I knew that you could. That creepy freak standing in front of all those automatic weapons is lecturing teachers about risk? Really?
This is what they have been forced to deal with every time they go to school for years:
There have been 261 mass shootings so far this year in the United States, according to Gun Violence Archive, a statistic that schools across the nation are coming to grips with by implementing safety plans that include active shooter drills, a practice that can create a great deal of anxiety for some students, said Suffolk University psychology professor David Langer.
“Active shooter drills can be quite scary and potentially quite traumatizing for children,” said Langer, adding that surprise drills or drills that are very realistic can significantly increase stress and anxiety levels in children.
According to Boston Public Schools’ emergency management plan, schools conduct two “safe mode” and “internal threat” drills a year.
Safe mode procedures are for an external threat like a shooter outside the building, and require staff to shut off classroom lights, lock the doors, move students away from windows and doors, and prepare to barricade.
Internal threat procedure, which addresses a shooter inside the school, involves using the “Run, Hide, Fight” tactic in which occupants use their own judgment to get far away from the building, barricade or confront the attacker.
Debate about active shooter drills has heated up across the nation, especially in cities like Danville, Ky., where one active shooter drill was reported to include fake bullets, blood and dead bodies.
Langer said there is not much evidence that shows the drills are extremely effective, saying that they can be counterproductive if a traumatic response is triggered in some students.
To avoid any risk of anxiety, schools need to take careful consideration in planning the drills and inform students and staff when they are going to happen, Langer said.
“I think it’s pretty clear that if you’re going to have drills, they should be done in the least anxiety-provoking way possible and focused on what behaviors you’re looking to teach,” said Langer, suggesting schools replace loud alerts with spoken announcements, pair students with a buddy, and check in with students after the drill is over.
All those worthless teachers who live with the risk of someone getting a hold of one of those toys hanging behind Don Jr surely deserve to be vilified. They’re nothing but cowards.
Trump is scheduled to speak at CPAC this week. The annual confab is usually held in Washington but this year it will be another super-spreader Florida event.
The specter of communism, and along with that, socialism, Bernie Sanders, Chinese expansionism, big tech corporations, the national popular vote compact and a host of other conservative hobgoblins haunted the Conservative Political Action Conference this year. But the coronavirus? Whatever.
The threat of the potential pandemic did not cause any angst at the annual gathering. Although the COVID-19 novel coronavirus has crippled much of China and quickly spread across the world sparking significant outbreaks in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East — prompting a nearly 13 percent decline in the stock market over the past week — the worries at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Maryland were minimal.
“Everything is really under control” proclaimed President Trump on Saturday in one of his trademark rambling addresses that freely mixes riffs demeaning political opponents with strident, right-wing rhetoric fed from a teleprompter. He went on to claim that his response to the outbreak has been “given very good grades, like an A plus plus plus” from unnamed experts. Trump also claimed that some critics of his policy to fight the pandemic “wanted to let infected people pour in our country.”
Trump received a rapturous response at the event, where red MAGA hats have become as mandatory as the khakis and blazers earnest young conservatives have always worn. CPAC is a Trump gathering now. Skeptics have been banished from the event while D-list Trump-world luminaries like Diamond and Silk and Seb Gorka are treated like stars
The president’s speech came one day after he called rising concerns about the coronavirus and his administration’s response a “new hoax” from Democrats, likening it to his impeachment as yet another attempt to undermine his presidency.
Other Trump aides openly dismissed concerns about thecoronavirus while speaking at CPAC on Friday.
Mick Mulvaney, the longtime acting White House chief of staff said on stage at the event, “The reason you’re seeing so much attention to it today is that [media organizations] think this going to be what brings down the president.”
White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow, sounded a similar note and warned the real threat to the U.S. economy was “socialism coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle.”
In contrast, Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent out a letter on Saturday afternoon calling the outbreak “a public health emergency” and laying out a plan to quickly pass a bill with emergency funding to combat the disease. Meanwhile in Washington State, health officials announced the first U.S. death from the virus, confirmed additional cases with no known links to other infections, and warned of a possible outbreak in a Seattle-area nursing home. Governor Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency.
