Saturday, July 13, 2019

Poets' Corner- William Wordsworth's "Ode To The French Revolution"- In Honor Of Its Anniversary

Poets' Corner- William Wordsworth's "Ode To The French Revolution"- In Honor Of Its Anniversary


Markin Comment:

Here is William Wordsworth's famous ode to the beginning of the French revolution full of all the youthful enthusiasm such a world historic event can elicit. That he, like many another former 'friend' of revolutions over the ages, went over to the other side when things got too hot does not take away from his efforts here.


The French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts

. Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—

Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,

When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress--to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,

The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself )
The budding rose above the rose full blown.

What temper at the prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,

The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers,--who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,

And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it;--they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;--
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us,--the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!

William Wordsworth

Angels Flying Too Close To The Ground-I Hear The Noise Of Wings-A Drifter’s Tale-Alice Faye And Dana Andrews’ “Fallen Angel” (1945(-A Film Review

Angels Flying Too Close To The Ground-I Hear The Noise Of Wings-A Drifter’s Tale-Alice Faye And Dana Andrews’ “Fallen Angel” (1945(-A Film Review



DVD Review

By Seth Garth


Fallen Angel, starring Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, directed by Otto Preminger in his prime, 1945


I am not going to fall all over myself spending good cyberspace getting into the thick of the “dispute,” nice tame word for a civil war, that has flared up at this publication. That is the dispute between young Sarah Lemoyne, who in the interest of transparency which seems to be a by-word these troubles days when nothing seems to be what it is on its face, or at least people want to suspect some deeper motive I have given some advice about how to handle my old corner boy from back in North Adamsville high school days her sparring partner Sam Lowell. Grandfatherly advice is the way Sarah put and that seems about right except to the gossips who think “something is going on” between us which is ridiculous although I would have to admit that if I was younger I wouldn’t be late taking a run at her assuming that I was between one of my three marriages not made in heaven. Sam, if he were honest which is not likely these days, would have too although if Laura Perkins sees this I am only kidding. All of this to say I am glad, lemmings to the sea glad, to be doing a film noir review after some time away beating down both Sherlock Holmes’ door and young fellow reviewer Will Bradley’s as well. What has happened is that Sam is so wrapped up in his dispute with Sarah that he let this one get away and Greg Green, our esteemed site manager, tagged me for the assignment. But enough, to the chase.  


My mother, rest her soul, maybe, when I was a kid, when her brood of five boys and two girls were growing up warned me, us against drifters, grafters and grifters, especially the latter since they will take all your money and laugh on the way out of town. Naturally I ignored that warning when I came of age and was totally enchanted by these guys, mostly guys then anyway although more than one woman acquaintance did me worse than any grifter ever did, and had done my fair share of drifting especially after Vietnam did me in about what was what in this wicked old world. So from minute one of this film Otto Preminger’s Fallen Angel when Eric, lets call him Eric, Eric Stanton since that was the name he used when he grabbed a marriage certificate in his big end around on-screen scam, played by 1940s heartthrob Dana Andrews, got hauled off a Greyhound San Francisco bus by the world-weary driver after pulling the oldest trick in the book-the sleeping passenger who overshot his ticketed destination- I was all in. Not only pulled off that freaking bus in the dead of night by that bastard driver but wound up in some Podunk town, the name does not matter since such towns were, are, legion the exception being that this Podunk is along the Pacific Coast Highway with nice views of the Pacific heading to the Japan Seas.   

Eric, with a solo buck in his pocket heads to the all-night diner one can find in even the crankiest of towns. The joint, Pops Eats, it figured right will become headquarters for a time for Eric as he tries to turn that dollar bill into some working capital. Yeah, Eric is down and out right this moment but he is a big idea man, some working, some no but in the drifter, grifter racket you play the percentages and watch out for the dirty coppers who want to spoil your play. Here is Eric’s problem, a problem which will dodge him the rest of the film so you know it had to be a woman. A freaking waitress named Stella, played by saucy Linda Darnell, who has half the guys on the West Coast crawling up walls and spending sleepless nights trying to get into her bed (implied remember this is Code Hollywood). This Stella to my mind is nothing but a tramp, maybe not the worst round heels that has hit the streets but working her way up the food chain. Any man’s woman is what we called it back in the day, hell, whore and heart-breaking ball-buster if you really want to know.

