Park Avenue. Bridgeport, CT. (The "campus" is the nearby University of Bridgeport.)
Me: Frank Lynch. Bio These are my daily rants, mostly political. For something less spontaneous, I maintain The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page (over 1,800 Johnson quotes), perhaps your best online resource for insight into his thinking.
KEY IRAQ SPEECHES/REMARKS: Bush: 9/19/02, on the vote to authorize force 10/7/02, Cincinnati 1/28/03 State of the Union 3/16/03 Bush, Blair, and Salazar 3/21/03 statement of goals 5/1/03 Ship speech, "Mission Accomplished" 7/2/03, Bring 'em on 10/21/03, WH veto threat on troop support 10/27/03, Bush on threat to veto troop support Cheney: 8/26/02, "Simply stated, there is no doubt..." Kerry: 9/6/02,New York Times' op-ed piece. 10/9/02, on the authorization of force 7/29/04, DNC convention speech 9/20/04, at NYU Powell: 2/5/03, U.N. speech Rumsfeld: 3/30/03, "We know where they are... Tikrit..." Wolfowitz: 1/23/03, on disarmament Debates: 9/30/04,
Bush-Kerry 10/5/04,
Cheney-Edwards 10/8/04,
Bush-Kerry 10/13/04, Bush-Kerry
You would think that Bob Dylan didn't write that many songs. So I decided to create a playlist on my iPod of Bob Dylan songs sung by others. And before reaching out for additional music I realized I had about a hundred Dylan convers on my iPod. Reasonable playlist material, you would think?
Well, here's the drill: a chunk of the tunes have been redone and redone and redone, making for a fairly repetitive list. It's not like there isn't diversity when selections are made, but a few songs get recorded multiple times, and it's worth pruning. Especially since shuffle play isn't completely random, and you might hear two versions of a tune in a row.
Here's where I am: the playlist now has 125 recordings (I downloaded some more to increase the diversity). Among those 125 recordings, 23 songs were recorded at least twice, and together they account for half of the playlist.
(7 recordings, 3 by the Band) I Shall Be Released
(6) It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (this was a surprise)
There are 5 songs recorded three times and 11 songs recorded twice... Of course, I mean in what I have.
Beyond the multiples I have 62 recordings which are unique choices. And the count is probably inflated due to dedicated projects like the Bob-fest at Madison Square Garden, Steve Howe's "Portraits of Bob Dylan," and such.
So are there any "off the beaten path" Dylan covers I think you should check out? Sure. Here are some, in no order...
Down in the Flood, by Blood Sweat & Tears (album: "New Blood")
Subterranean Homesick Blues, by Harry Nilsson (Pussycats)
One Two Many Mornings, by Jerry Jeff Walker (A Man Must Carry On)
Meet Me In the Morning, by Drew Emmitt (Across The Bridge)
Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You, by Jeff Beck Group (Jeff Beck Group)
It's All Over Now Baby Blue, by Leon Russel (Leon Live)
A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, by Bryan Ferry (These Foolish Things)
Notice I didn't say these were the best of all time, just worth more notice than they've gotten. Among them I like the BS&T best.
Are there some songs I think deserve more attention from the artists? Yeah, like "Hazel," and "Postively 4th Street," and "Forever Young." And though I forget the name of the song, there's one on Planet Waves which has the greatest opening line, "Twilight on a frozen lake, a north wind about to break..."
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8:47 PM
Tuesday, August 5, 2008:
Another way to kill the electric car. Or, to deliver it still-born, maybe? Electric cars have zero emissions and cost far less to drive; they tried them in California, but a variety of parties helped ensure they wouldn't survive. The auto manufacturers only made them under a regulatory requirement, the state regulatory board watered down its requirements, the manufacturers marketed them like a poison pill, and the vast majority of the public didn't understand that it would meet their daily needs. (Rent "Who Killed The Electric Car?")
That was a decade ago. Cut to now: the governor of Kentucky has signed an executive order approving the use of electric cars on Kentucky roads! Yippee!
Now THAT'S a way to make a buyer feel as if the electric car can only be an auxiliary vehicle. Tell them they can't drive it to work, and they'll only see it as being for a very local trip to the grocery store.
