Friday, April 18, 2003

18 April 2003
friday in pittsburgh

hi folks

so many people have written to tell me how immobilized and depressed they've felt since this war began. while i continue to write, fax, petition, sing and pray for peace i've found i need to do more to feel okay these days. i've started walking ... a *lot* ... trying to do 5 miles a day ...partly to get into better shape, but mostly to have some time to reflect and also to take in the splendor of the planet. the glories of spring are everywhere these days ... the crocuses, daffodils, tulips, lilacs, dogwoods, azaleas ... the trees in bloom ... enough to take your breath away, and constant reminders that life renews.

chris and i have been busy piling on the hours mastering and editing and getting the artwork ready for our new CDs. i've got all the very best labor songs i've ever recorded onto one 23 song CD called "Union Maid" ... the cover features the wonderful labor history mural of pittsburgh that my husband and i did for SEIU with students at Schenley High School ... my UPIU brother Randy McSorley dropped everything he was in the middle of to do the design (thanks!) ... it's got all the hits from 'united we bargain, divided we beg' onto CD for the first time -- 'are you now or have you ever been?', 'The US Steal Song', 'Schooldays End', "Solidarity Forever', "Which Side Are You On?" "Fannie Sellins" "Bread and Roses" "Are My Hands Clean?""Your Nursing Heart" "Punch It In" ... and then, from "Look to the Left" - "Scabs", "National Health Care Now!", "We Do the Work", "We Just Come to Work Here" ... from "Heartland" we picked "Union Maid", "After School", "the Sick Note" "Praise Boss" and "The Victim Gets the Blame" ...I went back to my 1987 cassette "If I Can't Dance It's Not My Revolution" to get "Do-Re-Mi" and "I'm Gonna Be an Engineer" and then, for good measure, I added "Whatever Happened to the Eight Hour Day?" and "War on the Workers" from "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?" It's almost 78 minutes of fabulous labor music!

It will be ready in time for Mayday, and I could really use some pre-orders, too. To reserve a copy, send a check for $15.99 (PA Residents add $1.05 Sales Tax) to Anne Feeney - 7206 Michigan Avenue - Pittsburgh, PA 15218

And before the Kerrville Folk Festival begins Chris and I will have 1000 copies of "LIVE FROM THE WHOLLY STOLEN EMPIRE" in our hands. Chris has outdone himself on the artwork this time, and he and i both agree it's a *wonderful* recording... Finally on one CD -- Carnivals #3, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, FL, 21st Century Skid Row Man, Cracker Jack Cure, Whoop, Top Banana, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Abyss, Chiapas, Freedom Is... and Martin Luther, Classic.

You can pre-order this CD too! Send a check for $15.99 (PA residents add $1.05 sales tax) to Chris Chandler, 7206 Michigan Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15218

We're off to Wisconsin for Earth Day to Mayday ... we're looking forward to our visit to the picket line of striking UFCW 538 workers at Tyson! Then on to New York City... please check the tour dates. See you on the road & in the streets!

In Solidarity
Anne

Sunday, April 06, 2003

This is a special wartime edition of
T h e M u s e a n d W h i r l e d R e t o r t

Volume 4 issue 7

Meeeep maneeep neep neep...insert graphic graphics of an American
soldier running slow motion through the desert to rescue a crying
baby.

Chiron overlay: "Americans wipe out Iraqi propaganda machine."

The Iraqi Horror Picture Show!

3-31-03
Washington, D.C.

Hey everybody, it's that time of the month again...
It's crazy out there, folks. (As if you needed to be told that.)
This time last month Anne and I were hopeful that this might just be
the first peace movement to actually stop a war. Ha! Reality makes
it extremely hard to try to be funny.

Believe me, I would much rather be writing about the first day of
Baseball – and the fact that the Orioles played their opener in the
snow.

Here in the nation's capital the snow is falling and the cherry
blossoms are in bloom. Perhaps Mother Nature herself is responding
with her own set of ironies. Happy spring. Perhaps this is Mom's own
April Fool's joke. We could all use a good laugh about now.
I stand in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House, just as I did
12 years ago. I was 26 and had been living out of a car for four
years, playing guitar on the streets and in subway stations, in
picket lines and at political rallies. Oil War I® started on my
birthday. Phil Rockstroh and I had camped out in the park for the
weeks leading up to the war, singing "Bush Lite," "Talkin' Lafayette
Blues," "Leave Iraq and Roll," and "Emotional Dyslexia."

At any given time, there were around 100 people staying 24/7. Our job
was to entertain the "permanent" residents of the park. We thought of
ourselves as George's nearest neighbors - thought he might drop by
sometime for a cup of foreign policy.