Frankly a self-starter like Eric doesn’t figure to get into the claws of a she-devil like Stella (or maybe she was just a girl looking out for herself in a hard-ass world not selling her good looks and trophy wife aspect too cheaply). Maybe I missed something in her allure to the male sex but even senior citizen Pops tried to take a run at her, a run at his employee serving them off the arm at his joint (although her attendance record left something to be desired when she was out with some guy, who knows who, much to Pops’ chagrin). In any case Stella did get her claws into Eric and had him running through hoops to marry her. Problem-no dough. That is when after getting a little working capital doing a promo job for a fakir, a fly-by-night fortune teller, he gets the bright idea of going off and romancing the younger sister, June, played by fetching Alice Faye, who seems to be more his speed but who knows what churns a guy up, of one of the town’s leading families. The play is to marry her, grab her share of the family dough and then divorce her. I liked the play even if it seemed to have too many moving parts.     
 
I need not have worried because dear sweet Stella turned up dead, very dead, one late night after Eric had married June (and had taken off on his wedding night to see, well, to see Stella bad play, very bad). Guess who the number one fall is? Yeah, Eric has to think quickly because otherwise he will take the big step-off at the Q some forlorn midnight and then he really would hear the angelic noise of wings, hear them loud and clear. He and June take off for Frisco town to grab the dough since no matter what he has done she loves the guy, wants him to be whatever he wants to be, no questions asked. While in Frisco June gets picked up by the coppers and sent back to Podunk to put the squeeze play on Eric. This is where this seemingly naïve small-town girl with stars in her eyes shows her grit though. She doesn’t knuckle under, doesn’t rat him out to the local coppers. Meanwhile Eric has finally put two and two together since he didn’t do it. George a guy from Stella’s old home town of San Diego who had dated her on the night she was murdered. No. Pops. Come on. No, it was an old New York City ex-cop named Judd who had been kicked off the force for being too rough on the clientele. He had been sitting in Pops all along seeing what a tramp Stella was, seeing her moving toward Eric and that was that. So, yeah, Judd will be hearing the noise of wings. As for June and Eric, Christ he finally woke up to June’s charms for their own sake. About time. This film and review was certainly better than dodging the Sarah-Sam dispute.             


From The Maine Peace Walk Archives-Build The International Peace Front


From The Maine Peace Walk Archives-Build The International Peace Front


By Fritz Taylor

Recently in a short archive caption about the Bath Iron Works in Maine where many of the top-of-the line and billion-dollar expensive destroyers are built I mentioned, as a little background for knowing about the place that I am a Vietnam Veteran. I also mentioned in an earlier archive caption while I hate the NRA I favor my Second Amendment right to bear arm. But whatever vestiges I have of my growing up in Fulton County, Georgia I “got religion” on the questions of war and peace through the hellhole of Vietnam experience. Not right away, certainly not right away since I come from a long, a very long line of military people and not completely at first since I initially mistook being anti-war with pacificism which I was, am uncomfortable with. Now though I am comfortable with the twenty plus years I have spent screaming (if necessary) against the endless wars, the bloated military budgets and the glorification of the fog war creates in the public, and among soldiers and politicians.

