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

So thoughtful

What a relief to hear that the incoming Obama Administration and its confederates in the Democratic-controlled Congress have decided to throw some tax cuts into the massive economic "recovery" plan that's headed our way. With everyone and his brother seeking a bailout now (gee, we didn't see that coming -- free money, anyone?), it's nice that a few crumbs are included for the people who are paying for all these handouts. Remember, too, that a tax "cut" is merely the government letting you keep more of your own money.

And what's the price tag for the federal government's plan to "rescue" us?  I love this sentence from the New York Times today -- "(Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid was talking about a bill of $800 billion to $1.2 trillion, while Mr. Obama's advisers estimated legislation at no more than $775 billion." Sounds like we'll need Senator Franken in there to break the tie.

Don't worry, though, it's not like the federal government is going to run out of money because the Fed chairman has promised us he'll print all we need.

So let me see if I have this straight: The government creates the problem (choose the culprit depending on your political persuasion - lack of regulation of fat cat contributors or loans for would-be voters who couldn't possibly repay them), and now that same government is going to bail us out. Only in brain-dead America.

Hold This Thought

The 40-minute LP is the limit of man's attention span.

Make sure you listen to (in no particular order):

-- Brian Wilson, "That Lucky Old Sun"

-- Felix Cavaliere and Steve Cropper, "Nudge It Up A Notch"

-- Oasis, "Dig Out Your Soul"

-- Rodney Crowell, "Sex and Gasoline".

If you get a chance, read Robert Stone's wonderful appreciation of Dr. Albert Hofmann. This man inspired a lot of great music. God bless him.