these are the 14 albums that moved me the most in 2014.
they are quite complete in the stories they tell. they are not best suited for background music. they are best heard with headphones in solitude and contemplation. and a few of the *major* artists probably should have appeared on other year-end lists, but for some reason were totally overlooked. enjoy listening.
here's a longer list of some of the albums that very well could have made the list, but just did not.
pink floyd – the endless river
ty segall –
manipulator
various artists – self group mixtape (a lot of krist kreuger projects)
afghan whigs – do the beast
jeff bridges &
the abiders – live
lee bains III
& the glory fires –
deconstructed
balvel – ten hand band
kentucky knife
fight – hush hush
edmund wayne – tape no. 1
mehldau &
cuiliana – taming the dragon
tune-yards – nikki nack
moon hooch – this is cave music
the miami dolphins
– feeler
moondog – boogieland
bill frissell – space age
space raft
everyone is dirty – dying is fun
dear rabbit – in a dessert without a book
arjun – core
daniel amedee – climbing
stoney spring – right on heliotrope
blisses b – sea level astronomy
samsel & the skirt – shoebox
mutts – fuel your delusion part 4
kris bowers – heroes & misfits
takuya kuroda – rising son
andre cymone – the stone
tinariwen – emmaar
the new basement
tapes
brushfire stankgrass – microclimates
levi weaver – your ghost keeps finding me
gunash – same old nightmare
chad vangaalen – shrink dust
jefferson
hendricks – given time
sick of it all –
last act of defiance
pat metheny unity
group – kin
string cheese
incident – song in my head
secile mclorin
salvant – woman child
holmes brothers – brotherhood
trita – the narcoma
cutthroats 9 – dissent
spanish gold – south of nowhere
faded paper
figures
morgan treni – the dreamer
neomythics –
more protection
blind willies – everyday is judgement day
ontologics –
something to needle over
memoir – there is a fire in me
various artists – ruckus in the boonies
ruckus in the boonies happens one day every mid summer in heppner, oregon. a listen to the comp makes it seem to be one of the more unique fests in cascadia.
90-year-olds making waves! literally & figuratively.
november's rabble rouser of the month:
arnold abbott (fort lauderdale, florida)
photo: joe raedle (getty)
late last month, fort lauderdale passed a law that makes it effectively illegal for this 90-year-old man to help feed the homeless. he has received three citations so far this month, with more on the way. since 2012, fox news reports that 13 u.s. cities have passed ordinances on public food sharing. fox news further reported the specifics of the newest law to allow no two indoor feeding programs to be within 500 feet of each other or on the same block; outdoor feeding programs require both a permit and port-a-potties and cannot be within 500 feet of a residence. supporters of the ordinance have been on record saying they wish to discourage feeding homeless people.
since winning two purple hearts as an infantryman in world war II, arnold has poured his energy into fighting for civil rights and community betterment. his wife helped poor and homeless also before she died in a car crash 23 years ago. in her honor, he set up love they neighbor, inc, as a way to not only help feed the homeless, but to offer culinary training programs. he feeds the homeless of the city in a park every wednesday. however, his good deeds don't seem very welcome in the city of fort lauderdale. he says he has tried to abide by the new laws, but the portable toilets are beyond his abilities and he believes the city should be responsible for that end anyway. arnold has been cited every wednesday so far this month, along with two local church pastors. with the growing media attention supporting his cause, however, the police have backed off of giving him citations in public. on november 19, police did not show up, but the sun-sentinel reported that he would be receiving his fourth citation in the mail. he plans to receive a fifth citation the day before thanksgiving and joked that "when i was a kid i collected stamps...now i collect citations."
arnold says he is not the least bit worried about the police, has been seen hob-nobbing with the mayor on television recently and harkens his newest cause back to 1999 when he sued the city and won in a similar case. he makes his robin hood, rabble-rouser case very clear, "i'll go to court again and sue the city. they are doing the bidding of the very wealthy and they are trying to sweep the poorest of the poor under the rug."
november's inductee into the rabble rouser hall of fame:
"doc" paskowitz (1921-2014)
"god will surf with the devil if the waves are good."
doc graduated from stanford medical school in 1945, spent two years in the navy and then became a public health officer in hawaii. he gave up medical practice to return to surfing after he was turned down trying to join the israeli military during the 1956 war with egypt. instead, he rode the waves of tel aviv until he was arrested when his surf board was confused as a cleverly disguised missile. that was the seed for the surfing 4 peace organization he started during a 2004 trip to israel, in which his primary objective was to donate surf boards to promote a settlement between israel and palestine.
photo: independent.uk
doc knew what it took to remain young and healthy. diet was one thing, surfing well into his 90s another, and a love for humanity really fueled him. he made international headlines trying to carry surf boards to gaza surfers. soldiers tried to prevent him from entering gaza, until he gave the guard a hug and a kiss. the guard yelled, "don't hug me, i'm a soldier!" doc was persistent and the soldier relented.
he and his family (nine children) lived in a convoy of station wagons/motor homes all over the u.s., venezuela, and israel. in 1972, he opened a surf school in san orofino, california. this brought major media attention to his cause and brought the outside world into his sheltered family. the tribulations were documented in a film called surfwise, which he refused to watch and his children claimed did not show even a small percent of how bad life was. he believed that "staying hungry was one key to a long and healthy life," literally and symbolically. he fed his children his own gruel of various grains that he believed to keep people healthy and strong and allowed no fatty foods. though the children's lives were hard and even harder as they abandoned their parent's way of life, most that have been interviewed in recent years have admiration for what he had taught them. riding the waves allowed doc to live a boisterous life, until a hip surgery earlier in the year led to declining health. he passed away at the age of 93 on november 10.
"after my 18th birthday, life began to get complicated. fun became a calculation, rather than just plain instinct. ambition and selfishness helped kill fun. eventually, i looked at fun as, not just wasteful, but downright wrong. i was saddled with that delusion for 18 years. if there is no fun, there is no health. god loves happy people." so, at the age of 36 and for the next 58 years, doc did what made him happy, rather than what made him wealthy...
coming up next sunday, november 9, the sunday shindig at stage door theatre: gregory rawlins, travis ward and cheap yellow beer to perform, starting at 7pm. gregory and travis are no strangers to la grande, but this will be the first appearance of cheap yellow beer. cheap yellow beer, consisting of spike coggins & tylor bushman, have played together for the past year in central idaho and toured around the region. spike coggins did play an opening set for old death whisper at the stage door in may, 2013. on, their way thru eastern oregon to play a festival in helix last may, they stopped in KEOL studios for an hour and a half. hear or download that performance here:
tracklist: tylor: lyin' is a sin tylor: just don't know tylor: judgement day spike: company man tylor: storyteller spike: war cry spike: way up on the road tylor: good times tylor: things you only notice when you're broke spike: devil woman spike: city of trees tylor: need it or not spike: mary jane tylor: chalice
cheap yellow beer will return to KEOL for another in-studio performance at noon on sunday, november 8.
