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Friday Night Music

Friday, January 27, 2012

In the past I have tried, on this feature, to abide by a few rules, all of which I have broken when the need arose. No lip syncing, no music with only a photo to go along with it; and no repeated artists. It has been most difficult to adhere to the last of those. There have been a lot of great rockers, but sooner or later you run out, or your fading memory just can’t dredge up another one. In addition, some artists just aren’t represented in internet accessible videos. I don’t think I ever did find something worth showing by the great Sam Cooke.

Anyway, I’m going to try something different starting this week. I’m going to try to find songs that have some relevance, however marginal, to the events of the day. This seems like a good time to do this, as so long as both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are in the race, they will say or do something stupid that will give me some ideas.

This week Newt announced that he would start a moon colony, which I actually wouldn’t oppose if he were willing to spend some money here on earth too, but, of course, that’s not the case.

So, this song came to mind. This performance by Bette Midler was the best live performance I could find in the short time I allotted myself before my interest ran out. I actually think it’s pretty good, and since I’ve never put her up before, I’m still playing by the old rules.

The song was originally written and performed by a Cambridge (England) University student named Jonathan King. So far as I was aware he dropped off the planet (or went to the moon) after he had his one big hit, but in fact he has an interesting life story, which is well worth a read.

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Irresponsibility

Thursday, January 26, 2012

 If you were to judge by the people who leave comments on the New London Day’s website, you would conclude that Southeastern Connecticut is full of right wing bigots. Actual voting results, however, would not confirm that conclusion. If you were to judge by the results of scientific polling, you would conclude that Obama’s SOTU was well received by a broad swath of the American electorate. Yet, if you were to give the Day’s online poll any credence, you would have to conclude that Southeastern Connecticut is an extreme outlier, and that here the plurality of viewers gave it failing grades. On the other hand, you might conclude that on line polls have no scientific validity, and that given the nature of the Day’s commenters it would simply be the height of irresponsibility to give such a poll prominence in your newspaper. You might conclude that, if you weren’t the editors of the Day, constantly seeking ways to placate a small but vocal group of right wingers. 

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Rethinking the Romney meme

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

It’s been conventional wisdom for quite a while that Romney, mass of warts and all, is nonetheless the strongest candidate the Republicans have for the general election. I bought into that, and while I’m not quite ready to declare outright apostasy, I think the argument is losing a lot of its force awful fast. Newt is every bit as big a liar as Newt, and would arguably be an even worse president, but he’s glib, and he expresses himself with a faux conviction that almost perfectly resembles the real thing.

Romney has two things going against him and they feed into one another.

The first is the fact that he is a flesh and blood exemplar of the privileged status that the rich have consolidated in this country. Of course, they’ve always had a certain amount of privilege, but it’s grown with the growth of inequality. It would be one thing if he regularly condemned his privileged treatment, as both Obama and, in the past, Bill Clinton have done. But he can’t bring himself to condemn the disparity in tax rates that requires a working stiff to fork over a higher percentage of his income than a guy who sits back and collects interest.

The second is his total inability to even feign being a normal person. He just can’t help himself. Consider this article, in which we learn that Romney, a la Clinton, feels the pain of his base:

“The banks are scared to death, of course,” he said. “They’re feeling the same thing that you’re feeling…”

Bear in mind that the “you’re” he’s referring to are flesh and blood people, who actually have the capacity to be scared. The truth is, Romney feels the banks pain in a way that he can never feel the pain of the losers who have lost their jobs and/or home on the altars of high finance. Worse, he finds it impossible to even pretend that he cares about normal people. Every time he tries, he comes across as a transparent phony. 

I don’t know if the people around him are trying to rein him in or to teach him how to fake a connection to the 99.9%, but if they are, they have failed, and the fault is not theirs but in Willard. He will continue to say stuff like the above until the day of the election, if he manages to wrest the nomination from Newt.

Has ever a political party put on offer such a collection of clowns? Our local Republicans run people for the school board who are more qualified to be president. 

Along these lines, I must pass along a few lines recently uttered by Fidel Castro. Hey, when he’s right, he’s right:

“The selection of a Republican candidate for the presidency of this globalized and expansive empire is — and I mean this seriously — the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been,” said the retired Cuban leader, who has dueled with 11 U.S. administrations since his 1959 revolution.

