Got any happy news?
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
73 Comments
Recent Posts
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Recent Comments
Are you kidding. Please don’t ask this question again, because it entails blocked vision and myopia: 25,000 children under the age of five die EVERY DAY around the world. Yes, EVERY DAY.
Ask a sensible question next time. What the fuck…if you can excuse the expression. I thought that you only didn’t know dink about terrorism. Now I find it goes beyond that… Come on. Get with the plan, the liberal one.
what’s this? The old canard that no one should smile as long as one person is suffering schtick?
I believe it must be an attempt at irony or snark. That’s really the only thing that makes sense when one person calls another myopic for not being myopic enough.
i thinks he’s serious.
Oh.
I think your next open thread question should simply be “What the fuck?”.
Yeah, er, “serious”ly out of the loop on what this site is about?
When you find out let me know. I’m only here to sell Carter’s book. Have you read it?
What canard is this? Come on, Booman. I’m a banned Kossack, a star like Oui. If it weren’t for us and those greats that preceded us, you’d still be standing on a bridge with a laptop and a sign, “Will Work for Food.” Don’t get so uppity and happy. We are les miserable because too many in this world are les miserable.
And you know so much about missery because you read it where?
Try IRIN. They are the news outlet for the UN Humanitarian Office. I force myself to read this shit everyday, whether I like it or not. Want to close your eyes? That’s your choice.
What corporations?
Exactly. You know shit about missery unless you read it. You are nice and comfy and you think you know anything about missery???
If you have a computer and an internet connection, you are not poor. You also read. Explain it to them, les miserable, why you are rich enough to have a computer and can pay for internet service.
Do me a favor: don’t fucking assume. I don’t own any freeckin computer, and I am fucking poor.
Like I said, you know shit
Stop dumping Americans into one basket. Not all of us by any means are interested in supporting exploitation of poverty struck countries. Want to fight the corporations, develop a union. That’s how it is done here traditionally.
PS: What country and what corporation are you specifically talking about?
Huh?
I slept thru geography class in junior high school. Where is Leon Gieco?
Well, it’s time for you to wake up then
Now I got it. Stupid of me. Leon Gieco is you not a country. Disappointing. Are you registered with the UN as a Argentinian country? Would that be your house? Small country but I’m not aversive to grandiosity. Sometimes I engage in it myself.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Leon Gieco)
Gieco in 2005.Raúl Alberto Antonio Gieco, better known as León Gieco (born on November 20, 1951 on a farm near Cañada Rosquín in northern Santa Fe, Argentina) is a pop-folk music composer and interpreter. He is known for mixing popular folkloric genres with Argentine rock, and for lyrics with social and political connotations. This has led to him being called “the Argentine Bob Dylan”.
Biography
Gieco started working at the age of 8. With his own money he bought a guitar, and soon started playing at school at patriotic holiday commemorations, and with Los Nocheros, a folkloric music group. He also played with a rock band called Los Mocosos, that soon gained some popularity within the neighbouring towns. They played songs of The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Spencer Davis Group, when they won a competition to play on Rosario TV Channel 5 in 1965.
When he was 18 he went to Buenos Aires to try his luck. There he became acquainted with Litto Nebbia and Gustavo Santaolalla, who found him some chances to play as an opening act for better-known musicians.
He got to play with different people, including David Lebón, and in the Buenos Aires Rock Festival in 1971, 1972, and 1973. That same year his first album was released, recorded independently with Santaolalla during the previous two years. Its main song was En el país de la libertad (“In the country of freedom”), and the record acquired certain recognition.
A year later, the second LP La Banda de los Caballos Cansados (“The Tired Horses’ Band”), followed the same style of trying to “understand the destiny of the peoples, the reason of injustice” (entender el destino de los pueblos, el por qué de las injusticias).
León had a series of concerts with a stable group of musicians, as well as other presentations with Porsuigieco, the supergroup formed with Raúl Porchetto, Charly García, Nito Mestre and María Rosa Yorio. They had relative success and released an eponymous record in 1976.
At the same time, he continued to play with his other group and had a contract for two shows, but the breakup of the band forced him to perform solo at those shows. The audience seemed to like the one-man show, and Gieco decided to continue his path alone. In 1976 he released El Fantasma de Canterville (“The Ghost of Canterville”). The record suffered a great deal of censorship from the military government; he had to change the lyrics of six songs and remove three others altogether. Nevertheless, the record was a success, and he had concerts not only around Argentina but also in other countries of South America. Two years later he released IV LP, with one of his most famous songs: Sólo le pido a Dios (“I only ask of God”). Because of the political situation in Argentina, he moved to Los Angeles, California for a year.
