I hate the fact that whenever I say when I enjoy Ryan Adams' music, there is always someone that thinks I am talking about the Canadian no-talent ass-clown Brian Adams. Sometimes they even start singing "Summer of '69" and I just want to die inside.
I hate that whenever I announce that I am atheists in a crowded room, there always seems to be someone that is shocked, even here in liberal Vermont. Some even ask me "don't you need religion as a moral guide." What like all those rapist Catholic priests? As if I need the guidance of a book, written in the Bronze Age, full of superstition and hokum, to guide my perception of reality and morality. I've got Walt Whitman and Bob Dylan for that. Shouldn't it be more shocking, when an otherwise rational person believes in magical underpants, people coming back from dead and walking on water.
I hate the noise the fans make at Atlanta Braves home games. I hate it so bad, that even though I am a rabid baseball fan, I won't watch or listen to a game when it is at this stadium. The noise is racist and annoying. Considering how close the stadium is the Trail of Tears, I find this particularly distasteful. Because of this, I will always root against the Braves and in my quest to visit all Major League Baseball parks, this stadium will most likely be the last.
I hate that people are so wildly inconsistent. I have a friend that will only each organic vegetables because he doesn't "want cancer" while he smokes a few packs of cigarettes a day. I know a woman that seems to be obsessed in equality, and yet she still wants men to pay for her on a date and open the doors for her. I also hate that they don't seem to understand me when I point these inconsistencies out. To channel Whitman, I realize we are "large" and "contain multitudes." Inconsistencies is all apart of human nature, but they could at least acknowledge some of these inconsistencies as complete bat shit. One wonders how much self reflection is happening.
I hate Republicans. No explanation needed. I really wish they'd stop proving me right on how truly disgusting they are.
I hate that some people call themselves "bad spellers," as if this is a forgone conclusion and cannot be resolved like being tall or short. When someone announces they are a "bad speller," they are just telling me that they are lazy and/or they don't give a shit about what they are writing or trying to communicate. Everyone was once a bad speller. Those of us you aren't, have simply put the effort into not being. Put a dictionary by your keyboard or add dictionary.com to favorites on your browser. Look up every word after you type it. You can verify that you have the correct word as well as the spelling. Do this for years until you are not a bad speller. I still find myself looking up words for every blog post I write. This is because I give a shit. Confusing "since" and "sense" or "their" and "there" is your problem, not your readers. If you don't give a shit about what you write, why should I, your reader, be?
I hate most poetry. The poetry I like, I love a lot, but most poetry is truly awful with tired metaphors, references to people's hearts and other cliches. I just start zoning out when people start reading their poetry to me. It is the same feeling I get when someone starts describing the dream they had last night or go into details about their fantasy football team. I politely nod and going into la-la land. Thanks for helping finalize my Costco shopping list because that is what I am thinking about while you opine about a fucking flower.
I hate the fact that whenever I mention logic while in any discussion, someone mentions Mr. Spock from Star Trek. This is a red flag. The only exposure to logic this person has is a TV show from the 60's. This is even worse if they actually say "Dr. Spock" who is an entirely different person. This can get even worse, if they pronounce the show "Star Track." You should be able to kill someone for this type of stuff. They are truly lost and should be stopped before they reproduce.
I hate it when I am playing a game with someone, either on-line or in person, and they quit in the middle of the game. This usually happens when I am winning. This is something I learned when I was a child, you start a game, you are in it until the end. The person who is winning the game, has earned the victory and you committed to it when you started the game. This happens to me a lot when I play chess on my phone(Chess with Friends, user name manofwow44).. I make a great move, get my opponent's queen and then they quit. When they quit, I don't get to work on my endgame. My endgame is bad, I really need practice. This is a just another red flag as where we are as a culture, not just Americans because the people I play are from around the world. Respect for one's opponent is a pillar of civilized society. Leaving a game because you are losing, is the ultimate disrespect.
Thank you for reading my list of hate.
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Hindsight 2020 - March 2019 edition
Before I say anything the 2020 election, let us give thanks to the president. Thank you, Mr. Trump for setting a new precedent for presidential power. Traditionally, Congress has the power of the purse. Congress consistently told him "no" about funding the building of a wall on our southern border, but he is choosing to ignore it giving us a new tier of presidential power. We will surely remember this when a Democratic president takes over. We can declare emergencies also. If Congress refuses to fund the Green New Deal or the Medicare For All ... we say "Emergency" and pull out the funding reserved for disasters and invasion for our pet product. Thank for having the foresight for giving us this power.
Trump's 2020 campaign has started collecting data on three Democrats, according to Politico: Booker, Warren and Harris. We look like we have some front runners at least in their minds.
Back to the issues: About those issue, David Leonhardt in the NY Times suggested that the issues don't matter much in the Democratic primary. Why? Because the candidates (12 now I believe), mostly agree with each other. So we should primarily be concentrating on one thing: Who can beat Trump? He says that Sherrod Brown and Kamala Harris are the standouts.But they are all out there, still talking about the issues. You may or may not agree with them, but every single one of them is better than Trump. If you say that both parties are to blame for our awful political situation, then you are just announcing to the world that you haven't been paying attention for the last 30 years.
The Republican party is still the party of global warming denial, maintaining the status quo on health care and billionaire tax cuts. By the year 2050, there may be no maple syrup production in Vermont and no wine grapes growing in California, but yet, a border wall is the emergency. I think the existential and economic crisis of our environmental situation is the real emergency. How silly of me!
I would love another president, like Obama, that would make the right wing extremist freak out. This generally means we are going in the right direction as a society. So a Jewish, Hispanic or a Black Woman as a president would be a really good thing then we can watch every scumbag pundit on Fox "News" heads explode.
Announcing this month:
Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders: Bernie was the dark horse candidate in 2016. He enters this race as one of the front runners, if not the front runner. At this point, they could all be chasing him if he gets the momentum that he did last time. He is 77 years old which for many makes him too old. Is this ageism or simple practicality? The presidency is a very stressful job so his health is something to take into consideration, but health and age are not the same thing. His VP candidate should be chosen wisely because of this. He has two scandals behind him: (1) his wife's problems with Burlington College and (2) the sexism in his staff during the 2016 campaign. Hopefully, both of them don't weigh too heavily in the general voter's minds. If you think about him running against Trump, these "scandals" are minuscule compared to anything Trump has accumulated in only two years in office. As a Vermonter, I like Bernie and I have voted for his for both Rep. and Senator. I also voted for him in the primaries in 2016. I have met him twice. I disagree with him on a lot (particularly on economics), but I know him as an honorable and honest person. I vote for him because I trust him. He represents us well. He'd be a fine president. Jamelle Bouie in NY Times, says that Bernie is the only candidate so far that has a clear and comprehensive message on foreign policy, something he lacked during the 2016 campaign.
