Skip to main content

a fiddling meander

By




From @darth via the Guardian


Comments

  1. avrdsOctober 17, 2013 at 12:48 AM

    This was the week I learned to love twitter.

    The young bloggers at the Washington Post kept me abreast of all events in real time. And, believe it or not, the live feed from the Guardian's US news site was also very good. I think he must have been posting from NYC via C-Span.

    ReplyDelete
  2. James FergusonOctober 17, 2013 at 7:32 AM

    I really don't know what Ted Cruz hopes to gain from all this. The persons he is appealing to represent a very small percentage of the national electorate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. avrdsOctober 17, 2013 at 3:39 PM

    I heard the Tea Party and sympathizers make up about 20% of the electorate. Not enough to get you elected but, if true, enough to raise enough money to get things off the ground.

    Personally, after watching snippets of his faux filibuster, he may be "brilliant" as they say -- that's open to debate -- but for sure I think the man has a screw or two loose.

    ReplyDelete
  4. James FergusonOctober 17, 2013 at 6:23 PM

    I think "brilliant" is in the eye of the beholder. In this case, it was Dershowitz who made the comment, and has since retracted it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. avrdsOctober 18, 2013 at 12:08 AM

    The Houston paper also retracted their endorsement of him. Better late than never I guess.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. James FergusonOctober 18, 2013 at 9:02 AM

      ... but I imagine he still feels the love among his "base." A guy like this only thrives in times of chaos. If anyone needs an object lesson on how Hitler rose to power, this is it. I suppose in that sense he is "brilliant." Maybe this is why Dershowitz had second thoughts.

      Delete
  6. James FergusonOctober 18, 2013 at 8:58 AM

    Spite makes right,

    http://news.yahoo.com/u-senator-cruz-blocks-confirmation-fcc-chairman-203107887.html

    what an assclown!

    ReplyDelete
  7. TripplerOctober 19, 2013 at 6:51 AM

    Halloween meander:


    http://www.buzzfeed.com/video/kevinmcshane/these-vintage-halloween-costumes-will-haunt-your-dreams

    ReplyDelete
  8. TripplerOctober 19, 2013 at 6:53 AM

    House Republicans are turning against Cruz:


    http://www.buzzfeed.com/katenocera/house-republicans-are-now-turning-on-ted-cruz



    He's the best friend Democrats have had in a long time. hopefully, the Repukeblicans will have a Cruz-Coulter ticket in 2016.

    ReplyDelete
  9. James FergusonOctober 19, 2013 at 12:47 PM

    Or Cruz/Palin since it appears they like to be seen together. I have to think Republicans in general have to be pretty pissed with little Ted after this stunt he tried to pull off.

    ReplyDelete
  10. avrdsOctober 20, 2013 at 2:07 AM

    Highly recommend:

    http://inequalityforall.com/

    Every American should see it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
228 comments
Read more

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order

By
A quarter of a century, however, is time enough to dispel some of the myths that have accumulated around the crisis of the early Thirties and the emergence of the New Deal. There is, for example, the myth that world conditions rather than domestic errors and extravagances were entirely responsible for the depression. There is the myth that the depression was already over, as a consequence of the ministrations of the Hoover Administration, and that it was the loss of confidence resulting from the election of Roosevelt that gave it new life. There is the myth that the roots of what was good in the New Deal were in the Hoover Administration - that Hoover had actually inaugurated the era of government responsibility for the health of the economy and the society. There is the contrasting myth (for myths do not require inner consistency) that the New Deal was alien in origins and in philosophy; that - as Mr. Hoover put it - its philosophy was "the same philosophy of government which...
170 comments
Read more