This Old Man, He Played

And he played and he played.

Continuing to play music, he celebrated his 90^th birthday earlier this month.

I returned to my old haunts and dug up an interview done in the mid 1980s during a song fest in Quito:

Please click here to listen to the 7-minute interview.

Ken: I’ve been a fan of yours for 20 years. I remember the music during Vietnam and the civil rights struggle. Do you feel that music – that 'protest music' as it was called – made any impact on policies and decisions of governments? Or was it a way to vent frustrations for those who found themselves opposed to policies?

Pete: I don’t think I could say for sure. If I didn’t think that music did something I wouldn’t still be singing. I love to sing but I would rather be home with my family o n the beautiful Hudson River where I’m fortunate to live.

But I do believe songs can help pull this world together. I think of music in the broadest sense – lullabies and love songs, and various sorts of hymns and serious songs, blues and laments.

It’s hard to say though exactly what effect they have. Of course one can go into history and find people saying they have an effect. Plato is supposed to have said way back . . . he’s the old Greek philosopher … that it would be very dangerous for the wrong kind of music to be used in the republic. It could destroy the republic.

Here’s my favorite - not original with Pete. He set it to music 50 years ago though.

A video version

Text is here.

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose under heaven.

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep.

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together.

A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing.

Turn, Turn, Turn.

Turned 90 on May 3. Pete Seeger.

Everybody at the Gate

Everybody, it seems, wants to be a gatekeeper of the information flow in our modern world of communications.

Gatekeepers. The term has been long used to describe those who determine what we read, hear and view in the media.

In Venezuela a small earthquake injured no one, but ignited a war of words between President Hugo Chavez and Globovision. Whose story was it? Charge and countercharge were flung, becoming aftershocks that eclipsed the quake itself.

Enemies at the gate: Globovision and a Latin American head of state vying for control.

Meanwhile, Irish student Shane Fitzgerald pushed on the info gate only to watch it swing wide open. His fabricated news content clocked the speed that info travels and revealed fact-checking failures in the news industry. With news of the death of French composer Maurice Jarre, Fitzgerald crafted a Jarre quote and submitted it to the online, crowd-sourced Wikipedia.

Wikipedia editors wisely removed the quote, as it lacked attribution. When Fitzgerald placed it a few more times, the hoax quote was picked up and used by mainstream media outlets around the world.

Everyman (and everywoman) at the gate.

And the traditional gatekeepers – the mainstream media? Asleep at the gate. A seemingly innocuous incident, but packing a powerful punch: image stands taller than the reality.

Another weakness of the mainstream media – its disconnect with its audiences – is chronicled in Frank Rich’s recent editorial. Rich also defends however, the traditional media as any society’s best champion against tyranny. Then he delivers a sobering reality: we get the information we’re willing to pay for.

It is far easier to mail “the sky is falling” messages in e-mail or spread them virally in newer ways. (These can and should be verified before forwarding by checking snopes.com or other reputable sites.)

The sky falling and the sky's the limit. Gatekeepers galore and infinite information. And all free! (And so much is worth exactly that.)

When critical content is needed, we need to know what price we'll pay to know what is true.

Where The Wall Tells All

Bouquets: Beauty, Bargain, Blessing

Flowers don't cost much here. Kathy is in the right place, loving the economy AND the activity of making bouquets. She prepared these two for a special lunch today.

12 gerberas for $3.00

12 liatrice for 80 cents

1 bunch of mini carnations for $1.25

1 bunch of baby's breath for $1.25

12 hypericum for $1.25

Can't beat that!!