Obama Tax Plan

The Obama Tax Plan

By JASON FURMAN and AUSTAN GOOLSBEE
August 14, 2008; Page A13

Even as Barack Obama proposes fiscally responsible tax reform to strengthen our economy and restore the balance that has been lost in recent years, we hear the familiar protests and distortions from the guardians of the broken status quo.

Many of these very same critics made many of these same overheated predictions in previous elections. They said President Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction plan would wreck the economy. Eight years and 23 million new jobs later, the economy proved them wrong. Now they are making the same claims about Sen. Obama's tax plan, which has even lower taxes than prevailed in the 1990s -- including lower taxes on middle-class families, lower taxes for capital gains, and lower taxes for dividends.

Overall, Sen. Obama's middle-class tax cuts are larger than his partial rollbacks for families earning over $250,000, making the proposal as a whole a net tax cut and reducing revenues to less than 18.2% of GDP -- the level of taxes that prevailed under President Reagan.

Both candidates for president have proposed tax plans. But they are starkly different in their approaches and their economic impact. Sen. Obama is focused on cutting taxes for middle-class families and small businesses, and investing in key areas like health, innovation and education. He would do this while cutting unnecessary spending, paying for his proposals and bringing down the budget deficit.

In contrast, John McCain offers what would essentially be a third Bush term, with his economic speeches outlining $3.4 trillion of tax cuts over 10 years beyond what President Bush has already proposed and geared even more to high-income earners. The McCain plan would lead to deficits the likes of which we have never seen in this country. It would take money from the middle class and from future generations so that the wealthy can live better today.

Sen. Obama believes a focus on the middle class is appropriate in the wake of the first economic expansion on record where the typical family's income fell by almost $1,000. The Obama plan would cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families with a tax cut of $500 for workers or $1,000 for working couples. In addition, Sen. Obama is proposing tax cuts for low- and middle-income seniors, homeowners, the uninsured, and families sending a child to college or looking to save and accumulate wealth.

The Obama plan would dramatically simplify taxes by consolidating existing tax credits, eliminating the need for millions of senior citizens to file tax forms, and enabling as many as 40 million middle-class filers to do their own taxes in less than five minutes and not have to hire an accountant.

Sen. Obama also recognizes that small businesses are the engine of job growth in the economy. That is why he is proposing additional tax cuts, including a tax credit for small businesses that provide health care, and the elimination of capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups. The vast majority of small businesses would face lower taxes under the Obama plan than under the McCain plan. In addition, Sen. Obama supports reforming corporate taxes in a manner that would help create jobs in America and simplify the tax code by eliminating distortions and special preferences.

Sen. Obama believes that responsible candidates must put forward specific ideas of how they would pay for their proposals. That is why he would repeal a portion of the tax cuts passed in the last eight years for families making over $250,000. But to be clear: He would leave their tax rates at or below where they were in the 1990s.

- The top two income-tax brackets would return to their 1990s levels of 36% and 39.6% (including the exemption and deduction phase-outs). All other brackets would remain as they are today.

- The top capital-gains rate for families making more than $250,000 would return to 20% -- the lowest rate that existed in the 1990s and the rate President Bush proposed in his 2001 tax cut. A 20% rate is almost a third lower than the rate President Reagan set in 1986.

- The tax rate on dividends would also be 20% for families making more than $250,000, rather than returning to the ordinary income rate. This rate would be 39% lower than the rate President Bush proposed in his 2001 tax cut and would be lower than all but five of the last 92 years we have been taxing dividends.

- The estate tax would be effectively repealed for 99.7% of estates, and retained at a 45% rate for estates valued at over $7 million per couple. This would cut the number of estates covered by the tax by 84% relative to 2000.

Overall, in an Obama administration, the top 1% of households -- people with an average income of $1.6 million per year -- would see their average federal income and payroll tax rate increase from 21% today to 24%, less than the 25% these households would have paid under the tax laws of the late 1990s.

Sen. Obama believes that one of the principal problems facing the economy today is the lack of discretionary income for middle-class wage earners. That's why his plan would not raise any taxes on couples making less than $250,000 a year, nor on any single person with income under $200,000 -- not income taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend or payroll taxes.

In contrast, Sen. McCain's tax plan largely leaves the middle class behind. His one and only middle-class tax cut -- a slow phase-in of a bigger dependent exemption -- would provide no benefit whatsoever to 101 million families who do not have children or other dependents, or who have a low income.

But Sen. McCain's plan does include one new proposal that would result in higher taxes on the middle class. As even Sen. McCain's advisers have acknowledged, his health-care plan would impose a $3.6 trillion tax increase over 10 years on workers. Sen. McCain's plan will count the health care you get from your employer as if it were taxable cash income. Even after accounting for Sen. McCain's proposed health-care tax credits, this plan would eventually leave tens of millions of middle-class families paying higher taxes. In addition, as the Congressional Budget Office has shown, this kind of plan would push people into higher tax brackets and increase the taxes people pay as their compensation rises, raising marginal tax rates by even more than if we let the entire Bush tax-cut plan expire tomorrow.

The McCain plan represents Bush economics on steroids. It has $3.4 trillion more in tax cuts than President Bush is proposing, largely directed at corporations and the most affluent. Sen. McCain would implement these cuts without proposing any meaningful steps to simplify taxes or eliminate distortions and loopholes. In addition, Sen. McCain has floated over $1 trillion in new spending increases but barely any specific spending cuts.

As previously mentioned, the Obama plan is a net tax cut -- his middle-class tax cuts are larger than the rollbacks he has proposed for families making over $250,000. Sen. Obama would pay for this tax cut by cutting spending -- including responsibly ending the war in Iraq, reducing excessive payments to private plans in Medicare, limiting payments for high-income farmers, reducing subsidies for banks that make student loans, reforming earmarks, ending no-bid contracts, and eliminating other wasteful and unnecessary programs.

While Sen. Obama would shrink the deficit from its current record levels, he recognizes that it is even more important to confront our long-term fiscal challenges, including the growth of health costs in the public and private sector. He also believes it is critical to work with members of Congress from both parties to strengthen Social Security while protecting middle-class families from tax increases or benefit cuts. He has done what few presidential candidates have been willing to do by making a politically risky proposal to strengthen solvency by asking those making over $250,000 to contribute a bit more to Social Security to keep it sound.