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Hilarious

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Colbert on Rick Santorum

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Indecision 2012 – Rick Santorum’s Senior Pandering
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive
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Random thoughts on the SOTU

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

 A few days ago I expressed the hope that Obama would go for the votes, and not the money, by rejecting a proposed sweetheart deal in the bank fraud settlement talks. It looks like he’s done that, and that, at least rhetorically, he’s turned up the heat and given his talk some credibility by appointing Eric Schneiderman to co-head the investigation. (See here, however, for a view that is, at least for the moment, more cynical than mine).

One thing that Obama has going for him on all of these inequality issues is that the Republicans are so pathological. Like Pavlov’s dog, they are conditioned, so whatever he says they immediately take the opposite position. He really should try declaring that the sky is, without doubt, blue, just to see how many of them would take the bait. The idea of the rich paying a tax rate at least equal to what the rest of us pay is actually quite popular, for reasons that are mysterious only to Republicans, but that won’t stop the Republicans from attacking the idea. No matter how much they whine about job creators they will be on the losing side of this issue, especially if they nominate Willard, the poster boy for the inequities of our tax system.

Speaking of Willard, it really is beginning to look like, as between him and the lizard, Newt would be the stronger candidate in the general. I’ll say it again, Obama is the luckiest guy in the world.

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How private equity works

Monday, January 23, 2012

 Good, concise explanation at the New Yorker of how private equity companies like Bain work, and how these exemplars of private enterprise depend on government subsidies of one form or another to thrive. 

Part of the process: load the acquisition with debt for the sole purpose of paying yourself a special dividend:

As a result, private-equity firms are increasingly able to profit even if the companies they run go under—an outcome made much likelier by all the extra borrowing—and many companies have been getting picked clean. In 2004, for instance, Wasserstein & Company bought the thriving mail-order fruit retailer Harry and David. The following year, Wasserstein and other investors took out more than a hundred million in dividends, paid for with borrowed money—covering their original investment plus a twenty-three per cent profit—and charged Harry and David millions in “management fees.” Last year, Harry and David defaulted on its debt and dumped its pension obligations. In other words, Wasserstein failed to improve the company’s performance, failed to meet its obligations to creditors, screwed its workers, and still made a profit. That’s not exactly how capitalism is supposed to work.

Those pension fund obligations? We taxpayers pick those up, while the fund managers pay tax at half the rate the rest of us do. 

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Here they go again

Monday, January 23, 2012

 The Obama folks may be working toward a deal with the banks that essentially transfers more money to….you guessed it…the banks. 

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Scotty Walker writes to my wife

Monday, January 23, 2012

Somehow, and no matter how it was, it was she did nothing to deserve it, my wife has ended up on a right wing mailing list. It first started with Sharon Angle (remember her?) and as these things will, it has metastasized until just about every right wing organization is writing to her.

She normally writes back. No use wasting the free postage on those business reply envelopes.

Today, she got a missive from Scott Walker, who is warning his fellow conservative that if big unions can have their way in Wisconsin, it could happen here! Poor Scotty is the victim of a number of nefarious plotters:

President Obama’s Political Machine.

The Moveon.org Radicals.

Liberal Billionaire George Soros’ attack organizations.

The Ultra-Left Wing Elites from Hollywood and Manhattan.

The list goes on and on, and the millions pile up.

All poor Scotty has to combat them are the millions from the Koch Brothers. Assuming, of course, that they haven’t decided that he’s toast and that, anyway, he’s served his purpose.

This kind of stuff makes me wonder if there is another country in the world in which such a large portion of the population has been propagandized not only into voting against its own interest, but in funding the people that are doing the propagandizing. I get it that the Koch Brothers achieve their purposes (It is not enough that they succeed, everyone else must fail) by funding this guy, but whom among the 99.9% benefits?

If the Democrats have their smarts about them (is that an oxymoronic statement?) they would, in states like Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Florida, campaign against the newly elected and, for the most part, deeply unpopular governors as exemplars of what we have to look forward to if the Vulture (yes, I still think he’ll win) gets elected. 

UPDATE: Looks like the unions has the same idea that I did. 

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Now if Ron Paul were president we could fix this situation

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Condensed version of great New York Times article on why IPhones can’t be Made in the USA: the 13th amendment banned slavery. 

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Obama Sings

Saturday, January 21, 2012

 He can drive you crazy sometimes, but you can’t help liking him. That may be the key to this year’s election, since you can’t help loathing the competition.

 

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