Jorma Kaukonen
Leo Kottke
Bruce Cockburn
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contact: ken@kenkruger.com
The Cool Links
(click on any of these photos to visit their websites)
First, let's visit some of my favorite musicians:
Three of the world's greatest living fingerpickers...
Jorma Kaukonen
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Leo Kottke
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Bruce Cockburn
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More guitarists with freaky styles I dig...
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Stanley Jordan
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The late great Michael Hedges
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Phil Keaggy
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Keller Williams
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Steve Kimock
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Ani DiFranco
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Tuck and Patti
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Martin Sexton
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Miscellaneous other bands/musicians that have influenced me in one way or another...
The late great Reverend Gary Davis
best fingerpicker no longer living
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David Grisman
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David Wilcox
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Lightnin' Hopkins
The state of Texas gave this guy to the world. I guess it can be forgiven for giving us the Bushes. |
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Bela Fleck
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Yonder Mountain String Band
Dave Johnston is quite possibly the fastest banjo player on the planet...and these guys are tight. |
The Reverend Billy C. Wirtz
Words defy description...go see this guy if he ever comes to your town. |
Victor Wooten
Grooviest bass player in the known universe. |
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Jonathan Edwards
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John Scofield
Great jazz guitar composer...played with the late great Miles Davis back in the day. Speaking of whom... |
Miles Davis
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Phish
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The String Cheese Incident
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Jamie Thompson
I played in a band called Nomad with Jamie back in the early 90s when I was living in State College, PA. He taught me to be a better musician. And he's a fellow Cockburn-head. |
John Hartford
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Cartoon
Another local Penn State band. They occasionally get back together and make great music. |
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And now, the news...
I like to try and keep up with politics and current events. Almost all of the broadcast news out there, and much of the printed media as well, is owned by about 6 or 7 people. To say the media is slanted to the left or the right is to mislead. It has neither a liberal nor conservative bias. The major media does not exist to inform, or even to entertain. Its number one purpose of existence is to increase the stock price of the parent corporation that owns it. So when viewed with this interpretation in mind, the major network news can be very informative. Especially FOX.
However...sometimes you need to dig a little deeper to get the full picture. In the realm of the major media empires, in-depth, investigative journalism is almost non-existent. Some 300 full-time journalists were stationed outside the Michael Jackson courthouse for over a year. Care to guess how many were camped outside of Congress? Or Enron?
Good investigative journalism still exists. Here are a few alternative news sources to get you started:
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The Institute for Policy Studies
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Foreign Policy in Focus
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Greg Palast
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The National Resources Defense Council
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The Union of Concerned Scientists
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The Sustainable Energy and Economy Network
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Salon.com
You can watch a few commercials and get it for free, or sign up and skip the ads. |
Truthout.org
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And just for shits and giggles...
just kidding.
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And of course, the best news source of all, The Onion
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Here are a few sites I find invaluable during an election year:
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Congress.org
Here you can have immediate access to the current bills, voting records, and committee memberships of any senator or congressman. You can also type in your zip code and get the contact information of your congressmen and call them or write them an email. They are, after all, our employees. |
FactCheck.org
If you are one of those folks who base their vote on political ads, you should probably either (a) kill yourself to increase the intelligence level of the gene pool, or (b) come here first. These guys call bullshit on a regular basis on both the republicans and democrats, and the unbelievable amount of offal they like to sling around every 4 years. |
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Public Citizen/Congress Watch
This one is great. It's a public interest, non-profit, non-partisan watchdog group that can tell you exactly who is bankrolling your congressman, how much money they are getting, and how they are spending it. |
And finally, a few other miscellaneous sites for you...
R. Crumb is one of my favorite artists. His work leaps off the page...
And Emo Phillips, my all-time favorite stand-up comic. The man constructs a joke the way Salvador Dali paints a clock. I think it's the alien DNA...
Visit the Meatrix:
And finally, for all your toy and novelty needs:
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contact: ken@kenkruger.com
