There Are Fake Books And There Are Fake Books

Fake book:

A fake book is a collection of musical lead sheets intended to help a performer quickly learn new songs. Each song in a fake book contains the melody line, basic chords and sometimes lyrics - the minimal information needed by a musician to make an impromptu arrangement of a song, or "fake it". The fake book is a central part of the culture of playing music in public, especially in jazz, where improvisation is particularly valued. Fake books are not intended for novices: the reader must follow and interpret the scant notation, and generally needs to have thorough familiarity with chords and sheet music.

Fake book:

For the record, I have a collection of fake books, but I don't own any fake books. I also don't know if there are any fake books of fake books.

Freedom Of Choice

Compassion and Choices:

Compassion and Choices is a nonprofit organization in the United States working to improve patient rights and individual choice at the end of life, including access to medical aid in dying. Its primary function is advocating for and ensuring access to end-of-life options, including medical aid in dying.

With over 65,000 supporters and campaigns in nine states, it is the largest organization of its kind in the United States.

compassionandchoices.org/what-we-do/:

Compassion and Choices helps people plan for and achieve a good death. We work to change attitudes, practices and policies so that everyone can access the information and options they need to have more control and comfort at the end of life.

Arguing for the legal right to die:

A War On Valentines Day?

Paul Reiser on "irritating" Valentine's Day:

Well, here we are. It's Valentine's Day again, and I have to say I find the whole thing irritating.

Not because I'm a curmudgeon, or anti-love.

Quite the opposite: I'm a big fan of love. I just don't like being told - by strangers -- that I have to demonstrate it, on this day, in the following ways.

And unless you're in the flower, chocolate, jewelry or greeting card business, I don't see how you benefit.

But for grownups, I've learned that these grand, lovely gestures invariably mean nothing. Yes, forgetting Valentine's Day can be bad. But remembering it is not that much better.

The half-life of lovely gestures is shockingly short. Whatever good will you think you'll engender only lasts 'til it all goes bad.

And guys are always surprised by this. If you do something loving and thoughtful, and your loved one is moved, and demonstrably affectionate in return, all is good!

The next day, one carelessly-worded comment and you're right back where you started. And you think, "Wait wait wait -- what about the flowers and the candy?"

"Yeah, that was yesterday, and I didn't care for what you said this morning."

So, you have to ask: What's the point of a great Sunday if it's all shot to hell by Monday? It's like vacuuming the beach; you never really make any progress.

Fortunately, one of the first things my wife and I bonded over when we first met, ironically, was our mutual distaste for Valentine's Day. We both felt it's far more meaningful to be affectionate, thoughtful and considerate the other 364 days of the year. That's the more noble challenge.

So in our house, we don't even celebrate Valentine's Day, which is a great relief.

I actually feel this way about all holidays. I don't think that some day is special just because some stranger, usually dead, thinks it is. To me, every day is special, and I prefer to live my life the way that I want to.

Acadia National Park

On the Trail: Maine's Acadia National Park:

A century ago, a group of residents banded together to gift some of their backyard to the federal government for protection, making Acadia the first national park created entirely from private land donations. Summer resident John D. Rockefeller Jr. gifted 10,000 acres to Acadia, and funded the construction of a network of car-less carriage roads.

Amazing things can happen when we work together.

An Interesting Interview With Charles Koch

Watch the interview with Charles Koch:

Billionaire Charles Koch on fighting in the political arena:

Or read the interview with Charles Koch:

Charles Koch: I'm fighting against special interests:

Charles Koch is a billionaire many times over -- and a much-discussed figure in the world of business and political funding. This morning he's making a rare television appearance answering questions from our Anthony Mason.

The Koch brothers have started a propaganda campaign and are trying to prove that they are not Satan incarnate. Fine, if that's what they want to do. As a person Charles Koch may have some decency within him. Mostly, I don't really care. What bothers me about the Koch brothers is not the Koch brothers. It is what they are allowed to do. Because of various legislation about campaign financing the Kochs are more equal than the rest of us. Most Americans don't have billions of dollars to throw around trying to influence politicians. It is interesting that Charles Koch doesn't understand this. I wish I had the power to zap him into the body, mind, and life of a poor, inter-city American, and them have him watch this interview and see what he thinks.

Money and democracy make a very bad combination. One person, one vote is a foreign concept to Charles Koch and he is in denial about this, or he is simply lying.

Still More About Richard Nixon

Last of the President's men:

Hard as it may be to believe after all this time, there is still more to the story of President Richard Nixon and Watergate. And hard as it may also be to believe, it is one of the men who was closest to Nixon, Alexander Butterfield, who's letting the secrets out.

