Is the Old Stuff Always Better?

I was commenting over on West and Clear, who were kind enough to give me a shout out for my 80's Texas Music post, about whether, in Uncle Tupelo terms, I was a Farrarist or a Tweedyist.

But it got me to thinking about a music conversation I'd had with Jim a while back. I seem to have a bit of old-timers disease. I may have posted about this before back in the first iteration, but it's a good question. I always seem to like (enter band name here)'s old shit better than their new shit. The only example of newer stuff that I like might be the Beatles. I like Rubber Soul better than the yeah, yeah, yeah stuff of the early Beatles. But the Beatles were a paradigm buster. Some examples, yeah? Totally off the top of my besotted head, in no order:

Johnny Cash
Willie Nelson
Queen
AC/DC
U2
Son Volt
Wilco
Jayhawks
Rolling Stones
Led Zeppelin
Old 97's
Steve Earle (although some may argue with me here)
Police/Sting - by far
Clash
Robert Earl Keen
Bob Dylan
Jefferson Airplane/Starship- hah!
Elvis by god Presley
Rush
Eric Clapton

This is clearly subjective, but let's hear what you think. I'd like to hear about bands that defy the paradigm as well as theories as to why my theory my exist. Is it me? Or do bands just get rich and lose their creative will?

Terror Attack in Fort Worth - The Manchurian Rodent

Make no mistake, today Fort Worth was attacked by terrorists using a most cunning and evil plan. A martyr-squirrel was directed, possibly through mind control or some other nefarious terror technique, to gain entry into a major power transformer in Southwest Fort Worth. On the premises, the squirrel, imagining the 70 slinky squirrel virgins that awaited him in a better place, carefully positioned himself (making use of his extensive terrorist jungle-gym training) such that power would arc through his squirrel body, thereby taking down the grid for about a half-second, but also making denizens of SW Fort Worth, like me, be confronted with the extreme deprivations of boiling water (or just walking out to the garage to get one of the 6000 bottles of Ozarka we bought at Costco last weekend.)

The major side effect, however, was taking down all the irrestistable eateries frequented by we SW Fort Worthers. The terrorists obviously had their eye on havens of freedom, their admitted enemy, like Lotus Chinese Buffet, where mostly obese diabetics may freely eat just about anything they want in the quantity preferred. Ditto for Golden Corral, another bastion of democracy. Sadly, there will be no Monte Cristo or French Dip sandwiches served at Bennigan's tonight...Long John Silver's and Arby's will remain empty as an example of our underestimation of the terrorist threat. Domino's will not deliver tonight, Mr. bin Laden.

This attack is not without precedent, however. In a training exercise in College Station, TX yearly 18 years ago, al-Qaeda and its evil minions put their to 9th century ideology to bear on Texas A&M university where another martyr-squirrel was used to short out the transformer, thereby cancelling a day of classes. Their diabolical plan resulted in thousands of A&M students drinking themselves silly at numerous watering holes...thereby weakening their resolve to fight radical Islam.

Wake up, people! Start wearing flags on your lapels, for that is the only real way to defeat these depraved caliphatists.

UPDATE: It has just come to the attention of this news gathering organization that Mike Huckabee, in town campaigning for the Texas primary, has gone to the transformer station and requested that he is given the carcass of the martyred squirrel. Huckabee, responding to questions from reporters about the purpose of his visit, said, "I'm a conservative, and as a conservative, I'd hate to let a perfectly good barbecued squirrel go to waste. I picked up some hot dog buns and mustard over at the Kroger's, and we aim to eat some squirrel-dogs tonight."

Poll Results

We have so small a sample size, it makes the margin of error huge. But I think I know a little bit about the demographics that visit the site. I think it's interesting that right now according to my poll, Hillary is more electable than Obama. I say this with some knowledge of national polling which would suggest a different result. But at this time, I'm still just an uninterested statistician.

Also, I'm really interested in how the bigfoot voting turns out. Right now, it's a clean shutout. I'm researching all things bigfoot right now and will comment after the poll is over.

Thoughts While Lying Awake at 4 am

The point at which one goes from awake to asleep is a physiological mystery to me.

Was it Nietzsche or one of those communists that said "Religion is the opiate of the masses." Maybe it was Lenin. Too lazy to google it. I do know that Nietzsche said that a casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith doesn't prove anything. Anyway, please alert Bartlett because Steve by god Buckellew has a new quote: Religion is welfare for the simple mind. That's right. How imperious is that? I thought about just saying: Religion is welfare for the mind. That might have been better, but then I'd have to argue with all the C.S. Lewis folks.

