Bourbon with Beer Chaser

Apparently, the Bourbon Summit didn't go so well, or maybe this will come later, after both sides have had a chance to calm down a little. I like a good Bourbon as much as the next guy, but it is hard for me to see anything coming out of these meetings. Nothing good came from Obama's Beer Summit back in the Summer of 2009.

Being a good sport, Obama tried to keep to issues that both sides could agree on, notably emergency funding to combat Ebola and appropriations for the ongoing war against the "Islamic State," but now that the election is over I don't think these will be high priorities on the Republican agenda. They got the mileage they wanted out of these issues during the campaign, expect to hear little more about the "great plague" or ISIS warriors slithering in through our porous borders.

I'm not sure what "jobs bill" Boehner is promoting, other than yet another effort to push the Keystone XL pipeline through Congress, which would benefit the Koch Brothers, who underwrote the Republican "perfect shit storm." They've been after this approval since 2010 when the Republicans retook the House. They've long promised us "jobs" out of this multi-billion project, but it is nothing more than an environmentally disastrous way to bring Canadian crude oil to the refineries of Texas. You can buy a lot of oil tank trucks for that price, but of course Obama is being blamed for the increase in cost due to his delays.

Throughout the campaign, we heard little in the way of concrete ideas from the Republicans. They have little to point to that actually worked. Austerity measures in states like Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida didn't result in the great economic booms these state governors were imagining. What did help was the infusion of federal money via the Stimulus Bill, which none of them liked to talk about. Even still, these states continue to struggle, while others, which took a more pro-active approach to the economy, have succeeded. New oil discoveries and fracking have also boosted state economies like North Dakota and Oklahoma, but then so too has the rise of solar and wind electricity generating plants in states like California and Nevada.

Unfortunately, the Republicans tend to be very one-dimensional when it comes to economic stimulus ideas. They still work from the badly dated Reagan playbook that was a resounding failure in Kansas these past four years. The GOP doesn't seem to realize that the economy is constantly evolving and needs new ideas to keep it moving into the future. Not that the Democrats have been particularly enlightening in this regard, but if you look at the business sector the fresh ideas are coming from the more liberal-minded left, not the conservative-minded right, which still seems to think that tax cuts are the answer for everything.

Obama tried to soften things at the end of the luncheon with his White House Ale, but I don't think that is going to win over the new Republican-led Congress. Basically, they are going to try to pressure him into decisions he doesn't want to make, now that they believe they have the "voice" of the people on their side. Stand tall, Barry! Don't let these guys push you around the next two years.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

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, noting the gro

Dylan in America

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.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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