Time for another round of links to fellow blogs and other web points of interest. Mostly the usual suspects–have you bookmarked all these folks yet?–and, as usual, lots of cool stuff.

*****Lots and lots of cool stuff at Way Down in the Hole. In a July 12th post, Dallas Clemmons had some more smart things to say about the recent ruling against same-sex marriage by the New York court of appeals. (We’ve written about the issue ourselves, twice.) He’s also been on a Kris Kristofferson jag of late, offering eight versions of “Me and Bobbie McGee” on July 14th and, on the 11th, a cool half dozen versions of “For the Good Times.”

Here at Living in Stereo, we’ve previously done something similar with Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” and now I’ve added a new version of that song by Nashvile star Gretchen Peters to the eight versions already there. It comes from the recent album, The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson, a tribute collection far superior to the mostly dreary and monochromatic 2002 Kristofferson tribute, Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down. 

*****We wrote in our last post about Mavis Staples and her excellent recent work. At The Doors of the Kingdom, you can hear another marvelous slice of twenty-first century Mavis, one I’d never heard before, “St. Judas,” from Natalie Merchant’s 2001 album Motherland.

*****Our country-soul brother over at Shot of Rhythm offered on July 11th a few choice tracks from forgotten country-soul sister Sandy Posey. Really excellent stuff.

*****One of the best audio blogs in the universe, Rato Records, is about to close up shop, maybe. If you’ve never been, you really should go asap. Recent offerings have included everything from albums by the Doors and old Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac to classic lp’s from both Frank and Nancy Sinatra to the site’s own mix tape collections of obscure (here in the states, anyway) 1960s European pop.

*****I almost always learn something when I read Robert Jensen (see his “Saying Goodbye to Patriotism,” at Living in Stereo’s The Reading List), even though it’s usually something I wish I didn’t have to learn. That’s the case again with this piece on a new Florida law that, as he puts it, outlaws critical thinking in the history classrooms in the sunshine state.

*****Finally, the dick-headed sculpture atop this post comes from CJ Janovy (author of “Burn the Flag“) who reminded us of this very different mix of politics and art in the comments section to our most recent addition to Amazing Stories of the Heartland. You can read more about the sculpture and the controversey surrounding it at The First Amendment Center.

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