Democracy for New Mexico

Holidaze Music

You can listen to the entire playlist in order, play individual songs or create your own playlist. You can launch the standalone player to see more of the song titles. I tried to create a combo of corn, oddities and beauties from what they had available. Did I succeed?

Opens Friday at Santa Fe's CCA: Pete Seeger, The Power of Song

From the :

Pete Seeger: The Power of Song
In this first authorized biography, Jim Brown connects with the architect of the folk revival. Pete Seeger, the author of songs including "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "If I Had A Hammer," has long been misunderstood by his critics and vilified by the U.S. government for his views on peace, unionism, civil rights and ecology. He became a central target during the Red Scare, when he was picketed, blacklisted, and, in spite of his enormous popularity, banned from American television for more than 17 years.

Using never-before-seen archival footage and home movies and interviews with Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springstein, Natalie Maines, Tom Paxton and Peter, Paul and Mary, this wondrous documentary serves as testament of Seeger's belief in the power of song and his conviction that individuals can make a difference. This is the musical biography event of the year. (U.S., 2007, 91m, 35mm, Weinstein Company) "A stirring, revelatory film." -Owen Glebierman, Entertainment Weekly.

Click for beginning Friday, December 21, 2007, as well as info on other movies now showing at the Cinematheque, located at 1050 Old Pecos Trail in Santa Fe, behind the Children's Museum.

Christmas in Fallujah

and Cass DillonAnd So This is Xmas, 2007War is Still Over If You Want It

Net proceeds generated from downloads of "Christmas in Fallujah" will be donated to Homes for Our Troops, a nonprofit that builds specially adapted homes for severely disabled veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

27 Years: Still a Dreamer

John Winston Ono Lennon
October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980BBC PhotosOfficial Site
Wikipedia

How many times have we started over for peace ....

Yoko Ono's message today (with art download). My posts from December 8, 2006 and December 8, 2005.

12/16: Holy Road Tour Bus, Lizzie West & The White Buffalo & Potluck for Peace

From Thomas at BringDaNoise.com:
The Holy Road Tour bus will be making a stop in Albuquerque this December 16th at the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice for a Potluck and Jam Session for Peace! The Holy Road Tour features Appleseed Records recording artists Lizzie West & The White Buffalo whose song "19 Miles To Baghdad" was recently featured on Democracy Now, and the video I made was featured on BringDaNoise.com/.

LOCAL MUSICIANS WANTED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE JAM SESSION!!

This event is a great way to network with others involved in the peace movement, eat some great food, and listen to some amazing music!! Everyone is welcome (bring some food)!

ONE NIGHT ONLY
Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 6 PM
at the Albuquerque Center For Peace and Justice
202 Harvard SE (corner of Harvard and Silver)
email thomas@bringdanoise.com for more information

PLEASE TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS IMPORTANT EVENT!!

Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel

Happy Chanukah, Western Style ....

Six Years Beyond

How fragile we are. How fragile we are. Remembering all the deaths that have come from violence, whether on 9.11.01, or before, or after.

"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and the whole world would soon be blind and toothless." --Mahatma Gandhi

"Fragile"

If blood will flow when flesh and steel are one
Drying in the colour of the evening sun
Tomorrow's rain will wash the stains away
But something in our minds will always stay
Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are

(h/t firedoglake)

One more for today:

Try this:

We Can't Make It Here Anymore: Labor Day Edition

The mood of the country this Labor Day seems ripe for a little James McMurtry. A house of cards collapsing in on itself because of crooked deals and unpayable debt. "Free" trade robber barons piling up their tax-free bloat. Criminals in the board rooms and government and K Street. We're entrenched in one corporate quagmire war, while another threatens as Bush plots ways to attack Iran. Oh, and here's what our Democratic "leaders" are saying about continuing funding for Iraq. Happy Labor Day 2007. Think I'll head to the mountains, for some grounding.

Saturday Music Hall: Live From Abbey Road

Amos Lee, Black River, Live From Abbey Road

Have you watched any of this series on the Sundance Channel? Every week they feature three musical artists each recording three songs live at the famous Abbey Road Studios in London, with some short interview clips tossed into the mix. After so many days filled with negative vibes coming from Washington, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, you name it, it was grounding to tune into the show last night at midnight and slide into a more soul nurturing corner of the universe.

