JOE DOLCE NEWSLETTER

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Friday July 4th, 2008

Real Live Nephew


   "If we are all in agreement on the decision - then I propose
    we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting
    to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps
    gain some understanding of what the decision is all about."
Alfred P. Sloan, Jr.

Hi folks,

The newsletter title this week comes from the American folksong, ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’  A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam, born on the 4th of July. Being born on the 4th of July is one thing but did you know that the two primary architects of the US Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, lifelong friends, both died on the exact same day: the 50th anniversary of the signing, July 4th, 1826.  I just finished watched the fantastic mini-series, JOHN ADAMS, and heartily recommend it. There are a slew of films that have been made about the key figures of the American Revolution, available on Amazon.com: Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Benedict Arnold, George Washington. One of my favourites is ‘The Crossing,’ - the story of General George Washington’s bold crossing of the Delaware River, with his ragtag army, in the middle of the night, to surprise and overcome the fierce Hessian professional mercenaries that the British had hired. Not a single colonial fighter was lost. An amazing story that completely turned around the fortunes of the struggling Americans. Further down, I’ll tell you what happened to all those 56 courageous folks who stood up to be counted and signed their names when a British noose was the price for their ‘John Hancock’.

An old musical acquaintance from days gone by, JONATHAN EDWARDS, has just recorded a ‘live’ concert album from Holland, titled ‘Rollin' Along,’ which has two of my songs on it, including the title track. This is the third time an artist has titled an album from one of my songs.

American singer, LOU MONTE (my parents’ generation) released an album called ‘Shaddap You Face,’  and JD CROWE and THE NEW SOUTH, with singer, Keith Whitley, put out a dynamite country-bluegrass album titled, ‘My Home Ain’t in the Hall of Fame.’  

Someone once told me that they didn’t think it was very original of me -  my naming my latest album ‘The Wind Cries Mary’ - after the Hendrix song. But on the contrary, if an artist can bring some new insight to the material – which I clearly did by bringing out an anti-war subtext in the Hendrix song – then it is a perfectly excellent idea. Jonathan Edwards has done extremely creative versions of my songs over the years. I have learned a lot from his interpretations, some of them definitive. Edwards also holds the record for the most number of my songs recorded by a single artist: five. He has a great version of ‘My Home Ain’t in the Hall of Fame,’ as well as previously recording, ‘Rollin' Along,’ ‘King of Hearts,’ ‘Upsy Daisy,’ and ‘Athens County,’ the latter, we co-wrote.
http://www.jonathanedwards.net
http://www.StrictlyCountryRecords.com
(thanks to Frank Dolce)

Quid pro quo, my partner Lin Van Hek and I recorded a version of Edward’s, ‘Sunshine,’ back in the 90s, on our first DIFFICULT WOMEN self-titled CD. Lin sang lead, and our interpretation, from a woman’s perspective, gives it a unique feminist twist:

‘Sunshine go away today,
Don’t feel much like dancin’
Some man’s gone and tried to run my life,
He don’t know what he’s asking.

How much does it cost? I’ll buy it.
The time is all I’ve lost. I’ll try it.
He can’t even run his own life,
I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine.
Sunshine.’

See. Pretty cool, eh? Context is everything in songwriting.



FAVOURITE LETTERS OF THE WEEK

Hi Joe,
I was very moved by your last newsletter. With some minor tweaking you could have been telling my story. Maggie and I met in the late seventies, when we were both approaching forty. I think we first shacked up in '79 which makes us 29 years together. So we're a year ahead of you. With respect, I hope it always stays that way! Cheers, Robbo (aka Ian Robinson)
Quicquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
(Anything said in Latin sounds profoundus.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Robinson_%28rationalist%29

(Note: God, I love people who talk dirty in Latin. Here are some of my other favourites:

Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri? - How do you get your hair to do that?
Romani ite domum - Romans go home!
Rident stolidi verba latina - Fools laugh at the Latin language. (Ovid)
Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? - What forbids a laughing man from telling the truth? (Horace)
Revelare pecunia! - Show me the money!
Revera linguam latinam vix cognovi - I don't really know all that much Latin
Redolet lvcernam - [it] smells of the lamp - (critical remark that one worked too hard on something)
Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem! - Stand aside plebians! I am on imperial business!
Re vera, cara mea, mea nil refert - Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!