I know it's so often quoted as to be a cliche, but the last line from The Great Gatsby is fabulous. Hope I get it right (f it, I'll google). "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." True that. Fuckin' brilliant line.

I checked a Nietzsche website to validate that it was a Red that said the above about religion vis-a-vis opiates and ran across this quote, "A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy." This subject came up in our salon (read: barroom) earlier tonight with divergent opinions, of course. What else would you want in your salon?

OK Pepys...and now to bed. (I'm so embarassed by that but I'm compelled to leave it in.)

Alt-Country Reminiscing

Back when I was in too deep in the alt-Country scene, we witnessed a young cocky prick Ryan Adams with Whiskeytown, an amazingly good band that unfortunately was always labeled as an Uncle Tupelo wannabe band, kind of like Slobberbone. Here's a live cut of them doing one of their earliest songs on Austin City Limits:



Compare this with Uncle Tupelo of a similar vintage:



Every time I saw Uncle Tupelo or Son Volt, whenever Jay Farrar would put that maroon Angus Young Gibson SG over his neck, you'd know Chickamauga was coming up, and, in Son Volt's case, the lead guitar could just step on back.

I saw that Wilco was up for a grammy this year. Proof positive that Jeff was Paul all along...as if there was any doubt.

Of course Gram Parsons started the whole thing. Precious little Gram of quality to be found on YouTube.

Gyroscope musing

I've been down with the flu pandemic for the better part of week, and thus have had plenty of time for cold-medicine induced musings on the nature of everything. While most of this resulted in predictable self-absorption, one bright light was my memory of a gyroscope I owned as a child.

While sick I lacked both the cognitive function and the dexterity to research this further, but today I am somewhat hale and hearty and thusly dived into Wikipedia to discover the fascinating world of the gyroscope.

Well, it appears I've overrated several things: 1) my current cognitive ability, 2) the benefits of my engineering degree from Texas by god A&M University, and 3) my memory of the greek alphabet. All you common men and women out there, like me, need to consider the gyroscope as a black box that does good things for us, sort of like electricity. Know that the gyroscopic effect is, in effect, a good thing if you are riding a bike, travelling by ship, or, er, launching ICBMs.

I have vague memories of lower-case omega (w to most of us) meaning angular momentum, but absolutely no intuition or perspicacity whatsoever into what this means. I'm not sure if I ever knew, if I forgot after the test, or if my brain has atrophied so much from my lifestyle choices. I'm absolutely sure I never knew the importance of the gimbal. Selah.

For those of you bold enough to seek new horizons in physics, search no further than here.

More Examples of Sickening Kowtowing by the Bush Administration

And this one has to do with the ludicrous border fence.

Just 69 miles north, Daniel Garza, 76, faces a similar situation with a neighbor who has political connections that reach the White House. In the small town of Granjeno, population 313, Garza points to a field across the street where a segment of the proposed 18-foot high border wall would abruptly end after passing through his brick home and a small, yellow house he gave his son. “All that land over there is owned by the Hunts,” he says, waving a hand toward the horizon. “The wall doesn’t go there.”

In this area everyone knows the Hunts. Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt and his relatives are one of the wealthiest oil and gas dynasties in the world. Hunt, a close friend of President George W. Bush, recently donated $35 million to Southern Methodist University to help build Bush’s presidential library. In 2001, Bush made him a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where Hunt received a security clearance and access to classified intelligence.

Wouldn't want to piss off the Hunts, would we?

What I dislike about Democrats

In a comment to a previous post, Jim asked me to describe what I didn't like about Democrats. There's plenty of things I dislike about Democrats. I don't like the welfare state, I don't think giving people money encourages them to be productive. And from my experience, the government runs things badly and is terribly behind in terms of automation of menial tasks. I'm not all that against universal healthcare, on economic terms, because the countries we compete with have it and our healthcare cost is built into the price of our products which makes us less competitive. I agree with the Democrats that we should treat our veterans well. I dislike their coupling with Hollywood and the sponsorships that are borne of that relationship. I don't think that's good marketing to middle America...but it surely makes them campaign money.