As with this war, there were "events" when our numbers would grow.
But always the drums rang out. George the First told a reporter that
our drums were keeping him up at night. We all thought that was
nothing compared with the sound of Patriot missiles falling on
Baghdad. (George the 2nd was at a Texas Ranger's Baseball game at the
time.)

When Oil War I® started, thousands of people came out to the park in
defiance. A spontaneous "snake march" erupted. We circled throughout
the city, calling out for others to join us. And they did! Boy
did they! We grew from a thousand to ten thousand in a couple of
hours as we marched through the streets.

The thing about marching through the streets, though, is that we
abandoned Lafayette Park and it filled with about a hundred counter-
demonstrators. As we rounded the corner returning back onto
Pennsylvania Avenue, we were met by mounted police, who began to spin
their horses in a 360, pushing us back into the park among the pro-
war folks and their shouts of "USA! USA! USA!"

Rocks and bottles began to fly. Fights erupted everywhere. It was
mayhem. I was on the front line where, we were all linked arms. When
the police swung their horses around, our lines broke. I was linked
with an 18-year-old kid. He fell on top of me as a horse ran us
over. He accidentally became my shield - he got beaten with a billy
club. I never did get his name. A friend, Barry the Balladeer, saw
us lying in the street, and he pulled us to safety.

The fights between the protestors, counter-protestors, and police
lasted for hours. It was clear that the police had caused the
disruption by forcing our ranks right into the middle of a hundred
counter-demonstrators. The next day when I read the paper, the
banner headline read, "It's War," of course. However, under the fold
was a minor article that read, "A couple of dozen protestors hobbled
down the street pelting police with rocks and bottles." It taught me
a valuable lesson: I knew then the support for that war was not near
what the paper claimed. This is doubly true for George the Second's
Oil War II. I think about this these days as I stand out in Lafayette
Park.

Today the snow has dampened the number of folks, but there has been a
24-hour vigil in front of the White House since the war started. A
couple of days ago, there were 65 arrests, including three Nobel
laureates. The next day, 25 people linked themselves together with
PVC pipe and blocked traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue. People handed
leaflets to commuters apologizing for the "inconvenience," but
compared with the inconvenience of bombs falling in public markets,
it seems pretty small. There were more than 200 arrests in New York
City a couple of days ago. In all, there have been far more arrests
of people protesting this slaughter than coalition casualties.

(OK, it's time to cut the "coalition" crap. No one else is on our
side it is the Anglo/American forces. Let's be honest here.)

Still, folks, I feel safer (yes, safer) because of the protests. At
least on some level, we are telling the world which is so justifiably
outraged at American arrogance that we Americans are not all
warmongering, shortsighted global capitalists. Thank God there
is worldwide condemnation. And those of you out on the streets
around the world, I hope you hear us in the Streets of Washington DC,
New York City, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Boise, and Peoria, Illinois
louder than you hear the Tomahawk® missiles.

Hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets across this great
country telling the world: We did not elect him and we are sorry for
what that mean-spirited child of privilege is doing. We support our
troops by trying to get them home.

You might be interested to know that while we "ANTI-AMERICAN RABBLE"
were out in the streets not supporting the troops by demanding their
immediate safe return, the patriots in Congress were busy actually
CUTTING veterans' benefits.... REALLY.

Though I did hear one congressman (I will let you guess which one)
say at a gathering I attended, "If you want to support our troops,
pay taxes on your dividends."

The awesome shock of the American military will take down a tiny,
impoverished country. Yet we have the audacity to say we will rebuild
that country with the profits from ITS oil! No, really: We say this
and no one bats an eye. Though it does make me realize that this is
not JUST about oil - it is about global capitalism. Those are not
refugees fleeing across the border - those are customers. Iraq has 24
million potential customers in it.

From that perspective, wouldn't we be making better customers if,
instead of spending $200 billion to destroy a county of 24 million,
we just bought it? The way we did Kuwait® and the United Arab
Emirates®? Or even better, we just gave the Iraqis $8,300 apiece?
That is what it works out to. Maybe we could open up a McDonald's in
Umm Qasr, the way we did in Kuwait City®. There, they just
introduced the McArabia Burger®. Really! Hell, with the exchange
rate that would be 20,000 McArabia burgers for each Iraqi. That is 4.8
TRILLION McArabia burgers.

How did that Biff Rose ditty go?
"Goin to McDonalds, Gonna stand in line.
Order a billion burgers and watch them change the sign."