Sen. Obama does not support uncapping the full payroll tax of 12.4% rate. Instead, he is considering plans that would ask those making over $250,000 to pay in the range of 2% to 4% more in total (combined employer and employee). This change to Social Security would start a decade or more from now and is similar to the rate increases floated by Sen. McCain's close adviser Lindsey Graham, and that Sen. McCain has previously said he "could" support.

In contrast, Sen. McCain has put forward the most fiscally reckless presidential platform in modern memory. The likely results of his Bush-plus policies are clear. As Berkeley economist Brad Delong has estimated, the McCain plan, as compared to the Obama plan, would lower annual incomes by $300 billion or more in real terms by 2017, costing the typical worker $1,800 or more due to the effect of large deficits on national savings and thus capital formation. Sen. McCain's neglect of critical public investments would further impede economic growth for decades to come.

Do not take the critics' word for it. Go look at the plans for yourself at www.barackobama.com/taxes¹. Get the facts and you will see the real priorities at stake in this election. America cannot afford another eight years like these.

Messrs. Furman and Goolsbee are, respectively, economic policy director and senior economic adviser at Obama for America.

Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins - Rock and Roll (Pro-shot Footage)

Professionally-shot footage of Page and Jonesy joining the Foos at Wembley Stadium, London, June 7, 2008. Taylor takes vocals here while Grohl moves to the drums. They switched for the next song, Ramble On. The performances will be released on the Foo Fighters Wembley Live DVD, coming out August 26th. Now if only the Zeppelin show at the O2 would be released...

Olympic News: Jimmy Page to Perform with Leona Lewis at Closing Ceremony

David Beckham and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page to close Beijing Olympics

By Laurie Hanna 14/08/2008

David Beckham will star at the Olympics closing ceremony in Beijing as the handover to London 2012 gets under way.

The spectacular event on August 24 will also see Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page performing a duet with pop star Leona Lewis.

And an incredible finale will feature Becks, 33, arriving on top of one of London's iconic red double-decker buses - before he kicks a football into the crowd to celebrate.

Hundreds of dancers from the UK will then perform ballet and break-dancing routines as the countdown to 2012 begins.

An insider said: "It is set to be one of the most mind-blowing spectacles ever. David was elated to be asked to take part, as was everyone who has been invited.

"Having a rock god like Jimmy Page and a singer like Leona Lewis performing together for the first time will certainly be something to remember.

"The amount of planning is staggering. It will be truly momentous - and a fitting send-off as London takes up the 2012 challenge."

At the end of each Olympics, the next host puts on an eight-minute show. Organisers had already confirmed that dancers from urban group ZooNation will be joined by performers from the Royal Ballet and CandoCo, a disabled dance company.

The cost for the segment, and a similar one held at the end of the Paralympic Games, will be up to £2million.

The source added: "The performers are the best of British and that is what 2012 will be all about."

McCain: Dazed & Confused

Know-Nothing Politics

August 8, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Know-Nothing Politics

By PAUL KRUGMAN

So the G.O.P. has found its issue for the 2008 election. For the next three months the party plans to keep chanting: “Drill here! Drill now! Drill here! Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad!” O.K., I added that last part.

And the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I’ve been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.

Now, I don’t mean that G.O.P. politicians are, on average, any dumber than their Democratic counterparts. And I certainly don’t mean to question the often frightening smarts of Republican political operatives.

What I mean, instead, is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg.

What about the experts at the Department of Energy who say that it would take years before offshore drilling would yield any oil at all, and that even then the effect on prices at the pump would be “insignificant”? Presumably they’re just a bunch of wimps, probably Democrats. And the Democrats, as Representative Michele Bachmann assures us, “want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, take light rail to their government jobs.”

Is this political pitch too dumb to succeed? Don’t count on it.

Remember how the Iraq war was sold. The stuff about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds was just window dressing. The main political argument was, “They attacked us, and we’re going to strike back” — and anyone who tried to point out that Saddam and Osama weren’t the same person was an effete snob who hated America, and probably looked French.

Let’s also not forget that for years President Bush was the center of a cult of personality that lionized him as a real-world Forrest Gump, a simple man who prevails through his gut instincts and moral superiority. “Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man,” declared Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal in 2004. “He’s not an intellectual. Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world.”

It wasn’t until Hurricane Katrina — when the heckuva job done by the man of whom Ms. Noonan said, “if there’s a fire on the block, he’ll run out and help” revealed the true costs of obliviousness — that the cult began to fade.

What’s more, the politics of stupidity didn’t just appeal to the poorly informed. Bear in mind that members of the political and media elites were more pro-war than the public at large in the fall of 2002, even though the flimsiness of the case for invading Iraq should have been even more obvious to those paying close attention to the issue than it was to the average voter.

Why were the elite so hawkish? Well, I heard a number of people express privately the argument that some influential commentators made publicly — that the war was a good idea, not because Iraq posed a real threat, but because beating up someone in the Middle East, never mind who, would show Muslims that we mean business. In other words, even alleged wise men bought into the idea of macho posturing as policy.

All this is in the past. But the state of the energy debate shows that Republicans, despite Mr. Bush’s plunge into record unpopularity and their defeat in 2006, still think that know-nothing politics works. And they may be right.

Sad to say, the current drill-and-burn campaign is getting some political traction. According to one recent poll, 69 percent of Americans now favor expanded offshore drilling — and 51 percent of them believe that removing restrictions on drilling would reduce gas prices within a year.

The headway Republicans are making on this issue won’t prevent Democrats from expanding their majority in Congress, but it might limit their gains — and could conceivably swing the presidential election, where the polls show a much closer race.

In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country’s problems. It’s not going to happen — not as long as one of America’s two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.

