Funeral Songs... Everybody needs a list.

Subject to revision, I hope.

Funeral Songs

Elegy -Bruce Cockburn
Flying Red Horse -John Gorka
You’re On Your Way -John Gorka
Love Is Our Cross To Bear -John Gorka
If I Could Forget to Breathe -John Gorka
Kind Woman -Chris Smither (Richie Furay cover)
‘Til I Gain Control Again -Blue Rodeo (Rodney Crowell cover)
Dark Angel -Blue Rodeo
Know Where You Go/Tell Me Your Dreams -Blue Rodeo
Simple Song -Lyle Lovett
Family Reserve -Lyle Lovett
Glory of True Love -John Prine
Clay Pigeons -John Prine (Blaze Foley cover)
Bear Creek -John Prine (Carter Family cover)
Long Monday -John Prine
Festival of Friends -Bruce Cockburn
Last Night of the World -Bruce Cockburn
He Came From the Mountain -Bruce Cockburn
Southland of the Heart -Bruce Cockburn
All The Diamonds -Bruce Cockburn
The Color Green -Rich Mullins
Silver Garden -The Everybodyfields
Elegy -Bruce Cockburn

Questioning Islam equals Racism... ????

Anonymous poster to HuffPost:

"Islam is a RELIGION...as such, it is fair game for criticism, lampoon, ridicule, analysis, as is any other religion--whether we're talking Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Scientology or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

And when a statistically significant number of people claiming to be faithful adherents of ANY religion engage in acts of violence in the name of that religion (or support or refuse to condemn those acts), engages in varying degrees of repression and abuse of women and girls, engages in repression of and violence against gays and lesbians--then I'd say it's fair for rational people to take a closer look and to speak out.

Whether it's pedophiles in the Catholic clergy or fundamentalist Protestants subverting the Bill of Rights or extremist Jewish settlers harassing West Bank Arabs or school-bus bombing Arabs -- if a significant number of adherents are engaged in such acts and claim to be acting out their beliefs, then their religion is open for scrutiny. Criticising Islam or poking fun at it is not "racism"; that won't wash."

Best comment on NPR...

This is what I believe is an accurate description of NPR.

Marianne McDonald made this comment on the NPR Ombudsman forum:

"...If Fox News is a hang out for playground bullies, then NPR operates like a calm, smiling Mean Girl with a hidden control agenda. As a daily listener, I believe that NPR provides a valuable public service in reporting, but no one exposed to more than one point of view on a regular basis thinks you are unbiased. By firing liberal Juan Williams for expressing a feeling shared by many non-bigoted people around the world, you just inspired a new generation to label American public radio as the voice of the politically correct intolerant Left. Even worse, independent thinking journalists might avoid NPR for the same reason. That's a loss for all of us."

NPR funding reality...

I would like to say this: despite my critique of NPR, the federal funding kerfuffle is kind of a political football -- NPR gets approximately 2% of their funding from FED money -- 1% from the FED directly and another 1% from the NEA.

Also, if you can wade through the very subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) spin that NPR puts on most stories through who it chooses to interview and the questions asked, you still get waaaaaaay more hard info from them than you get from Fox or MSNBC, CNN or any of the other major media outlets...

NPR asks more hard questions and provides more info in five minutes than the rest do in an hour.

This doesn't excuse what they did with Juan Williams -- BUT, the FED funding thing is mostly politicians, most of them working for Fox (How does that happen, anyway?), trying to score points and raise the rage level with their voting block, most of whom are not informed about the issue -- which is what the pols are counting on...

NPR FIres Juan Williams...

http://www.mediaite.com/online/npr-fire ... ly-factor/

Speaking Truth to Political Correctness

I condemn this knee-jerk reaction. WOUB will be getting a note, along with my empty renewal envelope.

Bad time to do this, with it being fundraising season and all...

I am a longtime listener to Juan since the Talk of the Nation days. I love the way he can cut through the BS to the heart of the matter. He is one of my favorite broadcasting personalities.

NPR is lately taking an even more partisan line than usual, with most of their guests/experts from far left-leaning organizations.

I am reminded of a recent Morning Edition episode, when the guest was a polling expert who is an employee of The Huffington Post. He was presented as an unbiased analyst, but through the slant to his comments and the data he mentioned it was exceedingly obvious that we were getting only the information supporting the viewpoint he wanted to promote.

Where's the damn middle, anymore? I can't watch Faux or MessyNBC, and until now I just had to put up with continually self-editing through the admittedly more subtle NPR spin.

This is just another domino down the road to partisanship totally ruling all available broadcast media, and soon I won't be able to tell the difference between NPR and MSNBC. They'll probably bring "The Olbermeister" on as an anchor. Uhhhh.

Juan was a news ANALYST at NPR - NOT a reporter.

Isn't it a reach to fire an analyst for expressing views, especially in relation to an ongoing news story or popular subject that demands analysis? Especially when half of your programming is spun one way or another, depending on who's providing the commentating?

"His status was earlier shifted from staff correspondent to analyst after he took clear-cut positions about public policy on television and in newspaper opinion pieces."

Will NPR use the emotional reaction this is generating as justification for this action?

My bet is yes. They will hide behind the fray and firestorm of dissent and keep as far as they can from honest discussion as to why they acted as they did...


Good fortune to you Juan. This is what you get for "speaking truth to political correctness".

Pipe dreams...

How about a flat income tax that EVERYBODY PAYS, along with state sales tax with each state then funding the FED based on population/sales tax collected. Nobody rides for free, but nobody gets hurt too bad. Make the FED depend on the states, not the other way around.

Lets all join hands, what a wonderful world that could be... (Come on everybody, all together on the chorus now: What a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful world...)

Never happen. Too many peeps on the gravy train with free tickets.

And we'll all be on that gravy train (wonder who pays for it?) when the US defaults, they devalue the dollar, and go to a virtual credit currency (ostensibly to do away with the underground economy).

We are...

...lazy and afraid, and willingly deaf, dumb and blind; like all declining empires.

And we like cheap products more than we like being an individual country with an individual economy and culture.

And with a false monetary system invented to keep our centralized government powerful, we function (temporarily) within a false economy built not on real need, but wants and wishes.

And our government is owned by multinational interests that could not care less about people and culture and care only about the bottom line.

And the bottom line is that if you won't do the job for peanuts (or rice, or potatoes), then they can find somebody who can and will.