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Cake day: June 30th, 2025

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  • The Wall is not only my favorite Pink Floyd album, it’s my favorite album of all time.

    I was a music history major when it came out, and I studied it like it was a Beethoven symphony. I became convinced that it was a 20th century music masterpiece along the lines of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue or Porgy & Bess, Bernstein’s West Side Story, Rogers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific or Sound of Music, The Beatles Sgt Pepper or Abby Road, etc.

    Almost 50 years later, and my opinion still stands.

    BTW, Paradoxically, DSOTM is probably the greatest album of all time, from an artistic and influential point of view. I just think The Wall is a masterpiece.


  • One of my favorites is Stephen Foster’s Hard Times, Come Again No More (1873):

    ‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

    Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

    Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

    Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

    While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay

    There are frail forms fainting at the door:

    Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say –

    Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

    Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears

    While we all sup sorrow with the poor:

    There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;

    Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

    ‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

    Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

    Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

    Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

    There’s a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away

    With a worn heart whose better days are o’er:

    Though her voice would be merry, ’tis sighing all the day –

    Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

    ‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

    Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

    Many days have lingered around my cab in door;

    Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

    ‘Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave,

    ‘ Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,

    ‘ Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave, –

    Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

    ‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary;

    Hard Times, Hard Times, come again no more:

    Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

    Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.







  • And ALL those problems continue because there are wealthy entities willing to donate ANY amount of money to influence as many campaigns as possible. Right now, they see their re-elections as dependent on getting as much money as possible, so all their efforts are directed at the most wealthy.

    But take money out of politics, and suddenly the ONLY election currency is every citizen’s single vote. Instead of appeasing a few very wealthy donors with important legislation that benefits only them at the expense of everyone else, they will be forced to support wide-reaching legislation that helps millions of citizens, in hopes of attracting their votes. Take money out of campaigns, and a wealthy person has equal political power as any other citizen - one vote. This is what the Founding Fathers were really talking about when they declared that all men were created equal.