Randy Crawford and Joe Sample, Street Life, Live From Abbey Road

Last night's episode featured singer-songwriter Amos Lee (top), jazz and R & B vocalist Randy Crawford with piano virtuoso Joe Sample, founding member of the Crusaders (above), and some of the stunning musicianship of guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame (below).

David Gilmour, On An Island, Live From Abbey Road

Gilmour, as always, was a flow unto himself, but I really enjoyed hearing Lee, who I'd never run across before, and Crawford and Sample, who I'd pretty much forgotten. There's truth to the old saw that music soothes the savage breast. I was soothed and swayed. Phew. Maybe you will be too, in these savage times.

More Amos Lee can be found at MySpace and his official website. He's got quite a range of styles and I find his vocals to be beautiful -- when was the last time you thought of that adjective when listening to today's music -- yet gritty enough not to be too precious.

More Randy Crawford can be had at Wikipedia and at this site. Explore more Joe Sample at Verve Music and Wikipedia. Check out their new album together, "Feeling Good." Classy stuff done right, with plenty of nuance and chops.

RFK Jr. at Live Earth: See You On The Barricades

Audio (with photo) of RFK Jr. at Live Earth, Giants Stadium

The full text of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s kickass speech at this past weekend's Live Earth can be found at BradBlog, along with non-MSN video to accompany the sound. If you can only find the time to pay attention to one aspect of Live Earth, RFK Jr.'s no holds barred rant is the one to check out. Talk about speaking truth to power. Changing light bulbs is good. Changing the very power structure that controls how policy is made is paramount -- in other words, a paradigm change. Please read or see or listen to the whole thing, but here are a few excerpts:

The most important thing you can do is to get involved in the political process and get rid of all of these rotten politicians that we have in Washington D.C. -- Who are nothing more than corporate toadies for companies like Exxon and Southern Company, these villainous companies that consistently put their private financial interest ahead of American interest and ahead of the interest of all of humanity. This is treason and we need to start treating them now as traitors.

... And I want you to remember this, that we are not protecting the environment for the sake of the fishes and the birds, we are protecting it because nature is the infrastructure of our communities. And if we want to meet our obligation as a generation, as a civilization, as a nation, which is to create communities for our children that provide them with the same opportunities for dignity, and enrichment, and good health, and prosperity, and stability as the communities that our parents gave us, we've got to start by protecting our environmental infrastructure.

The air we breathe, the water we drink, the wildlife, the public lands, the things that connect us to our past to our history that provide context to our communities and that are the source, ultimately, of our values and our virtues and our character as a people and the future of our children.

And I will see all of you on the barricades.

There's been a lot of negative punditry about Live Earth in the mainstream media and on the web. Yeah, I know, the concerts used significant amounts of energy, much of the music wasn't someone's cup of tea, nothing will come of it, there's nothing we can do. In my opinion there's way too much of that  "I'm too cool to watch something like this and I'm gonna prove it by mocking it in print" attitude, even from certain segments of the progressive community.

I beg to differ. It was what it was, but I think it had incredibly strong elements of activism and leadership and inspired musicianship behind it and within it and reaching outside it. Remember, as Al Gore said many times, this was the KICKOFF to a 3-year MOVEMENT, not just a single event. Thousands of people worked hard all over the globe to make it happen, to try and incite ordinary people to action. There were many musical and rhetorical gems, some of which I'll be posting later. And make no mistake about it -- the messages about the seriousness of our environmental emergency penetrated everyone who tuned in via TV, webstream or radio at some level. It's a start. We have to start somewhere. There is no time to waste.

As the Pranksters used to ask, "Are you on the bus (powered by biofueld) or off the bus? Sign the pledge now. Stop being cynical. It's no a longer a luxury we can afford.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. website

Global Warming: A Real Solution, an incredibly hopeful must-read article by RFK Jr. that originally appeared in the 06.18.07 edition of Rolling Stone.

AlGore.com

P.S. You can now watch video segments of all the performances and speeches on demand at the Live Earth website.