Sunday Night Springsteen

It's Christmas. Has everybody been good out there, or what?

We've been bad. The DSL has been acting up all week, so the internet has been hit or miss. And we've been fighting the Christmas wars in the shopping malls.

This is a "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" from about a week ago. The show is in Paris, and people start throwing Santa hats onto the stage, to get the band to do that song.



Merry Christmas!!!

Sunday Night (Not) Springsteen

New Jersey repealed the death penalty this week.

I join with those who applaud this.

On "BlueJersey.net", Thurman Hart, the Xpatriated Texan, thought that a link to a Steve Earle song would be appropriate for the occasion.



I heartily agree. As Mr. Earle has put it - "I object to the damage it does to my spirit for my government to kill people, because my government is supposed to be me, and I object to ME killing people. It’s very simple."

Yo, Jersey, we rock!!!

Nothing But A Child

Once upon a time
In a far off land
Wise men saw a sign
And set out aross the sand
Songs of praise to sing,
They travelled day and night
Precious gifts to bring,
Guided by the light

They chased a brand new star,
Ever towards the west
Across the mountains far
But when it came to rest
They scarce believed their eyes,
They'd come so many miles
And the miracle they prized
Was nothing but a child

- Steve Earle, Nothing But a Child

It's a little early for Christmas posts, perhaps, but since it's the middle of Advent, maybe not too early. As I've mentioned here before, my favorite Christmas special is, and has for years been, "A Charlie Brown Christmas". One of the reasons is that scene which takes place, after Charlie Brown has been barraged by Christmas commercialization, and has been made fun of for bringing a forlorn little (real) Christmas tree for the Christmas "pageant" the kids are putting on. He can't take it any more, and simply shouts: "Doesn't anybody know what Christmas is all about?" Linus calmly replies, "I know what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown." Then he walks to the center of the stage, and recites a description of (what some consider) an improbable event from the second chapter of Luke:

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields
and keeping the night watch over their flock.
The angel of the Lord appeared to them
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were struck with great fear.
The angel said to them,
"Do not be afraid;
for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For today in the city of David
a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel,
praising God and saying:
"Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests."

And today, via The Ironic Catholic, from over in my reading list, comes a link to a Garrison Keillor essay about discussing the Nativity story with some teenagers. It takes the same story, and teases out some new way to look at it -

We sat in a sort of triangle, two couches at a right angle, a line of chairs, a window looking out at the snow on Amsterdam Avenue, and talked about the rather improbable notion that God sent Himself to Earth in human form, impregnating a virgin who, along with her confused fiancé, journeyed to Bethlehem where no rooms were available at the inn (it was the holidays, after all), and so God was born in a stable, wrapped in cloths and laid in a feed trough and worshipped by shepherds summoned by angels and by Eastern dignitaries who had followed a star.

This magical story is a cornerstone of the Christian faith and I am sorry if it's a big hurdle for the skeptical young. It is to the Church what his Kryptonian heritage was to Clark Kent -- it enables us to stop speeding locomotives and leap tall buildings at a single bound, and also to love our neighbors as ourselves. Without the Nativity, we become a sort of lecture series and coffee club, with not very good coffee and sort of aimless lectures.

On Christmas Eve, the snow on the ground, the stars in the sky, the spruce tree glittering with beloved ornaments, we stand in the dimness and sing about the silent holy night and tears come to our eyes and the vast invisible forces of Christmas stir in the world. Skeptics, stand back. Hush. Hark. There is much in this world that doubt cannot explain.

However you view the meaning of the event as described, in song, or story, or essay, I hope you enjoy the season.

Nothing but a child
Could wash these tears away
Or guide a weary world
Into the light of day

And nothing but a child
Could help erase these miles
So once again we all
Can be children for awhile

Sunday Night Springsteen

I learned today that Mr. Springsteen and the Band will be performing this summer at Giants Stadium - the scene of many performances I attended, too far from the stage and/or while sitting in the rain.

Then there was the time we took the kids, and used them to wrangle floor seats, but that's a story for another day.

In any event, to mark this auspicious announcement, here's a video from what I believe is the last time I saw those folks at the stadium (and the last time they were there), on my birthday in 2003 -

Poor Man Wanna Be Rich, Rich Man Wanna Be King . . .

Tbogg apparently felt that he was too "small time", with his own quirky blog, and has gone all "big time blogger" now.

So now I have to go fix the links in my reading list. I hate going under the hood and messing with stuff, but looks like I have to.

(Now, if only I could get myself some of that big time attention. I might actually post on a regular basis if that happened.)

Faith

This is a simple post, with a simple comment about Mitt Romney's speech on religion and politics, delivered today. Here are some excerpts, which I think show that his argument had little to do with genuine "religious liberty" -

There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams' words: 'We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.'
. . .

There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.
. . .

As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings.

It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions.
. . .

We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.
. . .

We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places.
. . .

And you can be certain of this: Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me. And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion – rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith.

This was supposed to be a "no religious test for office" speech. You could have fooled me.

In fact, Romney’s speech boils down to this -

1. There most certainly is a religious test for public office.

2. I pass that test. Other people don’t, but we won’t get into that now.

3. Don’t ask me any questions about my religious beliefs - trust me, I do pass the test.

"I ain't got much sense, but I still got my feet . . ."

Even though it's been some time between posts, we're still around.

In the last month we traveled to the West Coast, for a big family celebration, and welcomed the Cautious Kids home from college for Thanksgiving. It was the first time, for us, that Thanksgiving dinner was literally the first time we were all together around the table since the summer. That's a new thing, for us.

Somehow, I didn't get around to typing out any rambling random thoughts. Not that there hasn't been a lot of nonsense going on, out there. Anyway, we'll see what happens going forward.

Have You Heard The News

There's been more news about the decline in newspaper circulation. This always seems to be a source of joy for the likes of Ms. Malkin, and other right-wingers. I always wonder why that is. They still rely on the news-gathering functions of these newspapers, but they just prefer to get the stories online, or second-hand through some news filter like "Drudge" or some other editor aggregator. Ms. Malkin actually quotes approvingly from someone who thinks that talk radio should be our substitute for the news. Don't those talk radio folks just sit there reading to us from the newspaper, and then ranting about it?

I was especially curious about this comment, which came at the end of Ms. Malkin's dance of joy -

Parting question: I’m curious about how many of you still subscribe to a dead-tree newspaper. It’s been years since I had one delivered to my home. How about you?

Years? Really? No newspapers at all in the house? Three questions come to mind.

1. Leave aside whatever prejudices you may have about the "mainstream media" (or MSM, as they like to say, probably because it reminds them of KSM). Don't you live in a community, and doesn't it have a local paper? Aren't you the least bit curious about what is going on in your town or city, in local government, or in your schools? Sure, local papers might be lower down on the media food chain, but they still are something to use in order to keep up with what's going on, where you live.

2. Don't you have kids? What are you teaching your kids about being an informed citizen? Are you just training your kids to stare at a video screen? Kids should be provided with good examples, including seeing their parents reading and discussing the news. My kids have grown into well-informed young people, not because we berated them about reading the news, but because it seemed like a natural thing to do. Oh, and get a good newspaper into your home each day, and your kids' vocabularies will grow - heck, if the "raise more informed kids" reason doesn't appeal to the average right-winger, maybe the "score higher on the SATs" motivation will work.

3. The comics. How can you not get the comics?

Sunday Night Springsteen

"Blind Faith" edition.

If you're reading the news and commentary, there's an undercurrent of opinion that the Iraq War could have been a good thing, if only it hadn't been mishandled. Unspoken in those comments, is the idea that the Iran War will be managed better.