So far, over 85,000 people have been infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus, which has spread to more than 50 countries and resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths.
Attendees at CPAC were blithe about the disease and some compared it to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which was almost entirely contained to West Africa. Samuel Garrett, a freshman at Regent University, was one of them. “I don’t think it’s a legitimate concern for most people,” he said, “but it’s a legitimate concern for Asian countries, of course.”
Jack Hunt, a senior at East Carolina University, struck a similar note. “Obviously you don’t want a new virus spreading,” he explained, “but from the research I’ve done and looked at, the death rates are pretty low for it, so I’m not worrying about it being a deadly virus.” He did, however, express concern about “the impact it has on production and the economy.”
Alario Martinez, a volunteer for the event from Easton, Maryland, saw the disease as “a typical thing that always happens.” His view matched the president’s: the outbreak was overhyped by the media, and he pointed to other ailments as counterexamples. “People die of fever. How many people die of fever? A lot of people. AIDS, look at AIDS. Look what happened to AIDS. It disappeared.”
They dismissed it from the very beginning.
By the time Trump takes the stage for his triumphant return to the spotlight, we will have more than 500,000 people dead.
Michael Flynn speaks to a crowd of Trump supporters during a protest against the outcome of the presidential election outside the Supreme Court on Dec. 12, 2020.
… In early 2017, Flynn was one of the most powerful men in the world. After decades in military intelligence, the former three-star lieutenant general had landed the role of Trump’s national security adviser. Four years later, he would appear on conspiracy theorist podcasts with hosts who claim vaccines contain Communist microchips and who interview men that say they’ve had sex with space aliens. In that world, Flynn is something between a saint and a folk hero ― a key figure in the QAnon movement, which believes a secret cabal of international pedophiles controls the country and an anonymous insider known as “Q” is sending out secret instructions to bring the cabal down.
QAnon believers and far-right militias came to believe that Flynn would help them take control. Days after the Dec. 12 rally, the Three Percenters militia threatened action to overturn the election results. “We are ready to enter into battle with General Flynn leading the charge,” one of the largest Three Percenters groups said in a statement on Dec. 16. Multiple Three Percenters would later be charged in connection with the Capitol riot, including a 48-year-old man who allegedly threatened to kill his family if they contacted law enforcement.
Even as Flynn became a symbolic military leader for these extremists, he retained close ties to the president. After his brief stint as national security adviser ended in disgrace, Trump reportedly floated naming him chief of staff or FBI director and hosted him in the Oval Office.
And when Trump pardoned Flynn late last year, he set the former general loose to indulge in QAnon fanfare and promote the same falsehoods that insurrectionists took to the Capitol building.
Personally, I think there was something wrong with Flynn long before he hooked up with Trump. When the Obama administration fired him from the top Pentagon Intelligence job it was clear that he had gone off the rails and was turning into some kind of Jack D. Ripper. But there’s no doubt that he really lost it over the last few years. What I didn’t realize is that he’s now considered the de facto leader of the QAnon movement:
After initially agreeing to help prosecutors, Flynn in December 2018 hired Sidney Powell, soon to be infamous nationwide for her wild election theories, to handle his case. His brother Joseph Flynn and sister Barbara Redgate also began making inroads on Flynn’s behalf into QAnon communities and other extremist spaces, apparently as a fundraising gambit. Court records show that as of 2019 Flynn owed around $4.6 million in unpaid legal fees.
His siblings set up a legal defense fund for him in 2017 that actively courted far-right conspiracists. A 2018 benefit for the fund featured speakers including a prominent anti-vaccine activist-turned-QAnon influencer and the founder of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia.
When Flynn emerged with Powell by his side, the two began claiming that he was the victim of injustice and “deep state” plots. Flynn’s new martyr status helped gain him the affection of QAnon believers, whom he increasingly encouraged.
“I wonder to this day whether it is cynical fundraising, trying to crowdsource his legal bill, or how much of this QAnon stuff he actually believes,” said Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.