Now I was strictly Army, Fourth Division so you know I saw some hellish action in Vietnam, particularly when we were sent to re-enforce up in the Central Highland and I can tell you plenty about that branch of the service, the waste and the like. You can always learn sometime new though in this struggle against war and endless budgets. I certainly did the year I went up to Maine to walk the walk Peace Walk then held annually about quiet Bath and its well-oiled shipbuilding capacity.  Each year they organizers, more about them in a minute, try to gather in a theme that speaks to the militarization of our country, of the world, the particular role Maine plays in that process and of course from our perspective some alternatives. In 2016 that was around creating the environment for a sustainable future, very much more in doubt in the few years since that walk, which meant a serious frontal attack on the role the military plays in not making the future world sustainable. I should have mentioned before that leaflets are passed out with messages along that line along the line of march, the sites selected like Bath Iron Works where things need to be changed and evening programs at the various nightly stopping points dealing with the overall theme message.  

I noted in the last archival caption that I have been doing these walks for a few years even though I had my fill of marches in the Army. Moreover, I had my doubts whether such a walking program over a couple of weeks would do anything for the cause, still have questions.
Enter the great equalizers.  I started, kicking and screaming at first about doing this trek once my friends Sam Eaton and Ralph Morris went up to Maine to help out in the annual Maine Peace Walk sponsored by the Maine chapter of Veterans for Peace and other local activist peace groups. Ralph and Sam pointed out that even a few VFP dove-encrusted flags on the march would ensure that some message was getting through. Having seen that flag business work a million times before I bought in -for part of the trek.  

Of course if you had read the previous caption you know that “helping out” entailed walking half the freaking state of Maine at least on the oceanside, the side where U.S. Route One slithers down the coast. Over a period of several days. I had started up in Brunswick, up at Bowdoin College where I met walkers who had started up I believe in Rangeley which I do not have a clue where that is except it is pretty far north in Maine with plenty left before you reach the Canadian border. (As it turned out Sam and Ralph who started their own treks there were clueless when I asked where the place was except the military has a tracking station there which links that nowhere Maine town with the American’s military’s globalization of their forces in many fields. I said good work brothers for starting there, yes, good work indeed.    

As noted before and it bears repeating when you mention Brunswick you really automatically mention Bath as I found out. In little old out of the way Bath, which is a pretty town along the river and close to the ocean, you have the very large Bath Iron Works which despite its benign name is the main producer of the Navy’s destroyer fleet, the modern one which goes for billions a pop. Needless to say the organizers planned a serious stop at that location along the route to protest these ships being built (and proposing as an alternative something like a Green New Deal to keep the citizenry usefully employed). The place crawls with plenty of possibilities along that line.

That year’s walk was quite an experience, learned some stuff but what was, is really important is that over the past few years a number of mainly Maine citizens have taken it upon themselves to protest by acts of civil disobedience every time some new destroyer is launched (and by extension no money is allocated for sustainable future programs). Hats off to the sister and brothers of that branch of the resistance struggle. My kind of people. Hats off to Sam and Ralph and Maine VFP and others for doing this tough work. Hats off to me for not bitching too badly about my poor aching from that freaking hundred- mile walk.  
    



From The ALH Archives -Stop The Gun Violence-Nothing More Needs To Be Said-Or Maybe More Does When You Come To Think About The Matter


From The ALH Archives -Stop The Gun Violence-Nothing More Needs To Be Said-Or Maybe More Does When You Come To Think About The Matter

By Fritz Taylor


It bears repeating since I have taken what I half-expected would be some blow-back from what I call frankly “gun nuts.” Guys, maybe gals too but I don’t see many of them on the range, at least not the one in Rowley, whose only political position, and who knows if that is even true and maybe it is something about security lost way back when at the time they had to fend for themselves after working their ways out of dear mother wombs, is that they will defend, fight, maybe even go to armed struggle like some of the whackos out west so that no governmental agency, great or small will take away their weapons. On inquiry, maybe inspection is the better word, when asked by me or others whether any such agencies had approached them about taking their weapons away they have universally said no. That said I still have to tell you about the blow-back from the nut-cakes -and I am a guy who both likes the right to bear arms, thinks the original founders met for us to be militarily prepared for whatever was up and who likes to fire a few harmless rounds at paper bullseyes for, I don’t know, kicks maybe.   