angela brown, gave her son cannabis oil to treat the effects of his traumatic brain injury. this medication worked to a level nothing else could. those in the community were amazed and asked why her son was doing so well. she told them about a product she picked up in colorado at the recommendation of several doctors. then the cops sent a social worker to her door. she is now facing jail time on charges of child endangerment for making her son better. so, now, perhaps trey has to suffer not only without medication, but without a mother.
late in august, charges were filed, and fox news reported that she could be facing up to two years in prison and $6000 in fines from the misdemeanor charges. angela admitted to the social worker that she was using cannabis oil and handed it over to authorities. what's less convenient still is that minnesota has allowed for various forms of medicinal marijuana to be implemented in july 2015, at which time it is possible that trey would apply for benefits under the new law. last may, when the new law was signed by governor dayton, he said, “i thank everyone who worked together to craft and pass this legislation...i pray it will bring to the victims of ravaging illnesses the relief they are hoping for.” as for the eventuality of the law and the bold move of angela just going for the relief now that it has been acknowledged to be beneficial and recommended, in the words of trey's father david brown, "why would you wait? why would you wait a year?" instead, the family plans to leave minnesota for colorado.
according to collective evloution, "cannabis oil has been making news and headlines for a couple years in ways we may not expect: cancer and alzheimer treatments, helping to reduce seizures and replacing potentially harmful medications for many people. cannabis, although holding a negative stigma, can be seen as a natural miracle substance in a way. it may hold the power to treat and potentially cure a lot of people’s serious diseases ... are we really that disconnected as a society? sure one could argue we don’t have the necessary data to state whether or not cannabis oil could have negative effects over time, but the crazy thing is we do have the data that states our medications we so often prescribe have nasty side effects, even after short periods of use. so why is one illegal and the other not? the easy answer is due to social conditioning and stigma." and profit, the article goes on to add.
despite the supposed bias and stigma of marijuana, a poll on the HLN website in advance of angela's appearance on the dr. drew show october 6, showed that 96% thought angela should not be charged with any crime. the brown's have a donation page on gofundme.com for people wishing to contribute to their legal bills.
video: angela brown calls in to an incensed dr. drew.
...and i've had it. this blog seems a bit bizarre to write a mere days after my excitement in a blog about the royals being in the world series.
watching the world series (and it's not even technically over), man that was painful, for as long as i could put up with it. even though my team won game three and was up 2-1 in the series, that was all i could stand. i watched game four up to the point of a 4-4 tie and then, having seen so many games, knowing with close certainty what would happen, i didn't want to be a part of it. anyone can say, "man it's tied. anything can happen!" but that kind of talk was so irrelevant. the royals got out of game by the skin of their teeth when they should've lost, meaning the series should've been over, but was saved because a rookie pitcher bailed his coaches out from looking like idiots. in such a case, i have little respect for the game and don't want to waste my time watching.
game three of the 2014 world series needs no explanation to the people that saw it. needless to say, sending hererra up to bat made no sense in any way of thinking about the game of baseball. and it's not like ned yost hasn't spent years in the national league to understand the philosophy of using pinch hitters. when a coach makes a decision so bone-headed, and it's not like that was the only one, a win doesn't make a fan feel better when there are still two games left to win. dumb decisions might pay off two times out of seven, but they don't pay off four times out of seven. it's further maddening to hear the announcers gloat over how well the royal's coaches are doing and have done! sure, getting to the world series is amazing. the royals rarely do it. however, i am quite sure they never will again as long as ned yost is calling the shots. when it comes to postseasons, luck (or whatever word your own personal philosophy on the subject) has a lot to do with things.
the specifics of game three bear consideration given the circumstances in game four, but to make a long story short, game three was saved once hererra was finally lifted for the rookie pitcher finnegan. however, that error in judgement was no lesson to the royal's staff. it was further compounded in game four with another gaffe in the use of pinch hitters. instead of the pitcher, aoki came up to bat. with no outs and dyson on first, there was no doubt that aoki would do anything other than bunt. even on a two-strike pitch, he should have been bunting. instead, he did the worst possible thing...hit into a double play and killed the rally. then, finnegan was brought in again. sure the guy was a saving grace the night before, but he had only pitched twice in the previous eleven games. it's not like he is a seasoned veteran to pitch reliably on an uneven schedule. he was the first person in baseball history to appear in the college world series and the MLB world series in the same year. that is, not the kind of guy you want to overwork with only four chances left to win a championship. so, once the score was tied at 4-4, i knew. i turned off my free-sourced internet feed of the series and did not watch another pitch. maybe i'll watch the royals again someday, but i am certainly instituting the 'bob boone rule' which is that i will not watch them until the idiots in the dugout are removed.
it's easy for me to be critical. i am not the one in the cooker. i understand very well that it is one thing to make predictions on paper and compare those with the actual outcomes. it is quite another to walk into a casino, lay down $1000, and say, "i am this confident." that's essentially the difference between myself and the royal's coaches. however, the royal's coaches are playing craps with real money that fans provide them. craps is not a winnable game, only a streaky game, like baseball. eventually, the luck runs out. and i don't like seeing guys being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars continually making ill-advised decisions that high school coaches could get right. thus, go figure how the royals made it to the 1980 world series and still fired the manager the next year. the royals might be better off taking some random person off the streets who has nothing to lose and letting them call the shots for free than paying someone half the ranch to burn down the other half.
as it is not entirely fair for me to criticize people in positions i will never have, it is also not entirely fair for me to compare one sports league to another. but people getting paid millions to play sports are fairly comparable to some end, as in how ridiculous the waste of my time in supporting them is.
nonetheless, i distracted myself from baseball the next day on a long drive. i turned on an afternoon NFL game; philadelphia eagles vs. arizona cardinals. the game had elements of excitement to be sure. on another ill-advised play call, the cardinals went for everything on a third-and-five when they were 70 yards away from the endzone, down by three points and under two minutes left in the game. it was such a ridiculous idea that even the eagles didn't expect it. the move paid off for the cardinals and they ended up winning the game. not that the entire game was that exciting, the eagles outplayed the cardinals most of the game, but sometimes luck plays its role at the right time. i was happy for the cardinals, though not nearly as much as the color commentator (rod woodson, who i have tons of respect for). at the end of the game, woodson said, "that was exciting! this is more real than reality TV. i say it often that the best reality TV is sports."
