As Huckabee & Romney Attack Each Other, Ahmadinejad Surges In Iowa Polls.

For more info, see Tennessee Guerilla Women's Romney v. Huckabee Gay Marriage Attack Ad & Villagers With Torches, Exaggerated homphobia, a sign of homosexuality?.

A Look Back at Paradise Made Possible By John Prine. Sorry I Didn't Do One for Coal Hill.

A Parting Glass to Tommy Makem-Good Night & Joy Be With You.

. . . since it falls unto my lot,
That I should rise and you should not,
I'll gently rise and softly call,
Good night and joy be with you.

More Bush/Cheney Sneaky Stuff - Attack on Wolves Who Have Never Shot Anyone In The Face.

"Officials in the Bush/Cheney Administration are moving forward with plans to allow wolves to be killed in Idaho and Wyoming even before the animals are removed from the list of federally protected endangered and threatened species. . . .Pups could be killed under Idaho’s wolf plan.Click here to help stop them and their 'efforts to let states start killing wolves and to delay de-listing of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies.'"
"[ . . . during] the holidays . . . the . . . Administration have been working behind the scenes to pave the way for the killing of hundreds of wolves in the Greater Yellowstone area. . . .By killing our nation's precious wildlife population, we are endangering ourselves. . . . .Over the last several weeks, officials within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been quietly moving forward with rule changes that would allow[the] killing wolves . . . This latest proposal would jump start plans to use fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and other means to kill hundreds of wolves, leaving few more than 200 of the wolves in Idaho. In fact, three-quarters of the wolves in the Lolo District of the Clearwater National Forest could be removed... before they are de-listed. . . .Hundreds of wolves in Wyoming could be shot and trapped under the new rules -- whether wolves are removed from the endangered and threatened species list or not.
A decision on the proposal is expected in the next few weeks. Please email Secretary Kempthorne right now and let him know that you oppose any proposal that would threaten the long-term future of wolves in the Northern Rockies and Greater Yellowstone Region. . . Thanks so much for helping me save wolves!" From Amy

Happy 23rd Barbara & Jim.

Here's your song.

Auld Lang Syne By Robert Burns, Video from "Waterloo Bridge," Vocal by Someone Who Can Sing & Blessing From Rev. Sandi

From Rev. Sandi:
"Howard Thurman says it best
'I remember with gratitude the fruits of the labors of others, which I have shared as a part of the normal experience of daily living.
I remember the beautiful things that I have seen, heard and felt--some, as a result of definite seeking on my part, and many that came unheralded into my path, warming my heart and rejoicing my spirit.
I remember the moments of distress that proved to be groundless and those that taught me profoundly about the evilness of evil and the goodness of good.
I remember the new people I have met, from whom I have caught glimpses of the meaning of my own life and the true character of human dignity.
I remember the dreams that haunted me during the year, keeping me ever mindful of goals and hopes which I did not realize but from which I drew inspiration to sustain my life and keep steady my purposes.
I remember the awareness of the spirit of God that sought me out in my aloneness and gave to me a sense of assurance that undercut my despair and confirmed my life with new courage and abiding hope.'"

Chris Jessie-A Real Uniter

Chris Jessie made everyone a Texas fan for nearly three quarters of football. Who'd a thunk it was possible?
Thanks for the fun Jessie. I'm glad it turned out OK.

Benazir Bhutto 1953-2007

Calling her murder a "cowardly act" as George W. Bush did is mindless, meaningless and probably inaccurate. (He typically calls any act of violence not done by the United States or its allies a cowardly act, especially if done by Muslims or in a Muslim country) Still, I'm speechless. What is to be said? I started to do a post about her last week and and didn't. I liked her and hoped she might move Pakistan forward. Maybe she would not have been successful and maybe not, but nothing good can come from this. I'm so sorry for her, her family, Packistan, and the rest of us. I fear this will haunt our grandchildren and their grandchildren.

Shelby Claus Relaxes After An Exhausting December.

Christmas in Calumet Michigan

Click here for the lyrics, a different vocal, and the history.

I Couldn't Find The Angel

I am an old woman named after my mother
My old man is another child thats grown old
If dreams were lightning thunder was desire
This old house would have burnt down a long time ago

Make me an angel that flies from Montgomry
Make me a poster of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing that I can hold on to
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go....