Robert Plant - Early Vocal Range

(Posted by jowox on YouTube)
___________
1. a solid A2 from "going to california".
2. An emotional D5 from "since i´ve been loving you".
3. A E5 from "rock´n´roll".
4. A F5 from "communication breakdown".
5. A F#5 from "babe, i´m gonna leave you".
6. A F#5 from "how many more times" live 1968-12-30.
7. A powerful G5 from "operator".
8. A classic G5 from "since i´ve been loving you", lots of chest tone here.
9. A G5 from "how many more times" live 1968-12-30.
10. and another one.
11. A strong G#5 from "i can´t quit you".
12. a G#5 from "how many more times" live 1968-12-30.
13. a primal scream G#5 from 1979 song "i´m gonna crawl".
14. the famous A5 from "black dog", a bit thin though.
15. a short A5 from "since i´ve been loving you" live 1973 Madison Square Garden.
16. a powerful A5 (almost a Bb5) from "how many more times" live 1968-12-30.
17. a squeaky falsetto C#6 from "you shook me" 1969-01-10.
18. and lastly the famous "duet" with Jimmy Page off "you shook me" with a G#5 in the beginning followed by many G5:s.

More Bull From Mr. Straight-Talk

Questions Abound About McCain Criticism of Obama Trip

By Michael D. Shear and Dan Balz
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has now joined his voice to the chorus of aides and campaign surrogates who have been alleging that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) canceled his visit to a U.S. hospital in Germany because he couldn't bring a media entourage.

McCain said Monday on CNN's "Larry King Live": "I know that according to reports that he wanted to bring media people and cameras and his campaign staffers ... "

And the campaign released another statement this afternoon, this time from a former Sergeant Major who worked at the hospital, who said, "if Senator Obama isn't comfortable meeting wounded American troops without his entourage, perhaps he does not have the experience necessary to serve as commander in chief."

In fact, there's no proof that Obama ever sought to bring the media or any entourage.

In essence, the McCain charge is this: Obama cares so little for the welfare of wounded American soldiers that he canceled the visit when he was informed he could not bring reporters and television cameras to document it.

But there is no evidence that Obama ever planned to bring anyone to the hospital other than a single military adviser, whose status as a campaign staffer sparked last-minute concern among Pentagon officials that the visit would be an improper political event. The Obama campaign has cited those concerns as the reason for canceling Obama's visit.

After being asked repeatedly for the "reports" McCain was talking about on "Larry King Live," McCain's campaign staff provided three examples, none of which made the allegation that Obama had wanted to bring media to the hospital.

Instead, all three reports -- from Fox News, The Washington Post, and MSNBC -- mentioned that the Pentagon had informed Obama of the prohibition against media and campaign visits, leaving the readers and viewers to make the leap about Obama's motive -- as the McCain campaign clearly wanted.

Obama and his top aides have all denied that the campaign ever planned to take reporters or cameras or additional campaign staff to the hospital. "Absolutely, unequivocally wrong," spokesman Tommy Vietor e-mailed just moments after McCain's "Larry King" appearance.

That is supported by reporters who traveled with Obama.

The first indication reporters got that Obama was planning, or had planned, to visit the hospital came on Thursday morning shortly after the traveling entourage arrived in Berlin. On the seats of the press bus were schedules for Obama's stop in Germany and the final entry -- a Friday morning departure -- indicated that the senator's plane would fly from Berlin to Ramstein Air Base.

When a reporter asked Obama spokeswoman Linda Douglass that morning about the trip to Ramstein, she said the schedule was incorrect and out of date, that the trip had been considered but that Obama was not going to go there after all. At that point, the campaign provided no other information.

Later that night, after Obama's speech in Berlin, a campaign source talked on a not for attribution basis about the canceled trip. This official said that the original plan called for Obama to visit the hospital but leave the press on a chartered airplane on the tarmac at Ramstein. This official said that the trip had been canceled after the Pentagon informed a campaign official that the visit would be considered a campaign event.

Overnight the campaign issued two statements, one from senior official Robert Gibbs, the other from retired Air Force Major General Scott Gration, an Obama foreign policy adviser who was on the trip.

Gibbs's statement said the trip had been canceled because Obama decided it would be inappropriate to go to the hospital as part of a trip paid for by his campaign. Gration said the trip had been canceled because the Pentagon had informed the campaign the visit would be seen as a political trip.

Those two statements, while not inconsistent, left open questions as to the real reason the trip was canceled. Was it canceled in reaction to Pentagon concerns -- or did Obama simply make the decision himself out of concern for appearances? By this time the issue was blowing up back in the U.S.

On Friday afternoon, en route from Berlin to Paris, Gibbs briefed reporters traveling with Obama. Gibbs said the two statements were consistent: Gration had been informed on Wednesday night that the trip would be considered a campaign event and, on that basis, Obama then decided on the flight from Israel to Germany to cancel, Gibbs said, rather than to put wounded servicemen and women into an uncomfortable position.

Gibbs said the hospital visit had been on the schedule for several weeks and that Gration had been dealing with several military units to coordinate the stop. He added that officials at Ramstein and the Secret Service told them they needed prior approval to land a non-Air Force aircraft at the air base -- something known as a PPR (for Prior Permission Required) and that the campaign had received that PPR.

"Gration told them we would like to come -- not as a campaign event and without any press -- to make a visit," Gibbs said.

At one point a reporter asked Gibbs what the campaign had planned to do with reporters once the plane had landed at Ramstein. "You would have stayed on the plane," he replied.

Gibbs said today that the campaign had planned to inform the traveling press sometime on the morning of the flight to Ramstein that Obama was intending to visit the hospital but had made no plans to take any reporters -- including even the small, protective press pool that now accompanies Obama most places -- to the hospital.

Reporters, he said, likely would have been able to get off the plane but not leave an air base facility close by. "We had made absolutely no arrangements to transport the press to the hospital," he said. "I asked the advance guys today, 'Had we made any preparation to do that?' and they said, 'No.'"

Gibbs noted that Obama had visited with wounded soldiers several weeks earlier at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., and at a combat support hospital while in Iraq earlier in the week -- both times without reporters.

At another point a reporter asked, "Why not just say it is never inappropriate to visit men and women in service -- what is your response to that?"

"Again, I would reiterate that we would not want to put anybody who had been wounded in service to our country in the potential position to be part of the political back and forth ... It is entirely likely that someone would have attacked us for having gone. And it is entirely likely -- and it has come about -- that people have attacked us for not going," said Gibbs.