To refresh I mentioned in my first caption on this subject that I knew exactly why Greg Green gave me this archival caption assignment. I am maybe the only one on staff here, I am not sure of Sam Lowell, who agrees with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on an individual’s Second Amendment right to bear arms. Having grown up in 1950s then rural Fulton County down in Georgia where guns, learning to shoot are a way of life and then having served in the military I am very familiar with weapons.  Like to go to the firing range over in secluded Rowley and see what my latest abilities are. No subtle or sweet reason argument here for my position except that I want the right to bear arms because I don’t want the cops, the crazies, the criminals and the cranks to be the only ones with fire power.        

Let me put this in big letters or something like that I do not like the NRA, have never joined despite constant and unending mail giving me a million chances to join that organization and defense my rights big time. Defending those rights somewhere along that line of reasoning where if one single regulatory encroachment passes through the sieve every gunowner with have to surrender his or her weapons and go on the run.  Jesus.

That is where I draw some very big lines on this gun question. This gun madness question of late. It is a very, very long distance from exercising my right to bear arms essentially defensively against cops, crazies, cranks and criminal or whatever attempts to harm me and mine and opposing every attempt to limit access by crazies and criminals to weapons. A very long way from an occasional admittedly male-hunter warrior drive to some secluded firing range to burst off a few rounds and not have safe-guards against the very real dangerous people in the world who should not be allowed access to endless weapons depots. Yeah, call me a liberal, call me a bleeding heart, but we have got to protect our kids, grandkids, and somebody else’s too by dropping the violence index which is sky high right now.           

Those seemingly sane reasons drew more hell and damnation from so-called fellow gun owners who have frozen their brains around the thought that any encroachment is tantamount to surrender and destruction of everything this country stands for, or did until the military went berserk with weaponry, the cops become militarized, the criminals did likewise and more to keep the coppers at bay, and the crazies started almost looting the gun shops, shows, and depots.

Here is one example, not the worse, and since I have not asked permission in the age of privacy and identity politics concerns will just use a first name-Claude-

“It is motherfuckers like you, guys who claim to defend the sacred right to bear arms, to defend home and hearth, to defend against the criminal immigrants, the (n-word), and dopey liberal bureaucrats that are bleeding us dry. Are putting my three kids and darling wife at risk by chipping away with regulations and other “deep state” secret government stuff I know about but don’t want to talk about here to a commie. So fuck you and your friend Obama and the other (n-word) who want to see us defenseless when they come crawling into our neighborhoods.”

Like I said this is far from the worst one so you can see what I am, we are up against in protecting our kids and grand-kids from the vultures.  
      
     





The Centennial Of Pete Seeger’s Birthday (1919-2014)- *From The Back Pages of Folkdom- The Work Of Folksinger/Songwriter Malvina Reynolds

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the American folksinger/songwriter Malvina Reynolds.


CD Review

Ear To The Ground, Malvina Reynolds, Smithsonian/Folkways, 2000



Some of the 1960s folk revival musicians and writers whose work I have reviewed in this space I know first-hand from hearing them live or listening to them in some other form. Those would include the likes of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton and Pete Seeger, among others. Others, I know second-hand from their work being covered by the above-mentioned artists, or others. That is the case with the singer/songwriter under review, Malvina Reynolds.

Long before I had heard her doing her own songs herself I had heard covers of such Reynolds classics as What Have They Done To The Rain?, It Isn’t Nice (Joan Baez) and Little Boxes (Pete Seeger). In those days I didn’t think to inquire about who actually wrote songs, although I think that I assumed in the folk genre that most contemporary songs were written by those who performed them. Needless to say, covered, or as here, sung be herself Malvina Reynolds was the kind of folksinger whose work I could appreciate as an example of the part of the genre that I gravitated toward, social protest songs.

