Odd Bits - The Maverick Edition

Leave it to ol’ John McCain to leave everyone all riled up, even after his death.

I saw today that after flying the White House flag at half-staff over the weekend, the Trump Administration has it back up to full-staff already. The recent precedent, when such a dignitary passes, has been for it to remain at half-staff until the funeral. Just one more thing that if Obama had done it, there would have been seething rage pouring from the Right.

It was a shame that Senator McCain passed so soon. While I didn’t agree with his politics, he was a gentleman of conviction and class, and a throwback to when politics wasn’t a zero-sum game.

Everyone’s mentioning that town hall clip where he cuts off the lady blustering about how Obama was an untrustworthy Arab, telling her that he is a real American and a fine man, one with whom he has a difference of opinion.

Would that all politicians man-up and squash hysterical misinformation like that. Of course, it might have cost him the election, being all decent in the face of ginned up anti-foreigner propaganda.

Same with his refusal to “go negative” during the campaign. In the HBO movie “Game Change,” the story of the McCain/Palin campaign, his advisors implore him to drop the civility and go negative against Obama. Release the Palin and all the froth she could whip up.

John McCain refused, saying he wanted to run a civilized campaign and talk about the issues rather than denigrate his opponent’s name and character. I’m pretty sure that also cost him dearly in the election.

I respect his principled decision, but I fear he will be the last Republican to take such stand. The modern Republican base will not be happy with a campaign about mere policy. They’ll want blood. And “Lib tears.” And if they lose on that platform, hey, it’s just more evidence that George Soros and Hillary Clinton have the whole thing rigged, right?

Rest in peace, Senator McCain. At ease.

***

Selective Attention Rages On

Last week, authorities found the remains of Mollie Tibbets, that Iowa girl who had been missing for over a week. It had been a story on my Yahoo page, seemingly, forever. After all, the missing was a nice looking, white, college girl. Black girls go missing all the time without creating a national story.

And then, it turns out she was killed by an illegal immigrant from Mexico. Cue the nationalistic politicization machine!

 Yep, by objecting to children being torn from their families and put in cages, Democrats hate you and want you killed by the brown scourge.

Why is it that we can’t seem to entertain multiple thoughts at one time? Can’t we keep families intact (many of whom are not “illegal” at all, but merely seeking legal asylum), while still creating a rational immigration process that bars dangerous people from entering?

Note to Republicans: Being brown is not indicative of being dangerous. But the Right is so racist today, they try to give credit for Johnny B Goode to Michael J Fox.

The unspoken part here is that statistically, the number of people killed by illegal immigrants is dwarfed by the number of people killed by good old home-grown Americans. But no one is willing to do anything about that…

It’s like, “I’m Amurcan and I demand to be killed by only another red-blooded Murcan, preferably one who is using a Second Amendment-protected semi-automatic firearm. We can’t have these ferners coming in here and doing all the killing… that’s OUR job! Hooah!”

Case in point: we had another mass shooting this weekend. Another anti-social, sullen, white boy shot up a video gaming contest after losing his match. Whatever happened to just throwing your controller after getting blown out on Madden? Sheesh!

If only there was a “good guy” with a gun there, to fire back and totally not hit anyone else in a crowded, panicky room. But here we are again, with two dead, (plus the shooter via suicide) and over a half dozen more injured. Can’t you just smell the “freedom” in the air?

Funny how “freedom” usually smells like gunpowder.

***

Locally, there’s been some news around town that the City of Baltimore is trying to be better prepared to save people who fall in the water at the Inner Harbor. Walking to work this morning, I saw some new life preserver stations lining the waterway leading to the Harbor.

I think they have more work to do. Considering the quality of the Harbor water, they need fewer stations for life preserver rings and more stations for Silkwood Showers.

Music Associations

Following last week’s Springsteen post, I wasn’t going to write about music again so soon, but then I saw this graphic on Facebook:

I thought it looked like the makings of a fun post, so what the hell, I thought I’d give it a shot.

Director’s DVD Commentary: I’m answering these as songs I like, even when not specified, and not just as a trivia test. I will list song/artist/album (when known) and my rationale. Many of these songs I’ve mentioned here before, so look for the links for additional information.

1)      A song you like with a color in the title: Still Got the Blues, Gary Moore, (title track). Also considered Back in Black, but I like this slow, smoldering, soaring blues number better. RIP Gary Moore. Also reminds me of those several months where I was a regular in a little Schenectady strip bar.

2)      A song you like with a number in the title: I Can’t Drive 55, Sammy Hagar, VOA. Also 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. (j/k) Great driving beat for a great driving song. (Not the best, however, see #7.)

3)      A song that reminds you of summertime: Let’s Go, The Cars, Candy-O. I could really pick any song by The Cars. They were always a primo summer band to me. Lots of sunny-day, top-down music.

4)      A song that reminds you of someone you would rather forget about: The Dream, David Sanborn, Change of Heart. This was an instrumental jazz sax track that I always associate with that girl from Cleveland who put me through the ringer, both in the 80s and the 2000s. Nice song, but it’s impossible for me to separate the two.

5)      A song that needs to be played LOUD! Rock You Like a Hurricane, Scorpions w/ the Berlin Philharmonic, Moment of Glory. The power chords of the Scorpions meet the original heavy metal of a full symphony orchestra… this track ROCKS.

6)      A song that makes you want to dance: Shout, Otis Day and the Knights, Animal House Soundtrack. This was THE dance/party song of my college years. And of course, we all would do the “gator.”