On Saturday in London, Obama addressed the controversy during a press conference. He said Pentagon concerns about Gration's status triggered the decision not to make the visit.

"We got notice that he [Gration] would be treated as a campaign person and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but he wasn't on the Senate staff," Obama said. "That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political, and the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not, or get caught in the crossfire between campaigns."

Obama's explanation, which came after more than a day of controversy, was the clearest in noting that it was Pentagon concerns about Gration accompanying Obama to the hospital that forced Obama to reconsider and ultimately to cancel the visit.

He also noted that he had made previous visits to see wounded soldiers without reporters, and that while the visit to the hospital in Germany had long been on the schedule for the overseas trip, it had deliberately been left off the schedule given to the press for that reason.

Gibbs reiterated Obama's explanation again last night, saying on MSNBC that it was the Pentagon's concerns about Gration that prompted the cancellation.

"The Pentagon said that his participation would make that trip a campaign trip and we decided at that point, rather than put the men and women, who served our country and protected our freedom and had been injured, rather than put them in a political situation in the middle of a campaign fight, that we would just not go and not use them as props in this kind of fight," Gibbs said.

And he was more definitive today in denying the McCain campaign charge. "That's completely untrue and I think honestly they know it's untrue," Gibbs said.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds insisted again today that McCain's version of events is correct, and that Obama canceled the trip because of the inability to take reporters and cameras into the hospital.

"It is safe to say that according to press reports Barack Obama avoided, skipped, canceled the visit because of those reasons," Bounds said. "We're not making a leap here."

Nicolle Wallace, another spokeswoman for McCain, said the campaign's understanding of the event, which was "pieced together from public sources" was that "Obama was told he could go to see the troops as long as he wanted to. At some point, the campaign apparatus" was raised as an issue. "When you say 'campaign apparatus,' it's staff, pool, protection, whatever. That's what our understanding of what campaign apparatus is."

Wallace said at this point the actual details of the incident are less relevant because "This is what it is. People know this. People will draw their own conclusions."

"It probably wasn't enough to ruin the trip," she added, "but there is a very worrisome Obama narrative shaping up" in which he's ignoring the advice of military officers such as General David Petraeus and he's not fully paying attention to "the importance of seeing the troops, no matter how logistically challenging it might be."

Bounds later added in an e-mail: "The only reported stipulation was that Barack Obama had to leave his celebrity entourage at the door, but he skipped on the injured troops anyway, so it's fair to question his judgment and we'll keep doing it."

Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.

Posted at 4:37 PM ET on Jul 29, 2008

Neil Young

Neil Young documents anti-war tour in film

By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press WriterWed Jul 23, 5:11 PM ET

Not every musician will make a film that features a fan facing him from a concert audience with two arms raised, middle fingers extended — more than one fan, in fact.

Neil Young was singing protest songs on a "Freedom of Speech" tour with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash at the time. Ignoring that kind of nonverbal speech would contradict the message, wouldn't it?

It was an easy call. Using the nom de plume Bernard Shakey, Young directs "CSNY: Deja Vu," a film that uses the tumult surrounding CSNY's 2006 concert tour as a backdrop for exploring divisions in the country over the Iraq war. It opens in theaters on Friday.

Before the tour, Young had released "Living With War," the blunt anti-war album where he was backed by a full chorus on songs like "Let's Impeach the President." There was little mistaking his intentions; one of the film's funniest moments shows Young almost physically knocked back when a CNN reporter mentioned the song and asked him, "What's that song about?"

Young invited journalist Mike Cerre along to speak to members of the audience.

"The interviews we got were more positive than negative," Young told The Associated Press. "But we tried to represent the people who didn't come by, trying to equalize the positive and negative."

It wasn't hard to find unhappy fans at a handful of shows, most obviously in Atlanta. Many streamed out, or stayed to offer hand signals. Some had inexplicably expected a greatest-hits show. Young said he was blown away watching families fight, the children wanting to stay while their parents were eager to leave.

He also had narrators read from concert reviews, positive and negative. One critic said, "I don't want to be told how to think by four aging hippies." Another said CSNY wasn't interested in free speech, "just the kind they believe in."

Plainly, he had struck a nerve. No one likes seeing angry fans, but Young had no interest in backing down.

"Just because I'm famous doesn't mean that I work for the audience," he said. "I'm not obligated to do anything. I'm an artist. I will do what I want to do. Whatever the consequences ... I certainly hope that it's a civilized reaction."

Through Cerre's contacts, "Deja Vu" tells stories of people band members met along the way. The characters include songwriter Josh Hisle, now a performing musician after two tours of duty with the Marines in Iraq; Gold Star mother and anti-war activist Karen Meredith; and Patrick Murphy, an Iraq veteran now a freshman congressman from Pennsylvania.

The title "Deja Vu" is also a hint that Young seeks to draw connections to CSNY's activism against the Vietnam War roughly 40 years ago.

Young has resisted playing one of his best-known songs, "Ohio," about the shooting of anti-Vietnam War demonstrators in Kent State, because he didn't want to seem like he was exploiting the victims' memories. The song was dusted off and given new context in the "Freedom of Speech" tour.

When he released his album, Young had said it was a shame that someone older had to write those songs, implicitly criticizing the generation fighting the Iraq war. He's since been set straight, finding a lot of music addressing the topic was being made; it just hadn't found an outlet. Young now features a lot of it on his Web site, which keeps a constantly refreshed chart on which songs are being played the most.

Young never wants to do such a tour again, and not just because he hopes for peace.

"It's too draining and terrifying," he said. "I was committed to it ... and I followed it all the way through to the end, but it's very dangerous and it's not fun. Singing those songs every day and meeting the soldiers and meeting people who were crying about their lost loved ones every day? We did that ... but I don't want to spend the rest of my life replaying that."

The artists received death threats, although this point isn't raised in the film.

"It's not very positive and it doesn't reflect well on society," he said. "That's where I drew the line. I just did not want to play that up."

There's one touching moment in "Deja Vu" when Young gathers his fellow band members around and thanks them for watching his back. They were all committed to the cause, although Stills was the one displaying the most obvious ambivalence.

