RickO's Comments (269)

“Actually, he's on Chalet Release.”

“This has the stench of eminent domain. You know, where your property can be confiscated and turned over to private developers if they can bribe the government into asserting that your private property serves a greater public purpose by stealing it from you than by letting you keep it. The spirit of Eminent Domain was to ensure that critical infrastructure needs could not be thwarted by a solitary hold-out sitting on a distressed property but there have been numerous cases of neighborhoods being razed to make way for malls and upscale private development, most surviving court challenges.

This HCR mandate is basically the same thing. I would be all for it if I had a public option to buy into but I flat refuse to give a private insurer something as a result of a government mandate.”

“cool.”

“That's a very cogent explanation. I agree with the adage that one should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good (Clinton was not the first to say that). If this bill can pass AND the Democrats can do what it takes to gain at least a filibuster-proof majority in favor of even further reforms, perhaps this time next year the fight will be over leaving the 09 reforms in alone or adding a public option or Medicare-for-all.

The Republicans (and Lieberman) being in the minority have only the capability to block legislation, not reverse it. Only if they gain a majority can they undo what has been done and then of course it gets vetoed by the President.

Using that logic, I say pass the darn thing, make it law, then start on the next round. If the Democrats can manage to have a majority, even slim as this one, for the next few terms, and keep the whitehouse, we could have single-payer inside of eight years. We've been at war for that long now.”

“There is a way to demonstrate where the real power lies in the country. It probably would never happen (cynical) but it would work if it could happen. The power in this country are the corporate interests that control the wealth; the big banks. But those banks are like a fortress built on sand where each depositor or card holder is a grain of that sand. Wash the sand away and the fortress collapses.

Whether one is liberal or conservative, we all think we believe in "we the people" regardless of our nuanced interpretations. So prove that you're not a weak and willing slave.

Pick a bank, one with an iconic name like Bank of America, and dismantle it from the bottom up. Move your accounts across the street to whatever the closest bank is (they're all the same). Make Youtube videos about it, create a movement. Then watch the other banks pile on like a feeding frenzy. BofA is dead and there's nothing the feds can do about it. Don't worry about the collateral damage, we're making a point.

I am seeing signs of another movement as well. People working under the table. This is not voluntary for many of us but it can begin to erode the tax base. We do call the shots but we need to actually take the shots to get that point across.”

“Because there is no god.”

“Anyone who can be convinced to believe the absurd can be convinced to commit atrocities
- Voltaire

There is no difference between radical Islam and Evangelical Christianity”

“We do have some protection there. Every venue that uses cover bands or any other copyright pays licensing fees into ASCAP or BMI or both. This makes it legal to use IP. When we rent a hall for a concert, we also pay a single use fee to cover a single event if we are playing copyrighted compositions.

The real problem is that the record companies face losing their 1000% margins on CD sales. Not a problem for us though. We sell most of our CDs at gigs and keep all the money. We can sell online (CD Baby, Amazon, etc) and still keep most if it. We don't need a big studio or a vast distribution network anymore so the labels have no leverage with us anymore either. They are losing their a$$e$ from both ends and you wont find too many of us who care.”

“As a working musician, one of the last things I worry about is Intellectual Property Rights. That's the concern of the industry executives who know nothing of art or the lives of artists but enrich themselves by exploiting artists. I'd say 90% of the music industry has no idea what musicians do. Ask any working musician how much they made in royalties last year. (Laughter usually means zero.) Sure, I don't want anybody stealing from me, which is why I would never sign with a major label.

What do I worry about? Healthcare. When you go to a concert, to a club with live music or anywhere like that, how many of the musicians do you think have health insurance? Musicians go to tremendous effort to create work that will entertain audiences and while there is personal satisfaction in doing so, the business itself is no more glamorous than being a migrant farm worker. But can you imagine a world without live music or any kind of performance? There is a practical economic side as well. Communities with a thriving arts scene have a better business scene.

Record companies are terrified of the kind of technology that allows people like me to not need them. Ask any musician how much they care about the poor record companies and again, laughter means zero. We just want to contribute to our community like anyone, make a fair living, pay our taxes and have a chance at a long healthy life.”

“I heard there are two wars going on somewhere.”

“You don't have to be an expert on Afghanistan to know exactly what will happen the moment we leave. But it's more important to remember that the exact same thing will happen whether we leave today or ten years from now.

This region operates on a time scale of thousands of years. They're still living in Deuteronomy. The only thing our presence does is chew us up and rearrange the local balance of power there but in the end, it's all the same. For chrissake, the Soviets shared a border and still lost big, despite their huge advantage. The Soviet Union lost the war, plain and simple.

If we commit to "winning" in Afghanistan, we've sealed our fate and on those terms, we will lose a long war of attrition. This is not Vietnam. Afghanistan is not a puppet of any superpower with whom we can negotiate. We must deal with Afghanistan directly, in their world and in their mindset. We're naive and deaf to history if we think we can do that.

And if you (politician) want to smugly tell me that you know something I don't, fine, you probably do, but I wont vote for you again.”

“Palin, like others of her ilk, simply say things without any regard to whether it's true or not. Trouble is, so many people support her but when you get below the surface, her supporters don't even know why.

Watch this video (really, it's mind-blowing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKKKgua7wQk&feature=player_embedded

These people have a vote equal to yours and enough of them could make thus rube the next president.”