There is no reason it can’t be both and I think it is. He’s been a genuinely, paranoid weirdo for a long time. There’s no reason he can’t turn a profit at it:
On the Fourth of July last year, Flynn posted video of himself performing an apparent “oath” to QAnon and using one of its most notorious slogans. “Where we go one, we go all,” he said, standing in front of a backyard fire pit with five others who repeated after him.
Trump pardoned Flynn on Nov. 25, by which time Flynn was a full-fledged MAGA star and a central part of QAnon’s apocalyptic myth-making.
“As much as a folk hero that he is to the pro-Trump movement, he’s like a deity to QAnon believers. Mike Flynn is apparently clued in to the secret plan to save the world,” Holt said.
QAnon supporters dubbed themselves “Digital Soldiers” after a line in one of his speeches, they held signs proclaiming his innocence at rallies, and a QAnon influencer released an album “inspired by General Mike Flynn” with songs like “ThanQ for the Pain.” Each development in his legal troubles also became part of the movement’s constantly shifting lore, more moves in the chess game that believers saw Trump and Flynn secretly playing.
Trump’s pardon freed Flynn to capitalize on his celebrity status among extremists, including selling QAnon merchandise and launching a Digital Soldiers media company. Following the pardon, Flynn immediately went on a victory lap of pro-Trump and QAnon podcasts to laud their efforts to clear him of the charges he’d pleaded guilty to and to share their conspiratorial beliefs.
“Once he gets his pardon, it’s like he’s been unleashed and he runs straight toward these conspiracy theory outlets,” Holt said. “It almost seems like he’s trying to make himself some sort of media figure, he’s trying to fulfill this role that all these conspiracy theorists think he will fulfill.”
Flynn’s first post-pardon interview was with the fringe online show Worldview Weekend, where he spread baseless claims of election fraud and insisted that Trump actually won “by a massive landslide and he’ll be inaugurated this January.” Describing the election as “probably the greatest fraud our country has experienced in our history,” Flynn pushed the narrative that the fate of the United States rested on Trump’s ultimate victory.
There’s much more and it’s very disturbing. He has recently made noises indicating that there won’t be any last minute Q victory (duh) and it “devastated” the Q believers. But he said something vague in passing that gave them something to hang on to. You never know when he might need a cash injection.
The fact that Trump actually hired this freakshow as his national security adviser, pardoned him and brought him back into the White House in the waning days of the administration as he was plotting his insurrection doesn’t seem to bother any of the Republicans in Washington and it certainly doesn’t bother the Trump voters. But it should. Trump put a crazy man in charge of US national security. That alone should disqualify him from ever having a voice in politics again. Sadly, because of the mass brainwashing of nearly half the American public, it’s actually a selling point.
It’s a timeline running from top to bottom. Every dot represents a single COVID death. It’s a stark illustration of the sheer incompetence of the public health response to the pandemic under Trump. It’s powerful enough online but if you get a chance to see the paper today, it is simply overwhelming.
“Why do people take such an instant dislike to Ted Cruz? It just saves time,” a Bush 2000 alumnus told Frank Bruni. More Texans are sure to agree after last week.
Texas’s junior senator fled to Cancun week during the winter weather disaster in his state. Busted, Cruz fled back to try to look like he cared about Texans. It was not his first time.
Fellow Texan, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — both Democrats — raised money and offered on-the-ground help to Texans struggling after the failure of the state’s unwinterized power grid. Millions not only lost power, but water too after pipes froze and water treatment systems without power shut down.
We just hit $4 million!
Reps. Sylvia Garcia, Sheila Jackson Lee & Al Green of Houston are doing incredible work w/ local relief organizations to get emergency relief to Texans.
Today we went to food distributions, water delivery sites, and home tours of impacted Texans. pic.twitter.com/5QzIgYvz8L
Business Insider reports on last week’s winter storm:
Texas, which has its own electrical grid, was among the hardest-hit states. Storm-related damages could near $50 billion in Texas, according to an estimate provided by AccuWeather CEO Joel Myers.
About 2.7 million households in Texas lost power during the storm, according to The Texas Tribune. On Saturday, about 60,000 still were without power, NBC News reported.
The Houston Food Bank was working to put together about 30,000 boxes of food in two days, Ocasio-Cortez said on Saturday.
As of Saturday night, AOC had raised over $4 million in online donations.