Want an Apple Pie or Freedom fries® with that? (BTW, French's mustard
has released a new slogan: "The only thing French in French's is the
name.")

As we drive through our fast-food fairyland, we have Basra -a city
the size of this one - fully under siege, and a humanitarian crisis
of biblical proportions rages just outside of Babylon. We seem to
be having trouble getting humanitarian aid in yet our "smart bombs"
have no trouble whatsoever. Hmmm…. at $40 million apiece, doesn't it
seem as if our money would have been better spent with precision-
guided food bombs?

Now, why is it they hate us?

We complain that Iraqis in civilian clothes attack us. Yet look to
our own history: What were the battles of Lexington and Concord? If
it were not for civilians taking it upon themselves to attack an
"occupying" army the shot heard round the world would have been the
shot heard round the mulberry bush.

We complain about Iraqis flying a white flag and then attacking us.
Yet look to our own history: Crazy Horse was lured out of the
Canadian wilderness by the United States Army under a flag of
truce...and then murdered.

How can we claim that Iraq is violating the Geneva Convention in a
war that itself is a violation of the Geneva Convention?

We scratch our heads, befuddled, when the Iraqi people do not rise up
and join the invading army to rid themselves of Saddam's tyranny. Yet
look to our own history: Southern slaves and free blacks actually
joined the Confederacy en masse (larger numbers than joined
the North though it is not PC to say as much, nor does it make good
Hollywood movies) to stem the tide of an invading army even though it
meant the perpetuation of their own slavery.

Isn't the lesson obvious? Invasion trumps tyranny. You cannot
liberate a country that does not want to be liberated.
It is as if in 1959 Red China invaded Alabama to liberate African-
Americans from Jim Crow. Would you really expect American blacks
running through the streets of Birmingham waving Chinese flags and
shouting, "Long Live Chairman Mao?" Get real, folks.

An Iraqi taxi driver attacked American supply lines with a suicide
bomb and the U.S. media called it a terrorist attack. What I want to
know is, When do they get to be defenders and not terrorists?

Yes, I do have sympathy with the young men who lost their lives, and
their families. But they were soldiers in the line of duty who were
killed by the Iraqi militia -- not terrorists. And while we are on the
subject: As I sit here in Washington, D.C., under Homeland Security
Code Jolly Olly Orange® - my duct tape and plastic sheeting always
close at hand I wonder if, when an Iraqi national drives a gasoline
truck or chemical truck or worse into a military base (or, for that
matter, any target as loosely defined as we have defined "military"
targets in Baghdad) right here in Washington, D.C., will it be
called a terrorist attack?

I will not feel safer with Saddam Hussein "out of the way." I will
feel safer with George Bush® out of the way. My god, how can one
lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein? We will not have any
better luck carving up Iraq than Winston Churchill did at the end of
the First World War.

The only thing that makes me feel safer is the hundreds of thousands,
yes, millions of voices out there on American streets telling the
world loudly that WE DO NOT SUPPORT THIS WAR!
Yours,
Chris Chandler
*******
Our Live CD "Live From the Wholly Stolen Empire" is being finished!
Last chance – if any of you have a recording you thing might could
make it on the CD! We are aiming for a May release – in time for
Kerrville and the kick off of summer festival season.
*******
Anne is still not smoking! (and she never mentions it)
*******
Chris' Retrospective ("If I had any hits these would be the greatest")
is in the works. It will be interactive and contains two previously
unreleased music videos of "This is not a folk song" and "Evil (is
boring")
*****
My friend Jim Infantino has created this for your amusement – Ifing
ya gotta decent computer check out http://www.slabmedia.com/slab.html
then click "state of security"
*****

In general we are looking for work in the Washington DC area… if you can help!

HERE IS DA DATES!

April 9-11 Holed up in a studio mixing and mastering our new CD! "Live from the Wholly Stolen Empire."
if any one there knows of some stuff for us to get into please let us know!

Saturday, April 12 - Dogwood Festival - Atlanta, GA
http://www.dogwood.org/ Piedmont Park. 2:00 PM

Sunday, April 13 Atlanta, GA Java Monkey 9:00 PM (Downtown Decatur)

Fri. April 25th 8:00 pm UW-Madison Memorial Union
(TITU) Earth Day to May Day Concert with troubador
folksingers: Anne Feeney, Chris Chandler, and Vicki
Guzman. Part of the Madison Earth Day to May Day
Celebration. Info? #262-9036 or #255-1800.

Sat April 26th noon - Picnic & Rally for striking UFCW workers at Tyson Foods in Jefferson.

