Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Mostly Bluegrass Standards

Below are links to YouTube presentations of Bluegrass Standards
1. Ashes of love
2. Banks of the OhioBanks of the Ohio
3. Bluebird sings for me
4. Blue eyes crying in the rain
5. Blue moon of Kentucky
6. Blue Ridge cabin home
7. Bury me beneath the willows
8. Cabin in Caroline
9. Columbus stockade blues
10. Crying my heart out over you
11. Do you really love me
12. Down in the valley
13. Faded love
14. Fallen leaves
15. Georgia Rose
16. Golden ring
17. Green green grass of home
18. Homestead on the farm
19. Hot corn cold corn
20. I wonder where you are tonight
21. If teardrops were pennies
22. Jimmy Brown
23. Knoxville girl
24. Little cabin home on the hill
25. Lonesome road blues
26. Long journey home
27. Love come home
28. Love me darling just tonight
29. Mighty dark to travel
30. More to be pitied
31. Mother’s only sleeping
32. Mountain dew
33. Newmade grave on a green hillside
34. Nobody answered me
35. Nobody's darling but mine
36. Nobody’s love is like mine
37. On my way back to the old home
38. Paradise
39. Poison love
40. Prisoner's song
41. Put my little shoes away
42. Ramshacked shack
43. Rank strangers
44. Red River valley
45. Ridin' on that midnight train
46. Roll in my sweet baby's arms
47. Roses in the snow
48. Rough and rocky
49. Salty dog blues
50. Sinking of the Titanic
51. So lonesome I could cry
52. Some day we’ll meet again sweetheart
53. Some old day
54. Sweetest gift
55. Sweetheart you've done me wrong
56. Think of what you've done
57. Thinking tonight of my blue eyes
58. Tramp on the street
59. Wabash Cannonball
60. Wandering boy
61. Wedding bells
62. When you are lonely
63. White dove
64. Wild side of life
65. Will the circle be unbroken
66. Will you be lovin' another man
67. Will you miss me
68. Wreck of old 97
69. Wreck on the highway
70. You are my sunshine

Parlor songs
71. All smiles tonight
72. All through the night
73. Aura Lee
74. Danny Boy
75. Listen to the mocking bird
76. Long long ago
77. Rosewood casket
78. Seeing Nellie home
79. Silver threads among the gold
80. When you and I were young Maggie

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Arab spring


* The Arab spring involved the overthrow of oligarchs and/or tyrants in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and the civil war in Syria. Citizens had plausible grievances, and revolt was the natural, emotionally satisfying response, but I question whether revolt was objectively justified or optimal. More than that, I believe that Obama's support of oppositions, as voiced by Hillary Clinton, was thoughtless and harmful. Benign neglect would have been preferable to that rhetoric. Ideally, we (the outside world) could have acted to minimize harm in the respective societies. That would have required us to imagine likely consequences of various courses of action in the respective societies. It would have required us to contemplate and discuss a better civilization toward which our species might move.
* Tunisia still suffers from the economic ills that caused the uprising--unemployment and inflation--and some business segments have shrunk. Egypt elected a Muslim Brotherhood administration which proceeded to impose Sharia law and was deposed by the military, essentially a mafia with fingers in every kind of business, still Egypt's only stable and trusted institution. This is essentially a return to Mubarak-like rule with less economic activity. Libya is far worse now than under Gaddafi, in that the militias that he assembled to police his people are running amok with no commitment to civil society. Syria's revolution incubated and nourished ISIS, which endangers civilization far and wide. That should be on the conscience of the Syrian rebels.
* I'm a reluctant fatalist, unhappily recognizing that actual events are inevitable. But, what if there had been other ways to replace leaders of societies lacking experience with and institutions of democracy, consisting of mutually hateful tribes and religions, lacking sufficient opportunities for economic participation? Tunisia's Ben Ali lives now in Saudi Arabia, convicted of theft and murder in absentia. What if it were customary, even guaranteed, for rulers to be given comfortable homes and a generous stipends with which to live out their lives after abdication and return of family holdings to their countrys' treasuries, despite badly flawed rule? Mubarak dealt very gently with the mobs in tahrir square, yet he was imprisoned for deaths of a few of them. Mubarak and Gaddafi might have left with less tumult, socioeconomic disruption and/or carnage. Assad might have come to mutually acceptable accommodation with the opposition leaders before the carnage, emigration and ISIS.
* Even the most self-righteous must recognize the difficulty of governing the countries discussed herein, with mutually hateful sectors competing for insufficient sources of self respect. Before repeating the phrase "brutal dictator who killed his own people", consider Abraham Lincoln our greatest president whose death toll was far greater. Finally, the US is becoming more like the countries we malign, as the wealth-power spiral concentrates evermore wealth and too many citizens can't make it. Who will really care, if hoards of homeless people descend on Greenwich Connecticut with crowbars and stink-ball guns.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Obama's declining approval


* Polls show a decline in Obama's approval. This might be expected, considering the relentless sedition of conservative broadcasters since 2008. In my opinion, his stewardship of the nation and the world has been better than would be expected with any of his opponents.
* ObamaCare is a step in the right direction from where we were, it will evolve for the better, and it would be better now were it not for reactionary governors willing to destroy their own health-care systems for ideological purity.
* Granted, he spoke too soon on the Skip Gates encounter with Cambridge police, and he drew a couple of ill-considered red lines on Iran and Syria, and his administration was too supportive of the Arab spring when benign neglect or objective analysis would have been preferable. He should have better explained his policies and several trumped-up scandals.
* But these pale in comparison to Bush's giving our military the impossible task of modernizing Afghanistan's culture and Bush's sending our military on a criminal mission to change Iraq from a secular dictatorship opposing al-Qaeda to a cauldron of incompatible tribes and sects susceptible to ISIS domination.
* Obama's military reticence is preferable to the Republican doctrine of more muscular presence in the world. His analytical decision making is preferable to the blathering of conservative pundits and politicians.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Country Pathos, Country Soul

