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Open thread 5/11/23 — 58 Comments

  1. Just need 49 other States to do this: “IDs issued by sanctuary jurisdictions will be invalidated in the state of Florida and using a fake ID to obtain employment will now be treated as a felony.”

  2. there seemed to be a real desire to craft the lyric, a real artistic enterprise, now well its just another synthetic product with some exception,

    unlike huey lewis opined ‘the heart of rock and roll’ is no longer beating

  3. Wow! Does this mean that you’ve discovered this fantastic British website, “Wings of Pegasus” — where Fil Henley analyzes several songs each week? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-LjOmhQUno Or is this just a coincidence?

    After seeing your post, I just happened to click on “Wings of Pegasus” — and there was the Bonny Raitt song!

    I discovered the website 6 months ago when Fil Henley analyzed the original 1988 version of Freddie Mercury’s “Face It Alone”.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_knAE55nAE

  4. The “Gradually, then Suddenly” album?
    – – – – – – – –
    In other news, Glenn Youngkin is fighting back against President Fentanyl….
    “VA Gov. Youngkin signs executive order to combat fentanyl crisis;
    “There were 1,951 Virginians who died in 2022 due to fentanyl poisoning. The drug is the leading cause of unnatural deaths in the commonwealth.”—
    https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/youngkin-signs-executive-order-combat-fentanyl-crisis

    And—what a coincidence!—lookee who else seems to be having a fentanyl problem…
    “Poilievre Accuses [Trudeau] Government Of Contributing To Addiction Crisis”—
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/05/11/poilievre-accuses-government-of-contributing-to-addiction-crisis/

    Actually, not a coincidence…since both “Biden” and Trudeau are using the exact same playbook….

  5. Saw Vivek the other day in Iowa.

    Hands down, the most impressive candidate I’ve seen and I’ve seen all of them in 2016 and 2020.

  6. LOL! What’s next? Something new, or an oldie but goodie like bird flu or swine flu?

    “World Health Organization says mpox is no longer a global health emergency, ending a July 2022 declaration for virus previously known as monkeypox”

  7. https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/05/11/bidens-corrupt-the-msm-shrugs-n550006

    Quote worth pondering:

    “The MSM is, truly, the enemy of the people. I scoffed when Trump said that. It was intemperate, even unfair. They were biased, I thought, but didn’t actually want to destroy the country.

    Now I would believe that if they were instructed by the Democrats to destroy the country, they would simply ask for the explosives.”

    also — Jonathon Turley seems to be getting exercised over just how corrupt the news media/Dem propaganda machine really is. Better late than never.

  8. Cold War II Updated in Hoover conversation with Niall Ferguson, from late April.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDLTUMIR4jg

    Circa 31-36m China REALLY is communist; top CCP leaders are really reading Marx and Engels, reports Niall. And communism is bent on conflict.

    While he was annually a visiting prof in Beijing, he says Democracy, constitutionalism, Rule of Law, were being FORBIDDEN from university classroom discussion.

    VERBOTTEN.

  9. Re Stan on Hinderaker LINK on Fed Institutionalized data corruption:

    I can no longer recognize the country of my birth.

  10. “…FORBIDDEN…”

    Coming soon to a university near…all of us, no doubt…
    (Actually, already arrived…)

  11. On the top half of the front page of my local Dem-rag “newspaper” this morning, a headline says “Congressman Ramos Indicted on 13 Counts”.

    On the bottom of page 5, I see another headline saying “Republicans Find No Evidence of Biden Receiving Foreign Money”. The remainder of the piece makes it clear that these same Republicans DID find hundreds of Treasury banking records identifying many other members of the Biden family, including minor children, as recipients of transfers of money from foreign sources! Gosh, aren’t they lucky!

    Dem-rag Journalism 101 – it is safe to assume your readership is either dumb as a box or rocks, or crooked as a snake hiding under a rock, and usually both!!

  12. imagination land seems to be where these people live, santos, gets the third degree for essentially an over due library book, by the javert phillip baker hall

    meanwhile a whole sale looting and bribe party, nothing to see here,

  13. Dem-rag Journalism 101 – it is safe to assume your readership is either dumb as a box or rocks, or crooked as a snake hiding under a rock, and usually both!!

    To be fair to the “journalists” at your local Dem-rag, those were doubtless AP penned fantasies. But that’s not to say that the “journalists” at your local rag wouldn’t themselves write similar nonsense given the opportunity. I’m sure they likely would. What’s that (“evergreen” as Glenn Reynolds puts it) Iowahawk quote about modern journalism again?

  14. neo: “Or too busy or bored to read more than the headlines.”

    Of course, neo. Or perhaps just so assured in their poli-bubble.