7)      A song to drive to: Roll On Down the Highway, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Not Fragile. There are so many good “driving songs,” but this one is a favorite. You want to know frustration? Being stuck in traffic when this one comes on.

8)      A song about drugs or alcohol: I Ain’t Drunk, I’m Just Drinkin’, Albert Collins, Cold Snap. Great party song that came out just after we stopped having Barn Parties.

9)      A song that makes you happy: Let it Ride, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Bachman-Turner Overdrive II. Always reminds me of when I saw them in concert in the 80s and they opened with this song. And it was stone cold perfect.

10)   A song that makes you sad: Keep Me in Your Heart, Warren Zevon, The Wind. It hurts every time I hear it. This was the last song Zevon recorded for his final album, made while battling terminal cancer. And I have a tight association between this song and my late friend, Brill, who introduced me to Zevon way back when.

11)   A song that you never get tired of: Up to my Neck in You, AC/DC, Powerage. I had this album for over 20 years before I really paid attention to this song and now I’m obsessed with it, due completely to that long, slow-building, simmering and explosive guitar solo. I yearn for the days when we used to go all out on the “air-guitars” during barn parties. I would have nailed this one.

12)   A song from your preteen years: Spirit in the Sky, Norman Greenbaum, Title Track. From a very young age, I loved that nasty, greasy, grungy guitar lick. The heck with the smarmy “uplifting” lyrics, this had a grooooove!

13)   One of your favorite 80s songs: Hells Bells, AC/DC, Back in Black. This was the song that opened the door to me for AC/DC. Believe it or not, at one time I hated them. Hell’s Bells made me rethink my position and I’ve been rocking out to them for almost 40 years.

14)   A song that you would love played at your wedding: Some Kind of Wonderful, Grand Funk, All the Girls in the World Beware. As a matter of fact, I’ll be getting married next summer and if we were playing music, I’d play this song. So far, it’s the only “Our Song” we have. Why? Because when we first started dating steadily, I hugged her and said, “My Babeh!” Then she said, “Mah Babeh!” And we went back and forth going “Mah Babeh” like they do at the end of the song. The fact that she picked that right up told me I had found the right girl.

15)   A song that is a cover by another artist: Jumpin Jack Flash, Aretha Franklin, Jumpin Jack Flash Soundtrack. Also, the same song by Johnny Winter. Both artists put their mark on it. Aretha belts it out with funk and gospel choir backing vocals. Johnny tears it up with a lot of yelling and a wicked, high-speed guitar solo. (RIP Aretha.)

16)   One of your favorite classical songs: William Tell Overture, Glen Campbell, B-Side to the Southern Nights single. Found this by accident. As a joke, I got my mom the Southern Nights single (she hated that song) but I found this on the back, with old Glen pickin’ it along with the orchestra. Hiyo Silver!

17)   A song you would sing a duet with on karaoke: Disorder in the House, Warren Zevon (with Bruce Springsteen), The Wind. I’d sing the Bruce part because it doesn’t require any actual singing. I couldn’t carry a tune with a forklift.

18)   A song from the year you were born: Hit the Road Jack, Ray Charles, (1961). I had to look up some songs from ’61 and among all the doo-wop and saccharin orchestral tunes, this was the one with the most “cool.” Brother Ray doesn’t play.

19)   A song that makes you think about life: You’ve got a Friend, Carole King, Tapestry. I had a hard time coming up with a song that makes me think about life. I ended up thinking about friends and how awful life would be without them. I have a number who would come running if I called their names, as would I if they called mine. That’s life. (OH! That totally should have been my song! That’s Life! (I’d go with the David Lee Roth version over Sinatra, though.)

20)   A song that has many meanings to you: Funeral for a Friend, Elton John, Goodbye Yellowbrick Road. I wrote a whole college paper on what I heard in this instrumental. It was the combination of mourning the loss of a loved one (during the slow/sad parts) and the fond remembrance of good times past (during the upbeat parts.) This was a favorite of my late friend Brill’s and mine. That he passed so young made the song all the more poignant to me.

21)   A favorite song with someone’s name in the title: Johnny B Goode, George Thorogood, Live: Let’s Work Together. As George calls it, “The Rock and Roll National Anthem.” Chuck Berry basically invented rock and roll with this song.

22)   A song that moves you forward: Ride On, AC/DC, Dirty Deeds. Who would have thought I’d find inspiration from these guys? But once, long ago, while feeling sorry for myself in a far-away hotel room, this blues ballad picked my ass up and stood me back on my feet. Got me moving again.

23)   A song you think everybody should listen to: Tanqueray, Johnny Johnson, Johnny B Badd. I have many of these, but this is one of the coolest songs I ever heard, yet hardly anyone knows about it.

24)   A song by a band you wish was still together. Don’t Pass Me By, Georgia Satellites, Open All Night. No question that the band was going to be the Satellites. It’s a cryin’ shame they only cut three albums. This was my favorite, a cover of an old Beatles/Ringo Starr song that they totally raved up.

25)   A song by an artist no longer living: Pride and Joy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Texas Flood. This song sent my musical taste in a whole new direction. One song, one time. I was hooked on SRV and the blues.

26)   A song that makes you want to fall in love: Moondance, Van Morrison, Title Track. First time I heard it was in the movie “American Werewolf in London,” during the love scene. Made me want to go take a shower with a cute nurse, immediately! (This activity proved to be more romantic in theory than in practice.)

