The Devil dances live from Cairo

The whole world is rupturing.
We see it unfolding on the nightly news.
Pundits like Jeremiahs tell us of
disasters now unnatural.

The floods now are from rivers of people
not water.
The explosions of are not of coal seam methane
but of human rage pent up
not in the tunnels underground
but in ancient alleys of distant streets.

We are witnesses thanks to
the uses and gratifications of social media.
But this new technology fills us with
a sense of fear
not feelings of transcendence.

We see the collapse of alliances and long-time allies,
while angry masses in their thousands demand
Bread, justice and peace.
And meanwhile they hurl epthitets on the nightly news
we know they are hurling monkey wrenches
into the delicate cogs and gears of the American
Imperial machine.

Now we know the Devil dances
live from Cairo
over wi-fi now.
Destroying in a moment our democratic
mythologies and conciets.

The demonstrators in the Muslim streets
delicate as dancers whose dancing shatters
our sunny sky with future filled with
higher food prices and
predictions of $5 a gallon gasoline.

We witness a reclamation of indigenous rights
and realize that
we stand on the floor of canyon
where black gray skies threaten inundation
and not just rain.

An inundation that drowns our world
while creating a new world
beyond reason and brighter than
the rainbow.

A dawn of a new era
in which we participate
but do not wish
to see.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

The Devil dances live from Cairo copyright by Jamie Jacks 18 February 2011

Photograph from the U.S. Department of Defense. Source: http://www.defense.gov/dodcmsshare/newsphoto/2011-02/hires_110204-M-8012P-076.jpg. In the public domain.

Gerry Rafferty? No Al Stewart.

On January 4th, 2011, Scottish folk singer Gerry Rafferty died. His song Baker Street, was an iconic rock ballad of the 1970s. But as I was reading Rafferty's obituary and feeling somewhat saddened that his life had been devastated by alcoholism and depression, I was trying to remember the lyrics of another song, that I thought that Rafferty had also written.

It was about a Russian soldier who fought the German's in World War II. So I did a search on You Tube and found out it was not a Gerry Rafferty song, but a song written by another Scottish singer Al Stewart, who is very much alive. Al Stewart song Year of the Cat came out in 1976 and Rafferty's hit song Baker Street came out in 1978. So they would have been playing on F.M. radio about the same time.

The song I was thinking of was Roads to Moscow. Which tells the story Russian soldier who fights the Germans from the start Hitler's invasion of Russia to the conquest of Berlin. War over he expects to go home but,

I'll never know, I'll never know
Why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers "Never"
And the evening sighs and the steely Russian skies go on forever

source: http://www.answers.com/topic/roads-to-moscow

Stewart writes beautiful music. He also enjoys writing songs about history. That makes for interesting music. It also pretty much guarantees that many of his songs won't be played on MTV or what passes for FM rock radio. One of my current favorites of his is Hanno the Navigator, about the Carthaginian admiral who first explored the coasts of Africa. The lyrics are beautiful and playful at the same time.

It's a good day
for going to sea
Hanno the Navigator said to me.
There's an open sky and a steady breeze
out beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
Above the foam-kissed waves seagulls scream
up in the masts of our trireme
and it's a good day
for going to sea
Hanno the Navigator said to me.

source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ7RD7ebZUA

Gerry Rafferty is gone and that's sad, but in researching his life and trying to remember his music, I was able to find another artist, Al Stewart whose music I enjoyed when it came out some 30 plus years ago. The other great thing is that Al Stewart will be playing here Bakersfield on April 16th. Count on it, I intend to buy tickets.

Capitano Tedeschi.

30

Picture of Gerry Rafferty by Eddie Mallin,(6 September 1980) retrieved from Wikipedia on 16 Feb. 2011. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gerry_Rafferty.jpg and used in accordance with permission granted by Creative Commons.

Gerry Rafferty, No Al Stewart copyright 16 February 2011 by Jamie Jacks

The cult of the dead God--Ronald Reagan

source: http://reaganboner.tumblr.com/page/4

Ronald Reagan the president, well I'm not a fan but he was probably a better president than I give him credit for. Sadly, Ronald Reagan, the president, has become the god of what I call, The Cult of Ronald Reagan. It is the Cult of Ronald Reagan I despise. Its is tenants are no longer effective and it's principal priests are debased and false.

What tenants you ask? Well the idea that Reagan advanced that Government is not the solution, government is problem.

Many of the cult's followers no longer engage in debate, refuse to compromise and rigidly adhere to creeds and dogmas that currently have no relevance in a rapidly changing world.

For nearly 22 years, the Cult of Ronald Reagan has exerted its baleful influence on American public life. Our republic is on the edge of bankruptcy and economic demise to the misguided pursuit of pseudo-Reaganistic policies by Bill Clinton and the two Bushes. Now as the country is slowly recovering from these policies, it is members of the Cult of Ronald Reagan have regained control of the House of Representatives. Now in power, they threaten to destroy the country's fragile economic policies that demand tax cuts for the rich while destroying what remains of the nation's social safety net.

What I find really amusing is the idea that Ronald Reagan might not be able to win elective office in what passes for today's Tea or Republican parties. As Alex Massie notes in his blog,

"For a long while and certainly at the time he was in office Reagan was an under-rated President; today he's in danger of being over-rated. The problem with the Cult of Reagan is not Reagan, but the impact membership has on the believers. He was more flexible than his admirers today sometimes acknowledge. Few of today's Republicans would, one supposes, endorse Reagan's tax-raising 1982 budget. Nor, one suspects, would today's nationalists approve of his decision to talk to the Soviets (indeed, at the time there were some who whispered that Reagan was "soft on Communism".) Nor, for that matter, could a Republican with national aspirations today endorse Reagan's liberal approach to immigration issues.

"Indeed, it's not clear a less gifted communicator armed with Reagan's actual beliefs could really win the Republican Presidential nomination today. And that's fine! Times change and so do parties. What was appropriate for the early 1980s isn't necessarily appropriate now. Reagan should no more be held as a template for modern Republicanism than Churchill should for the Tory party. (Mind you, the Cult of Churchill is also stronger in the United States than it is in Britain.) But nor should an imaginary Reaganism hold sway over, or demand unthinking fealty, from today's conservatives."

source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/6677674/the-cult-of-reagan-president-of-all-our-hearts.thtml

I agree with Alex Massie. Like I said I am not a fan of the Reagan Administration. Ronald Reagan, the Dead God of the corrupt Cult of Ronald Reagan, well he's just a figment of some people's imagination and not a real man at all.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

The cult of the dead God-Ronald Reagan copyright Feb. 10, 2011 by Jamie Jacks