Grateful Dead

We have the right to vote and staying informed is key to having an informed opinion on which way to vote. Put a humurous, interesting twist on any important news story and, however much you might disagree, you are a bit more informed. Take, for instance, the Suprmeme Court's striking down of the heart of the Voting Rights Act. This has highly pissed off black people, organized black people. It has disenfranchised tens of thousands in Texas alone, already, with the new requirement of a voter ID card. If you've seen the movie of the anatomy of the LA riots in the early 90s you can see how tensions mounted leading up to the outcome of the Rodney King trial. Those people who were gathered at LA City Hall were there because they heard the news, they were informed. It's important to be informed, Ted. Then, when George Zimmerman is acquitted on charges of 2nd degree murder in about three weeks (most likely) and there may be large rioting breaking out in Sanford, Orlando, Overtown, Tampa and Jacksonville in which more blacks will be inevitably slaughtered, you won't walk around with a look that says "I don't have a clue why this happened in this great country of ours where we all share the same freedoms". On another tack, it was my spouse's birthday and we had a delightful couple of days picking strawberries, watching the movie Before Midnight, eating out at an Indian Restaurant, giving a nice gift inside a golden Dancing Bear birthday card and looking forward to seeing Furthur in a few weeks in a lovely venue. You see Ted, it takes me about 20 minutes to write my posts on this site in the morning and the rest of the day is spent in lovely splendor, most of the time. It's an easy balance to strike and one that keeps me happy. I choose not to talk about the darker aspects of the Grateful Dead, though that would be totally appropriate to do on this website. On the current events thread, I stick to current events. I'm so sorry they are not the same current events you would choose to speak about.

Anna, I think Ted is merely referring to your recent dominance of this thread. I don't think anyone here on Dead.net has anywhere close to your keen eye for what's lurking in the shadows, and I'm pretty sure we all greatly appreciate you reminding us all of what's out there. In no way am I attempting to tread any toes here, but I think his comment was a harmless one and an attempt at a joke; he meant no offense, I believe. Just my $0.02.

Let's see, how many bands have parted ways so far this year? I think I remember hearing that Wilco has called it quits, Stone Temple Pilots fired Scott Weiland, Kim Deal left the Pixies to--most likely--focus her attention on the Breeders...did I miss anything? I feel like I've left at least one band off this list but, for the life of me, can't remember who. And it's not even July!

WTF is Anthony Bennett!? Good luck Cleveland! (take a break from all the Annarexia posts)

In Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport international transit lounge. We've been desperately looking for Snowden who seems to have dropped off the face of the earth after arriving from Hong Kong several days ago. Apparently he never made the flight to Cuba that had been reserved for him. Then we noticed several swarthy men with mustaches and cheap suits hurry through, forming a cordon for what appeared to be a youngish caucasian with glasses. One of them gave the young man a fine Cuban cigar as he awkwardly took the five foot hookah from him. Could it be Ed "The Red Panda" Snowden? Yes, it was, our facial recognition app. quickly gave us a 97% match. We followed as far as we could until airport security blocked us from following the party through the security door. We followed with a small set of binoculars as a dark-colored SUV scooped up the men. The license plate read "Raoul". The SUV traveled a few hundred yards to a Gulfstream 500 where the men quickly hustled aboard, their tail fin sporting the logo of the Cuban state. Quickly the plane gunned away down a pre-cleared taxi route to a runway where it received immediate clearance for takeoff. The Red Panda had a play date with Raoul Castro in about 12 hours. We'd been the only press with boots on the ground to catch the fast-moving party. Next: Ed parties like a rock-star with revolutionary Cuban hookers in the People's Palace in Havana. Keep it tuned here for the latest on the commie traitor's movements to elude the intelligence omnivores.

Well, Parkas, you might want to consider that there is quite a debate around these parts (dead.net) as to what hippy deadheads stand for, politics wise. Jerry Garcia was definitely of the opinion that, as I paraphrased, electoral politics was THEIR game and that we (deadhead hippies) should have nothing to do with it. So, in Jerry's time, the deadheads were pretty apolitical. But, as I have pointed out many times to many people, the Grateful Dead played many benefit gigs over the years that supported very radical, even revolutionary causes. The Black Panthers, the White Panthers and AIM (the American Indian Movement) are the three revolutionary ones that come to mind but there were many, many others such as the Pacific Alliance that supported the total ban of nuclear power, especially at Diablo Canyon. In 12/12/81 there was the Dance for Disarmament with Joan Baez that I attended at San Mateo. There was a slew more. Like all good hippies they supported what was radical and hip at the time. They didn't support candidates for office though (and neither did I) for as long as Jerry was around. Only in 2008 did Bob & Phil get behind Obama and there was a lot of chatter from old hippies saying this wasn't kosher, Grateful Dead-wise. More folks said they were entitled to do as they pleased, though it was dissonant to see Bob & Phil playing Obama's Inaugural Ball in tuxedoes. But I would say you are correct in that there were a lot of hippies out there who composed the anti-war movement and such who weren't deadheads. The Grateful Dead didn't have a monopoly on hippie-dom. Lomg hairs were often times the organizers. I should know. I was one of them for a long time (no time-cards, no rubles!). There are a lot of people out there who went and cut their hair and changed their politics and made compromises as marriages and kids and inheritances and responsibilities came down the pike. I live in a place where a lot of counter-culture types moved to from Boston and Philly and NYC and points south and west. They moved back to the land and started communes and tried to do the self-sufficient thing. The best of these became artisans in some way and survived the breakup of communal idealism to live with their values intact. You really do have to have your act together in a big way to get off the grid, recycle, compost and live to scale while still involving with political activism. If it was easy a lot more people would be doing it. But, alas, it's not easy so when you find those juicy people who have kept it together all these years salute them! They are winning the nonviolent revolution every day - imho...