let me dissect this comment. considering it's real people doing real things, it should be somewhat real, certainly moreso than some rich girls sitting in a lavish house bitching about an ankle biter pissing on the floor. but it's not that real. (see my other blogs about the staged theatre aspect of pro sports.) these are guys making millions to do something that people don't really need to be able to do. if they can, cool. if they don't, the world is not going to be any worse off. but even if they do, the world is not going to be any better off. wars in the middle east won't stop if the cowboys win the damn super bowl. it is not very real to pay people millions of dollars to perform pointless duties. yes, it was an exciting game. it should have been even more exciting considering it was the two best teams in the conference, both with top notch former pac-12 quarterbacks. however, the excitement is so short lived. no one will remember this game come next season, other than the people at the game or the people that spend their lives gathering an encyclopedic knowledge of these things. i can grant that the people that went to the game may have even gotten their money's worth, but did everyone that went to an NFL game get their money's worth? after all sports is the best TV there is, best reality out there, right?
on the other side of the country, the jets were losing to the bills. the jets are so bad, they are almost as bad as the raiders. they were so bad last sunday that they brought michael vick in to replace geno smith. vick was no more effective and the two quarterback made a combined six turnovers. i wouldn't have paid fifty cents to see that game. in fact, i wouldn't have watched the game if i was compensated $10 per hour for every hour of my life wasted. yet, somewhere in new jersey, there are people spending thousands of dollars per year on this worthless product, year in year out. i have news for them, joe namath is not coming out of retirement. i waited 10 years for another warren moon to come along and was blessed with kurt warner. it's been about 10 years, so maybe jameis winston is the next big thing? ha! i am not waiting around, spending more time and money, to see when or if that ever happens again. because, even if it does happen again, it won't really change my life anyway.
to continue with a little on the jameis winston front, enter exhibit A of why pro football needs less supporters. i read an article that expected the jets might actually pick jameis winston first round in the draft. the only thing worse than me wasting my time reading such an article is the fact that the guy who wrote it writes similar article/blogs numerous times per week. i couldn't be paid enough to do that job. the fact that winston will play in the "national felons league" is but one more reason to never give the league a passing thought. i don't ride michael vick too hard. i tried hard to understand the situation, and i know that he was used and put into a position that he only partially deserved. he was more or less the symbol of a bad situation. other people needed to be persecuted more than he was, but he was the big celebrity in the mix so he took the biggest heat. at the same time that vick's celebrity status hurt him, it also helped him. any other black man convicted of that crime would never have gotten out of prison. ray rice would be in prison right now too, if not for who he is. jameis winston is in the same boat. these guys have extreme marketing value, so the most gutless person on the planet (yes, you roger goodell) continues to make an obscene living off giving these guys opportunities. rae carruth wasn't a big celebrity, wasn't a money maker, so he is still rotting in prison. the NFL continues to prove they are more interested in creating the next dynamic story, which means more of the likes of winston, vick, rice, because that sells incredibly well. the dynamics of guys like warren moon and kurt warner are harder to create, and don't result in much more income because authentic success is boring. reality TV success sells better, and the NFL has made it obvious that are sell-outs for that kind of money. the professional leagues to various degrees all do this.
i could get started about the NFL expanding to other continents, playing games on the other side of the world, wanting to expand to 18 games and such. all the decisions are foolish and designed as money makers that don't take the safety of their own players into consideration. forget roger goodell and his greed. i am no part of it, or any of the bullshit in professional sports.
i don't need to be frustrated by any of this. i can stop paying attention to any of it. i have tried before, but it's kind of like a drug. i am also trying to quit drinking alcohol and caffeine currently. it's hard to give up. but, man, thinking about all things i have wished i had accomplished over the years and then thinking about all the times i spent watching some sporting event that i couldn't even tell you about right now. for every three hours a game takes from my life, knowing that it has happened a couple times a week over 25 years, that is a lot of time that could've been spent on things better than primadonna athletes that don't deserve the money they get paid. i long ago quit purchasing memorabilia, schwag and tickets to professional sporting events. i have never purchased a cable TV package because i don't approve of the money going to such people. the only thing i haven't been able to do is stop watching, stop wondering, stop caring. so, i am complicit in the furthering of the ridiculous enterprise. or, was complicit. no more. to hell with it. i have my three to ten hours per week back, i have the $20 or i spend at the bar to see the games back and i don't have the frustration of dealing with TV announcers getting overly excited about how awesome whatever just happened was.
on the same weekend as these pathetic sporting events, i ran a 5k as i have done probably 200 or so times in my life. i turned in my worst time ever, even worse than the first time i ran one. three days later, my lungs still hurt. what's the lesson? i can spend hours watching a game on TV, i can spend $30 drinking at the bar while watching the game, but i can't spend one hour per week for some jogging? no, i let my own life is slip by while i watch someone else give themselves head injuries and other physical abuse that will cause them to commit suicide at age 45. i spend hours watching in frustration as qualified coaches makes bad decisions that an unqualified fan wouldn't even make.
why? the excitement of sports still lives to the same degree in unpaid events. watching my friends kids play soccer actually makes a boring sport like soccer entertaining. watching the walla walla sweets play baseball is every bit as authentic as anything the majors can produce. EOU basketball give a thrill unseen in the NBA. none of these games cost more than a few dollars to go see. they are local products created by people i can meet and congratulate personally. they have an element of shame to live up to when they perform badly. they try harder to earn their spots on their teams, and are given no quarter when they mess up. EOU's football coach camp even chewed out his own players when they were winning by 42 points last saturday. i like this. high return on no investment. and here i was considering paying $300 for a standing room ticket and another $300 for the round trip to san francisco to see a world series game. if the free version on the internet pissed me off, i could only imagine how paying close to $1000 would have made me feel. so, i never will attend a world series game. no biggie. not like i have attended an MLB game since at least 2002 anyway. i will spend my money where it is deserved.
huey p. newton was never fond of his name. he was named after huey long, who he considered a racist, but who his father thought had done much for black people. peers ridiculed huey in school and caused much torment because of his name. his mother forbid him to change his name and he stuck out the pain to the point of advantage. he also never did like being referred to as "baby." on one occasion, a prostitute calling him baby on the street led to a murder charge and huey had several other charges from violent acts against people who called him baby. he had been acquitted also of a murder charge of a police officer and got off several other charges, twice including murder, perhaps related to his powerful standing within the panthers. in a lot of cases, huey had too much of a bad image to fit well with the other rabble rousers so i am not sure if he is a hall of famer, but huey newton also was a prominent changing-times activist.
huey newton grew up the son of a baptist minister in rural lousiana. an important early memory for huey was his father's friendship with a police officer. his father cut ties with the friend, not for his being a police officer, but on principle because his friend would submit himself to conditions in which he was only allowed to arrest black people. after huey's family migrated to california, huey graduated from oakland technical high school in 1959, although he could not read. he rose from illiteracy, teaching himself to read with plato's the republic. he went on to study at merritt college. he met bobby seale, also a student at merritt, and the two founded the black panther party in 1966.
