A Southern Missive

Those who know me know that I don’t care much for rain, especially when I have to work in it. Some days I think I really would like to live in the desert. The recent rain made me think of this song by the Duhks, a Winnepeg-based group whose music I was introduced to some time ago. Here is the group’s website:

Out of the Rain - The Duhks

It’s been raining hard in Winnipeg, like where you’ve gone
So I am going to write a song to soothe my aching
For two whole days the rain came down and I’ve been thinking round
To when I was too young to see my heart was breaking
Oh baby I can’t stay here in the rain another day
Though I’ve been trying to find a way to make it happen
Lately I’ve been trying figure what it’s all about
And when I know I’ll work it out but now I’m getting
Out of the rain.

Out of the rain is where I’m headed for
Far from the pain of being tied to your back door
Oh I know that it’s not something that I can control
So I’ll go to go on in the rain.

I’ve been wandering thirsty in the rain for so long now
But it ain’t of the amount but where I’m standing
In the sunshine I will see much clearer just what I can do
I’ll keep it simple free and true
I can do what I want to do.

Out of the rain is where I’m headed for
Far form the pain of being tied to your back door
Take it slow, love yourself for you can’t love no one else
Oh I know I can’t go on in the rain.

Out of the rain, no hurting anymore
Into the sun to find what I’ve been yearning for
Take it slow love yourself for you can’t love no one else
Oh I know I can’t go on in the rain.
Oh I know, I can’t go on in the rain.

If you’re a fan of Americana music, you’ve likely heard the Drive-by Truckers. I’ve officially declared myself to be a fan. Their official site is loaded with song lyrics and information about the band. They have produced a significant amount of work that you should take a look at. You can find their site here:

I heard this song the other day, and it spoke to me, so I purchased it on iTunes and decided to post the music. It is a song with energy that I may be able to use in my own show.

Perfect Timing by Mike Cooley of Drive-by Truckers

Here I am again, perfect timing,
The strings are ringing and the words are rhyming
I used to hate the fool in me, but only in the morning
Now I tolerate him all day long

Out on the highway, I hear the moaning
That low and lonesome whisper,
You only know from longing,
Through those naked trees at the windows glowing orange,
Taking over that cold shoulder racing by

I might have known before
If I’d got this old before I thought I got too cool to give a damn
That who you see in dreams at night seem to spend their afterlives
Trying hard to live the last one down

Here I am again perfect timing,
The strings are ringing and the words are rhyming
I used to hate the fool in me, but only in the morning,
Now I tolerate him all day long

A Review and Study of Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe by Thomas J. DiLorenzo  Three Rivers Press, 2006.

One will never truly understand why and how America’s Civil War happened unless one understands Abraham Lincoln. Like other Americans, I was raised with the Lincoln myth. He was all that represented America. As a Boy Scout, I once visited the Lincoln Monument (my mind was on the Girl Scout I was flirting with), but my naïve mind saw that site only as a monument to a past President. Many years later, having read a great deal, having looked at his face on five-dollar bills and pennies, having looked at evidence that cannot be denied, I’ve come to a different view of the President that America adores, having discovered from reading and research that there is much left out of the history books. As DiLorenzo says, “The point is, not only have whole sections of Lincoln’s record been expunged from history, but other sections have been fabricated.” The Lincoln most believe in did not exist.

Having read The Real Lincoln by DiLorenzo, I predicted that Lincoln Unmasked would be a good read, and I was not disappointed. However, it was stronger and more loaded and important than my pro-Southern mind and heart realized. What I discovered in this well documented work is that American politicians and Lincoln saint-makers have rewritten history with the effectiveness and passion of the communist historians.  There is much that I didn’t know and much that America doesn’t know about Lincoln.  I intend to create a study guide of this book for sale. This is a book that will make you think, as you can see from the chapter titles:

1. Challenging the Gatekeepers
Part I: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Lincoln and His War
2. The Lincoln Myths—Exposed
3. Fake Lincoln Quotes [Things Lincoln Never said]
4. The Myth of the Morally Superior “Yankee” [Rewritten history to portray the North as benevolent and to demonize the South]
5. Lincoln’s Liberian Connection [Lincoln wanted people of color removed from America]
6. An Abolitionist Who Despised Lincoln [People who hated slavery, hated Lincoln!]
7. The Truth About States’ Rights
8. Constitutional Futility
9. Lincoln’s Big Lie
10. A “Great Crime”: The Arrest Warrant for the Chief Justice of the United States
PART II: Economic Issues You’re Supposed to Ignore
11. The Origins of the Republican Party
12. The Great Railroad Lobbyism
13. The Great Protectionist
14. The Great Inflationist
PART III: The Politics of the Lincoln Cult
15. Making Cannon Fodder
16. Lincolnite Totalitarians
17. Pledging Allegiance to the Omnipotent Lincolnian State
18. The Lincoln Cult on Imprisoning War Opponents
APPENDIX: What they Don’t Want You to Read (I’m going to have a separate entry on this)

I’m not the only reader who has found this book fascinating. Thomas E. Woods Jr., bestselling author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, comments: “Brilliant and withering. Lincoln Unmasked answers the kind of forbidden questions that our country now more than ever needs to hear.”