Good music, good cause

Click here to go to Neil Young store.

Dude (looks like a mess)

Steven, Steven, Steven ... I don't know whether to believe you or not about your recent "accidental" fall in a bathroom that caused these injuries. What I do know is that I am getting tired of aging rock stars -- musicians I admired in the 1970s -- ending up a mess.


I warned you before about falling down. I'll assume you don't read this blog, but I would imagine you have people around who advise you to be more careful. Apparently, they aren't getting through. 


Sadly, there is a whole generation that only knows Tyler as a judge on American Idol or as the singer on movie soundtracks. People my age know him from his early work, when he and his band Aerosmith turned out great songs like Seasons of Wither. Some of Aerosmith's earliest and least popular songs were actually their best.


As I have said before, I wish rock stars would age more gracefully. I don't need them to wear glittery spandex pants anymore. I don't need big stage productions on platforms they often fall off of in their senior years. I just want to hear the music, perhaps done with a little less theatrics and a lot more soul that often comes with aging. I don't care if you can't hit the high notes anymore. Change the key of the song to fit your aging vocal cords. But please, no more self-induced falling down and not being able to get up.


Tyler, like others inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, have earned the right to finally be themselves. I would hope most fans my age would be content seeing Tyler and his bandmates wearing old jeans, without the eye makeup, just performing their old tunes in a fashion that is age appropriate -- maybe even in an acoustic setting.


Heal up, Steve. Rock 'n' roll still needs you ... just not like this.

A voice from the 1 percent

"Many of the 53% crowd seem quite proud of their Christian faith.  I am not religious myself, but I am reasonably certain that Jesus would not respond to the poor and unemployed with shouts of "Get a job!"  I vividly remember what it was like to be poor. To be concise, it sucked, and my heartfelt sympathies automatically go out to anyone who has to experience it, especially children who are blameless for their circumstances. Whenever I meet someone who has not been as lucky as I have been, I recognize how easily our roles could have been reversed by the random forces of fate. And despite my lack of religion, I instinctively think "There but for the grace of God go I."


The above paragraph was written by someone in the 1 percent. Not a mega-wealthy person, but someone who makes enough money to be economically excluded from the 99 percent. Click here to read the entire text.


Not everyone in the 1 percent is evil or greedy. Many in the top percent want to pay their fair share of taxes in order to create a better society. Some want to hire people and expand their businesses. And few might even see that it is the Republican Party and certain corporate forces that are preventing a more fair and equitable system that would eventually improve the overall economy. I hope more 1 percenters speak out and support the movement to clean up a corrupt system that they have benefitted from but know is morally wrong.


To counter the 99 percent movement and prop up the Tea Party, a new group is forming on the right. They consider themselves in the 53 percent -- which I am still not certain what that number represents or if it's even accurate. Much that comes from the right never checks out factually, but I think their point is that they are employed, tax-paying citizens who want to put themselves above the protesters. To me, it seems the only purpose of this group is to place blame on the unemployed rather than the system that has led to mass layoffs over the last three years. These 53 percent live in an imaginary country based on a world that hasn't existed for decades. To them, everything is just fine. Opportunities for all still exist. All you have to do is work hard and pursue your dreams. Gosh, what a naive view.


Those who followed the rules -- worked hard and were loyal -- found out the system was rigged. Many of them lost their jobs. They are denied re-entry into the workplace because of the lack of openings, age discrimination or skills that are no longer needed. Those who are working are hit with furloughs so that massive bonuses can be paid out to top-level executives. Meanwhile, the people most responsible for the collapse of the economy remain free from prosecution and continue to profit from their unethical practices. 


This doesn't feel like class warfare. This feels like class surrender. Yet, maybe the surrender was premature. There is an awakening in America -- one that hopefully can't be stopped by Wall Street dollars, political liars like Eric Cantor and John Boehner, or even police brutality. It's sadly ironic that police, who have been hit hard by layoffs and flat wages, are turning against the very people protesting to help them get back on track. I wonder if police officers will eventually realize that they are a part of the 99 percent -- part of the population screwed over by some in the 1 percent -- and join the protesters? Imagine how Wall Street and extreme right-wing conservatives will tremble at the site of the blue marching with demonstrators?


I don't think the 53 percent will get much traction, but then again, I never thought the Tea Party would actually sway elections in 2010 and create a Republican field of presidential candidates that is so scary, so intellectually inferior to any presidential field I've ever seen in my lifetime, that it makes me wonder if we are indeed done as a country.


The Occupy Wall Street folks are exposing some ugly truths about America and are ruffling the feathers of those in power who will use groups like the 53 percent and Tea Party to create smoke screens. But the OWS demonstrators have the truth and numbers on their side. They have the data and the facts that show how the political system in this country has catered to the elite at the expense of everyone else. Bad policies drove us into the recession and mass unemployment -- policies created by and for the 1 percent. No amount of b.s. or high-paid lobbying from the far right will be able to extinguish what most of us know to be true intellectually and what we feel in our hearts every single day.


The chart below shows the problem. Since about the Reagan-era, the top one percent (red line) has seen their income skyrocket. Everyone else has been relatively flat. What this chart doesn't show is the timeline of public policies that created the gross advantages for the one percent while everyone else was losing their jobs or not getting raises. That, in a nutshell, is what needs to change and why people are protesting.

Class warfare vs. class surrender. Watch YouTube video

Killing sharks solves nothing

There have been 13 deaths caused by shark attacks worldwide this year. Think about the size of the oceans and the number of human beings on the planet. Now tell me that 13 deaths is a good enough reason to start slaughtering this allegedly protected species.


Humans are unbelievable. Anything that is remotely a threat to us in any way has to be killed without any thought about what that ultimately means to the natural balance of life on land and in the sea. We spend so much time, energy and money chasing the boogie man that we can't see the real threats in our lives each and every day.


Time and time again we imperil ourselves in worse ways in the quest to eliminate rare and unlikely threats. We'll kill every shark in sight because the number of attacks on human beings is up slightly. We'll kill sharks for profit. And we'll kill sharks in order to pound our chests while they hang from a hook.


I presume some people like killing for the sake of killing. It's not a public safety issue with them. There is something primal in certain people who want to dominate all other living things. Even when we don't kill, we abuse various species by putting on animal shows in circuses and rodeos.


When you go into the ocean, there are threats. You might get stung by a jellyfish. You might stub your toe on coral. You might get caught in a riptide and drown. Should we drain the oceans so these things don't happen, thereby depleting our food supply?


Look, if you don't want to feel threatened by a shark, don't go in the water. If you don't want a black bear to bust into your picnic basket, don't go in the forest. But do not destroy the entire ecosystem because you've watched "Jaws" one too many times or have an irrational fear of animals -- critters that will normally will leave us alone if we leave them alone and don't do anything stupid while in their habitats. Animals that directly and indirectly benefit human beings by their mere existence.


We have to stop overreacting to things that are not common threats to our safety and start identifying the things that do endanger us. There is more to fear in the air and water supply -- invisible things -- that should get more of our attention than a shark that is, well, just being a shark. We have more to fear from Corporate America than a wolf roaming through Yellowstone. You want to be scared of something? Be frightened to death by right-wing politicians who want to remove regulations that are in place to keep us safe.


Millions of people die from heart attacks and cancer, yet we somehow want to divert our media attention, public research and dwindling resources to 13 people who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some people want to blindly kill the top predator in the oceans without regard for how that will alter the food chain in ways that could come back to haunt us much more than these 13 deaths.


Yes indeed, humans are unbelievable.