Tuesday, January 13, 2009


I found this image at MF Rox. MF is some kind of a friend of friend of mine. I've never met her but I loved her blog when she was living in China, and I even like it now that she's in Michigan.

Really, I'm not avoiding anyone. I'm just busy as hell. I've got major health issues that are under control, but take a lot of time. Plus, I'm feeling a little blocked. Anything I could say about Gaza is being said better elsewhere. Everything else is a little hard to focus on. I can't keep my thoughts from wandering back to the slaughter there.

I've been playing my ukuleles a lot. The other night, I worked out a surf song by Dexter Romweber. Sounds swell on the uke. No Dexter, but here's The Insect Surfers.

Psychotronic - The Insect Surfers

3 comments:

ib said...

I like the idea of surf songs played out on the ukulele.

I felt vaguely guilty that you seemed to be tackling the Gaza issue head-on while I was doing my best to duck and bury my head. The futility of the situation out there has exhausted me of the capability to voice anything of sound conviction.

I am interested to see how Obama's official line plays out as Bush heads back down to the farm.

I'm glad to hear you have the health situation under control at least. Keep those ukulele strings ringing.

Anonymous said...

Thoughts keep wandering back...

I can't get away from it Jon, trapped since it started.

Horrified, impotent, such pain for the people there.

And fear for what this has also done to that feeling of hope, maybe unfounded, back in November - the hope of some change in this one world we live in.

A planned and very deliberate legacy.

And I look at the blogs that I normally do and so many say nothing,,,

You know I work a lot with things from the Spanish Civil War and I see so many parallels in all this - land and freedom.

But maybe that's always what it's all about.

And I think of Woody Guthrie and the message on his guitar, music really does some to kill the fascism. So keep playing and keep well.

"As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tresspassin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me."

Your driver said...

Thanks Valerie. The parallels to Spain are troubling. I was pleased to see The Spanish Protesters carrying a copy of Guernica. I suppose music is one of the things that has to be done, even if we have to do it to the very end.

I still feel some hope. I always have. It is to be expected that the forces of cynicism corruption and just plain evil would strike back. I hope that they are doing so out of desperation. The Israeli government has lost any claims to legitimacy. People, most of all the American people, expect something from America. I'm sure Obama was hoping to have a nice business as usual agenda handed to him. He is being handed a crisis. I hope that we will be able to force him to meet our expectations. It won't be easy.

After forcing them to live through this horror, I don't know that we can save the survivors of Gaza. I hope that the world can give them something more than life under a brutal occupation.

For those who don't know her, there is a link to Valerie's excellent blog, Refugi 307, in my links.

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