It never ends, unfortunately.

Busted Out Of Class

I see this morning that Ms. Malkin, the comfort woman for the far right, has focused her ire on *gasp*, efforts to reduce stress for high-performing high school students. In her diatribe about efforts by Paul Richards, a principal in a Massachusetts district, to promote relaxation techniques, she merrily mixes stories of high-scoring apples and academicallly-challenge oranges to add to her sweeping condemnation of public education.

Oh, criminey. Just what American high school students need: “Less homework, more yoga:”
. . .

Now, Richards is leading an entire cult of educrats more obsessed with reducing “stress” and coddling fragile minds and bodies than with challenging students to push themselves to the limit and demanding nothing less than their best: "Mr. Richards is just one principal in the vanguard of a movement to push back against an ethos of super-achievement at affluent suburban high schools amid the extreme competition over college admissions." . . .

Welcome to 21st century public education in the US, where one in 10 schools are “dropout factories”

The "dropout factory" reference concerns another article, about schools where a severely high percentage of students never graduate -

WASHINGTON - It's a nickname no principal could be proud of: "Dropout Factory," a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year. That dubious distinction applies to more than one in 10 high schools across America.
. . .

There are about 1,700 regular or vocational high schools nationwide that fit that description, according to an analysis of Education Department data conducted by Johns Hopkins for The Associated Press. That's 12 percent of all such schools, no more than a decade ago but no less, either.

While some of the missing students transferred, most dropped out, Balfanz says. The data tracked senior classes for three years in a row — 2004, 2005 and 2006 — to make sure local events like plant closures weren't to blame for the low retention rates.

The highest concentration of dropout factories is in large cities or high-poverty rural areas in the South and Southwest. Most have high proportions of minority students. These schools are tougher to turn around, because their students face challenges well beyond the academic ones — the need to work as well as go to school, for example, or a need for social services.

Utah, which has low poverty rates and fewer minorities than most states, is the only state without a dropout factory. Florida and South Carolina have the highest percentages. About half of high schools in those states classify as dropout factories.

It's ridiculous to link these two stories, as Ms. Malkin does, since the problems identified are very different. Look, it really isn’t all that hard to actually understand the situations. Some kids are not succeeding in school, and their family and economic situations are major contributors to that. On the other hand, some kids are having extraordinary success in school, and once again their family and economic situations are major contributors. The kids who are not succeeding, need help from their schools, and they don’t need right-wing screechers telling them to just work harder. And, the kids who are succeeding, will do just fine, if we back off a little, and let them be themselves. If it takes a little in-school relaxation techniques, why the heck not? It certainly isn’t something to get in a tizzy over.

As for the "stress reduction" program, if Ms. Malkin thinks that this is some sort of public school abomination, she's mistaken. A colleague at work just attended a workshop at the private college preparatory school where her child is in the first year class. The point of the program was for upperclassmen to speak with both students and their parents about academic pressures, and how to handle the college race. Ms. Malkin seems to think that these kids need to have some sort of whip hand over them, "challenging students to push themselves to the limit and demanding nothing less than their best". These kids are doing their best, and they'll be fine, if they aren't made psychotic by the kind of attitude displayed by Ms. Malkin.

As the parent of two college students, I’ve seen how the anxiety over college admissions can create enormous pressure on students. Our kids were anxious, but not because we were pressuring them, but I did see it in their friends. The fact is, there are a lot of great colleges and universities out there (even “state schools”, contrary to the views of the snobs), and these kids will do fine – it’s more important to find a place that is the right fit for them. But, the pressure to get into one of the “top” schools can be harmful, especially since the kids may be looking for the school that everyone else thinks is the “right” school, instead of looking for the school that’s right for them.

So, chill, everybody.

Sunday Night Springsteen

In light of the protests this weekend, this is appropriate - "Gypsy Biker" -

The speculators made their money
On the blood you shed

* * *

The favored march up over the hill
In some fools parade
Shoutin' victory for the righteous
But there ain't much here but graves

* * *

To the dead it don't matter much
'Bout who's wrong or right
You asked me that question
I didn't get it right

Now The Revenue Man Wanted Grandaddy Bad . . .

With my penchant for using lyrics as post titles, I couldn't pass this one up.

From Mr. Atrios, regarding that Republican phenom, former Senator Thompson -

But a review of the 88 criminal cases Thompson handled at the U.S. attorney's office in Nashville, from 1969 to 1972, reveals a different and more human portrait -- that of a young lawyer learning the ropes on routine cases involving gambling, mail theft and, in one instance, talking dirty on CB radio.

There were a few bank robbers and counterfeiters. But more than anything, Thompson took on the state's moonshiners and a local culture, rooted in Tennessee's hills and hollows, that celebrated the independent whiskey maker's battle against the government's revenue agents.

Twenty-seven of his cases involved moonshining -- more than any other crime.

"Hell, I made whiskey and was violating the law, but I didn't do nothing wrong," said one of Thompson's many moonshining defendants, Kenneth Whitehead. "I would do it again if I had a still. I can't afford a still now."

Now, the fact that Mr. Thompson was the prosecutor who kept the promise that the revenue men made, when they caught the moonshiners, is not something that I think is bad. On the other hand, it's not a "good ole boy" kind of activity, as near as I can tell.

But enough of politics - this is as good an excuse as any for some "Copperhead Road" from Steve Earle.

A "music video" version, which apparently can't be "embedded", is at this link.

A "Sims" version, which can be embedded -



And, an interesting clip from what seems to be a "Country Music Television" show hosted by Jerry Jeff "Up against the wall redneck mother" Walker. The audience doesn't seem to know what to make of this guy, Steve Earle, and his solo performance of "Copperhead Road", but they sure do applaud at the end.



I don't know what the crowd would have thought of Mr. Thompson, so we'll just have to let our imaginations run wild.

Out In The Street

So, we sent the Cautious Daughter off to college this fall. And even though you don't think your kids are listening to you - apparently, some of them do. In our case, she's become involved in social justice activities at school, including the Eyes Wide Open project on her campus.

She caught a ride home from school today, because she was on her way to participate in today's march against the war in Iraq. She caught the train from town into New York, with our local "Be About Peace" activists.

I stayed home, did the grocery shopping and picked up the dry cleaning.

I don't know whether I should be happy that I have children who want to do something to oppose our government's war policies, or sad because we're in a situation where our children have to actually deal with a war like this - while their parents run errands.

Anyway, here are some of her pictures from today. This shows some of the people from town, and the "Be About Peace" sign that is seen all around our community.



This sign had a message that says it all -



A shot of the crowd -



And, somebody whom the Cautious Daughter found amusing -

Sunday Night Springsteen

As reported at Backstreets.com, Mr. Springsteen and the band teamed up with some "local heroes" in Ottawa last week.

Yep, in the six-song encore, Bruce and the E Streeters were joined by members of Arcade Fire, husband-and-wife band co-founders Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. First up was "State Trooper," a song Arcade Fire has been known to cover, and which the E Street Band hasn't played live since the Born in the U.S.A. tour. After that, they all went into "Keep the Car Running," a hard-hitting track from Arcade Fire's magnificent Neon Bible.
. . .

[Q]uite a curveball in the indie band's homeland, and a cross-generational mingling of talent on par with the R.E.M. team-up of 2004. Update: Actually, upon reflection, AF's appearance has more in common with Eddie Vedder's, especially in terms of bestowing the ultimate honor in a guest spot: The E Street Band learns your song, and you peform it with them.

Pretty cool, imho.

