Lots of musical birthdays today. Arvo Pärt, a minimalist composer from Estonia, was born in 1935. Here are two of his songs, very simple and beautiful. Anti-Mozart.
Tommy Shaw, the lead singer of Styx, was born in 1953. He is the modren man ...
Harry Connick Jr. (of SunCom ... and we get it fame) was born 14 years later. He plays about twenty instruments. After Katrina, his rendition of the following song became the anthem of New Orleans: Do You Know What It Means. He also sings one of my theme songs: If I Only Had A Brain. And this ditty which deserves to be on everyone's album of happy songs: Kiss Me.
Peter Tosh, the Rastafarian, was murdered on this day in 1987. I was going to link to one of his songs, but they were all about legalizing something and not criticizing it. He must have been talking about the 19th Amendment. Right? Or Health Care?
And, Remember Pinochet, the dictator of Chile? It was on 9/11/73 that he came into power in a military coup aided by the CIA. Let's do a quick roll call: Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban ... and George W. Bush, a complete set of crazy, destructive despots we've put into power around the world. I had hope for Obama, but since he's still hiding information for "National Security," and his Secretary of State is talking about "extending our umbrella of protection in the Middle East," that hope is fading fast.
(Note: I'm re-reading this in 2023 and thinking about how fondly I recall the days of normal presidential ridiculousness like George Bush. Make America 2001 again?)
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