Today I was joined by @RepAOC at a water distribution event hosted by @BakerRipley
John Cornyn, Texas’s senior Republican senator, is not faring much better than Cruz:
On Sunday, “WheresCornyn?” and “WheresJohnCornyn” both appeared on Twitter’s trending page, with many knocking the senator’s response to the devastating storms and lack of visibility in their wake.
Image capture from passenger video, United 328 yesterday out of Denver.
I’m one of those flyers who checks the manufacture date on the airframe plate when stepping onto a commercial jet. Just curious, dontcha know.
How many passengers boarding United 328 yesterday out of Denver headed for Honolulu did that, I wonder? While climbing through 12,000 feet, the jet’s right Pratt & Whitney PW4000 experienced a catastrophic failure. It flew apart.
Jeff Wise at New York Magazine uncovered these details:
A passenger on United 328 took this video of flames shooting out from the engine. Some people told me they said prayers and held their loved ones' hands as they looked out the window. Flight was on its way to Hawaii from Denver. Glad everyone onboard is safe #9Newspic.twitter.com/c8TNYlugU2
The shell is designed to contain shards in cases like this. That did not happen Saturday during a rare engine failure. Pieces from the engine rained down on Broomfield, Colo. about 20 miles west-northwest of the airport. There were 231 passengers and ten crew members aboard. The plane landed safely. No one was hurt on board or on the ground. Lucky.
Such uncontained engine failures can be extremely dangerous, as flying pieces can hit fuel tanks, shred control surfaces, sever hydraulic lines, pierce an aircraft’s pressure hull, or hit passengers or crew. In 2018, a passenger aboard a Southwest 737 was killed when one of the plane’s engines exploded and a piece of debris shattered her window; the resulting depressurization caused the top half of her body to be sucked out through the breach.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board will collect as many pieces as possible from the ground as well as examine the portion of the engine that remained attached and study flight data recorders in order to determine what caused the catastrophic failure. It’s not currently known if the engine that failed was the original delivered with the plane to United in 1995, but if so its maintenance history will receive special scrutiny. Repeated stresses over time can cause microscopic fractures within metal that will eventually propagate and ultimately break if not detected in time.
This could have been worse (below). The falling engine cowl crushed the cab of a pickup truck in the driveway of the home below before toppling over and against a tree.
BREAKING: Giant metal engine piece just landed in this Broomfield person's yard after plane flying over experienced explosion @9NEWSpic.twitter.com/ZpZkXClFlr
My spouse is a nervous flyer. White knuckles on takeoff and landing. An aborted landing once had her totally unnerved. (I’ve been in two where the runway was not quite clear.) Our running joke upon landing safely is that once again, she’s cheated death.
Have you heard the good word? Brothers and sisters, can I testify?
I joined the church in the early 70s, when I was a teenager. The Church of Christgau. I worshiped at the altar of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and studied the Holy C’s: Creem, Circus, and Crawdaddy. Yea, I found enlightenment poring through those sacred tablets and learning the words of the prophets: Robert Christgau, Lester Bangs, Dave Marsh, Ed Ward, Richard Meltzer, Lisa Robinson, Jon Landau, Cameron Crowe, Paul Krassner, et.al.
Oh, I was aware of music prior to the 70s; growing up as I did during the golden age of top 40, I have those “super sounds of the 60s and 70s” burned into my neurons, (consciously or not) to this day. But it wasn’t until the late 60s (after buying my first FM radio) that I came to realize my developing taste in music wasn’t necessarily reflected by the pop charts. I couldn’t put a name to it, as “classic rock” was yet to be labeled as such.
By the late 60s, the genre broadly labeled “rock ‘n’ roll” was progressing by leaps and bounds; “splintering”, as it were. Sub-genres were propagating; folk-rock, blues-rock, jazz-rock, progressive rock, country rock, hard rock, funk-rock, Latin-rock, Southern rock, etc.
In the wake of The Beatles’ influential Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (which notably yielded no singles) recording artists began to rethink the definition of an “album”. Maybe an LP didn’t have to be a 12” collection of radio-friendly “45s” with a hole in the middle; perhaps you could view the album as a “whole”, with a unifying theme at its center.