Some videos of the performance in Ottawa. First up, "State Trooper" On this one you can hear the audience (especially one person) freak out that the folks from Arcade Fire have come onstage.


And another version of that, starting in the middle of the performance -



And then, the E Street Band turned themselves into the "house band" for the folks from Arcade Fire, and backed them up on their own song, "Keep the Car Running". And the crowd goes wild . . .

You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover

You can't judge the sugar
By looking at the cane
You can't judge a woman
By looking at her man
You can't judge the sister
By looking at her brother
You can't judge a book
By looking at the cover
- Bo Diddley

So with all the fussing about Ann Coulter and her messianic zeal about Jewish people, I picked up her book yesterday at the bookstore.

No, I didn't buy it, I just picked it up and flipped through it. It appears to be a compilation of comments (sort of a "Sayings of Chairwoman Ann"), lots of which are apparently from previously published rantings. Just a sampling from the table of contents gives you the flavor of the work. Some examples -

"Airport security: make imams take buses"
"Blacks: the only thing standing between the Democrat Party and oblivion"
"Colleges: the English translation of 'madrassa'"
"Environmentalism : Adolf Hilter was the first environmentalist"
"Evolution, alchemy, and other 'settled' scientific theories"
"Foreigners, or the 'non-soap oriented'"
"Muslims: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and a moderate Muslim walk into a bar"

Well, you get the idea. I know that her whole point is to say things that get people annoyed or angry, but why? In her introduction, she says that she is saying "the Truth" - but someone who views those things as "the Truth" has a serious perception problem, or is perhaps just a little, you know, a few threads short of a full cocktail dress.

Then it hit me. I was reading these all wrong. I went through the table of contents again, but this time imagining the voice of Stephen Colbert saying these things. And, it was hilarious! While they're outrageous coming from some clueless conservative pundit who thinks she's making a valid point, they are fantastic one-liners for someone who is trying to act like a clueless conservative pundit.

Mr. Colbert should mine this book for the nuggets of comedy gold contained therein. I give him that advice free of charge.

Sunday Night Springsteen

So we went to the Meadowlands on Tuesday, to see Mr. Springsteen and the E Street Band perform with songs from the new album. They had a glitch (an "Incident", if you will), and as a result did not perform the following song, which had been included in the setlist for the show.

They did it for the crowd the next night (lucky bastards), from which the recording below came.

As It Changes To Green

Ms. Malkin has taken time out from stalking the families of injured 12-year-olds, to return to her full-time job as Islamophobic Rage Girl.

She has found another example of “Dhimmitude” (a nonsense word coined by some hard-core haters, of which Ms. M is a prime specimen). And what does she consider to be the latest craven capitulation to the crescent and star? The lights of Empire State Building will shine green, in commemoration of Eid-al-fitr, the festival at the end of Ramadan.

New York's iconic Empire State Building is to be lit up green from Friday in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid, the biggest festival in the Muslim calendar marking the end of Ramadan, officials said.

"This is the first time that the Empire State Building will be illuminated for Eid, and the lighting will become an annual event in the same tradition of the yearly lightings for Christmas and Hannukah," according to a statement.

That’s right, she’s rallying her rage boys and rage girls to get upset over the commemoration of a religious holiday celebrated by millions of Americans, and over a billion people around the world.

And what is her reason for this? She coyly leaves it unspoken, letting her post title speak for her, and then linking to other, more obscure but no less hate-filled bloggers. Among the “reasonings” offered for getting the hate on over this –

Today, they announced that the Empire State Building will light itself HAMAS-green in honor of the end of Ramadan.

. . .

"Interreligious understanding" now means we must "understand" those who want to obliterate us through tall buildings. When you demand multi-culturalism, the "cult" is the part of the word that ends up dominating.

In 2001, it was through forced, violent, fiery colors. In 2007, it is through voluntarily whimpering and butt-kissing to Ramadan colors.

Either way, it's a defeat. The first time, the tall buildings' owners didn't expect it. This time, the owners not only see it coming, they cower to it.

Planes into the building, yesterday. Jihadist-Green atop the building, today. Same difference.

If only Jim Jones were around today . . . Kool-Aid Purple Lighting atop the Empire State. "Interreligious Understanding."

Just asking us to look at the HAMAS-Green is like forcing us to drink the Purple.

Yes, I know that Ms. Malkin didn’t write those words, she “only” linked to the post. Doesn’t matter, given her hearty recommendation. Oh, and read the comments at her post, too, if you want to see more examples of ignorant hatred.

Of course, this is another example of the rule that "Hate Makes You Stupid". Even if they didn't already know it, five seconds on the computer would have shown these clowns that "Green is considered the traditional color of Islam". Or, perhaps, they do know that, but their intense hatred has got the better of them. This is a perfect example of the "Islam=Terrorism" Islamophobia they embody, even as they lie and claim that's not what they are saying.

These people are hatemongers, pure and simple. It’s an outrage that someone like Ms. Malkin is given the hosting chair on O’Reilly, or constantly brought onto television programs as some sort of cultural or political critic.

Sunday Night Springsteen

Tonight, it really was "Sunday Night Springsteen", with the gentleman himself featured on "60 Minutes".

The story's online, so if you didn't see it, just go here.

My favorite part of the interview (and, IMHO, it's something that a longtime fan would find most interesting) is the dialogue regarding his father. His father did seem to be part of a lot of those characters in his songs, who were looking for a better life. That came out in this interview -

His recurring obsession is the life that he knew as a boy, the harsh relationship with his working class dad who didn't think much of a rock and roll son.

"It was a tough, struggling household. People struggled emotionally. People struggled financially to get through the day," Springsteen remembers. "Small town. Small town world which I continue to return to. It's like when I went to write, though, I put my father's clothes on. You know the immersement in that world through my parents and my own experience as a child and the need to tell a story that maybe was partially his. Or maybe a lot his. I just felt drawn to do it."

"Your dad wasn't all that proud of you as a young man?" Pelley asks.

"Oh, he was later. When I came home with the Oscar and I put it on the kitchen table, and he just looked at it and said, 'Bruce, I'll never tell anybody what to do ever again,'" Springsteen remembers, laughing. "It was like, that was his comment. So I said, 'Oh. That's okay.'"

If you've ever heard one of Mr. Springsteen's stories about his dad, in concert, that last one is the topper.

The Roll Of The Dice

In the middle of a masterful exposition of just what is so wrong about Mr. Bill O'Reilly and the Fox News enterprise, Hunter at Daily Kos let forth with this perfect summation.

The entire "conservative" media movement, from Limbaugh to O'Reilly to Coulter, is based on old Andrew Dice Clay skits. Someday, America will get tired of people whose only schtick is comic hatred, just like they got tired of their antecedents. Ratings will begin to slide, and it will be all over: on to the new schtick.

That actually explains everything, for me.

One can only hope that America tires of it before something really bad happens.

I mean, other than the really bad stuff that's already happened . . .

Watch The Traffic Pass Me By

So, over at Crooks and Liars, somebody gave the keys to Steven Hart of The Opinion Mill, who's on my reading list on the side. Mr. Hart was kind enough to link to my musings on Mr. Giuliani, below.

Well, as you can imagine, the traffic here soared today. I came home and checked the "Sitemeter" stats, and felt like a big-time blogger.

Thanks, dude.

Sunday Night Springsteen

Tonight, a little something from Friday Morning Springsteen, on the Today show the other day. This clip has Mr. Springsteen's pointed introduction to the song.
After enumerating "the things we love about America, cheeseburgers, French fries, the Yankees battlin' Boston, the Bill of Rights, v-twin motorcycle, . . . trans-fats and the Jersey Shore", he noted: "Over the last 6 years we've had to add to the American picture, rendition, illegal wiretapping, voter suppression, no habeus corpus, neglect of our great city of New Orleans and the people, an attack on the Constitution and the loss of our best young men and women in a tragic war." Yes, he did go there, right there on national television.