Bernie has the passion without details while Warren has details but is lacking in the passion. This makes me think that among the two further left candidates, Bernie is more likely to beat Trump, but far left is still going to be tough to win in the general election.
South Bend Mayor, Pete Buttigieg: In last month's Hindsight 2020, I didn't mention Pete Buttigieg (pronounced Buddha judge), who is the two term mayor of South Bend, Indiana. What's a mayor of a city of 100,000 people doing running for president? Good question. One thing to point out, he has more experience in government than Trump did when he became president. He is another Rhode Scholar, an Afghanistan war veteran and is openly gay. Just on that last sentence alone, he is a better candidate than Trump. I've heard him speak a view times in the past few weeks and I like him, a lot actually. But the key question here is: will the general public vote for a gay man? a married gay man? It is hard to believe he'd win the general election.
New York Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand: She is very pleasant and personable. If you have watched Colbert at any point in the past, you may have seen her on one of his shows. She was conservative in her past, but has claimed to be reformed. She appears to me to be an opportunist and a hypocrite.When she talks about important issues she comes off as being quite trite. When sexual assault accusations came out about Senator Al Franken, he asked for investigations into the allegations and she lead the charge to throw him under the bus. Now that much worse allegations have come out about Lt. Governor of Virginia, Justin Fairfax, she is calling for an investigation. Not sure why Al Franken didn't get this respect. She is a lightweight and I wouldn't turn my back on her.
Governor of Washington Jay Inslee: He is the current governor of the state of Washington and used to be a member of the US House of Representatives. His campaign is the only one so far to have his campaign headquarters fully based on the West Coast. He is from humble stock with his mother being a clerk at Sears while his father was a high school counselor and football coach. His big issue is the environment which makes him appealing to me. Can a relatively unknown like this defeat a sitting president? Since that President is Trump, perhaps, yes. Clinton did it to Bush and Bush (the first one) was a half decent President.
Marianne Williamson: She is a new age spiritualist author from Houston and is often called Oprah's "spiritual adviser." I don't take her very seriously and unless I see something that makes her qualified to run this country, I am not going to mention her again.
Those still not declared yet:
Former VP Joe Biden, former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Governor of Montana Steve Bullock, former Governor of Colorado John Hickenlooper, former Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, Rep. from Massachusetts Seth Moulton, former Rep. from Texas Beto O'Rourke, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, California Rep. Eric Swalwell and Mark Warner, Senator from Virginia.
The rest of the field:
Cory Booker: I have notice that eight of my friends, on Facebook, are following Mr. Booker. One of them is a staunch Republican so I know this doesn't mean much, other than he probably has the most name recognition in the Democratic field right now, among those who have announced. He made a visit to Iowa in February and is hiring staff in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He is trying to draw a distinction between himself and his competition stating that they haven't run anything and while he has run a major city, Newark. He has released a plan to reduce housing costs.
Kamala Harris: California's primary has been moved up early this year. This gives a distinct advantage to Ms. Harris. She has visited Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada in February. She advocated for universal childcare and has proposed the LIFT act to assist struggling middle class families.
Amy Klobuchar: The Senator from Minnesota raised $1 million within 48 hours of announcing her candidacy which is pretty impressive. She is the only candidate that is positioning herself as a moderate. She may do well if Biden stays out of the race. If he does enter the race, his name recognition alone may overshadow her.
Elizabeth Warren: While Bernie talks about blowing the system up and rebuilding, she talks about restructuring the system from within. She has proposed a universal childcare program.and a family leave act. She is a policy candidate, which may have a lot of appeal to someone like me, but many voters choose based on personality and the "would I like to share a beer with this person?" question looms bad for her. If I were voting on domestic policies alone, she may have my vote.
Julian Castro: He plans on visiting all 50 states during his campaign. I'm looking forward to seeing him here in VT if he lasts that long. Maybe he should just come on over when he is pounding the pavement in New Hampshire. Since we're overwhelmingly for Sanders, I doubt if we'll see him.
Tulsi Gabbard: If you are looking for the peace candidate, she might be your candidate. She has come out strong against US involvement in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is an interesting fact about her. Her net worth is only $208,504.00. This is really amazing since she lives in a very expensive state, Hawaii.
John Delaney: Because he declared so early, he has already visited all 99 counties in Iowa. He is another moderate candidate who has gotten accolades from even conservatives like George Will who in a November 2018 opinion piece in the Washington Post, stated that Democrats should consider a moderate like Delaney to defeat Trump. While having a background in business might not appeal to the left in the Democratic party, it may be gold in the general election. He is pro-business but he still stands in all the right places on the issues that Democrats care about: health care, the environment and education etc.
Andrew Yang: He is another candidate I am not taking too seriously because he has no government experience, but it seem like others are. Rolling Stone Magazine puts him at #17 among 27 candidates (published in mid February 2019) which is not great but is higher than Delaney or Gabbard. So I will keep him on my radar.
Talk to you next month.
Trump's 2020 campaign has started collecting data on three Democrats, according to Politico: Booker, Warren and Harris. We look like we have some front runners at least in their minds.
Back to the issues: About those issue, David Leonhardt in the NY Times suggested that the issues don't matter much in the Democratic primary. Why? Because the candidates (12 now I believe), mostly agree with each other. So we should primarily be concentrating on one thing: Who can beat Trump? He says that Sherrod Brown and Kamala Harris are the standouts.But they are all out there, still talking about the issues. You may or may not agree with them, but every single one of them is better than Trump. If you say that both parties are to blame for our awful political situation, then you are just announcing to the world that you haven't been paying attention for the last 30 years.
The Republican party is still the party of global warming denial, maintaining the status quo on health care and billionaire tax cuts. By the year 2050, there may be no maple syrup production in Vermont and no wine grapes growing in California, but yet, a border wall is the emergency. I think the existential and economic crisis of our environmental situation is the real emergency. How silly of me!
I would love another president, like Obama, that would make the right wing extremist freak out. This generally means we are going in the right direction as a society. So a Jewish, Hispanic or a Black Woman as a president would be a really good thing then we can watch every scumbag pundit on Fox "News" heads explode.
Announcing this month:
Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders: Bernie was the dark horse candidate in 2016. He enters this race as one of the front runners, if not the front runner. At this point, they could all be chasing him if he gets the momentum that he did last time. He is 77 years old which for many makes him too old. Is this ageism or simple practicality? The presidency is a very stressful job so his health is something to take into consideration, but health and age are not the same thing. His VP candidate should be chosen wisely because of this. He has two scandals behind him: (1) his wife's problems with Burlington College and (2) the sexism in his staff during the 2016 campaign. Hopefully, both of them don't weigh too heavily in the general voter's minds. If you think about him running against Trump, these "scandals" are minuscule compared to anything Trump has accumulated in only two years in office. As a Vermonter, I like Bernie and I have voted for his for both Rep. and Senator. I also voted for him in the primaries in 2016. I have met him twice. I disagree with him on a lot (particularly on economics), but I know him as an honorable and honest person. I vote for him because I trust him. He represents us well. He'd be a fine president. Jamelle Bouie in NY Times, says that Bernie is the only candidate so far that has a clear and comprehensive message on foreign policy, something he lacked during the 2016 campaign.
