(Having Boeing Lobbyist-Mike Lux-writing a remembrance for Howard Zinn on his access blog was just too much. Some kind of retaliation is necessary, so here goes. Comments appreciated.)
An Elegy for Howard
The gorgeous four part harmonies pour forth from the Democracy Now! live webstream. Howard Zinn is dead and Samuel Barber's Elegy seems to tug at the same heart strings which attached us to Howard.
And it stands to reason that it does.
For it was the Adagio movement from Barber's String Quartet in it's arrangement for orchestral strings which was performed at funeral services for FDR and some of the same feelings of loss and gratitude felt by millions on that day are part of the mixture of emotions which we feel for Howard. Read below the fold...
I was reading Susie's link to this article on how social networking 'ruined the internet,' and was struck by this passage:
And as for Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc, we can hardly tell you anything you haven't discovered yourself. You have XXX friends; you have XX invitations; so-and-so likes this; view all X comments. These are wonderful tools for shut-ins, of which they have made us all.
And found this observation correlated by the commenter at Susie's post, who notes that: Read below the fold...
Okay, I know I'm a Joooo and all, but gosh darnit, I just LOVE Christmas music. So, for all you folks out there who are celebrating Christmas today, and for those like me who aren't, but who enjoy great music anyway, this is for you! Merry Christmas!
Since there have been occasional posts here about Texas politics, I thought I'd drop some very recent and very big news: Bill White, the Mayor of Houston, is running for governor. He just announced this afternoon, switching gears from his previous plan to run for Kay Bailey Hutchison's vacated Senate seat. In a related story, Hank Gilbert is leaving the governor's race to run for Agricultural Commissioner, the office he ran for in 2006. Read below the fold...
On our first non rainy day for two weeks or so I went out back and dumped out my three garbage cans used for potato plantings.
I dug out the half can of straw and down into the dirt and about 3/4 of the way down I was pleased to discover there were actually some potatoes. Don't know why I was dumb enough to think the whole can would be full of them, but I was discouraged then amazed when they showed up at all. So, my $35 investment produced about 3 lbs of potatoes. Does it bother me? Surprisingly, no. It was like digging in the dirt and finding a diamond ring. Read below the fold...
The man who claimed to be the 11 Sep 01 strike "mastermind" will go to trial in New York, according to today's NYT. Steps toward keeping the promise to close Gitmo within a year appear to be continuing, despite delays caused by the uproar over what to do with detainees.
Ken Bern's America's National Parks just finished a week long run. The parks are either beautiful or important, The parks were established on Indian land and the Indians living there for millennia were evicted, discarded like old shoes. The parks were not discovered by us; the Indians knew about them and respected them.
Aren't we beautiful and moral people? We can tell evryone how to behave. Read below the fold...
Tony Romo dodges Tyler Brayton in the second quarter as the Carolina Panthers play the Dallas Cowboys at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Tx., Monday, Sept. 28, 2009. Star-Telegram/Ron T. Ennis.
It's Tuesday, and I'm with Tony Romo. This week's better than last week.
Wide receiver Miles Austin, right, slips a tackle from Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Jermaine Phillips (23) before scoring a touchdown in the second quarter. AP Photo
It remains to be seen tomorrow night how Terrell Owens' first game as a Buffalo Bill will go, but the Dallas Cowboys' season opener decisively underlined the benefit of having him out of their locker room. Read below the fold...
“The taxpayers want their money back and they want the government out of our banking system,” Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican and a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel examining the relief program, said in an interview.
Nice Polite Republicans being the on-air home of Cokie Roberts and David Brooks, I've started sleeping through Morning Edition. But this week something strange has happened. Partial transcripts of a couple of NPR interviews by Steve Inskeep as proof:
