Month: January 2020

Tobey Keith – A Country Music Review

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Since nothing new has caught my attention in Country lately I’ve decided to do retrospectives on some of my favorite artists.  I’ll start with Tobey Keith.  I consider Tobey one of the most successful Country Music singers.  He has quite a number of songs that are truly excellent.  These are songs that you can play over any number of times without wearing them out.  And Keith has a variety of song types.  He has serious patriotic ones, comic ones and ones that sing about the vicissitudes of modern life.  He has a strong pleasant voice and he uses both country and western melodies with occasional rock and other music types.

Another aspect of Tobey Keith is his unashamed patriotism and his well-known support for the military.  Keith performed in Iraq during the war and embraced charities that helped the wounded soldiers and penned the song American Soldier as a tribute to the fighting men.

So, Tobey writes his own songs, has produced twenty-five albums, won numerous awards and is worth over five hundred million dollars.  Not bad for a country boy from Oklahoma.  But all that is beside the point.  He has a boatload of good country music and if you go through his greatest hits, you’re bound to find several that you’ll enjoy.  Well, at least, I think you will.

Here are a number of songs that I especially enjoy in the categories I’ve grouped them in.

Americana

Courtesy of The Red, White & Blue (The Angry American)

Made in America

American Soldier

Beer for My Horses

Should’ve Been A Cowboy

 

Modern Life

How Do You Like Me Now?

Whiskey Girl

Get Drunk and Be Somebody

Clancy’s Tavern

Stays in Mexico

 

Comic

Big Blue Note

As Good as I Once Was

Red Solo Cup

Get Out of My Car

A Use for the Senate Trial

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I anticipate this trial to be a ridiculous farce with the Dems attempting to use headlines as a way to force the Senate Republicans to cave on a long list of hostile witnesses in order to drag this thing out.  And the MSM will amplify their nonsense incessantly.  And hopefully Mitch McConnell will ignore all this and only provide the minimum time and air time to the Democrats.

What isn’t certain is how much of a show McConnell will allow.  If McConnell had 51 reliable votes, he could go for a preliminary vote to refuse to go through with the trial.  But as I’ll enumerate later there aren’t 51 reliable votes.  The next least offensive choice is to forgo any evidence and after the two sides make their opening statements have the Senate go directly to a vote on conviction.  That President Trump would win such a vote is a foregone conclusion.  After that we get to uglier scenarios.  If the President’s counsel and the House losers get to call witnesses this will be a three-ring circus complete with clowns and a freak show.

If I were to guess I’m going with a vote right after the opening statement.  That would seem to be the option that we know we have the votes for that does the least damage.

But one thing is certain.  A number of Senate Republicans will be turncoats and stab the President in the back.  What this Trial will do is expose all the unreliable and/or hostile Senate Republicans.  We can make a few assumptions ahead of time.  Mitt Romney will be a turncoat.  He’ll immediately start spouting Democrat talking points before even they do.  Susan Collins of Maine is the most vulnerable Republican due to the Massachusetts colonization of Maine over the last twenty years.  And of course, no list of unreliable Senate Republicans is complete without Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.  She voted against Justice Kavanaugh and she’ll vote against President Trump just because she can.  So, these are the knowns.  Who are the unknowns?  That is the good that will come out of this.  We’ll find every single weak-kneed sister and every double crosser in the Senate.

So, there you have it.  I have managed to come up with a bright side to the Impeachment travesty.  Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Nadler and the other nimrods have assembled this sideshow that I will make a definite point to avoid but based just on the voting transcript I’ll have a perfect count of the Senate Republicans that we can and cannot count on when the chips are down.  That’s my silver lining.

Another Foray into Telescopic Lenses with Sony A7 Series

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Last summer I got a super lame photo of a bald eagle at extreme range with a Sony 400mm and a 2X teleconverter.

But Camera Girl is a fan of these birds so we’re going on an expedition in the middle of February to get some better views.  And to take advantage I’ve rented the Sony FE 200–600 mm F5.6–6.3 G OSS for the occasion.  Here’s hoping we get some keepers.