In 1981 he had a concert in Buenos Aires alone on stage, with a guitar, harmonica, and charango. He then released Pensar en nada (“To Think About Nothing”). That same year he started a 3-year, 110,000-kilometre-long series of independent concerts all over Argentina, playing for a total of 420,000 people. He gathered material from the different places he visited in during the tour, and recorded in Buenos Aires with various autochthonous musicians the first volume of De Ushuaia a La Quiaca (“From Ushuaia to La Quiaca”) in 1985. The following De Ushuaia a La Quiaca 2 and De Ushuaia a La Quiaca 3 were recorded in a mobile studio in different locations of the country.
In 1985 he went to Moscow for the 12th “World Youth and Students’ Festival” alongside Juan Carlos Baglietto and Litto Nebbia representing Argentina. He also had concerts in Germany with his good friend Mercedes Sosa, and upon his return to Argentina he had another tour around the country during 1986. In 1987 he returned to Germany for seven concerts, including that of Berlin’s Political Song Festival.
When he returned, he performed for free in two concerts: for 40,000 spectators at the National Flag Memorial in Rosario, and for 35,000 in Buenos Aires. At Boca Juniors’ Stadium he did a concert with Pablo Milanés and Chico Buarque, and guest musicians Mercedes Sosa, Fito Páez, Nito Mestre, Juan Carlos Baglietto and Sixto Palavecino. At the end of the year he went on a world tour that included countries such as Mexico, Peru, Brasil, Sweden, Germany and Denmark.
In 1988 he performed in Germany and Austria. Back in Argentina he participated in the final concert of the Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour at River Plate Stadium, with Charly García, Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, and others.
After eight years of touring, Semillas del corazón (“Seeds of the heart”) of 1989 marked his return to the studio. That same year he performed at the Teatro Ópera in Buenos Aires with United States folk legend Pete Seeger, material that was edited in the 1990 Concierto en vivo. The following year, Seeger asked him to join a tour that took him to Washington, D.C., Boston and New York City. There he played with David Byrne, whom he had already met in Buenos Aires shortly before.
In 1992 he played with Milton Nascimento, Mercedes Sosa, Os Paralamas do Sucesso, Gilberto Gil and Rubén Rada at the inauguration of the Latin American Parliament in São Paulo. He also released Mensajes del Alma (“Messages of the Soul”).
In 1994 he edited Desenchufado (“Unplugged”), an ironic name mocking the popular MTV unplugged concerts, with a recompilation of old songs. Even though the 1997 Los Orozco had a few songs that did not follow Gieco’s folkloric past, the rest of the disc had his style, and many guest musicians participated in the recording, among them Mercedes Sosa, Ricardo Mollo (Divididos), Santaolalla and Ricardo Iorio.
Also in 1997 he participated in the 20 year memorial concert for the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, with bands such as Divididos, Las Pelotas, La Renga, Los Piojos, and Attaque 77.
Let me tell you something: you are nothing like Oui.
Now, if you are trying to egg me on, it takes a lot more than that.
Never assume anything….this seems to have come up before that anyone who posts on blogs must be at least half way affluent-wrong…so just for the record my computer was bought and given to me by my sister who also happens to pay for the internet connection. I’m on disability which by definition means poverty level income. Soooooo you could say my happy news continues to be the fact that my sister keeps paying for my monthly dial-up connection.
If you have an address, please send. I can only afford a few bucks, but I’m not against helping the disabled. From your posts, I take it that it is not mental in nature.
why are you being such a jerk?
Given your warm and fuzzy manner, I can’t see why you were banned.
probably banned for incoherent personal attacks.
Now that is funny!!
No Booman. It was because I was too effective in informing the Daily Kos community that a human rights injustice was ongoing, and there was a need to speak out. Given your friend’s focus on money, and his fear of AIPAC, he preferred to ban me, rather than join the Daily Kos members with liberal-progressive values.
Have you looked into Kos’ sports blogs? You might be interested. There is a lot of money in sports blogs, for the entreprenuerial class. Booman Sports? I can see it now. A big house high on the hill, a Lexus, and who knows what.
‘My friend’ is focused on raising a family as well as political activism. Those two goals do not go well together and if sportsblogs help him, god bless him.
