"Maps Are Of Time, Not Place..."

It took me a while to get that line totally.  It's from one of my favorite poems, "Judging Distances," by Henry Reed, which is actually on this week's playlist.  Of course it finally came to me that maps of the world have changed enormously throughout history, while the land has, relatively speaking, changed not a whit.  It's all about how the lines are drawn, about borders.

And there's been lots in the news in the last few years about borders, from Tea Party insistence that we fence ours with Mexico, so as to keep out all of the workers willing to do the jobs Americans disdain as too menial, distasteful, or low-paying.  And now we're looking at the Russian incursion into Ukraine and the annexation (after a vote, however) of Crimea.  There are the usual blustering, fist-banging, ultimately impotent saber-rattling calls to action from the US Right, and the seemingly timid, hand-wringing, ultimately impotent calls for sanctions from the Center (remember, there's no real Left left here).  Specious and spurious comparisons to Neville Chamberlain's alleged appeasement of Hitler in 1938 abound, and yet what, really, can be done?  Russia, although embroiled in its own issues at home, is still a powerful entity militarily, and we don't engage with people who can fight back (and why should we fight at all?), so sanctions seem to be the only possible way to have an effect.

But why's it our business in the first place?  Why are we always the ones to stick our noses into issues and events the world over?  More importantly (and crazier, in most people's eyes) why do we need borders?  Why can't a citizen of the world be allowed to go wherever she wishes, whenever he wishes?  Yeah, yeah, I know, terrorists-- all Muslims want to kill all non-Muslims, etc.  But maybe, if we allowed true freedom, all of the anger and acrimony would be erased, and we'd realize once for all that there is just "one world, believe it or not."  Imagine.

This week's playlist, then:

Across The Borderline                                                            Willie Nelson
Borderline                                                                                Ry Cooder
Border Song                                                                             Elton John
Cross The Borderline                                                              Dillard Hartford Dillard
The Borderline                                                                        Dirk Hamilton
Border Radio                                                                           Dave Alvin
The Border Guard                                                                    J.D. Souther
Disorder At The Border                                                          Dizzy Gillespie/Coleman Hawkins
Down Below The Borderline                                                  Little Feat
On The Borderline                                                                   Leon Russell
Bordertown                                                                              Chris Whitley
Cross The Borderline                                                              Jerry Jeff Walker
South Of The Border                                                              Lou Donaldson
On The Border                                                                        Eagles
Map Of The World                                                                  Monsters Of Folk
Judging Distances                                                                   Henry Reed
Borderline Blues                                                                     Little Feat
Borderline                                                                                Daryl Hall
Over The Border (To America)                                              Graham Parker
Across The Border                                                                  Linda Ronstadt/Emmylou Harris
Borderline                                                                                Joni Mitchell
Crimea River                                                                           Joe Cocker
One World                                                                               Dire Straits
One World                                                                               John Martyn
Aerial Boundaries                                                                   Michael Hedges
A Map Of The World                                                              Pat Metheny
Imagine                                                                                   John Lennon


Interesting that there are so few women represented.  Do they just care less about nebulous, ephemeral, and ultimately meaningless constructs, or have they been prevented from establishing their own boundaries for so long that it doesn't matter?  That's probably a whole nother topic though, huh?

See you Tuesday, noon till two on the new, expanded, even better WOOL FM, 91.5, or WOOL.FM on the webs. 

"I'm Livin' On The Inside..."

And aren't we all, except for perhaps Arctic researchers and polar bears?  What a winter, huh?

No rants, no attempted profundities this week, just a "holy shit, is this weather ever going to loosen its grip?"  We've all been "living on the inside" (a Michael Franks title and lyric) this winter, except for those of us who've been forced to work outside, or those whackjobs who willingly go forth to play in the Great White North.  And Climate Change deniers, just shut up; it's not a straight line, it's likely to be a jagged graph: some places colder sometimes, some places hotter.  On the whole, we're headed into a hotter environment.  And I'm scared to death that the summer yang to this winter's yin will be a scorcher.  To be honest, I'druther cold than hot:  you can keep adding clothes, but there's only so many you can remove, especially with my body....

So, anyway, a bunch of songs this week that reflect "the interior life;"  for religious folks, that's a life which seeks God in everything.  For me, it's a life which seeks warmth in anything.

