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Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
It's a good day for a new president. Some nice Inauguration Day posts elsewhere:
If you've got any other good links, please leave them in comments.
posted morning of January 20th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, January 17th, 2009
I've been listening a lot to Disc B of the Mountain Blues box set from JSP Records -- there is a ton of great music on this disc and in this set, including many fiddle tunes that I want to learn. Plus a song I'm finding particularly interesting, and different from most everything else on this set: Bread Line Blues (1931), by Slim Smith. There doesn't seem to be any biographical information on Smith that I can find, either in the notes to the box set or on the Internets. His singing style reminds me a lot of Woody Guthrie; I'm pretty poor at recognizing accents, so I won't venture to guess where he's from -- most of the other artist on the set are from Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, the Carolinas. The song is basically a plea to vote Democratic in 1932. I'm interested in finding out some of the subtext -- I don't know a whole lot about the history of the Great Depression beyond generalities. I understand that Hoover, a Republican, was blamed for the economic collapse, and clearly the song says "vote Democratic to get the economy back on course." But I'm very intrigued by the lines, "If we had states' rights,/ I'll leave it to you,/ We could all have fun/ And better home-brew." If I heard someone in say, 1960 or later, invoking "states' rights," I'd assume he was speaking in code about resentment over desegregation, and appealing to memories of Southern separatism -- this is a major part of the theme of Nixonland. But I don't believe desegregation was even on the radar in 1931. It sounds from the verse like the resentment is against prohibition, and maybe more generally against federal regulation of distillation. But presumably memories of Southern separatism would have been fresher in 1931 than they were in the '60s; so maybe that is coming through as well. I'm also pretty interested by this verse: "It's the rich man's job/ To make some rules,/ To rid me of/ These Bread Line Blues." What is the ideology here? The first time I heard the song I started out thinking I was listening to a Socialist after the manner of Woody Guthrie, advocating for FDR and the New Deal; but this verse makes no sense in that context -- it sounds more to me like what I think of as Republicanism, and it surprises me to hear a Democrat saying it. But obviously party boundaries and ideologies are fluid. Oh and another neat thing: the Donkey and Elephant party mascots make their appearances. How old are these symbols? Aha! finally a question I can answer with Google: the animals date to 1874, to a political cartoon by Thomas Nast.
posted afternoon of January 17th, 2009: 3 responses
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Sunday, December 28th, 2008
Milk was a fantastic movie and a pleasure to watch -- though a bitter-sweet pleasure in these times of victory for homophobic measures in the states. (And see Frank Rich's column today for more about homophobia in these United States.) The nicest thing about it might have been the feeling of nostalgia I got for political demonstrations of my childhood. Somehow in my adult years, I have not been as politically engaged as I expected I would be when I was younger. I remember attending demonstrations with my parents when I was in grade school and high school, and the feeling of being connected to the cause was powerful and nice. When I left home something changed -- at college when I was quite active, it started to seem like a game; and after college when I would still attend protests out of a sense of duty, I felt like a stranger. This is still true now -- work I've done for the Democrats in 2004 and 2008 has not felt satisfying or connected. Watching Milk brought the old feeling back very strongly -- I wonder if there is any way of retrieving it, and whether I should try to get engaged again for Sylvia's benefit. (Seeing as my parent's involvement did not have a lasting impact on me, that might not be the strongest consideration.) Relatedly, I wonder why I don't have any memory of Proposition 6 -- I would have been in third grade at the time, the same age Sylvia is now -- possibly my parents' political involvement started later than that, possibly it was limited to nuclear arms and Nicaragua -- the two issues I remember demonstrating about -- possibly my memory is just too dim that far back. OTOH I have a pretty good memory of the debate over Proposition 13, which was in the same year.
posted morning of December 28th, 2008: Respond
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Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
So: I gave a little bit of time and a little bit of money to Barack Obama's presidential campaign -- not as much of either as I feel like I ought to have, and certainly not as much as I saw people around me doing. But the point is, a lot of people contributed to this victory. I think (based on my reaction to Obama's speech last night, and generalizing from myself to Americans who are longing for change) that these people would be willing and even anxious to contribute and to work towards realizing Obama's promise of a new day for America. I put myself forward as one such -- I want to volunteer to work for change. Hoping it does not involve phone banks.
posted morning of November 5th, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
And it is a great day in America.
posted evening of November 4th, 2008: Respond
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The excitement was palpable at the polling place this morning. And not just excitement, but positive energy: people were looking at each other, smiling, talking about today as a historic day.
posted morning of November 4th, 2008: Respond
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Monday, November third, 2008
- 8 more hours until I will vote (at the Baird Center, in South Orange).
- 19 ½ hours until Talking Points Memo promises it will start carrying live coverage.
- (Approximately) 1,850 hours until Inauguration Day.
 Roy Edroso has the best "putting the election in perspective" post I've seen this year: If He Loses...How to Cope. And life will go on, whatever happens tomorrow. Man oh man do I hope I will be drinking tomorrow night in celebration, not in sorrow.
posted evening of November third, 2008: Respond
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Sunday, November second, 2008
Slacktivist posted this video yesterday, with the note that there are only three more days -- well today there are only two more days; and this is the perfect version of the perfect song for this moment. I had totally forgotten about Tracy Chapman, glad to be reminded.
 Mmm... that makes me want to hear Bob singing this song. Here he is in 1964: (Dylan is 25 in this video; Chapman is 28 above.)
posted morning of November second, 2008: Respond
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Thursday, October 30th, 2008
Over at History Time, jfruh asks the question: Was McCain 2008 the worst presidential campaign in history? And answers "No," but has to go back to the Whigs of 1836 to find a worse one.
Also at History Time today, a bit of Jersey history.
posted morning of October 30th, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
I worked at a BlueWave NJPAC phonebank event this evening, calling voters about the election. I have a hard time doing stuff like this -- I find it pretty easy to put on a happy, friendly voice and chat to the person I'm calling as long as I don't have to make any actual argument, but I can't see what good that does. (The whole event was dedicated to calling registered Democrats in Montclair, which it's hard for me to see what the point of doing that is. So I didn't have to make much of an argument, but it was hard to see myself as doing something useful to the campaign.) Most of the people I talked to (I probably made about 100 calls or a bit more, and spoke to about 25 people?) were enthusiastically supporting Obama and the Democratic ticket -- one guy was not so enthusiastic about Lautenberg but planned to vote for him because there is no alternative; a few people said they were voting a straight Democratic ticket but didn't know or care much about the people on it below the presidential candidate. Several people did not want to talk. One woman said she was concerned about voting for Obama because of his plans to redistribute the nation's wealth -- I engaged this for a while (not particularly well I think -- see above about making arguments -- but earnestly) until she brought up Jeremiah Wright, at which point I hung up on her. Not sure what her game was but it was not honest inquiry. They are having the same event tomorrow but I think I will skip that -- I see on Thursday there's a phonebank event in West Orange to call swing voters. Maybe I will go there. But I'm not sure, based on doubting whether I can do a good job at it.
posted evening of October 28th, 2008: Respond
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