Thursday, April 30, 2015

Found at your local Goodwill


Oh, the things you find at your local thrift store.

Or, in this case, at the Goodwill in North Platte, Neb. That's why it never hurts to hit the Goodwill when you're traveling -- in this case, on an overnight trip last week to west-central Nebraska.

There I found not only this autographed Loretta Lynn LP, but three more of hers as well, two of them autographed like the one above. The cost for the whole stash was about what you'd pay for a large espresso drink at your local coffee emporium.

And if anybody tries to take 'em from me, we're gonna be goin' to Fist City.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

'We must be strategic in how we riot'


When a major cable network lets fools like Marc Lamont Hill on its air to say things like "We must be strategic in how we riot," you know with absolute certainty that the last grown-up in television news has died or retired.

President Obama wasn't kidding the other night at the White House Correspondents Dinner when he "joked" that "usually the only people impersonating journalists on CNN are journalists on CNN."

As I watched rioters rule the streets of Baltimore last night on CNN, with police standing by observing as thugs looted liquor stores and set buildings alight not 50 yards away, I thought "This is a civilization refusing to defend itself." It seems to me there is a hierarchy of imperatives, and just above "Police should neither kill nor brutalize ordinary citizens or suspects in custody" is "Society must not be allowed to descend into violent mayhem."

Last night, Baltimore descended into violent mayhem. Last night, its elected leaders fiddled while Baltimore burned. And on a national "news" network, some damn-fool commentator lamented that the oppressed needed to be more "strategic" in their rioting.


Marc Lamont Hill
FORGET "two wrongs don't make a right." Forget that by looting and burning the stores of merchants, burning a church's senior-housing project that was under construction, assaulting bystanders and journalists for the crime of being white and endangering the lives of innocent residents of their own neighborhoods the rioters threw away any claim to the moral high ground. Forget every single thing that should be self-evident in any society not intent on suicide.

Forget all that.

Instead, let's focus on the strategic value of being "strategic" in your rioting.

The moneyed and powerful may no longer possess the will to preserve public order or defend a teetering civilization, but I will guaran-damn-tee you that the moneyed and powerful -- in other words, the ruling class -- does have the will to defend its money and its power. So what then happens when "strategic" rioters head downtown, or to affluent neighborhoods, to strategically riot, burn, kill and loot? What happens when city hall and Camden Yards, home of baseball's Baltimore Orioles, go up in flames?

ME, I'm thinking that when Stuff White People Like start to be consumed by the all-encompassing rage and "strategic" rioting of the underclass, those who might be indifferent to the ongoing immolation of the ghetto suddenly will embrace the tactical efficiency of helicopter gunships and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. If and when that comes to pass, I wonder what academic rabble-rouser Marc Lamont Hill -- more commonly known in the 'hood as "p***y-ass toilet fodder" -- then might think of being "strategic in how we riot."


Ultimately, when a minority suffers injustice and abuse by those in power, moral authority is the only authority it possesses and moral suasion is the only weapon it can count on. When people who are vastly outnumbered and, in Fortress America, vastly outgunned as well start to believe that two wrongs do make a right, at some point they will find the "oppressors" think that three just might.

Saturday, April 25, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: We're ba-aaack!

Look in the sky!

It's a bird!
 
It's a plane!

It's a frog!

A frog???

Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog . . .

It's just 3 Chords & the Truth -- back from a break and found on this blog!

In other words . . . never fear! The Big Show is here!


Friday, April 24, 2015

Railtown, U.S.A.


I've been away from the keys . . . and 3 Chords & the Truth . . . and the blog . . . and lots of stuff for the past three weeks. Time to get back to it -- them.

So, I'll do just that by posting this, some pictures from an overnight trip to North Platte, Neb., my old stomping grounds that's simply known as Railtown, U.S.A. North Platte is the Union Pacific Railroad. The U.P. is the largest employer in the city of 25,000 in west-central Nebraska, and North Platte is home to the largest rail yard in the world -- Bailey Yards.

Bailey Yards is where the railroad repairs trains, classifies rail cars and puts them together into east- and westbound trains. The yard is massive -- more than eight miles long and 3 1/2 miles wide at its widest point. The locomotive repair shop works on some 300 engines a day and handles thousands upon thousands of rail cars daily as well.


SO, WHEN I was in town the other day, a visit to the yard's visitor center in the Golden Spike Tower was a must.  You get a helluva view from eight stories up.

See, I told you the place was massive. Below is just a small part of Bailey Yards. A small part. Small.


ON THE other hand, you can get in some quality trainspotting, too, in downtown North Platte, down by where the city's old train depot once stood.



FINALLY, being that this is the Great Plains, ye shall know a town by its grain elevator.

3 Chords & the Truth is coming up next at its usual bat time on this same bat channel. Be there, aloha. That is all.

Wednesday, April 01, 2015

3 Chords & the Truth: Spring cleaning


Today is April 1. Time for some spring cleaning at 3 Chords & the Truth.

The first thing to be cleaned from the program . . . hard rock. For us at the flagship program of the Revolution 21 universe, it's going to be nothing but good music. We're going with pop, jazz and easy listening -- music that calms the savage breast . . . and makes your world a safer, nicer place.

That's why you're going to notice a change in 3 Chords & the Truth. We like to call the approach "The Velvet Sound," and it's going to sound as smooth as a fine swath of blue velvet.

I URGE you to check out the new sound of the finest music podcast on the Internet. I think you'll agree with us when we say to hard rock 'n' roll mayhem "We're not missing you at all."

The program is all about good music, and good music is what you'll get from us at 3 Chords & the Truth. And that's all your Mighty Favog has to say about that, because the proof is in the hearing.

Try it. We guarantee you'll like it.


It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

And that's your program news -- and your program -- for Wednesday, April 1, 2015.