The Muse and Whirled Retort  September 1, 2006  Volume VII Issue xi  Washington, DC



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***FLASH****JUST IN!!!



"Something's In the Air / But It's Not on the Airwaves" made Neil Young's top 10 list of Protest Videos!!! See http://neilyoung.com, lower right hand side of the page.





 ***FLASH***FLASH*** FLASH***   OK OK, I did it.  I got a myspace site.  Actually my dear friend Christine Stout set it up for me.   http://www.myspace.com/chrischandlerorg



To entice you to visit I have put up some streaming songs and a terrific new promotional video of the band playing live at places like the Oregon Country Fair, The Islands Folk Festival, The High Sierra and other familiar places. Please check it out and let me know what you think.  I really do value your input.



I promise to change the songs regularly and put up stuff that you've never heard before.



  ***FLASH***FLASH*** FLASH***

HELP MAKE THIS BOOK A BEST SELLER - TELL YOUR FRIENDS!

CABLE NEWS CONFIDENTIAL - BY OUR FRIEND JEFF COHEN:



In his new book, Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media, Jeff Cohen takes you inside TV news and the conservative biases, timidity and tabloidism that dominate it.  Few media critics have been afforded an intimate, on-the-job view of the outlets they condemn, but Cohen -- who founded the media watch group FAIR -- spent years at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.  He was a senior producer at MSNBC's Donahue during the run-up to the Iraq war, and witnessed war-enabling bias and censorship firsthand.  He tells all in a biting, humorous paperback taking aim at the entire rightwing hot-air brigade that Cohen saw up close: O'Reilly, Hannity, Buchanan, Novak, Falwell, etc. (Ann Coulter wouldn't debate him.) The book includes a foreword by Jim Hightower.



Order from Amazon      Order from an independent store.



MOLLY IVINS says: "Jeff Cohen's dissection of cable TV news is both irresistibly funny and civically painful.  It goes from uproarious anecdotes to those that make you wince."



IF YOU LIKED "OUTFOXED," YOU'LL LOVE CABLE NEWS CONFIDENTIAL.



The book has won praise from Robert Greenwald, Tim Robbins, Studs Terkel, Bob McChesney and others.



BARBARA EHRENREICH: "A deliciously funny expose."

HOWARD ZINN: "Future historians...will have his book as a primary source."

AMY GOODMAN: "Read this book and fight for change."  



  ***FLASH***FLASH*** FLASH***All this week and through Sept 11 Cindy Sheehan's Camp Democracy on the Mall in Washington, DC   www.campdemocracy.org







 T.A.B.L.E. .O.F. .C.O.N.T.E.N.T.S.  

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1. Subscription stuff  2. How to get stuff  3. Greetings and quick run down of recent past and near future    T.h.e. .M.u.s.e. .a.n.d. .W.h.i.r.l.e.d. .R.e.t.o.r.t.    5. Announcements 6. A new section simply called "Thank You!"  7. Dates
   

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1. To subscribe (I ONLY BOTHER YOU ONCE A MONTH) click:  https://chrischandler.org/index.php?page=signup  To unsubscribe reply with unsubscribe in the subject line.  
   

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1. H.O.W. .T.O. .G.E.T. .S.T.U.F.F.  TO GET THE NEW 2 VOLUME ENHANCED CD SET "American Storyteller:" http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/cchandler3
   

 Please check out our videos at http://www.chrisvids.org/  Check out: David Roe's site http://www.royalrounders.com/



Enough of the crass commercial announcements. Jeeze, with this many commercials you would think you were listening to Air- America.  

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1. Welcome to the news letter! It has been a light month.  We did a quick trip through Pennsylvania and I ran down to Atlanta.  In the near future we are headed on a quick run as Dan Bern's http://www.danbern.com opening act, then through New Orleans, Texas and through the Midwest - Please see the A.N.N.O.U.N.C.E.M.E.N.T.S. Section for important details.
   

  here we go....



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T.H.E. .M.U.S.E. .A.N.D. .W.H.I.R.L.E.D. .R.E.T.O.R.T.  

September 1, 2006  

Volume VII Issue xi  

Washington, DC  



Hey everybody, It's that time of the month again.  Sorry I am a few days late -  Last month, I wrote of the personal, and I got lots of responses asking for another screed on current events.  So, here ya go.



Whenever, I try to really understand a problem, I try to put myself in  the other guy s shoes, like an actor would.  An actor who plays a villain does not see him self as a villain.  He finds some pretext to justify his actions.  With that in mind, how do you play George Bush?   Even the worst community theatre thespian would find it to be like Lawrence Oliver trying to play Doby Gillis.  



His own motivations seem skewed. (George, not Larry) OK, we all know this Iraqi debacle had nothing to do with The World Trade Center - for which we honor the 5th anniversary this month.  Maybe it had something to do with world trade, but not The World Trade Center.  At best it was to try and install an American friendly government into the Middle East, which is kind of like asking John Mark Karr to baby sit your kids.



Everyone knew that Sadam's army was a paper tiger - well, more like  one of those origami cranes.  We knew we could have American troops in Baghdad in a matter of days.  American military intelligence is not so bad that it REALLY thought a second rate dictator had hijacked the set of a James Bond movie and was ready to use its mobile crystal meth labs to contaminate Ft Knox.  That wasn't the objective.



The objective was to make Iraq the 51st state  -  kinda like Israel or Canada. This, when you consider Iraq is rapidly catching up to the number of violent deaths we have in this country, may be happening. With a little luck, maybe they can catch us on executions, incarcerations, and infant mortality rates.