Stills has been fundraising for Democratic candidates for years, but being put in a daily situation facing angry fans was tough on him. "Stephen is a wonderful guy," Young said. "He just doesn't like to be not liked."

Young said he believed in everything said and done during the tour, but "I've moved on to what's the solution." He believes oil fuels many of the world's conflicts and is helping to finance researchers all over the world hoping to find alternative fuel sources.

He considers the period during when the Iraq war was new and dissent was seen to be non-patriotic to be a blight on the nation's history. Even if he's moved on, he doesn't want moviegoers to forget it.

"I hope that when they leave that they talk about it for a while, and that when they wake up the next day they still have some images from it in their mind," he said. "The rest is up to them."

___

On the Net:

http://www.csny-dejavu.com

http://www.neilyoung.com/

Aud-Shot Video of Zeppelin Over London 2007

Kashmir
From about 6:30-7:12 in the video, Plant is just about directly in front of where we were in the second row.




Trampled Underfoot

Zeppelin at Earl's Court, London, 1975

Over The Hills and Far Away




Kashmir

"Just a Matter of History"

McCain gets the chronology completely wrong, attributing success in Iraq's Anbar province to the 2007 US escalation/'surge' - even though the "Sunni Awakening" began in 2006.

NYT's Bob Herbert: Madness and Shame

Madness and Shame

By BOB HERBERT

You want a scary thought? Imagine a fanatic in the mold of Dick Cheney but without the vice president’s sense of humor.

In her important new book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” Jane Mayer of The New Yorker devotes a great deal of space to David Addington, Dick Cheney’s main man and the lead architect of the Bush administration’s legal strategy for the so-called war on terror.

She quotes a colleague as saying of Mr. Addington: “No one stood to his right.” Colin Powell, a veteran of many bruising battles with Mr. Cheney, was reported to have summed up Mr. Addington as follows: “He doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”

Very few voters are aware of Mr. Addington’s existence, much less what he stands for. But he was the legal linchpin of the administration’s Marquis de Sade approach to battling terrorism. In the view of Mr. Addington and his acolytes, anything and everything that the president authorized in the fight against terror — regardless of what the Constitution or Congress or the Geneva Conventions might say — was all right. That included torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, you name it.

This is the mind-set that gave us Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the C.I.A.’s secret prisons, known as “black sites.”

Ms. Mayer wrote: “The legal doctrine that Addington espoused — that the president, as commander in chief, had the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries if national security demanded it — rested on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars shared.”

When the constraints of the law are unlocked by the men and women in suits at the pinnacle of power, terrible things happen in the real world. You end up with detainees being physically and psychologically tormented day after day, month after month, until they beg to be allowed to commit suicide. You have prisoners beaten until they are on the verge of death, or hooked to overhead manacles like something out of the Inquisition, or forced to defecate on themselves, or sexually humiliated, or driven crazy by days on end of sleep deprivation and blinding lights and blaring noises, or water-boarded.

To get a sense of the heights of madness scaled in this anything-goes atmosphere, consider a brainstorming meeting held by military officials at Guantánamo. Ms. Mayer said the meeting was called to come up with ways to crack through the resistance of detainees.

“One source of ideas,” she wrote, “was the popular television show ‘24.’ On that show as Ms. Mayer noted, “torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis.”

I felt as if I was in Never-Never Land as I read: “In conversation with British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, the top military lawyer in Guantánamo, Diane Beaver, said quite earnestly that Jack Bauer ‘gave people lots of ideas’ as they sought for interrogation models.”

Donald Rumsfeld described the detainees at Guantánamo as “the worst of the worst.” A more sober assessment has since been reached by many respected observers. Ms. Mayer mentioned a study conducted by attorneys and law students at the Seton Hall University Law School.

“After reviewing 517 of the Guantánamo detainees’ cases in depth,” she said, “they concluded that only 8 percent were alleged to have associated with Al Qaeda. Fifty-five percent were not alleged to have engaged in any hostile act against the United States at all, and the remainder were charged with dubious wrongdoing, including having tried to flee U.S. bombs. The overwhelming majority — all but 5 percent — had been captured by non-U.S. players, many of whom were bounty hunters.”

The U.S. shamed itself on George W. Bush’s and Dick Cheney’s watch, and David Addington and others like him were willing to manipulate the law like Silly Putty to give them the legal cover they desired. Ms. Mayer noted that Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the late historian, believed that “the Bush administration’s extralegal counterterrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history.”

After reflecting on major breakdowns of law that occurred in prior administrations, including the Watergate disaster, Mr. Schlesinger told Ms. Mayer: “No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world — ever.”

Americans still have not come to grips with this disastrous stain on the nation’s soul. It’s important that the whole truth eventually come out, and as many of the wrongs as possible be rectified.

Ms. Mayer, as much as anyone, is doing her part to pull back the curtain on the awful reality. “The Dark Side” is essential reading for those who think they can stand the truth.

Exchange Between Veteran and McCain at Town Hall Event

Instead of initially answering the guy's question about health care funding for veterans, McCain starts talking about educational benefits and then brags about awards and endorsements from certain veterans' groups. He concludes with a smarmy "I guess they don't know something you know."

Here's some analysis from Rachel Maddow on MSNBC:

NYT's Frank Rich on John McCain and the Economy

Click on the link to read the whole piece. The following is merely an excerpt.

________________

Mr. McCain’s fiscal ineptitude has received so little scrutiny in some press quarters that his chief economic adviser, the former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, got a free pass until the moment he self-immolated on video by whining about “a nation of whiners.” The McCain-Gramm bond, dating back 15 years, is more scandalous than Mr. Obama’s connection with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Mr. McCain has been so dependent on Mr. Gramm for economic policy that he sent him to newspaper editorial board meetings, no doubt to correct the candidate’s numbers much as Joe Lieberman cleans up after his confusions of Sunni and Shia.

Just two weeks before publicly sharing his thoughts about America’s “mental recession,” Mr. Gramm laid out equally incendiary views in a Wall Street Journal profile that portrayed him as “almost certainly” the McCain choice for Treasury secretary. Mr. Gramm said that the former chief executive of AT&T, Ed Whitacre, was “probably the most exploited worker in American history” since he received only a $158 million pay package rather than the “billions” he deserved for his success in growing Southwestern Bell.