Sat. April 26th 6:30 - 11:00 pm James Reeb
Unitarian Universalist (2146 E. Johnson) Community
Commemoration of the Bombing of Guernica.
Refreshments, open mic, and Sing-a-Long with Anne
Feeney, Chris Chandler, Vicki Guzman, Dave Stoddard,
Kristine Pettersen, Ben Manski, and others. Part
of the Madison Earth Day to May Day Celebration.
Info? #262-9036 or #255-1800.

Monday, April 28 - Milwaukee, WI - WisCOSH & the Milwaukee Labor Council commemorate
Workers Memorial Day. Concert at Zeidler Park (5:00 pm to 6:00 pm) and marching over to
Postal Union Hall for a dinner (6:00 to 8:00 pm)

May 2003
Thursday, May 1 - Mayday at the American Labor Museum, Haledon, NJ - 7PM


Friday, May 2 - NY Pinewoods Folk Club; Adm: $13 (members, $10, Polytech students and staff free). At: Polytechnic University, Wunsch Student Center, just over the Brooklyn or Manhattan bridges in Brooklyn; Info: 1718-549-1344 (after 11 AM).

Saturday, May 3 - House Concert - New York, NY
Contact Mark Aaron James details TBA

Sunday, May 4 - Cherry Tree Folk w Jim Page!
3916 Locust Walk – U Penn 215 386 1640

May 9-11 (Anne solo) - Regina Polk Leadership Conference for Union
Women - Chicago, IL

May 11 - 12 North of Baltimore MD, Susquehanna Fest

Ramblewood Park near Havre de Grace 301 847 1523
Saturday, May 11 3:00 PM Pavilion Stage (Chris solo)
Sunday, May 12 12:00 PM Pavilion Stage (Chris and Anne in a workshop)
Sunday, May 12 3:00 PM Stage 3(Chris and Anne in a concert)

****
We are mapping our trip to and from Kerrville as I write this and are
looking for dates in Louisville, KY, Cincinnati, OH, St Louis, MO,
Tulsa, OK, Lexington, KY, Little Rock, AR, Nashville, TN, Dallas, TX,
Houston, TX and not in that order! If you have some ideas and or
offers – PLEASE let us know asap!

*****
Thursday, May 29 - 8 PM - Kerrville Folk Festival - Kerrville, TX
Threadgill Theater with The Road Dog Divas!
Coming in July – The Oregon Country Fair, Music Fest (Courtenay, BC)
and a full west coast tour! If you have any ideas or offers here –
please let us know ASAP!

Saturday, April 05, 2003

The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head There is an emerging second superpower, but it is not a nation. "Instead, it is a new form of international player, constituted by the "will of the people? in a global social movement. The beautiful but deeply agitated face of this second superpower is the worldwide peace campaign, but the body of the movement is made up of millions of people concerned with a broad agenda that includes social development, environmentalism, health, and human rights.
Anne Feeney: unionmaid, hellraiser and labor singer How is it that we persuade Iraq not to defy the UN by defying the UN ourselves?
How is it that we use our weapons of mass destruction on innocent civilians to convince Iraq that we condemn the use of weapons of mass destruction?
How dare we call for regime change in Iraq when our own leader is "an unelected" fundamentalist idealogue who claims a personal hotline to God?
George Orwell was clearly lacking in imagination.
chris_chandler_and_anne_feeney_news Hey everybody, it's that time of the month again...

It's crazy out there, folks. (As if you needed to be told that.) This time last month Anne and I were hopeful that this might just be the first peace movement to actually stop a war. Ha! Reality makes it extremely hard to try to be funny.

Believe me, I would much rather be writing about the first day of Baseball - and the fact that the Oriels played their opener in the snow.
once i saw you had signed in then i was able to click your admin priviledges, so you now have templates, team and settings visible

i had envisioned it as a place for the whirled muse retort to be posted and archived where several people can edit and update and fill in blanks as the month goes along augmented (and updated) by adding items of interest you collect, contribute or create between issues of Whirled Retort, but of course you can use this for all that you suggested as well: posts can be temporary or permanent, and older posts go into the archives after a week or so and any extraneous entries can be deleted and of course any post can be updated by clicking edit
ok, the templates are now visible to you anne, you would have seen them right away had you set up the blog, since you asked me to set it up i have to enable admin access for you, (done) and then either of us can enable chris when he replies to the invite email
hmmmmmmmmmmmm... i'm not finding the templates... but i seem to have figured out how to post... most convenient...

soooooooooo.... are you suggesting that we no longer have the tour dates section on the webpage, but instead a link to here? likewise with the postcards? or are you suggesting that we use this as the place where i put up stuff for you to put on the webpage?

i'm not sure i get the magic yet...
but it is cool to be able to just post like this...

