Who Let The Air Out....

...of our sanity?

On Thursday, Jan. 22, in the Year Of Our Lord 2015, these things happened, among many others: Senate Republicans sought to stop an investigation into CIA torture in Gitmo; a pipeline in North Dakota leaked 3 million barrels of salt water, apparently a by-product of oil drilling there, at a time when Senate Republicans are pushing hard to force the opening of the Keystone XL pipeline; 49 Senate Republicans refused to acknowledge the existence of man-made climate change; two Japanese prisoners were threatened with beheading by ISIS (and have since been killed); it was the 5th anniversary of the Supreme Court's worst ruling (so far), Citizens United. The Koch Brothers (remember when we were talking about The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers?) have recently said that they intend to spend 1 Billion (yes, that's with a "B") dollars to try to buy the next president.  I feel like we're just playing out the string: how about you?

It was also, interestingly, the anniversary of one of the Court's best rulings, Roe v. Wade, made during more enlightened times.  And as usually happens on that day, along with the usual anti-abortion rallies held in Washington, the new Republican majorities tried to flex their conservative, punitive muscles and pass stricter anti-women's-rights laws, limiting abortion rights further.  The law they wanted to pass in this case, in contrast to the usual symbolic stuff, actually would have put tighter restrictions on abortions.  The white men in charge were forced to scuttle that plan, though, because enough Republican women legislators (or, as the Republicans call them, "Legislatresses") said they wouldn't vote for such a bill as it was too restrictive, anti-woman and, worst of all would look bad to millenials and anyone else with a brain, who then would be unlikely to vote for the Rs.

My favorite quote from this fiasco comes from Tony Perkins (no, not that one--he daid, although I think we could use him to put a hatchet through somebody's head right about now--maybe even mine), the head of the conservative Family Research Council who said that there were "a lot of misconceptions" about the bill.  Words are meaningless, I guess....  That came after Perkins met with Rep. Steven Scalise of Louisiana, who was recently in the news because it turns out he's spoken to David Duke-led white supremacist groups at fund-raisers.  But my digressions digress:  you go, Republicanettes.  Imagine: putting what's right above what's partisan.  You just never know what a woman's gonna do, huh?

So, anyway, all that stuff happened, and obviously much more, as or more important.  But what was the big story of the day, of the week, the thing that led not just local but national news, for chrissakes?  The waggishly-named "Deflategate."  A "story" about the amount of air in some footballs used in a playoff game.  Reporters fell all over themselves to cover the press conferences held by Dr. Evil and Maxi-Me, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.  Press conferences about air.  Not the worsening air that we're all breathing, the heated air that's gonna change life on Earth forever, but the air inside--or not-- some footballs.  And as the "story" has continued, various and sundry have weighed in on it, from MIT professors to Bill Nye, The Science Guy (who is unabashedly rooting for the Seahawks; there's your scientific impartiality).  Belichick even had a second news conference in which he laid out his new-found scientific learnin', although any Right-thinking person knows that science is bad.  Thank goodness we have our priorities Right, and how fortunate are we to have the worst problem facing us revolve around a game, albeit The Most Important Game Ever.  Dr. Pangloss would rejoice, for we truly must be living in the best of all possible worlds.

So for this week's radio show, although it'll be somewhat anticlimactic (not anticlimatic, like the Koch-swilling GOP) coming post Super Bowl XLAX, or whatever, I'm playing pressure songs, ball songs, squeeze songs, and Mel and Tim's wonderful and overlooked soul classic "Backfield In Motion."  The playbook for the week looks like this, then:

Got Me Under Pressure                                                           ZZ Top
Heavy Pressure                                                                        Tanita Tikaram
High Blood Pressure                                                                Geoff Muldaur
Inner City Pressure                                                                  Flight Of The Conchords
Pressure                                                                                   Billy Joel
Pressure                                                                                   Neil Young
Pressure Drop                                                                          Robert Palmer
Pressure Drop                                                                          Toots & The Maytals
Pressure Zone                                                                          Beck
Under Pressure                                                                        Bowie/Queen
Just Squeeze Me                                                                      Duke Ellington
Just Squeeze Me                                                                      Duke Robillard/Herb Ellis
Squeeze Me                                                                             Maria Muldaur
Ball And Chain                                                                        Van Morrison
Ball Of Confusion                                                                    The Temptations
Ball And Chain                                                                        XTC
Ball Of Fire                                                                             Ernest Ranglin
Ball And Chain                                                                       Big Brother & The Holding Co.
Ball Of Fire                                                                             Tommy James & The Shondells
Let's Have A Ball                                                                    Ry Cooder
Mudfootball                                                                             Jack Johnson
Wrecking Ball                                                                         Gillian Welch
Wrecking Ball                                                                         Emmylou Harris
Backfield In Motion                                                                Mel & Tim

Hope to see you on Tuesday from noon til two on WOOL FM, 91.5, or wool.fm on the webs.  And try to remember: it's just an effin' game....