I defy anyone to classify Malvina’s work otherwise. Sure, she might have done some songs with love in mine, or some other thwarted thing but the grit of her work, what makes it work, is that folk troubadour tradition that she worked to perfection. For those not familiar with that tradition it actually goes back to the town criers (and other such wandering figures) in medieval times that would cry the news of the day and put their own spin on it. Is that Malvina's pitch? Of course. And all you have to do is listen to the three examples mentioned above to confirm this.

But don’t stop there for this CD is actually something of a Malvina “greatest hits” compilation. Other songs that will make my point- On The Rim Of The World (my personal choice for the best song on the CD, I wish that I had thought up such a line), that deals with the pathos and heartache of being a women without means in world that does not appreciate that condition; Bury Me In My Overalls, a tribute to working stiffs (and not stuffed shirts) everywhere; Rosie Jane , a very stark and poignant (if bemusing) take on a woman’s right to choose; the self-explanatory The Money Crop; and the thought-provoking working class tribute Carolina Cotton Mill Song. Now look at the adjectives to describe the songs-thought-provoking, amusing, bemusing, poignant, pathos- now you get the range on this singer/songwriter. And for those not familiar with Malvina’s life and work Smithsonian/Folkways provides (as always) an informative thick little booklet, with an introduction by Malvina devotee folksinger/songwriter Rosalie Sorrels, to put you straight. What more can one ask for?

In Honor Of The 100th Anniversary Of The Founding of The Communist International-*Poet's Corner- The Work of Chile's Pablo Neruda

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda.

******
Chant to Bolivar

Our Father thou art in Heaven,
in water, in air
in all our silent and broad latitude
everything bears your name, Father in our dwelling:
your name raises sweetness in sugar cane
Bolivar tin has a Bolivar gleam
the Bolívar bird flies over the Bolivar volcano
the potato, the saltpeter, the special shadows,
the brooks, the phosphorous stone veins
everything comes from your extinguished life
your legacy was rivers, plains, bell towers
your legacy is our daily bread, oh Father.


From The Heights Of Maccho Picchu

Rise up to be born with me, brother.
Give me your hand from the deep
Zone seeded by your sorrow.
You won’t return from under the rocks.
You won’t return from your subterranean time.
Your hardened voice won’t return.
Your gouged-out eyes won’t return.

Look at me from the depth of the earth,
laborer, weaver, silent shepherd:
tamer of wild llamas like spirit images:
construction worker on a daring scaffold:
waterer of the tears of the Andes:
jeweler with broken fingers:
farmer trembling as you sow:
potter, poured out into your clay:
bring to the cup of this new life
your old buried sorrows.
Show me your blood and your furrow,
Tell me, “Here I was punished,
Because the jewel didn’t shine or the earth
Didn’t yield grain or stones on time.”
Show me the stone you fell over
And the wood on which they crucified you,
Make a spark from the old flints for me,
For the old lamps to show the whips still stuck
After centuries in the old wounds
And the axes shining with blood.
I come to speak for your dead mouth.
Across the earth come together all
The silent worn-out lips
And from the depth speak to me all this long night
Like I was pinned down there with you.
Tell me all, chain by chain,
Link by link and step by step,
Sharpen the knives which you hid,
Put them in my breast and in my hand,
Like a river of yellow lighting
Like a river of buried jaguars
And let me weep, hours, days, years,
For blind ages, cycles of stars.

Give me silence, water, hope.

Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes.

Stick bodies to me like magnets.

Draw near to my veins and my mouth.

Speak through my words and my blood.


La Muerta

Si de pronto no existes,
si de pronto no vives,
yo seguiré viviendo.

No me atrevo,
no me atrevo a escribirlo,
si te mueres.

Yo seguiré viviendo.

Porque donde no tiene voz un hombre
allí, mi voz.

Donde los negros sean apaleados,
yo no puedo estar muerto.
Cuando entren en la cárcel mis hermanos
entraré yo con ellos.