Bernie has the passion without details while Warren has details but is lacking in the passion. This makes me think that among the two further left candidates, Bernie is more likely to beat Trump, but far left is still going to be tough to win in the general election.
South Bend Mayor, Pete Buttigieg: In last month's Hindsight 2020, I didn't mention Pete Buttigieg (pronounced Buddha judge), who is the two term mayor of South Bend, Indiana. What's a mayor of a city of 100,000 people doing running for president? Good question. One thing to point out, he has more experience in government than Trump did when he became president. He is another Rhode Scholar, an Afghanistan war veteran and is openly gay. Just on that last sentence alone, he is a better candidate than Trump. I've heard him speak a view times in the past few weeks and I like him, a lot actually. But the key question here is: will the general public vote for a gay man? a married gay man? It is hard to believe he'd win the general election.
New York Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand: She is very pleasant and personable. If you have watched Colbert at any point in the past, you may have seen her on one of his shows. She was conservative in her past, but has claimed to be reformed. She appears to me to be an opportunist and a hypocrite.When she talks about important issues she comes off as being quite trite. When sexual assault accusations came out about Senator Al Franken, he asked for investigations into the allegations and she lead the charge to throw him under the bus. Now that much worse allegations have come out about Lt. Governor of Virginia, Justin Fairfax, she is calling for an investigation. Not sure why Al Franken didn't get this respect. She is a lightweight and I wouldn't turn my back on her.
Governor of Washington Jay Inslee: He is the current governor of the state of Washington and used to be a member of the US House of Representatives. His campaign is the only one so far to have his campaign headquarters fully based on the West Coast. He is from humble stock with his mother being a clerk at Sears while his father was a high school counselor and football coach. His big issue is the environment which makes him appealing to me. Can a relatively unknown like this defeat a sitting president? Since that President is Trump, perhaps, yes. Clinton did it to Bush and Bush (the first one) was a half decent President.
Marianne Williamson: She is a new age spiritualist author from Houston and is often called Oprah's "spiritual adviser." I don't take her very seriously and unless I see something that makes her qualified to run this country, I am not going to mention her again.
Those still not declared yet:
Former VP Joe Biden, former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Governor of Montana Steve Bullock, former Governor of Colorado John Hickenlooper, former Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, Rep. from Massachusetts Seth Moulton, former Rep. from Texas Beto O'Rourke, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, California Rep. Eric Swalwell and Mark Warner, Senator from Virginia.
The rest of the field:
Cory Booker: I have notice that eight of my friends, on Facebook, are following Mr. Booker. One of them is a staunch Republican so I know this doesn't mean much, other than he probably has the most name recognition in the Democratic field right now, among those who have announced. He made a visit to Iowa in February and is hiring staff in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He is trying to draw a distinction between himself and his competition stating that they haven't run anything and while he has run a major city, Newark. He has released a plan to reduce housing costs.
Kamala Harris: California's primary has been moved up early this year. This gives a distinct advantage to Ms. Harris. She has visited Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada in February. She advocated for universal childcare and has proposed the LIFT act to assist struggling middle class families.
Amy Klobuchar: The Senator from Minnesota raised $1 million within 48 hours of announcing her candidacy which is pretty impressive. She is the only candidate that is positioning herself as a moderate. She may do well if Biden stays out of the race. If he does enter the race, his name recognition alone may overshadow her.
Elizabeth Warren: While Bernie talks about blowing the system up and rebuilding, she talks about restructuring the system from within. She has proposed a universal childcare program.and a family leave act. She is a policy candidate, which may have a lot of appeal to someone like me, but many voters choose based on personality and the "would I like to share a beer with this person?" question looms bad for her. If I were voting on domestic policies alone, she may have my vote.
Julian Castro: He plans on visiting all 50 states during his campaign. I'm looking forward to seeing him here in VT if he lasts that long. Maybe he should just come on over when he is pounding the pavement in New Hampshire. Since we're overwhelmingly for Sanders, I doubt if we'll see him.
Tulsi Gabbard: If you are looking for the peace candidate, she might be your candidate. She has come out strong against US involvement in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is an interesting fact about her. Her net worth is only $208,504.00. This is really amazing since she lives in a very expensive state, Hawaii.
John Delaney: Because he declared so early, he has already visited all 99 counties in Iowa. He is another moderate candidate who has gotten accolades from even conservatives like George Will who in a November 2018 opinion piece in the Washington Post, stated that Democrats should consider a moderate like Delaney to defeat Trump. While having a background in business might not appeal to the left in the Democratic party, it may be gold in the general election. He is pro-business but he still stands in all the right places on the issues that Democrats care about: health care, the environment and education etc.
Andrew Yang: He is another candidate I am not taking too seriously because he has no government experience, but it seem like others are. Rolling Stone Magazine puts him at #17 among 27 candidates (published in mid February 2019) which is not great but is higher than Delaney or Gabbard. So I will keep him on my radar.
Talk to you next month.
Monday, February 18, 2019
Song Interpretation: Sweet Heart Like You
Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a huge fan of Bob Dylan. I get very annoyed when people don't know who he is or complain about his voice. Ignorant people are maddening to anyone rapt in fandom. To me, he is the greatest living chronicler of the American and human experience. He is the 20th century Walt Whitman and Mark Twain rapped up into one person. He plays a mean guitar as well.
My first exposure to Dylan was the song "Sweetheart Like You." I heard it on the radio and for quite while, I thought it was by the band, Dire Straits. Dylan's voice sounds an awful lot like Mark Knopfler's on this track, but then I learned that Mark Knopfler (front man of Dire Straits) produced the song and played guitar on the album. Even at age 18, I could recognize a guitar player by listening to a riff. I learned the song was by Dylan, believe it or not, when I saw the video on MTV. Then I ran out to buy the album on cassette. That's when this ride began.
Infidels was released in late 1983 and is his first non-religious album after the trinity of Slow Train Comin', Saved, and Shot of Love were released. It was originally titled Serving a Ruthless World, but apparently he didn't like the idea of having four albums in a row that started with the letter "S". Infidels' name calls attention to the end of the religious albums. He lost a lot of fans in the years those albums came out. They were very preachy, condescending and deeply religious. Infidels was a relief to these fans, but still, it is not a great album. It would be some time before he released another great album, but it was a decent album with some great tracks. It is uneven at best. It came out in an era, in America what is considered the bad part of the 1980's, when most of us realized that Reaganonics was a lie. Some people still haven't figured this out. The town I grew up in was hit hard with factories closing all over town. My thriving working class neighborhood now had crack houses and prostitutes walked the streets at night. I'm still waiting for the trickle down to hit that town. Songs like "Jokerman," "Neighborhood Bully" and "License to Kill" were indictments on the greed and excesses of the Reagan years. You can see why I got hooked. Even an average Dylan album is great compared to most of the crap coming out in the 80's.