“Actually, I'm hankering for a fair trial that will most likely result in a guilty verdict (for KSM that is) followed by a life sentence in a Supermax prison. In the case of some of those cab drivers or other poor sots simply caught up in the outfreakage, an acquittal might be the fair result of a fair trial.

I think they call it Due Process. Even McCain said, "it's not about who they are, it's about who we are."”

“Ah, I get it. So when Bush said we'll "bring'em to justice", he really meant we'll just kill'em all and let god sort'em out. Why not? The evidence is overwhelming:

He's of Arabic descent = Guilty
He's kinda brownish-colored = Guilty
He doesn't speak English = Guilty
He actually does speak English = Extra Guilty
Someone said he was a terrorist = Guilty
Of course he is. Look at him. = Guilty
He was wearing a funny hat = Guilty
Actually, we did the hat = Still Guilty
He admits to being Muslim = Guilty and goin' to hell too
He has a beard = Guilty
He's been in prison for 8 years now = Guilty
He says he's innocent = Guilty
He says he can prove it = Still Guilty
He may actually be innocent = Super double-naught extra Guilty
We may never know = Who Cares? You see his name in the Bible anywhere? I rest my case.”

“If Newsweek is hell bent on destroying Palin, depicting her as a sex symbol is not the way to do it. They obviously don't realize that the whole reason she is anything at all is because the GOPers ogle her and imagine themselves...well you know, let's just say they imagine themselves collaborating with her.”

“It's hard to chew your Whopper with 3 teeth.”

“It'll probably be beans and rice this year.”

“Now it's getting interesting. When the real right-wingers start to show up, you know, the committed ones with "Berserker" tattooed on their foreheads, you little weekend tea partiers with your incoherent messages and complete misunderstanding of history need to realize that these guys are your ilk. You've chanted the incantations aloud and now they appear. Fun, huh?”

“Unfortunately, like many other books of fiction considered to be the infallible word of the author who didn't actually write it, most Americans will buy it without question.”

“Pardon me, we're NOT calling the shots from here. Sorry I blew the punch line.”

“American and Chinese cultures are so different that Americans scarcely notice the reality of our relationship. We see the surface noise like human rights issues and trade imbalance, the latter being far more complex than a simple trade deficit figure. But beneath the stuff we can easily sum up in sound bites is a deeper reality that has, I believe, fully metastasized.

America is like the morbidly obese, illiterate juvenile with chocolate smeared on its face and a video game controller in its hand who is prone to 'unilateral' temper tantrums. (the Willy Wonka kid comes to mind)

China is an ancient culture with a complex an tumulutous history but largely uninfluenced by the numbing opiate of theism, instead driven by its own form of rationality and world view. It sees America as a source of energy and nourishes it like livestock. It feeds us a steady diet of cheaply-produced products and props up our economy in the sole interest of cash flow.

There is a highly symbiotic relationship between us and we need each other for our respective reasons, but our goals should be to accept a tranquil hegemony because we're calling the shots from here.”

“This book could turn out to be the biggest problem Palin has if she runs for high office again. We see how much harping goes into a single nebulous contradiction with something a candidate said years earlier. Imagine defending an entire tome of blatant misstatements, contradictions and outright falsehoods, all easily proved as such. You might be able to hide from the media as she did as VP candidate but running as principal is an entirely different story.

She should rename the book "Going Kamikaze".”

“While most of the orchestral repertoire is "classical", meaning a period, not a style, there are times when modern composition works. We did three concerts of Frank Zappa's orchestral works a few years ago, two with the Florida Orchestra and one with the Buffalo Phil and all 3 sold out at full retail.

I agree that much of contemporary work is, quite frankly, quite awful (this coming from a devoted FZ fan). But given the right repertoire, and better marketing, this kind of thing can work. Of course, there is nothing quite like hearing LVB's 9th with a full symphony and chorale.”

“As a career musician, I agree with this assessment with one exception. Musicians are not paid a well as they should be for the level of proficiency needed to keep the orchestra sounding good. And, more importantly, in this country, there is a real lack of appreciation for the arts compared to most of the rest of the civilized world. A German colleague once told me, "In Germany, art is not extra". That sticks in my mind as I compare the scene in the U.S. to Europe. She was right.

Music is a tough career choice and only a rare few find it glamorous. For the rest of us, it is a grind and your ability to do your job can be greatly impacted by something as simple as a broken fingernail or a cold sore. It is a life of brief highs, unpredictability, few benefits if any. It's a job like many others.

But imagine your world without live music, your city without as much as a chamber music society, jazz clubs or even places where improvisation and experimentation takes place. A cover band in the back corner of a noisy restaurant is not culture, nor is it art.. Culture builds community. It draws businesses, tourism, educated people and lifts the economic foundation of the area. Orchestras and other arts should be seen as community investments and be well funded. It makes good sense.”

“When it comes to voting for Cloture, that's when all Democrats must get on board because this is a parliamentary maneuver, not a vote on an issue. Any Dem who allows (joins) a Republican filibuster should face three immediate consequences. 1) Loss of any committee chair or other leadership role, 2) a guarantee that nothing they ever want, be it legislation or amendment, will ever see the light of day. Lame duck and useless to their state for the rest of their terms. And finally, 3) a promise that party no resources will support their reelection and instead will vigorously support a primary challenge.

There should be stiff consequences for destroying this rare opportunity of a Senate super-majority. It may not happen again in our lifetimes.”