Most of all, I guess, I'm leaning Democratic because of all the awful, callous, retchingly heinous things I've seen in the last seven years. I like the Democrats because:

they haven't used legalese to put themselves above the constitution
they haven't ok'd torture
they haven't put party cronies in positions of power and failed to do their duty
they haven't issued one-sided contracts to companies they used to run, and milked the taxpayers while reaping exorbitant revenues and providing sub-par services to out soldiers
they haven't lied to go to war
they haven't neglected a legitimate war against our enemies to fight an illegitimate war against our non-enemy
they haven't outed CIA agents out of revenge against truth-tellers
they haven't made political hay and an unprecented monarchical power-play out of a national tragedy
they haven't made a yes-man attorney-general
they haven't sat on their ass while New Orleans was sinking
they haven't been anti-science
they haven't refuse to send condoms to Africa because of the bible and accompanying political implications
they haven't treated veterans like shit
they haven't chosen an ambassodor to the UN that is opposed to the existence of the UN
they haven't been associated with Donald Rumsfeld
they haven't been in bed with the Saudis
they haven't disputed the existence of global warming
they haven't dilly-dallied on the urgency of adopting renewable energy
they haven't outsourced a war to mercenaries who are above any law
they haven't created a prison in Guantanomo which is beyond the law
they haven't blamed only lowly officers in a torture scandal that was approved at the highest levels
they haven't been lax with Russia because they "saw into their soul" or some such.
they haven't fired attorneys that didn't meet their political ends
they haven't threatened war with Iran, when prior intelligence says there is no causus belli
they haven't failed to caputure bin Laden. Everyone needs an enemy to justify their bellicosity.
they haven't suspended habeas corpus
they haven't broken the law by bypassing the FISA court to wiretap without warrants
they haven't ok'd black sites and extraodinary rendition of people that are not charged with a crime and all too often innocent of anything
they haven't been involved with Jack Abramoff
they haven't let oil industry executives, including Ken Lay of Enron, write the people's energy policy
they haven't diagnosed Terri Shiavo from the Senate floor via TV
they haven't been borrow and spenders, thus making the deficit more and more and more....
they haven't stacked the Supreme Court with religious idealogues
they haven't created a Medicare drug program that is anti-competitive
they haven't allowed the VP to create his own intelligence operation to cook the books on Iraq and justify war leading to hundreds of thousands of dead people
they haven't allowed the head of he Bush campaign in Florida to oversee a recount in which he most likely lost
they haven't been responsible for trying to torpedo the 9/11 commission (why?) and then refusing to provide documents
they haven't been responsible for not implemeneting the recommendations of the 9/11 commission
they haven't been the authors of a doctrine of preemptive war
they haven't screwed the reputation of the US worldwide...diplomatically and personally.
they haven't been oblivious to the Israel/Palestinian issue which is at the heart of most Arab/West problems
they haven't been behind any of the egregious signing statements in which the president claims to be above the law
they haven't authored any guidance related to the "unitary executive"
they haven't stretched the military to the point of breaking, including using national guard troops in extended duty overseas
they haven't allowed people such as Karl Rove to keep their security clearance after outing a CIA agent
they haven't nominated a crony like Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court
they haven't staffed HHS positions with religious idealogues
they haven't called for a freakin' Constitutional Amendment disenfranchising gays
they haven't banned photographs of caskets showing the cost of war
they haven't been stewards of the housing bubble
they haven't been involved with Karl Rove and his attempted politization of everything.
they haven't been fans of Paul Wolfowitz
they haven't "lost" all of their email required by both an archive policy and presidential records policy.
they haven't nominated Bernard Kerik for anything
they haven't shot anyone in the face
they haven't rewarded failures like Tenet, Bremer, and Franks
they haven't hired all their lawyers from evangelical shoolx (Monica Goodling et al)
they haven't said that everthing would get better after the fall of Baghdad, the capture of Saddam's sons, the capture of Saddam, the creation of the parliament, the fist vote by the people, the purple finger vote, etc. This Republican Party is all about spin.

US becomes African Dictatorship Watch: Iraq for Sale

Iraq for Sale is a documentary about the shit-fuck way our corrupt government has lined their pockets by killing hundreds of thousands of people. And they don't give a fuck. In Bush's signing statement that I blogged about a few weeks ago, he reserved the right to prevent audits on contractors. Why in the holy-hell would he do that if he's a conservative and cares about keeping costs down? It's so corrupt it is frightening. And idiots like me and you are funding it. Just as an example, Halliburton charges us, the people, $100 for one serviceman's load of laundry. And they don't even get it clean. One guy decided to do his own laundry in the sink to actually clean it and his superiors told him that was verboten...he had to use Halliburton. Where is the competition that the free market provides? It makes me sick.

Halliburton's stock price has quadrupled during the war...and they've provided the shittiest service to our beloved volunteer army. They've also served them with filth-water and sent civilians into battlezones when they knew in advance they would be attacked. Where is the rage?