huey was part of a notorious stand off with police when the black panthers were serving as armed protection at a speaking engagement for betty shabazz. originally forming the panthers as a militant organization, after traveling to china, newton made a dramatic shift toward non-violence, which caused a deep division within the party and created an image of allegiance with the communist party.
huey instilled upon the youth a social conscious, primarily that it was OK to be black, not something to be ashamed of. he wrote a book called revolutionary suicide, in which he derided every attempt at education he had ever received in public schools, that no one ever directed his study toward something of interest or instilled in him a thirst for knowledge. constantly in trouble with the law, from prison, huey enrolled in graduate study of social science. in 1980, a couple years after being released, he received his phD from university of santa cruz.
august 22, 2014 was the 25th anniversary of huey's death.
in 1989, huey was shot and killed by a member of the black guerrilla front, which had a decided anti-newton stance. the incident was an unfortunate, but perhaps appropriate, ending. with some history of drug addiction, huey had apparently been to a crack house and upon leaving was said to have owed money to the drug dealer who killed him. he bled to death in the street in a dilapidated neighborhood that he had once prominently worked in providing free breakfast to the city's youth.
he told his killer that his soul would live forever.
legal marijuana is a hot button issue, apparently. and not necessarily the way in which one would think from conservative-minded restrictions. there are a fair amount of pro-legalization supporters that just assume that voting "yes" is the appropriate means toward their long term ends.
i was called a "ditz" for not being in favor of measure 91. throwing out names without any substantial criticism is not constructive. all that does is make me imagine how to not be ditzy after i have already spent years contemplating the issue and am quite clear on exactly where i stand. that doesn't seem ditzy to me. certainly, it sounds less ditzy than just voting "yes" on something because it sounds cool. some people have given me rationales for why "yes" is the way to go and i am trying to consider those perspectives.
my support of a "no" vote does not constitute that i either (a) don't support the use of marijuana or (b) won't vote yes one of these times anyway. i don't care what someone else wants to vote, but i would hope they actually consider things to some degree before just voting what feels right. a bunch of stoners aren't going to get concessions from the government, ever. the government will screw the people easiest to screw every time. commoners will never buck the system. the government is not in the business of conceding power. they may concede a little now and then, for greater gains in the end, or they may concede the illusion of power to make people feel more empowered, but the reality will always be that the feds will win at chess. the odds are stacked because the government will always cheat with the law being on their side.
that's why when i vote, it's always to throw a monkeywrench into the discussion. it doesn't matter what i vote for. if my vote changed anything, ralph nader would have won the presidency four times, all drugs would be legal and indians would be free range hunting buffalo. but my vote doesn't matter for anything. if i do vote "yes" it will be a nod of appreciation to my friends in other states that wish they had the opportunity to do so. also, in the grand scheme of life, legal weed is coming sooner or later anyway, so we may as well get started down the road. i predicted back when the talk started up in washington around 2010 that weed would be legal nationally by 2020 and no one believed that. now, i tell people that by 2030 there will be no access to weed simply because of it being legal and people don't want to believe that.
consider what the government does when they get their hands on resources. they ruin everything. i can't trust them with something as valuable as marijuana.
weed hasn't always been illegal. in fact, all drugs were legal up until 1937 when the food and drug administration was created. that is, during prohibition when people weren't allowed to drink, they were allowed to smoke weed, shoot black tar, or whatever they felt like because they were grown adults and could do whatever they want to their own bodies. then, the government let the people have alcohol - at the price of other drugs that weren't as harmful. so, now people die of liver disease and lung disease from lifetimes of drinking and smoking, while not being allowed to do something that has shown it has a therapeutic value and is not harmful in the least. but when i say not allowed, i am only referring to the legality, and what does it matter the legality even matter? a group of politicians met on tax-payer-funded-time, took things away from people, made decisions that affected people negatively and the people had no recourse within the framework of the law. what kind of person rips people off like that? turns out americans didn't like that very much. in the end, people have shown that they don't care about the law and will smoke weed and do whatever they want anyway.
drinking and driving, texting and driving, talking on the phone and driving are all illegal and worse for the community than marijuana, yet we have a rampant problem with most of society doing these things all day everyday. if people are willing to break the law for immoral practices, why would they adhere to the law for things they believed to be good?
and then consider, why was weed ever illegal anyway? i wrote a blog last year called pipe dreams that basically posited that the government made drugs illegal in order to create a business opportunity for themselves. the US makes billions annually dealing drugs illegally around the world, such as spending 20 years fighting losing wars in southeast asia to control the heroin trade. nothing else makes sense for why the vietnam war was fought for so long. charging a simple 10% or whatever tax on drugs would be chicken feed by comparison to running the trade, taking all the money and controlling entire continents.
so, now, both the government and the people want weed to be legal. something seems quite fishy about that scenario. the situation is so ugly that oregon state police have taken out ads on TV urging people to vote yes. any other time in my life, i only believe cops to the extent that they won't arrest me. that is, i don't trust cops anymore than i don't trust the politicians that made the laws the cops are enforcing. so, that is a huge red flag to me when a cop says i should vote to legalize weed.
oregon already has medicinal marijuana for the people that need it. for the people that don't really "need" it, they can still keep getting it the way they always have. for the last 25 years, i have been able to get weed. as it is now, i can get as much as i want, good grade, good price from cool dealers, the situation is pristine. if one person doesn't have what i want, i can call someone else as if i am going to a different store because one didn't sell dr. pepper. the system of buying and smoking weed seems to work rather ideally. messing with that makes no sense.
what could change?
obviously, i grew up in a city and barely can grow a garden, but my feeling is that within the agricultural industry is that the "grow your own" stance is a slippery slope. whole new arenas for legislation, science and technology open up. major pharmaceutical or agricultural companies, rather than the black market, will control the production. companies like monsanto will patent seeds that have been genetically modified (like what has happened with corn) and control the reproduction rights so that people are not able to grow their own. and if a person is crafty enough to grow it anyway, monsanto can sue them into bankruptcy (as they did with 71-year-old farmer vernon bowman last year). then, with all the seeds monopolized into one person's hands, they can control distribution. enter a company like walmart. they will buy up all the good stuff, force the grower to make it lower quality and then undercut all the local retailers, putting them out of business and then being able to charge what they want. suddenly it seems harder to procure weed. and then consider those positive therapeutic effects of marijuana...that also dies with legalization. major farms will use so many toxicants to protect the cash part of the crop that weed will be laced with so many tars and poisons as tobacco is now that people will start getting lung cancer from weed too.
