tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-134372208798387606.post-45282962928462324162008-01-22T08:45:00.000-05:002008-01-22T08:45:00.000-05:002008-01-22T08:45:00.000-05:00Tomcat,<BR/><BR/>Glad you like my tune. I'll have to put my music links up front. <BR/><BR/>In the early 60's (The little town in the big North Woods where I come from was still in the early 50's then.) I wanted go to a military academy and be a pilot. <BR/><BR/>My brother went to ‘Nam in '66 and was attached to the 101st Airborne. He soon strongly advised me not to join the military. I listened. <BR/><BR/>By 1970 I learned that I'd rather hold a guitar than a rifle. I discovered I wanted to explore life's mysteries, instead of adhering to closed minded assumptions and belief systems. (Hmm. Maybe that's why those fellow yokels started calling me freaky hippie.) <BR/><BR/>I found faith without dogma, truth in my heart, and peace in my soul. (Hey, maybe that's why friends asked me to get ordained online, so Rev. Dave could officiate their wedding.)<BR/><BR/>Politics seemed vain and pointless until I saw the country slip away under Reagan, and Bush, and Clinton, and......AARRGGHH!. The death of democracy in 2000 got me off my ass, and the obsession set in. My first march in the street was in February 2003, along with the rest of the un-hypnotized people of the world.<BR/><BR/>When I retired in 2005, friends and family told me I needed to start a blog. I never considered myself a writer and didn’t seriously think about it. Since my dear wife Sue got me a domain name for a retirement gift, I eventually decided to poke around with it a bit. <BR/><BR/>Maybe having my comments read the on the Jack Cafferty File on CNN stimulated my need for attention, too. (See those near the bottom of 2007 link.)<BR/><BR/>Thanks to those good folks close to me, who probably got tired of me on the damn soapbox all the time, I can vent and rant and release without hurting their ears. <BR/><BR/>And it’s more than just personal, of course. For too long, we as a nation have been conditioned by the insidious nexus of corporate media and corporate government to go to work, and come home to our telescreen illuminated cages, and shut up. <BR/><BR/>I can’t shut up, and it’s time to rattle those cages.Dave Dubyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03279370558997246976noreply@blogger.com