This hatred of anyone that makes a living is probably the single worst trait of the left.
there is a season
this is the happy news thread…not the misery thread.
here is my happy news;
im having my reproductive organs removed in november…hopefully that will get rid of the constant pain have had the past year since my last surgery….then im spending the rest of the winter in florida and i might go to thailand for a wedding in january….i can do that because thank god my husband has agreed to stay married legally so i can have great medical benefits….i dont think i will ever be able to get them myself even if i can afford them…..i would have to get a real job and that would suck…..i would never make as much money as i do now and i would never be able to just take off for months if i wanted to….unfortunately what i do is still illegal in this stupid intolerant busy body society.
my other happy news is my youngest daughter who spent her 4 high school years stoned, getting in lots of trouble, and doing exactly enough school work to get thru summer school every year….decided she wanted to go to college….took the entrance exam for her choice of school (they have their own entrance exam…she blew the SATs too) and scored a perfect score….that little bitch was holding out on me all this time…..so in 3 weeks she is off to college…..with all kinds of scholarships to pay her $30,000 a year school bill…..i am completely amazed.
daughter #1 starts grad school next month….and just bought her own house.
and my boyfriend is doing the dishes.
the world is fucked up….. but my little world is pretty good right now.
yay anna. 🙂
yay for both your daughters and double-yay for anyone who does the dishes…
Here
Here in the Cincinnati area there was one bit of good news in the local paper today. In a city that has been the brunt of many national jokes (no Bengal comments or Marge Schott witticisms, please) there was this story about crime in the Over-the Rhine area, the most crime ridden in the city.
A bit of good news here. Call it our “Paul Harvey Moment”.
Check the link for the full story.
Mike, until they make it more profitble to work than to do pimping, the pimps and the other criminals will continue to be arrested and sent to prison. Getting these people off the streets is what it is all about. It is that which is considered success. But the cause of it all is never addressed. Two million people, mostly Blacks, are currently in prisons in the US. What a great success. Let’s get happy.
In Michigan, they got rid of mental institutions and built new prisons instead right through the Engler (right wing Republican) era, and filled each one of them. What success and happiness if brought everyone.
Shergald, you’re right. In the big scheme of things, you’re right, okay? But to the people who live there in Over-the Rhine, who have been able to sit out their front porches at night for the first time in months, and to those business people who, for the first time in a long time, feel like they have a chance to just do business, make some money and provide for their families without being concerned every minute that some shootout is going to take place right outside their front doors, they are goddamned happy right now. And to dismiss that as just so much “happy talk” because we can’t kill the inner city crime Hydra with one blow between the eyes like some David versus Goliath analogy is just pure bullshit.
We all know it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than that, okay. What they are doing there is certainly not the solution for the long term. It can’t be maintained in its present form and everyone knows that. But I’m just a little bit happy for the damn people whose lives and fears have been alleviated, even if it is only, in your opinion, an illusion for the time being. To imply that any effort is a wasted one if it doesn’t fit within the macro view of the long term solution is, to me, arrogant. It is on par with implying that it’s a waste of time to alleviate the pain of a cancer sufferer because there’s a good chance that the goddamn disease will just freaking kill them anyway so why in the hell even bother with a temporary alleviation of pain because it won’t cure the disease. On a human level, can we just be happy that they have had some relief?
And BooMan, for Christ’s sake, don’t ever again ask for any good news. Cause I guess until the world is a freaking utopian paradise all we on the left are ever supposed to do is bitch and moan about how terrible and unfair things are.
as per shergald that is
who is only here, quote:
to sell Carter’s book
but also to tell people
they shouldn’t be happy
Well, I’m not really happy per se, but I have moments that are less miserable than others, so I’m gonna claim that…
And as noted above and elsewhere, humans I can, by and large, take or leave, but a world which continues to bring about little fuzzy kittens is worth staying in…
One of the BT members had a healthy baby boy two days ago. Life happens…the good and the bad, the hopeful and the hopeless. It’s all we have.
Now if only she would post the pictures… 🙂
Probably still just a li’l busy, at a guess… I understand them kid things take rather a bit of time for the first few decades.
I wouldn’t know myself.
Yeah I know. She had a couple of days in the hospital and had all that time to rest up. Whatever happened to the days of a mother squatting down, having the baby and going back to work.
Now that I’ve got your blood pressure up, of course you know this is snark. 🙂
::blushes profusely:: my memory card for the camera is shot! it will be here i promise! having the hubby look at it now! 🙂
argh! it’s looking like we need a new memory card for the damn camera. it will be gotten today i promise! the pond shall be appeased!
Oh noooooo! Hurry up and get it….and try to get one of those memory cards with scent so I can smell his head.