this can't be about the state making a decision to let people make their own decisions if i already make my own decisions. yes, we would have the choice, if the choice is still there. as with alcohol in washington, nobody buys it because the taxes are so damn high. when some store can charge what they want, then the high tax rate on top of that, people won't be able to afford weed. but people will buy it anyway. that kind of thing starts to wreck families the way alcoholic's habits wreck families. the same is nearly true for how ridiculously expensive tobacco is. who really wants to pay $8 for a pack but still does anyway because they have no other choice? last time i wanted a cigarette, i went to the one bar that sells singles for 50 cents because that was the best deal for me. legal drugs suck, financially speaking. people now can afford weed without a huge strain on finances and can still decide when and where to buy it. and besides, why would i want to pay the government more taxes? i want to pay the government less taxes. i only pay what i do now, so they won't put me in jail. the government already doesn't spend my money the way i want them to. would that change if i started paying them more? if you leave the decision to me, the government doesn't get a damn thing.
but as one person pointed out, the black market will still exist.
this is hopeful, but maybe a bit naive. i barely even have the option of buying a blank t-shirt in la grande without going to walmart. and though i do, i have to pay three times the price. what quality would a black market marijuana product have if most people are buying it on the white market? the black market can still exit in colorado and washington to give people hope, but that when enough states legalize marijuana and it forces the government's hand, the feds will change the game, such as controlling even more of the trade than they currently do. as it stands now, two states can have a black market because we are all fighting the feds. but when the feds give up the fight, where will the war be? we have examples with alcohol and tobacco. there is not much of a black market for tobacco, people just give in and pay high prices even though technically they could grow their own to use or sell. there is a black market for moonshine, but i don't want to drink that gut rot. i need to go to the liquor store for something real. so when the white market is most of the weed trade, what incentive would i have to buy illegally? how supported would the black market even be? i suggest that it would be about as strong as the black market for tobacco and moonshine. sure, i could buy some cheap, low quality weed as if shopping at the day-old pastry bins, but the value of that wouldn't be worth it. it is always smarter financially to pay more for the high grade product. only addicts that can't afford the high grade, go to the low grade and end up spending way more money in the long run. that's the rich exploiting the poor. when the high grade kush is locked in a case behind the customer service counter, that's where i'll be. not buying something i can't use on the black market.
it would have been nice to have lived thru the 1920s to have a better idea of how this played out then. but the bottom line was that we still got one drug back at the price of all the others. i want all drugs to be legal. even if the government is being honest in their intentions with weed, this is still piece meal allocation. one legal drug per 80 years is not good enough when we used to have them all. at this rate, by the year 3000, we might back to where we were in 1937. that's not what i call progress. i don't like this half-way, partly legal, partly illegal stuff. ron wyden continually says we need to give concessions to get anything accomplished in salem and d.c. ron wyden is a politician. i am not. i either want something or i don't. you either sell it to me, or you don't.
when i voted against legal weed in eugene, people thought i was stupid. but those same people thought it was a slam dunk to pass and were stupefied to learn that oregon is an extremely conservative state that bows to the feds every time, so really who was stupid?
i will still continue to sign the petitions to let people decide for themselves, and whatever the people want to decide is fine. if the voters want to make getting weed harder, then so be it. if the price becomes too much, if the weed gets tainted by commercial farming practices, if the thrill of sneaking around to do something taboo goes away, so be all of that. i can quit smoking weed and start buying other drugs that are a better deal. i just don't want uncle sam in between me and my body. he can't watch me all the time anyway. still, i would just prefer voters not shoot themselves in the foot, but with conservatives increasingly understanding how legalizing weed will hurt average people, they are starting to rally with the stoners the same way the feds rallied with the hippies to take away the credibility of the anti-vietnam movement in the 1960s. voting "yes" is dumb. every occurrence in history where it seemed like the government was doing the right thing for the people, the people have been screwed over. ask the indians. then there was vietnam for the supposed sake of protecting democracy, we busted up the unions, gave away public utilities and the airwaves, started a second war in iraq to stop terrorism even though our enemy terrorists came from saudi arabia, we went to hydraulic fracking to contaminate our water supply for the sake of some quick domestic oil, etc, etc, etc, over and over and over again. next it's weed that we will lose. and a million stoners will be supporting that with their vote.
i am not that naive. after 25 years of illegally smoking weed without any problems, i would have to be a total stoner to want to change that.
the royals in the world series! this is the most incredible thing to imagine. i need to just let that sink in the royals -- the royals are in the world series.
when i was knee high to a grasshopper, the year the royals went to the world series, i lived less than a mile from royal's stadium. i sat on the roof of my house watching the lights of the stadium and hearing the roar of the crowd. 29 years later, the royals have scarcely been worth talking about. sure, there have been a couple memorable seasons, notably 1994 when the strike knocked every team out of the world series. that year, hal mcrae's team had as much chance as anyone, but even that was 20 years ago. since 1994, the royals had only two winning seasons coming into 2014. there were several 100+ loss seasons and a handful more that were very close to 100 loss seasons. and despite having a winning record in 2013, the royals didn't seem to be anymore of a threat than half the other american league teams.
particularly in late september this year, the royals seemed to be on the verge of blowing their playoff chances. fortunately, oakland and seattle also shot themselves in the foot and the royals got things together over the last few games and went into the playoffs on a hot streak. i won't say that the royals are a bad team, but the fact that two wild card teams are looking to be matched up in the world series, this is a bit ridiculous. yes, the royals have a solid pitching staff from top to bottom and are unbeatable after the 6th inning. and yes, the royals are so deep in pitching that they have supplied other teams around the league with quality pitchers. years in the bottom of the standings gives good draft picks and the royals certainly have made some noise with theirs. and the the royals have some good hitting, timely hitting. but all of this is a relatively new phenomenon. the royals could scarcely hit a home run in the regular season, now they can't stop producing. eric hosmer (3rd pick 2008 draft), as much of a beast as he is, still was barely average for american league first basemen. he hit .270 with 9 home runs in the first 162 games. now, he has hit .462 with 2 home runs in the last eight games, including the 11th inning game winner at the angels! hosmer represents the royals late season surge in a nutshell. all the guys on the roster are producing even better than normal. that's timely.
but the fact of the royals getting to the world series is not, by itself, as impressive as how they did it. a team that barely merited much consideration and has lost more games than most any other team over the last 20 years, not only are suddenly in the limelight, they are dominant in the limelight. the royals have won eleven consecutive post season games! the all time record is twelve consecutive. the 1927-36 new york yankees won twelve straight; they swept the pirates, cardinals and cubs 4-0 in '27, '28 and '32 respectfully before losing game one to the giants in '36. the first three of those teams had babe ruth, the '36 team had joe dimaggio. the 1998-1999 new york yankees also won twelve straight post season games.