Here are my songs this week, then:

Inside--Looking Out                                                                The Animals
Laughing On The Outside (Crying On The Inside)                Aretha
Inside                                                                                       Bill Morrissey
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again      Dylan
The Fire Inside                                                                         Bob Seger
She's Inside The Moon                                                            Dirk Hamilton
Inside Of Me                                                                            Eric Clapton
Stuck Inside A Cloud                                                               George Harrison
The Night Inside Me                                                                Jackson Browne
Inside                                                                                        Jethro Tull
Crippled Inside                                                                         John Lennon
Step Inside This House                                                            Lyle Lovett
Voices Inside (Everything Is Everything)                                Donny Hathaway
Inside                                                                                       John Martyn
On The Inside                                                                          Michael Franks
Living On The Inside                                                              Michael Franks
From The Inside                                                                       Poco
Turn You Inside-Out                                                                R.E.M.
Inside Out                                                                                 Phil Collins
Elgar/Something Inside                                                           Steve Erdody/Jon Rhys Meyers
Inside Out                                                                                Traveling Wilburys
Joy Inside My Tears                                                                 Stevie Wonder
Trapped Again                                                                          Southside Johnny

Are you a member yet, of the new, expanded, glorified magnified WOOL?  Aw, c'mon now....  

Mississippi Goddam

Came across this in The Week, 3/7/14, in their "Only In America" section:

More than 50 years after James Meredith became the first black student at the University of Mississippi, three white students have been accused of hanging a noose and a Confederate battle sign on a campus statue of the civil rights hero... and (After President Obama's re-election) a large crowd gathered on the Ole Miss campus to protest President Obama's re-election, shouting racial slurs.

I dunno why, but that just struck me in a really bad way (I mean, I know why, but why just those examples, and why now?) but it did.  I found myself really pissed, which led me to consider what I know about Miss'ippi, and led me to a little research.  Not surprisingly, it's essentially a Third-World country economically, in terms of its citizens' health, and, obviously, educationally and attitudinally.

Mississippi is the poorest state in the US, with around 35% of the population living in poverty.  Romania, the poorest nation in the developed world, has a poverty rate of 24%.  Mississippi is the fattest state, with a rate of 32.5% of adults (and almost 40% of children) considered clinically obese.  Mississippi is one of numerous Republican-led states which have refused to officially participate in the Affordable Care Act.  Fattenin' 'em for market, perhaps?

Between 1882 and 1968, there were over 4700 lynchings in the US.  Guess who led the way?  Yep; 42 white (one presumes that they were nigger lovers) and 539 (Georgia was next with 492) black, or 16% of the total.  And in 1964, of course,  the murder of 3 Freedom Riders (one black, two white), which the State of Mississippi refused to prosecute, forcing the Federal Government to do so, was a primary impetus to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.  P'raps it's true that some good comes out of even the worst events.  Although, as the bit from The Week shows, little has really changed in Miss'ippi itself, and yet it's just as much a state as any other in this Greatest Of All Countries, Ever (right, Dr. Pangloss?)  Ah, we should'a just let 'em all go their own way when they wanted to.

On the up side, there's a lot of really good Miss'ippi-themed music, to wit:

Down In Mississippi                                                       Mavis Staples
Down in Mississippi                                                       Ry Cooder
Down In Mississippi                                                       Pinetop Perkins
In The Mississippi River                                                Mavis Staples
Miss The Mississippi                                                      Dylan
Miss The Mississippi And You                                      Arlo Guthrie
Mississippi                                                                     Dylan
Mississippi                                                                     John Phillips
Mississippi-Mali Blues                                                  Taj Mahal & Toumani Diabate
Mississippi Blues                                                            David Bromberg
Mississippi Bottom Blues                                               Rory Block
Mississippi Freight Train, Pts. 1&2                                James Cotton
Here's To The State Of Mississippi                                 Phil Ochs
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleoo                       Grateful Dead
Mississippi Goddam                                                       Nina Simone
Mississippi Kid                                                               Lynyrd Skynyrd
Mississippi Moon                                                           Seatrain
Mississippi Muddy Water                                               Maria Muldaur
Mississippi Nights                                                          Mark Egan
Mississippi Queen                                                          Mountain
Mississippi You're On My Mind                                    Jerry Jeff Walker
Mississippi You're On My Mind                                    Jesse Winchester
My Head's In Mississippi                                               ZZ Top
Nitty Gritty Mississippi                                                  Ry Cooder
Skippin' In The Mississippi Dew                                    John Hartford
The Waltz Of The Mississippi                                        John Hartford
Strange Fruit                                                                   Cassandra Wilson

Hope to see you Tuesday on the New, Expanded, Even Greater WOOL FM, now located at 91.5 on your dial (and available to more than 100,000 more listeners over the air), and, as ever, streaming live at wool.fm.

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