This was moving too fast for AM, which required a steady supply of easy-to-digest 3 minute songs to buffer myriad stop sets. Yet, there was something interesting happening over on the FM dial. The “underground” format, which sprouted somewhat organically in 1967 on stations like WOR-FM and WNEW-FM in New York City, had caught on nationally by the end of the decade, providing a platform for deep album cuts.
Consequently the early 70s was an exciting and innovative era for music, which I don’t think we’ve seen the likes of since. For a generation, this music mattered…it wasn’t just background noise or something to dance to. This beautiful exploding headband of sounds demanded its scribes. And thus it was that God (or somebody who plays him on TV) created the “music journalist” to help spread the gospel, blues and jazz that became Rock.
And he saw that it was Goode. And I have been a member of the congregation ever since.
It should be obvious to anyone who has followed my weekly scribbles at Hullabaloo (great googly moogly…have I been doing this for 15 years?!) that I primarily write about film. I love writing about film. But my first love (we never forget our first love) was music. In fact, my first published piece was a review of King Crimson’s A Lark’s Tongue in Aspic, in 1973. Granted, it was for my high school newspaper and upwards of dozens must have read it, but for that brief shining moment…I was Lester Bangs (in my mind).
Which brings us back to 1971. Hard to believe that was 50 years ago. An outstanding year for music, with an embarrassment of riches. Sifting a “top 10” from that heap of classic vinyl was crazy-making (if I hadn’t allowed myself the “next 10” at the bottom of the post, my head would have exploded). I’m sure I’ve “overlooked” or “misplaced” your favorite…let’s just say it’s duly noted in advance. So here you go, in alphabetical order…
Aqualung – Jethro Tull
After toying with various combinations of blues, English folk, jazz, and straight-ahead hard rock, Jethro Tull finally found the winning formula in their 4th outing that defines their “sound” to this day. While songwriter/lead vocalist/flutist/acoustic guitarist Ian Anderson historically scoffs at the suggestion, Aqualung is generally regarded as Tull’s first concept album (although arguably the follow-up, 1972’s Thick as a Brick fits the definition of ‘concept album’ more snugly). There is definitely some sharp running commentary about organized religion and associative societal issues in this particular song cycle. Regardless, the song craft is superb and the band is in top form; especially guitarist Martin Barre, who establishes himself here as one of rock’s greatest axe men.
Joni Mitchell’s 4th album is so honest and intimate that every time I listen to it I feel a bit awkward…like I’m intruding on someone’s personal space. This extraordinary set features minimalist arrangements, giving ample room for her angelic pipes to breathe and soar. Mitchell accompanies herself on guitar, dulcimer and piano, with a little help from friends James Taylor, Steve Stills and Russ Kunkel. The Supremes covered “All I Want” on their 1972 album The Supremes Produced and Arranged by Jimmy Webb, and Nazareth covered “This Flight Tonight” on their 1973 album Loud ‘n’ Proud.
Choice cuts: “All I Want”, “Blue”, “This Flight Tonight”, “A Case of You”, “Carey”, “River”.
Electric Warrior – T. Rex
Flying saucer, take me away. The year before Bowie brought Ziggy Stardust to Earth, T. Rex landed the glam rock mothership with their breakthrough album. Originally formed as the duo Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1967, songwriter-vocalist-guitarist Marc Bolan and percussionist/obvious Tolkien fan Steve Peregrin Took (aka Steve Porter) put out several albums of psychedelia-tinged folk before going their separate ways in 1970. Mickey Finn replaced Took, and Bolan recruited additional personnel and shortened the name to T. Rex in 1970. Bolan’s coupling of power chord boogie with pan-sexual stage attire turned heads, making him the (literal) poster boy for what came to be labeled “glam-rock” (although, to my ears Bolan’s songs are rooted in traditional Chuck Berry riffs and straight-ahead blues-rock…albeit with enigmatic and absurdist lyrics). Ex-Turtles Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (aka Flo & Eddie) contribute backing vocals on most tracks.
Choice cuts: “Mambo Sun”, “Jeepster”, “Cosmic Dancer”, “Bang a Gong”, “Planet Queen”, “Life’s a Gas”.
