There are a number of reasons why Terri Schiavo must die, but here is one indisputable one:  She is a human.  We all must go- some early, some late, some peacefully, some tragically- but we all must go.

This issue has absolutely nothing to do with Terri Schiavo, and absolutely everything to do with abortion.  If you really believe that the likes of George Bush, Jeb Bush, Sean (You're A Great American, Marty) Hannity, Pat Robertson and the like really give a fuck about Terri Schiavo, then you are goofier than a wooden watch.

It is just sickening to watch how the religious right has exploited this sad situation.  I feel for the parents, because I have a daughter and I would feel the same way (maybe) if she were in that position.  But for the RRR (Radical Religious Right) to leech onto this family to advance their anti-abortion agenda would be unbelievable, if they hadn't time after time exhibited the depths of their Evil Depravity.

They will do anything.  They are capable of anything.  They have no morals, but they preach morality.  They have no values, but they preach values. They preach the "Rule of Law", but laws don't apply to them.  They preach democracy and they practice repression.  They preach compassion and they practice torture.  To quote the late, great Henry Miller, they have "the scruples of a rattlesnake and the morals of a clam."

They are Evil. They are destroying the United States of America.

The best thing that could happen in this case is that Terri Schiavo passes away quickly and this travesty ends.  But don't be fooled: the RRR will just latch onto some other poor suffering souls to advance their Evil Agenda.

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The year was 1965 and the place was Springfield, Missouri.  Springfield at that time was a thriving college town of 100,000 or so in Southwest Missouri.  Branson, Missouri was a few miles south, and wasn't even a wide spot in the road.  The only reason I'd ever heard of it was I had a girfriend from there.

Today Branson is a world-wide travel destination and no one has heard of Springfield.

I had transferred to Southwest Missouri State that year.  I had a good friend, Ernie Richardson (mentioned below in the Kesey post, actually) who played football for the University of Arkansas.  The U of A was football mad, having just won (shared) the national championship in 1964.  This is how good they were: Ernie was a Parade High School All-American at Poplar Bluff, Missouri High School, and he hardly ever played.  He was a star on a Poplar Bluff team that also included Warren Whitworth and Les Kingery, friends of mine also who were just as tough as Ernie.  Ernie didn't care if he played at Arkansas or not, actually- he was there on a full scholarship&nbs p;and looking to get an education.

A Dylan fanatic I am, and have been, since 1961.  There are a lot of us, but we didn't know that back then.  There was no communication, at least where I lived.  In 1965 I was in Springfield attempting college again, when I walked to the local Walgreen Drugstore for something or other.  As I routinely shuffled through the record bin (Walgreen had a large selection) I came across, out of nowhere, Highway 61 Revisited.  There it was, just setting there.  There he was, dressed weirdly and looking even weirder.  DYLAN.  I shoplifted it immediately (I'm not proud of this- but I was broke at the time, and nuts). That was on Friday.  I played it all night long in the attic where I lived, drinking wine with some friends.  It was like nothing we had ever heard before.

The next day I hitchiked to Fayetteville, Arkansas to visit Ernie.  I did this a number of times, hitchhiking through the desolate Ozarks with absolutely no hesitation or qualms. I traveled alone, with the clothes on my back and Highway 61 Revisited.  There was a game that weekend, and somehow Ernie and I ended up in a "coffeehouse".  Yes, they had coffeehouses in Fayetteville, Arkansas then.

I will never forget this.  The place was mobbed and they were playing recorded music on a stereo, and I asked the owner to play Highway 61. He did, immediately, and as the music set in the buzzing conversations stopped.  The record absolutely took over.  Everyone was trying to find out who/what it was. The proprietor played it over and over and over again.  When we finally stumbled out, he had someone out scouring Fayetteville for a copy.

You had to be there for the impact of that album.  There was no promotion, no tours posted on the internet, no hype. I don't even think Rolling Stone Magazine had started yet.  There were no cell phones, portable phones, cable TV stations, MTV, FM radio.  There were three TV channels, AM radio (if you were lucky) and whatever newspapers you could buy that were delivered to your area.  You might have been able to buy the Sunday New York Times in St. Louis, but you damn sure couldn't in Kansas City.

And that album hit the record bins, with Like a Rolling Stone, and changed music (and, to an extent, our culture, for better or worse) forever.  And, ironically, it's still that way for Dylan.  He tours always, but there is no hype.  If you don't seek him out, you certainly won't have him thrust upon you.