"Sweetheart Like You" (see lyrics below) is like a lot of other songs in that its narrator is a man singing to a woman, yet it is not exactly a love song, at least not a traditional love song. By the first stanza, we know that her boss has gone North for vanity reasons. Who is her boss? We are not sure. It could be the obvious that he is her boss at her job or he could be a possessive lover. Since this album is still full of religious imaginary, the boss could be God. It may not matter, but she is no longer under his yoke. So the narrator compliments her. Did he have to wait until her boss was gone to do so? He compliments her hat, her smile and tells her that she is too good for this "dump." What is this dump? Is it a bar, like the video shows, another place of employment or is it life in general? Is it the America? The power of the lyrics is that it could be all of them. This gives it depth and makes it thought provoking.
The next stanza he compares her to another woman who used to call him "sweet daddy" when he was "only a child." She reminds him of her when she laughs. There is so much here, almost too much, to grab onto. Who is this other woman? Is it his mother or an aunt because it is someone that he knew as a child? But her nickname for him is paternal. This is a paradox about the cycle of life that we are our parents and they are theirs and they make the adults that we are. It reminds me of the Wordsworth poem My Heart Leaps Up where we find the quote "The child is father of the man." We are not adults until our child beats it into us making us whole until we are no longer children ourselves. In our reality, past is experience, present is experiment and tomorrow is expectation. Dylan's narrator sees it as a cruel game, you make the "queen disappear" with a "flick of the wrist," yet how could there be someone as beautiful as her in this cruel world? How could someone so beautiful be letting a wretch like him into her life? How do you make "the queen" disappear? ":With a flick of the wrist." Our narrator reveals to us that he is a part of the problem with this world.
He tells her that she "should be at home," presumably a safe place, where she could not be hurt. Our narrator, shows us some misogyny,"that's where you belong." He quotes the New Testament, John 4:2 almost directly "in your father's house, there's many a mansions." I am no expert, in this quote, I believe, Jesus was talking to his disciples about the vastness of heaven. Is he telling her that there is no salvation until the afterlife? All you got here is misery and abuse: "Just how much abuse will you be able to take?"
My first exposure to Dylan was the song "Sweetheart Like You." I heard it on the radio and for quite while, I thought it was by the band, Dire Straits. Dylan's voice sounds an awful lot like Mark Knopfler's on this track, but then I learned that Mark Knopfler (front man of Dire Straits) produced the song and played guitar on the album. Even at age 18, I could recognize a guitar player by listening to a riff. I learned the song was by Dylan, believe it or not, when I saw the video on MTV. Then I ran out to buy the album on cassette. That's when this ride began.
Infidels was released in late 1983 and is his first non-religious album after the trinity of Slow Train Comin', Saved, and Shot of Love were released. It was originally titled Serving a Ruthless World, but apparently he didn't like the idea of having four albums in a row that started with the letter "S". Infidels' name calls attention to the end of the religious albums. He lost a lot of fans in the years those albums came out. They were very preachy, condescending and deeply religious. Infidels was a relief to these fans, but still, it is not a great album. It would be some time before he released another great album, but it was a decent album with some great tracks. It is uneven at best. It came out in an era, in America what is considered the bad part of the 1980's, when most of us realized that Reaganonics was a lie. Some people still haven't figured this out. The town I grew up in was hit hard with factories closing all over town. My thriving working class neighborhood now had crack houses and prostitutes walked the streets at night. I'm still waiting for the trickle down to hit that town. Songs like "Jokerman," "Neighborhood Bully" and "License to Kill" were indictments on the greed and excesses of the Reagan years. You can see why I got hooked. Even an average Dylan album is great compared to most of the crap coming out in the 80's.
"Sweetheart Like You" (see lyrics below) is like a lot of other songs in that its narrator is a man singing to a woman, yet it is not exactly a love song, at least not a traditional love song. By the first stanza, we know that her boss has gone North for vanity reasons. Who is her boss? We are not sure. It could be the obvious that he is her boss at her job or he could be a possessive lover. Since this album is still full of religious imaginary, the boss could be God. It may not matter, but she is no longer under his yoke. So the narrator compliments her. Did he have to wait until her boss was gone to do so? He compliments her hat, her smile and tells her that she is too good for this "dump." What is this dump? Is it a bar, like the video shows, another place of employment or is it life in general? Is it the America? The power of the lyrics is that it could be all of them. This gives it depth and makes it thought provoking.
The next stanza he compares her to another woman who used to call him "sweet daddy" when he was "only a child." She reminds him of her when she laughs. There is so much here, almost too much, to grab onto. Who is this other woman? Is it his mother or an aunt because it is someone that he knew as a child? But her nickname for him is paternal. This is a paradox about the cycle of life that we are our parents and they are theirs and they make the adults that we are. It reminds me of the Wordsworth poem My Heart Leaps Up where we find the quote "The child is father of the man." We are not adults until our child beats it into us making us whole until we are no longer children ourselves. In our reality, past is experience, present is experiment and tomorrow is expectation. Dylan's narrator sees it as a cruel game, you make the "queen disappear" with a "flick of the wrist," yet how could there be someone as beautiful as her in this cruel world? How could someone so beautiful be letting a wretch like him into her life? How do you make "the queen" disappear? ":With a flick of the wrist." Our narrator reveals to us that he is a part of the problem with this world.
He tells her that she "should be at home," presumably a safe place, where she could not be hurt. Our narrator, shows us some misogyny,"that's where you belong." He quotes the New Testament, John 4:2 almost directly "in your father's house, there's many a mansions." I am no expert, in this quote, I believe, Jesus was talking to his disciples about the vastness of heaven. Is he telling her that there is no salvation until the afterlife? All you got here is misery and abuse: "Just how much abuse will you be able to take?"
The last stanza is the most difficult to interpret because the narrator no longer praising the woman any more. He is less conciliatory and downright preachy. He paraphrases Eugene O'Neill's "Emperor Jones": "steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king." He paraphrases Herman Melville's Billy Budd: "They say that patriotism is the last refuge/To which a scoundrel clings." Perhaps Serving a Ruthless World was a better title for this album, because there is clearly no hope in this world and the next world is a "step down." This is the most religious song on the album and my favorite. It is a devastating portrayal of a very ruthless world and it has no answers. The more you listen, the more questions you have which is one of the things that people don't like about it. For me, it just makes me listen more.
