Hey, Look! Dale Jellings
Finally Has a Web Page

by Ha Ha Tonka

by Dawes

by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

by Brian Keane

by Kasey Chambers

by Teddy Thompson

by Catherine MacLellan

by Brian Martin

by Michael Bowman

by Girls Guns and Glory

by Colin Gilmore

  It's a saga of a boy's struggle to connect with his scattered family and to understand the inexplicable gift he's inherited all while moving west in search of his own destiny.

("I got 99 holes in my head, one more can't hurt me much."  -- 99 Holes by Butch Hancock.)

Recall Scott Walker

(now)

When the paycheck just ain’t stretchin’ like it might’ve once before
‘Cause the good jobs all are gone and left you in some big-box store
Between food and rent and medicine, the suits just rate a whole lot more.

When the bosses cut that last corner and you walk out those doors
When the truckers hauling sweatshop stuff won’t stop there anymore
When folks won’t cross your pickets cause their boat’s the same as yours
That is one big union.

Organizers Say (over) 1 Million Signed Petition to Recall Wisconsin Governor

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/us/organizers-say-1-million-signed-petition-to-recall-gov-walker-in-wisconsin.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss


  Critics of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin submitted to the state on Tuesday more than a million signatures, nearly twice as many as required, on recall petitions against him to force a new election.

  Election officials now begin the arduous process of studying the petitions for flaws and duplicated names. But leaders of the recall effort said the number of signatures was so large as to put any serious legal challenge out of reach. The anti-Walker forces needed 540,208 names and had estimated that they would produce at least 720,000, so the still larger number came as a surprise to many.

  Barring a legal fight, Mr. Walker, a Republican who took office a year ago and set off a firestorm by curtailing collective bargaining rights for public workers, will face a new election in the late spring or early summer. Around the country, only two governors have ever been removed through recall.

  “This sends a message,” said Graeme Zielinski, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, who described the one million names as evidence that this was the largest signature drive, in terms of the percentage of the state’s electorate signing, for a recall effort in United States history.

  Buoyed by the number of names, Democrats and union supporters watched a truck pull up carrying box after box of petitions.

  Ryan Lawler, a board member for United Wisconsin, said the numbers were evidence of the emotions involved.  “Scott Walker and his supporters tried to demean and marginalize recall circulators, but in Wisconsin winter, an army of more than 30,000 Wisconsin-born-and-bred recall volunteers took to street corners, malls, places of worship, dinner tables and sidewalks to take their state back,” he said.

  Petitions were also submitted on Tuesday for recall elections of the lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, with 845,000 recall signatures, and four Republican state senators, including Scott Fitzgerald, the majority leader who helped pass Mr. Walker’s collective bargaining cuts.  In protest last year, Democrats fled the state to block a vote (and force debate on the issues).

You Wouldn't Want That

--June 7, 2011

   In Wisconsin, the Governor and his cronies are asking the state supreme court to overturn a lower court's order which ruled that the Republicans in the legislature (the only members present at the time) had violated the state's open meetings law.  In an article about the arguments being made before the supreme court, the Wisconsin State Journal chose to highlight the following quote under a prominent photograph of an assistant attorney general:

   "If the circuit court's decision is allowed to stand, we'll have continuous marches down to the courthouse."

   The true meaning of this statement is not only abundantly clear, but utterly chilling.

   The Governor and his ilk do not want citizens actively involved in the political system, engaged and informed, feeling empowered by seeing something positive come of their actions. The next thing you know, these citizens will be exercising their civic rights and responsibilities on a "regular" basis.

  Oh, yeah, they have a right to march around in a circle occasionally.  They can assemble in the hundreds of thousands for such marches every now and again, but they can't be allowed to have any impact or to get anything done in these displays of overwhelming public opinion.  What would be next?  Holding politicians accountable for keeping campaign promises?  Requiring elected officials to do their jobs by representing their constituents.

  Isn't this what we all were supposed to have learned in civics class?  Isn't this the antithesis of what so many pundits and academics have been complaining about for so many years about the voting age populace?

  The answer is no!  So much so, that an assistant attorney general who is representing the state against its own citizens, can make such an argument before the highest court in the state without even a flinch or a quibble.  The Governor would very much prefer the citizenry of the state return to that apathetic, uninformed, disillusioned lot who elected him in the first place.