Below are links to YouTube presentations of Country Pathos songs
0 Country parables; David M Regen 1995
1 All smiles tonight
2 Amelia Earhart’s last flight
3 Amen corner
4 Angels rejoiced
5 At the first fall of snow
6 BJ the DJ
7 Bathe me in lilac (Love me right to the end)
8 Be careful of stones you throw
9 Beyond the sunset
10 Big bad John
11 The blind child’s prayer
12 The blizzard
13 Blue eyes crying in the rain
14 Blue Ridge cabin home
15 Bluebird sings for me
16 Branded wherever I go
17 Cabin on the hill
18 Calling my children home
19 Coat of many colors
20 Columbus stockade blues
21 Convict and the rose:
22 Cowboy's lament = Laredo
23 Daddy don’t go to the mine
24 Darling little Joe
25 The day they laid Mary away
26 Dear brother
27 Dear Uncle Sam
28 Don't make me go to bed
29 Down in the valley
30 Drowned in the deep blue sea
31 The dying soldier
32 Eastbond train
33 Engine 143
34 Every bush and tree;
35 Fallen leaves
36 Farside banks of Jordan
37 The fields have turned brown
38 Five miles from home
39 Flower blooming in the wildwood
40 Footprints in the snow
41 The funeral
42 The Gambler
43 Girl in the blue velvet band
44 Give me the roses:
45 Golden ring
46 Green green grass of home
47 Hard times come again no more
48 Hard times have been here
49 He stopped loving her today
50 Help me understand
51 Hickory Holler’s tramp
52 Hills of home sweet home
53 His fields are ready for harvest
54 Homestead on the farm
55 I haven’t seen Mary in years
56 I hear a sweet voice calling
57 I heard my mother call my name in prayer
58 I miss Mother since she's gone
59 If I could hear my mother pray again
60 If Jack were only here
61 I’m here to get my baby out of jail
62 In the baggage coach ahead
63 Jimmy Brown
64 Just before the battle mother
65 Kentucky
66 Lamp lighting time in the valley
67 Legend of the robin's red breast
68 Letter edged in black or Letter edged in black
69 Lightening Express
70 Listen to the mockingbird
71 Lonely mound of clay
72 Lonesome river:
73 Lost highway
74 Maple on the hill
75 Mary dear
76 Master's bouquet
77 Men with broken hearts
78 Mighty dark to travel
79 Missing in action
80 Molly;
81 More to be pitied
82 Mother queen of my heart
83 Mother's at rest
84 Mother’s Bible
85 Mother's only sleeping
86 Mountain road; anon
87 Muddy water
88 My brother’s will
89 My native home
90 Newmade grave upon the green hillside: ; Jimmy Martin
91 Ninety-nine years is almost for life
92 No children allowed
93 Nobody answered me
94 Nobody’s child
95 Nobody's darling but mine
96 Old home place
97 Old Shep
98 On my way back to my old home
99 On the evening train
100 One Christmas eve
101 Orphan girl; anon
102 Over the hill to the poorhouse
103 Paradise
104 Passages: David M Regen 1995
105 Pictures from life's other side or Pictures from life's other side
106 Plant some flowers by my graveside
107 Precious jewel
108 Prisoner’s plea; ??Billy Boy Arnold??
109 Prisoner's song
110 Put my little shoes away
111 Ramshackled shack
112 Rank strangers
113 Road trip
114 Roan County (Hills of)
115 Rocking alone
116 Roses in the snow
117 Rosewood casket
118 Rosewood casket rewrite
119 Row us over the tide
120 Ruby don’t take your love to town
121 Safely in the arms
122 Searching for a soldier's grave
123 Shackles and chains
124 Sign on the highway
125 Silent empty chair
126 Sing me back home
127 Sinking of the Titanic
128 Six more miles
129 So lonesome I could cry
130 Soldier’s last letter
131 Some old day
132 Strand of a yellow curl
133 Summer wind
134 Sweeter than the flower
135 Sweetest gift
136 Take this hammer
137 Teardrops falling in the snow
138 Tell me why my daddy don’t come home
139 That little old country church house
140 These hills
141 Thirty pieces of silver
142 Tiny broken heart
143 Too late to cry:
144 Tragic romance
145 Train 1262
146 Tramp on the street
147 Two more years and I’ll be free
148 Unfinished rug: Karl Davis not BMI ; BlSkBs EO-VB-4012-1, Vict 21-0317-B=CMF20035
149 Unloved and unclaimed
150 The vacant chair
151 Vision of Mother
152 Walking my Lord up Calvary hill
153 Wandering boy (Bring back)
154 Weathered gray stone
155 When God comes to gather his jewels
156 When I ride that last mile: ?Don Reno ; Reno & Smiley
157 Where no cabins fall
158 White dove
159 Who will sing for me
160 Will my soul pass through the southland = Dying rebel soldier
161 Will the circle be unbroken
162 Will the roses bloom
163 Will you miss me
164 Wreck of old 97
165 Wreck on the highway
166 You’ll find her name written there