Festival for the Eno

My family and I will be spending Saturday, and probably part of Monday, at the Festival for the Eno in Durham, three days of great music, fair food, arts, crafts and, for me and Duncan, canoe-rides.

I'm going Saturday just to hear Eddie from Ohio. Go to their site and check out the music they have posted for free - "This is Me" is a classic, and their new album is extremely good.

Sunday, one of the best young bluegrass bands is playing, but I can't make it. If you can, try and take in the performance of the Steep Canyon Rangers who, along with Chatham County Line, are picking up the heavy grammy-and-critical-acclaim-laden North Carolina bluegrass torch carried by the likes of Doc Watson and the Red Clay Ramblers. They're good. Real good. Jump Little Children is also playing on Sunday. Dang.

Monday brings a less compelling lineup for me, although Bob Carlin can play the hell out of a banjo.

Come on out, all profits go to preserve land around the Eno River - surely one of the best urban parks in America, and a heck of a place take your dog on a hot summer day.

Big Fish

In news that is bound to make the front page of CNN.com, Thai fishermen have landed the largest freshwater fish ever caught - a 646 pound catfish pulled out of the Mekong River.


It's since been eaten.

Choices, choices

How many students have taken the wrong turn here?

Evidently, in California, you have to choose between heading to the College of the Siskiyous or to the town of Weed.

Strange Bedfellows

The world is ending. That's got to be it.

I agree with Antonin Scalia on a Supreme Court decision.

The public interest should be widely construed. But how widely?
I find it hard to believe it should extend to allow the condemnation
of private land in order to turn it over to another private interest.

Jobs and taxes? If that's all the justification you need, we are in big trouble.

What happens to the family dairy farm outside town when the shopping
center developers cast their greedy eyes upon it? If they have enough
friends on the City Council, you lose your land. Period.

Something's wrong about that.

But even stranger bedfellows just occurred in Raleigh yesterday.
Under the Dome reports that Carter Wrenn and Gary Pearce spokke to
a conservative forum at the Clarion Hotel in Raleigh on Wednesday and agreed:

The War in Iraq will be an anchor around the necks of Republicans this year
and next if thesituation doesn't turn dramatically for the better.

Said Democrat Pearce: "If nothing changes, you are all in trouble."

Said Arch Republican Wrenn: "I think this gets worse for us, not better."

Say what you will about Carter Wrenn, and I have said a lot, but he knows
politics in this State better than anyone, with the exception of Gary Pearce.

When two such diametrically opposed yet astute observers agree, you can bet
the politicians are sweating bullets.

Suddenly, Congressman Jones's actions start to make sense, don't they?

In any event, I'm going to roll over now and go back to sleep, with my arm
around my new buddy Antonin. See ya.

Blogger "fixes"

Well, Blogger has "fixed" the problem. They gave a little bit of code to fix it:

#main #menu {
position: absolute;
right: 21px;
}

This, input in the template, allows posts to fill the white space.

Unfortunately, if I don't type in little sentences.
Like these.
The sentence runs right under the right hand margin like so --- see? You can't read what I just wrote, and it pretends the links column isn't even there.

So this is frustrating.

Vacation

There are times when you wonder how you got lucky enough to be the person you are.

Last week was one of those times. Check it out.



Ella on Sunset Beach.





Duncan and his buddy, Sanjay.





Contemplation.





Said Duncan upon seeing this picture: "Man, I look good!"





Like father, like son... right down to the look on the girl's face...

Rejuvenated

Back from vacation. Back from the beach. Back from the land of pina coladas and cool English beers.

I'm also looking at a stack of mail to my ceiling and an overheated email inbox. So, I will be posting more later, including pictures of my kids having a ball at the beach. But not today.

Thanks to our readers for checking in last week. We're neither dead nor incapacitated. All three of us were on vacation. So you got to look at the video below many many times. I hope you enjoyed it.

Use this as an open thread if the urge strikes you.

The new Paris

This could be the funniest thing I have ever seen. Be sure to watch to the end.

Letterman's still the Man

From The Late Show with David Letterman, June 8, 2005:

Top Ten Ways George Bush Can Regain His Popularity


10. Dip into social security fund to give every American free HBO

9. Use diplomacy to bring peace to Brad, Jen and Angelina

8. Try fixing Iraq, creating some jobs, reducing the deficit and maybe capturing Osama

7. Figure out a way for the Yankees to win a game

6. Replace his "country simpleton" persona with more lovable "hillbilly idiot" image

5. Use weekly radio address to give Americans a Van Halen twofer

4. Get Saddam to switch to boxers

3. Ditch the librarian and make Eva Longoria First Lady

2. Resign

1. Jump on Oprah's couch while professing his love for Katie Holmes

You want moral relativism?