27)   A song that breaks your heart: Into the Fire, Bruce Springsteen, The Rising. As mentioned in last week’s post, I bought the CD based on seeing Bruce and the band play it in concert (on TV). It’s still hard to listen to because it never fails to bring back the feelings of 9/11/2001.

28)   A song by an artist with a voice you love: Bat out of Hell, Meat Loaf, Title Track. Possibly my favorite song of all time. Powerful vocal performance amid pounding piano and howling guitars. I think Meat is the greatest rock singer of all time.

29)   A song you remember from your childhood: Zorba the Greek, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Going Places. I remember tons of songs from my childhood but this was a favorite. It’s a whole party in four and a half minutes. No wonder Greece is in such bad shape. Who can get anything done with all the dancing and “Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-yip-yip-yip?”

30)  A song that reminds you of yourself: Oreo Cookie Blues, Lonnie Mack, Strike Like Lightning. 

“Chocolate on m’fingers/Icing on mah lips

Sugar diabetes and/Blubber on mah hips

I keep the night light burnin’ in the kitchen, baby

So I can go downstairs and cruise…

I got da Oreo Crème Sandwich, Chocolate Covered Cream-Filled Cookie Blues.”

My Top Ten Bruce Springsteen Songs

A few weeks back, Sweetpea and I got into a conversation about our favorite Bruce Springsteen songs. Bruce is an artist we both like a lot, but it’s funny how profound our differences are about what we like.

On her part, she’s into meaningful lyrics, and so favors songs she can sink her brain into.

On my part, I see two distinct Bruces. I tend to favor Loud, Fun, Rock Party Bruce over Mumbly, Introspective, Navel-gazing Bruce. But when talk went to our Top Tens, I found I had a bit of both in there.

Now, I’m sure my list will rile a lot of life-long Bruce fans. I was never one of those. While I liked Born to Run, once I really listened to it, I didn’t give him much more thought until he took over the world with the Born in the USA album. I saw him on that tour in the Pontiac Silverdome and that performance colored my opinions about a couple songs.

So I’m basing my Top Ten not just on the songs alone, but their significance in my life and memories that they conjure up. I’m not saying these are his critical best, but they’re the ones I like best. Now without further ado, or like Bruce, without an opening act, here are my Top Ten Bruce Springsteen songs.

10) “Dancing in the Dark,” Born in the USA album, 1984. No, it’s not the greatest song in his catalog, but it was catchy, fun, and most importantly, hit the country like a nuclear bomb, raining down the magic of Bruce like so much radiation. This album came out at the onset of MVT and this was his first real music video, where he escapes the watch-cap-wearing mumbler image and debuts the buff, energetic all-American guy image. And to kick off the magic Springsteen touch, the cute girl he pulls out of the crowd to dance with him grows up to become Courteney Cox.

He may have been energetic in concert in years before, but only the people in attendance knew about it. This song and video broke him nation-wide, to the point that people from all generations knew about Bruce. The album went on to spawn seven Billboard #1 singles.

9) “You’re Missing,” and” Into the Fire,” The Rising album, 2002. The Rising was Bruce’s 9/11 album, coming out the summer after the twin towers fell. The last thing I wanted was to hear an album about 9/11, so I avoided it for a while. Then one night, I stumbled over a Springsteen concert on TV, in which he was playing his new songs.

Hearing both of these songs moved me to near tears. From the sad violin of You’re Missing to the haunting imagery of Into the Fire, the spare message of unresolved pain was searing. I got up from the couch, went to the computer and ordered the CD that night. These songs are so powerful, I rarely listen to them anymore, but I’ll never forget them. When I hear Into the Fire, all I can think about is this photo:

“Up the Stairs, into the fire…”

8) “Jungleland,” Born to Run album, 1975. I never even heard this song until well into my college years in the early 80s. I was listening to a lot of Meat Loaf at the time and this 9-minute opus seemed to fit right in, with its drastic tempo-changes and rock opera energy. And I loved how Steven King quoted from it and referenced it in the title of perhaps my favorite book of all time, The Stand.

7) “Born to Run,” Born to Run album, 1975. I loved the desperation of the lyrics, the great release of rock and roll energy, and the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink-ala-Phil Spector production. This was Bruce’s Bat Out of Hell. (Like I said, I was listening to a lot of Meat Loaf.)

6) “Badlands,” Darkness on the Edge of Town album, 1978. I was never drawn to this song until I saw it played in concert. It was this one bit that I loved, in the bridge, where at each break in the lyric, drummer Max Weinberg would nail this huge bass drum strike. Like:

“Talk about a dream [BOOM]

Try to make it real [BOOM]

You wake up in the night [BOOM]

With a fear so real…” [BOOM}

I’ll never know how Max gets such a huge sound out of such a tiny drum kit. Good sound tech guy, I guess.

Photo credit

5) “Downbound Train,” Born in the USA album, 1984. Bruce sings the blues. It’s not as rockin’ as I usually prefer but he does such a great job of making you feel the sadness of the character facing the emptiness of his heart. It was riveting in concert.