I’m so happy to hear she had her baby, and a boy to boot!
and I saw two good ones last week.
Yesterday was Jerry Day in SF (celebrating Jerry Garcia’s birthday, which as you all know was Aug. 1) with good music and lots of hippie freaks young and old.
cue the obligatory Mark Twain joke about summer in SF. At my home 40 miles south it was sunny and at least 85, and it got colder and cloudier the closer you got to the city, with intermittent rain.
Indeed. I was treated to all access passes to a show at the Greek Theater in Berkeley with Daft Punk. I’ve always wanted to go backstage and finally got to do so. Not only that, but I got to meet the “band”. And if they wasn’t enough, I got to take my daughter with me, and she loves Daft Punk, so it was equally thrilling for her. FWIW, Daft Punk is a techno group from Paris. It’s just two guys and a lot of equipment. They were totally nice and gracious and just super guys.
the Greek is a big venue for a band I’ve never even heard of. How full was it?
It was sold out. The backstage area is really nice. It has a lovely garden with big comfy couches and chairs.
I didn’t actually expect anyone to have heard of Daft Punk. They are actually very well known in the techno circuit. I got to go because my friend was a sound tech on their world tour last year. They are very popular around the world.
what do I know, huh?
The bands I like can’t fill the Greek any more.
I love that place, the prettiest concert hall I know of.
For the east coast majority here – the Greek is an outdoor amphitheater at the top of a high hill, at the uphill corner of the Cal campus. When you’re not looking at the stage, the view is of SF Bay, and the city and the Golden Gate bridge. Spectacular, wish I could find a picture.
I loved that place…saw a few Dead shows there in 85-87…
thanks so much CG! That’s just what I was looking for.
we may have shared some of those Dead shows 🙂
LOL….while I never saw the Dead at the Greek, I am sure that Cabin Girl and I have shared some shows. Now it looks like you too! :>)
We probably did. 🙂
Thank you. The Greek is one of the best theaters I have ever been too. Not great for a dead show because it is steep and smaller than most Dead shows. It fits about 8,000. It is a natural ampitheater, so the sound is fantastic. It is in the top ten venues for me.
The moon was near full and the light show was out of this world. I joked with Daft Punk afterwards about how I remembered when lasers were cool. Their show put lasers to shame. It is a stunning technological thrill.
You can check them out on You Tube. I recommend Technologic and Robot Rock. They are big sci-fi fans and their show is based on it. When you read about concerts in the future in sci-fi, Daft Punk makes it happen now.
That is a great view of the Greek Theater.
I liked dancing on the walkway halfway up. And watching the sun set behind the stage on the last day of a 3-day run there was just incredible.
sigh.
The opening band was one I don’t know, but I liked very much. They were The Rapture out of NYC. I ended up coming home and buying one of their albums off of ITunes. They apparently have quite the following.
The view is spectacular and the venue is one of the best I have ever been to. Being able to go backstage was just a dream come true, even if for a not well known band. Sure, I would have loved to meet David Byrne or David Bowie or Pink Floyd, but it was still a dream come true. It was a night I won’t forget.
well, while the d‘s are home trying to explain their latest faux pas, they can rest comfortably knowing that BushCo™, not yet satisfied with their obsequiousness, has laid out the agenda for them when they get back:
you think he means those patriotic corps like at&t, yahoo, et al, who willingly opened up access to the illegal nsa snooping?
calling sen “We won’t let them get our backs to the wall next time. We won’t let it happen again.” schumer.
it appears they’re gonna get their chance sooner than they expected
lTMF’sA
Our heat index is down to 103F. That’s good news because it was 106F. Tomorrow will be a different story.
Yep and you better believe it. 😉
So how is it up in winterland there? Got your AC on?
It was a very pleasant long w/e up here. How ’bout you?
Had family here, but the w/e went pretty fast.
I’m ready for WINTER!
I started a new painting. (boran2 ducks)
That’s always a happy occasion.
What kind of ducks? There are some VERY pretty ones out there, but getting them to sit still for portraits… tricky at best.
I had a couple of wood ducks on a bayou not too far from me; I got a couple of decent shots of them, which I should scan one of these days in my copious spare second…. but that was a thousandth of a second, or so… much easier than getting them to hold a pose for several hours or days for a painting.
I just throw them some quackers and they sit still for me while they eat.
Happy Meal..does that count as happy news??
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20148538/
I’m in. Who’s got the check?
decertified Diebold and other electronic voting devices. Seems that security was not a well thought out item in the source code.