in other words, a rag-tag royals team that might have drawn laughs to be predicted to be in the 2014 series are one more victory away from a legacy shared with babe ruth, lou gehrig, joe dimaggio, bernie williams and derek jeter. good thing the giants lost a couple games this post season already because they had ten consecutive until the washington nationals ended that streak.
and then consider this: although being "dominant" the 2014 royals are dominant by the slightest of margins. it's not like they come out and win every game 10-0, like the '27 yankees could be expected to do. of the last eight games the royals have won dating back to the wild card game vs. oakland, six of those wins have been by two runs or less, four of them took extra innings. every game has been close enough to go either way, but the royals have learned how to win close games because they have played in so many of them. in the post-season, the royals have been unprecedented in doing exactly what needed to done, exactly when it needed to be done and nothing more, "almost on cue," eric geschwind adds.
a sacrifice fly by nori aoki is the most representational of the royals post-season situation as can be seen and maybe the highlight of the entire season. in that one game playoff, oakland sent out lester as a starter, who "the royals never beat," says todd teghtmeyer. oakland was winning 7-3 in the bottom of the eighth. then, oakland took out lester, and the royals have since been unfazed. they scored three runs in the eighth after a key hit by cain. then, down 7-6 in the bottom of the ninth, dyson comes in to pinch run, gets to second on a sacrifice bunt and then steals third base. with one out, aoki does his job perfectly on cue, flying out to right field that brings dyson home with the tying run (video to the right). that prolonged the season a few innings more and then seven games more.
un-believable. ridiculous. silly. but historical. the royals don't have to win another game to make this a mind-blowing season, but they should just go ahead and win four more in a row anyway, for posterity's sake.
watch alex gordon knock himself out making
a saving catch in the clincher versus baltimore.
thinking about the difficult feat the royals pulled off, have their chances been better in 2014 than they were in 1985? this is not really to compare the two royals' teams, because both seem to be quite similar in style. the 1977-80 royals were a team that won games convincingly. but thinking about this more in terms of odds... in 1985, there were 14 teams in the american league. in 2014, there are 15. in 1985, it took four wins to get to the world series (up until 1985 it only took three wins). in 2014, it took the royals eight wins to get to the world series. however, under the old system, the royals would not have made the playoffs. with three division of five teams and two "wild cards", getting into the playoffs is easier. just that getting through the playoffs is harder. it's even harder not having the home field advantage, which the wild card royals did not have. now, in the world series they get home field advantage. yikes!
another little historical fact... this year's american league divisional and championship series featured the four teams from the 1983 and 1984 league playoffs. in 1983, baltimore beat the angels before winning the world series. in 1984, detroit swept the royals before winning the world series. then, the royals won the 1985 world series. putting the 2014 playoffs into symbolic terms, the 1983 winner beat the 1984 winner in the first round and the 1985 winner then beat the 1983 winner. based off that progression, the royals should cruise to a win in the world series. the giants (probably not cardinals) may have something else to say, but who's listening?
the interesting caveat of the 1985 royals... they faced their cross-state rival st. louis cardinals in the world series. considering the cardinals are the second best team in baseball history, the royals would like to continue their charge against a team so close and so powerful as the 2014 angels and orioles were. but the cardinals are now down 3-1 in the national league championship series. that doesn't mean they can't come back. in 1985, the royals needed a miracle to come back from down 3-1 versus the blue jays in the championship series and then came back from down 3-1 versus the cardinals in the world series. also, there was something the boston red sox did in 2004, but i don't remember exactly (and i have never heard of some guy named johnny damon). so, it's not impossible that the cardinals can't come back to beat the giants, but still extremely unlikely, historically speaking.
basically, right now, i am looking up southwest airfares to go to see the royals in san francisco. not that i will make it because i have several promises to my clients already that weekend, but it's a tempting proposition. i will certainly let last year's NCAA football championship be a lesson. when the missouri tigers were on the verge of going to pasadena, i lost a one-way ticket because american/us airways is not customer friendly in the least. at least i was able to re-book my other ticket on southwest... the advantage to going to san francisco is that game tickets are cheaper. on vividseats, game one, standing-room-only tickets in kansas city are starting at $543!!! on stubhub, the same tickets start at $728!! they go up as high as $11, 329! that's more ridiculous than the royals even being in the series. obviously, i can not, and would not even if i could, go for any of those prices. i wouldn't even pay $543 for a front row seat behind the royals dugout. but in san francisco, starting prices are at $260 and $336, respectively for those two resale sites.
if the half-price difference surprises you, reread this blog from the beginning please. royals fans have been starving for almost thirty years. giants and cardinals fans are feasting all the time. when you go to a restaurant after not eating for several days, you spend a lot more money than if you had three meals already in the same day. this is the difference. so, san francisco sounds like a great vacation destination. at $260 for a ticket and slightly more for the r/t flight, that is doable, especially considering how much cash i dropped going to kansas city last month. times like this aren't likely to happen in kansas city for a long long long time. and even if the royals are back next year, and the year after, this was the season that it all broke open, just like aoki's sac-fly was the "hit" that broke this post-season open.
dropping that kind of cash could be surprising considering that professional sports means nothing to me. read any of my other blogs or posts on the subject and i bash the hell out of pro sports. most of the baseball games i watched this season were during the ten days i was back in the midwest. and i watch even less of the other leagues. i saw one NBA game last year; the blazers-warriors game in april was the first game i attended since the kansas city kings had a team! i saw as many as five NFL games in the last five years on TV and hadn't been to a game since the chiefs beat the titans to win the division in 2010. in fact, last year, i was given three tickets to a seahawks game, but traded them for a ride to yakima. that's how little i value this crap. i went to one portland timbers game last year, begrudgingly, though it was a blast. that's a total of about four MLS games, counting a few kansas city wizards games in the '90s.
i don't care about soccer, even less about the NHL, or pro sports in general. everyone that knows me, knows that i would rather spend $6 to watch NAIA basketball or single-a short-season baseball and know too much about those teams, but nothing about the pros. for example, george brett is principal owner of the tri-cities dust devils. and then consider this parallel: unprecedented, in their second season, the hillsboro hops swept their way to the 2014 northwest league championship. unprecedented, after a 29-year drought, the kansas city royals swept their way to the 2014 american league championship. the latter obviously being a far greater accomplishment, but who else can make that comparison?
