Three guitar legends, Paco De Lucia, John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola team up live in this video performance of Mediterranean Sun Dance. Di Meola and McLaughlin show off their amazing speed, as does De Lucia -- sans pick.
Alright, musos. "The Dance of Maya" by Mahavishnu Orchestra has it all. Funny time signatures. Double guitars. Billy Freakin' Cobham.
Fusion juggernaut Mahavishnu Orchestra, led by John McLaughlin, picked up where he and drummer Billy Cobham left off with Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, and expanded the minds of thousands of rock and jazz listeners and musicians with two great albums in the early seventies before they stopped speaking to each other, changed lineups, and eventually fizzled out.
I first heard "Maya" in 11th grade when the very adventurous teacher of our high school jazz group brought it in for us to play, which in retrospect was a fairly irresponsible thing to do to sixteen-year-olds who love to overplay. Fortunately, he kept us in line and we held it to just under twelve minutes, a restriction from which McLaughlin and company are thanfully excused here.
Complicated prog favorites, anyone?
(h/t Heather.)
One of the things I learned early on in my journalism career is that words have power. They also have consequences. Fortunately, I have a conscience. I credit my Catholic upbringing for that.
I found so much to admire in the concepts of social justice and compassion with which I was raised, and even though I'm not longer a Catholic, I still take exception to the way these so-called Catholics distort the faith.
It infuriates me when I see people like these distort and twist the truth about healthcare reform - for what reason? I mean, they're pretty much the scrubs of the right wing, a bunch of has-beens and wannabes. Do they do it to feed their egos? To keep the cocktail-party invitations flowing? Let's look at this group of "moral" leaders who are fighting so desperately to save the elderly from socialist liberal euthanasia.
It's mostly older people who watch "The McLaughlin Group," I think, so the antics of these clowns mostly fly below the radar - just like talk radio.
John McLaughlin is the former Jesuit priest who cared so deeply about God, he quit the order rather than give up his speechwriting gig with Richard Nixon.
Pat Buchanan, a good friend of McLaughlin's and the Nixon speechwriter who got him the job, is a product of Jesuit schools and presents himself as a Catholic so conservative, he still goes to the Latin Mass. He has occasional lapses in which he actually tells the truth, but these are so few and far between, it's not worth mentioning. Pat is generally is so willing to distort reality, it's a given. If Pat vehemently tells you the sky is blue, stick your head out the window and check.
Monica Crowley, another Nixon employee, is a Fox News "analyst" - i.e. someone paid to twist and mold the truth into something to inflames passions against Democrats. (By the way, her sister, Dr. Jocelyn Crowley, is married to Hannity's former co-host, Alan Colmes.) Apparently she's pretty good at distorting truth:
Crowley was accused of plagiarism in 1999 for an article she authored titled "The Day Nixon Said Goodbye" that appeared in the The Wall Street Journal. After accusations of plagiarism from at least one reader, an acknowledgement of "striking similarities" between Crowley's article and an article by Paul Johnson titled "In Praise of Richard Nixon" in the October 1988 issue of Commentary Magazine was published. A Journal editor stated, "Had we known of the parallels, we would not have published the article."
Crowley acknowledged the similarity between the pieces, and said "there are clear similarities in the language. I have wracked my brain, and I can honestly tell you that I have not read [Johnson's article]."
An article in Slate Magazine detailed five specific passages in Crowley's article that contained identical language and phraseology to Johnson's piece, and concluded that "it just isn't possible for Crowley not to have read Johnson's article."
There is something called "The Ten Commandments," and Christians generally agree that it's important. John, Pat, Monica and their ilk simply ignore any of those commandments that are politically inconvenient ("Thou shalt not bear false witness") or they apply them selectively ("Thou shalt not kill" only applies to fetuses, and not Iraqi children). They dig out obscure parts of the Old Testament they insist mean Jesus condemned gay people, and yet they still eat shrimp and lobster - condemned in the same book of the Bible.
We already know they will do or say anything that will further their political cause and erode ours.
So spare me the wide eyes and crocodile tears. No one's suggesting we off old people, and they know it. They're just so shameless and cynical, they couldn't resist.
Everyone knows if liberals really believed in killing people when they're no longer productive, people like McLaughlin and Buchanan wouldn't be here.
The Politico is at it again. It now proclaims that the Democrats are in trouble and the Republicans are on the offensive like it's 2004.
Bolstered by historical trends that work in the GOP’s favor -- midterm elections are typically hostile to the party in power -- and the prospect of the first election in a decade without former President George W. Bush either on the ballot or in office, Republicans find themselves on the offensive for the first time since 2004.
They actually said that. They haven't been attacking like maniacs since then? I guess calling Dems traitors and terrorist sympathizers is a compliment. As Glenn Greenwald takes their analysis apart, guess who their sources are that they use as proof that it's 2004 again.
Who are the sources for Politico's exciting announcement of a GOP resurgence? A grand total of three: "GOP pollster Whit Ayres," "GOP pollster John McLaughlin," and "Republican pollster Neil Newhouse," all of whom assure us that the signs point to imminent Republican triumph and Democratic doom.
Just read Glenn's piece because he thoroughly debunks them.
Kos also notes a big traffic plunge for them:
But hey, Drudge will likely give the Politico a link. And given their traffic trends, you can bet that's a major motivator. Yup, Politico has lost over 1M unique monthly readers since its peak in February. There's nothing like Drudge bait to help turn that around.
May 29, 2009 PBS
On The McLaughlin Group, John McLaughlin starts off his panel discussion by citing the nonexistent CBO report debunked by the Huffington Post, but since that is the Republican talking point du jour McLaughlin's not going to let a few facts get in the way of his spin.
The other thing that really irks me about his show is that he constantly puts conservatives on the "left" side of the panel with Eleanor Clift. What, you can't find even one milk toast liberal to fill that seat John? This week's choice was Mort Zuckerman. Four conservatives (well three actually and one batshit crazy wingnut in the form of Monica Crowley) and one liberal. Fair and balanced huh?
