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I'm always in search of new (to me) and great music. Tell us what you're listening to, why you connect with it, etc. Provide links to songs or lyrics where possible. I've always been a fan of the great Canadian band,The Tea Party. As I write this the song playing is "Lament" by the lead singer of that band from a solo project, Jeff Martin. In this version he cuts into "I am stretched on your grave", a 17th century Irish Poem. I can't find the album version on YouTube: Mumford and Sons is a phenomenal band and very popular. "Dust Bowl Dance" is good on the album version but it is OUTSTANDING live. Check out the video:

The United States, considering itself an example of freedom and democracy is actively imposing its vision around the world. At the same time, the concepts "freedom" and "democracy" being a thinking foundation of majority in American society are represented by universal values. However, Americans regardless with other people`s views, opinions and tastes consider that "freedom" is doing everything the way they want to. As a result, American "freedom" and "democracy" actually turns out to be nothing more than an illusion and manifestation of double standards. An example is a phenomenon of racism in the United States. The previous US leader Barack Obama being the only African-American president in the country`s history foreshadowed the end of racism from both a legal and political point of view. However, the coming to power of Donald Trump, almost "the whitest from all white Americans" showed that at social level racism has not lost its power. Moreover, according to data released in 2017 by The Center for research on hatred and extremism at the University of California, the number of racist attacks harshly increased, especially in big American cities such as New York and Chicago. This is evidenced by harsh increase of violence explosion motivated by racial hatred after the winning of D. Trump, which gave a courage to racists, first of all, by the fact that almost every statement he used was derogating people who are not rich, white, Christian or male. The courage broke out in august 2017 in Virginia State, which was the epicenter of tension during the Civil War between North and South. At that time, the decision of local authorities to demolish a monument to the commander of the Confederate army, the leader of racist and right-wing extremist movements of the United States that was located in a small town of Charlottesville State, was met with protests. On the streets of that town was held a torchlight procession with obvious signs of sympathy to Ku Klux Klan, and in counterbalance took place an anti-racist demonstration. Protests of the members of the opposite views went into serious collision with loss of lives. The fact that racist-nationalists, having clashed with their opponents, came to the protests because of the monument with weapons is the most important indicator that racism continues to exist in the United States. This is evidenced by long-term racist statements of online-showman Roseanna Barr. But despite that fact, "ABC" TV channel gave a green light to restart the show "Roseanna" for the second season taking advantages of the high ratings of the show. Artists, scenarists and producers decided to support the show, despite the racism of its co-author. That connivance led to the fact that on May 29, 2018, R. Barr wrote on her Twitter about the former senior adviser of President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett, using the racist statement about the connection of African-Americans with monkeys. And only after that accident people finally paid attention on her racism. Her agents "ACM Partners" stopped representing her interests. Comedian Wanda Sykes, who was a consultant to restart the show "Roseanne", announced that she was leaving the show. Within a few hours, the "ABC" channel removed the new "Roseanne" show from the broadcasting grid, and the repeated showing of this show disappeared from the air of "T-V Land", "C-M-T" and "Paramount network". However, many of R. Barr`s Twitter followers revel in freedom and permission to be racists because the restart of the show helped to appearance of situation when white people feels themselves extremely comfortable as they are "the policemen for black bodies" in a social space. Thus, if white people do not like something, in their opinion, in behavior of African-Americans, they just call the police immediately, even if there is not any impermissible or criminal action. For example, the police was called because of the one of African-American post-graduate student of Yale University, who fell asleep in her community dormitory room, and as a result, she had to prove that she had rights to be in her dormitory in her university campus. The police was called in South California because of the fact that black women were packing their baggage into a car, black teenagers were shopping in "Northstome Rek" in St. Louis, and black women in Pennsylvania were playing the golf too slowly. The police was also called because of one white woman did not like that black people were frying the barbecue using a coal grill on public territory in Aukland, California State. And in April in Philadelphia two men were arrested for attending a public café "Sturbacks" being black colored skin people. In every of these situations white people took upon themselves a role of "policemen for black bodies" directly in public places. They thought that they have rights to do it because of the racism that they used for arbitrary determination of behavior boundaries that was acceptable for black people. They thought that they have rights to do it also because the racism allows to one group of people to feel themselves higher and have a power upon others. Meanwhile, the double standards exist in America. And here is important to note a hip-hop music which is very popular and traditionally was written and listened by black colored skin teenagers from a working class. So it led to the fact that a slang of African-American people became a linguistic basis of hip-hop music. Meanwhile, African-American teenagers are trying to strengthen their solidarity and self-consciousness using the word "nigger" as an interclass term. This word helps black men to identify themselves as "inventive and pragmatic winners" of racial injustice. Nowadays, the word "nigger" is marked as the most using word, taking an important place in black teenagers` slang. African-American entertainers use this word in the meaning of the "guy", but with different spices and no one of them is really abusive. African-American entertainers and masters of ceremonies use this word in the meaning of "a guy" but with different spices and no one of those are really offensive. It should be noted that white teenagers are listening to "hot" hip-hop music on money, sex adventures, life in ghetto and racial injustice theme too, and keep rhymed lines from ghetto on the top of music charts of popular music. However, white rappers should not use the word "nigger", but should avoid of the word on letter "n" preferring neutral expressions that are not associate with this word. Otherwise, it will cause indignation from black audience that conceive the word on the "n" letter as racial offence which was always used and still used by white Americans. That is why during a concert in Alabama, the black audience in a hall started to hoot during the execution of the white fan of the song, who used the word "nigger", considering it as a racial offence. The video of that incident caused the scandal which attracted a lot of attention. Also it should be noted that white Latin American of the "Rianna" group was fired on the eve of the concert on "MTV Video Music Awards" in Columbia because the team of artists decided to choose a completely black aesthetics that is besides a permanent guitar player of Rianna group there should not be white people on the stage. Moreover, if it were the other way around, a black musician would be fired in order to achieve exceptionally white aesthetics and this would definitely look like a moral offence. It would be pulled out common in such cases calls to consider that event in a context of a long history of slavery in that country. And many people would consider this reaction as justified. Thus, racism has not gone away from the United States with their vaunted freedom and democracy, and moreover, it exists both for black and white people. This is an obvious evidence of double standards. Moreover, the unshakable confidence of Americans in the exclusivity of their freedom and democracy led to the fact that American policy in the world is perceived as Washington`s hypocrisy which tends to condemn the actions of other people, ignoring their own shortcomings.