Friday, April 04, 2003

as soon as you get to your dashboard try experimenting with templates (there are quite a few to choose from and this was just a whim) and putting some text here
in safe mode you can see how i code this

rawblogXport

and you insert an image with this code



just change the actual url and then jump over and between the > and you insert the text to be made into a live link
hi, got it this time, whirled_retort is yours, just reply to this invite, log in with user name and password and when i see you show up on the dashboard i will select administrator for each of you so you can choose templates and modify discription in settings, stay away from archives for a while until you get it all worked out and then we will republish archives

also we will hold off on customizations for a while til you get it sorted out as customizations (links in the columns etc) are lost when you change templates

you will just log in and then type or paste in the top box and hit post or post and publish, in settings look for a bookmarklet called *blog this* and drag the link to your favorites bar -- then when you are on a page and have some text highlighted and click *blogthis* then the page title (changeable) becomes the live link and the text is sent to your blog dashboard as post or direct to blogsite as entry. take a look at rawblogXport to see the system in action.

now, in the lower window is *edit* -- well when you *blog this* most quotes and dashes are converted to question marks ? and you have to hand edit them out and replace with correct symbol

happy blogging, once you have signed up from then on you go to http://www.blogger.com/ and sign in then to your dashboard, then when you publish you go to the whirled_retort page which should show up in about half an hour

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

Anne's earthlink archive-gpm

"The Anne Feeney web page for the Great Peace March and for her new CD If I Can't Dance"  
     
              
                                                                                             


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wildwimmin.jpg

The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear
                           Disarmament evolved from another peace effort, PRO-Peace. Formally organized on April 2, 1985, by David Mixner of Los Angeles,
                           California, PRO-Peace envisioned raising $20,000,000 to send 5000 marchers 3000 miles eastward to Washington D.C. The march
                           departed from Los Angeles on March 1, 1986, with only 1200 participants and a fraction of the needed monies in hand. The marchers
                           soon began to realize that the collapse of PRO-Peace was imminent and some began to organize a new structure to take its place.
                           On March 14, while camped near Barstow, California, they received word from David Mixner that PRO-Peace no longer existed.
                           Many marchers departed but those who remained incorporated on March 19 into the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.
                          

A Statement of Purpose was approved with the following preamble "The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament
                           is an abolitionist movement. We believe that great social change comes about when the will of the people becomes focused on
                           a moral imperative. By marching for nine months across the United States, we will create a non-violent focus for positive
                           change; the imperative being that nuclear weapons ar politically, socially, economically and morally unjustifiable, and that,
                           in any number, they are unacceptable. It is the responsibility of a democratic government to implement the will of its people,
                           and it is the will of the people of the United States and many other nations to end the nuclear arms race."

The GPM,
                           also known as Peace City and now numbering approximately 600, resumed its eastward walk on March 28.

The marchers
                           crossed the United States through California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
                           New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. On November 15, 1986, they marched into DC, despite the predictions of failure, almost
                           1200 strong again. About 15,000 people were there to greet them--many of those had helped the march or were inspired by it.
                           Concluding ceremonies were held the following day in Meridian Park, followed by speeches in front of the White House, and
                           closing ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial. Rev. Jesse Jackson was among the speakers at the Lincoln Memorial.

The
                           March itself was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. What happened between leaving LA and arriving in DC is the real story,
                           and it is different for each of the marchers who made that journey. Some of the transformation is palpable in this exciting
                           recording.

Producer Anne Feeney remembers:

"Getting involved in the March was one of the best things that ever
                           happened to me. I had two young children, and I was very concerned about the arms race. During the Reagan years it was pretty
                           easy to drift into cynicism and helplessness. Enter Wild Wimmin for Peace. It was late September of 1986, and they were nearing
                           the end of a journey that had begun almost six months before. I didn't have much in the way of expectations when I was asked
                           to present this 20 womon ensemble of peace marchers. I figured they were activists, not artists, and that the show would be
                           boring and preachy. NOT! I was so wrong! Their energy and optimism and tribalism and spiritualism and humor and talent just
                           blew me away. I couldn't get their music out of my head.