It's not like electric cars can't go faster than 45; the cars highlighted in "Who Killed The Elecric Car?" not only could do 60, but their acceleration to it was excellent. And even if 45 was their top speed (which would make the vehicle pointless), haven't we all seen highway signs declaring a minimum speed of 40? Wouldn't an electric car be able to meet the legal requirement?
OK, so here's the reason for the short-sightedness: the governor wants a manufacturing plant in the state for a specific car that can't do more than 45. It's all about jobs, and making the economic climate fine for one. specific. car.
So it's damn the genuine benefit; only allow the meager promise that one manufacturer can deliver, do not allow superior products to flourish. Must not "really" allow electric cars.
(Here's a bit of my ignorance on full display... If you've seen the Amish on a road in one of their horse-drawn carriages, you've noticed the red triangle on the back. There are probably limits to the roads they can use, but what if the faster electric cars had those red triangles on their rear ends?)
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8:53 PM
Monday, August 4, 2008:
How solid was the case against Bruce Ivins? Apparently the grand jury still had weeks' more testimony to hear, but not anything to put Ivins where the letters were mailed from:
Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation also have no evidence proving that Dr. Ivins visited New Jersey on the dates in September and October 2001 when investigators believe the letters were sent from a Princeton mailbox, the source said.
In the context of everything else that might not matter, unless Ivins had an alibi. But would an alibi have ruled him out for investigators, given other stumbles mentioned in the article? (I don't find it particularly damning that the envelopes which were used were available in his post office, given they were available at other post offices, too, and others patronized those post offices, too.)
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7:29 AM
Saturday, August 2, 2008:
Is the anthrax case really closed?Some support the conclusion ("inference") of guilt, even though there could be many reasons a suspect might kill themselves. For instance, it takes years (and lots of money) to clear yourself (cf. Richard Jewell, Stephen Hatfill), and along the way your employment prospects can get pretty dim. I'm not saying suicide is the smart choice, but if you presume suicide is not the smart choice, who wants to presume that Bruce Ivins was smart and/or rational?
And if he wasn't smart or rational, why should we presume that guilt was what drove him to suicide? Kind of a circular argument, I know; Ivins wouldn't the first to kill himself in fear of prosecution (cf. Donald Manes, for one).
I would hope that, at bare minimum, the Feds had evidence that Ivins was in Trenton the day those letters were mailed — or had no alibi, at least. But as has been reported, we'll likely never know the extent of the evidence against him, it all being sealed in grand jury files.
Even if he was guilty, though, the case is not "closed," not with a sense of closure, anyway. Motive remains speculative: was he trying to provoke war with Iraq? heighten awareness of the need to protect ourselves from a biological attack? and was he some kind of mad scientist as early as 2001, willing to kill innocent people for a cause?
All speculative, under a speculative presumption of guilt.
Somebody was a terrorist, for one reason or another, and it's unacceptable to suggest that there haven't been any terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11.
I am not so easily encouraged. Last night on PBS' Newshour with Jim Lehrer, one of the topics of dicsussion was the report released yesterday by the Justice Department concluding that politics was an inappropriate factor in hiring/promoting decisions, and two aides had been breaking the law.
The report, prepared by the Justice Department's inspector general and its internal ethics office, centered on the misconduct of a small circle of aides to Mr. Gonzales, including Monica Goodling, a former top adviser to the attorney general, and Kyle Sampson, his former chief of staff. It also found that White House officials were actively involved in some hiring decisions.
According to the report, officials at the White House first developed a method of searching the Internet to glean the political leanings of a candidate and introduced it at a White House seminar called The Thorough Process of Investigation. Justice Department officials then began using the technique to search for key phrases or words in an applicant's background, like "abortion," "homosexual," "Florida recount," or "guns."
The nature of the laws broken means that most who broke them — now that they are no longer with the DOJ — will not face anything close to justice, since they won't face internal discipline; they might be subject to castigation or disbarment from their local bar associations is about it.
Anyway, last night on the Newshour, two panelists seesawed about the implications of the report. David Rivkin, who worked in the DOJ under Reagan and G. H. W. Bush, said the following:
The system worked. There is no need to jump to any conclusions about the broad implications. And, also, look at all the sensationalism in the hearings, all the confrontations there has been to other political branches.
