I know I just posted yesterday, but I realized there’s only two more posting days till Christmas, and I wanted to send you my favorite version of the Christmas song I wrote with Candy Forest, “Mrs. Claus.” The song was recorded by the Edlos on their Sampler CD, and by Eddie Erickson & Friends on the CD Christmas Time Is Here, but I like Candy’s rendition best. So here it is, culled from my 70th birthday show at the Freight and Salvage:  Candy Forest singing “Mrs. Claus” I’m sitting at Jimmy Bean’s across from my Tuesday morning writing partner, Kris, who brought copies of all the carol parodies I posted here a bit ago to our memoir group’s holiday party last night, where we sang them with gusto. Her tree, which I haven’t seen yet, is a global warming tree: bamboo with polar bears. The title of today’s post is taken from Fran Avni and Bonnie Lockhart’s holiday show they do every year at La Pena. Going to see them reminded me that “This Little Light of Mine” is a good ecumenical song for this time of year. Chocolate, check. Light, check. Oh yes, peace. I found this on TomDispatch, my favorite political blog: Arms Supplier to the World—That’s US! Recently, the Times Pentagon correspondent Thom Shanker.wrote a piece...which appeared inside the paper on a quiet Labor Day. "Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows" was the headline. Perhaps Shanker, too, felt uncomfortable with his subject, because he included the following generic description: "In the highly competitive global arms market, nations vie for both profit and political influence through weapons sales, in particular to developing nations..." The figures he cited from a new congressional study of that "highly competitive" market told a different story: The U.S., with $37.8 billion in arms sales (up $12.4 billion from 2007), controlled 68.4% of the global arms market in 2008. Highly competitively speaking, Italy came "a distant second" with $3.7 billion. In sales to "developing nations," the U.S. inked $29.6 billion in weapons agreements or 70.1% of the market. Russia was a vanishingly distant second at $3.3 billion or 7.8% of the market. In other words, with 70% of the market, the U.S. actually has what, in any other field, would qualify as a monopoly position -- in this case, in things that go boom in the night. With the American car industry in a ditch, it seems that this (along with Hollywood films that go boom in the night) is what we now do best, as befits a war, if not warrior, state. Is that an American accomplishment you're comfortable with? Maybe our slogan for 2010 could be “Peace—not just for Christmas anymore!” ©2009 by Nancy Schimmelhttp://www.theedlos.com/http://www.christmasreviews.com/wcolinfarish.shtmlECF9D3DF-A669-4780-93E6-A375418AE6A6.htmlhttp://www.tomdispatch.com/
1 Comment Manage Comments for this Entry
carole
what a great post! friends, music, and politics!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - 06:22 AM
 
The hot chocolate scene from Candy Forest’s musical, Viva Concha! Her song takes off from a Mexican chocolate-making chant I learned from Jose-Luis Orozco.http://www.vivaconcha.com/gallery.html
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
PEACE, LIGHT AND CHOCOLATE