    I forgot to mention that the article was written by an NYT reporter, while the headline may have been local. Even within the text however, there was a clear transition from “President is not implicated” to “Family is, big-time” in just a few sentences. There was also a quick acknowledgment that Hunter was already being investigated “but only for” tax and gun stuff.

    Makes you wonder what was going through the writer’s mind… maybe “Gotta keep this job, and keep the boss happy, and be able to establish when we first spilled some of the dirty laundry.”

    For Pulitzer purposes, no doubt. Do they have one for doublespeak? Or did Duranty retire that one?

  15. In the early 1970s I was assistant manager of a music venue in Boulder, Colorado, called Tulagi. Bonnie Raitt had a five-day gig there, two sets per night, accompanied by her bass player Freebo. She was not well-known at the time and I had never heard of her. I was not impressed — most of the time she was so drunk she could hardly talk or sit on her stool without falling off.

    Linda Ronstadt also played at Tulagi. Also not widely known at the time, apart from her hit song with The Stone Poneys. She was a nice kid, chubby and ditzy. I remember she wore a Mexican wedding shirt and had a round face and smiled a lot when I spoke with her, like she wanted me (and everyone) to like her. Very bubbly and blabby. Incredible voice.

  16. I sometimes wonder if these modern journalist have any sense of the evil they’re committing. Are they at all ever bothered by the endless lying by omission by either underreporting or not reporting certain events at all, the misleading headlines, and the careful framing of events within the stories themselves to also mislead? Do they have any real doubts?

    I doubt that they imagine that what they’re doing is evil. I can only assume it’s quite the opposite. They must rationalize all the constant lies as for some sort of imagined greater good. Although I can’t imagine how you can justify constantly covering for people who are so clearly corrupt as the Bidens are as some sort of greater good.

    I guess a lot of it may be self presevation too. Ironically they don’t want to lose their jobs by actually doing their jobs correctly. The world of profesional print journalism is ever shrinking and hyper-competitive. If you don’t generate this bilge today, someone else will tomorrow. And that someone else may even be an AI.

  17. Terrific music pick. I get the general drift of the lyrics, but can’t quite figure out the 2nd verse. Who’s addressing whom, about what precisely? I also love Bonnie’s slide guitar playing which is missing in this one.

  18. IrishOtter — I’ve never been much of a Bonnie Raitt fan. I’m not sure she’d’ve made it if she hadn’t been John Raitt’s daughter.

  19. RCP:

    I discovered Fil’s site years ago, and have written about it many times here. I really like him.

  20. Someone Else:

    I’m not a Bonnie Raitt fan either, but I like some of her stuff, including this song. I think being Raitt’s daughter helped, but I think she has enough talent to have made it on her own.

  21. TommyJay:

    The woman is in her house, she sees a guy drive up and then he knocks on her door. He asks for her by name – “Olivia Zand” – and she asks him what she’s got he’s looking for. That is, what has Olivia Zand (herself) got that he’s looking for? Why did he knock on her door? She’s wary. He answers that there’s something he’s got that he thinks Olivia should know (he doesn’t yet know for sure that he’s talking to Olivia, although he probably suspects it, so he uses the third person for Olivia just as Olivia herself has). Olivia lets him in and surprises herself by doing so, because she’s not usually trusting enough to let a stranger into the house. But there’s something about him, about the look in his eyes, that makes her less wary and so she let him in.

    That’s the second verse. Of course later we learn that this guy is the recipient of her son’s heart.

  22. Well, they’ve assured us time and time again that they lie about EVERYTHING.
    They have a reputation to live up to…
    …and they rarely, if ever, disappoint…

  23. Neo — Few people with “enough talent” can make it on their own. She’s okay — she’s not without talent — but her talent level is such that I don’t think she’d’ve turned any heads without her connection.

  24. IrishOtter, did you ever work with Tracy Nelson who IMO is at least as good as Ronstart and Raitt?

  25. IrishOtter, I spent a lot of time on The Hill at Tulagi’s….CU undergrad 70-74. Also miss the great hamburger place across the street…Round the Corner with their phones in the booths for placing orders.

  26. One of the first albums I ever heard as a child was the original Broadway cast recording of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel with John Raitt as the male lead playing Billy Bigelow. But I think it’s unlikely he had that much influence on his daughter’s career. He probably opened some doors for her but not too many people remember him now.

  27. That IS one helluva song….
    (Decided to listen to it after getting the background…and then some.)

  28. I’ll say it again:
    It’s more than obvious that Mel Brooks is in charge of the American government; that Brooks is really “Biden”….
    “Taiwan Says Its Military Won’t Let The US Blow Up Semiconductor Factories”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/taiwan-says-its-military-wont-let-us-blow-semiconductor-factories
    (That should put the following White House drivel in perspective…
    ‘US Vows “Ironclad Support” For Israel As Gaza Fighting Enters 3rd Day’—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-vows-ironclad-support-israel-gaza-fighting-enters-3rd-day )

  29. Someone Else:

    Raitt’s many many fans would disagree with you. They consider her a standout.