From the Net:
 "You know I was only talking to a mate of mine about JOE DOLCE some weeks ago and He was convinced Joe had killed himself......He needs to let people know he is still around. I LOVED That song!!!!!    I would love to find it again. William

(Note: William, Memorial Services will be held this weekend, in advance, for the future death of Joe Dolce. Joe has asked in his Will that instead of flowers, after he is decreased, if everyone could buy one of his CDs, while he’s still alive as it might actually help him to live longer. In sympathy, Moriarity and Daughters Funeral Home and Record Company.)

 

FAVOURITE REVIEW OF THE WEEK

“People are always saying what a tragedy it was that the sublime (I don't think) “Vienna” was kept of the top spot by Joe Dolce and Shaddap You Face. Au contraire, Vienna was manure in a raincoat and Joe Dolce was a genius with much to say about life and art.”  Art Forum

Nine Year Old Yogini

Double-jointed, she can do things genetically even yoga masters could never do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeOTEs4QysM
(thanks to Stefan Abeysekera)


Martian Soil Good Enough for Asparagus: NASA
June 27, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Martian dirt is apparently good enough for asparagus to grow in, NASA scientists said Thursday, as they announced the results of a soil analysis collected by the US Phoenix Mars lander. "There is nothing about the soil that would preclude life. In fact it seems very friendly," said Samuel Kounaves, the project's lead chemist at the University of Arizona in a telephone press conference.

"The soil you have there is the type of soil you have in your backyard," said Kounaves. "You may be able to grow asparagus very well."
The analysis is based on a cubic centimeter of soil scooped up by the lander's robotic arm and introduced into one of its eight ovens, where it was gradually heated up to 1,000 degrees Celsius.
Kounaves said his team was "flabbergasted" at the results that came back.
"We basically have found what appears to be the requirements of the nutrients to support life, past, present or future," said Kounaves.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/4736602/martian-soil-good-enough-for-asparagus-nasa


What Happened to the Signers of the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British and brutally tortured as traitors. Nine fought in the War for Independence and died from wounds or from hardships they suffered. Two lost their sons in the Continental Army. Another two had sons captured. At least a dozen of the fifty-six had their homes pillaged and burned.

What kind of men were they?
Twenty-five were lawyers or jurists. Eleven were merchants. Nine were farmers or large plantation owners. One was a teacher, one a musician, and one a printer. These were men of means and education, yet they signed the Declaration of Independence, knowing full well that the penalty could be death if they were captured.

In the face of the advancing British Army, the Continental Congress fled from Philadelphia to Baltimore on December 12, 1776. It was an especially anxious time for John Hancock, the President, as his wife had just given birth to a baby girl. Due to the complications stemming from the trip to Baltimore, the child lived only a few months.

William Ellery's signing at the risk of his fortune proved only too realistic. In December 1776, during three days of British occupation of Newport, Rhode Island, Ellery's house was burned, and all his property destroyed.

Richard Stockton, a New Jersey State Supreme Court Justice, had rushed back to his estate near Princeton after signing the Declaration of Independence to find that his wife and children were living like refugees with friends. They had been betrayed by a Tory sympathizer who also revealed Stockton's own whereabouts. British troops pulled him from his bed one night, beat him and threw him in jail where he almost starved to death. When he was finally released, he went home to find his estate had been looted, his possessions burned, and his horses stolen. Judge Stockton had been so badly treated in prison that his health was ruined and he died before the war's end. His surviving family had to live the remainder of their lives off charity.

Carter Braxton was a wealthy planter and trader. One by one his ships were captured by the British navy. He loaned a large sum of money to the American cause; it was never paid back. He was forced to sell his plantations and mortgage his other properties to pay his debts.

Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he had to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Continental Congress without pay, and kept his family in hiding.

Vandals or soldiers or both looted the properties of Clymer, Hall, Harrison, Hopkinson and Livingston. Seventeen lost everything they owned.

Thomas Heyward, Jr., Edward Rutledge and Arthur Middleton, all of South Carolina, were captured by the British during the Charleston Campaign in 1780. They were kept in dungeons at the St. Augustine Prison until exchanged a year later.

At the Battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the family home for his headquarters. Nelson urged General George Washington to open fire on his own home. This was done, and the home was destroyed. Nelson later died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis also had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife for two months, and that and other hardships from the war so affected her health that she died only two years later.