And during this week of March Madness-(there was no March Madness in 1965 either- UCLA was in the second year of a decade long domination of NCAA basketball)- a side note.  The aforementioned Poplar Bluff High School Mules basketball team just won the large (class 5) state championship for the second year in a row.  They beat the hell out of Vashon (St.Louis) who was ranked Number 1 in the USA Today prep poll, with a 60 game winning streak.  This thrashing dropped Vashon down to number 8.  The Mules could not crack the Top 25, in spite of a 28-4 record.

Yes, Things Have Changed.  But change is not, by definition, always a good thing.

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Now that the war in Iraq is over, I, along with many others, have moved on to other things.  Most recently I've been following the ongoing Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard concert which is making it's way across America.  This excites me because I am (1) A lifelong Bob Dylan fanatic; and (2) A lifelong Merle Haggard fanatic.

About that war.  We know the war is over for a number of reasons.  First of all, no one cares anymore except the families of those getting killed and maimed and going broke over there.  The press seems to have taken a pass.

Remember right after Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" how the big news was that we were still losing on average one soldier killed per day, day after day? That was big news.  Now, we lose on average more like 2-3 per day, month after month, but that is not newsworthy.  After all, we've only lost 1600 or so dead and 10,000 or so maimed, and that's not really that big a deal!

Why more than a couple of people get killed in car wrecks in New Jersey every day.  That's actually a small price to pay to spread freedom throughout the Middle East.

And freedom is spreading like wildfire, isn't it?  It's all over but the shouting.  Why, it's so obvious that the war is over that all of our Coalition of the Willing members are pulling out their troops.  It's OK to go home!  We won! 

About that Dylan/Haggard tour.  Merle Haggard is opening for Bob Dylan.  They never met until after the second show of this tour.  As a long time worshipper of both, I always wondered why Dylan never sang any of Haggard's songs.  He sang songs by everybody else. I always figured he was ticked off about 'Okie from Muskogee'.  Then a couple of months ago he sang 'Sing Me Back Home' and somehow this tour came about.

I personally think Dylan is the greatest everything, but I've been keeping an eye on old Merle.  Now as the reviews start to come in, more and more people are focusing on Hag.  From all accounts, he is putting on an outstanding show, and may be on the verge of upstaging Bob Dylan.  He is loose, joking, and kicking ass.  I saw him once in Reno twenty-five years ago, and he announced to the crowd that his music was geared toward two things: fightin' and fuckin'.  He seems to have that spirit again.

At the most recent show in Oakland he came out smoking with 20 straight minutes of Haggard kick-ass music before announcing to the crowd: "Hello, I'm Merle Haggard".  The crowd exploded in a standing ovation.

I'm lucky:  I've got tickets for the last show, at the small Beacon Theatre in New York City.

And the war is over!  Time to relax and enjoy life again. 

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Sometime in the early to mid seventies I read Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.  I have read all my life, and I had read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion as soon as they were published.  My good friend Ernie Richardson had somehow come across Kesey's first novel early on, and I'll swear a bunch of us in Poplar Bluff, Missouri were among the very first to read it.  Well, among the first few thousand, maybe, but still right out there.

In the seventies I was in Lake Tahoe, leading the wildest life humanly possible, along with a great friend, Mike Carson, who was even wilder that I (I think).  When I read the Wolfe book, I started tracking down the old haunts amongst the Redwoods where Kesey and The Merry Pranksters used to hang out, although they were long gone.  I also discovered, by calling information, that Kesey's home phone in Oregon was listed, and, as was my wont during that time, called him up.  The conversation was brief and to the point (I admired his books and might be up that way).  He replied, politely and softly, that if I was I should stop by.

One night after many days of drinking and doing everything else possible to our minds and bodies, Mike Carson and I decided in a moment worthy of (or perhaps surpassing) the late H.S. Thompson, to drive to Oregon -I think it was Pleasant Hills- near Springfield, anyway. It was at least 8 or 9 hours away, and involved driving through the High Sierras, the California redwoods, and along the Oregon coast.

We drove all night.  I think Mike drove, but we might have taken turns.  We both had bad habits of wrecking cars.  At some point in the night, after entering Oregon, we stopped at a bar and I tried to get some pot.  I'll never forget this, obviously- the bartender reached down below the bar and sold me some right on the spot.  He had a whole stash and they just sold it as a commodity.

Somehow we got to Pleasant Hills, and I got on the phone to Kesey.  He answered, and I told him we had driven up to see him.  He stated, very politely, that he and his family were in bed-it was very late- and maybe we could do that tomorrow.  Mike and I drove around and somehow found his house.  All I can remember was that it was nicer than I had expected and lights were on that emitted a soft warm glow.

Mike and I stood on the road outside Ken Kesey's house in the black Oregon night, deranged, and took a leak.  Then we got in the car and drove back to Tahoe.