![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatNot everyone does, and we should be mindful of the reasons some don't and show compassion in how we celebrate and talk about this day - I think?
I am forever grateful that I have a loving mother who is my best friend. And have been for the most surrounded by loving mothers, including my beloved maternal grandmother. While far from perfect, I am grateful for my mom. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not.
There but for the grace of god, go I - since I'm mindful that not everyone got that. And an insane amount of people did not.
Last year - I visited mother around this date, and took time off work. This year, I'm navigating doctor's appointments, work, and the fear of an impending strike over what amounts to pennies.
**********************
Haven't been sleeping well this week for many reasons not worth going into. I swear the internet has a solution for everything, some of which seem to be competing with each other for my attention and use. Choose me! I can solve all your physical ills! Choose me! I'm the expert! (Sigh, the snake oil salesmen no longer have to go town to town, they have the internet. And they seem to multiply daily. They've even evolved to selling apps and weight scales that will solve all your problems. I kid you not, there is actually a weight scale that diagnoses what ails you and provides the solution. It's like something out of a bad 1980s sci-fi satire. Maybe it did originate from that - and someone out there got the bright idea to create one and sell it.)
**************************
2026 is the year that folks have started writing and releasing "Protest Songs" again en mass. Not that they didn't do it off and on previously, they have. And there are some good ones from yesteryear...
* Wisconsin by Whitehorse - 2012
* The Times They are A Changing by Bob Dylan - 1963
* When that Man is Dead and Gone by Irving Berlin (1941)
* Mississippi Goddamn by Nina Simone - 1965 (about the lynchings and Civil Rights fight in the 1960s).
* This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie - 1940
* Abraham, Martin and John sung by Harry Belafonte, written by Dion in the 1960s, it's about the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy.
* The Revolution will Not be Televised by Gil Heron - 1965
* This is America by Childish Gambino - 2018
* This is Not America by David Bowie - 2000
* American Idiot by Green Day
* Holiday by Green Day - protest of the Iraq War
* Zombie by the Cranberries - 2009, it's an anti-war protest song about the War in Northern Ireland and the bombings associated with it.
* Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2 - also about the War in Northern Ireland - 1982 (and it's still relevant about various wars around the world over 40 years later, that's just sad and speaks volumes about humanity.)
And here are some from 2026...
* Living in the USA by Low Cut Connie
* Labor by Paris Palomar - feminist protest song - very strongly about female human trafficking and domestic violence.
* All You Fascists Are Bound to Lose by Bette Midler
* Minneapolis by Bruce Springsteen
* Heart of America by Willie Nelson
* American Obituary by U2
* Join Ice by Jesse Wells
* Bad News by Zach Bryan
* City of Heroes by Billy Bragg
* Minnesota Nazis by NOFX
I am forever grateful that I have a loving mother who is my best friend. And have been for the most surrounded by loving mothers, including my beloved maternal grandmother. While far from perfect, I am grateful for my mom. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not.
There but for the grace of god, go I - since I'm mindful that not everyone got that. And an insane amount of people did not.
Last year - I visited mother around this date, and took time off work. This year, I'm navigating doctor's appointments, work, and the fear of an impending strike over what amounts to pennies.
**********************
Haven't been sleeping well this week for many reasons not worth going into. I swear the internet has a solution for everything, some of which seem to be competing with each other for my attention and use. Choose me! I can solve all your physical ills! Choose me! I'm the expert! (Sigh, the snake oil salesmen no longer have to go town to town, they have the internet. And they seem to multiply daily. They've even evolved to selling apps and weight scales that will solve all your problems. I kid you not, there is actually a weight scale that diagnoses what ails you and provides the solution. It's like something out of a bad 1980s sci-fi satire. Maybe it did originate from that - and someone out there got the bright idea to create one and sell it.)
**************************
2026 is the year that folks have started writing and releasing "Protest Songs" again en mass. Not that they didn't do it off and on previously, they have. And there are some good ones from yesteryear...
* Wisconsin by Whitehorse - 2012
* The Times They are A Changing by Bob Dylan - 1963
* When that Man is Dead and Gone by Irving Berlin (1941)
* Mississippi Goddamn by Nina Simone - 1965 (about the lynchings and Civil Rights fight in the 1960s).
* This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie - 1940
* Abraham, Martin and John sung by Harry Belafonte, written by Dion in the 1960s, it's about the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy.
* The Revolution will Not be Televised by Gil Heron - 1965
* This is America by Childish Gambino - 2018
* This is Not America by David Bowie - 2000
* American Idiot by Green Day
* Holiday by Green Day - protest of the Iraq War
* Zombie by the Cranberries - 2009, it's an anti-war protest song about the War in Northern Ireland and the bombings associated with it.
* Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2 - also about the War in Northern Ireland - 1982 (and it's still relevant about various wars around the world over 40 years later, that's just sad and speaks volumes about humanity.)
And here are some from 2026...
* Living in the USA by Low Cut Connie
* Labor by Paris Palomar - feminist protest song - very strongly about female human trafficking and domestic violence.
* All You Fascists Are Bound to Lose by Bette Midler
* Minneapolis by Bruce Springsteen
* Heart of America by Willie Nelson
* American Obituary by U2
* Join Ice by Jesse Wells
* Bad News by Zach Bryan
* City of Heroes by Billy Bragg
* Minnesota Nazis by NOFX