Lyrics and music by Bob Dylan:
Well the pressure's down, the boss ain't here
He's gone North, for a while
They say that vanity got the best of him
But he sure left here in style
By the way, that's a cute hat
And that smile's so hard to resist
But what's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?
They say that vanity got the best of him
But he sure left here in style
By the way, that's a cute hat
And that smile's so hard to resist
But what's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?
You know, I once knew a woman who looked like you
She wanted a whole man, not just a half
She used to call me sweet daddy when I was only a child
You kind of remind me of her when you laugh
In order to deal in this game, got to make the queen disappear
It's done with a flick of the wrist
What's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?
She wanted a whole man, not just a half
She used to call me sweet daddy when I was only a child
You kind of remind me of her when you laugh
In order to deal in this game, got to make the queen disappear
It's done with a flick of the wrist
What's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?
You know a woman like you should be at home
That's where you belong
Taking care for somebody nice
Who don't know how to do you wrong
Just how much abuse will you be able to take?
Well, there's no way to tell by that first kiss
What's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?
That's where you belong
Taking care for somebody nice
Who don't know how to do you wrong
Just how much abuse will you be able to take?
Well, there's no way to tell by that first kiss
What's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Hindsight 2020 - February 2019 edition
I would hope that most Americans learned their lesson from 2016 and stop to think, verify their sources, before sharing an article on social media. Just because an article reinforces what you already believe or fear, doesn't mean it is true or a real source of information. It is painful when I still see people sharing crap on Facebook or Twitter that is clearly garbage published out of Russia designed to divide us, not inform us.
The 2020 election is creeping up on us. So far we have eight candidates officially announced that are running for the Democratic nomination for president. Some of them I have never heard of. There are some big names that haven't officially announced yet: Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Beto O'Rourke, Sharod Brown and Kirsten Gillibrand. I will discuss them once they have, if they do.
From the midterms, the Democrats learned that if they stay on message, namely health care and environmental protection, they can win. Medicare For All and The Green New Deal are two of the big flash points for the Democrats now. For a president to tackle even one of these would be a huge undertaking; tackling both seems to be setting us up for failure. I consider myself left of center politically. I usually vote for Democrats not because I consider myself a Democrat but mostly because I hate the Republican party so much. The worst the GOP gets, the more Democratic I become.
From the midterms, the Democrats learned that if they stay on message, namely health care and environmental protection, they can win. Medicare For All and The Green New Deal are two of the big flash points for the Democrats now. For a president to tackle even one of these would be a huge undertaking; tackling both seems to be setting us up for failure. I consider myself left of center politically. I usually vote for Democrats not because I consider myself a Democrat but mostly because I hate the Republican party so much. The worst the GOP gets, the more Democratic I become.
It is the intent of this Blog post to a log of my thought process of my decision making about the 2020 Presidential election. Whom I will vote for and why will be documented here. Please share your thoughts with me. If you have a candidate, tell me who. No Trump supporters please. The most important issue for me, is that we pick a candidate that can beat Trump. The second most important is the issues: environmentalism, health care, voter's rights and Judiciary nominees are probably my top four priorities.
I have to say I am impressed and excited with the diversity of these candidates.
The Candidates (in order of how well I know them):
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts: I like Senator Warren but I believe she is probably too far left for the general public. She is probably further left than Bernie Sanders, who is a Socialist. Like Bernie, I question her ideas on the economy. I also doubt her appeal to the general public. Nominating her might just fire up Trump's base to a defeat in 2020, but maybe my opinion will change. She is from Oklahoma City from a middle class family so perhaps that will help her appeal to the American centrist. She has no executive experience.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey: I like Senator Booker as well. He was born in DC but grew up in New Jersey in a middle class family. His parents were two of the first African American executives at IBM. As mayor of Newark, his environmental record is not great, but overall he was a good mayor. He is a Rhodes Scholar. I'd love to see Trump go up against someone this smart.
Ex-San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro: Castro is a twin and his identical brother, Joaquin, is a member of the US House of Representatives. He is from San Antonio and seems to be on the correct side of the issues for me. He was also the HUD Secretary in the Obama administration. He seems to be a political light weight. We'll have to see how he does on the campaign trail. He was one of the front runners for the vice presidential nomination for Hillary Clinton in 2016. She may have won if she had picked him over the extremely unexciting Tim Kaine. The fact that he is Hispanic and from Texas might make him the perfect VP pick for whoever wins.
Senator Kamala Harris from California: She is from a working class Berkley neighborhood with both of her parents being economics professors and civil rights activists. Before becoming a Senator in 2017, she was the Attorney General of CA for six years and before that the AG of San Francisco for seven years. For a lot of people on the left this is a strike against her, but this will be a great asset to her in the general election. I could imagine her legal experience will be a great tool for her in the debates. She is a first generation American from Indian and Jamaican descent.
Senator Amy Kobuchar from Minnesota: She is a seasoned Senator and with an excellent record on liberal issues. She is the daughter of a second grade teacher and journalist/sports writer/travel writer. Before becoming a Senator in 2006, she was an attorney. She has no executive experience.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii: Now we are getting to the people I know nothing about. I had to look up all of this information. She is from American Samoa and is a Hindu. She is an active member of the Army National Guard and did a 12 month tour in Iraq. Before she became a Rep., she was in the Hawaiian House and the Honolulu City Counsel. She seems to have a good environmental record but has no executive experience.
Former Rep. John Delaney from Maryland: He actually dropped out of Congress to run for President. He was the first to announce. Before becoming a Rep. in 2012, he was a businessman in private sector in health care and commercial lending. He has no executive experience.
Former tech executive and author Andrew Yang: He seems to be a one issue candidate. He supports a Universal Basic Income in response to the growing labor problem due to automation. He is from Schenectady and is another first generation American. His parents are from Taiwan. He has no executive experience nor any experience in government whatsoever.
If the election were held today, I'd have a difficult time picking from these eight because I know so little about them. Right now, my pick is Kamala Harris with Cory Booker as a close second. I am looking forward to learning more about these candidates and I am sure I will change my pick several times. Talk to you next month.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Orange Donald's The Wall
Perhaps we should be grateful for the current government shutoff for it will help bring Trump down. Democrats are winning this standoff. It is another example of Trump's incompetence and of how out of touch with reality he is. He still has no idea how Washington works. To play with the metaphor, all in all it is "just another brick in the wall." It will be nice to see him brought down either via an election in 2020 or an impeachment. This nonsense will be a big part of his undoing.
We already have a border wall covering parts of our southern border. The US border with Mexico is 1,954 miles in which 580 miles are covered either by a border wall or fencing. From the east, the fencing starts in Brownsville, Texas (on the Gulf of Mexico) and ends in San Diego, California where it juts out into the Pacific Ocean surf. It has some obvious gaps along the way which are monitored by cameras, sensors and other surveillance equipment. From Brownsville to Del Rio, Texas is border fencing (about 300 miles) and then it stops because the Rio Grande River is too marshy or there are mountains. The Rio Grande is no longer the border after El Paso, since it comes southeast down from the Rockies and it no longer runs west to east. There are about 400 miles without fencing in between Del Rio and El Paso. Is this the spot where Trump wants to put his wall? Why? Are Central American families trudging through the mud of the Rio Grande or climbing over the mountains of Big Bend National Park? This is nonsense.
