Lovely obit for Gerald

Someone who must have been a friend of my cousin Gerald's wrote a sweet obit in the Joplin, MO newspaper. You can read it here.

Below is another one of Gerald's creations.

Click on the words "my cousin Gerald" above to read my post of a couple of days about Gerald's death and life.

From Compline

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

Bonus: swingin' Brazilian duck

Where else but Brazil could you get two grown men singing about a duck sounding and looking so sexy? This is an old song (compared to some of you youngsters, anyway). The performers are João Gilberto and Caetano Veloso.

Jethro Tull does Bach, again

I posted two versions of this in May (live here, recorded three and a half decades earlier here) but here is another. I never get sick of this piece. Enjoy.

Two days ago, women; today, labor unions, the middle class, and the poor

U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands after signing an executive order at the Middle Class Working Families Task Force event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, January 30, 2009. Photo: Larry Downing, Reuters.

It really is a new presidential era. Today President Obama signed executive orders that, in his words, "level the playing field" and do not view unions as an evil force in U.S. society. He also spoke of the poor and not just the middle class; as you may recall the poor were largely invisible in election campaign rhetoric.

For this, for the President's action yesterday signing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, and for yesterday's denouncing of huge bonuses to Wall Street executives, many of us are thankful. And, make no mistake, many will be angry. I don't mean to go all Manichean on you, but the opposition to this is not going to be pretty.

So, I rejoice, and I pray.

And I pray that those of us who, moved by our faith, our humanism, our experience, or our principles, support the rights of workers to organize, the dignity of the most poor, the equality of women and men, and fairness in finance, will be active as citizens.

Below, because we like him, Vice-President Joe Biden. He will head White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families . Photo: Ron Edmonds, AP.