"Honest John" Hart, a New Jersey farmer, was driven from his wife's bedside when she was near death. Their thirteen children fled for their lives. Hart's fields and his grist mill were laid waste. For over a year he eluded capture by hiding in nearby forests. He never knew where his bed would be the next night and often slept in caves.

When he finally returned home, he found that his wife had died, his children disappeared, and his farm and stock were completely destroyed. Hart himself died in 1779 without ever seeing any of his family again.

Such were the stories and sacrifices typical of those who risked everything to sign the Declaration of Independence. These men were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged:

"For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Are there any among us who would do likewise?
http://www.bethlehempaonline.com/declaration.html


Dan Rather Slams Corporate News at National Conference for Media Reform
Dan Rather, Free Press

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather delivered a blistering critique of corporate news on Saturday night at the National Conference for Media Reform hosted by Free Press.

The following are Dan Rather's prepared remarks:

I am grateful to be here and I am, most of all, gratified by the energy I have seen tonight and at this conference. It will take this kind of energy - and more - to sustain what is good in our news media... to improve what is deficient... and to push back against the forces and the trends that imperil journalism and that - by immediate extension - imperil democracy itself.

The Framers of our Constitution enshrined freedom of the press in the very first Amendment, up at the top of the Bill of Rights, not because they were great fans of journalists - like many politicians, then and now, they were not - but rather because they knew, as Thomas Jefferson put it, that, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be."
http://www.truthout.org/article/dan-rather-slams-corporate-news-conference

In Unity, New Hampshire, Clinton and Obama Set New Tone
Jeff Zeleny, The New York Times

Unity, New Hampshire - Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton set off on their maiden political voyage on Friday, trading their rivalry from the presidential primary battle for a newfound display of harmony intended to set a fresh tone for any Democrats still harboring bitterness from their grueling duel. It was a day of choreographed unity - their destination was a rally here in this small western New Hampshire town - with the two senators appearing together before the cameras for the first time. Three weeks after suspending her campaign, Mrs. Clinton renewed her endorsement and pledged to do all she could to help Democrats win the White House in the fall.
http://www.truthout.org/article/clinton-and-obama-set-new-tone-unity


NOVA ROMA

Res publica Novae Romae
Nova Roma is dedicated to the study and restoration of ancient Roman culture. From its founding to 330 CE, when it ceased to be the center of Imperial authority, Rome laid the foundation for our modern Western civilization. Founded 2,750 years after the Eternal City itself, Nova Roma seeks to bring back those golden times, not through the sword and the legions, however, but through the spread of knowledge.
http://www.novaroma.org


Luxurious, Squirting WC seat
Toto Washlet Toilet

 The "Incredible Squirting Toilet" has achieved almost total market penetration in Japan, and not just in middle-income homes. It even appears in fast-food restaurants and in public facilities in railroad stations.

As you lower yourself to the thermostatically warmed seat, a concealed motor whirs briefly, providing your first clue that you are about to encounter a piece of highly sophisticated technology. The toilet then remains silent and passive until you reach the point where you would normally apply paper. Instead, you hit the spray button. A hidden tube extends itself beneath you, and with the precision of a heat-seeking missile, it directs a spray of warm water that simultaneously tickles, stimulates, and cleans the place that needs it most. While its aim is meticulous, you can adjust its penetration by gently flexing your sphincter muscle. The experience is so unexpectedly and uniquely pleasurable, I found myself tempted to visit the toilet repeatedly just for recreational purposes.

Paper is needed only to mop up the water when the spray jet has done its work, but such is the effectiveness of the washing action, you will find no visible trace of fecal matter on the sheets of tissue, and can don your underwear in the happy knowledge that you have been cleaned by the same impeccable Japanese engineering that brought the world Honda motorcycles, 170-mile-an-hour trains, and robotic talking dogs.

Higher-end versions of the squirting toilet eliminate the need for paper entirely, by allowing the option of warm-air drying. They also provide adjustment of the water-cleaning jet, including a pulsatile flow which I found especially pleasurable. And for those in Western countries who are sufficiently uninhibited to allow themselves the pleasures of using this rectal equivalent of a water-pic, I have good news: The squirting toilet is available as an imported item and can be retrofitted to older bathroom equipment (you simply swap out the seat). Toto, the primary Japanese manufacturer, offers the most basic model under the name Washlet C100, and if you browse online you can find it for around US$500. This has only the most basic features; you can pay more for more advanced models, including one that welcomes you by raising its lid when it sees you approaching.