Cuando la victoria,
no mi victoria,
sino la gran Victoria llegue,
aunque esté mudo debo hablar:
yo la veré llegar aunque esté ciego.

No, perdóname.
Si tú no vives,
si tú, querida, amor mío, si tú
te has muerto,
todas las hojas caerán en mi pecho,
lloverá sobre mi alma noche y día,
la nieve quemará mi corazón,
andaré con frío y fuego
y muerte y nieve,
mis pies querrán marchar hacia donde tú duermes, pero seguiré vivo,
porque tú me quisiste sobre
todas las cosas indomable,
y, amor, porque tú sabes que soy no sólo un hombre
sino todos los hombres

From The Archives Of Frieda Kane's Art World -Once Again In Defense Of Art Critic Laura Perkins



From The Archives Of Frieda Kane's Art World -Once Again In Defense Of Art Critic Laura Perkins

By Eric Saint James

Recently I had to go down in the mud with one Clarence Dewar, art critic, I love to say this, professional art critic for Art Today to “save the honor” of amateur art critic Laura Perkins when he cut her with the remark that she should take up crocheting or some such silly sport and leave the heavy lifting criticism to the big boys and girls, basically him. I made a few pithy remarks about knowing him and his ilk back in the day and that I knew where the bodies were buried. If some snooty snide words from me are all Clarence has had to endure in his seedy baggy pants little life he has gotten off pretty easy.      

In that commentary I challenged Clarence to come at me with his two-bit noise and back off from Laura Perkins. Well, as expected he has yet to said peep one about my slashings but he is back on the case with Laura over her commentary about the late 19th century German artist Frieda Kane (the sister of Gustav Klimt, or maybe step-sister). Ms. Perkins made what seemed to me the unremarkable but astute comment that Ms. Kane in her attempts to connect with common culture, peasant culture at least as it existed in Germany tended to spend too much effort on rural landscapes and fauna and flora. She seemed kind of repetitive and imitative despite the welcome uncovering of her work as part of the general art and social trend to “discover” previously unknown women painters and sculptors. Clarence had a fit, went crazy saying that Ms. Kane was breathe of fresh air in the overstuffed urban-oriented and urban critical German (and Austrian) art world.          

What Clarence probably did not count on and Ms. Perkins I assume was unaware of was the real motivation for Mr. Dewar’s brittle if fervent defense of Ms. Kane’s output. I mentioned in that previous defense of Ms. Perkins around her comments about modern artist Franz Golder the following which remains true in this case and bears repeating.

“Despite what the general public may think the art world is a monstrously dark and dungeon-like place, a place where no quarter is given, none taken where cannibalism is the rule of the day not the exception. Not the art works or the places but the ragamuffin denizens from the starchy volunteer guides to the low-life art gallery owners who plague the markets and who drain the life’s blood out of whatever elevation of human culture even the most contrite and unworthy artist had sweated blood and tears to offer on the altar. What I can’t abide is bullying by the professional cabal from bottom to top of those who have some serious interest art, have some knowledge and who dare to give an opinion not totally in step with whoever is the arbiter of the day, usually some airhead professional art critic who is secretly “on the take,” raking in kale from the gallery owners and auctioneers.”

That brings us directly to the nub of the problem. The role, the perfidious role of the art gallery owners and to a lesser extent the auctioneers who need not concern in this situation. The wormy art gallery owners are strictly in the business of moving artworks and making kale, nothing else really. They have unbelievable influence on art buyers by their hungry huntings for new works with which to tout. That was the case with Larry Larsen at the Nova Galleries in New York City. He had decided, decided early to his small credit, that seeking out earlier unknown or neglected women artists was the next “hot” trend. Along the way among others Larry “discovered” Freida Kane and grabbed a bunch of her paintings at a decent price in order to make a killing. Whether art good or bad should be treated as a commodity like steel or rubber balls I won’t go into right now.      