A president who on a Christmas Eve tour of the old Executive Office Building next to the White House made a discovery that sparked a witch hunt: "Some of the staff people -- bureaucrats, the civil servants -- had pictures of John F. Kennedy on their desks or on the wall," said Woodward. "Nixon said, 'We have to get rid of that infestation,' as if it was some sort of disease that somebody would have a picture of JFK in their office."

Butterfield was told by Nixon to get pictures of other presidents taken down from the walls. "He made that express order," he said.

In particular, White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman told Butterfield, "The President would like you ... to find out who the woman is ... who has the two Kennedy pictures," adding, "He asks about it once a week -- at least." Butterfield reported back that the CIA, Secret Service and FBI -- even the House Committee on Un-American Activities -- all found the woman, a civil servant named Edna Rosenberg, was a "completely loyal American."

"What's surprising as you go through all of this is the amount of energy that was devoted to these kinds of maneuvers," said Woodward. "This was a subversion of what the job of the presidency is."

Nixon was a strange and petty man.

I wonder what we don't know about the presidents who have succeeded him.

More Water

Awhile back I posted about Water.

Here's more from CBS Sunday Morning:

The lack of running water for many who live in the Navajo Nation in New Mexico shocked "Sunday Morning" viewers. Since Lee Cowan's story was broadcast two weeks ago, nearly $661,000 has been donated to DigDeep, the organization hoping to drill a new well there.

Some things just make me feel good.

Dick Cheney Still Makes My Blood Boil

I did not know that Dick Cheney has a new heart from a transplant. Metaphorically, he still seems to have his old broken down, almost non-functional, and part mechanical old heart.

This morning CBS Sunday Morning aired an interview of Dick and Liz Cheney by Lee Cowan, because they have a new book out don'tcha know:

He was an early critic of the Obama administration's national security policies, especially the troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cheney is renewing his criticism of Mr. Obama with the help of his daughter, Liz, a former State Department official and one-time Senate candidate. In their upcoming book, "Exceptional," to be published by Simon & Shuster (a division of CBS), they accuse President Obama of retreating from the world's problems, diminishing America's power as the threat of terrorism rises.

Let's go back in time. First where Cheney himself reminded us:

"That when he was Secretary of Defense under the first Bush administration, he was a warm, pleasant, lovable fellow, and he became more of a hard rock afterwards."

Second where George H. W. Bush withdrew from the Middle East before Obama did:

His ability to gain broad international support for the Gulf War and the war's result were seen as both a diplomatic and military triumph, rousing bipartisan approval, though his decision to withdraw without removing Saddam Hussein left mixed feelings, and attention returned to the domestic front and a souring economy.^[132]

I wish that Lee Cowan had brought all of that up in his interview.

Here is more from the interview:

Take, for instance, their criticism of the president's recent nuclear deal with Iran -- a country Cheney's boss famously included in his "Axis of Evil."

"You say of the deal that the Obama agreement will one, lead to a nuclear-armed Iran; two, lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and three, the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's a pretty daunting prediction," said Cowan.

"We say it may well lead to the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki," said Liz. "This deal makes war more, not less likely."

"Think about what kind of a regime it is," said Dick Cheney. "They've violated virtually every agreement they've ever been a party to. I don't think they can be trusted. I think they've demonstrated that repeatedly."

"We say it may well lead to the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki," said Liz. I don't know how she can say that with a straight face. Fear of the other seems to be a Cheney obsession. The heartless Cheneys have no empathy, no ability to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. If they did, perhaps they would understand that there is the possibility that fear could be a driving force for Iran to feel a need to defend itself, especially from the United States, the country who has attacked so many in the Middle East, as well as being the only country to ever have used nuclear weapons. The Cheneys, no brains, no heart, no face muscles.

"Think about what kind of a regime it is. They've violated virtually every agreement they've ever been a party to. I don't think they can be trusted. I think they've demonstrated that repeatedly." How can Dick Cheney say this with a straight face. I imagine many Iranians say the same thing about the United States. The Cheneys, no brains, no heart, no face muscles.

The book is an expanded version of an op-ed the Cheneys wrote for the Wall Street Journal last year, where they laid out an argument that many of the GOP presidential hopefuls are now campaigning on: that the rise of the so-called Islamic State is Mr. Obama's fault.

Cowan asked, "Are you really laying the spread of ISIS at the President's feet?"

"I think the spread of ISIS was the direct result of the vacuum that was created when the Obama administration withdrew all our forces from Iraq," Cheney said. "We turned our backs on Iraq. We had Iraq in good shape by the time we left office. Even Obama said as much."

I'll let someone else have a say about ISIS:

Bush’s eventual defense regarding the intelligence failures was basically “Look, everyone makes mistakes.” Which is perfectly true and perfectly reasonable, actually. But if the war was a mistake, even an innocent or well-intentioned mistake, any justification for staying on and on has disappeared as well. More than a decade later, why are we still there? Max Boot, writing in Time magazine, used the word “credibility” to explain why we had to stay somewhere we never should have gone. I thought that, after Vietnam, we had pretty much killed that notion. But no, it’s back.