I got your moral relativism right here:

Consider this founding principle, which could not have been more clearly laid out by Adams, Franklin and Jefferson:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, . . . when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Now, consider Uzbekistan, as clear an example of absolute Despotism as exists in the world today:

After troops sealed off the area surrounding the square, they continued to fire from various directions as the protesters tried to flee. According to numerous witnesses and a few survivors, one group of fleeing protesters numbering up to 400 people was almost completely mowed down by government gunfire. Only a handful of people from the group of 400 survived.

And here is the application of our founding principles to the facts, as set forth in The Washington Post, 7/14/05:

Defense officials from Russia and the United States last week helped block a new demand for an international probe into the Uzbekistan government's shooting of hundreds of protesters last month, according to U.S. and diplomatic officials.

Well, at least Republicans are consistent.

Al Gore

I'll be danged. He DID play a leading role in creating the internet.

Triumph takes on the Jackson Trial

This is hilarious.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog visits the crowd outside the Jackson trial. (Click on the link in the upper left hand side).

"Ma'am, you've been here, you've watched the trial. You know what's going on. On a scale of one to ten... how old is Michael's boyfriend?"

So can we call them French fries again?

How do you know when the tide is turning against the Administration in public opinion on the War in Iraq?

When Walter Jones, Jr., Republican Congressman from North Carolina, who represents the families left behind in Jacksonville, NC when Camp Lejeune's Marines die in Iraq, sponsors legislation setting a date for withdrawal.

This is the same guy who lambasted the French for not supporting the war, and proposed the idiotic name change of America's favorite fast food to "Freedom Fries." Either he is showing remarkable political courage, or he reads the writing on the wall in his own district. Knowing his political instincts, I would say it has to be the latter.

Could it be, finally, that the middle-class and poorer residents of his district, who reliably vote Republican despite all evidence that doing so is against their economic and social interest, are finally realizing that their husbands, wives, sons and daughters are little more than cannon fodder for this administration?

This is not a nationwide phenomenon yet, but Walter Jones's district feels the sacrifice more than most. If the tide has begun to turn in an area so dominated by the military and its families, just imagine what will happen when the rest of the country starts to feel the impact as directly.

This is why the prospect of a draft is so important, and why this Administration will do anything it can to avoid even discussing the idea of a draft. But with recruitment cratering, and with the noncommissioned officers bailing out, the military has to be filled out somehow. Now they are considering offering $40,000 sign-up bonuses (a development which does not augur well for the future of a military made up of men and women who joined solely for love of country). We're now looking for men and women who need fast money.

But once the incentives stop working, the draft will come. And then every Congressional district will feel the pain that Walter Jones's district is feeling now.

The Atrios Effect

You've heard of the Instalanche? Well, check out an Atrilanche. Here are this site's hit numbers for the year. Yeah, all of those June hits? They happened on Friday.



Incidentally, on June 2, The Nettle passed two years of blogging excellence. Happy Birthday to us.

Ear Candy

It's high time to spin a few more tracks. . .

Kevn Kinney: MacDougal Blues (1990)
Kinney, former lead singer of the late, great Drivin 'n' Cryin, was at the Pour House in Raleigh last week (DFL and I were sucking down $1 PBR's in the audience). He's looking a bit haggard but still has his chops - I've never heard such versatility on the acoustic guitar. One of the shows most memorable moments occurred when Kinney's massive dreadlocked bassist leapt off the stage and dashed straight through the audience to the nearest latrine. Maybe he had a few too many of Milwaukee's finest. . . In any event, "MacDougal Blues" was one of several great older tunes that Kinney and his "Sun Tangled Angel Revue" dredged up. . .

MacDougal Blues / 128kbps MP3, 3.58MB
- Buy MacDougal Blues from Amazon
- Kevn Kinney on allmusic.com

Any Trouble: Girls Are Always Right (1980)
Manchester (UK)-based Any Trouble is simply the best New Wave/Power Pop band that you've never heard. Their 1980 record, Where Are All The Nice Girls? is a lost classic. In choosing to dig for a deep cut on a record that's already way left of the dial, I've bypassed the album's best cut, "Second Choice" and a great cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Growin' Up." I hope you enjoy this one. . .

Girls Are Always Right / 128kbps MP3, 3.94MB
- Buy Where Are All The Nice Girls? from Amazon
- Any Trouble on allmusic.com

Sprites: I Go Crazy (2003)
I don't know a damn thing about this band, but they've pulled together a great cover of this 1986 Flesh For Lulu college radio hit (also see Soundtrack - Some Kind Of Wonderful). Thanks to *sixeyes for the find. . .

