The Legislative Process

NYT, today

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said she was pleased with what she had heard about the contours of the potential agreement.

“This provides an opening to a very broad sweep of changes,” Mrs. Feinstein said. Referring to the tortuous legislative process, she said: “Sausage making is not pretty. But the sausage we have, I think, is a very different sausage from when we started.”

Wobbly

This comment appeared on a NYT discussion board today:

Republicans stand firm.
Pass the "Cut, Cap, and Balance" bill again with one change.
Separate the bill into two parts and have the Balanced Spending as another bill.
Keep passing the same bill and sending it to Reid and remind everyone of his "intransigence" in not passing the bill in the Senate.
As a great conservative once said to a RINO, "This is no time to go wobbly"

Hiuh??

NYT, today:

Members of the House Republican caucus said after a morning meeting that Mr. Boehner opened by urging the rank and file to “get your ass in line,” but then listened as many of them voiced lingering concerns.
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I've never been a fan of capitalism...now, I'm wondering about democracacy.

Goodbye Bill, goodbye

We Consider Death

Welcome to the fourth "Give the Fiddler a Dram" podcasts.

"All things pass; all that lives must die. All that we prize is but lent to us, and the time comes when we must surrender it. We are travelers on the same road that leads to the same end."

Podcast 4

BROOKS USES HEAD - WINS PULLITZER PRIZE!!

NYT, today: Brooks Quits Amid Scandal as Murdoch Empire Reels

Until the scandal erupted, Ms. Brooks, 43, had been a star within News International, the British newspaper subsidiary of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation, editing two influential tabloids and rising rapidly to head the division. British analysts described her as enjoying the status of a favored daughter, with close ties not only to the Murdoch family but also to leading politicians.

American Democracy: The New Normal

NYT, today

Recounting how the 1995 government shutdown helped President Bill Clinton win re-election the next year, Mr. McConnell said any impasse that hurt the nation’s credit and led to government checks being delayed could have the same result for President Obama.

“He will say Republicans are making the economy worse,” Mr. McConnell, who is recognized as one of his party’s top political strategists, said in an interview with the radio host Laura Ingraham.

“It is an argument that he could have a good chance of winning and all of the sudden we have co-ownership of the economy. That is a very bad position going into the election.”

Meanwhile, one Republican presidential hopeful, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, was drawing a hard line against voting to raise the debt ceiling and disputing the idea that the government’s credit standing would be jeopardized by the impasse.

“I’m a ‘no’ on raising the debt ceiling right now because I have been here long enough that I have seen a lot of smoke and mirrors in the time I have been here,” Ms. Bachman said.

Prairie In The Sky

About 20 years ago, I was in Bozeman, MT attending a scientific conference. I explored Yellowstone, the Gallatin Valley, took a ski lift to the top of a mountain, bought a pair of snakeskin cowboy boots, got hammered on local beer in a bar where the band played Ian Tyson covers, and went to the rodeo.

It was touch-and-go at the airport. At the very last minute, I got on board for Philadelphia. Decision? Fear?

I ride an old blue roan, I carry all I own
In the pouches of my saddle bags with my bedroll tied behind

There's a prairie in the sky, I'll find it by and by
Hues of brown and yellow to make a soul unwind

Let the music take me home to where my heart may roam
I'll fly across the meadows, and touch the tall grass as I go.

Let the gentle western wind stay with me 'til the end
Beside me 'til the day is done and the sun has settled low.

Leave the ponies to run free, far as the eye can see
I'd ride the range forever just to see them once again.

Let the wild, flying things soar above me on their wings
The stars fill up the night sky and the moon light up the plains.

I ride an old blue roan, I carry all I own
In the pouches of my saddle bags with my bedroll tied behind.

-Mary McCaslin

All due respect...

NYT tonight

Opinion
The Good Short Life
By DUDLEY CLENDINEN
Published: July 9, 2011

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BALTIMORE
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Sorry, Dudley. I've been doing this since the mid 90s. I won't take anyone with me, but I'm fuckin' going down fighting. No vent, either.

Cream of the Crop

NYT today:

“Rupert Murdoch adores her — he’s just very, very attached to her,” said a person who knows them both socially. “To be frank, the most sensible thing that News Corp. could do would be to dump Rebekah Brooks, but he won’t.”

Ms. Brooks’s rise has been steady, and quick. She began her career in the Murdoch media stable as a secretary at The News of the World, rising to become editor of the paper just 11 years later. In 2003, she became editor of the tabloid The Sun, Britain’s best-selling daily newspaper, before being promoted to her current job two years ago.

From early on, she was known for her creative flair in getting articles and her lack of compunction in how she got them. In 1994, she prepared for The News of the World’s interview with James Hewitt, a paramour of Princess Diana, by reserving a hotel suite and hiring a team to “kit it out with secret tape devices in various flowerpots and cupboards,” Piers Morgan, her former boss and now a CNN talk show host, writes in his memoir “The Insider.”

On another occasion in her early days, furious that the paper was about to be scooped by The Sunday Times’s serialization of a biography of Prince Charles, Ms. Brooks disguised herself as a Times cleaning lady and hid for two hours in the paper’s bathroom, according to Mr. Morgan. When the presses started rolling, she ran over, grabbed a newly printed copy of The Sunday Times, and brought it back to The News of the World — which proceeded to use the material, verbatim, in its own paper the next day.
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hhhmmmmmmmm....

sopranos, altos, please accent that c#-d# slur...again: Bbblllooooooowwwwwww---JOB!

seriously, Brooks, Murdoch, et al. are beneath contempt...

That's what happens when you think too much...

from: Ideas 2011 July/August 2011 ATLANTIC MAGAZINE

Recently, I noticed that one of my patients had, after a couple of sessions of therapy, started to seem uncomfortable. When I probed a bit, he admitted that he felt ambivalent about being in treatment. I asked why.

“My parents would feel like failures if they knew I was here,” he explained. “At the same time, maybe they’d be glad I’m here, because they just want me to be happy. So I’m not sure if they’d be relieved that I’ve come here to be happier, or disappointed that I’m not already happy.”

He paused and then asked, “Do you know what I mean?”

I nodded like a therapist, and then I answered like a parent who can imagine her son grappling with that very same question one day. “Yes,” I said to my patient. “I know exactly what you mean.”

----
Lori Gottlieb is the author, most recently, of Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.

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One of the things I love about being a musician in a tightly-knit musical community [ed. note: google "Old Time Herald"] ls that the response to the above nonsense and angst would be "Shut up and play yer banjo".