By October 2, I had gotten our local peace and justice center,
                           the Thomas Merton Center, and East Hills NOW to co-sponsor the project. I raised enough money from individual donors to the
                           Merton Center and NOW to finance the project. I convinced Don Bell, one of the very few professional sound engineers in Pittsburgh,
                           to dismantle his studio and take it to the Great Peace March campsite, which by then was 80 miles out of town in Bedford,
                           PA. The marchers, facilitated by Liz Marek and others, consensed and consensed about the details of how this recording would
                           be used. In the end, everyone waived all rights to any of the proceeds from the sale of the recording as long as no one was
                           going to benefit except for peace and feminist groups worldwide. The Merton Center and NOW were to make copies available at
                           cost to any non-profit peace or feminist organization. Wild Wimmin for Peace wanted any marcher who agreed to the concept
                           to be able to participate, so there are several additional songs on the recording.

I knew nothing about licensing the
                           work of other artists, so everyone agreed not to do any 'cover' tunes unless they were traditional songs. We had a fabulous
                           recording session and I went home with the Beta 2 track master to figure out which takes would be used on the recording. I
                           had it mastered and the liner notes nearly finished when I got a call from Liz. On the way into Harrisburg, PA, one of the
                           marchers had told Liz that she was pretty sure that the song "Bridget Evans" was written by someone named Jill or Judy Small
                           from England or New Zealand or Australia. Their performance of "Bridget Evans" was fantastic and I really wanted it on the
                           recording. Ack! I was crazy. How would I ever find this composer? How would I convince her to waive her royalties? I opened
                           my most recent copy of SingOut! magazine -- I thought perhaps someone at the magazine might recognize the song. To my amazement,
                           the issue I had randomly pulled from the shelf contained a feature on Australian songwriter Judy Small.

SingOut! gave
                           me the phone number of Redwood Records, Judy's US label. Someone at Redwood told me Judy was touring in the US and gave me
                           a phone number where I could reach her. I dialed the number and found myself talking to Ronnie Gilbert (of the Weavers)!!!
                           Ronnie put Judy on the phone. I told her about our project. She was so enthusiastic that I played the tape to her over the
                           phone. She arranged to have Wild Wimmin open for her in Philadelphia. (She also waived all royalties from the recording --
                           thanks, Judy!)

I had 500 copies ready by the time the marchers reached their campsite on Staten Island. We sold all
                           500 copies that weekend in New York. I returned to Pittsburgh with enough money to give both co-sponsoring organizations $1000
                           and also order another 1000 tapes. I took them to Washington, DC on November 15, and we sold all 1000 copies to the 15,000
                           activists who had shown up to celebrate the end of the march at the Lincoln Memorial.

Since its hasty production on
                           October 2, 1986 this recording has made its way all over the world, raising tens of thousands of dollars for peace and feminist
                           groups from the Nevada Test Site to Greenham Common. The marchers touched the lives of many people in profound ways that we
                           may never completely document or understand. I cherish the great times I had with Liz Marek, one of the moving forces in Wild
                           Wimmin for Peace (as well as in the production of this recording). Liz perished on Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. And
                           it's with sadness that I report the passing of Ginny Dean, whose sweet voice is heard on most of these tracks. When this recording
                           was first released the US and Soviet Union were poised in a nuclear standoff. Global thermonuclear destruction seemed almost
                           inevitable. The dangers are different today, but our work is more necessary than ever. The original cassette liner notes said
                           "Take the positive energy from this recording and use it to teach peace." Still good advice.

                          

                       

                             
                             
                             
                       
annefeeney6.jpg

                             
                             
                       
Announcing the release of "If I Can't Dance"
                           -- 16 songs that are sure to get your toes tapping -- all in the joyous revolutionary spirit of Emma Goldman.  Starting
                           with "Emma Goldman" - a wonderful tune by Paul Gailiunas and his wife Helen, and ending with Suzanne Buirgy's touching
                           "Lullaby," this CD features some of the most-requested material from Anne's previous cassette releases as well as six songs
                           recorded in June 2006 at Wilkin Audio in Pittsburgh. 

                          


                          

Longtime Anne Feeney fans will appreciate
                           the inclusion of "Dr. Jazz," and "The Sheik of Araby," her two show-stopping duets with D.C. Fitzgerald.  And old pal
                           and fiddling wizard Bob Banerjee returns to the current sessions for work on "Lullaby" and "Let Their Heads Roll," complementing
                           his early work on "Phil the Fluter's Jam," "Amelia Earhart's Last Ride," and "Dr. Jazz."  Those early sessions of Bob's
                           were his first studio work. Bob has gone on to work with Gaelic Storm, the Irish band featured in the film "Titanic."
                           Once again, Anne has recorded a song by her friend and mentor, Jon Fromer.  This time it's Fromer's collaboration with
                           Bernard Gilbert, "My Feet Are Tired," a very danceable tribute to Rosa Parks and the thousands of people whose sacrifices
                           led to the success of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.

