Day: March 9, 2026

Joe McDonald–R.I.P.

The name may not mean much to the younger readers but I one served in Vietnam then Country Joe and the Fish was the anti-war song that meant the most.

The anti-war icon has died….

A voice that helped soundtrack the Vietnam era has gone quiet, USA Today reports. “Country Joe” McDonald, the frontman of Country Joe and the Fish and a defining figure of 1960s protest music, died Saturday in Berkeley, Calif., at 84 from complications of Parkinson’s disease, his band announced. He was “surrounded by his family,” according to the statement; no public memorial is planned.

Born Joseph Allen McDonald in Washington, DC, and raised in California, he served in the Navy before emerging in Berkeley’s folk and protest scene and co-founding Country Joe and the Fish in the mid-1960s. Their 1967 debut, Electric Music for the Mind and Body, helped cement San Francisco’s psychedelic rock sound, but McDonald became best known for his biting anti-Vietnam War song “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” (a “talking blues” song done in the “deadpan” style of Woody Guthrie, the Guardian reports) and his expletive-laced cheer at Woodstock—moments he later said “changed everything in America.” NPR calls the song “a signature anthem of the 1960s counterculture,” and the Woodstock performance “one of the defining scenes of the festival.” The cheer, however, did once get McDonald arrested and fined after he used it at a Massachusetts show.

After his band broke up, McDonald continued to perform and release solo work for decades, often focusing on civil rights, environmental causes, and humanitarian issues, before retiring to focus on his family. He also expressed consistent support for the troops, and was involved with veterans’ issues throughout his life. He is survived by his wife of 43 years, five children, and four grandchildren; the family suggests donations to Swords to Ploughshares or the Michael J. Fox Foundation in his memory.

For me his voice and conscience will be missed for he help us antiwar protesters get through all the torment….

Thank you for your help and your voice in protest to a dumb ass war…..you and your morals will be missed.

Plus old farts like me will not forget what you did in our name.

His most famous antiwar song in remembrance of a great musician for the cause.

Thank you Country Joe and may you rest in peace.

chuq

Vlad Gives Intel

The story broke that Russia may be giving intel on US assets to Iran for retaliatory strikes….

Russia has allegedly provided Iran with information that could help it strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region, two officials familiar with US intelligence said.

The officials, who were not authorised to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that US intelligence has not uncovered that Russia is directing Iran on what to do with the information as the US and Israel and Iran fires retaliatory salvos at American assets and allies in the Persian Gulf.

Still, it’s the first indication that Moscow has sought to get involved in the war that the US and Israel launched on Iran a week ago.

(euronews.com)

I have also read the concerns of some about this possibility.

Yes it is a dastardly move to help destruction to rain down on US assets….but think about it…..is not the US giving intel to Ukraine to be used in retaliatory strikes against Russia?

This is why I was not surprised by the news at all….for is that not what allies do in time of need?

But since Iran and Russia are trading partners this Donny war may be a windfall for Russia.

“For our budget, the attack on Iran is a big plus,” a Russian TV host proclaimed Monday. The Guardian digs into the potential truth of that statement. Russia’s oil and gas revenues are a linchpin of its war financing, and they hit a five-year low last year as sanctions squeezed the flow of exports and prices retreated. But disrupted Gulf supplies could push big buyers like India and China toward more Russian barrels, strengthening Moscow’s leverage after months of having to sell at deep discounts. “When a good fifth of global oil supply and roughly a quarter of seaborne trade is effectively locked up, that’s a boon for Russia,” energy expert Sergey Vakulenko tells the paper.

Some oil that had been languishing on tankers “will definitely find buyers” now, Vakulenko says, and likely at better prices. Al Jazeera reports the price of Russia’s Urals crude, battered by Western sanctions, hit a $40-per-barrel low in late February. On Monday, as the price of the international benchmark Brent crude jumped 13% to $82 per barrel, Urals was lifted to $57.

From a financial point of view this war makes good sense for Russia and the longer they can prolong the conflict the more profit can be made.

And is that not what war is all about….profits?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”