L.A. Woman – The Doors
The first time I heard “Riders on the Storm” was in 1971. I was 14. It haunted me then and haunts me now. It was my introduction to aural film noir. Distant thunder, the cascading shimmer of a Fender Rhodes, a desolate tremolo guitar and dangerous rhythms. “There’s a killer on the road. His brain is squirming like a toad.” Fuck oh dear, this definitely wasn’t the Archies. Jim Morrison’s vocals got under my skin. Years later, a friend explained why. If you listen carefully, there are three vocal tracks. Morrison is singing, chanting and whispering the lyrics. We smoked a bowl, cranked it up and concluded that it was a pretty neat trick. Sadly the album the song was taken from, L.A. Woman was the last Doors LP released while Morrison was alive (he died shortly after). Jim sounds just like the bluesy, boozy, Baudelaire he was at the end…but clearly the music remained his “special friend”.
Choice cuts: “Love Her Madly”, “Been Down So Long”, “L.A. Woman”, “Hyacinth House”, “The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)”, “Riders on the Storm”.
Led Zeppelin IV – Led Zeppelin
By the time they began working on a 4th album, Led Zeppelin had already set a high bar for themselves. 1969 saw the release of their eponymous debut and its hard-rocking follow-up Led Zeppelin II, and in 1970 they one-upped themselves with the eclectic Led Zeppelin III, which displayed influences ranging from Delta blues, English folk, heavy metal, country, and bluegrass to Middle Eastern music. As history has proven, LedZeppelin IV (also known as “The Runes Album”) not only easily cleared that bar, but features a bevy of cuts that have become “Classic Rock” FM staples. One cut in particular…“Stairway to Heaven”…has become the most instantly recognizable power ballad of all time (as well as the bane of ear-fatigued guitar store employees).
Choice cuts: “Black Dog”, “Battle of Evermore”, “Stairway to Heaven”, “Misty Mountain Hop”, “Going to California”, “When the Levee Breaks”.
Master of Reality– Black Sabbath
For me, Master of Reality is the most “Sabbath-y” of Sabbath albums. For their third outing, the band had the luxury of more studio time than on the previous two albums. Consequently they did more experimenting; e.g. guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler tuned their guitars down to D# and C# standard on several tracks, creating an even more ominous “sound” than on Black Sabbath and Paranoid (Iommi had already been down-tuning for live sets for some time, to compensate for chronic pain he suffered from two severed fingertips on his fretting hand). While there are plenty of heavy, riff-driven rockers in this set, there are also interludes of gentility, like Iommi’s lovely acoustic instrumental “Orchid” and the Moody Blues-ish “Solitude”.
Choice cuts: “Sweet Leaf”, “After Forever”, “Children of the Grave”, “Into the Void”, “Orchid”, “Solitude”.
Tapestry– Carole King
I think of this as Carole King’s “first” solo album; but it’s really her second. Let’s be honest…who remembers her 1970 debut Writer? While Writer has some great tracks, Tapestry is so perfect that if King had decided to retire then and there, her place as one of America’s greatest songwriters would be assured. Besides, she had already been composing hits for a decade prior to stepping into the spotlight as a performer herself (for a period in the 60s, she and then-husband Gerry Goffin co-wrote hits like “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”, “Some Kind of Wonderful”, “The Loco-motion”, “Go Away, Little Girl”, “Up on the Roof”, “One Fine Day”, “I’m Into Something Good”, “Don’t Bring Me Down”, “Goin’ Back”, and “Pleasant Valley Sunday”). Out of the gate with those songwriting chops, plus a beautiful voice and prowess on keys? Fuhgetabouit!
Choice cuts: “I Feel the Earth Move”, “So Far Away”, “It’s Too Late”, “Home Again”, “You’ve Got a Friend”, “You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)”.