Vehicle barriers are in highly populated areas. Vehicles once drove over the border importing drugs. The barrier was built in the 1990's and has barbed wire around it to prevent people from going through the cracks. This is what the vehicle barrier looks like:
The fencing looks awful lot like a wall to me so whether this is a a wall or just fencing seems to be a moot point:
The conclusion I get from looking at the maps and photos is that our government is shut down so that our president can pay for a $5 billion wall in marshy, mountainous or desert areas that are already impassable. A concrete wall from San Diego to Brownsville is not only a bad idea to help solve our immigration problem, it would be a disaster for the environment. Access to the river is the only water supply for miles. Putting up a barrier simply kill the wildlife.
For a video tour of the border check out this link from USA Today. Click on the arrows on the map from right to left (east to west) for the video tour via helicopter. This is very educational. The closest I've ever been to the Mexican border is a brief visit to the Padre Islands so I am totally clueless about this area of the country.
Illegal immigration is not a big problem. Undocumented workers usually become model citizens and commit less crimes (on average) than people who were born here. There may be a few that are "rapists and murderers" like our President says, but for the most part, they are good people, running away from horrendous conditions, looking for a place to live peacefully and away from the violence of their homeland. If you are concerned about violence, perhaps we should deport more citizens because, on average, we commit more crime, violent or otherwise.
Trump has not made a logical case for expanding the existing wall which would be very expensive, time consuming and seemingly impossible/impractical in some areas. It is obvious why he hasn't made the case because there is no logical case for it. It is mere fear mongering, jingoism and dog-whistle racism. His own party controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years of his administration. If they thought it was a good idea they would have approved the funding, but they kept telling him to wait, kicking the can to the Democrats. Now that the Democrats control the House, he wants to play chicken with every one's lives. Our food supply is susceptible to tampering because the FDA is diminished, we are less safe because the TSA is diminished, the guards at our Federal prisons are working double shifts without pay, our National Parks are being trashed and our Federal employees are in dire straits with no idea when their next pay check is coming. Trump, once again, is a national embarrassment.
We already have a border wall covering parts of our southern border. The US border with Mexico is 1,954 miles in which 580 miles are covered either by a border wall or fencing. From the east, the fencing starts in Brownsville, Texas (on the Gulf of Mexico) and ends in San Diego, California where it juts out into the Pacific Ocean surf. It has some obvious gaps along the way which are monitored by cameras, sensors and other surveillance equipment. From Brownsville to Del Rio, Texas is border fencing (about 300 miles) and then it stops because the Rio Grande River is too marshy or there are mountains. The Rio Grande is no longer the border after El Paso, since it comes southeast down from the Rockies and it no longer runs west to east. There are about 400 miles without fencing in between Del Rio and El Paso. Is this the spot where Trump wants to put his wall? Why? Are Central American families trudging through the mud of the Rio Grande or climbing over the mountains of Big Bend National Park? This is nonsense.
Vehicle barriers are in highly populated areas. Vehicles once drove over the border importing drugs. The barrier was built in the 1990's and has barbed wire around it to prevent people from going through the cracks. This is what the vehicle barrier looks like:
The fencing looks awful lot like a wall to me so whether this is a a wall or just fencing seems to be a moot point:
The conclusion I get from looking at the maps and photos is that our government is shut down so that our president can pay for a $5 billion wall in marshy, mountainous or desert areas that are already impassable. A concrete wall from San Diego to Brownsville is not only a bad idea to help solve our immigration problem, it would be a disaster for the environment. Access to the river is the only water supply for miles. Putting up a barrier simply kill the wildlife.
For a video tour of the border check out this link from USA Today. Click on the arrows on the map from right to left (east to west) for the video tour via helicopter. This is very educational. The closest I've ever been to the Mexican border is a brief visit to the Padre Islands so I am totally clueless about this area of the country.
Illegal immigration is not a big problem. Undocumented workers usually become model citizens and commit less crimes (on average) than people who were born here. There may be a few that are "rapists and murderers" like our President says, but for the most part, they are good people, running away from horrendous conditions, looking for a place to live peacefully and away from the violence of their homeland. If you are concerned about violence, perhaps we should deport more citizens because, on average, we commit more crime, violent or otherwise.
Trump has not made a logical case for expanding the existing wall which would be very expensive, time consuming and seemingly impossible/impractical in some areas. It is obvious why he hasn't made the case because there is no logical case for it. It is mere fear mongering, jingoism and dog-whistle racism. His own party controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years of his administration. If they thought it was a good idea they would have approved the funding, but they kept telling him to wait, kicking the can to the Democrats. Now that the Democrats control the House, he wants to play chicken with every one's lives. Our food supply is susceptible to tampering because the FDA is diminished, we are less safe because the TSA is diminished, the guards at our Federal prisons are working double shifts without pay, our National Parks are being trashed and our Federal employees are in dire straits with no idea when their next pay check is coming. Trump, once again, is a national embarrassment.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Picks of the Year: 2018
Two dates hang over us separated by a hyphen. Our year of birth and our year of death. It is on the hyphen is where all the fun happens. Congratulations to everyone reading this. The date after the hyphen will at least be 2019, hopefully much higher.
2018 was a pretty shitty year in regards to history. The stock market has been a roller coaster ride, our president has been as bad as ever, school shootings are still plentiful and our environmental problems are escalating, but it is was still a pretty good year for me and my immediate family.
In March, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary and had a group of friends and family over for a bonfire. In October, we took a trip to Boston to see the Red Sox play the first playoff game of the season and they not only won the game we attended, but they won the World Series, fourth time in the 21st century.
We lost our electricity for three days in November and we are currently without a fridge (for two weeks now). A new one is delivered on Thursday morning.
Favorite Trip:
We had our first tropical vacation this year with a week in the Dominican Republic. A resort vacations are not our style, but it was incredibly relaxing. I'm not sure if I will ever go to resort again, but I enjoyed it. Staying one place during a vacation and not exploring isn't exactly what I am used to nor to my liking.
We also had road trips to Kansas City to see the Red Sox with a stop in Chicago to see my wife's family and the Cubs. We went to Clearwater, Florida for a week with visits to Virginia and Baltimore to see friends. I had a business trip to Vegas which I hate and we went into Boston to see the Sox a couple of times.
