One Tin Soldier

I was just listening to the 1971 theme song to the movie "Billy Jack." It's by a satanic rock group called "Coven" who probably would never have had a real hit if they had stuck to the black mass bit. Tom Laughlin asked them to do the song, and while I'm sure they hated it, they made the right decision to record it, since it's pretty much their longest-lasting musical legacy.

It was written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter. I was just a small child when this song was on the radio, but I remember my sister playing it in her room, all cranked up and defiant.

In light of Dubya's continued war in Iraq, I'm printing the lyrics here (please forgive if I am breaking copyright laws). It's not an exact parallel, but with what's going on today, the words resonate very well even 35 years later.

-=-=-=-

ONE TIN SOLDIER (Lamber/Potter, 1971)

Listen children to a story,
That was written long ago.
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain,
And the valley folk below.
On the mountain was a treasure,
Buried deep beneath a stone,
And the valley people swore,
They'd have it for they're very own.

Chorus:
Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won't be any trumpets blowin'
Come the judgement day.
On the bloody morning after,
One tin soldier rides away.

So the people of the valley,
Sent a message up the hill.
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill.
Came an answer, from the kingdom,
"With our brothers, we will share,
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there."

Now the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses,
Draw your sword"
And they killed the mountain people,
So they won their just reward.
Now they stood beside the treasure
On the mountain dark and red,
Turned the stone and looked beneath it,
"Peace on earth"
Was all it said.

(Chorus X 2)

-=-=-=-

Kinda makes you think, huh?

More idiocy from Dubya

Conservative darling Bay Buchanan on the President's withdrawal of Harriet Miers's Supreme Court nomination: "I don't think he was thinking about the big picture. The Supreme Court is not a place for friends.... The President was not wise."

Ya think?

One more gaffe from the Bush administration. When even Bay Buchanan thinks you've screwed up, Mister, you've screwed up. Conservatives want someone to legislate from the bench, and Harriet Miers was not that person. It's another smoke screen from the White House. A White House that manages to emerge from every scandal smelling like a flower from the Rose Garden.

I feel that the country may, hopefully, be on the verge of taking a big step to the left after 25 years of reactionary conservatism. If you look at the landscape of the country today, we have a White House being threatened with indictment, an unpopular war, record gas prices and a Republican President who consistently shows extraordinary errors in judgement.

Feel like you're back in 1974? I do ('cept I was eight years old back then). All we can hope is that the Democratic Party manages to get itself together to regain the Executive in 2008. And of course, that they field a more competent candidate than Jimmy Carter.

But I'd take back Jimmy Carter over Dubya any day. At least I was sure Carter's heart was in the right place. Dubya may very well be the Antichrist.

Everybody's Bloggin' At Me, I Can't Hear A Word They're Sayin'....

So I find myself spending my 20,724,480th minute on the planet Earth setting up my first blog. It seems like the thing to do these days. I don't know if I have anything to say, but I'm now saying nothing to everyone on the face of the world, and that feels good.

I'm proud that my role model in this activity is my good buddy Logan Kopp, whom I very much look up to. He's an inspiration in many ways. Mostly because he's twelve years old.

Logan is the son of my trusted friend, Mike Kopp, a local political strategist and marketing consultant here in Nashville. Mike's just started working working for a company that is making forays into using blogs as communications tools. So when Logan's teachers at Abintra Middle School suggested that he edit the school newspaper, Logan's response was (and I'm paraphrasing here): "Paper schmaper. Let's do a blog."

When Mike told me about his newly created blog at www.evolvingbrains.com , I was duly impressed, and when I went to look it up and see what all the hubbub was about, I saw that I could comment on it. But to comment, I needed a Blogger account. To have a Blogger account, I needed a blog. So here it is.

If a twelve-year-old can do this, then by gum, so can I. I'm pushing 40 so hard it's going press charges, but you have to keep your youth somehow. So rather than cut my hair in the ubiquitous fauxhawk and getting a tattoo, I'm going to be cool like Logan, and create a blog.

Look for lots of posts about nothing particular. I promise to try to stay positive, 'coz nobody wants to listen to me gripe and moan all the time... although if I have to spend another $50 to fill my gas tank, I'm pretty sure I'm going to put a flaming bag of dog-poop on the back porch of the White House.

Peace to everybody.