                          


                          

Janis Coppola's fantastic clarinet work
                           brings excitement to Roy Zimmerman's hilarious "Defenders of Marriage," and pathos to Ted Warmbrand's evocative, "Who's the
                           Criminal?"

                          


                          

Like the cover art, which is an updated
                           reworking of Anne's trademark logo (with Andy Warhol's inspiration), this CD features some of Anne's best early work, which
                           can be seen in new ways as it blends with some of the best in contemporary folk music.  Jack Erdie's "Let Their Heads
                           Roll" is a consummate protest song in the spirit of Phil Ochs -- one of Anne's earliest inspirations.  Anne's searing
                           "Shell Game," written in 1991 and appearing first on "Look to the Left," is prophetic in hindsight. And her beautiful Spanish
                           translation of "I Married a Hero" - "Me Casé con un Heroe" - serves as the perfect lead-in to "Who's the Criminal?"

                          


                          

Anne's rap reworking of the old Irish standard,
                           "Phil the Fluter's Ball" is hilarious. Complete with scratches and hip-hop uilllean pipes, this rendition may prove once and
                           for all that rap was invented by the Irish (or, it may prove that Anne doesn't get enough sleep.)

                          


                          

Sample all sixteen tracks at CDBaby, and
                           add this latest recording to your collection today!

                          

                       

                       
                          
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                  
                                   
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Order NEW CD
                                   

                                               
                                

                                                  
                                   
Order the Great Peace March
                                   

                                               
                                

                                                  
                                   
Chandler's Web Site
                                   

                                               
                                

                       
                             
                       
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This concert review by John Hayes ran in the Pittsburgh
                                       Post-Gazette on October 29, 1999.

                                      

                                   

                                               
                                

                       
                             
                       
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unionmaid@annefeeney.com
                       

                       
                    

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Anne's earthlink archive-wmd




+ Workers' Memorial Day +



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Listen to War on the Workers



There is growing concern among all Americans as the death toll mounts in Iraq...
close to a hundred this month alone.  We remember how the 58,000 American deaths over the course of the war in Vietnam
just about tore this country apart.

Do you know how many US workers die every year as a result of going to work?
 

Most people are flabbergasted to learn that 60,000 death claims are paid annually
for work-related deaths. That's more *every* year than all GIs killed during the entire course of the Vietnam war.... almost
20 times the number who died on September 11, 2001. That's 164 workers every day. 

About one in ten of
those workers dies instantly ... The newspapers tend to chronicle these "tragic accidents" as human interest stories --
falls, electrical shocks, trucks jack-knifing, fires, collapsing walls in buildings, ditches, mines that take the lives of
some 6000 workers a year ...but the newspaper coverage seldom, if ever, looks into the often completely preventable causes
of these deaths -- workplace speedups, lack of proper safety equipment, mandatory overtime, shoddy substandard unregulated
construction, inadequate staffing. 

Only in the most outrageous cases, as when owners of the Imperial Foods
poultry processing plant in Hamlet, NC claimed that they "had to lock their workers
inside" to "keep them from stealing chicken parts," (twenty five workers burned to death on September 3, 1991), do we see
any investigation into employer fault. And even in that case, there was no trial.  Plea bargains and deals, but no real
punishment, and no real compensation to the victims or their families.

... Nine out of ten workers who die from
going to work do not even get a human interest story ... tens of thousands privately suffer lingering deaths from silicosis,
asbestosis, brown lung, black lung, cancers contracted from continued workplace exposure to carcinogens. 

It
remains to be seen how many work-related deaths will result from the workers who cleaned up toxic lower Manhattan in the aftermath
of September 11th ... It will not surprise safety and health experts if that death toll greatly exceeds the number killed
when the planes hit the buildings.
 
Our continent is covered with monuments to slaughtered workers... And corporations
still treat workplace safety the same way they treat pollution ... with a cost/benefit analysis.  Is it cheaper to fix
it or to pay the fines?  When it comes to workers' lives, it's almost always cheaper for companies to risk the fines
than it is to protect their workers.  I'm paraphrasing slightly here, but at a Workers' Memorial Day in Springfield,
IL in the early 90's I heard Lynn Martin, then Secretary of Labor, say to the assembled crowd of workers, "Employers have
made mistakes of judgment in the past ... treated their employees as if they were expendable... but now we now that workers
are valuable assets to companies, who make huge investments in their training."  That was the enlightened corporate-speak
of the early 90s and things have really deteriorated since then.