But no one in the news media seemed to notice Mr. Gramm’s naked expression of the mind-set he’d bring to a McCain White House. And few journalists have vetted the presumptive Treasury secretary’s post-Senate history as an executive at UBS. The stock of that banking giant has lost 70 percent of its value in a year after its reckless adventures in the subprime lending market. It’s now fending off federal investigation for helping the megarich avoid taxes.

Mr. McCain made a big show of banishing Mr. Gramm after his whining “gaffe,” but it’s surely at most a temporary suspension. When the candidate said back in January that there’s nobody he knows who is stronger on economic issues than his old Senate pal, he was telling the truth. Left to his own devices — or those of his new No. 1 economic surrogate, Carly Fiorina — Mr. McCain is clueless. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, a supporter, said that Mr. McCain’s latest panacea for high gas prices, offshore drilling, is snake oil — and then announced his availability to serve as energy czar in an Obama administration.

Winding up Turckfest Weekend

Here are a couple shots of the whole group -
Back from L-R: Jim (Black Dog), Thom, me, John, Chuck, Links
Middle row on the table: Turck, Turck, Joe
...and of course Ben and his dad in front.

Campfires and Presidents + Assholes

Some dads joined us for this trip - Joe's, Ben's, and Turck's fathers all came along for the fun.

Thom loved this picture, so I promised him I would post it here.

A little P&A action from Saturday night.

Turck's Bachelor Weekend in West Virginia

Late Thursday night, I flew from Chicago to Raleigh, where Turck is now living with Lindsay. Joe H had set up a great weekend for us at Ace Adventure Resort in West Virginia. Nate had to work on Friday, but we eventually arrived late that night with some help from his GPS, after encountering a father/son mullet combo at Wal-Mart to pick up some supplies. We did enough drinking to make waking up early on Saturday pretty difficult. These pictures were taken after we returned from rafting when we were all a little tuckered out. I don't have any images from the rafting because I didn't have a waterproof camera, but Turck did and perhaps I'll be able to post those at some point. Although we weren't exactly roughing it (there were hot showers available near the campsite and decent cell phone reception), the area and the weather was beautiful and I think we all had a fantastic time.

John McCain [TPM] "Gotta Be Me"

George Carlin: God Bless America

George Carlin - God Bless America - Watch more free videos

06.06.08

Following my last day at my job at the law firm, my fellow Project Assistants went to The Map Room for a few beers. I'm pictured with Elliott (above) and with Marie and Liza, Elliott's girlfriend (below). They were all fun people to work with; they made the job a lot more bearable.

No, I have no explanation - other than pure coincidence - as to why I'm wearing the same shirt in these pictures as I am in the pictures below.

Last from Memorial Day Weekend in Mayville

wow.

05.23.08, Continued

Happy to be with Links and Thom.


Below, Matt looks much more excited than normal, as Felicia tries to duck out of the way.

Turck claims he wasn't drunk that night - just tired. Nonetheless, he looks pretty wasted.

This awful picture below is actually the best of the bunch of Laura and I. Apparently I was inspired to make stupid faces this evening.

Memorial Day Weekend

...at The Lakeview in Mayville, with Turck, Links, Lampard, Benjamin, Thom, and Matthew.

Not sure whose idea this was...

Lindsay, Turck (Turckface?), Ben, Felicia, and MK.

Yankees Win, 6-4

Above: Derek Jeter / Below: Bobby Abreu

Yes, the fireworks represent a White Sox home run. Yanks took the series though, two games to one.

04.23.08 US Cellular Field

Above, Yankees 2B Robinson Cano warms up with CF Melky Cabrera, pictured below, right of the umpires.

Jorge Posada awaits the pitch as Hideki Matsui leads off first.

Cano at bat.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss at What Stage, Bonnaroo Music Festival, Manchester, Tennessee

Rich Woman
Leave My Woman Alone
Black Dog
Sister Rosetta
Through the Morning, Through The Night
So Long Goodbye to You
Fortune Teller
In the Mood
Black Country Woman
Bon Temps Roulez
Trampled Rose
Green Pastures
Down to the River to Pray
Nothin'
Battle of Evermore
Gone Gone Gone

One Woman Man

Robert and Alison's set came after a great show by the Yonder Mountain String Band. While I'm not a huge bluegrass fan, I can appreciate talent well enough. Those four guys can really play. The leader of the band (looks like his name is Jeff Austin... ) made some remarks about the performance being a "brown trouser set," and basically implied that he was plenty nervous to serve as the opening act of sorts for Robert Plant. Laura and I got up to the wall at the front of the general area, up in front of the scaffolding where the cameras were perched, but not in the pit area closest to the stage. We were up early and caught all of YMSB's set, which concluded with an entertaining bluegrass rendition of Ozzy's "Crazy Train."

After Yonder Mountain left, you could tell when Plant's pre-show music came on, because all of a sudden one was hearing a lot of Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf tunes, like Spoonful.

As has been customary at all of the Plant Krauss shows, the backing band entered first and began the sultry tones of Rich Woman before Robert and Alison entered from opposite sides of the stage, taking up their designated places in front of their respective microphones. The
audience greeted them warmly.

Without much of a pause, Leave My Woman Alone, as performed by Ray Charles, began. This was a brisk little song, pushed along by some nice mandolin work from Stuart Duncan and jangling guitar from Buddy Miller. At the song's conclusion, Plant picked up his mic stand and moved over quite closely to Alison's side of the stage. Krauss looked somewhat amused. The majority of the crowd seemed a bit lost with Black Dog's banjo introduction until the lyrics kicked in. There was a bit of a hush during a lot of song, and I'm not sure everyone knew what to think of the understated delivery. There wasn't a dramatic response to the "ahh-ahh" portion, but the overall impression was positive.