How the hell can a person go to work in the morning
And come home in the evening and have nothing to say.

from Angel From Montgomery by John Prine done here by Bonnie Raitt

Transition - Joe Nuxhall

Joe Nuxhall sent me a nice letter back in July wishing me a happy birthday & congratulating me on being drafted by the Cincinnati Reds. He allowed as how he was looking forward to seeing me in February. We won’t get to have that meeting unless it’s on the other side. Joe passed away last month. We’ll miss you Joe.

Merry Christmas From Virg n Mary n Walt Kelly

Hear the Short Version of Deck Us All With Boston Charlie by Clicking Here.
Other Verses:
Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Polly wolly cracker n' too-da-loo!
Hunky Dory's pop is lolly gaggin' on the wagon,
Willy, folly go through!

Donkey Bonny brays a carol,
Antelope Cantaloup, 'lope with you!
Chollie's collie barks at Barrow,
Harum scarum five alarum bung-a-loo!

Duck us all in bowls of barley,
Hinky dinky dink an' Polly Voo!
Chilly Filly's name is Chollie,
Chollie Filly's jolly chilly view halloo!

Bark us all bow-wows of folly,
Double-bubble, toyland trouble! Woof, Woof, Woof!
Tizzy seas on melon collie!
Dibble-dabble, scribble-scrabble! Goof, Goof, Goof!

Tickle salty boss anchovie
Wash a wash a wall Anna Kangaroo
Ducky allus bows to Polly,
Prolly Wally would but har'ly do!

Dock us all a bowsprit, Solly --
Golly, Solly's cold and so's ol' Lou!

Here's a longer version:

 See, also

Mary Christmas

Virg n’ Mary Again Wish All A Mary Christmas.

MARY CHRISTMAS MADONNAS

Merry Christmas Holidays Virgil's Christmas Message

Christmas Is For All Children.

Christmas-Have a Good One, But Be Careful Out There

Christmas Day SURVIVAL

How the liberals stole Christmas

What Buddhists do at ChristmasTime

and, of course, Christmas For Cowboys. click here for the John Denver version but Wylie has some mighty nice yodeling.

Christmas As I Knew It

My cuz used this song in an ESL class he was teaching in Tokyo in nineteen and seventy-two. He seemed to think it important that the Japanese folk knew about the sharecroppper, hickernuts and gum boots part of America too. I like the song myself.

Shopping in Texas

Lessons About Giving A Wake From James The Bruce.

Virg:
Having asked you how you are doing, gives me an opening to tell you how I am doing, sort of.
I lost a childhood friend the other day. Not been very close in recent years and was not even aware of his critical health problems. Ticker stopped apparently, overburdened with many systemic problems. Great pragmatic guy, harmless and jolly. No service they said, only an Irish style wake! That would be Bran.
Too many business friends though, I suppose. They had no idea how a wake should be. Not a single story, not a single drunk, no music. All the more shame as he was young enough to be survived by friends that could still lift a glass.
(Personally I plan to out live most of my few friends or have run them off. I am doing pretty good on both fronts.)
However, I learned a few lessons about giving a wake, which I share because it seems such a good alternative to a "service", at least for those among us not looking to be serviced.

1. Don't say the event is private - people think they have to be invited and no one, especially in that situation, will know everyone to invite. Call it a wake in the obit, open to all who knew the deceased.

2. Don't schedule it to start too early; they did four "until" (the untill reflected some sense of what it was suppose to be obviously). People were streaming out as we were driving up at six - going to dinner I suppose even though there was a fair spread of food at the event. Why not it was such a bore. 5:30 or 6:00 at the earliest (seven might be better) so people don't have a chance to get in and get out before it gets interesting. If they are too busy to come and stay a bit, it is just as well that they not come at all.

3. Have some music - including a Celtic/folk fiddle. Not loud and obnoxious but poetic and up lifting. Run the music for about forty-five minutes while people arrive. Have someone at the door telling people that the floor will be open for recollections at X. Hopefully more will stay. Have the music take a break when the open mic begins and quit greeting at the door, it becomes a distraction.

4. Have Someone MC, have good acoustics or a mic and actively solicit participation including some good ones to get the ball rolling good. This is best done by someone with a central view of the various facets of the decease's social network and life so they can knit together the speakers to connect the dots. Someone needs to be filling glasses. An untended self serve bar sends a wrong message of parsimony and distracts people from the central activity. Tell people that they don't have to be storytellers; just saying who they are and how they know the common friend is enough.