Updated: The situation is so bad, it makes me more cynical than usual. The nature of the cost-plus contract between Halliburton and the government encourages Halliburton to be inefficient. If a seatbelt in their Hummer breaks down, they burn the vehicle and buy another one. The more they spend, the more profit they make. Which takes us back to service level agreements. Why in the fuckity-fuck wouldn't someone in the government write SLA's into the contract? This just makes me think it was a Cheney deal to make his stock go up. Sickening.

Jon Katz

Jon Katz was born in the city, but one day decided to load up his naivete and head for the country. It's an earnest Green Acres that he describes. Relying on the kindness of strangers, he's managed to turn himself into a some sort of farmer/rancher in upstate New York. He reports in occasionally with a column on Slate. This latest effort is all about his goats. The wife and I went to hear him speak recently while he was on a book tour. He filled Casa Manana, such is his following. His transition and the bulk of his work centers around border collies and their amazing work effort, and I'd recommend starting with this story about Rose. It's a great teaching point about working dogs and their relationship to humans. He also maintains a pretty good blog about life on the farm here.

Mittens!

Mark it down, people. I've had it. As of today, February 17, 2008, I will no longer be wearing those ineffective, clunky garments we call gloves. Put me in the mittens column. They provide a modicum of tactile dexterity while also keeping your fucking hands warm...something that gloves don't do. Selah!

Fascism Roundup

I've been painted as a hysteric on other websites because I took the bait and made a most unfortunate move...playing the Hitler card with respect to our goverment. Without a doubt, we are not headed down that path, as we will have a peaceful tranfer of government next year and there will be no holocaust here. I mentioned Hitler, in my comment, as a cautionary remark because of the gradual manner in which he took power, which reminds me of the Bush administration's gradual power-grab.

Hitler was popularly elected and manipulated the government to concentrate powers in the executive branch, much as Bush has done. He relied on Joseph Goebbels to spread propoganda across Germany, similar to how Bush relied on Cheney to continually link al-Qaeda with Iraq long after the jury was in and decided there was no connection.

My argument, that I've made here many times, is that our government relies on checks and balances, which have been absent in the last eight years allowing the executive branch to call all of the shots. I firmly believe this was based on a callous decision to take advantage of 9/11 to push the neo-conservative agenda.

I mentioned Hitler, obviously, because he's the best known dictator of our age. I could, and possibly should, have referred to what Robert Mugabe has done in Zimbabwe, or Mao, Idi Amin, Suharto, Duvalier, Franco, Mussolini, or Pol Pot.

Smoker

I got a new smoker back in the fall and I've yet to properly deflower the thing. I've got some folks helping me, but, I'm asking you, dear reader, to provide me with some ideas for the smoker. I'm open to everything...from technique to dry rubs. Let me know what you think.

Goodbye to a River

I've been re-reading John Graves' "Goodbye to a River". This is a brilliant tapestry in which Graves weaves tales of the Comancheria with his last trip down the pure Brazos between PK and Whitney. At the time, the BRA figured they'd turn the Brazos into a "string of pearls", meaning a river dammed quite frequently between PK and Whitney. Our naturalistic protagonist puts in at the PK dam in a canoe with a dachsund, some rations, and a shotgun. The output is a dazzling portrait of an otherwise bleak landscape of scrub mesquite, gravel shoals, and an unstoppable river. Graves stops frequently to recount the history of a certain bend in river and how it shaped the future. This is one of the truly great regional books that any Texan concerned with conservation of our natural environment should read. If just to hear the internal angst within Graves' mind over shooting a goose when he is starving.

Crossposting Rants

I've been involved in an interesting discussion over here. Francis took umbrage at Keith Olbermann referring to Bush as a fascist. I agreed with him at first, then I thought about it a bit. Something I didn't mention in my comments was the craven way in which Bush took advantage of a national tragedy, 9/11, to fearmonger and create an environment for more war. We should have been in Afghanistan stronger and not in Iraq at all. This is possibly why I like Obama. The last election was about fear...Bush trying t scare the hell out of people into a second term. He scared his base enough to get elected by two or three percent, then claimed a mandate. What a fool. Maybe I'm a fucking sucker, but I like a campaign that's not based on trying to scare me into a bomb shelter. I think McCain will run on fear and try to repeat what Bush did in 2004...he's got nothing on the economy. Sheesh.

Realization

Shout out to Food and Fort Worth Blog

My friend Francis writes about serious subjects like the gold standard, classical art, and our current political maelstrom, then he drops a serious muffin recipe on you...or how to make the perfect cornbread...then it's on to debates, technology...and then how to make perfect scrambled eggs. Scrambled Eggs is a nice metaphor for his blog. I cheer him for his ability to make that work, while I toil away with my half-drunk political invective. I am truly humbled, because he's as much a political junkie as I am.