A note for female readers: The squirting toilet has a second tube which can be deployed by women who wish to cleanse their labial areas, but for anatomical reasons I was unable to test this personally.
(thanks to Charles Platt)


San Francisco to Vote on Naming Sewer after George Bush
By Guy Adams in Los Angeles

Some presidents get carved into Mt Rushmore; others have airports, motorways, and even entire cities named in their honour. But when George Bush leaves office, his most visible memorial may be a mouldering patch of human effluent.

In November, alongside casting their ballot for the next president, the people of San Francisco will also vote on a measure to rename one of the city's largest sewage works the George W Bush Sewage Plant, to provide a "fitting monument" to the outgoing commander-in-chief's achievements.

Activists from the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, a mischievously-named group behind the move, will ask supporters to participate in a "synchronised flush".

It may sound like a student prank, but the proposal is almost certain to be passed. Democrats usually secure between 70 and 80 per cent of the vote in San Francisco and in 2006 passed a proposition to impeach Mr Bush and his Vice-President Dick Cheney by a majority of almost two to one.

"In 50 years from now, we want people to see George Bush's name on that plant, and ask each other what went wrong," said Brian McConnell, the Memorial Commission's organiser. "We want them to be reminded of the Iraq war, and his other dramatic mistakes, and this is the perfect way to do it."

The ballot takes advantage of local government rules, which state that any proposal supported by a petition carrying the signatures of more than 7,168 voters must go to the polls. At present, the supporters of the sewage plant proposal claim to have 8,500 signatures, and counting. If the measure passes, city authorities will be forced to erect a prominent sign bearing the legend "George W Bush Sewage Plant" at the site of the bayside facility.

Local Republicans call it an "abuse of process" and promised to "use all means" to defeat it, Howard Epstein, the party's spokesman, told the San Francisco Chronicle: "There's no use to this other than to make these nutcases feel good." The proposal even jollified yesterday's White House press briefing, where a spokesman three times refused to comment.

However, Mr McConnell claimed to have only noticed two forms of opposition during his campaign so far. "First, we get people who say they just want to forget George Bush's presidency," he said. "Second, we hear from those who say that sewage plants perform a valuable public service and, as such, it does not make sense to name one after George Bush."
(thanks to Ramon Sender)

It Was Oil, All Along
Bill Moyers

Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil.
http://www.truthout.org/article/it-was-oil-all-along


Almost 40% of Free-range Eggs not Fresh

Consumers who fork out more for free-range eggs have been warned that over a third are officially stale on an international freshness scale.
A test of 650 free-range eggs by consumer group Choice returned a fail grade for 36 per cent of the products, branding them "weak and watery".
It also found that many of the eggs on supermarket shelves were produced on a dramatically varied, often industrial scale that would disappoint those who pay more to buy them.
Choice spokesman Christopher Zinn said the results called for new guidelines for the egg industry, and stricter controls on the use of the term "free-range".
"Well over half the hens described as free-range are housed in huge sheds, may never go outside and their eggs may come off conveyor belts," Mr Zinn said.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/4742244/almost-40-of-free-range-eggs-not-fresh


Tainted Love? Chocolate-Lovers: Cocoa Industry Set to Be a Heartbreaker on July 1, 2008
by Adrienne Fitch-Frankel

You gaze at each other, illuminated softly by candlelight. Music plays in the background. Slowly pulling back the ribbon from your gift, your sweetheart glows with delight and anticipation…until the wrapping falls away from the box of chocolate to reveal a blank spot where the slave-free chocolate label belongs.

Even though the chocolate industry committed to ending the worst forms of child labor in cocoa production by today — July 1, 2008 — the slave-free label is still missing from lots of chocolate boxes…and chocolate bars and ice cream and syrup and other products made with cocoa. And it’s not just because industry talked Congress into a voluntary agreement in place of the 2001 legislation that would have created a mandatory slave-free label for chocolate, which was passed in the House of Representatives by a landslide. It is also because virtually none of the chocolate you buy as a consumer could be certified as “slave-free” if that label existed today.