Media:
Best New Podcast:
I discovered a handful of new pod casts this year:
Best Book I read this year:
I read the following books this year:
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nahisi Coates (audio book)
Lamb: The Gospel According to BIff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore
Because They Wanted To - Mary Gaitskill
A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Bachman
Grunt by Mary Roach
The Rising Plague by Brad Spellberg
A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving (reread)
Var the Stick by Piers Anthony
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (currently reading)
I didn't meet my goal of twelve books. Lamb was probably my favorite. Not often does a book make me laugh out loud. His writing reminded me of Tom Robbins.
Favorite Movie I Saw in a Theater:
I saw the following movies in the theater this year:
Vice, Boy Erased, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Crazy Rich Asians, Won't You Be My Neighbor, Sorry to Bother You, RBG, Deadpool II, Avengers: Infinity War, The Post and BlackKKlansman.
The Avengers movie might be my favorite in that I don't think I've ever been as shocked as I was by the ending. Overall, it was not a great year for movies.
Favorite new TV show:
2018 was a pretty shitty year in regards to history. The stock market has been a roller coaster ride, our president has been as bad as ever, school shootings are still plentiful and our environmental problems are escalating, but it is was still a pretty good year for me and my immediate family.
In March, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary and had a group of friends and family over for a bonfire. In October, we took a trip to Boston to see the Red Sox play the first playoff game of the season and they not only won the game we attended, but they won the World Series, fourth time in the 21st century.
We lost our electricity for three days in November and we are currently without a fridge (for two weeks now). A new one is delivered on Thursday morning.
Favorite Trip:
We had our first tropical vacation this year with a week in the Dominican Republic. A resort vacations are not our style, but it was incredibly relaxing. I'm not sure if I will ever go to resort again, but I enjoyed it. Staying one place during a vacation and not exploring isn't exactly what I am used to nor to my liking.
We also had road trips to Kansas City to see the Red Sox with a stop in Chicago to see my wife's family and the Cubs. We went to Clearwater, Florida for a week with visits to Virginia and Baltimore to see friends. I had a business trip to Vegas which I hate and we went into Boston to see the Sox a couple of times.
Media:
Best New Podcast:
I discovered a handful of new pod casts this year:
- Retropod - a short history podcast by Washington Post
- The Indicator by Planet Money - a short economic podcast where they dissect a number from the economy
- This Song - a radio station out of Austin TX, KUTX, talks to musicians about a song that inspired them.
- By the Book - these two woman read a self help book and for a month live by it. It is very funny.
- Pod Dylan - One Bob Dylan song is dissected
- The Great Albums - One great rock album is dissected.
- Everything Is Alive - an interview with an inanimate object.
Everything Is Alive is my favorite new podcast. It is put out by producers of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. It is hysterical. They usually have comedians playing the objects. They interview a lamppost, a subway seat, a grain of sand, an elevator etc.
Best Book I read this year:
I read the following books this year:
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nahisi Coates (audio book)
Lamb: The Gospel According to BIff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore
Because They Wanted To - Mary Gaitskill
A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Bachman
Grunt by Mary Roach
The Rising Plague by Brad Spellberg
A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving (reread)
Var the Stick by Piers Anthony
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (currently reading)
I didn't meet my goal of twelve books. Lamb was probably my favorite. Not often does a book make me laugh out loud. His writing reminded me of Tom Robbins.
Favorite Movie I Saw in a Theater:
I saw the following movies in the theater this year:
Vice, Boy Erased, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Crazy Rich Asians, Won't You Be My Neighbor, Sorry to Bother You, RBG, Deadpool II, Avengers: Infinity War, The Post and BlackKKlansman.
The Avengers movie might be my favorite in that I don't think I've ever been as shocked as I was by the ending. Overall, it was not a great year for movies.
Favorite new TV show:
My wife and I just started rewatching ER from the very beginning on Hulu. We are pleasantly surprised how much the show holds up. We tried to watch St. Elsewhere and it didn't hold up at all. We are on season 2 of ER now and plan on bingeing all the way to the end. Maybe we'll finish by the end of 2019.
In the meantime, I discovered a lot of new shows in 2018.
Among them are: Big Mouth, Star Trek: Discovery, The Marvelous Mrs Maizel, Homecoming, Jack Ryan, The Haunting of Hill House, Goliath, Humans, American Gods, The Rain, Safe, Disenchantment, Bodyguard, Ken Burns' Vietnam, Maniac, The Sinner, The Secret City, Collateral, Lost in Space, Requiem, Seven Seconds, The End of the Fucking World, Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams, Absentia, Victoria and Fleabag.
Hands down, my favorite is The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel on Amazon. A Jewish housewife in 1950's NYC delves into stand up comedy. It is a treat for fans of comedy, history and drama. Big Mouth on Netflix is probably my second favorite, cringe-worthy, but fantastic comedy.
Favorite Albums:
I bought seven albums/CDs from 2018. I went fairly mellow this year. My favorite has to be John Prine's "The Tree of Forgiveness." Yes, John Prine is still alive and putting out some of his best music. His lyrics are as witty and poignant as ever.
Here are the albums:
"Secularia" by Eliza Gilkyson
"Free Yourself Up" by Lake Street Dive
"Everyday Life, Everyday People" by Slightly Stoopid
"The Deconstruction" by Eels
"By the Way, I Forgive You" by Brandi Carlile
"All the Things That I Did, All the Things I Didn't Do" by Milk Carton Kids
"The Tree of Forgiveness" by John Prine
Favorite Songs:
I have 247 MP3 songs from 2018. Below is a list of some of my favorites. If I have to pick a favorite, which is difficult, I have to pick "Fire Drills" by Dessa. I don't often pick a hip-hop songs as the best but this one is truly great. I might have to go back to 2005 when I last picked a hip-hop song with Mood Ruff's "Rocketship."
Favorite new songs of the year.
"Bloodless" Andrew Bird
"The Mother" Brandi Carlile
"Under the Wheels" Calexico
"My Old Man" Chuck Auerbach
"Crack the Case" Dawes
"On and On" Dead Horses
"Fire Drills" Dessa
"The Deconstruction" and "Rusty Pipes" The Eels
"Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)" John Prine
"Summer's End" John Prine
"Beverly" Low Cut Connie
"Hey Mama" Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
"Baby Don't Leave Me Alone With My Thoughts" Lake Street Dive
"Hell-on" Neko Case
"Desire" Ought
"One More Night" Slightly Stoopid
"Choosing Sides" Benjamin Lazar Davis
"Wild" Molly Burch
"Things I Learned" Motel Mirrors
"Glass Jar" Tristen
"Your Dog" Soccer Mommy
"Lay Low" Gretchen Peters
Enjoy 2019. I'll be here.
In the meantime, I discovered a lot of new shows in 2018.