ISIS is merely the most recent in a parade of horrible groups, Shiite and Sunni, religious and secular, murderous and even more murderous, to which we have been introduced through the years. They sometimes are our friends, though secretly helping the other side, or they are sworn enemies of the imperialist aggressor (that is, us), but still secretly taking bribes from the C.I.A. They are often splinters from some larger tree, either “brand extension” by the original group or its sworn enemy due to ideological or religious differences that are impossible to fathom.

Where did ISIS come from? What ever happened to the other Middle East groups we used to know? Where is al-Qaeda? How about the Taliban? Does anyone remember the mujahideen? If you do, you’re really showing your age. The mujahideen were the freedom fighters we armed and trained in order to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan—a shrewd bank shot, everyone agreed, until, after the Soviets slunk away, we counted the leftover Stinger missiles in the freedom fighters’ broom closet and realized that many were now in the hands of unfriendly elements. And a lot of the mujahideen had gone with them.

It may be hard to believe, now that the media are all-ISIS-all-the-time, but the first reference to ISIS in any major news outlet—at least the first one referring to the now notorious terrorist group and not to Lord Grantham’s yellow Labrador, on Downton Abbey—was in the summer of 2013. This is not to criticize the media for being late to the party, or to suggest that the threat to Americans posed by ISIS is currently being exaggerated. It is merely to note that the number of analyses pouring out of Washington think tanks and experts available to CNN about who the heck these people are and what they want is pretty impressive, given that almost no one had heard of them a year ago. And it is also to note how fast the cast of characters in this drama can change, amid the anarchy we helped create—which is another reason not to leap to the assumption that anything further we might do would be of help.

Twenty-five years of this! And we were almost out of there when ISIS came along, through a door we opened to them in the first place.

Back to Lee Cowan and those loveable Cheneys:

"While you talk about the problem being that there was no stay-behind force, some would argue that the real problem was that we went in to Iraq in the first place," said Cowan.

"Well, I'm well known as somebody who has strongly defended that as the right thing to do. And I still believe that," he replied.

"You wouldn't change anything?"

"No," Cheney said. "There was widespread support at the time, and it was justified."

Cheney hasn't changed his mind about waterboarding either:

"First of all, it wasn't torture," Cheney argued. "Waterboarding, for example, 'torture,' that was the most egregious thing we did supposedly in the enhanced interrogation program."

Someone who has never been waterboarded has no right to claim that it is not torture. The dark side of me wishes Cheney had been waterboarded before he had a heart transplant. The bright side of me would not wish waterboarding on anyone, including Cheney.

Speaking of the dark side, someone put a Darth Vader hitch cover on Cheney's pick-up truck. Cheney seems to think this is all a big joke. He seems clueless about the fact that it symbolizes that many of us view him as evil incarnate.

I think that Dick Cheney could use a brain transplant, Liz too.

Please don't buy their book, haven't we had enough of them?

Water

Water is essential to human life, religion is not. Some people have easy access to water, some do not. Some people are discriminated against, some are not. Some people get a lot of attention paid to them, some get almost none. Some people have lived in the United States for a long time, others have not.

Not too long ago, CBS Sunday Morning, which I watch religiously every Sunday, ran a segment called The Water Lady: A savior among the Navajo:

It's easy to miss this corner of the Navajo Nation, just 100 miles west of Albuquerque. Most things pass the Reservation right by, including progress.

Many of the roads here are unpaved. Electricity is spotty. Unemployment in the area hovers near 70 percent.

But perhaps most shocking of all? An estimated 40 percent of the people who live here don't have access to running water.

"We don't use the sink because there's no running water," said Loretta Smith.
Smith and her husband share a small mobile home with their disabled seven-year-old granddaughter, Brianna.

With no indoor plumbing, what little water the family has inside is carried in, bucket by bucket, stored in plastic barrels outside.

Cowan asked, "Do you feel sort of forgotten out here?"

"Yes, for sure," said Smith.

The area's main source of drinking water is miles away, in the parking lot of the St. Bonaventure Indian Mission, in the town of Thoreau, New Mexico.

Getting water here can mean a 100-mile round trip for some families, and the Mission's office manager, Cindy Howe, says many don't even have access to a car.

So what happens when they run out? "If they don't have any water, it's just, they don't have any water," said Howe.

This is a story that I had not heard before, yet nearly every day I hear the story of how bad the drought in California is:

On a recent sweltering Saturday afternoon, I submerged my guilt and filled the bathtub halfway for my 3-year-old twins to play in.