In one sense, things aren’t that different now from the way Congress intended to protect us from tainted chocolate back in 2001. If you find a blank space glaring back from the spot where the Fair Trade certified label belongs on any cocoa product, you know it has not been produced under standards that prohibit abusive child labor.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/27/9926/


No Ice At The North Pole: Polar Scientists Reveal Dramatic New Evidence of Climate Change
by Steve Connor

It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic - and worrying - examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
“From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water,” said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.
If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/27/9920/

~ FAMOUS DOLCES OF THE WORLD ~

‘DOLCE FAR NIENTE’
FIRST; $14,000 Colt Beat Best-Backed Horses for Manhanset Stakes.
June 7, 1901
(See original 1901 New York Times article:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9403E4DB1139E733A25754C0A9609C946097D6CF)

RECIPE

SMOTHERED PORK CHOPS

I printed this recipe some years ago but I made it for lunch today and I thought I’d share it with you once again in case you missed it the first time.
It comes from Sylvia’s Soul Food Restaurant in Harlem and is it easy to make and -  GOOD!!!!

Ingredients:
8 3/4 inch shoulder pork chops (about 4 lbs.)
1 teas plus 1 tablespoons salt
1 teas plus 1 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons plain flour
1/2 cup olive oil
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
2 green bell peppers, cored, seeded and coarsely chopped.
2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
2 cups water (or stock)
1/2 teas red chilli flakes (optional)

Method:
Trim the excess fat from the edges of the pork chops. Sprinkle them with 1 tablespoon each of the salt and pepper. Season 2 cups of the flour with the remaining 1 tablespoon each of salt and pepper. Dredge the pork chops in the flour until coated on all sides. Shake off excess four. Pour the oil into a heavy skillet (cast-iron is good) over medium high heat. When the oil begins to shake slightly, add as many pork chops as will fit in the pan without touching. Fry, turning once, until well browned on both sides, about 5 minutes. Remove the chops to a plate and repeat with the remain chops. Pour off all but 4 tablespoons of drippings from the skillet. Reduce the heat to medium and add the onions, green peppers, celery and optional red chilli flakes to the skillet. Cook until brown and tender, about 10 minutes. Move the vegetables to one side of the skillet and sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of flour over the bottom of the skillet. Cook the flour until golden brown, stirring constantly and being careful not to let the four burn. Slowly pour in the water or stock and stir until you have a smooth gravy. Divide the pork chops between two heavy skillets with lids or place them all in a large heavy Dutch oven. Top with the gravy and vegetables and cover the skillets or Dutch oven tightly. Simmer over low heat until the vegetables are tender and the pork chops are cooked through about 15 minutes. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary. Serve the pork chops, spooning some of the gravy and vegetables over each. Pass extra gravy.

Real Live Nephew

We could start us a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan,
Send a boat load of Negroes back to Zululand,
I could dress in a bedsheet and camouflage green,
Lawd, every day would be like Halloween.

Oh, oh, here I am,
I'm a real live nephew,
Of my Uncle Sam.

I'll buy an Armalite rifle and a thousand rounds,
Surf the Net and learn to build a home-made bomb.
The Aryan Nation and the ol' White Pride,
And the Posse Comatatus will be on my side.

Oh, oh, burn a cross and play golf,
With a real live nephew,
Of my Uncle Adolf.

Now I know that the Bible supports my views,
I can answer any question with a verse or two.
Even Jesus said I could trade for my gun,
('Though I can't recall Him ever owning one.)

Oh, oh, how can I do this?
I'm a real live nephew,
Of my Uncle Judas.

Now, that ol' US Constitution is my friend,
But there's couple of Amendments that we must amend,
All the Gays and the Lesbians will have to get out,
And that stuff about Equal Rights,
Well, we'll just cross that out.

Oh, oh, forget the Alamo,
I'm a real live nephew,
Of ol' Senator Joe.
(McCarthy, that is.)

We could start us a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan,
Send a boat load of Negroes back to Zululand,
I could dress in a bedsheet and camouflage green,
Lawd, every day would be like Halloween.

Oh, oh, here I am,
I'm a real live nephew,
Of my Uncle Sam.

~ Joe Dolce ~

THE FINAL HURRAH


The World’s Shortest Scary Bedtime Story

A little boy and an older man are taking a walk through the woods when the sun starts to go down.
The little boy looks up at the man and says, "Mister, it's getting dark in these woods, I'm scared."
"You're scared!?" the man replies, "how do you think I feel? I have to walk out of these woods alone!"