What's amazing to me, is that it is actually controversial nowadays to be for the Bill of Rights. What a wonderful legacy for the Bush Administration.

Anyway, "Living in the Future" -

A letter come blowin' in
On an ill wind
Somethin' 'bout me and you
Never seein' one another again
And what I knew had come
Stars struck deaf and dumb
Like when we kissed
That taste of blood on your tongue

Don't worry, darlin'
No baby, don't you fret
We're livin' in the future
And none of this has happened yet
Don't worry, darlin'
No baby, don't you fret
We're livin' in the future
And none of this has happened yet

Woke up election day
Sky's gunpowder and shades of grey
Beneath the dirty sun
I whistle my time away
Then just about sun down
You come walkin' through town
Your boot heels clickin' like
The barrel of a pistol spinnin' round

Don't worry, darlin'
No baby, don't you fret
We're livin' in the future
And none of this has happened yet
Don't worry, darlin'
No baby, don't you fret
We're livin' in the future
And none of this has happened yet

The earth it gave away
The sea rose towards the sun
I opened up my heart to you
It got all damaged and undone
My ship Liberty sailed away
On a bloody red horizon
The groundskeeper opened the gates
And let the wild dogs run

Alone I limp through town
A lost cowboy at sundown
Got my monkey on a leash
Got my ear tuned to the ground
My faith's been torn asunder
Tell me is that rollin' thunder
Or just the sinkin' sound
Of somethin' righteous goin' under

Don't worry, darlin'
No baby, don't you fret
We're livin' in the future
And none of this has happened yet
Don't worry, darlin'
No baby, don't you fret
We're livin' in the future
And none of this has happened yet
None of this has happened yet
None of this has happened yet
None of this has happened yet
None of this has happened yet

Na na na na, na na na na-na
Na na na na, na na na na-na
Na na na na, na na na na-na
Na na na na, na na na na-na
Na na na na, na na na na-na
Na na na na, na na na na-na
Na na na na, na na na na-na

The Cold Black Water

The Blackwater security firm has been in the news lately, mostly because of reports about the "rules of engagement" (or lack thereof) of their personnel in Iraq, and the civilian deaths that have resulted. Then, just the other day, came a report about how Blackwater endandered its own personnel in Iraq, in connection with an investigation of the company's practices.

Democrats in Congress released a scathing report Thursday on the 2004 massacre of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah, charging that the company rushed unprepared into a sloppy mission, skimped on security to save money and stonewalled when Congress tried to investigate.

The report ratchets up the pressure on Blackwater, already under intense scrutiny for a Sept. 16 shooting incident in Baghdad that left 11 Iraqis dead.

. . .

Thursday's report, based on government reports and internal Blackwater documents, said:

- Blackwater, a for-profit company, opted to use unarmored vehicles to save money and cut essential personnel from the mission. An internal Blackwater report said Blackwater's contract paid for armored vehicles but "management in North Carolina ... made the decision to go with soft skin due to the cost."

- Blackwater ignored the warnings of a British security firm, which had twice turned down the exact same mission "due to the obvious risk of transporting slow-moving loads through such a volatile area."

. . .

The mission through Fallujah had a hurried and slapdash quality, the congressional report said.

Blackwater was taking over operations from Control Risk Group, a British security company. Control Risk Groups twice rejected the mission to escort three flatbed trucks from Camp Taji through Fallujah to Camp Ridgeway because it was too dangerous to take a slow-moving convoy through such hostile territory.

Blackwater ignored the warnings, the report said. Blackwater also sent its men out short-staffed, with two men in each unarmored vehicle, rather than three. The absence of a third man left them open to attack from the rear. Contractors from another company, Kellogg Brown and Root, told Navy investigators that they met the Blackwater convoy the night before the ambush. The Blackwater team seemed unprepared and hurried, and it ignored warnings from the other contractors to avoid Fallujah because of ambushes.

"It almost felt like they were being pressured to get there and get there as quickly as possible," said one contractor, whom the report didn't name.

I was reminded of an "infamous" statement written by the proprietor/ringmaster of Daily Kos, Mr. Markos Moulitsas. At the time of the deaths of the Blackwater personnel in Faluja, he responded with a comment (not a post, you have to scroll down this linked comment page) that has been referenced by right-wingers ever since -

Let the people see what war is like. This isn't an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush's folly.
That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

Mr. Moulitsas himself described that as follows:"So I said something pretty stupid last week. I served up the wingnuts a big, juicy softball. They went into a tizzy, led by Instapundit." And, it lingered as a right-wing talking point, as this dialogue (gleefully reprinted by somebody at "Expose The Left") demonstrates -

KURTZ: Now as you know, “National Review’s” Byron York resurrected a quote from you, this was after four American contractors were killed in Iraq in 2004. The quote was, I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. They are there to wage war for profits, screw them. You dealt with this at the time and you expressed regret. My question is, are you prepared for the extra scrutiny that comes with this higher profile you have, whether you particularly want to be out there as the symbol of the blogging movement or not?

MOULITSAS: Absolutely. To me in a way it’s funny that they have not updated their talking points in two years. And so they want to keep resurrecting an old quote, there’s nothing I can do about it. What I can do is I can say the fact is the reason, the context for that quote was solidarity with my brothers and sisters in arms, Marines and soldiers. I wore combat boots. I served during the first Gulf war and people are making a choice between private armies and mercenaries. I make my choice. I stand behind our men and women in uniform and I’m not going to apologize for that. But they’re going to keep resurrecting that and that’s fine. That’s what they do. They smear, they attack, they don’t like the fact that people are getting engaged in politics, that people are getting involved. There are too many turf to protect so they’ll keep doing that and that’s fine. I can fight back.

Now, why mention this? Well, the latest reports, noted at the start of this post, show that Mr. Moulitsas was not the first person to say "Screw them" about the Blackwater personnel. The reason those men died, was because the executives of Blackwater, in their zeal to make the Iraq War a lucrative, for-profit enterprise, skimped on training and safety, and essentially said about their own employees: "Screw them."

Another reason to question our government and its amorality in pursuing the war in Iraq.

With A Boulder On My Shoulder . . .

So, I read the latest nonsense from Rudy Giuliani, and my jaw drops yet again. Due to this -

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani compared the scrutiny of his personal life marked by three marriages to the biblical story of how Jesus dealt with an adulterous woman.

In an interview posted online Friday, Giuliani was questioned about his family and told the Christian Broadcasting Network, "I think there are some people that are very judgmental."

Giuliani has a daughter who indicated support for Democrat Barack Obama and a son who said he didn't speak to his father for some time. Giuliani's messy divorce from their mother, Donna Hanover, was waged publicly while Giuliani was mayor of New York.

"I'm guided very, very often about, `Don't judge others, lest you be judged,'" Giuliani told CBN interviewer David Brody. "I'm guided a lot by the story of the woman that was going to be stoned, and Jesus put the stones down and said, 'He that hasn't sinned, cast the first stone,' and everybody disappeared.

"It seems like nowadays in America, we have people that think they could've passed that test," he said. "And I don't think anybody could've passed that test but Jesus."

First off, he doesn't relate the passage correctly, but why bother trying to get it right if you're going to be interviewed by a leading conservative evangelical Protestant website. Thanks for representing Catholics so well, Rudy, since your interviewers probably think that none of us ever look at, let along read, a Bible.

