The title is
pretty much self-explanatory
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Democrats search for a path back into rural America’s good graces
Great take
by Dan Balz on the unfortunate outcome of this year’s presidential election.
Quick takeaway:
“Democrats
ought not to believe that their problems have been caused primarily by the
actions of a foreign government. There’s too much other evidence that they have
lost touch with parts of the electorate and will need to take stock as they
begin to try to regain ground.
“As much as
anything, the 2016 election highlighted the degree to which Democrats have lost
favor among voters in rural and small-town America. Heading toward Election
Day, Democrats dismissed the possibility that there were enough white,
working-class voters in these nonurban areas to overcome their advantages with
African Americans, Latinos, unmarried women and highly educated voters.
“The
election proved them wrong.”
Meanwhile,
Clinton and her campaign prefer to blame their loss entirely on the Russians,
James Comey, the headwinds of a change-oriented electorate, etc., etc., rather
than taking any responsibility for the weaknesses of their candidate and
overall strategy. I admit to having had somewhat mixed feelings about the Trump
nomination, feeling that he was one candidate that Hillary could actually beat.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
Friday, December 9, 2016
Mary Chapin Carpenter w/ Rose Cousins – The Birchmere, 12/7/2016
Table 125 –
dead center, second row of tables in the raised rear section. (We had the
number I82 and they started at I57, so were the 26th group to get
in.)
As was the
case at Wolf Trap this summer, it’s good to see Mary Chapin Carpenter playing
with a full band again. Longtime bandmate Don Dixon prowled the stage with his
electric bass, while Jon Carroll and Johnny Duke impressed with their solo work
(piano and guitar, respectively), especially on “I Feel Lucky” and “The Bug”
near the end of the main set. (Drummer Nate Barnes was great throughout.) I was
also delighted that they included “I Know You Know”, which is my favorite track
from her latest album. She did change a few lyrics in light of recent events: “We
doctor the receipt” (from my all-time favorite “Stones in the Road”) is now “We
posted a tweet”, and a different “celebrity” (no longer a musician) has his
hand on her thigh in “I Feel Lucky”.
Rose Cousins
started with a 45-minute opening set accompanying herself on guitar and piano,
with mostly self-written material somewhat reminiscent of Mary Chapin in her
more contemplative moments. (She joked with the audience at one point that
doing happy, upbeat material was “not her job”.) I wasn’t terribly surprised
when she mentioned that she was from Prince Edward Island, since her voice
reminded me of fellow Canadian Kathleen Edwards. The north-of-the-border
connection was further strengthened by her one cover, Gordon Lightfoot’s “If
You Could Read My Mind”.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Carrier
Most of “The
Establishment” has reacted to PEOTUS Trump’s recent Carrier intervention with
some combination of horror and disdain. However, two of the Post’s economic
columnists whom I respect have a different take:
Monday, December 5, 2016
Why I’m not sorry to see Harry Reid go
Headline
from today’s Post: “Clinton and Biden get in on Reid’s Senate send-off:
Festivities this week to mark Nevada Democrat’s decades of service”
Please
forgive me if I don’t join in the hosannas. It’s hard to complain with a
straight face about the recent election of a “post-truth” President while also
celebrating one of the most bald-faced liars in the history of the U.S. Senate.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Sharon Jones
By the time
I got to the theater Saturday afternoon, I was pretty sure there was going to
be bad news.
I was
driving up to Germantown to meet some friends for a showing of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,
listening to The Gamut on the radio. (Wonderful station – check it out on the Internet, or on 820 AM Frederick, 98.3 FM Reston, or 103.5 HD3 Washington if
you’re lucky enough to be within listening range.) I was initially delighted to
hear “100 Days, 100 Nights” by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings. The next song
(which I didn’t recognize) also sounded like them, but I decided it was
probably someone else, as even such eclectic stations as The Gamut rarely play
two or more songs in a row by the same performer. That was followed, however,
by Jones’s unmistakable cover version of “This Land Is Your Land”.
Bad sign –
when stations that actually care about music do something like that (The Gamut
actually played 6 Jones songs in a row), it generally means “tribute”, and I did
know that she’d had a recurrence of the pancreatic cancer that had previously been
in remission. Sure enough, after I arrived at the theater and finished typing
her name into the Google search box on my phone, the dreaded “Trending” label
appeared.
Although
Jones left a legacy of several fine albums, her dynamic retro-soul persona was
most compelling when experienced live. I was lucky enough to have seen her at
the Lincoln Theater in February of 2014, one of the first shows I saw after my
retirement the previous month. She joins an almost unbelievably long list of
famous figures, musical and otherwise, that we’ve lost in the past week and a
half – Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Robert Vaughan, Gwen Ifill, Mose Allison.
(Apologies to any I missed.)
Favorite
songs:
I Learned
The Hard Way
This Land Is
Your Land
Without A
Heart
Stranger To
My Happiness
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Fearing Trump’s wall, Central Americans rush to cross the U.S. border
Great
article, in terms of describing the nitty-gritty of exactly what happens on the
border, and afterwards. (If you read it, you’ll understand more than about 90%
of American voters.) Far more complex and heartbreaking problem than you might
think from all the political posturing.
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