There’s a Riot Goin’ On– Sly & the Family Stone
Sly & the Family Stone’s 5th album marked a radical departure from the band’s established formula of good-time, up-tempo funk & roll; and it had nearly everything to do with band leader Sly Stone’s increasing drug use. It is not only detectable in Sly’s junked-out vocalizing on many tracks, but in the darker, introspective lyrics and a palpable tension in the music. Almost perversely, Sly’s slipping creative focus created a new kind of laid back funk groove that was influential in its own right (especially thanks to liberal use of drum machines). This album has aged like a fine wine.
Choice cuts: “Just Like a Baby”, “Poet”, “Family Affair”, “(You Caught Me) Smilin’”, “Runnin’ Away”, “Thank You For Talkin’ to Me Africa”.
Who’s Next– The Who
How do you follow up Tommy? Surely, Pete Townshend was feeling performance pressure, after the Who’s ambitious 1969 2-LP rock opera was so enthusiastically received by critics and live audiences. Sating fans with their now classic LP Live at Leeds in 1970 as a placeholder between studio projects paid off handsomely, as demonstrated by this memorable set…which for my money remains their most enduring album. Comprised of several songs originally intended for a scrapped multimedia project called Lifehouse and top flight new material, the superbly produced Who’s Next suggested a progression to a more sophisticated sonic landscape for the band, albeit with no shortage of the Who’s patented power and majesty. For example, the band incorporated synthesizers into the mix for the first time, as well as utilizing guest musicians on several cuts (most notably violinist Dave Arbus and pianist Nicky Hopkins). One of the greatest albums of any year.
Choice cuts: “Baby O’Reilly”, “Bargain”, “The Song is Over”, “Goin’ Mobile”, “Behind Blue Eyes”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.
The Yes Album– Yes
Long before MTV (or YouTube), my teenage self would while away many hours listening to Yes with a good set of cans, getting lost in Roger Dean’s otherworldly cover art, envisioning my own music videos (special effects courtesy of the joint that I rolled on the inside of the convenient gate-fold sleeve). Good times (OP sighs, takes moment of silence to reflect on a life tragically misspent). Complex compositions informed by deeply layered textures, impeccable musicianship, heavenly harmonies, topped off by Jon Anderson’s ethereal vocals; an embodiment of all that is good about progressive rock (I know the genre has its detractors, to whom I say…”You weren’t there, man!”). This was the third studio album for Yes, and it was then and remains now, my favorite of theirs. Perfection.
Choice cuts: “Yours is No Disgrace”, “Starship Trooper”, “I’ve Seen All Good People”, “Perpetual Change”.
This piece by Tim Miller about the emerging narrative that there are going to be two “lanes” in the Republican party sounds right to me. I’ve written about the two lanes myself but I think he’s got the better argument. There are a few presidential players like Cheney and Sasse who are taking their chances on a Trump crackup. But I think Miller is probably right that there really is only one lane:
A dour, sullen, unsmiling, political hack. This was former president Donald Trump’s assessment of Mitch McConnell in a press release this week. Politicoreported that Trump was persuaded to leave a comment about McConnell’s droopy jowls on the cutting room floor, so maybe there’s more to come. Wattle’ Mitch or Dewlap Mitch or some such.
But underneath this war of words was the substance of Trump’s threat. In the statement, he promised to “back primary rivals” to any of the McConnell supported Senate candidates who do not prostrate themselves before the Apricot Idol and swear to uphold the MAGA truths about the Sacred Landslide Victory of 2020 that was thwarted by the thieving apparition of Hugo Chavez and voting machines that revealed Satan’s Dominion over the earth.
There has been much hubbub in the press about this promise as they speculate about what a Mitch vs. Don hot war would look like. Might it take a similar shape to Mitch’s previous primary battles with the Tea Party and Bannon-backed nationalists? Might Cocaine Mitch get the last laugh?
Color me skeptical.
Out there in America where this “civil war” is gonna be fought, it sounds a lot more like a dinner-time family dispute at Jefferson Davis’ country home than the battle of Antietam.
The Ohio Senate race provides a nice preview to what I’d like to call the Republican party’s UnCivil Unwar. There are currently two major, declared candidates in the GOP contest to replace the retiring Rob Portman.
