Wednesday, August 27, 2008

An historic moment

I just watched the roll-call vote wherein Hillary called for nomination by acclimation of Obama. That was cool enough but watching the audience reaction (guess Fox could find no sad faces) really brought it home to me. The majority of African Americans openly weeping, joined by no small number of others gave wordless testament to the long, hard struggle that brought the moment to fruition. Then hearing some of the old-timers like John Lewis interviewed, made me see just how important, (no, "monumental") this was for them

I immediately experienced a feeling, which I'm certain was felt millions of times at that moment by an aggregation of Americans from all walks and of all races:

"I never thought I would live to see this day."

Right now I'm proud to be an American, and I intend to increase the instances of feeling this pride by doing everything I can to elect Barak Obama.

~ Tom

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

A new drinking game?

I'm listening to Thom Hartman right now, who just made one of those points where you say, "Dang, I knew something not quite right was happening but I couldn't put my finger on it." Thom noted that for some years now the networks and Dems/Repubs have had a pool agreement whereby there is a single feed for the convention coverage. This is a rotating assignment, which this year falls to Fox! Thom noted that in 90 percent of the "cut-away" shots the people chosen were either looking entirely bored, talking to one another rather than listening to the speaker, or outright frowning. As soon as he said that I knew EXACTLY what he was talking about, and realized that it had bothered me without surfacing to my reality nodes. Thom's callers and guests who were actually there, said that 90 percent of the crowd were wildly cheering Kennedy, and that men and women, white and black, were opening weeping during Michelle's speech. You sure would have never know that from the Fox cut-away shots. Where were the smiling white faces?!

So, one of his callers suggested a new drinking game for the duration of the convention: every time a cut-away depicts a bored person, a yakking person, or a frowning person you take a slug of your drink. If you aren't drinking these days, use another beverage, or set up your own point system.

But, as one of Thom's guests noted, "Why are you surprised?"

~ Tom

Friday, August 22, 2008

Alice Smith & Mellencamp

I may have mentioned this before, but the Rhapsody music service is the best! Especially when you pay $15 per month and get a Sansa Rhapsody MP3 player. This allows you to download ANYTHING to the player for no extra charge. Now, whenever I read a favorable review, I just go to Rhapsody and download it to my player. Then, when I'm taking my hour-long walk each day with my dog, I fire up the player and put it on shuffle and hear all sorts of great new music that I would not have otherwise heard. Yesterday, I heard a couple of cuts from Alice Smith, which were really great. She only has one album out now, but check it out.

Also, I have been enjoying Mellencamps new release. On some of the tracks he really sounds like Dylan. In fact, as I was walking along the other day and one of his cuts came up on shuffle, I thought it was Dylan because I have a lot of Bob on the MP3 player. Then, as the song progressed I knew I have never heard it before, so I deduced that it was Mellencamp.

You should also check out the article on Mellencamp in the latest Rolling Stone (Downey Jr. on the cover). A representative paragraph:

With its rich, gothic-Americana sound, shaped by the impeccable tasteful roots-music producer T Bone Burnett, Life, Death, Love and Freedom is an "adult record," as Mellencamp sees it, marking the end of his hitmaking days and the beginning of something new. "I'm trying to live up to, you know, what a guy my age should be doing," he says. "I'm trying not to look silly. You know, it's like people say, 'Hey you're a rock star man.' And I don't see myself that way anymore. I'm just, like, a journeyman electrician or something."


And later:

Mellencamp is a lifelong Democrat. ... But his music has broad appeal in areas of the country that haven't voted Democratic in decades. "I have known for a long time that I was at odds politically with my surroundings," Mellencamp says. "I never wrote to my base. Nobody who is a Republican in Bloomington, Indiana is going to buy Neil Young's latest record, not even going to entertain the idea. But they might buy mine."
~ Tom

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Dry drunk gets wet?

Heard on the radio about Bush getting drunk at the Olympics. Googled "bush drunk at olympics" and got lots of hits. Here are a representative couple: one & two.

I have always known that Bush was the classic "dry drunk," which in many cases is worse that a drinking, high-bottom, alcoholic. But the last couple of years I have been hearing many stories about his drinking again. Like all alcoholics, dry and wet, Bush has no sense of responsibility for his actions, or any ability to contemplate the consequences of his whims and caprices. For most alcoholics the price is paid by their immediate families and circle of friends. But in Bush's case, we in this country, and too many around the world, are paying the sad toll. I want a President, not an alcoholic father.

Some of you might wonder, "How can he get as drunk as he looks in those pictures when there is constant scrutiny on him?" I smile at this question. As any FOB can tell you, secret drinking is an art form. Let's see, in this case, I would imagine George did a little pre-event packing, downing a lot of vodka from his secret stash in private, before leaving for the event. This usually works fairly well except when the event is going to be long and you decide you have to do "heavy packing" to make it through. The result is that it hits you full force hours later causing you to not be able to get out of your frigging seat! Also, notice in some of the pictures the "innocent" water bottle. Oh, this is a prime alkie trick. Funny how vodka looks just like water, so you can literally be drinking openly and believing no one is the wiser.

Lord help us all! This can't end a minute too soon for me.

~ tom

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Here's what we need a lot more of...

I just watched my DVR recording of last Thursday's Daily Show. The Stewart monologue is brilliant, and just the kind of thing that is an anecdote to the problems I discuss in my previous post. If you did not see it, check it out. The real stuff doesn't start until about 2 minutes in, but hang in there. Stewart just nails it.

~ tom

Saturday, August 2, 2008

A soccer metaphor...

Lately I've been a bit depressed over the way this campaign is going. I keep thinking that the polls should not be this close, and I have this gnawing, inexorable feeling that the Obama presidency is slipping away.

I reminds me of over 20 years ago when I used to play in an "over-thirty" soccer league. My team was a bunch of guys who had not grown up with the game -- most of us had come to it by watching our kids play and then getting interested in playing. We were, in a word, the gringos of the league, winning only a couple of games over the three years I played. We were pitted against teams of guys who had grown up playing the game and each of those teams was a specific ethnic group. There were several Latin teams, a German team who had their own Mercedes bus, and an Irish team of skinny guys who talked trash the whole game and played mean.

My point is that every once in a while our team would get ahead, maybe even by two goals. But as the game progressed I had this gnawing, inexorable feeling that we were going to lose. The opponents played very aggressively, not being "gentlemen" at all. They pushed, elbowed, tripped, gamed the ref, faked injuries to get the foul call, etc. Most of the spectators dug it, or at least accepted it. And, of course we always lost in the end, no matter how hard we fought to hang on to our lead.

But the worst part was that we gringos did not even know HOW to do that stuff, and if we tried, we were so blatant and unschooled that the ref would call a foul or give us a yellow card!

I see the same thing in this campaign. We are just too fair --but we are also too inexperienced in the ways that ultimately win the game. I could cite countless examples of what I'm saying ranging from "Barack is an elitest" to the flag pin, to "he voted against the surge" to "he didn't visit the troops," and (the fake injury here folks) "he dealt the race card off the bottom." Lots of pushing, elbowing, tripping, and gaming the ref (media & press), right?

Shit, I just realized, we need a Pele.

Grimly yours,

Tom