But, more to the point, just because I may not be able to pass the "without sin" test, doesn't mean that I can't have a low opinion of you. Besides, I can pass the "didn't-leave-my-wife-while-publically-humiliating-her", "didn't-try-to-have-my-mistress-over-to-the-house", "didn't-take-public-safety-money-to-build-a-getaway-for-affairs", and "didn't-throw-my-wives-and-kids-and-past-supporters-under-the-bus-for-personal-ambition" tests.

So, let's just say that we may have a stone or two here with your name on it, pal.

Sunday Night Springsteen

An audio-only, from the upcoming album. We're looking forward to that, and to the concert next month.

Who will be the last to die for our mistake?



[Edited on September 30 to add this extra video] Mr. S and the Band performed this song in the "9:30 hour" of the Today Show, from which the Sept. 30 post and link came from. So, we're adding that to this "Sunday Night Springsteen" post - and who would have thought that a mainstream morning show like "Today" could be where these unabashedly anti-war pleas are featured?

We took the highway till the road went black
We marked Truth Or Consequences on our map
A voice drifted up from the radio
We saw the voice from long ago

Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break
Who'll be the last to die for a mistake

The kids asleep in the backseat
We're just countin' the miles you and me
We don't measure the blood we've drawn anymore
We just stack the bodies outside the door

Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break
Who'll be the last to die for a mistake

The wise men were all fools
What to do

The sun sets in flames as the city burns
Another day gone down as the night turns
And I hold you here in my heart
As things fall apart

A downtown window flushed with light
Faces of the dead at five (faces of the dead at five)
A martyr's silent eyes
Petition the drivers as we pass by

Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break
Who'll be the last to die

Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Darlin' your tyrants and kings form the same fate
Strung up at your city gates
And you're the last to die for a mistake

(Lyrics from here, no guarantee of accuracy, but it seems close enough ...)

The PeopleHave The Power

Over at No More Mister Nice Blog, Steve M has the news about the latest book from Laura Ingraham - "Power to the People" - noting that it's "Not exactly the title I would have chosen right now if I were a right winger".

I fell victim to an uncontrollable urge to suggest, in his comments, that a little Patti Smith would be appropriate right now -

I was dreaming in my dreaming
of an aspect bright and fair
and my sleeping it was broken
but my dream it lingered near
in the form of shining valleys
where the pure air recognized
and my senses newly opened
I awakened to the cry
that the people / have the power
to redeem / the work of fools
upon the meek / the graces shower
it's decreed / the people rule

The people have the power
The people have the power
The people have the power
The people have the power

Vengeful aspects became suspect
and bending low as if to hear
and the armies ceased advancing
because the people had their ear
and the shepherds and the soldiers
lay beneath the stars
exchanging visions
and laying arms
to waste / in the dust
in the form of / shining valleys
where the pure air / recognized
and my senses / newly opened
I awakened / to the cry

Refrain

Where there were deserts
I saw fountains
like cream the waters rise
and we strolled there together
with none to laugh or criticize
and the leopard
and the lamb
lay together truly bound
I was hoping in my hoping
to recall what I had found
I was dreaming in my dreaming
god knows / a purer view
as I surrender to my sleeping
I commit my dream to you

Refrain

The power to dream / to rule
to wrestle the world from fools
it's decreed the people rule
it's decreed the people rule
LISTEN
I believe everything we dream
can come to pass through our union
we can turn the world around
we can turn the earth's revolution
we have the power
People have the power ...

And in honor of that, we have some Monday Night Springsteen - from the "Vote for Change" concert in 2004, in Washington. This is "People Have The Power", with the E Street Band backing up not only Mr. Springsteen, but also Michael Stipe with R.E.M., Eddie Vedder with Pearl Jam, the Dixie Chicks, John Fogerty, Bonnie Raitt, Dave Matthews, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, John Mellencamp, Jurassic 5, Keb' Mo', and Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds. It's a line-up that looks like some kind of pepperoni pizza nightmare for Laura "Shut Up and Sing" Ingraham.



And, yes, I know that one didn't turn out the way we wanted. But, that's no reason to give up, as 2006 demonstrated.

Sunday Night Springsteen

One would like to think that the tide may turn, and that enough politicians will decide that enough is enough, and that stopping a war is better than just letting it go on.

This is from the "Kennedy Center Honors" for Bob Dylan in 1997 - Mr. Springsteen's reading of "The Times They Are A Changin'."

"I Ply My Trade In The Land Of King DollarWhere You Get Paid And Your Silence Passes As Honor .. ."

Well, looks like Alan Greenspan has gone and stepped in it -

America's elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.

In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W. Bush’s economic policies.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

Britain and America have always insisted the war had nothing to do with oil. Bush said the aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and end Saddam’s support for terrorism.

It's bad enough that "Maestro" Greenspan is criticizing the President on his economic policy. But saying that-which-must-not-be-said about the motivations of the Bush/Cheney White House? That will get Alan some serious blow-back from the Fox News/Wall Street Journal/Talk Hate Radio crew.

I wouldn't be surprised if, all of a sudden, they start telling us what a disaster Greenspan was for the economy, and how Bush saved us all by replacing him with Bernanke.

So, before these disappear down the memory hole, some excerpts from the Wall Street Journal. First, from the Editor of the Wall Street Journal, in those halcyon days of August, 2001 -

I've known Alan Greenspan so long I met Ayn Rand at a going-away party the first time he joined government back in the Ford administration. From long lunches in an aerie above Wall Street, I can testify he has one of the most complex minds I've ever encountered.

Even before he joined the central bankers' club, it was hard but fascinating to follow the twists and turns of his analysis. But somehow he always managed to tie the strands together into a sensible whole, coming out in what seemed to me the right place. So with Alan as Federal Reserve chairman, I've tended to swallow my doubts about a discretionary monetary policy, guided by the intuition of one man rather than by explicit and consistent rules and guideposts.

And indeed, Mr. Greenspan's guidance has served the republic well, with a long run of prosperity and increasingly stable prices.

And, from when Mr. Greenspan turned the reins over to Mr. Bernanke in 2005 -

When Alan Greenspan was nominated to succeed Paul Volcker as Federal Reserve Chairman in 1987, financial markets tanked. The more positive reaction to Ben Bernanke's selection yesterday shows how much the markets have come to trust Mr. Greenspan and how they expect Mr. Bernanke to run monetary policy in the same fashion.

He'll have a hard act to follow . . .

I should note that both columns were written with a critical eye on some aspect of Mr. Greenspan's tenure, but the fact that they have to bow to him first, before suggesting some way he could have done better, shows the esteem in which our right-ward leaning friends have held him.

Now, let's see if the knives come out. That's always been the "Bushie" way. The other side is never "wrong", they are always completely, utterly, and cravenly wrong-headed about everything.

Pass the popcorn . . .

Bought Us Two Tickets

Why, yes, we did get tickets for the first night of the E Street Band at the Meadowlands in NJ. Where else should one go to see them?

Thanks for asking.

Sunday Night Springsteen

Ticket day tomorrow! Wish me luck.

This was put up on Youtube by someone, about a month ago. It's from a Harry Chapin tribute from about 20 years ago, that was played on television. After a big group number (I think it was "Circle"), Springsteen suddenly appears walking through the crowd of performers, and proceeds to give a classic, one-time story-telling performance in tribute to Harry.

Just another reason why we're fans.



Oh, yes, one more thing. Regarding tickets - Let's get lucky!