The first, Josh Mandel, was formerly the state treasurer and back in 2012 he ran for Senate against Sherrod Brown as your conventional Marco Rubio/Eric Cantor/Mitt Romney style Republican. The second is Jane Timken, the former Ohio GOP chair, a Harvard graduate and the wife of a steel magnate. Both had been allies of the centrist Republican Governor John Kasich, with Timken even supporting his bid for president in 2016.
If you were not familiar with Ohio politics, you might think that both of these candidates would be on the McConnell side of the “Civil War” and that there must be some rabid, Gym Jordan-style Trumpkin waiting in the wings.
But in fact, both Timken and Mandel are competing in the “Trump Lane” in the primary according to NBC News. No, really. After Trump beat Kasich in 2016, Mandel started vouching for Pizzagate Jack Posobiec while Timken Brutused John Kasich and cleansed the state party of anyone who wore the scarlet K.
Trump fealty (and Kasichcalumny) has been the coin of the realm in the nascent primary campaign. Ohio Capital Journal reporter Tyler Buchanan notes that over two-thirds of each candidate’s tweets have been about Trump since they launched their respective campaigns.
So who exactly is on the “McConnell” side of this primary fight? I see no indication that a candidate will emerge who will dare echo anything in the ballpark of McConnell’s post-acquittal speech about Trump’s “unconscionable behavior.”
And forget Ohio: I don’t expect there to be any contested Senate primary in the lower 48 where there will be a viable Republican candidate who blames Trump for the insurrection, admits Biden won the election fairly, and argues we need to turn the page on Trump.
The Trump/McConnell Civil War is one big Spiderman Doppelgänger meme, with Spidey #1 supporting a Trump autocracy both privately and publicly and Spidey #2 supporting a Trump autocracy in public, while privately whispering to donors that the cop-killing coup went a tad too far for their taste.
In the Ohio Senate primary the “Trump Lane” is the entire highway.
He goes on to talk about Arkansas as another example of this dynamic. It’s very persuasive.
The Republicans may not be good at governing but when they get a chance to help themselves manipulate elections, they are ON IT:
GOP state lawmakers across the country have proposed a flurry of voting restrictions that they say are needed to restore confidence in U.S. elections, an effort intended to placate supporters of former president Donald Trump who believe his false claims that the 2020 outcome was rigged.
But the effort is dividing Republicans, some of whom are warning that it will tar the GOP as the party of voter suppression and give Democrats ammunition to mobilize their supporters ahead of the 2022 midterms.
The proposals include measures that would curtail eligibility to vote by mail and prohibit the use of ballot drop boxes. One bill in Georgia would block early voting on Sundays, which critics quickly labeled a flagrant attempt to thwart Souls to the Polls, the Democratic turnout effort that targets Black churchgoers on the final Sunday before an election.
States where such legislation is under consideration also include Arizona, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Proponents say the actions are necessary because large numbers of voters believe Trump’s false assertions that President Biden won the 2020 election through widespread fraud.
“The goal of our process here should be an attempt to restore the confidence of our public in our elections system,” said Barry Fleming, a state lawmaker from Evans, Ga., and the chairman of the newly formed House Special Committee on Election Integrity.
And then he burst out laughing, saying, “sorry, it’s just SUCH a good scam!”
They are seriously trying to snow people into accepting their ridiculous explanation that they are doing this to “restore faith in the electoral system” because so many of their voters believed that the election was stolen. It’s enough to make your head explode.
First of all, they have been trying to suppress the vote for decades and nobody is fooled that they aren’t using this as an excuse to do what they always do. Second, it’s obvious that if their voters don’t trust the system it’s because their Dear Leader lied to their faces. An easy way to deal with that is to tell them the truth. He lied. He lost. And he lost because he was the worst president in US history.
But no, they are going to keep up this ridiculous charade as long as it works for them. But as the article makes clear, there is a down side to this. This crap mobilizes Democrats who, by the way, tend to be younger and able to stand in line for all those hours than the elderly GOP voters who have been voting absentee for years. They may very well be making it more difficult for their own voters than the people they are targeting.
But they seem to realize that their message of hate and racism isn’t really resonating with the majority of the country so they have no choice but to manipulate the voting system to have a prayer of holding power. And they are doing it right out in the open now, reduced to making up the flimsiest excuses ever.
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