Something Better Beginning

I'm looking forward with great anticipation to Ray Davies' new album, "The Kinks Choral Collection." Yes, the '60s most uniquely English artist is entering Benjamin Britten territory.

Is this Paul McCartney writing new classical works or Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull or Gary Brooker of Procol Harum wrapping an orchestra around the band's greatest hits? I'm banking on something more. After all, Ray Davies is not like everybody else.

Davies' fans were ecstatic in 2006 when he emerged with his first real solo album, "Other People's Lives." The accompanying tour was a thing of joy. But Davies for several years has had a fixation on getting to the soul of America, as he has done so masterfully with Great Britain. The problem is that Ray's a limey, and only Americans really understand America. Just as only Englishmen understand England. It's like expecting Dickens to write the ultimate American novel and Hemingway to reciprocate with the classic work of English fiction. Ain't gonna happen.

Now Davies is back home, working with the Crouch End Festival Chorus. Somehow I don't think it's just a dodge to capitalize on some old hits. We'll see. Is this the start of another heartbreaker or. ...?

No comparison

So let me see if I have this straight: Congress in its infinite wisdom now says someone under 21 needs permission from a parent to get a credit card, but parental consent is not necessary if someone under 21 wants to get an abortion.

How We Listen

This article comes highly recommended. Not because it's about the Grateful Dead (a band I respect, although I'm far from a Dead Head.) But don't let the subject scare you off either.

This is a fascinating look by Ben Ratliff at the layers of listening to any longtime band or artist. Or perhaps I should say the layers of how each of us listens to those artists.

Just buy the paper!

Come on, people, does the government have to do everything for you? Now 37% of Americans say they support the government putting taxpayer money into failing newspapers to keep them going.

If that 37% would just buy a daily subscription to their local paper, the newspaper crisis would be over.

Begging for dollars

God knows I love newspapers. Printed-on-paper newspapers. Dead-tree media, whatever you want to call them. But my former colleague Ken McIntyre is absolutely right about Senator Ben Cardin's newspaper bailout bill. It's amazing what things those folks in Washington can think up to spend other people's money on. I wonder if Cardin, not a poor man himself, is heavily investing in newspaper stocks to help the beleaguered industry right itself in the time-honored free market fashion. Bets, anyone?

I'm reminded of the quotation attributed to Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Whether the Great Lady said it or not, it's an apt sentiment.

As a Marylander though, I suppose I should be grateful for the sighting of Cardin. In the tradition of ex-Senator Paul Sarbanes, he's largely disappeared from view since the state Democratic machine awarded him a seat in the Senate (elections are merely a formality in our one-party state). Let me make it quite clear, however, that rumors of a milk carton with Cardin's picture on it are categorically not true. You can be sure he'll resurface anyway around election time for his rubber-stamped second term in the Senate.

Physician, heal thyself

So Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Nutopia, wants to create a Truth Commission to investigate the Bush Administration.

How about a Truth Commission to investigate the multiple leaks Leahy made to The Washington Post and others as the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee during the Reagan years? This guy never met a secret he didn't want to betray in the name of political expediency and may well have cost the life of at least one covert agent because of his sneaky political ways. But you can be sure "Leahy the Leaker" has some self-righteous explanation for his behavior.

Ah, how quickly we forget, which is exactly what Leahy and his kind count on.

Defusing the Rahm Bomb

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30439