    If you read her story, you’ll see that she was a session musician and put out albums for years without a whole lot of popular success, and then started to catch on. Her fans were not the same group that would have given a rat’s ass about John Raitt.

    As I said, I’m not a Raitt fan, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think she made it mostly because of her own talent and hard work.

  30. FOAF: No, I never worked with Tracy Nelson. She never played at Tulagi, nor at Tulagi’s spin-off club in Denver, Ebbet’s Field, where I also worked.

    physicsguy: Our paths surely crossed, probably often. I usually worked the door at Tulagi, and also tended bar. I also attended CU 70-74. I graduated from CU in 74, after six years of college, and two schools before CU. Took me awhile as I paid my own way, in cash, no loans or help from parents. I put myself through CU with the tips I made at Tulagi and Ebbets Field. I made a lot in tips and never declared the income. Tuition was about $625 per semester and I could make that in Jthree weeks. What a time that was. A little money went a long way. Attending CU by day, working in the club at night. Hanging out at the Catacombs Bar in the Boulderado Hotel, and the Sink on the Hill. I literally lived on the Hill, first at College Townhouses, then in a house just one block north. And girls, girls, GIRLS! Wowza.

  31. well it’s more like bea arthur’s query in a funny thing on the way to the forum, when a so called philosopher, is on the unemployment line (a variation on plautinus)

  32. FOAF:

    “He probably opened some doors for her but not too many people remember him now.”

    Now, yes, not too many people remember him, but when she was starting out he was a MAJOR Broadway star.

  33. IrishOtter: oral history interview with Herbert Kauvar, the guy who bought Tulagi in 1971:

    https://localhistory.boulderlibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A38281?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=e424cf6569b57fae41ac&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=0&solr_nav%5Bquery%5D=%20

    Mostly about the history of the Jewish community in Boulder, but Tulagi comes up near the end. Kauvar mentions Bonnie Raitt.

    Never been in Boulder. Grew up in a different state university town in New England around the same time (1960s-1970s), so the environment sounds familiar. Our local dive was called The Drake. Also in a shabby hotel.

    P.S. Om will recognize the origin of the name “Tulagi”.

  34. And so…”Ebbet’s Field”…for all those King’s County expats—most of them, I would imagine to be novascotia, cream-cheese and bagel chomping, pickled-herring ruminating, borscht-swilling sentimentalists/enthusiasts…with fond, even tearful memories of the “homeland”.
    (Might as well call that corner of Boulder, “New-Brooklyn”….)

  35. And as neo points out was almost totally forgotten by the time Bonnie became a big star after decades in the business. Bonnie’s career trajectory does not support the “made it cuz her father” theory. Also like neo I’m not a huge Bonnie Raitt fan though I respect her talent.

  36. Hubert:

    I knew Herbie Kauvar well. Also his two sons. Herbie was a hands-off owner. Didn’t come around that much and when he did, he didn’t intervene. The day-to-day and nightly operations were handled by Chuck Morris. I was Morris’s hunchback — one of many.

  37. Barry Meislin:

    I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t think you do either.

    Ebbet’s Field was in Denver not Boulder.

    The Jewish presence in Boulder — if that’s what you’re obtusely referring to — was so minimal as to be almost nonexistent. Almost. There was no Jewish culture to speak of. There was no corner of Boulder that could be called “New Brooklyn.” “Tulagi” was named after the Pacific island where the original owner’s son was KIA in World War II. “Ebbets Field” was named after the Brooklyn Dodgers ball park in Flatbush (Brooklyn).

  38. Thanks for that Neo. I was quite far off. I think you won Barry over too.

    Over the years I’ve owned one of her albums, so I’m a fan but not a huge fan. I think the color and character of her voice is excellent for that type of music. It is a type that I like. And yes, about her father. Who?

  39. But somehow grace has found me
    And I had to let him in.

    –Bonnie Raitt, “Just Like That”
    __________________________

    We don’t have enough songs like this. Raitt penned the song herself, inspired by a human interest story she had read.
    __________________________

    “I just lost it. It was the most moving and surprising thing. I wasn’t expecting it. I vowed right then that I wanted to write a song about what that would take. Every time I hear about a family donating organs when their child has been killed, or there’s some sort of sudden death — as if you’re not in grief and shock enough — to have the view and the compassion and the love to be able to pay it forward like that is so incredible”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Like_That_(Bonnie_Raitt_song)
    __________________________

    I was never a superfan of Raitt either, but I’ve had an ear for her since the 70s. She has always been working her bluesy-folkish field with integrity. She’s the real deal. I’m sure she’s paid her dues. I never heard of her father, John Raitt.

