating love out of the
broken pieces that we've been given.

Unguarded Thoughts

I suppose this sort of idea has been lying about in my thoughts like a vagrant on a park bench -- eyes averted from it, because it seemed unsightly.

But, yeah. I'll cop to it. Isn't it really a part of our humanity? Isn't it part of what has brought bloggers to the Internet...or, in truth, guides us through much of our real lives?

Last year I caught an interview with Tom
Arnold regarding his book How I Lost Five
Pounds in Six Years. The interviewer asked
why he'd written the book, and I was somewhat
amazed at the honesty of Arnold's answer. The
comedian stated that most entertainers are in show
business because they are broken people, looking
for affirmation. "The reason I wrote the book,"
Arnold said, "is because I wanted something out
there so people would tell me they liked me. It's
the reason behind almost everything I do."
-- Donald Miller, Searching for God Know What
I once worked with a woman who had a very abrasive personality. While working late one night on a project, I tried diplomatically addressing the issue with her.

But, I could tell she insisted on wearing her "strong personality" (boy, there's some propaganda) like a badge of honor, claiming that some people just find it difficult to deal with. She even laced her propaganda with misplaced pride. Truthfully, she needed to replace "strong personality" with "pompous, didactic jackass" -- and she might even need to insert "huge" before "jackass."

(There I go being diplomatic, again.)

I'm sometimes astonished at how people seem to misread themselves. Maybe they truly know better, but they just present an outward appearance based on preference.

That makes me suspicious I somehow do the same thing.

By The Seat of His Breaches

From an Associated Press report:

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms,
federal disaster officials warned President
Bush and his homeland security chief before
Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm
could breach levees, put lives at risk...and
overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential
video footage.

...Four days after the storm, Mr. Bush said:
"I don't think anybody anticipated
the breach of the levees."
The article also cites then-FEMA chief Michael Brown referencing a conversation he had with the president on the day the storm hit. Brown said Bush was "asking questions about reports of breaches."

I suppose the president could clarify that he was talking about "britches." Sure. He was asking about reports of britches being in short supply for the naked survivors.

I'm confident this surprises no one. Instead, it's sending Republicans into a frenzy of spin control and (no doubt) an investigation about who leaked the video footage.

Here's what the Republicans will do: they have all their pundits stir up some rage about how this is all some spurious and mean-spirited attempt of The Left to discredit the president and the administration.

Ah, yes. The patented non-denial denial. The "I'm-going-to-incite-the-masses" plan that completely sidesteps questions of the president's integrity. Republicans honed that skill during Watergate, when the misdeeds and allegations reported by The Washington Post were responded to with enflamed cries about the liberal media agenda to undermine the Nixon administration, while carefully avoiding whether or not the reports were true.

Ugh. That partisan gamesmanship and political posturing has incensed me against the machinations of our nation's capitol.

The Democrats are guilty, too. What did the Clinton administration do when political mines exploded in their camp? They sent their crazed wildman, James Carville, to lambaste all things non-Democratic with his patented whirling dervish of media incendiary. That man could get fired up with righteous indignation about the color of flowers and make a sound bite out of the blathering spectacle.

It spreads, too, like a plague. Every conservative talk-radio host will key on some circuitous logic to make this about a liberal agenda. And their sheep will fall in line with enthusiasm.

That's right. The Bush administration's lies about the awareness of danger associated with Katrina and their inept response to widespread devastation are really about the agenda of the people who call attention to it.