Plant greeted the crowd then, with a "Bonnaroo!" and a not-quite-Zeppelin-like, "Good Evenin'!" He then introduced Alison Krauss and moved to the rear of the stage to provide backing vocals as she started Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us, a song by T Bone's ex-wife, Sam Phillips. This was followed by the very sad Gene Clark song, Through The Morning, Through The Night with Buddy Miller on lap steel guitar. The choice of putting these two songs together was somewhat questionable given the nature of the festival at which they were playing, but it seemed from the composition of the entire setlist that not much thought was given to keeping the crowd "into it;" all they did was to take a few songs out of the usual setlist, without adding anything or switching the normal running order. I think this was a mistake, given the impression I got from several people I overheard at the show that they viewed this as a chance to see Robert Plant. I do not think that many of those folks owned Raising Sand and may not have even heard much about it.

It's Goodbye and So Long To You (watch it here), apparently recorded by the Osborne Brothers with Mac Wiseman, came next. Many fans have commented on Alison's lack of charisma/stage presence, and I have to say that I agree. She failed to move around much at all, loosening up slightly when she was alone at the front of the stage, as on this song. A jaunty number like this one, which was a perfect showcase song for the fair-haired, fiddle-playing damsel, succeeded in getting her to sway her hips ever-so-slightly, but even then she looked a little restrained.

For a non-fanatic's perspective, I'll paraphrase what Laura had to say after the show, which was essentially that Alison has an incredible voice and is a fantastic singer, but she is a poor "performer." In contrast, according to my bride-to-be (one year and three days from today, as glance at the calendar), Robert Plant still has a great (and unique) voice, but he is a phenomenal performer, with an unsurpassed ability to truly connect with an audience.

Alison would be well-advised to at least make it LOOK like it's taking something out of her to sing as well as she does. Even when she was really belting it out, the rest of her face looked pretty stoic.

Plant returned to the stage for Fortune Teller, which was a song I was never completely sold on when listening to Raising Sand. I thought the arrangement made him sound slightly whiny. While I'm still not a complete convert, seeing him sing the song live is an improvement.
Apparently no one suggested this for Robert and Alison to do on the album; Plant just started singing the song when the rest of the band were jamming on something else (according to Burnett as quoted in the tour program).

Next was one of my favorite songs of the show, In The Mood, from Plant's own back catalogue, off 1983's Principle of Moments (see it here). That's right, the song is 25 years old! If only Plant could stay as faithful to his own songs when he performs them with Strange Sensation as he did with this version of ITM. He stripped Slow Dancer to the bone in 2006/2007 and there was nothing left of that powerful track. The Raising Sand-era rendition of In The Mood is excellent, with a smooth string arrangement taking the place of the original (slightly cheesy) synth. The inclusion of Matty Groves in the middle was seamless. Plant took up some maracas for this portion and stomped around behind the band, coming back to the mic as they transitioned back, and getting one of the biggest reactions from the crowd as he declared several times in unison with Alison that they were both "In The Mood."

Black Country Woman was also well-received, although with this track after Black Dog, some in the crowd might have wondered if every Zeppelin song starts with the words "hey, hey, mama..." Predictably, Plant elicited a big cheer when he reminded us "that's all right - I know your sister, too." Alison played a nifty fiddle solo and then joined Plant on the chorus again. Robert yelled, "T Bone! T Bone!" almost in the "oh, Jimmy!" style, circa 1977 with Nobody's Fault But Mine, although there wasn't much of a solo to be had.

Just when the crowd was getting warmed up, Plant and Krauss left the stage after Robert introduced Burnett for his Creole-seasoned Bon Temps Roulez. I realize the billing of the show is "Robert Plant and Alison Krauss featuring T Bone Burnett," but I think they would have done well to skip this number altogether. Shut It Tight might have been a better selection, but either way, they were losing the audience here. I saw quite a few people sit down within the front pit area, and others left entirely. The fenced-in pit area operated on a one-out, one-in basis all weekend, so there was a steady flow of people. If a person left during a band's set, they were unlikely to be able to return anytime soon.

Krauss returned for Trampled Rose with her siren wails. Although they were impressive, they got somewhat repetitive after she managed them about eight times. Again, the flow of the set was under threat, since the slow, haunting Trampled Rose was followed by Green Pastures, another borderline sleeper song. More impressive in a concert-hall setting perhaps, but the crowd was getting a little restless for Plant's return.

He ambled back to provide one-third of the backing harmony vocals with Stuart Duncan and Buddy Miller on Alison's Down To The River To Pray, which was cheered very respectfully. The lyrical contrast was striking with the next song, Townes Van Zandt's Nothin'. After hearing some of the early shows and realizing that Plant had no intention of singing the song in the same way as he had done on Raising Sand, I was disappointed, since that was among my favorite of the RS tracks. However, their live version has grown on me, and I was impressed with the performance last Sunday. The song received the strongest Plant vocal treatment of anything that was played that day, with some vintage mournful cries that served to throw some red meat to the hungry masses. Buddy Miller provided some choice licks on electric guitar as well, and one could definitely see how Zeppelin would have (or could still?) blown this song to pieces. Both Miller and drummer Jay Bellerose got nods from Plant afterward.

The Battle of Evermore was a real treat, masterfully done by the whole band. Plant gave his all. The crowd was very excited for this one. There was one guy in the pit, probably almost forty or so, who jumped up and down and whooped for nearly the first full minute of the song. The video screens showed some ladies up front with a banner that said "Camp Evermore." Nothing topped the audience's ovation for this song...

...which is why it was pretty anticlimactic to launch into Gone Gone Gone right afterward and close the set that way. A fun song? Sure, but not even in the same league as Battle of Evermore. If they wanted to close the main set with a song from their album, they should have switched Battle of Evermore and Nothin', either performing Gone, Gone, Gone earlier in the set or using it as an encore.

T Bone led the crowd in cheering Plant, "Robert Plant! It's his world and you're welcome to it!" and the band took their bows.

As it was, I think most of the crowd (or maybe just me) expected that we would get a Zep song in the encore, but instead we got only one number, the George Jones-penned One Woman Man, for which Plant, Krauss, and Buddy Miller traded lead vocals. I thought we'd probably hear When The Levee Breaks, but as the crowd chanted "just one more," the pre-recorded music came back on and we knew the show was over.

RIP George Carlin, Dead at 71 [NYT Obituary]

Carlin and Bill Hicks were among the greatest social critics through comedy that this country ever produced. His insight and sharp insight will be greatly missed.

June 23, 2008
George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian, Is Dead
By MEL WATKINS

George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.