I Go Crazy / 160kbps MP3, 4.02MB
- Buy Starling, Spiders, Tigers and Sprites from Amazon
- Sprites on allmusic.com

Bob Mould: (Shine Your) Light Love Hope (2005)
As a founding member and key creative force behind Husker Du, Bob Mould helped invent Hardcore and American Underground rock. 25 years later, he remains a creative force. This track from his new record integrates elements of electronic music, including vocal effects. Bob's come a long way from Zen Arcade, but he's still making vital music. Oh, and Bob's a pretty good blogger too.

(Shine Your) Light Love Hope / 256kbps MP3, 6.23MB
- Pre-order Body Of Song from Yep Roc Records
- Bob Mould on allmusic.com

NOTE: Most of these MP3's will be removed after a week or so as it is not our intent to violate any copyrights. Our hope is to perhaps introduce our readers to some music they haven't heard before. If you like what you hear, please buy the record! We will be happy to remove any file at the request of a copyright owner.

The Freepers Weigh In

If you thought Jesse Helms was alone in his opinions on segregation and "outside agitators," go take a look at The Free Republic's threads on this. To their credit, there are several posters who excoriate Helms. But, for the most part, this is typical:

To: NASBWI
In the Jim Crow era, Blacks could and regularly did...

1. Get driver's licenses
2. Buy cars
3. Buy guns
4. Attend college and even medical school
5. Faced less violent crime
6. Were free to move from state to state

Much of the world would love to have those civil rights, especially African countries.



27 posted on 06/09/2005 7:16:35 AM PDT by Monterrosa-24 (Technology advances. Human nature is dependably stagnant.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies ]

The Bush voter. Moving steadfastly into the 19th Century.

Jesse Helms

The News & Observer has a fascinating article today in which it excerpts lengthy paragraphs from the uncorrected galleys of Senator Jesse Helms's upcoming memoir "Here's Where I Stand." The framing of the article is that Helms takes a "gentler" approach to controversial issues than he did as a Senator, and appears to have learned the error of his ways on AIDS.

Two passages from the book quoted in the article, however, show that the same prejudices and hatreds still boil beneath a surface which has perhaps been calmed a bit by age and illness.

First, Helms discusses the AIDS epidemic, upon which he was so grossly wrong and so central to the Reagan-era inertia which led to the deaths of thousands. Helms says that friendships with Bono and Franklin Graham helped turn his thoughts on AIDS:

"Until then," Helms writes, "it had been my feeling that AIDS was a disease largely spread by reckless and voluntary sexual and drug-abusing behavior, and that it would probably be confined to those in high risk populations. I was wrong."

Now, let's not be ungrateful for small miracles. At least Helms admits he was wrong to oppose AIDS treatment and education programs, but look at that paragraph. Implicit in that statement, despite the claim of having learned his lesson, is the reprehensible argument that had AIDS remained confined to a population of homosexuals and intraveneous drug users, it would have been nothing to worry about. Evidently, in his estimation such people deserve to suffer and die.

I don't think the old guy has learned that much at all.

Exhibit 2 is the following lengthy passage on the civil rights movement:

"I did not advocate segregation, and I did not advocate aggravation," Helms writes. "By that I mean that I thought it was wrong for people who did not know, and who did not care, about the relationships between neighbors and friends to force their ideas about how communities should work on the people who had built those communities in the first place. I believed right would prevail as people followed their own consciences."

"We will never know how integration might have been achieved in neighborhoods across our land, because the opportunity was snatched away by outside agitators who had their own agendas to advance. We certainly do know the price paid by the stirring of hatred, the encouragement of violence, the suspicion and distrust. We do know that too many lives were lost, businesses were destroyed, millions of dollars were diverted from books and teachers to support the cost of buses and gasoline. We do know that turning our public schools into social laboratories almost destroyed them."

It is here that Helms shows he has learned nothing, really, except a gentler way of making the same point he used to make in fulminating tirades on WRAL. The point: "how dare the Federal government and the NAACP come down heah and tell us how to treat our negroes." The claim that he did not advocate segregation is an out and out lie. But this statement is more insidious than a mere after-the-fact denial of behavior which was perfectly evident for all to see. The worst part is his contention that segregation would have ended on its own, without the spark of the Civil Rights Movement.

This claim, this fantasy, that without federal support and direct action by activists both from the South and elsewhere, we in the South would have gradually worked our way to a peaceful and harmonious integration, is a staple of segregation apologists. It is horseshit. It sets forth the South as apart from the nation, claiming that America should have continued to abide the festering sore of segregation and allowed the South to work its own way through it. For 75 years, the South did not "work its own way through it." No, instead people were lynched. (Flame retardant - yes, I know lynchings took place all across the country - neither segregation nor racism were confined to the South.)