The Pimp's Main Prophet

After completing the post below, I realized that I really get peeved by Michelle Malkin's antics. I guess that, with all the racial animosity politics practiced by a not-insubstantial portion of the right wing, she stands out. I realized why that is, when I saw a piece from her the other day, entitled "Brown like Geraldo, but not down with Geraldo". It's ostensibly another round of an escalating war between Ms. Malkin and Geraldo Rivera, over immigration. Whether the animosity is real, or trumped up for Faux News purposes, is beside the point. In that piece, Ms. Malkin admits to what her role is, in the racial hatred portion of the right wing -

Geraldo says he “cringes” whenever I’m on Fox. I’ll tell you exactly why. It’s not because of any principled objection he has to the arguments I’ve made in my books (which he hasn’t read), columns, blog posts, and tee-vee appearances. It’s because the mere existence of conservative-thinking minorities who reject his tired old brand of identity politics threatens his race/ethnic-card-playing schtick. He can no longer dismiss all immigration enforcement proponents as racists without looking like a fool or tool, because there are countless, vocal numbers of them like me who have skin as brown as his.

So, that's the game. She's "brown", so she can be a means to deliver some of the most virulent, bigoted arguments based on stereotypes and hatred. It has required some compromise, on her part. For example, she used to be the proud daughter of Filipino immigrants - that's how she identified herself in older versions of her biography on her website. Today, her online bio contains no mention of her parents, or the "I" word - she's simply "Philly-born, South Jersey-raised" now.

She consorts with people who, frankly, seem to be the type that would despise her, and any other non-European who would have the audacity to marry someone of European ancestry, or have children with a mixed ethnic heritage. Recently, she seems to have played down her association with "VDare.com", a nativist website that she once featured prominently on her "Immigration Blog" section. The fact that she seems to have hidden and scrubbed that part of her website is telling. After all, "VDare" is the project of Peter Brimelow, an immigrant from England, but also a Eurocentric nativist -

He described the role of race as "elemental, absolute, fundamental." He said that white Americans should demand that U.S. immigration quotas be changed to allow in mostly whites. He argued that spending tax dollars on anything related to multiculturalism was "subversive." He called foreign immigrants "weird aliens with dubious habits."

He worried repeatedly that his son, with his "blue eyes" and "blond hair," would grow up in an America in which whites had lost the majority.

At one point, he wrote that if one enters an Immigration and Naturalization Service waiting room, just like entering the New York subways, "you find yourself in an underworld that is not just teeming but also almost entirely colored."

Hardly a hearty welcome for Ms. Malkin, her parents, or her kids. Ms. Malkin will also heartily recommend columns written by, as she puts it, "the brilliant Diana West", equating "creeping amnesty" with "creeping sharia". Funny thing, that Diana West column that Ms. Malkin recommended also contains this gem:

All of which is to say that creeping sharia, both at home and abroad, is still a present danger. But so is creeping amnesty. And strikingly, the amnesty scenario begins to mirror, if even in a cracked way, some of the demographic changes that historian Bernard Lewis predicted will turn Europe Islamic by the end of this century. That is, as America increasingly loses its European-descended majority on one side of the Atlantic, Europe, too, increasingly loses its European majority on the other.

That's right. Ms. Malkin recommends as "brilliant" a piece that bemoans the fact that the "European-descended majority" is shrinking.

What's my point? It's simply that Ms. Malkin and her "brown-ness" is being spent in the service of racists. She does their dirty work, saying the things they want to say, but don't want to be seen to be saying, because they'd be "outed" as racists if they did. Here's a classic Malkin performance, making her "creeping sharia" argument about the installation of foot-washing facilities at an airport. The poor guy who came on the program actually tried to have an intelligent discussion, but Ms. Malkin at one point actually mocks how he speaks.

So, to conclude. Ms. Malkin has found a sure route to fame and fortune. She hires out her "brown-ness" to racist, nativist movements, and thereby makes them more comfortable with their race hatred. She is, quite frankly, a "comfort woman" for right-wing racial politics.

Yes, I know that Ms. Malkin doesn't like analogies to prostitution, when refering to her work. But, while the "comfort women" of World War II were prisoners and were abused, she appears to embrace her role and the remuneration it provides. So, I guess I'll respond in the way that she responded when asked about suicides among Guantanamo prisoners (none of whom had been charged or convicted).

Your Own Worst Enemy

The recent arrests of an assortment of New Jersey officials have, once again, burnished our state's reputation as a haven for corruption. We are our own worst enemies, of course, as some local politicians seem to feel that neither the voters, the press, or the law will ferret out their shady dealings. That being said, I have no reason to believe that New Jersey is any worse than any place else - our small time corruption does get exposed, but maybe we're also looking harder for it.

Nevertheless, the press does love a good NJ corruption story when one pops up. And, in light of the recent, endless parade of corrupt Republicans coming to light, that reliable cheerleader and former "Jersey Girl", Michelle Malkin, has a ginormous post for what she calls "A closer look at the NJ Democrat corruption case." It's rare that she dedicates that much blog real estate to a topic, but she clearly wants to play this up.

Couple of problems, of course. First of all, it's not just a "Democrat" case, since one of the policians hauled in is a Republican former councilman from Passaic. More important, this is a group of two assemblymen, assorted city officials, and members of a school board - in reality, this is a "rotten local officials corruption case", not solely a "Democrat" case.

New Jersey is pretty bipartisan when it comes to crooked politicians. Two years ago, a group of mostly Republican officials from mostly-Republican Monmouth County were hauled in by the Feds, on similar bribery charges. And, in Essex County where I live, we had our former, corrupt, Republican County Executive arrested and convicted in 2003 of corruption in office and of trying to obstruct the investigation into his dealings. One interesting facet of the case was Treffinger's plan to short-circuit the investigation into him and his crooked cronies -

Treffinger was seeking a presidential appointment to become the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey in order to terminate favorably the investigation. Treffinger was captured in a covert tape-recording of a conversation with DeMiro on Jan. 15, 2001. During this conversation, Treffinger advised DeMiro that "all this becomes moot if I get to be made U.S. Attorney," and that they would "rest easy for a long time to come" because, he explained, "[t]hen this whole thing goes away."

Curiously, none of these cases were ever addressed by Ms. Malkin. I'm not sure why, since the recent case has given her a chance to repeat a phrase that she's used before: "They don’t call my home state the armpit of the nation' for nothing." The last time I read that in her column, we had a little fun here pointing out that Ms. Malkin was (as far as we were concerned) not terribly welcome or well thought of, here. In her patented jump-to-conclusions-and-blame-the-Muslims way, she had gone on a crusade when an Egyptian Christian family was found murdered in Jersey City. Before the perpetrators were arrested, Ms. Malkin gleefully stoked the flames of racial and religious hatred, asserting that this Christian family was the victim of Muslim assasins. In fact, while during the investigation local officials cautioned people not to jump to conclusions, she mocked them and accused them of some sort of "political correctness" for not pursuing the "jihadists" who she concluded had committed the crime. Even when the truth came out (that Muslims were not involved), she continued to imply that there were legitimate unanswered questions.

At the time, I suggested that Ms. Malkin be relieved of any connection to the Garden State, since we seem to bother her so much. Besides, being a Republican Filipino from New Jersey could get you confused with Leandro Aragoncillo, an FBI intelligence analyst, who previously worked for Vice President Dick Cheney, who was stealing classified documents at Fort Monmouth and passing them to high-level officials within the Philippines government. Especially since she's Ms. "Race-Based Internment".

In any event, this latest crop of corrupt policians are getting what they deserve. And as for whether corruption is more of a Republican or Democratic phenomenon, I'll leave that question alone. The Republicans do seem to have the higher profile scandals lately, as this list (recommended by the Blanton’s and Ashton’s blog) seems to indicate. It's got our buddy Leandro, and a whole lot more.