5. Perhaps the hardest these days, have the right kind of friends. Most people in this stuffy overly starched country of ours aren't up to the kind of openhearted displays that a good wake involves. (People pretend to be relaxed - suits at work being rare etc. but the truth is the country is hung up.) Most people need to go to the Presbyterian church and hear a couple of other people give a stiff rote run down on the stiff and go home. They think life is watch football on TV, when it is really about making and burying friends.

6. Turn the music back on when people have had their say so there is a pleasant atmosphere for people to further explore each other, mutual experiences with the deceased (now that they have been introduced to or reintroduced to during the open mic), where they came from and where they have been. If done right, after the event, there are new friendships made or remade to make for more good wakes in the future.
Instead we have "services" run and dominated by professionals, often with little real knowledge of the deceased, people with their own agenda who mouth hollow platitudes - almost by rote; then we pat our friends in the face with shoves and are done with it. A few loved ones may be asked to render brief speeches but these are monologues not dialogues. Such services offer little real opportunity to truly celebrate a life lived, to voice a story now complete but not yet told. A wake offers a chance to tell that story, as story that no one person but the deceased can know in its entirety.
It is a challenge to pull off a wake in our spread out mobile superficial culture though. In its natural setting, there would be few strangers at a wake. The story of one is the story of many others in a tight knit community, "remember jim when the three of us....". Any stranger present at a wake in its native habitat would stand out clearly and could therefore be easily absorbed and made to tell his or her part of the story for everyone else to hear. In our society funerals are full of mutual strangers. A wake needs a community, to come off naturally; in ours it needs active management.
Having learned all this I am dying to give it a try.
JTB

Fitten Wake Music:

The Parting Glass (Wailin' Jennys here)

Rosin the Bow-(Patrick Sky, Pennywhistlers, and Pete Seeger here)

Three Dog Night's Joy To The World

The Dead's Broke Down Palace

I'll Fly Away (Gillian Welch and David Rawlings here)

Blood Sweat & Tears-And When I Die.

Finnegan's Wake (Clancy Brothers here)

Iris Dement's Let the Mystery Be (See Post Below)

let the mystery be

Sing it Iris.

Jesus & Huckabee Are Too Liberal for America

"The following message about 'The Tax and Spend Messiah' is brought to you by Conservative Christians Against the Teachings of Christ."

Huckabee Family Values

"Here’s the barebones story of how 18-year-old Mike Huckabee’s son, David, and 17-year-old Clayton Frady killed a dog when they were Boy Scouts, and got fired for it. From the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 1998 (as quoted in DogBlog):

[David Huckabee,] the younger son of Gov. Mike Huckabee and another teen were fired last month from jobs at a Boy Scout camp after the killing of a stray dog.[..]

So, how and why did David Huckabee (and Clayton Frady) kill the dog?

The original story isn’t clear in the lead (the admissions and the details come as you read down). Still from the Democrat Gazette:

The dog was killed [passive voice] July 11 at Camp Pioneer near Hatfield.[..]

I believe the following is the faxed description of the “particular process.” It’s on a reputable site, Utopia Animal Rescue, which is run by, of all people, Kinky Freidman:

(Miller County, Arkansas) Two boy scout counselors, 17 year old Clayton Frady and 18 year old David litickabee [sic], the son of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, have admitted to catching a stray dog during their summer session at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, AR, and hanging the dog by his neck, slitting his throat and stoning him to death.

Lambert notices that Michael Isikoff’s coverage of the story for Newsweek is particularly lacking in investigative curiosity on how David Huckabee killed the dog, which as you can see above, really does color the event.

Digby’s on top of this too. The Huckster’s son seems to be a real winner and his father tried to cover up his sick, twisted behavior — the same kind of behavior that landed former NFL star Michael Vick in prison."

Huckabee Squashed Charges Against His Son For Stoning, Hanging Dog By: Logan Murphy

Thanks to PMS for the tip.

Obama, Clinton, Dodd, and Biden Dodge Bullet After Endorsing Lieberman-Talk Him into Endorsing McCain.

Here's what Obama said, "'The fact of the matter is, I know some in the party have differences with Joe. I'm going to go ahead and say it,' Obama told the 1,700-plus party members who gathered in a ballroom at the Connecticut Convention Center for the $175-per-head fundraiser.
'I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf,' he said." Obama rallies state Democrats, throws support behind Lieberman By Stephanie Reitz
When some of Hillary's supporters, who actually wanted Joe to reciprocate and endorse her, contacted Lieberman to complain he is reported to have said "You knew darn well I was a snake before you took me in." Click here to Hear Johnny Rivers sing The Snake