There are all kinds of examples in history he could have learned from to make a defeated country forgive, forget and accept its new status as a franchise.  But you would have to look at history and well, I think it is pretty obvious George Bush never attended a history class at Yale.   Maybe at Bob Jones University, but not at Yale.



After Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Lincoln did something brilliant,  that George Bush   as a business major (OK, skip that) - should have learned from.  Lincoln made sure that the surrendering army would continue getting paid.  He took their arms and sent them home, told them to tend to their families.  He gave them benefits as if they were Union army veterans.  It helped to unify a country torn apart by civil war and was a hell of a lot cheaper than continuing to police a hostile, economically devastated country.  (Sound familiar?)  



Once we got to Baghdad, where were the aircraft carriers filled with cement mixers and the skies looking like Normandy, only filled with parachutes dropping generators made in Normal,  Illinois?  Where were the battalions of construction workers; the divisions of translators and cultural liaisons; the brigades of electrical and civil engineers? Surely they weren't busy in New Orleans.  Why the HELL didn't Enron step up to help fix the power grid before declaring bankruptcy?  Why have we still not fixed the power grid?  



You bomb it, you fix it.



Hindsight is only 20/20 when you have some sort of vision to begin with.  The past 6 years we have had Mr. MaGoo sailing the ship of state off  the edge of the flat earth.  "Oh Magoo, you've done it again."



We have lost the moral high ground, and as anyone who has ever had any military training knows once you have lost the high ground it is nearly impossible to retrieve.  Right now, we look like Pickett s charge up Cemetery Ridge at the battle of Gettysburg shouting, "Stay the course, stay the course."  



Afterwards, General Lee asked, "Sir, where is your division?"  



Pickett replied, "Sir, I have no division."  That is about where we are today:  a doomed cause, with no chance of taking back the moral high-ground, and now in full retreat.  Anyone who has ever studied anything about military tactics could see that.  Oh but wait, no one in the Bush administration has any military background.



Actually, their idea of military background comes in the form of a flight suit and an aircraft carrier from which to hurl John Wayneisms.    



Now, there are those that say this guy is sooo bad that one really can t compare him to another American President.  I say, not so!  I compare him to Jefferson Davis.  A man, who came from privilege, was not elected, and whose cause was morally bankrupt and yet, sent thousands of naive young Americans out to fight and die for it.  



If we do as our president says. Why aren t we showing real faith in our newly installed government?  Why aren t we trying Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, Spc. James P. Barker, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard for rape and murder in an Iraqi court?   Or why not let the Iraqis try the perpetrators at Abu Ghraib?   Yet, we try Sadam Hussein there?  Why aren t we watching these events on court TV like Jean Benet Ramsey?  



Where is Judge Mohamed Wapner when ya need him?    



Which is it?  Do we believe in the new government of Iraq or don t we?   And if we do, we should pull out and let them run their own lives.  If we don t we should pull out, it s clear we are impeding the process of a stable government.  Either way, we should pull out, admit our mistakes honestly and openly, forgive ourselves, and maybe the world will begin to forgive us.    



What would Jesus do?  



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T.H.E. .A.N.N.O.U.N.C.M.E.N.T.S  

DR and I are desperately looking for dates in Texas and the Midwest to make this next tour possible.  Basically, our anchor date fell through and now we are stuck out in Texas and have really no gigs on the return trip.    I am hoping some of you out there would be interested in presenting us in a house concert or something that would get us up the road.  Look forward to hearing from you.



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OK OK, I did it.  I got a myspace site. http://www.myspace.com/chrischandlerorg



A friend set it up for me and then I discovered that club owners were linking to it rather than my website.  Other club owners would check myspace  - I had to do it.  And I have enjoyed chatting a bit with folks I have not heard from in a long time.  Please check it out   ummm ¦ become my friend.  I only have 6 myspace friends ¦ I feel so lonely.  Ihave often said my goal in life was to have 365 friends   maybe with myspace I can do just that.



To entice you to visit I have put up a terrific new video of the band playing live at places like the Oregon Country Fair, The Islands Folk Festival, The High Sierra and other familiar places.  It is very cool. Please check it out and let me know what you think.  I really do value your input.



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Have fun at Little Folk! I wish I could make it!  

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Congratulations to Ed and Alica!   Congratulations to My Niece Claire for graduating High School and Starting  College this month  

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T.H.A.N.K. .Y.O.U..!.



Mike and Judy Space, David Jacob Strain, Richard at the New Deal, Vicki and Bob Smedley, Green Party of PA,  Ray, Kati & Family, Dennis, Maggie and Jiggs and posthumously, Pops, Ted Glick, David Morreale, S.N.A.F.U., The Washington Fringe Fest,  LRod, Doreen, Rene, Barry and all of Cabardio, KKFI, Karen Kilroy, Christine Stout, Dan Bern,  Eric Schwartz, and The Folk Alliance.  Insert your name here.



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H.E.R.E.S. ..D.A. .D.A.T.E.S.





NOTES ABOUT THE TOUR SCHEDULE:



TEXAS

*******Boy do we need help here.*******  

Dallas, Ft Worth?   Arkansas?   St   Louis?   Kansas   City?   Indianapolis?  Cincinnati?

WITHOUT YOUR HELP HERE WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO DO THIS WHOLE THROUGH TEXAS TOUR



WEST COAST

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We are thinking west coast here late Jan/early Feb - anyone wanting a show - now would be a good time to get your requests in!!!!!!!





H.E.R.E.S. ..D.A. .D.A.T.E.S.