Mandela

Our leaders are mostly ordinary. Most are well below ordinary. Some however, rise well above that status. In my mind, Nelson Mandela was one of those in the latter category. He will be missed. There will be much said about him today.

The White House tweets that if Congress doesn't act by the end of the year, 1.3 million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits. As the 9 percenters only work 6 or 7 more days, that likelihood seems real. And once again, the majority of the house whose daily talking points complain that their adversaries are not listening to the American people are complicit in continuing to shrink the government to a size that they can "drown in a bathtub."

Today's humstle is Ai Du.  One of its versions  comes from a collaboration between the late Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder when they made a record called  Talking Timbuktu. Cooder is pretty amazing in that his career has taken some very interesting turns in the past 10 to fifteen years. You may remember the bathtub scene, in Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful.  This song was playing. To me, it's beautifully done. And an RIP goes out to Toure who passed in 2007.

Jacoby Ellsbury?  I guess your Yankee table is ready.

I miss The Rockford Files. do you?

Sen. Kay Hagen of North Carolina is pretty aghast at Citizens United vs Board of Elections. She's circulating a petition. It's the 10th or so, that I've seen. I don't sign them anymore. I hate to paraphrase or quote Donald Rumsfeld but in essence he said you have to fight with the army you have, not the one you'd like to have. Citizen United is a pretty awful thing. But that doesn't seem to stop people from raising vast sums of dark money to fund their political agendas. In Senator Hagen's state, there is a businessman named Art Pope. I won't get into a windy diatribe about this person, but if you're interested in what has happened in North Carolina in the past few years (and how a legislature that had been Democratic since the 1870's flipped and is now Republican dominated) take some time and read about him.* But back to Kay Hagen--
Senator, you can hate the players and/or you can hate the game. But this is the game you've got, not the one you'd like to have. So, while we go on signing petitions, dark money continues to do its dark work. Find the billionaires who can start the PACS that provide the money and resources to combat what you don't like. The way to get rid of Citizens United is to be better at it than your opponents. Once they have lost elections, they will demand that such a travesty be repealed. 

Antonin Scalia made a prescient observation on Constitutional flexibility. I'm going to paraphrase: Persuade people to enact that which you believe to be important. That's flexibility.


*Start with the great work of some of my favorite people, Rachel Maddow and her staff. Like her, hate her, she does good reporting. She checks her facts. She informs. She strives to get facts correct. Anne Royall would be proud of her. Yup, Casey Stengal said it, "you could look it up."- Anne Royall, that is.

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe weekend. This blooger has gotten nearly 1000 visits in the short time I've been doing this. I deeply appreciate that you look in from time to time. Thank you.