When workers do stand up to corporations, they're
in for the battle of their lives...


There is almost certainly some sort of Workers' Memorial Day observance
near you this April 28.  Click on the adjacent box to find the event nearest to you if you live in the US.



Worldwide, the conservative estimate of annual workplace deaths is 335,000.
For observances outside of North America try the
TUC -http://www.countmeincalendar.info/countme/CMICampaigns.nsf/UNIDs/AAD23CAC2ABA067185256DD700409E78

Workers' Memorial Day began in Sudbury, ON - certainly a dangerous place to work
-
http://www.clc-ctc.ca/campaigns/4-28/backgroundA-e.htm has information for Canada.

Remember Mother Jones' words: "Mourn the dead
and fight like hell for the living."  Raise your voice every day for a safe workplace. 

 



Listen to Harry Stamper's fabulous We Just Come to Work Here


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Click on the photo to hear "War on the Workers"
War on the Workers
or Harry Stamper's "We Just Come to Work Here"


Miners' Monument at Ludlow, CO
Ludlow Monument
Read about the desecration & restoration





Utah Phillips



"Anne Feeney is the best labor singer in North America." -- Utah Phillips



Visit annefeeeney.com
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"If I had a cause--and who doesn't--I'd want Anne Feeney singing for me." Stephen Ide, Dirty Linen




"Her genuine warmth and connection with the audience are apparent." -- Laura Post, Sing Out






"Anne Feeney seems to have arrived at the 21st century well ahead of most of her contemporaries." --Peggy
Seeger




"Your music rings with a resonance of all that Peter, Paul and Mary has attempted to share." -- Peter Yarrow









This is a mural that Swedish artist Julie Leonardsson and I did with Ron Kalla's students at Schenley High School. It was
commissioned by the Service Employees International Union Convention. It depicts most of the significant events in Pittsburgh
labor history. It's mixed media -- collage & acrylic, and it's 12 feet wide and 8 feet high.





Julie Leonardsson just won a national award in Sweden for "best picture of 2001" with this satirical drawing of Prime Minister
Goran Persson with his cabinet ministers.





IN STOCK RECORDINGS *********************
HEARTLAND - Praise Boss * What Ever Happened to the Eight Hour Day? * War on the Workers * Irish Jokes * The Sick Note * Winter,
Go Away! * Football Hero * Rebuild America/Keep Hope Alive! * Ungrateful Child * Oh Bessie (Blues for Bessie Smith) * Power
of Love * The Victim Gets the Blame * After School * Tender Mercies * Afrika * Union Maid (1995) Live from corporate-ravaged
southern Illinois. cassette or CD *********** LOOK TO THE LEFT - Look to the Left * Ain't I A Woman? * Crooked House * Shell
Game * I Married A Hero * Me Case con un Heroe * We Just Come to Work Here * Scabs * National Health Care, Now! * Why Can't
I Have Nintendo? * We Do the Work * Raving Beauty * Record Time (1992)cassette or CD ********* UNITED WE BARGAIN, DIVIDED
WE BEG! - The U.S. Steal Song * We Do the Work * Fannie Sellins * Are My Hands Clean? * Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?
* Bread and Roses * We Just Come to Work Here * Your Nursing Heart * Punch It In * Which Side Are You On? * School Days End
* Solidarity Forever (1990)cassette only *********** THERE'S A WHOLE LOT MORE OF US THAN THEY THINK -- I Married A Hero *
Oak Tree * Ms.Ogyny * Queen Mary * All the Way Around * Take Them Down! * Terrorist * B Side * Whatever You Say, Say Nothing
* Only One * Dear Mr. President * The Galaxy Song/That's A-Plenty (1990) cassette only ***************** IF I CAN'T DANCE
IT'S NOT MY REVOLUTION -- Do-Re-Mi * Here's to You Rounders * A Chat With Your Mom * Dr. Jazz * I'm Gonna Be an Engineer *
Too Many Daves * S-A-V-E-D * Monkey Business * Amelia Earhart * Sheik of Araby/The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave to Me * Your
Mind is on Vacation * No Man's Land * Take Them Down! (1987) cassette only ******* GRAFTON STREET -- Whiskey in the Jar *
Mountains of Mourne * My Brother Sylvest * Nancy Whiskey * Arthur McBride * Wild Colonial Boy * Lark in the Morning * The
Dutchman * Spancill Hill * Phil the Fluter's Ball * Rising of the Moon * The Men Behind the Wire * Hey, Ronnie Reagan! (1987)
cassette only






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