    At first listen I was trying to work out who wrote the song. It sure sounded like John Prine. Turns out, according to wiki, she was also inspired by the death of Prine, a “long-time friend.”

    “Just Like That” won “Best American Roots Song” and “Song of the Year” at the 2023 Grammy’s.

  40. Whoa there, Mr. Otter. Barry’s a friend. I think he was just riffing fancifully on the idea of a little piece of Brooklyn/Jewish life in Boulder (or, yes, Denver). No offense meant, I’m sure. I probably started it with my reference to the Kauvar interview, which was mostly about (wait for it…) Jewish life in Boulder in the 1960s. There wasn’t much. Basically, the same point you made.

    By the way, Kauvar mentioned Chuck Morris, your old boss.

    I figured the name–Tulagi–must have had to do with the Pacific in WWII. A vet, perhaps? Thanks for filling in that poignant detail.

    Om and I are both fans of Samuel Eliot Morison’s multi-volume history of U.S. Navy operations in WWII. Morison devoted a whole volume to the Guadalcanal campaign–and Tulagi. So I knew Om would catch the reference.

  41. ““Just Like That” won “Best American Roots Song” and “Song of the Year” at the 2023 Grammy’s.”

    AND…that right there huxley impressed my son-in-law who’s quite a roots & blues fan…but had never had much exposure to Ms Raitt…
    I always enjoy sharing an older person doing excellently with my younger generations (other than just me of course 😉 )

  42. I’ve commented here many times that I thought that one of the chief reasons for the obvious decline of our society into increasing decadence, chaos, and violence, has been the removal of Judeo-Christian teachings–and the mind-set, expectations, and behaviors they promoted–from our schools, from the public square and, increasingly, from our daily lives.

    Well, here is a recent video which does an excellent job of quantifying the increasing decline of mainline Protestant churches over the last several decades.

    See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN7kmVjUGZA

  43. Hubert,
    Oh, that John Raitt. I saw The Pajama Game for the first time several years ago. This is my favorite number, mainly because of Doris Day’s performance in the middle. They say that Ms. Day was a little uncomfortable on the set in the beginning because many of the Broadway actors were hired on to the film, but she was the outsider.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th-64dAA53k

  44. The first Bonnie Raitt I heard was “That Song About the Midway” on her “Streetlights” (1974) album. It knocked me out. It was a cover of Joni Mitchell’s breakup song to David Crosby.

    –Bonnie Raitt, “That Song About the Midway (2008 Remaster)”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_4Yztliw-w

    The other standout was John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” which doesn’t disappoint no matter who does it.

    “Streetlights” was an attempt to branch out from Raitt’s blues to more pop appeal, so it falls between the stools, but many like it and I am one.

    Such a special voice.

  45. TommyJay: thanks for that clip. I also like Day and Raitt in “Small Talk”, from the same movie. Not to presume, but I take it that your use of “Ms. Day” and your location may imply a personal connection of some sort?

    Doris Day was a fox. My favorite movie with her is “Teacher’s Pet” (1958), with Clark Gable. Day plays a professor of journalism; Gable, a rough-edged newspaperman. They spar, then (of course) fall in love. Day is at her smart and sexy best in this movie, which includes her bump-and-grind imitation of Gable’s nightclub singer girlfriend (Mamie Van Doren):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqISyiZpXN8

    Sidebar: the writer John Updike occasionally gets a mention on this forum. Updike had a lifelong crush on Day; he even addressed a poem to her near the end of his life:

    https://betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/r-i-p-doris-day-americas-s-weetheart/

    Updike’s feelings were apparently reciprocated, at least in part. Day sent Updike a mash note in the early 1990s; it was among personal papers that Updike left by the curb outside his house in 2006 and that were picked up by a neighbor:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2014/08/the-man-who-made-off-with-john-updikes-trash/379213/

    Updike died in 2009 at the relatively young age of 76 (Day survived him by ten years, dying in 2019 at 97). He had been a heavy smoker and died, officially, of lung cancer. I suspect something else was at work. I suspect that Updike, a savvy observer of the political scene (Neo has written about his contrarian essay on the Vietnam War), had a feel for what was happening in America, knew that his time was near, and decided to clean house in a literal and figurative sense. Leaving deeply personal papers and photographs in bags by the curb suggests a man who is saying goodbye to his life and the world he knew. There are indications of this in his writing. Updike’s 1997 novel “Toward the End of Time” is near-science fiction, a dystopian look at life in his corner of America (seaside New England) after a nuclear exchange between the United States and China. The book was panned by the critics. I think it’s one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever read, precisely because of its plausibility–and its eerie prescience. I think Updike decided he didn’t want to stick around for what he sensed was coming. Not suicide; just letting go of his connection to this life.

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