As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)
“I very much understand that Governor Hogan has a Senate
race that he very much wants to win.” – Maryland House Minority Leader Jason C.
Buckel (R-Allegany)
Buckel was referring to former Maryland governor Larry Hogan’s
interview with the New York Times, in which he not only characterized
himself as “pro-choice” but also claimed that he would support efforts in Congress
to restore the protections of the since-overruled Roe v. Wade decision
on a nationwide basis.
Interestingly enough, during his campaign for the Republican
nomination to replace retiring Senator Ben Cardin, Hogan never referred to
himself as pro-choice, and repeatedly declined to say whether he would support
any measures to codify abortion rights in federal law. He didn’t announce what
he later referred to as the “refinement” of his position until the beginning of
his general election campaign, when he would need to attract votes from
Democrats and independents. I guess you could call this “a remarkable pivot”,
as did the NYT article. “Shameless political pandering” might be a more appropriate
term.
Seats: Section 208, Row H, seats 22-23 (club level, under
the underhang to guard against possible rain)
The second and final game of the 2024 Beltway Series was
exciting, competitive, (mostly) well-played, and unexpectedly long. I exited the
Shady Grove Metro station parking lot at exactly midnight, well past my usual bedtime.
At least the weather was great – 84 at game time.
The Nats generated plenty of deep counts and traffic on the
bases against Baltimore starter Kyle Bradish, which forced him out of the game
after 5 innings and 90 pitches. With all that, they only managed to produce a
single run, on a two-out RBI single by Trey Lipscomb in the bottom of the 2nd.
This would be the home team’s only lead of the night. Mitchell
Parker came up with a solid effort, recording 17 outs on an efficient 77
pitches. He was, however, touched for solo homers by Anthony Santander in the
4th and Gunnar Henderson leading off the 6th. He was aided by some strong
defense, most notably on a two-out 2nd-inning Winker-to-Abrams-to Ruiz relay
that cut down Jordan Westburg attempting to score on Colton Cowser’s double and
quickly silenced the visiting fans’ “moo” cheers for Cowser.
Baltimore tacked on an insurance run in the 7th and carried
their 3-1 lead into the bottom of the 9th. At that point, they brought in struggling
closer Craig Kimbrel, who had already blown 3 saves this year. He quickly
recorded the first two outs, bringing the numerous visiting fans to their feet.
But with the Nats down to their final out, Eddie Rosario launched one out of
the park, and Kimbrel walked the next two batters. Keegan Akin replaced
Kimbrel, but Abrams promptly singled to tie the score.
Neither team scored in the first extra frame, unable even to
advance the initial “zombie runner” past second base. Things started to look
bleak again for the Nats when former Oriole Hunter Harvey gave up a two-run
blast to Ryan Mountcastle in the top of the 11th. Once again the Nats rallied, tying
things up when Rosario barely beat the throw home on a Jacob Young fly ball to right,
but were unable to push the winning run across.
Washington finally fell apart in the 12th, as a pair of
errors and a wild pitch allowed the O’s to tally their final two runs. Luis
GarcÃa Jr. led off the bottom of the inning with a double to cut the deficit in
half, but the next three batters went down meekly to finally end the affair.
“When you’re trying to build sympathy for a cause, tactics
matter. And most Americans think the most attention-grabbing tactics of the
campus protesters — encampments, occupying public spaces or buildings, blocking
traffic, and defacing property — are illegitimate.”
“[T]oday’s protests are challenging the coalition that grew
out of the civil rights era, and the systems of laws and customs that coalition
created for handling disputes. Neither those systems, nor that coalition, was
designed to handle conflicts between two protected classes, such as Muslim and
Jewish students. They always assumed a clean moral line between oppressed
minorities and an oppressive majority. In the Gaza protests, the premise
doesn’t hold.”
“New York City police, dressed in riot gear, descending on
Columbia University, breaking up protests and arresting college students. It’s
hard not to have flashbacks to 1968.”
“Most media retrospectives of the 1960s celebrate the
marchers, the protests, the peace signs along with the compulsory Buffalo
Springfield lyrics (“There’s something happening here/ But what it is ain’t
exactly clear”). The reality is those upheavals were an enormous in-kind
contribution to the political fortunes of the right. And if history comes even
close to repeating itself, then the latest episode will redound to Donald
Trump’s benefit.”
“The scenes of violence in Chicago outside the Democrats’
1968 presidential convention, meanwhile, further contributed to the notion that
left-wing lawlessness had gotten out of control. It was a nightmare event for
Hubert Humphrey’s beleaguered presidential campaign, one where the public
overwhelmingly sided with the Chicago police, not the demonstrators. (And, of
course, guess where Democrats are holding their 2024 convention: Chicago.)”
“The political consequences of the [1968] upheaval became
clear. While the doomed liberal campaigns of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy
draw most of the focus in retrospectives of the era, the fact is that in
November of 1968, Nixon and Wallace combined for 57 percent of the vote, close
to the levels of historic landslide wins of LBJ in 1964 and Reagan in 1984.”