Among them are: Big Mouth, Star Trek: Discovery, The Marvelous Mrs Maizel, Homecoming, Jack Ryan, The Haunting of Hill House, Goliath, Humans, American Gods, The Rain, Safe, Disenchantment, Bodyguard, Ken Burns' Vietnam, Maniac, The Sinner, The Secret City, Collateral, Lost in Space, Requiem, Seven Seconds, The End of the Fucking World, Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams, Absentia, Victoria and Fleabag.
Hands down, my favorite is The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel on Amazon. A Jewish housewife in 1950's NYC delves into stand up comedy. It is a treat for fans of comedy, history and drama. Big Mouth on Netflix is probably my second favorite, cringe-worthy, but fantastic comedy.
Favorite Albums:
I bought seven albums/CDs from 2018. I went fairly mellow this year. My favorite has to be John Prine's "The Tree of Forgiveness." Yes, John Prine is still alive and putting out some of his best music. His lyrics are as witty and poignant as ever.
Here are the albums:
"Secularia" by Eliza Gilkyson
"Free Yourself Up" by Lake Street Dive
"Everyday Life, Everyday People" by Slightly Stoopid
"The Deconstruction" by Eels
"By the Way, I Forgive You" by Brandi Carlile
"All the Things That I Did, All the Things I Didn't Do" by Milk Carton Kids
"The Tree of Forgiveness" by John Prine
Favorite Songs:
I have 247 MP3 songs from 2018. Below is a list of some of my favorites. If I have to pick a favorite, which is difficult, I have to pick "Fire Drills" by Dessa. I don't often pick a hip-hop songs as the best but this one is truly great. I might have to go back to 2005 when I last picked a hip-hop song with Mood Ruff's "Rocketship."
Favorite new songs of the year.
"Bloodless" Andrew Bird
"The Mother" Brandi Carlile
"Under the Wheels" Calexico
"My Old Man" Chuck Auerbach
"Crack the Case" Dawes
"On and On" Dead Horses
"Fire Drills" Dessa
"The Deconstruction" and "Rusty Pipes" The Eels
"Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)" John Prine
"Summer's End" John Prine
"Beverly" Low Cut Connie
"Hey Mama" Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
"Baby Don't Leave Me Alone With My Thoughts" Lake Street Dive
"Hell-on" Neko Case
"Desire" Ought
"One More Night" Slightly Stoopid
"Choosing Sides" Benjamin Lazar Davis
"Wild" Molly Burch
"Things I Learned" Motel Mirrors
"Glass Jar" Tristen
"Your Dog" Soccer Mommy
"Lay Low" Gretchen Peters
Enjoy 2019. I'll be here.
Saturday, December 8, 2018
The Lame Duck Session Needs To Go Away
The Lame Duck Session of a legislative body is the period after the election but before the new members are sworn in. This year's lame duck period is from November 6th 2018 and to January 3rd 2019. Almost two months will go by where Congress people, who were not re-elected, will get to vote. Congress does meet during this period and has done so since 1940.
The original reason we have a lame duck period is because our Constitution was written a long time ago. It took people a long time to come from Georgia or New Hampshire to arrive in DC or Philadelphia. Now that we have airplanes etc., the time period is no longer needed. As soon as a candidate has been certified, they could be sworn. Maybe the next day or the next week, if we want them to be present in DC.
Lame Duck Sessions, particularly, makes no sense on the state level. Clearly, newly elected officials don't need two months to get to their state capital to be sworn in. Some states do it immediately (like Florida) and twelve others do it within the same year as the election (Alabama, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Indiana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia). What is going on in Wisconsin and Michigan is unconscionable. If they did away with the Lame Duck, this wouldn't be happening.
Wisconsin voted for a Democratic Governor, Tony Evers, over incumbent Republican Scott Walker. Thanks to the magic of gerrymandering, they have had a unified Republican government since 2010 even though there are more registered Democrats who voted in that time. Now that they lost the state house, the Lame Duck Session in that state is voting on limiting the power of the governor. The new Democratic governor will have stricter limits on whom he can appoint to his administration and he will have stricter controls over his negotiation powers with the Federal government. They are also preventing him from pulling out of the lawsuit against the ACA (aka ObamaCare) which is a campaign promise he made. Republicans: circumventing the will of the voters across America.
Michigan is similar with a new Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer. The lame duck state legislature has been fast cutting her power making it difficult for her to appoint officials and for her to shutdown the controversial Line 5 Pipeline which she campaigned so hard against. The state senate is also putting up barriers for the new Democratic Secretary of State to enforce campaign finance reform. They are also gutting the minimum wage and required family leave act that they themselves enacted. Republicans: we wrap ourselves in the American flag when you are looking but wipe our asses with it when you are not.
Some good has come out of Lame Duck Sessions.This is probably because people have nothing to lose. They are leaving office so they can go out on the limb to vote for something that they may not if they were staying in office. The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 was passed by the 111th Congress in one of these sessions. But overall, the Lame Duck Sessions are bad and really should be eliminated on state and federal level.
The original reason we have a lame duck period is because our Constitution was written a long time ago. It took people a long time to come from Georgia or New Hampshire to arrive in DC or Philadelphia. Now that we have airplanes etc., the time period is no longer needed. As soon as a candidate has been certified, they could be sworn. Maybe the next day or the next week, if we want them to be present in DC.
Lame Duck Sessions, particularly, makes no sense on the state level. Clearly, newly elected officials don't need two months to get to their state capital to be sworn in. Some states do it immediately (like Florida) and twelve others do it within the same year as the election (Alabama, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Indiana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia). What is going on in Wisconsin and Michigan is unconscionable. If they did away with the Lame Duck, this wouldn't be happening.
Wisconsin voted for a Democratic Governor, Tony Evers, over incumbent Republican Scott Walker. Thanks to the magic of gerrymandering, they have had a unified Republican government since 2010 even though there are more registered Democrats who voted in that time. Now that they lost the state house, the Lame Duck Session in that state is voting on limiting the power of the governor. The new Democratic governor will have stricter limits on whom he can appoint to his administration and he will have stricter controls over his negotiation powers with the Federal government. They are also preventing him from pulling out of the lawsuit against the ACA (aka ObamaCare) which is a campaign promise he made. Republicans: circumventing the will of the voters across America.
Michigan is similar with a new Democratic Governor, Gretchen Whitmer. The lame duck state legislature has been fast cutting her power making it difficult for her to appoint officials and for her to shutdown the controversial Line 5 Pipeline which she campaigned so hard against. The state senate is also putting up barriers for the new Democratic Secretary of State to enforce campaign finance reform. They are also gutting the minimum wage and required family leave act that they themselves enacted. Republicans: we wrap ourselves in the American flag when you are looking but wipe our asses with it when you are not.
Some good has come out of Lame Duck Sessions.This is probably because people have nothing to lose. They are leaving office so they can go out on the limb to vote for something that they may not if they were staying in office. The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 was passed by the 111th Congress in one of these sessions. But overall, the Lame Duck Sessions are bad and really should be eliminated on state and federal level.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)