comparatively speaking, i only found out who eric hosmer was this year. funny for me to be in this "who are they" position being as how i always complained about the fair weather fans in kansas city. i was at royals stadium almost everyday in 1992-1994. the royals were decent, fun to watch, but the stadium was empty. only in september 1994, when george brett was making his farewell tour, did the "lifelong" fans come to pack the stadium. they didn't come back in 1995. i stopped going to games too because the royals betrayed the few fans they did have by hiring bob boone. however, most royals "fans" approved of the managerial change, for whatever they knew about it. these days though, i live 330 miles from the nearest major league stadium. my priorities are different. and i haven't even been to a mariners game since 1999 because i refuse to pay $36+ to sit 30 rows deep in the outfield. and don't get me started about TV. i have never, will never, own one. so, no, i don't see a lot of pro sports. nor do i care what celebrities do anyway. as with the music or film industry, i have always cared about those getting no exposure. a better entertainment experience, plus it costs almost no money. that leaves money for when i do have that seven year itch to attend a pro sports game or a big name concert.
cain't touch this: it takes a lot to be in this position.
but the world series is different. i'd never be caught dead at any super bowl, NBA finals, or stanley cup series, but perhaps under this rare condition, i might be at the world series. it's a big deal for your city to win a national championship. ask seattle fans, who finally got one after 40-ish years. ask portland fans, who have one 40-ish years ago. the exposure and economic benefit to the area is a huge deal. there only two things that come to mind that are more monumental than a national championship to your city. one is to have your city decimated and burned to the ground by an invading army, though other than pearl harbor. the US only knows this by dishing out the disaster. the other thing is to have your city decimated by natural disaster. and other than the 1906 san francisco earthquake, the 1871 chicago fire, or the 2005 new orleans hurricane katrina, no US city really knows about this either. so, to be in the world series means a lot. considering i never will have the chance again, $500-$700 is not a huge deal. if the university of oregon took $60,000 from me and then proceeded to... well, nevermind... going to the world series seems kind of cheap.
after that, i will vote. you think the royals were underdogs, just wait until the union county commissioner's race... rossholt and mcclure can get swept as the angels and orioles did!
an ohio state university student goes to a buckeyes football game, runs onto the field, gets body slammed to the turf by an assistant coach. the body slam seemed a little extreme, but basically that's what happens. a person gets apprehended and escorted off the field to await some sort of disciplinary action. the disciplinary action in this case was to revoke wunder's scholarship. seriously?
anyone can say "break the rules, pay the price." but you know, so what? kids do weird things sometimes. college kids especially get drunk, make mistakes. i can promise that hundreds of kids at ohio state within this early school year have done something even more careless than running onto the football field without such severe consequences.
the reason why this is ridiculously severe of a punishment is because it is a football game. it is only a football game. i know that buckeye fans live and die for their team. i know that urban meyer is one of the highest paid college football coaches at $4.6 million and the buckeyes surely spend more than most teams on acquiring talent. yeah, they probably want to protect that, but still it's only a football game and the fact that they over spend for that prestige needs a lot of criticism. the importance academic institutions place on the athletic programs has gotten way too extreme.
every student is equal, every program is equal. an engineering student, like wunder, is as significant as the quarterback for the buckeyes. that is, he has as much right to access university resources and facilities. he maybe doesn't have room to be on the field during the game, but still be reasonable with a punishment. take the guy off the field, give him a fine and threaten him with expulsion. and while handing out punishments, give assistant coach schlegel a fine for use of excessive force. i am sure urban meyer could afford to pay his fine if he wants to support his assistant's decision.
the key thing here is that wunder had a scholarship through the western golf association evans scholars foundation. ohio state and/or the foundation reserves the right to revoke that scholarship for whatever reason they want. if they think this hardly newsworthy action is bad enough, so be it. if i were researching potential schools to attend, it would look bad to me that ohio state cares so much about the football team. i already graduated from one university that cares too much about football, and though the ducks would rout the buckeyes from the opening kickoff, it's still not an important thing in the grand scheme of life. priorities need to be set, and ohio state has their priorities a bit too skewed for my money.
runners up: bryce masters
a teenager in independence, missouri had a run in with the police on september 14. in neighboring lee's summit at the time, i saw three separate news reports, two on the local abc affiliate and a third on fox news. the first report said that the officer pulled the car over based on an unrelated warrant for a woman not in the car, but supposedly tied to the license plate, and then tased the boy because he wouldn't get out of the car. the report was followed by two eyewitness interviews that said the cop was clearly acting out-of-line. the second report said that the boy was talking back to the cop and merely mentioned the fact that eyewitnesses questioned the excessive force by the cop. the third, a week after the fact, simply said that the police were saying the car smelled like weed and mentioned nothing about eyewitness reports at all.
wow! the media can really just make up whatever they want and people seem to buy it. that story changed each of those three times. moreover, only the third report seems to be available to read or watch online, although the "struggle" that bryce put up on the fox report is not corroborated by the eyewitness statements. net neutrality never seemed so important. i'd like to see an anthology of news reports on this incident just to ascertain what the problem might be. certainly there is much more to the story, and though more details have come out, mainstream news continues to not ask relevant questions. bryce ended up in a coma before recovering and has now begun rehab on his brain damage. bryce is also the son of a kansas city, missouri police officer. the fbi did their own investigations, which says something by itself.
even if one were to believe any or all of those reports, the use of force still seems unwarranted. in other words, masters was sitting in his car, unresponsive to officers. that doesn't sound like a threat. stun guns are used to combat aggression. an unresponsive person is not acting aggressively. unless you are a medical professional using an a.e.d., there is no need for high voltage electric shocks. talking back is also not an aggressive attack, otherwise anyone could be stunned or killed simply for not agreeing with a cop. a car smelling like weed, unbelievable as it seems being reported several days after the fact, still is no reason to put someone in a coma. and, the masters' family, which presumably includes his father, asked for a department of justice intervention to deal with the inconsistencies. i wonder if a black kid with a hooker mother and a father killed dealing drugs would get a department of justice intervention for inconsistencies? nonetheless, questions were eventually raised.
a big concern obviously is people watching 30 second clips of news that can not possibly give a complete story, yet basing an assessment off that incomplete information. the news over the course of a week couldn't even give a complete or consistent story, one newscast certainly didn't. people still form opinions on small pieces of information, but really need to understand that the story currently airing may not even be 1% correct.
when does excessive force become necessary? excessive force should never even be a statement. force should never be excessive. force should only be relevant to the crime. if a man is standing in the street with his hands up saying "don't shoot", then shooting him would constitute excessive force because it was not needed. the same goes for an unresponsive person. if the kid wouldn't get out of the car, there are numerous options: wait until he does get out, call a tow truck and impound the kid along with the car, etc. a little imagination, which cops are rarely accused of having, could go a long way. don't just take out a taser or gun at the first sign of non-compliance. that's irresponsible policing.
