Happy Thanksgiving to You and Yours

There are so many things to be thankful for this year:

• Family
• Friends
• Friends of Friends
• Strangers
• Strangers who are not yet Friends
• Strangers who will never be Friends
• Methodists
• Snake-handlers
• Dear gentle blog readers
• Someone special to love....and who loves back
• PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, MOTHERFUCKER!
• (ahem)....vice-president elect Joe Biden
• 56 days, 2 hours, 5 minutes to go for President Bunnypants
• Love
• Peace
• Harmony
• Comfortable Shoes
• Poutine
• No local pro athletes paralyzed or garroted on the playing field thus far this year
• The sun has not burned out just yet
• I am not yet selling pencils on the street or moving into "Hoovervilles"
• My sarcasm remains pointed
• I can still rock the mic like a vandal and, also, light up a chump like a candle
• I'm alive
• I'm well
• I'm happy
• My brother
• My mother

So, in the spirit of the season, I'm reposting my special Thanksgiving video...an appropriate clip from The Ice Storm (1997):

My warmest wishes to you and your families for a restful and happy Thanksgiving.

Now....onto the War on Christmas!

Friday YouTube Nugget

Today's installment comes from the soundtrack of Sean Penn's film, The Pledge (2001). The film was little seen in its release, but was a fascinating examination of a retired detective's obsession with finding a child killer. One of the standout songs on the soundtrack was by an artist from Mozambique. The lead singer of that country's top dance band, Orchestra Marrabenta Star, Wazimbo recorded this song in 1988 and re-released it in 2001 when it gained popularity due to its use in the film.

Here is Wazimbo with "Nwalhulwana"

Well, looks like I'm not getting any work done until January 2009

"You lookin' at me?"

I just found out that Google is placing the entire photo archive of LIFE magazine online...the photos date all the way back to the 1750's (I posted one of the earliest ones above) and are organized and searchable by decade.

They have 20% of the total archive posted....in the next few months, they'll have all 10 million photos up.

Click if you dare: http://images.google.com/hosted/life

Yeah....that's about right

UPDATE - As if today couldn't get worse, I just saw that Joe Lieberman will keep his chair on the Homeland Security Committee.

Reverend Jim - bring us the Kool-Aid!!!

Friday YouTube Nugget

Tune in, turn on, drop out

This week's installment is a little hippy-dippy, but is a pretty good song. The Moody Blues released "Legend of a Mind" in 1968, but the song is better known for its opening verse:

"Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in."

Timothy Leary was the notorious Harvard professor-turned-LSD advocate who graced the Sixties with his iconic slogan noted in the caption above. After crashing hard in the 70's (including a fugitive run through Algeria and Switzerland and a sentence at Folsom Prison), Leary reemerged in the 80's as a lecturer and personality. Kids like me who weren't around when Richard Nixon called him "the most dangerous man in America" saw Leary as a sort of relic of the Hippie Era. His last grab at publicity came around his death from prostate cancer in 1996. Leary arranged to have his head removed from his corpse for the purposes of cryonic preservation and his cremated remains to be loaded on a rocket so he could be buried in space. The rocket, which also carried the remains of Gene Roddenberry, was launched in April 1997 and was in orbit for six years before it burnt up.

Far out, man....

DRUM SOLO

In honor of the great Mitch Mitchell, the last surviving member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience who was found dead yesterday, here's a great moment from a concert in Sweden, 9 January 1969:

In honor of their service

No on Prop.8 - Redux

As happy as I am over Tuesday's election results, I was crushed that Proposition 8, the anti-civil rights initiative, narrowly passed in California. We have a lot of work to do to overcome.

I haven't heard a more eloquent or passionate commentary on this issue than Keith Olbermann in tonight's Special Comment:



This is neither political nor partisan. This is a matter of basic civil rights, the rights granted to us by our Constitution. None must rest until we are all free.

Friday YouTube Nugget

VICTORY!!!!

President-elect Barack Obama.

Damn, that feels great to say.

I know that the hard work is ahead and this president faces the greatest challenges of any incoming president....yeah, yeah, yeah.

In the here and now, I want to celebrate. To kick off this weekend jamboreee with the Ramones....do you remember rock n' roll radio?

Almost forgot something.....

The last laugh....or last scream, if you will

Democrats around the nation owe a huge debt of gratitude and respect towards the DNC chairman, Gov. Howard Dean. His 50-state strategy, which was ridiculed when he assumed office three years ago, has paid off beautifully. Today, the Democratic Presidential nominee is competitive in all but a handful of states and is polling very well in states previously written off to anyone with a (D) next to their name.

Thank you Gov. Dean.

Today is Election Day - Make Your Voice Heard

21 months to get to this place in history.

Millions of words spoken.

Dozens of debates.

Story after campaign story, smear after smear, policy position after another...

The 2008 campaign has been the most invigorating, frustrating, uplifiting, demoralizing, inspirational campaign of my lifetime. I am glad to have lived through it and I hope for one more day of good news.

I'm headed to bed shortly with the promise of a new day, a new way and real change in our country's leadership by Tuesday evening.

I'll leave you with some music. Get to your polling station tomorrow and let your voice be heard.

For now and for all times....ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

FIRED UP AND READY TO GO!

One Day To Go: Madelyn Payne Dunham

This embrace should have happened tomorrow

CNN is reporting that Madelyn Payne Dunham, Barack Obama's grandmother and the most prominent influence on him in his formative years, has passed away.

She was so close....so close. But I'm sure she saw all her dreams fulfilled in her grandson. May she rest in peace and may we all do our part to fulfill her last dream.

All power to the people