4) “Stand on It,” Born in the USA album, B-side single, 1984. This was the B-side of the Glory Days single and in my book, far outshines the A-side. Stand on It is a 50s-inspired rock and roll romp, with a bouncy bass line and killer piano laid down by “the Professor,” Roy Bittan. This song would be a natural for swing dancing. Here, see for yourself…

3) “Trapped,” USA for Africa, 1984. This was Bruce’s contribution to the USA for Africa/We Are the World album. It was a song by reggae star Jimmy Cliff, that Bruce did as a live cut. And live is where it thrives. I love the massive volume changes between the soft verses and the slamming chorus. Backup singer and future wife (at the time), Patti Scialfa cuts through the sonic field like a laser with her background vocals.

2) “Cover Me,” Live 1975-1985 box set, 1986. I always liked the original, from the Born in the USA album, but the live version is far more powerful. When I saw it played live, you didn’t even know what song it was from Patti’s “Nowhere to run to baby/Got nowhere to hide…” intro, not until Bruce came in with an echo-effected, strobe-lit “Cover me…”

In the live version, the guitars howl louder, the bass pounds, and the drums thunder, just the way Bluz likes it!

1) “Further On (Up the Road),” The Rising, 2002. Bruce’s 9/11 revenge song, the one that said, after of all the heartbreak and fear, the tears are dried and now it’s time to go and get some.

“Got on my dead man’s suit, and my smilin’ skull ring

My lucky graveyard boots, and a song to sing

Got a song to sing, to keep me out of the cold.

And I’ll meet you further on up the road.”

This one starts starkly, with only Max’s hi-hat and snare drum beat, and as the song progresses, more instruments get laid on until the sonic field is jam-packed with guitars, mandolins, and huge backing vocals.

Other Bruce “Honorable Mention” moments, (in no meaningful order):

1. Contributor, “We Are the World,” 1985. I think his part redeemed the whole thing, because face it, this song was pretty lightweight and sing-songy. Then when it comes to Bruce’s turn to echo the chorus, he brings that lion’s roar of his to the show and provides a little vocal firepower.

2. Backing vocals and guitar on Warren Zevon’s “Disorder in the House,” 2003. When Warren Zevon was diagnosed with a fatal lung disease, he went directly into the studio and began what would be his last album, “The Wind.” His rock star friends came out in force to contribute whatever was needed to the effort.

Bruce showed up to provide vocal accompaniment on Disorder in the House, and play electric guitar, including three long wild-ass solos. After as he wound up his third one, Zevon looked up at him from the control panel and said with mock amazement, “You ARE him!” You can see for yourself right here:

3. My Ride’s Here, (live) “Enjoy Every Sandwich,” 2004. Following Zevon’s death, an album was released of various artists performing Zevon songs. Bruce and the E Street Band contributed a soft, affectionate version of “My Ride’s Here.” You can hear the love for his friend in his earnest introduction.

Note: The album title was taken from a comment Zevon made to his close friend, David Letterman, who asked how it felt to live with a fatal diagnosis. Warren said something like, “It makes you want to enjoy every sandwich,” meaning, appreciate the little things in life.

All Photo-Ops Are Not Created Equal

Perhaps you’ve seen this meme on Facebook.

Here’s why it’s complete bullshit.

1)      It’s a president’s job to meet with world leaders, no question. You can see by each of the first five shots that these were informal photo-ops, not two leaders having secret meetings. And a shot of Trump acting like a comrade of old Vladdie wouldn’t have been a big deal either if that’s all there was. When all the leaders are pouring out of a G-8 meeting, people mix and pose for photos. That is indeed, fine.

2)      Prior to the first five photos, there hadn’t been overwhelming evidence shown that Russia had hacked private political emails and released them to damage one political party. Further, we hadn’t yet seen evidence that Russia had engineered a social media campaign to divide the country, sow unrest, and ultimately back one candidate over another. Also, Russia hadn’t forcefully annexed Crimea or sent fighter jets to counter our military operations in Syria.

3)      None of the people in the first five shots had a private, one-on-one, meeting with Putin, in which there were no witnesses (save for translators), and with no transcriptions of the meeting made available to the public or even other Cabinet members. All we know about what went on in that meeting comes from the comments of two seasoned liars, both of whom will tell whatever story suits their purpose at any given moment.

What we have here is another logical fallacy of false equivocation. Five of these examples are nothing like the last one, therefore any comparison is misguided. But the creators don’t care about that; they just want their base to get pissed off about it and blame the media.

This country is careening down a dangerous path right now, with all the drummed-up antipathy toward the media, social and otherwise. To this president, any media outlet that’s not fawning over him, not telling everyone what a great job he’s doing, is “The Enemy.”

Journalists are doing what they’ve been doing for centuries, reporting on what politicians do and say, and are receiving state-sanctioned death threats for it.

I’m certainly not the first to warn that the prosecution and suppression of journalists is a primary tool of dictators. I can’t understand why the Right, supposed to be so super-patriotic, is determined to shred one of America’s founding principles. Their tribalism run amok is stripping this country of the very greatness they pretend to revere.

Sad.

The GOP Playbook - A Study in Attaining and Maintaining Power

For whatever their flaws, you have to stand in amazement regarding the Republicans’ success in amassing and maintaining their power. Even after the thrashing of the 2008 elections, they never lost control for more than a couple of years. In fact, the Obama years might have been their most important, because while they were not governing, they were very, very busy laying the groundwork for their return.

In looking back over their methods, I’ve distilled them down to three main, interconnected areas… A three-pronged attack, if you will. Here’s what they did.