#FloodWallStreet
photo: Jeff Rae / twitter
with a website screaming in bold "Stop Capitalism. End The Climate Crisis" it is clearly apparent that the occupy movement is still living and breathing. more non-violent direct action protests, sit-ins and marches took place on september 22 and resulted in 100 more arrests, countless people pepper sprayed and the remainder pushed back off of wall street. meanwhile, countless conservative americans sat in front of their televisions, saw 30 seconds of a biased version of events and said, "what's wrong with these people?" the answer to that is: these people care, unlike those watching them on television. it cannot be stressed enough that people who put their livelihoods on the line for causes they believe in are definitive rabble rousers. the occupy movement is not always cohesive, or well-guided, but the people involved are at least always trying to do the right thing, which is better than trying to do the wrong thing, which is better yet than not trying to be part of problems or solutions. my question is, what's wrong with a system that prevents people from doing something that is not wrong, nor even illegal, until it happens against rich people? so people want to protest. they do have that right. the more they continue to exercise that right, the more i will praise them.
what a field day for the heat
a thousand people standing in the street
singing songs and carrying the signs, oh no
they mostly say "hooray for our side"
- crosby, stills & nash
pyt burger & lesean mccoy
star running back for the philadelphia eagles went to PYT burger, bought a $60 bag of burgers, and left a 20 cent tip. it probably shouldn't be news and tips really only matter in right-to-work states, which pennsylvania is not. however, tipping is a social custom, and when someone in the public eye goes against social customs, then it becomes news. for example, when a pastor of a church left a tip of 0, chelsea welch won the rabble rouser of the month award for january 2013 for posting the note on reddit. the bottom line in these instances is that people of all shapes and sizes need to be held accountable for their actions. because the owner and operator of PYT burger decided to post a copy of the signed check from mccoy, there is some comparison to the chelsea welch incident. but chelsea went further. she went against the policy and was fired from her job. that is, she put her own livelihood on the line for what she believed just. the pastor was embarrassed. that is, she had to publicly deal with a poor decision she had made. neither mccoy nor pyt burger were taking a huge chance or making real statements. mccoy did what he felt was right, pyt burger did what they felt was right. there was an attempt to make mccoy look bad and his cronies held accountable for poor behavior during their dining experience. this incident does reflect poorly on him, as will probably happen again in the future. but in mccoy's position, this is just advertising. a congregation may care how a pastor carries themselves in public, football fans certainly do not care. in the end, neither mccoy nor pyt burger deserve anymore attention than they've already received. mccoy was a jerk, so what. when i was a waiter, nfl players were jerks to me and left no tip. i didn't post it online and make them look bad. their time to shine ended and they are all broke now. that's justice.
kfc customer refused alcohol based wipe in halal-only branch
some things make no sense, and some things make sense only when understood in a complicated context. this must be one of those things that only make sense in a complicated context. what the hell is a "halal only branch"? obviously it is not something that could exist in a country like the united states, which values equality. it does exist in the UK apparently. just because a religion may be opposed to alcohol does not preclude the use of alcohol to such an extreme. if an amish person is offended by an automobile, they would still take a ride if they were stranded in a snow storm miles from home. religious causes are trumped by health and safety concerns. and kfc is done getting attention from ridiculous stunts like this one.
rabble rouser hall of fame:
elizabeth gurly flynn (1890 – 1964)
some people become rabble rousers after years of frustration. some people are born rabble rousers. elizabeth gurly flynn was born a rabble rouser. her father was a socialist, mother a feminist. one of elizabeth’s first speeches was a talk on “what socialism will do for women” at the age of sixteen. she was expelled from high school for radical viewpoints. flynn was an activist leader with the IWW. she chained herself to a fencepost in spokane, where she was arrested and jailed, at which time she accused the police of running the jail as a brothel. in turn, image-conscious law enforcement mass censored the copy of the industrial worker newspaper of flynn’s report. flynn was run out of the IWW for testifying in court against the interest of bill haywood. she maintained an active labor leader profile as a founding member of the american civil liberties union. she particularly supported the defense of sacco and vanzetti. she was a first-wave feminist, supporter of birth control, women’s suffrage and other rights. flynn lived in portland during the late 1920s and 1930s advocating for the west coast longshore strike. later she became a writer for the daily worker newspaper and a national committee and, ultimately, the chairwoman of the communist party usa. this affiliation caused her to be barred from the board of the ACLU. flynn died during a trip to the soviet union on september 5, 1964. flynn had a song written for her, the rebel girl, by notorious IWW song writer joe hill. one of the more classic versions was recorded by another rabble rouser hall of famer, hazel dickens.
r.i.p lonnie lynn (1943-2014)
played two years in the ABA in 1969 and 1970, but is more commonly know as the father of the rapper common. lynn was a poet in his own right and featured in many of common's tracks, such as this one from 1994...
caldwell jones (1950-2014)
jones played basketball at albany state college in georgia, as did five of his brothers. in fact, a jones was the starting center for albany state for 18 consecutive seasons. oliver jones also was the head coach of albany state for 28 seasons. four of the jones brothers played in the nba for a combined total 37 seasons, but caldwell was perhaps the most noteworthy. he played 3 seasons in the ABA, the first coached by wilt chamberlain, before becoming a rebounding force for the dominant 76ers in the late 1970s. he was one of the players traded to houston in the 1982 moses malone deal, which resulted in the 76ers finally winning the championship. caldwell did not win a championship, though he was on the losing side of the 1977 finals to portland. caldwell played four years with portland as well. he is currently 32nd on the all-time career blocks list with 2297. he pulled down 10,685 rebounds (8.2 rpg) and dropped in 10,241 points in his career.
gonsoulin photo from the denver broncos
goose gonsoulin (1938-2014)
goose was chosen by the dallas texans in the first afl draft (precursor to the afc) as a safety out of baylor in 1960. he was promptly traded to denver, becoming the first denver bronco. he made the first afl interception and totaled 11 interceptions as a rookie, which is still the broncos single season record. goose is currently 55th on the career interceptions list with 43.
gonsoulin should not be confused with the legendary baseball player goose goslin (1900-1971). that goose was a subpar left-fielder, but a great hitter who played a 17 year hall-of-fame career. with walter johnson anchoring the senator’s pitching staff, and goose leading the league with 129 runs batted in (depriving babe ruth of the triple crown), the senators won the 1924 championship. goslin set the world series record with 6 consecutive hits, broken in 1990 by billy hatcher. goslin won the 1928 batting title on his final at bat, squeaking past heine manush. two years later, the senators traded goslin to st. louis for heine manush and alvin crowder. two years later, goslin went back to the senators, helped them to the 1933 world series, and was promptly traded to detroit, where he helped them to the next two world series. goslin hit a walk-off single to win the 1935 championship for detroit. in 1936, goslin hit an inside-the-park-home run after joe dimaggio and myril hoag collided in the outfield, knocking themselves unconscious. goslin is among the top 50 all-time in doubles, triples and runs batted in categories.