This is what democracy looks like?

--Mar. 14, 2011

  Not only is it an incredibly difficult and awkward thing to chant but it seems totally wrong.

  This is not what democracy looks like.  Walking around the capitol building, time and again, chanting and bellowing into the void because no one is listening.  This is what being deprived of democracy looks like. 

  Yet, it was an absolutely amazing to be a part os such an endeavor.  A hundred thousand plus people coming together to voice their moral outrage at a litany of wrongs as self-evident as the truths in the Declaration of Independence.  A righteous throng as multi-faceted as it was vast, ages from a few months old to nearly a century.  Every conceivable race and nationality.  A cacophony of languages, of drumbeats, the rhythm of two hundred thousand footfalls.  Every mode of dress from grunge to suits.   Every political belief represented from life-long conservatives to radical liberals.

  So dissimilar a group could only have been brought together by the feeling that they could not sit idly by and watch the unjust and underhanded actions of a corrupt governor which so offended their spirit of fundamental fairness and decency that they could do nothing else but protest. 

  And protest they did. The strong, the loud, the vibrant, but also the true heroes of these marches, the aged and the infirm. The elderly husband supporting his wife as they made lap after lap around the Capitol Square, her leaning into him more and more as the day wore on.  Another old man with a cane making his own way around, but with one hand still free, raised in a defiant fist.  All of them buffeted by the cold and bitter wind, but still the came, people in wheelchairs, on crutches, on walkers; one even rolling an oxygen tank as he shuffled along.

  What did they think they were doing? Why were they out there?

  The looks on their faces said it had something to do with putting strong beliefs into righteous action.  Their faces showed their pride in living in a country where you are supposed to be heard by your government, but they also showed the anger of being ignored.  It wasn't all hurt and anger.  There was wonder and smiles.  Wonder at the vision of tens of thousands of citizens, growing to and surpassing a hundred thousand, all joining together for a common purpose.  And the smile of being part of something bigger, something better, the real possibility of righting a serious wrong.

  There was also the children, from toddlers to teenagers.  The potential for the future, that having seen it and been a part of it, a memory they will never forget, that they might some day grow into heroes in their own right.  Many proudly holding signs of their own making or that were made for them, signs identifying them as the unions thugs the corrupt governor warned everyone about or as the union slobs an irrational Republican senator had called all protesters.

  There were Republicans themselves in the crowd, holding up signs saying how sorry they were for voting for the corrupt governor and how they would support a recall.

  It gives one hope, but like Red told Andy Dufresne, "Hope is a dangerous thing."

Holes in my Head

--March 8, 2011

  If you were a crazy person saying crazy things like the earth is flat or drilling a hole in a person's head would cure them by letting out the evil spirits, the press wouldn't follow you around and report on every word you said.  Even if you were a scientist or a doctor, if what you were saying was patently false or disproven, you'd be laughed off.  So, how come Governor Walker and his Republican running dogs get rapt media attention when they continue to insist their draconian budget cuts will be effective in fixing any of the state's fiscal woes.

  Walker has yet to respond to the mounting evidence disproving and undercutting every facet of his budget.  Members of the media who are allowed to get close enough are too savvy or too scared to ask him to substantiate his claims.  Yet, the same media will report on the preponderance of evidence as if presenting the other side of an argument, similar to saying 99% of patients with holes drilled in their heads die despite being rid of the evil spirits.  This just in, "Governor refuses to back down, insists drilling holes in heads will solve the problem."  The Governor added, over the sound of a revving drill, "Those shirking Democrats should just come back and do their jobs."

  The hardest to figure are his Republican colleagues.  They have to be worried about the hole he's digging for them.  It's clear from his comments about being "outside of government" and his delusions of grandeur that he is a part-timer like Sarah Palin.  When do they start trying to climb out, because after the budget goes through, all the positive reaction from the "public employee" hating will begin to fade, but the animosity of the 65% of the state which deplored his underhanded tactics and blatant cruelty will never fade.

  My father always said I acted like I had holes in my head, one more can't hurt a thing.

Deep Cover by Tim Eagan
July 01, 2010

"A person’s last days can be spent in any number of ways. But on the phone pleading with an insurer, that’s only in America."

-- from ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D. review of T.R. Ried's Healing of America

"One Injury, 10 Countries: A Journey in Health Care"
NYT, September 14, 2009

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