And, finally, here's a great webpage from WFMU, with "Songs in Celebration of The Armpit of the Nation" - including a personal favorite, Dave Van Ronk's Garden State Stomp.

Summer’s Gone and the Time is Right . . .

. . . to get back to random thoughts a/k/a infrequent rantings.

Well, we had a great, I mean GREAT week in London. They had a wet summer, but last week was dry, and mostly sunny. The people are great, and their city is one of the greatest urban areas in the world (imho). I have to take my regular commuter train tomorrow, after having been spoiled by the London Underground, as well as by the National Rail trains we took to Hampton Court and Canterbury.

We took the tour of Parliament that is only available during the late summer break. I recommend it. Sure, the MPs aren’t around, but that means that you can stroll into the House of Commons through their doorway, where the statue of Winston Churchill has had his foot rubbed to a shine by MPs about to make their maiden speeches (and by tourists). We stood in the MPs places, and I stood a moment behind the Dispatch Box where the Prime Minister stands during question time. It was cool.

As our guide noted, before we went into the Commons: “It’s like Tom Cruise, much smaller in person than it appears on film.” It was deliberately made too small, so that when ordinary matters are debated, they still seem important, and when important matters are debated, the sides can really confront each other.

We also went to the Notting Hill Carnival, a Caribbean festival which claims to be Europe’s largest street party. Whether it is or not, it’s HUGE. And it’s not just people of Caribbean heritage dancing and partying in the streets. When you see a whole contingent of pale English women samba-ing down the street like Rio wannabes, it makes you skeptical of the right-wingers who issue dire warnings about “Londonistan”.

Anyway, we had a great time, and a great summer. Hope yours was, as well.

Sunday Night Springsteen

What else could it be? We're "Countin' on a Miracle" ...

It's a fairytale so tragic
There's no prince to break the spell
I don't believe in the magic
But for you I will, for you I will

And the obscure acoustic version, for those of you like myself -

Show A Little Faith, There's Magic In The Night

Posted without comment, but with a lot of anticipation -

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 16, 2007

Bruce Springsteen's 'Magic' Set for October 2 Release on Columbia Records

'Magic,' Bruce Springsteen's new studio recording and his first with the E Street Band in five years, is set for release by Columbia Records on October 2, 2007. Produced and mixed by Brendan O'Brien, the album features eleven new Springsteen songs and was recorded at Southern Tracks Recording Studio in Atlanta, GA.

'Magic' Song Titles:

1. Radio Nowhere
2. You'll Be Comin' Down
3. Livin' in the Future
4. Your Own Worst Enemy
5. Gypsy Biker
6. Girls in Their Summer Clothes
7. I'll Work for Your Love
8. Magic
9. Last to Die
10. Long Walk Home
11. Devil's Arcade

'Magic' is the first new studio album by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band since 2002's GRAMMY Award-winning, multi-platinum, number one album 'The Rising' (Columbia Records), which was also produced by O'Brien.

Bruce Springsteen's longtime manager Jon Landau said, "'Magic' is a high energy rock CD. It's light on its feet, incredibly well played by Bruce and the members of the E Street Band, and, as always, has plenty to say. It's also immensely entertaining. 'Magic' is the third collaboration between Bruce and Brendan O'Brien and is a culmination of their very productive creative relationship."

Go here for more details.

Developing ...

Waiting For The Bells That Ring

Last month I mentioned that the Cautious Wife and I are treating ourselves to a vacation in London at the end of the month.

So now what do I see in the news? Big Ben is going silent during our visit -

Big Ben, the bell in the clock tower above Britain's Parliament in London, will fall silent tomorrow until the end of September to accommodate repairs.

The clock will strike for the last time this month at 8 a.m. Saturday. An hour later, a team of specialists will scale down the tower's south side to clean the iconic face, an event which takes place every five years.

Quarter bells, which play a tune every 15 minutes, also will stop for maintenance. The 13.8-ton hour bell, from which the tower gets its nickname, is in the final phase of a repair program before its 150th anniversary in 2009.

"Hopefully as a tourist you won't notice anything different," Mike McCann, who has held the title of keeper of the great clock for the past decade, said in a telephone interview. "The hands will still be going. You just won't hear any bongs."

I thought the "bongs" were the whole point. Who the heck do I sue, here?

City of Ruins

This is the anniversary of the second use of an atomic bomb on a populated area, as a weapon of war. The other day, Bill Cork had a post on his blog which cited a provocatively-titled article, that referred to the first use of the atomic bomb, at Hiroshima, as one of the worst acts of terrorism in human history.

As I said, provocative. Is it useful to analyze the use of atomic bombs in WWII using the "terrorism" label? To the extent that it provokes serious thought, about the consequences of a nation's actions against others, I think it is useful.

The classic argument is that it is the motive and ultimate goal of the attacker, that determines whether something should be analyzed as being “terrorism” – in other words, look at it from the point of view of the attacker. Mr. Cork's post provoked a vehement reaction in his comments, from someone who asked: “Were these not the same Japanese who manipulated their dwindling numbers of men into acts of ‘glorious martyrdom’ and boarded them on fully-fueled aircraft filled to the teeth with explosives in the last year of the war? They were so ready to treat with us that they employed suicide attacks against military targets?” Mr. Cork responded, in part, by pointing out that another point of view to consider, is that of the ones being attacked and killed: “Finally, realize that a couple hundred thousand innocent people were expressly targeted specifically to frighten their government into capitulating. How is that different from terrorism?”

That’s not an accusation that the U.S. is on a par with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. I think it’s legitimate to analyze the methods being used, to supposedly further our country’s goals, from the standpoint of what those methods do to the innocent – because it’s certain that others are looking at it that way.

And one more thing, regarding the argument that these were the same Japanese willing to fight and martyr themselves for the emperor – that’s not the case for all of them –

Like the primary target Kokura, Nagasaki was overcast that morning. With barely enough fuel remaining to reach Okinawa, Major Sweeney and his crew had to pinpoint their target in the course of only one run over the city. By chance a crack opened in the clouds, revealing the industrial zone stretching from the Mitsubishi sports field in Hamaguchi-machi to the Mitsubishi Steel Works in Mori-machi and automatically designating this as the bombing target. The actual explosion, however, occurred some five or six hundred meters to the north over a tennis court in Matsuyama-machi. The details of the explosion can be summarized as follows.

Known as Urakami, the district around the hypocenter (ground zero) area had been populated for centuries by Japanese people of the Roman Catholic faith. At the time of the bombing, between 15,000 and 16,000 Catholics - the majority of the approximately 20,000 people of that faith in Nagasaki and about half of the local population - lived in the Urakami district. It is said that about 10,000 Catholics were killed by the atomic bomb. Although traditionally a rustic isolated suburb, the Urakami district was chosen as the site for munitions factories in the 1920s, after which time the population soared and an industrial zone quickly took shape. The district was also home to the Nagasaki Medical College and a large number of other schools and public buildings. The industrial and school zones of the Urakami district lay to the east of the Urakami River, while the congested residential district of Shiroyama stretched to the hillsides on the west side of the river. It was over this section of Nagasaki that the second atomic bomb exploded at 11:02 a.m., August 9, 1945. The damages inflicted on Nagasaki by the atomic bombing defy description. The 20 machi or neighborhoods within a one kilometer radius of the atomic bombing were completely destroyed by the heat flash and blast wind generated by the explosion and then reduced to ashes by the subsequent fires. About 80% of houses in the more than 20 neighborhoods between one and two kilometers from the hypocenter collapsed and burned, and when the smoke cleared the entire area was strewn with corpses.