It was their first bath in months. The early childhood rituals of spiky-haired tub photos and endless play in lukewarm bath water are foreign concepts to our two girls, who were born in 2011 at the beginning of an epic drought in California that shows no sign of abating.

I told them this was a treat — an exception to the five-minute shower rule strictly enforced by my husband — and reveled in their delight as they pretended to be mermaids, floated and splashed each other with glee.

A tap that provides water is better than one that does not. Don't get me wrong, I feel for all of these people. I am not trying to make the mother in California into a villain. This mother actually uses the water shortage to teach her children some very valid lessons. My point is about some water versus no water. It is about how the media frequently does not care to run stories about the disenfranchised. Thank you CBS Sunday Morning for providing your informative piece on the plight of the Navajo.

Allow me to explain my opening paragraph:

Water is essential to human life, religion is not. Ted Cruz was foremost in my mind when I wrote this. Anger wells up inside of me when he goes on and on about "religious persecution". He cares more about "long-standing monuments" than he does about people. Let me clarify things a little bit. The "long-standing monuments" Cruz is referring to are specifically Christian, and Cruz does care about people, as long as they are Christian. Ted Cruz is running for President. His priorities are completely out of whack. Children without water should matter more to a Presidential candidate than imaginary "assaults" on Christians.

Some people have easy access to water, some do not. Well, I already covered this.

Some people are discriminated against, some are not. I partially covered this, however, the words of Ted Cruz resurface here again. The Navajo face actual discrimination and persecution. Ted Cruz seems to only care about imaginary discrimination and persecution. He should be like Lee Cowan (CBS Sunday Morning) and talk about real problems. He could also talk about his proposed solutions to real problems. Instead, his best proposal to the imaginary problem of atheist "assaults" on Christians is an imaginary one, which is to associate atheists with the Taliban.

Some people get a lot of attention paid to them, some get almost none. I'll ask some questions to illustrate this one. How often do you see news about Ted Cruz? How often do you see news about the California drought? How often do you see news about the water problems of the Navajo?

Some people have lived in the United States for a long time, others have not. Once again Ted Cruz is bellowing inside my brain. Cruz was born in Canada, I'm sure that the Navajo children without water were probably born in the United States. Cruz's father was born in Cuba, and two of his paternal great-grandparents were from the Canary Islands in Spain. I am not a nationalist, I am in favour of "no countries" therefore none of this really matters to me other than the fact that it helps me make my point. In the spirit of fairness I searched the internet for Cruz's position on immigration and had a hard time finding anything of substance. Ixquick says his official site is tedcruz.org. Looking at this site is revealing. I can't help but think of all the televangelists, those of little substance and factual evidence, but lots of self-promotion and pleas for your money. My search revealed that Cruz has said:  “There are 110,000 agents at the IRS. We need to put a padlock on that building and take every one of those 110,000 agents and put them on our southern border.” That statement seems to be more about the IRS than immigration, yet it does reveal his build a wall and keep them out mentality.

I also found:

At one point, Cruz was interrupted by a small group of immigration protesters holding a sign that read, "CITIZENSHIP NOW."

"I appreciate your expressing your First Amendment rights," Cruz said. "You're welcome to come to a town hall and I'll answer your question. Tonight, we're focusing on religious liberty."

"U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.," the audience chanted as they were escorted out by event staff.

It seems that "religious liberty" and "religious persecution" are the only things he will talk about. They are not the only things he wants to talk about, they are literally the only things he will talk about, and if you want to discuss something else you will be escorted out. End of discussion. To be fair he does talk about other topics, but he sure does love the religion theme.

I also found Ted Cruz on Immigration:

• End Obama's illegal amnesty via Congress' checks & balances. (Nov 2014)
• Defund amnesty; and refuse any nominees until rescinded. (Nov 2014)
• No path to citizenship for 1.65 million illegals in Texas. (Oct 2012)
• Give police more power to ask about immigration status. (Jun 2012)
• Boots on the ground, plus a wall. (Apr 2012)
• Triple the size of the Border Patrol. (Mar 2012)
• Strengthen border security and increase enforcement. (Jul 2011)

If you are still with me, my point here has been said by others before. It is a simple and perhaps simplistic one. It is that the Native Americans were here first. We took away their land, many of their lives, their lifestyle, and their water. Perhaps we need to remember this before we pontificate on the issue of immigration.

If our "do nothing Congress" ever decides to do something, I hope the first thing they do is to solve the problem of water for the Navajo.

Goin' Down To South Park

Via CBS Sunday Morning:

Jumping On The Onion Bandwagon

The Onion seems to be very popular this weekend. Bill Moyers admited that he loves The Onion on Friday nights broadcast of Bill Moyers Journal. Today there was a feature about The Onion on CBS Sunday Morning. So, in the spirit of American excess here is more of The Onion:

In The Know: How Can We Make The War In Iraq More Eco-Friendly?