Category Archives: Social Commentary

The Wichita Lineman

Who does the best cover?

Jimmy Webb was a great songwriter, but no one could ever do it better than Glenn Campbell. Though the James Taylor version is listenable.

What is really sad, is how unappreciated a guitar picker he was. Though you wouldn’t know it from the Wichita Lineman video.

And yes, the lyrics, can’t be beat: “And I need you more than want you…and I want you for all time…”

[Update a couple minutes later]

The genius of the Campbell arrangement was the morse code background in the chorus of the radio hit, though you won’t hear it in the linked video above. It’s sad and frightening how many memories listening to that song brings back. Reading the comments of people much younger at the video of the ’68 hit is even more poignant.

Heart Muscles And Fat

Gee, what do you know?

…eliminating or severely limiting fats from the diet may not be beneficial to cardiac function in patients suffering from heart failure, a study at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine reports. Results from biological model studies conducted by assistant professor of physiology and biophysics Margaret Chandler, PhD, and other researchers, demonstrate that a high-fat diet improved overall mechanical function, in other words, the heart’s ability to pump, and was accompanied by cardiac insulin resistance.

How many people has the FDA and the nutrition/industrial complex killed with the fatophobia over the past decades? I’m pretty sure my father was one of them.

And I continue to be amazed at how easy it is to find “low-fat” or “fat-free” products in the interior aisles of the grocery store (especially in the candy aisle…), but almost impossible to find low-sodium products.