by Dan Bloom, producer
As a four-time guest on The Bob Edwards Show, it’s safe to say Patty Larkin is one of our favorites. Her music is a deft combination of honest and approachable songwriting, expert musicianship and lyrical gifts honed as an English major at the University of Oregon.
For a woman on her thirteenth studio album, “Still Green” is a title that connotes an impressive degree of humility, a quality that’s surely useful in dealing with the myriad of challenges that come with her most important role in life, the mother of two adopted children.
Along with her family, Larkin spent time at a Cape Cod vacation spot affectionately known as the “dune shack,” where she wrote many of the songs on “Still Green.” On the album’s cover, Larkin is depicted amid one of these sand dunes, and it’s clear that this peaceful locale helped her synthesize the experiences – both joyful and challenging – that she turned into songs. We should all be so lucky to have such a place of tranquility in which to be creative.
Patty Larkin is currently on tour supporting “Still Green.”
I enjoyed the interview with John Rizzo but, as an experienced attorney, I cringe when I hear lawyers like Mr. Rizzo engaging in insultingly obvious verbal gymnastics to avoid addressing flaws in their arguments. Mr. Rizzo's 'reasoning' was at times downright delusional, such as when his only evidence to dispute the adverse Senate Intelligence Committee findings (of no useful intel gained through torture) was his opinion that the CIA would not have continued their torture tactics unless they were getting something useful. Right, because the CIA has never made mistakes, never been overzealous, and certainly never engaged in secret horrific experiments on human beings. Mr. Rizzo actually believes that his brand of torture is better than 'the enemy's' brand because our dungeon masters kept medical personnel nearby…because nothing could be more humane than to keep reviving your victims so that you can continue inflicting pain indefintiely. Considering that Mr. Rizzo seems completely amoral about the use of torture, his refusal to recognize its blatant flaws did not surprise me. People who advocate such deplorable and inhumane conduct on others while personally safe from any repercussions themselves are their own class of chicken hawk.