Do we need to be reminded here that the system would not have "worked" had the Republicans retained control of the Congress? This all came about in the wake of the firings of eight federal prosecutors in 2006. Prior to the change in power in Congress, the Republicans (the majority) were letting the Administration do whatever it wanted. Senator Leahy (D, VT) remarked after the 2006 elections that the Bush Administration was so used to getting its way, it was as if the Republicans in Congress were the minor capos listening to the Don. Or words to that effect, haven't found them yet.
So technically the system worked, but the house needed to be cleaned in order for it to happen.
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7:10 AM
Monday, July 28, 2008:
Losing sight of the bigger picture. The Dow dropped another 2% today, and if you watch the news enough you know that every night the newscasters will tell you how much it lost or gained for the day. If it surpasses other swings, you might hear them say "it's the biggest one day drop in x months," or something like that.
Lost in the daily measure is this — and it takes a superior perspective for a newscaster to say it — but the Dow has lost 16% in the last 52 weeks. 16%, you read that right.
It's a good thing we have a Republican in the White House; can you imagine how much worse it would be if the President were a Democrat?
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9:46 PM
Sunday, July 27, 2008:
Detroit's chickens have come home to roost. Last night we saw Who Killed The Electric Car?, a documentary about the combination of forces which prevented the electric car from taking off in California, as well as what would seem like spiteful reactions from Detroit once regulations no longer demanded a zero-emission car.
One of the appeals for consumers in the know was that the cost of a mile was phenomenally lower because the energy source was the home's power sockets rather than gasoline; and although the day's range from a charge was more than adequate for the lion's share of the population, consumers didn't flock to it. You can thank the failure to market them properly, you can thank a lower tax incentive to switch to it (vs. the federal tax incentives to small businesses for SUV's). For a lot of reasons, the demand didn't develop properly.
Anyway, we're now in a world of four dollar gas, and there are certainly misgivings about what it takes to drive a car to get from A to B. We've read stories about new SUV's being ignnored on lots in favor of more efficient vehicles, and we've read stories about mass transit systems experiencing ridership growth to such an extent that it's proving taxing.
A logical extension of unsold SUV's on the lot — one I never stopped to think about — is that as the demand for new SUV's goes down, so does the demand for old SUV's, and under leasing contracts, Detroit is now on the hook for SUV's whose leases have run their course. Essentially another symptom of Detroit's lack of foresight and failure to diversify its product lines soon enough.
I have a memory from 3 to 5 years ago about a new head at Ford, a member of the family with the last name Ford (imagine...), who wanted to move the company into a wider variety of vehicles, and be more inclusive of more energy efficient vehicles. The article was in the New York Times, and while I don't remember him as touting electric vehicles in the article, he was certainly against the singular focus on SUV's. (I've looked for it online, but haven't found it... I might be imagining it, but then again, I might not. We went to the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport this weekend, and one of the reasons we went was my enthusiastic reaction to a NY Times article about it I'd read in 1989. Twenty years ago — I didn't know the memories were that old until I saw it online.)
One of the reasons I chose marketing research as a career was that I was dumbfounded that Detroit was caught with its pants down in the 70's when OPEC turned off the faucets, and Detroit didn't have efficient vehicles to compete with the imports. I chose marketing research because I saw a need for corporations to have better information for more well-informed decisions. Here we've gone again.
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8:51 PM
Friday, July 25, 2008:
Seems to me that this constitutes a new definition of "success." Unless you've been under a rock, you know that McCain has been touting the results of the surge as a success, and has been attributing events which happened before the surge to the surge itself. (Kind of like Tyrone Slothrop's reaction to each V2 rocket 24 hours before it even hit the London block he was in.)
Anyway, McCain has been claiming that he's got a better grip on the situation in Iraq because he was for the surge, when being against it would have been "easy," and now look what's happened. Why, the surge was a success! It was so successful, this is what McCain has said about it:
This success is very fragile. It’s incredibly impressive, but very fragile.
Anyone mind telling me why that constitutes "success"? And why it's so impressive if it's so very fragile?
Doesn't sound like success to me yet. Sounds to me like you can point to some positive indicators, which themselves might be signs of success. But it's not success yet. It's kind of like "This is not a pipe." These are signs of success, but anyone who calls it a success knows not of what they speak, especially if "it's so very fragile."
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10:10 PM
