Huff Po on Rush:

Steven Horwitz sent me the following link.

Bob Cesca writes:

Rush's drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart, has always been an intelligent and outspoken proponent of secularism. In the song Faithless, Peart describes himself as not having "faith in faith." But it was his series of cross-continental motorcycle journeys -- first, his Ghost Rider exile following the deaths of his wife and daughter; then his road trips during the Rush 30th anniversary tour, documented in his book Roadshow: Landscape With Drums -- which motivated the construction of an album around the themes of religious fundamentalism and its symptomatic penchant for misguided warfare. Peart defiantly stands for his cause and even though he, also in Faithless, says that he's "quietly resisting," he and the band are far from quiet about the way the winds are blowing.

Peart describes this album as his "lover's quarrel with the world," and as such, it offers both dire and insightful observations, as well as reasons for hope. It's not necessarily a protest album, but more of a sympathetic mouthpiece for those of us who are seeking some fashion of light in this dark place: "a refuge from the coming night," as Geddy Lee sings in the album's second track, Armor And Sword.

This is important. The Ayn Rand-influenced Peart is, I think, an atheist, or something quite close to it. Yet, for all of his luck in life's cards -- rock star combined with being one of the world's best, well-respected drummers -- he has suffered losses of Jobian proportions: within the span of a year or two he lost both his wife and his daughter. In spite of that, he learned to cope without relying on or finding faith as atheists must do. I've learned on these threads not to say: There are no atheists in foxholes. There are.

Can't wait to get the album and I'm going to try to see them this summer.