Enter Clarence Dewar, oh yeah, profession art critic and general shill for whoever had enough dough to whet his degenerate appetite for cocaine I believe it is these days. Clarence started in the old days working his ass off for professional art critic Clement Greenberg when he was touting, successfully touting for a while abstract expressionism. I will admit Clement really did make the market for that genre, pushed more now dissolving or discarded high-priced works, including everything Jackson Pollack ever produced, than anybody. This is how it works though for professional art critics for glossy art publications who get paid starvation money to grind out their pablum.

Enter art gallery owners and in Clarence’s case Larry Larsen. To make some money and get invited to various gala events almost every art critic “sells” him or herself to some gallery owner to act as a press agent, a flak-catcher if necessary. To push the merchandise really, especially the overstocked stuff like most of Freida Kane’s which despite a big gala and fanfare including the inevitable glowing article by Dewar did not, has not sold well. Hence Clarence’s tirade and insults against Ms. Perkins who is only stating the obvious and commenting on what the least discerning collectors know- her stuff is boring.   

I know this will do no good, but again Clarence back off or I will spill many more beans.                     


Petition: President Trump & President Trudeau: No arms sales to Ukraine Global Network

Global Network<globalnet@mindspring.com>
To  GN List Serve  
Hoping you can click this link and sign the petition calling on US-Canada to stop weapons sales to Ukraine
 
 
Thanks
 
Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 607-4255
http://www.space4peace.org 
http://space4peace.blogspot.com  (blog)

'Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.'
~ Henry David Thoreau 

The only thing we have to fear is…? The BIW protestor are carrying on a fine American tradition of civil disobedience.

 
The only thing we have to fear is…?
The BIW protestor are carrying on a fine American tradition of civil disobedience. But I ask what are we so afraid of that we have to have the world’s mightiest, most costly, most polluting military? Being invaded by ISIS? By ragtag desert militia that have no bombers, aircraft carriers or atomic weapons? I guess the discussion focuses on what we get for what we pay-security? Oil? Keeping millions employed in the military? Those may all be laudable goals, but we should have an honest discussion on what we pay for what we get. Isn’t that what good consumers do? 
Bill Laidley,
South Portland

"This is the antichrist" BernieSanders.com

BernieSanders.com<info@berniesanders.com>
To  Al Johnsa  

The billionaire class and financial establishment of this country have made it clear: they hate Bernie Sanders. That’s how you know we’re on the right track. Make a contribution to our campaign to help us fight back.

Al -
Look at this crew:
  • Kenneth Langone, a man worth $3.7 billion dollars yet pays his workers so little many rely on food stamps, Medicaid, and public housing says, "I saw Bernie Sanders and the kids around him." I thought: "This is the antichrist."
  • Or the former CEO of Verizon, Lowell McAdam, who made almost $20 million a year while fighting to take away health care from his employees and thinks Bernie’s views on issues like Medicare for all are "in a word, contemptible."
  • Billionaire political mega-donor Haim Saban who says, "We love all 23 candidates… minus one. I profoundly dislike Bernie Sanders."
  • Or Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, who says our campaign "has the potential to be a dangerous moment."
We are dangerous!?!?!? Lloyd Blankfein’s company almost completely destroyed the WORLD economy and wiped out generations of wealth, and we are dangerous?
Like FDR says, Bernie welcomes their contempt. We wear it like a badge of honor. But these people are enormously powerful, and we need your help to fight back:
Make a contribution to our campaign and we are going to win this primary, beat Donald Trump, and transform this country — whether the billionaire class likes it or not.
The truth is, Bernie does not represent large corporations and he does not want their money. He proved in 2016 you can run for president without begging rich people for money and in this campaign we have more donations than anyone else in the race.
But we can’t stop now. Because the rich folks above will do and spend whatever it takes to beat us.
In solidarity,
Faiz Shakir
Campaign Manager