1.      De-emphasized and belittled education.

I’ve written about this before. In fact, let me quote from myself:

“Republican leadership does not want an educated electorate.  The last thing they want is for people to think for themselves or be able to dissect a statement or argument.  What they want is pliability and obedient workers who do what they’re told.

“Look how long Fox “News” has been railing against the “Eastern elite,” or “egg-headed intellectuals.”  They’ve been demonizing intelligence since Day One by holding the most educated among us up to scorn.

“Just look through an aggregated news web page like Yahoo.  Every time you see a blurb about college protests, or liberal professors, or university political correctness gone wild, check the source.  Guaranteed it will be from Fox, or the Federalist, the New York Post, or other conservative mouthpieces.

“This is no accident; they want you to distrust places of higher education. 

“Conservative power brokers know that college can teach people about how to spot logical fallacies and how to pick apart arguments, political positions, and media advertisement, (political and otherwise).”

A population lacking in critical thinking skills is susceptible to the weapons-grade propaganda aired by Fox “News” and social media memes sponsored by the Koch Brothers and state-backed Russian hackers.

Keep in mind the Sinclair Broadcasting is trying to become the largest TV station ownership group in the country. If their latest purchase attempt goes through, they’ll be able to broadcast into 70% of America’s living rooms, complete with required conservative messaging.

By degrading the reputation of scientists, they make it easier to call scientific findings into question when they conflict with conservative philosophy. (That philosophy is to never let anything get in the way of higher profits for big business.)

To achieve this, Republicans push educational systems that “teach to the test.” Or in other words, evaluate teachers by who can get their students to regurgitate various facts on command, on which they get tested.

Republican governors and legislatures who routinely slash school budgets know that there’s not much in the way of freedom or creativity without money. Art and music? Gone. Critical thinking? Forget it.

They also push for more vocational schooling. I call it the Judge Smails rule. “The world needs ditch-diggers too.”

While I don’t have any quarrel for learning a trade for those whose career goals are low, it’s a direct path to life with little critical thinking.

All these chunks Republicans take out of education serves a single purpose: to ensure we’re unequipped to fully understand or combat the degree to which we’re being screwed.

2.      Engaged an exhaustive campaign to fill state and local offices with conservatives.

This may be the most important step of all. You see all those educational issues? They can’t be done without control of school boards and city/state government. There are an awful lot of issues, large and small, that begin at home.

This is the step that places them in power and then entrenches them there. Why? Because governorships are important. Governors preside over the Congressional redistricting that happens every 10 years. And if the houses of state legislature are Republican-controlled as well, a Governor has no meaningful pushback when it’s time to redistrict. And GOP governors have gerrymandered the US House of Representatives into a perpetual bastion of conservative power.

The state knows exactly where its Republican and Democratic voters are, so they ensure that as many of their opponents are included in as few districts as humanly possible, leaving all the other districts to be controlled by Republicans.

Granted, states like Maryland have just as completely gerrymandered the state for the Democrats, but we’re an outlier here. Republicans control far more of the heavily gerrymandered states.

Gerrymandering can only control the House, so Republicans need something else to rig the Senate and Presidential votes. That’s where “Voter ID” comes in. I’ve written about that before, too.

This is where Republicans pretend there’s a massive problem with voter fraud, despite zero evidence that A) there is a meaningful problem and B) requiring an ID from a voter would have prevented it. To combat this “problem,” they then pass a law requiring voters to present valid state IDs in order to vote.

This is meant to discourage non-drivers, (meaning those who can’t afford a car, or idealistic students), seniors (meaning old people who don’t want anyone messing with their Medicare or Social Security), or anyone of color. All of these groups are seen as likely Democratic voters.

They make sure that the only IDs recognized are the hardest to get. State IDs and NRA licenses… in. Student IDs and library cards… out. And then, to make things as inconvenient as possible, they close or limit hours of licensing centers in urban areas, reduce or eliminate early voting hours, and limit the number of voting machines in city precincts, so the lines are longer. They pull driver’s licenses for anyone who owes money for court costs. They “clean” voter rolls using aggressive means, without notification, so that people don’t know they’re no longer registered to vote until they show up on Election Day.

All of that is designed to discourage and suppress the vote of likely Democratic supporters, and it’s only possible when you have control of state government in census years.

3.      Appointed conservative judges up and down the bench.

This is to ensure that once power is achieved, the self-serving laws they enact remain intact. And it’s not just the Supreme Court that matters. There are hundreds of federal judgeship and appeals courts that allow or disallow legislation. Once they’ve packed their own people into these roles, many of them for life, the odds are that much better than their nefarious legislation gets upheld.

Laws on same-sex marriage, gerrymandering, gun control, abortion, voter suppression and unlimited anonymous campaign contributions will only stand as long as the judiciary signs off.

Mitch McConnell was willing to ignite a national furor by holding up a Supreme Court nomination for 10 months because it meant a shot at keeping a conservative-majority bench. (And the Koch Brothers told him to.) That’s how important appointing judges is. Republicans stonewalled judicial appointments for years during the Obama administration. Now they’re filling seats like it’s a Beyoncé concert.

The judiciary is the last check on government power. Once that check is in the hands of judges who believe corporate entities are people, the other 98% of American citizens are screwed.

***

This is how completely the Republicans are in control. They did the hard work and are reaping the benefits now. The only way Democrats can reclaim control is to do (or undo) exactly what the GOP has done. Democrats have to go hard after local offices… city council, mayors, school boards, state assemblies, houses of delegates… whatever they’re called in locales across the country.