The "friends and neighbors" Senator Helms remembers through the rose-colored glasses of his own skewed recollection were not friends, or neighbors. They were people trapped in a system that impoverished both races - both economically and spiritually. They existed in the dehumanizing vise of segregation, and society was deprived of the contributions of all.

Helms still, in 2005, advocates against Brown v. Board, the Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Acts and the Civil Rights Movement, in favor of a go-it-slow approach which would have supposedly allowed us to develop our own way out of segregation.

The only thing such a policy would have achieved is to have allowed several more generations of African Americans to live without the vote, without opportunity and under the oppressive and brutal heel of Jim Crow. More importantly for Helms, however, the effect would have been to allow Jesse Helms to have lived and died without ever having had white power questioned or opposed.

He clearly blames the government and "outside agitators" for "the stirring of hatred, the encouragement of violence, the suspicion and distrust," as if the SCLC and the NAACP were holding the german shepherds and the fire hoses. As if Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner had shot themselves and buried themselves in a dam in Mississippi. As if Emmitt Till had asked to be beaten to death. As if the Wilmington and Tulsa riots had been instigated by blacks. As if the murder of the young black Vietnam veteran in "Blood Done Sign My Name" would have been better handled in silence, swept under the rug of indifference and segregation.

No, Jesse hasn't changed. Clearly, this "mellower" Helms is the same old stinky cheese. While the crust of age may now hide the noxious odor, once you cut down into it, it's the same old rot.

Update: Welcome Atrios readers, and thanks to Duncan for the link. If you liked my rant, go check out Apostropher and Brian's Political Donnybrook. They have lots to say, too. I especially like Brian's take "You needed an entire book to say 'we would have turned the hoses off, eventually.'?"

Finally.... real food in the Triangle

The Sunny Side Oyster Bar, the famous dive in Williamston, NC, has opened "Sunny Side Too" in Garner. 111 W. Main Street.

If you like oysters and shrimp, go.

If you want grilled Mahi-Mahi with a lime and passion fruit remoulade... um, no.

Gomer would like this one...

These guys are dead wrong. Of course, I know you're shocked that Carter Wrenn, former advisor to Jesse Helms and "Farmers for Fairness" would ever deliberately misrepresent the facts behind an issue, but...




SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE!!!


Jesse points us to this Boston Globe article which cites a new study from Dartmouth College. The article states:

Re-igniting the medical malpractice overhaul debate, a new study by Dartmouth College researchers suggests that huge jury awards and financial settlements for injured patients have not caused the explosive increase in doctors' insurance premiums.

The more likely cause? You guessed it, insurance company investment losses. Told ya.

Ok, now who wants to run for pinata?

As one of my several sideline avocations this year, I have been asked to help identify potential Democratic candidates for the Wake County School Board for the 2005 elections. Four seats are up this year. Two incumbents, Republican Amy White and Democrat Kathryn Quigg, have already withdrawn from seeking their seats again. Incumbent Patti Head (R) is presumably running to retain her West Raleigh seat, and so far as we know, Bill Fletcher intends to keep his seat, at least until he is done suing over the State Superintendent job.

So, we're looking, and I am sure the Republicans are also looking, for good citizens willing to fill this crucial public office. In my spare time, I also look for rare Spanish doubloons in Coke machines. I have better luck finding those.

Seriously, you have no idea how difficult it is to find people willing to serve as a political pinata for 4 years. There is no more crucial, or more thankless, task in American politics. If you do your job well, children are educated, budgets are balanced, schools are built, educational progress is advanced, and half the people in your district think it is all a waste of time, and the other half are mad at you about something you voted on.

No political position offers such an opportunity to have an immediate and tangible effect on the lives of constituents. You get to show up at graduations, hand out diplomas, and know that your stewardship helped those children get where they are going. Direct consequences are almost immediately visible from any decision.

But so is direct feedback. As the small and surly group of Wakefield parents showed today by filing suit to keep their children from going to school near "those people," there are some people who will just never be satisfied with your efforts, and will advance agendas on the backs of children.

So, I am pretty sure both parties are searching for caring, qualified, thick-skinned, civic minded people, not afraid to mix it up with a loud minority of parents, and focused on meeting the needs of Wake County's children. These positions are too important to go unfilled, and too crucial to allow people to run unopposed. If you are such a person, and if you are, God Bless You, call your local party headquarters and tell them "I want to be a pinata, sign me up for school board."