Arguing that it’s their own fault, that they lived and worked within a country and a system that was fighting the United States, and so deserve what happened to them – well, that’s the same kind of argument that made Ward Churchill such a “poster boy” for people who want to shut down any criticism of the government.

More From the FRIGGIN' Bombardier

Two summers ago, in a post entitled "Playing Backyard Bombardier", we saw Congressman Tom Tancredo's absolutely idiotic proposal to deter terrorist attacks:

TANCREDO: Well, what if you said something like, if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites.

CAMPBELL: You're talking about bombing Mecca.

TANCREDO: Yeah. I mean, what if you said, "We recognize that this is the ultimate threat to the United States, therefore this is the ultimate threat, this is the ultimate response." I mean, I don't know -- I'm just throwing out there some ideas because it seems to me, at this point in time, or at that point in time, you would be talking about taking the most draconian measures you could possibly imagine. Because other than that all you could do is, once again, tighten up internally.

A few days later, he issued a statement to say that he was just "musing", and not really serious -

"I do not advocate this. Much more thought would need to be given to the potential ramifications of such a horrific response," Tancredo wrote.

His spokesman, Will Adams, said the congressman is a "free thinker" who was grappling with a hypothetical situation.

And, at the time, this is what I thought of that -

Now, I have a serious problem with this. First of all, this is a statement which could only come from someone who was either screamingly ignorant, or simply venal - because he confuses "Muslim" with "terrorist". But, more important, you know that if some Imam somewhere said that it would be a good idea to set off a bomb at the National Cathedral, or the Lincoln Memorial, as payback for something that America did, the usual crowd from Fox News and talk radio would be foaming at the mouth, demanding that every single Muslim denounce such statements - and continuously bringing it up in case they didn't think the denunciations were public enough or strong enough.

Not to mention the fact that a headline like "U.S. Official Threatens Bombing of Holy Sites" not only hinders our nation's ability to reach out for allies in the Muslim world, but is also a handy little recruiting tool for those who need pliable, impressionable young men to strap on a bomb vest and blow themselves up.

Well, via Talking Points Memo, we see that apparently he's at it again -

Followers of radical Islam must be deterred from committing a nuclear attack on U.S. soil, Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo said Tuesday morning, saying that as president he would take drastic measures to prevent such attacks.

"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina," the GOP presidential candidate said. "That is the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they would otherwise do. If I am wrong fine, tell me, and I would be happy to do something else. But you had better find a deterrent or you will find an attack. There is no other way around it. There have to be negative consequences for the actions they take. That's the most negative I can think of."

Are the Republicans going to distance themselves from this guy? Does anyone think that would happen?

[Edited to add] Well, wonders never cease, and I stand (partially) corrected. Commentator Jim Geraghty at the National Review (of all places) has a major take-down of Tancredo over this, similar to the thoughts I had previously expressed -

The problem, Congressman, is that having already lost an American city in this scenario, we will have gone from having some debated percentage of the Muslim world as our enemy to having 100 percent of the Muslim world as our enemy. And then our problems will be even worse than they were when we had lost one city.

And oh, by the way, casual discussion of nuking two holy sites seems likely to make the situation worse in the here and now, not just a future horrific time. If a foreign state talked about deterring Christians by attacking Rome and Jerusalem, would we feel assured that the country was not "at war with Christianity"?

Let's hope for more of the same.

[Edited again to add] His campaign spokesperson, Bay Buchanan, is apparently just as nuts as Congressman Tancredo. According to her, the fact that he would make this threat is a positive aspect of his personality -

“This shows that we mean business,” said Bay Buchanan, a senior Tancredo adviser. “There’s no more effective deterrent than that. But he is open-minded and willing to embrace other options. This is just a means to deter them from attacking us.”

In the same news story, the State Department has an appropriate response to this -

Tom Casey, a deputy spokesman for the State Department, told CNN’s Elise Labott that the congressman’s comments were “reprehensible” and “absolutely crazy.”

And, of course, there are reports overseas, in Muslim countries, about this now, and governments of even our allies are reacting, such as in Pakistan -

Speaker National Assembly Chaudhary Amir Hussain has said that a full-fledged debate on the highly provocative statement of Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo would be carried out in the parliament on Monday.

Talking to APP here Saturday evening, he expressed the hope that house will unanimously adopt a resolution against this mischievous statement. Amir Hussain said that Makkah and Madina are the holiest places of Islam and Muslim Ummah would not tolerate such statement which are highly condemnable.

It is a fact that such statements would further widen the gap between Muslims and rest of the world, he added.

Seriously, his fellow Republicans have to say something about this, and they had better condemn it.

Sunday Night Springsteen

Okay, I admit it. I have a blog that I don't post to a lot. If anyone has arrived here looking for opinions, I apologize for the small number of opinions actually expressed.

We are planning to do better, from now on. And by "we", I mean "me", but "we" sounds like there's somebody else who cares about what's written here. Heck, even the Cautious Wife doesn't know about this site. ;-)

Anyway, to inaugurate our "back to the beginning" phase, tonight's offering is "Blinded by the Light". That's right, the song that Manfred Mann took further than Mr. Springsteen. As it turns out, Mr. Mann may be remembered for the song, but Mr. Springsteen will be remembered for the career.

So, here is the original cover -



And the "live" cover -


These versions led to disputes about the lyrics, as demonstrated in the definitive "Blinded by the Light" sketch here -



Finally, Mr. S's cover of himself, which some of us may prefer

Sunday Night Springsteen

"We've got an immigrant song for New York City" were the opening words at the Bruce Springsteen/Seeger Sessions show we went to last summer at Madison Square Garden.

Did I mention that we were right in front of the stage for that one? I mean, I told everyone I know ...

Lots of people are bothered by immigration, apparently - at least, immigration of people who are considered less than "desirable". Of course, those are the kind of folks who actually built the country, but why let facts get in the way?

The McNicholas, the Polaski's, the Smiths, Zirillis too
The Blacks, the Irish, the Italians, the Germans and the Jews
The Puerto Ricans, illegals, the Asians, Arabs miles from home
Come across the water with a fire down below

They died building the railroads, worked to bones and skin
They died in the fields and factories, names scattered in the wind
They died to get here a hundred years ago, they're dyin' now
The hands that built the country we're all trying to keep down

By the way, I learned from this guy (the source for all lyrics, setlists, and other important trivia) that the Zirilli family, representing Italian immigrants in the lyric, is Springsteen's mother's family.

In any event, "American Land" -

Independence Day

First, go read The Declaration of Independence, especially the part in the beginning about having "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind". Seriously, I'll wait ...

Now, I seem to be repeating myself, lately. This is from something I posted on July 4 a couple of years ago. Because, no matter what anybody tells you, Independence Day is about more than invading other countries because our leaders would rather be political than protect our nation the right way -

I am a patriot and I love my country
Because my country is all I know

And I ain't no communist, and I ain't no capitalist
And I ain't no socialist
and I sure ain't no imperialist
And I ain't no democrat
And I ain't no republican either
And I only know one party
and its name is freedom
I am a patriot

And the river opens for the righteous, someday

Little Steven, I Am A Patriot

Some versions on video. First, Mr. Van Zandt himself, preceded by a great speech about how real patriotism means that you aren't complacent regarding your government. Sadly, it's from 1984, which goes to show how far backwards the Administration has taken us.



And Eddie Vedder, doing it nice and slow, then nice and rough.





What the heck, one more. Michelle Branch, with a nice dedication speech.