People have to show up and vote. Demonstrations and protests don’t do anything unless they translate into votes. Democrats have to pull back the curtain and show people what Republicans are up to and what how their law-making will affect our daily lives. We must convince people that government is meant to serve the people and not business entities. We have to convince moderates and independents that we’re right and our opponents are wrong.

We have to put scientists back on scientific boards and toss out the industry shills who have no agenda other than eliminating anything that costs big businesses money.

We have to clear the way, permanently, for any two consenting adults to marry and enjoy all the rights and benefits that go with it. We have to make it clear that if you open a business, you serve whoever walks in the door or at least make a reasonable accommodation, regardless of what your religion says.

We have to leave reproductive decisions up to the people who are involved in the reproduction and keep government and the rest of the general public the hell out of it.

We have to enact an immigration policy that works, that doesn’t involve ineffectual vanity projects that cost $25 billion.

We have to reclaim our place as leaders on the world’s stage and act like the super-power we are. We need to lead with our allies and stop elevating our enemies.

We have to fight off the out-sized influence of the NRA and do something about semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.

We have much work to do. The Republicans did theirs and they won’t give up power without a fight. And it won’t be a fair fight, that much is obvious, judging from the 2016 election. The amount of money at the Republican’s disposal will be staggering.

But money can only buy attempts to influence. It doesn’t buy our vote.

We have to make our voices heard. We have to run for offices. We have to register. And we have to VOTE.

A Moving Story

Well, my luck held out. Now I live someplace else.

After what seemed like an eternity of preparation, Sweetpea and I are engaged in a raging case of premarital cohabitation.

Last night was especially weird. Most Sunday nights, I leave her place around 7:00 or 8:00 pm and go back home. This time, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Like I said in the last post, I’ve been staying at her our place since 7/13. I used vacation days for last week, so every day I went back to my apartment to pack up the last of my crap, and do all the things I didn’t want to do yet when I still stayed there. (Like take down the blinds. On the bottom floor, I don’t like that people can look right in.)

I also went down my list of services and utilities I used, to update my address with them or discontinue services. There’s something about filing your change of address with the post office and voter’s board, that makes it seem very official and past the point of return.

I’d been worried about the movers showing up on Wednesday, but I needn’t have been… they got there an hour early and beat me there by a few minutes, as I detoured for breakfast. Croissandwiches in hand, I let them in and showed them around. By this point, there weren’t any boxes left to be moved; just furniture.

These guys flew into action. One second all my furniture is there, the next, everything’s got blankets taped around them and were being carried out the door. And in addition to being super polite and respectful, these dudes were strong. They didn’t look like body-builders, but each one could carry a large piece of furniture by themselves. (Those days are long gone for me, if I even had them in the first place.)

Seeing a place I once inhabited stand empty is always a melancholy experience for me. Granted, it’s the same view as when I move in, but it’s a different perspective. When you’re moving in, you see all the potential. When moving out, it’s just an empty shell of what used to be; the location of good times and bad.

After a little more than an hour and a half, I bid a temporary adieu to my apartment and we all headed down the road, to reverse the entire process.

Fortunately, the dog was spending the day at Sweetpea’s sister’s house, or else he’d have gone ape-shit with all these strangers tromping around his house. He gets angry when someone has the audacity to walk down his street!

Having movers bring your furniture into your place is like being a traffic cop, only you don’t recognize the cars. A guy would go, “Mr. Bluz, where do you want this?”

I’d be like, “I don’t know, what the hell is it, under that blanket?”

At least I had Sweetpea to help direct traffic. Well, except the times where I had one idea about where something should go, and she had another. It didn’t happen often, as we’d already discussed where the big pieces would go. But we still had some undecided items. With dudes carrying them around, we had to decide quickly.

It was funny; one guy commented on my “Steeler Fan Parking Only” sign that was hanging in the basement. Knowing Sweetpea was a Baltimore girl, he told me, “You got that Steelers sign up on the wall so you can see it as soon as you come downstairs. You must be the boss around here.”

I said, “Dude, it’s in the basement. If I was really the boss, it would be upstairs!”

The movers were done at the three-and-a-half-hour mark, which brought me a bill of about $650. Considering all I didn’t have to do, it was totally, completely, worth it.

It’s a bit overwhelming, though, once the movers leave and it’s time to start putting things away. It’s like, you just don’t even know where to begin. But Sweetpea and I have a saying… “Just start chopping wood.” In other words, pick something, do it, go on to the next thing. Repeat.

So we started with the low-hanging fruit and worked out from there. By the time she got back with the dog, I had the TV in the living room working. By the Thursday, I had the stereo equipment hooked up and functional. Not that it didn’t have some frustrating moments.

I wanted to use my component system set up in my giant, heavy-ass entertainment center. But she doesn’t like speakers hung on the wall (like mine were) so I figured we’d use her small Bose speakers. But my receiver needed speakers with raw wire attachments. Her Bose speakers had the usual jacks.

Earlier in the week, I texted my buddy, the VP of Hell No and expert on ancient stereo components, to ask him if I clipped off the jacks, would that raw speaker wire work? I didn’t want to ruin her speakers and not have it work. He waved me off that idea and said I could get an adapter with the raw wire on one side and the jack on the other.

Awesome! I ordered a couple from Amazon, and when they arrived Thursday, I set up the stereo equipment and moved the speakers. At that point, I re-learned the old lesson about assuming. I really should have looked at her speakers. If I had, I’d have seen that they didn’t have jacks after all; they were connected with the raw wire. Just as I needed. Without any adaptation necessary.

