Conscience

You can't trust corporate America, and you can't trust the government, so you have to trust your conscience. How do you trust your conscience?  Know yourself. How do you know yourself?  Know your mind, know your heart, know your soul.  Know these aspects by study, practicing empathy, getting to know others as deeply as possible and learning all of the above with honesty, tact and compassion. Then, if someone tells you to do something you know is wrong, there will be one less blindly complicit human being and one more length of stride toward creating a world to be proud of.

Freedom from What, Exactly?

As the rich get richer, they get smarter with marketing.  How else could the fashion industry make so many people think that $200 jeans made by Chinese slave children are better to have than cheap ones you can get for $21.99?   Remember always, as those of us who were alive in the sixties still can, that corporate backing is the push behind Republican politics - and the subtext of, "keep the government out of my life," is "I don't want rules that stop me from doing whatever I want, regardless of the effect my behavior has on anybody else." 

Freedom has more to do with being civil to others and sharing responsiblity than it does with letting the people who own the most own ever more without paying a proportionate share of taxes or being held accountable to the rules the rest of are bound to.  It's a falsehood to claim that deregulation (for one example) represents some form of freedom.   Well, I guess in some ways it does represent freedom - freedom from the American Dream.

Read:
Separate but unequal: Charts show growing rich-poor gap
by Zachary Roth

"The Great Recession and the slump that followed have triggered a jobs crisis that's been making headlines since before President Obama was in office, and that will likely be with us for years. But the American economy is also plagued by a less-noted, but just as serious, problem: Simply put, over the last 30 years, the gap between rich and poor has widened into a chasm."

IamIsaid

Listen to Neil Diamond's classic, I Am I Said with a subtle twist, as performed by osullivus mattox virtuous in special sessions, December 2010.
Iamisaid by jeanosullivan

This recording made under terms of fair use to evoke discussion about dynamics of volume and the messages carried through presentation, for educational purposes.

King Queen of the Road

Photo: Larry Sterling (w/graphics added)

Listen to Roger Miller's classic performed by osullivus, mattox, virtuous in special sessions in December, 2010.  Recorded under terms of fair use as a prompt for discussions on musical phrasing as well as the sociology of gender stereotypes.

King Queen of the Road by jeanosullivan

vocals and guitar, osullivus; vox-trombone, mattox; drums and percussion, virtuous.

Dog Alone

The dog across the alley barks in distressed repetition
I feel sorry for her
but am getting mad at the same time.
Sharp edged it hurts my ears.
My instincts are to save her
From harm, alarm, fear
But it's just that she's alone again, again
again, again.  How?

I would throw some food over the fence to make her stop
But would they think a neighbor had tried to poison her?

The other night I opened the window,
turning off the lights, and yelled, 'QUIET!"
so loud my voice echoed through the darkness.
I could see kids playing in a yard a couple of houses down
freezing in mid-frolic
repeating perfectly intoned whispers of my shout
as their mom ushered them inside.
So now I don't yell  "QUIET!" anymore,
although the dog did stop.