The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.

Recently, Mr. Carlin was named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November. “In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Kennedy Center chairman. “His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, Jack Burns, who performed with Mr. Carlin in the 1960’s as one half of a comedy duo, said “He was a genius and I will miss him dearly.”

Mr. Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.

But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”

Mr. Carlin released his first comedy album, “Take-Offs and Put-Ons,” to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom “That Girl” (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie “With Six You Get Egg-Roll,” released in 1968.

By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major television appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.

That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Mr. Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book “Going Too Far” by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”

In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.

By 1972, when he released his second album, “FM & AM,” his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Mr. Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” which appeared on his third album “Class Clown,” also released in 1972.

“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Mr. Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right.”

The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early ‘70s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.” Mr. Carlin refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.

By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”

Mr. Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ‘70s, including the million-record sellers “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole” (1973) and “An Evening With Wally Lando” (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color standup humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television. By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, “George Carlin at USC” was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. He also become a best-selling author of books that expanded on his comedy routines, including “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,” which was published by Hyperion in 2004.

He was “a hugely influential force in stand-up comedy,” the actor Ben Stiller told The Associated Press. “He had an amazing mind, and his humor was brave, and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems, while being incredibly entertaining. He was one of the greats.”

Pursuing a Dream

Mr. Carlin was born in New York City in 1937. “I grew up in New York wanting to be like those funny men in the movies and on the radio,” he said. “My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.”

He quit high school to join the Air Force in the mid-’50s and, while stationed in Shreveport, La., worked as a radio disc jockey. Discharged in 1957, he set out to pursue his boyhood dream of becoming an actor and comic. He moved to Boston where he met and teamed up with Jack Burns, a newscaster and comedian. The team worked on radio stations in Boston, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles, and performed in clubs throughout the country during the late ‘50s.

After attracting the attention of the comedian Mort Sahl, who dubbed them “a duo of hip wits,” they appeared as guests on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. Still, the Carlin-Burns team was only moderately successful, and, in 1960, Mr. Carlin struck out on his own.

During a career that spanned five decades, he emerged as one of the most durable, productive and versatile comedians of his era. He evolved from Jerry Seinfeld-like whimsy and a buttoned-down decorum in the ‘60s to counterculture icon in the ‘70s. By the ‘80s, he was known as a scathing social critic who could artfully wring laughs from a list of oxymorons that ranged from “jumbo shrimp” to “military intelligence.” And in the 1990s and into the 21st century the balding but still pony-tailed comic prowled the stage — eyes ablaze and bristling with intensity — as the circuit’s most splenetic curmudgeon.

During his live 1996 HBO special, “Back in Town,” he raged over the shallowness of the ‘90s “me first” culture — mocking the infatuation with camcorders, hyphenated names, sneakers with lights on them, and lambasting white guys over 10 years old who wear their baseball hats backwards. Baby boomers, “who went from ‘do your thing’ to ‘just say no’ ...from cocaine to Rogaine,” and pro life advocates (“How come when it’s us it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken it’s an omelet?”), were some of his prime targets. In the years following his 1977 cable debut, Mr. Carlin was nominated for a half dozen Grammy awards and received CableAces awards for best stand-up comedy special for “George Carlin: Doin’ It Again (1990) and “George Carlin: Jammin’ “ (1992). He also won his second Grammy for the album “Jammin” in 1994.

Personal Struggles

During the course of his career, Mr. Carlin overcame numerous personal trials. His early arrests for obscenity (all of which were dismissed) and struggle to overcome his self-described “heavy drug use” were the most publicized. But in the ‘80s he also weathered serious tax problems, a heart attack and two open heart surgeries.

In December 2004 he entered a rehabilitation center to address his addictions to Vicodin and red wine. Mr. Carlin had a well-chronicled cocaine problem in his 30s, and though he was able to taper his cocaine use on his own, he said, he continued to abuse alcohol and also became addicted to Vicodin. He entered rehab at the end of that year, then took two months off before continuing his comedy tours.

“Standup is the centerpiece of my life, my business, my art, my survival and my way of being,” Mr. Carlin once told an interviewer. “This is my art, to interpret the world.” But, while it always took center stage in his career, Mr. Carlin did not restrict himself to the comedy stage. He frequently indulged his childhood fantasy of becoming a movie star. Among his later credits were supporting parts in “Car Wash” (1976), “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989), “The Prince of Tides” (1991), and “Dogma” (1999).

His 1997 book, “Brain Droppings,” became an instant best seller. And among several continuing TV roles, he starred in the Fox sitcom “The George Carlin Show,” which aired for one season. “That was an experiment on my part to see if there might be a way I could fit into the corporate entertainment structure,” he said after the show was canceled in 1994. “And I don’t,” he added.

Despite the longevity of his career and his problematic personal life, Mr. Carlin remained one of the most original and productive comedians in show business. “It’s his lifelong affection for language and passion for truth that continue to fuel his performances,” a critic observed of the comedian when he was in his mid-60s. And Chris Albrecht, an HBO executive, said, “He is as prolific a comedian as I have witnessed.”

Mr. Carlin is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law, Bob McCall, brother, Patrick Carlin and sister-in-law, Marlene Carlin. His first wife, Brenda Hosbrook, died in 1997.

Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr. Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society. “Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”

Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of complaints and grievances. “I don’t have pet peeves,” he said, correcting the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, “I have major, psychotic hatreds.”

Anahad O’Connor contributed reporting.

Grace Potter - Video from YouTube

Gov't Mule with Grace Potter covering Neil Young's "Southern Man"
Fillmore West - San Francisco 11-10-2007




Grace Potter & The Nocturnals - "If I Was From Paris"
Northampton

The Black Crowes March 7, 2008 at Park West, Chicago

Setlist:
(The Warpaint set)
Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution
Walk Believer Walk
Oh, Josephine
Evergreen
Wee Who See The Deep
Locust Street
Movin' On Down The Line
Wounded Bird
God's Got It
There's Gold In Them Hills
Whoa Mule
- break -
Poor Elijah-Tribute To Johnson
Good Friday
Another Roadside Tragedy
Rockin' Chair
- encore break -
Don't Do It
Hey Grandma
____________________