Oh well. Amazon is good with returns. And after a good tussle and a lot of naughty words, everything works. We can play CDs, LPs, and cassettes. (Cuz that’s what we have, in spades.)

Friday, the cable guy came, which was the last major piece of the puzzle. Both she and I had cable, but I wanted to transfer my service to her address and have her kill hers. The cable company would provide their triple play service, of TV, internet, and phones so she could kill her phone and internet service too.

Also, since we cumulatively owned four TVs, we wanted to use them all. Her main TV went downstairs to the future Man Cave/Escape Room. My main TV went into the living room. Her bedroom TV stayed there, and my bedroom TV went into the back bedroom. With that arrangement, we’d need cable wired to the back bedroom, and office, where the computers would be.

Took the guy over 4 hours but he got it done and everything worked perfectly, phones and all. The only thing I’m missing now is another mirror system, to watch TV from the can. But you can’t have everything, can you?

We’re about squared away now. We’ve just got some more kitchen stuff to integrate, and we need to find a place to store my towels and linens. And then we just have to find that daily rhythm, which so far eludes me.

We both have very different ideas on what constitutes tasteful decorating. She prefers clean, clear, open spaces. If it were up to me, I’d have every square inch of wall space covered with a picture, painting, photo, album cover or poster. And every centimeter of horizontal space with a figurine or some other tchotchke placed on it. So there’s some negotiating to be done, for sure.

One happy side effect of this move… I get to cut down my key ring by two keys. No more house/deadbolt/mailbox keys; now just one simple front door key. I feel lighter already.

We went out to dinner Friday night, and I forgot my wallet, even though I created a place specifically for it, where I’d never forget it. (Thanks for covering, Sweetpea! I owe you another dinner.) That’s when I realized that old habits weren’t transferrable. Just because I had a regular place for my wallet at my old apartment, doesn’t mean the same mechanics are in place at the new house. I’ll just have to count on repetition to engrave it into my brain.

The same thing happened to her. She had to move where she used to keep her purse, and then went off without her phone, which right by where she used to keep her purse. It’s all interconnected. We just have to develop some new behavioral synapses.

It’s the same with a lot of simple tasks that I’ve done in a particular way for the last 20 years. Like getting dressed in the morning. I used to lay out my clothes the night before… shirt on a hook, pants on a hook beside them, socks and undies beside my ottoman, shoes within reach. I’d come out of the bathroom, which was attached to the bedroom, put on undies and socks, pull the shirt off the hook, pants go on, sit back on the ottoman and put on my shoes. Done.

Now, the bathroom is in the hall and my clothes are in the back bedroom. I have to figure out what comes in the bathroom with me, where I hang my clothes, and where I put my shoes. All this is complicated by the fact that if the dog wants attention, he will grab any pair of socks, undies or shoes that he can reach, whether from the bedroom, bathroom or wherever, and parade around the house with them.

On this one, I’m probably going to have to settle for less than perfect efficiency. It won’t kill me.

And on the bright side, I get to live side by side with the love of my life.

I look forward to seeing what happens next.

Movin' Out

I apologize for not having a post up yesterday, but it's moving week in old Bluztown.

I've been packing and bringing things over to Sweetpea's place for a couple of months now, to lighten the load on moving day. I spent my last night at my apartment last Friday, and the moving guys come tomorrow.

As I've mentioned before, in the olde days, I would have just rented a truck and imposed on some friends to help me out, and done it myself. Not anymore. This time I hired 3 guys and a truck, for 3 hours.

Because of all my prep work, it should be a swift affair, probably coming in under the 3 hours. At this point, it's just furniture.

Empty dining room. (More or less.) This reminds me... I gotta take that map down.

Empty entertainment center and living room.

Empty picture wall.

At the moment, I'm sitting here in this almost empty place, waiting for some people to come and take my washer and dryer. Sweetpea already has a set that's about as new as mine, so why even move them? As it turned out, my friend Jenn was in need of a washer and dryer, so her husband is coming over to pick them up.

This greatly relieved me. I wasn't looking forward to trying to sell them on Craig's List or something like that. That I can send them off to a friend is comforting and saves me a lot of anxiety over the process. And her husband has a truck and a friend to bring, to get the thing loaded. All I have to do is supervise, like Fred G. Sanford.

We have the cable guy coming on Friday so I hope to be up and fully wired for phone/internet/TV, for my usual Monday post.

Everything has gone well so far. Wish me luck that it holds out!

More GOP Meme Deconstruction

Lottsa stuff going on since I last wrote about politics and what do you know? It’s the same damn stuff! So let’s look at some things I’ve pulled off Facebook over the last three weeks and see if it floats.

OK, this is from back in May so it’s a little stale, especially since former Trump fix-it lawyer, Michael Cohen, is now singing like a bird to the Mueller team.

This graphic contains a common problem with Republican memes… they try to compare two things that don’t warrant comparison. These situations are not remotely alike.

With the school shooting, there were some random notifications to the FBI about the guy who turned out to be the shooter. Yes, someone probably should have checked it out in a little more depth. But remember, there were no real actionable items. People said the guy gave them the creeps and was weird.

Well, that defines a significant percentage of the American population. You can’t just snatch up every oddball and social misfit. I know conservatives would desperately wish that to be true; just look how they’ve been trying to rid their communities of black boys cutting the grass or black girls selling lemonade, or black families at the neighborhood pool.