Today the news is about DOMA but it is a smokescreen for the huge ruling handed down last Monday: The Right To Remain Silent -- Otherwise known as the 5th Amendment, has been gutted by Alito and Roberts. First in 2010 the court held that a suspect did not sufficiently invoke the right to remain silent when he stubbornly refused to talk, after receiving his Miranda warnings, during two hours of questioning. This meant that since that time (which I majorly underlined in this thread without one comment) you have to indicate to a police officer that you are specifically invoking your right to remain silent, not just remain silent. In this newest ruling last Monday the case involved a man who owned a shotgun that was used in a murder. They did not arrest him or read him his Miranda warnings. Salinas agreed to give the police his shotgun for testing. Then the cops asked whether the gun would match the shells from the scene of the murder. According to the police, Salinas stopped talking, shuffled his feet, bit his lip, and started to tighten up. At trial, Salinas did not testify, but prosecutors described his reportedly uncomfortable reaction to the question about his shotgun. Salinas argued this violated his Fifth Amendment rights: He had remained silent, and the Supreme Court had previously made clear that prosecutors can’t bring up a defendant’s refusal to answer the state’s questions. This time around, however, Justice Samuel Alito blithely responded that Salinas was “free to leave” and did not assert his right to remain silent. He was silent. But somehow, without a lawyer, and without being told his rights, he should have affirmatively “invoked” his right to not answer questions. There are now special dangers that police may, intentionally or not, coax false confessions from innocent suspects. A large group of those innocent people falsely confessed, and many supposedly admitted their guilt, even before any formal interrogation. The Supreme Court has now officially gutted the 5th Amendment. YOU HAVE TO ASSERT YOUR RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT BEEN READ YOUR MIRANDA RIGHTS. The scales are tipping in a big way towards fascism these days.

President Vladimir Putin has said that the US whistleblower Edward Snowden was still in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, and was free to leave. Apparently the story about Putin stealing Bob Kraft's Patriots Super Bowl ring, while true, was part of a blackmailing smear campaign orchestrated by the US government and the now compromised US press. If they thought Putin could have cared even a teensy amount about his image on the planet they were wrong. His position among the oligarchs (heads of criminal enterprises and Russia's vast oil empire), is well-entrenched. Snowden is traveling on an arc of evil, no doubt. With the exception of Venezuela and Ecuador he is dealing with some pretty unsavory regimes. All of this in an effort to get to a country that honors freedom and privacy more than this one does. On the lighter side, Putin is complaining about the amount of high grade herb Ed is blowing through in his huge five foot hookah he and his supporters are using in the smoking section of the transit lounge. Putin has refused to pipe in anymore Bob Dylan or Rodiriguez for their enjoyment and is threatening to bill Wikki-Leaks for the air-freshening that will be required when they depart.

Lets be clear. Roberts removed restrictions against the "Famous 15" states who have been racially profiled by the Fed's Voting Rights Act. Section 5 is the clause at the heart of the Act and the Court said more up-to-date evidence is needed. I would have to agree that the 15 states in question are still heavily guilty. I would say that the states who bear the burden of proof haven't changed. But I still think the liberals have gone slightly hysterical over the matter. There are more important issues out there. If the blacks want to dust it up then from Tuscon to Lubbock to Wichita Falls to Houston to Tupelo to Birmingham to Mobile to Tallahassee, to the heart of rebel evil - Charleston, SC where the legions of Darth Vaders are assembled, all they need to do is utter the word "Reparations". In the more important, shorter term, the Supreme Court just lit the fuse for a long, hot summer in the wake of the Treyvon Martin trial and verdict in Florida, if Jorge gets acquitted.

"Sources claiming to have had minimal, erratic contact with Edward Snowden have said that he’s considering turning himself in after Sarah Palin came to his defense, taking his side on many of the same issues. They’re reporting that not only is he contemplating turning himself in, but he’s also having a change of heart about leaking classified information concerning the NSA’s secret surveillance programs. Apparently, he thinks that Sarah Palin taking his side on these issues clearly means that he must have been out of his mind to have leaked any of this information to begin with." From a blog called Forward Progressives. This blog needs more checking out. I smell a rat here. Of course, then again, this could be what passes for middle-of-the-road progressive thinking these days. Everybody I talk to says the same thing, in private. The government is full of shit and trying to scare us to death. In public there is nothing but a deathly silence, for the most part. It is OK to speak up and say something. Mozilla Firefox did and they haven't jailed the entire corporation. Maybe I can express this in a Big Bang Theory equation: Created Enemy=Dominant foreign & domestic policy=Armed Forces larger than necessary for defense=Economic hegemony=Concentration of wealth=Minute inflated lifestyle for the middle-class (trickldown)=unquestioning obedience to authority for crumbs. Divide by Climate change & Monsanto pesticides and you get? What? Every once in a while somebody will come along, even for a second, like Ed Snowden and say "Fuck You" to those fat-kid bullies you used to know who go around bellowing "You will ruhh-specc my a-thaw-ity!" (Unbelievable!)