I've learned from him and I hope to bring you more stories of leatherback turtles that cross the Pacific for mating.

Excellent Reivers Remembrance

Apparently the Reivers, one of my favorite Austin bands from the eighties played a couple of reunion shows in Austin. Steve-O over at Caravan of Dreams has an excellent write-up of the show and a remembrance of the band here. Included is this great vintage youtube of "In Your Eyes" featuring Kim Longacre's soaring voice:

Breaking Turtle News

A leatherback turtle swam across the Pacific Ocean...from Indonesia to Oregon. The results were presented last month at the sea turtle symposium. Why don't I ever get invited to events like that? It sounds far more interesting than a wedding shower. I need to learn more about the leatherback turtle. Stay tuned.

My Problem with Republicans

I've been chatting today with a Republican friend on issues that would most likely bore readers to tears. Statistics on the effect of tax rates on equity prices and the rigor involved in the analysis. Nuff said. He said, "I blame the Republicans on spending. They are supposed to be about small government. They haven't been."

This made me wonder what they are about. As many of you know, this is something I've devoted quite a bit of time thinking about. So here's my rant/response:

They're [Republicans] about centralization of power...the so called unitary executive that, in an era of neverending war, can claim constitutional authority to ignore the constitution. Who's the best candidate to return traditional separation of powers? Who's the best candidate to bring some independence to the rubber stamp supreme court (instead of installing huntin' buddies?) Who will prize competence over loyalty? Long-term constitutional erosion and centralization of power certainly is in the best interest of no American whatever your point of view.

I was reading the CIA factbook on Kenya the other day trying to smarten up on the turmoil over there. I noticed that the head of the judiciary is appointed by the president. I immediately thought that this was a tremendous conflict of interest, until I realized that, with the complicity of a congress that has valued party loyalty as the greatest virtue, we have the same system. Add to that the head of our justice department has been a lockstep crony, we're practically a freaking sub-Saharan African government.

This is the stuff that riles me up a lot more than tax policy, we don't have any perfect candidates obviously, and I think Hillary's just as likely to continue Bush's trampling of the constitution. So my choices are McCain and Obama. I think McCain will have to pander to the far right and appoint far-right activist culture-warrior judges that will affect the country for 20 or 30 years. Obama will bring back some balance there, hopefully will be checked by congress on more liberal paternalistic tendencies, quit throwing good money at a recalcitrant Iraqi "government", maybe put more effort into Afghanistan, and, hell, maybe there is something to a hopeful vision (people seemed to like Reagan...)

CORRECTION to Texas Primary Delegate Allocation

Proving that the internet is a flawed medium. I was recently made aware of a retraction to the post on delegate allocation in the Texas primary. Correction here. Salient bit:

A total of 126 delegate positions (three-quarters of the base delegation) will be distributed to presidential candidates based on the results of the primary. Forty-two delegate po- sitions (one-quarter of the base delegation) will be distrib- uted based on the number of people attending the party’s conventions. The delegates themselves will be elected at our State Convention June 6-7, 2008, in Austin.

That first post did seem awfully convoluted. I deleted it so as not to misinform any further.

Notes on Super Tuesday

To prove my masochistic bona fides, I watched nine straight hours of Super Tuesday last night on MSNBC. Here's my unusually brief thoughts...

Republicans:

• I was really surprised by the complete repudiation of Mittens as a candidate. Given how Huckabee suprisingly won all the south, it appears that the rednecks just can't swallow Mormonism.
• McCain, for the most part, won a bunch of blue states that the Pachyderms don't have much hope of winning in the general election.
• While McCain is much more tolerable to me than the others, I still worry about judicial appointments and would have trouble pulling that lever for him.

Democrats:

• I agree with the punditocracy that Obama and Clinton pretty much fought to a draw.
• One good thing I saw was that Obama did very well in the deep South among white voters.
• Hillary still owns the Latino vote. Is this a vestige of the ages-old ethnic tension between Latinos and African-Americans? I'd like to see the exit crosstabs on Latinos that would not vote for a black candidate.
• Will the Texas primary matter? It certainly could. Polling numbers here show Hillary has a huge advantage because the aforementioned Latino vote, but Obama has spent no time or advertising here. He has the cash and it would be interesting to see if he could close the gap. Plus, I'd love to go to an Obama rally. Stay tuned for March 4.