But what if the FBI started investigating every case where someone gets a weird vibe from a neighbor, maybe hearing shots fired in the yard, or yelling coming from inside the house. What happens if they start confiscating guns and locking guys up based on nothing but someone else’s heebie-jeebies? We’d have to let all the drug dealers and murders out of prison just to make room for the incoming.

On the other hand, the FBI had enough actionable evidence to secure a subpoena allowing them to conduct the raid on the lawyer’s office. And that mere act sent the Administration into a panic. Think they’d be panicking if there was nothing shady going on?

Also, it didn’t seem like “the porn-star” business had much to do with that raid. The Feds had plenty of other areas of inquiry. Subpoenas in a case like this aren’t given out willy-nilly. There has to be serious evidence of wrongdoing.

This theme is designed to do one thing: smear the FBI in the court of public opinion, so that when they start issuing charges against this president and his crew, their faithful sheep will bleat about bias and unfairness, rather than consider the gross misconduct and lawlessness of this administration.

Still with the Obama Stuff

First of all, the Democrats only had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate for a short time. Remember how the Republicans kept appealing the recounts of Al Franken’s election to the Senate, so to eat up the time the Dems had? Then once the full 60 was sworn in, one of the first orders of business was the Affordable Care Act. And as opposed to what the common Republican talking points say, it was not rammed through; it took months to be debated and eventually passed.

There was also the Bush Recession to address, so the economic legislation sucked up a lot of time and energy. And that worked. Every economic chart you look at (other than those from Fox “News,”) show an almost immediate turnaround at the beginning of Obama’s presidency.

Immigration wasn’t exactly a front-burner issue. Sure, it wasn’t a perfect situation, but it wasn’t a crisis either. The whole subject is only a crisis to scared white Americans who think their influence is waning, and who don’t like pressing “2” for Spanish.

Then once the Democrats lost their super-majority with the 2010 elections, (and control of the House), the Republicans could and did filibuster everything else the president wanted to do for the rest of his administration. So there was a very short window for the Democrats to act unilaterally, and the product of those actions was universal health care and economic recovery from recession.

So excuse them for not deporting enough brown people.

Alibis for Caging Kids

Since the religious angle didn’t catch on, Republicans are trying out other rationales, to show support for their leader’s draconian border policy.

More false equivocation. This one is a slam dunk to debunk.

2.7 million kids who have a parent in jail, aren’t in jail themselves.

400k foster kids are not held in captivity either, surrounded by people with whom they don’t know and cannot communicate. While the foster program has issues, most foster parents are decent people trying to help kids in bad situations.

And 765k kids have parents who nobly chose to go into the military knowing the situation that comes with that service. And again, the kids are not locked up in mass barracks, cut off from everything they know.

So OBVIOUSLY, the media focuses on the current tragedy going on at our borders. That’s their job, to tell the public when there’s an atrocity taking place.

This, from the self-proclaimed party of Family Values. It's clear to me that the only families they value are white, American ones.

This one tries to break down the dumbness even finer, with an attempt at logic.

Yes, they lay out the illegalness step by step. But again, they miss the main point… when people go to prison, the kids do not, because you just don’t put innocent children in a fucking jail!

It’s funny how conservatives revere the law when it’s someone else breaking it. But when their administration officials commit felony after felony for things like lying on their financial disclosure forms, that reverence for The Law comes up missing.

Civil Discourse

I’ve had mixed feelings about the new tactic the left has taken up, of confronting influential people they encounter out in public. I think we should be better than that. We should wage war with ideas and leave the in-your-face bullying out of it.

And then I see memes like this:

It's funny how whenever you see a meme that starts out, "So let me get this right," they so rarely do.  Talk about missing the point, or at least willfully distorting it.

Yes, we had a hissy fit because everyone should be served at a place of business, not just those with whom you share a belief system. Conservatives started this very thing with their embargo on selling cakes or flowers for gay weddings, pursued it clear up to the Supreme Court, and won (with a hand-picked right-leaning court).

Plus, they’ve spent the last 10 or so years publicly coarsening the quality of debate.

But the first time it comes back on them, they want to whine about it. And they call liberals “snowflakes.” Maybe someone should design a “Karma for Dummies” meme because this is karma coming back to smite them right between the eyes.

If the right doesn’t start up the non-service movement, then they don’t get non-serviced themselves. A simple concept for simple-tons.

I think that pretty much spells it out.  All’s fair as long as WE aren’t inconvenienced. Screw everyone else. (I think “Screw everyone else” is actually in the Republican platform.)

So after further consideration, my opinion has evolved closer to this:

It’s a classic case of bullying, where once the bully gets hit in the mouth, they want to cry foul and play the victim.

Final Thought

One last note on the resignation of Scott Pruitt, as EPA chief.

I don’t think it makes a damned bit of difference. Even before I knew who the replacement was, I knew it would be more of the same. An oilman leaves, then we get a flak from the coal industry.

Best case scenario: the next guy spends a little less taxpayer money on himself while he disassembles the EPA. Either way, regulations get rolled back so polluters can go back to polluting the way they used to, while the atmosphere becomes visible again and the earth floods and bakes.

Nothing changes until this crew gets voted out. We start this November with a chance to retake Congress. If successful, that may help hold 45 in check until we can toss him out on his ass in 2020.