"14 Principled Anti-War Celebrities We Fear May Have Been Kidnapped."

"Our government is yet again marching us towards a war of choice in the Middle East and our non-partisan, peace-loving celebrities have gone missing since late 2008. We fear the worst."

ADDED: We were just talking about this 2 days ago: "Where's Bruce Springsteen? He helped Obama get elected. Shouldn't he weigh in on the Syria question?"

"Where's Bruce Springsteen? He helped Obama get elected. Shouldn't he weigh in on the Syria question?"

Asks Meade, after he sings along awhile with the song I'm playing on my iTunes as a consequence of that "Oh" discussion in the previous post.

I say: "Yeah, what are all the celebrities saying about Syria? Are any of them talking now?" They loved to love Obama on the issues they loved to love him about. They helped America love him, and they looked so lovable loving him like that. But they won't look so pretty talking up a war, so I think they're off somewhere else. La la.

What was the song Meade sang? It wasn't Bruce Springsteen. I've got zero Springsteen in my iTunes. In that earlier post, we were listing our songs that begin with "Oh," and American Liberal Elite, tweaking the rules, said "Ohio." So here at Meadhouse, it was tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we're finally on our own....

And what does Neil Young think about Syria? Neil did have an Obama-era song about war. Guess what? War became complex and nuanced. He sang: "When I sing about love and war/I don’t really know what I’m saying." He explained that love and war are "very deep subjects."

You can’t possibly know what it means to somebody else. War to one person may mean a justified thing that’s happening for a very good reason, and another person may think that’s a terrible thing and never should have happened. And another person will be thinking that he lost his sister or his brother or his mother in the war and it was a waste of time. And another person could be thinking the exact opposite: that his brother went to war and gave his life for our country. So you can’t really have an opinion, although I have opinions and I’ve had them and I’ve made very loud statements about things. But that’s the way I felt at the time.

Back in the Bush administration, when he did an album called "Living With War"...

I was very outspoken about the anger I felt about certain things that were happening at that time in history. But again, I was no more right than the people who believed in it because it was such a big thing — how can you know? How can you know all of the reasons and everything that’s happening? I just don’t enjoy war. I’m not like a fan of war. And love can be very damaging, and it can be very good. So you just don’t know where to go with these things....

There's always Obama good, Bush bad. Love Obama. Hate Bush. Everything becomes so deep and complex when you're contemplating the one you love.

So I wrote about that — the quandary of not knowing what to do with any of those things. It’s kind of a useless point of view.

Oh! There's a little truth from a celebrity: It’s kind of a useless point of view.

“How do you ask a man to be the [first] man to die for a mistake?”

Meade IM's a rewrite of John Kerry's famous Vietnam question: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"



The rewrite is on the occasion of John Kerry's new role as Secretary of Defense State:

Kerry Becomes Chief Advocate for U.S. Attack

Jabbing his finger at the lectern, his voice forceful, his words brimming with indignation, John Kerry laid out the case like the prosecutor he once was, making a closing argument to a skeptical jury.

Again and again, some 24 times in all, he used the phrase “we know” as he described the intelligence that Syria’s government massacred more than 1,400 people with chemical weapons. And then, while saying no decision had been made, he left no doubt that the United States would respond with military power.

Here's Bruce Springsteen in 2007 — back when Bush was Prez and everything sounded different —  yelling and guitarizing the morality of "Last to Die":

Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Darlin' will tyrants and kings fall to the same fate
Strung up at your city gates
And you're the last to die for a mistake

I don't know, darlin', but darlin' Barack is President now. Let's check the Springsteen set lists. "Last to Die" is #108 on his most-played list and — by coincidence — it's been played 108 times. (For comparison: "Born to Run" is #1 and has been played 1347 times.) Springsteen has only played "Last to Die" 4 times during the Obama administration, 3 times in October 2009 and 1 last March. (The other 104 times were from September 2007, when it was first played, to August 30, 2008.)

Bruce's current tour is called the "Wrecking Ball Tour" so maybe his more into destruction these days, but I suspect the tour name is just a 64-year-old man's effort to maintain the ethos of rock and roll. Maybe he supports Barack Obama's military adventures, because, you know, it's Barack Obama, man.

I mean, I am just generally wondering, where are all the war protests? I was thinking about going down to the Capital Square this morning. It's a summer Saturday here in Madison, Wisconsin, and the crowds are there, at least for the Farmers Market. There should be some protesters, don't you think? Anti-war protesters, not just anti-governor-trying-to-balance-the-budget protesters.

But I'd like to see Bruce Springsteen whip out "Last to Die" and tweak it to "First to Die." 

Misread headline: "Poll Finds Disapproval of Record Collection, but Little Personal Concern."

Even with the NSA surveillance story at the top of the news this week, I clicked on that NYT headline and opened a tab fully expecting to get to a poll about the extent to which people decide they don't want a relationship with you after they discover — for example — that your Bruce Springsteen albums outnumber your Bob Dylan.

All morning I've been doing other posts and having in the back of my mind that I'd get to this interesting topic. Finally, I clicked on the tab....