Frank Rich Explains Sarah Palin and the Republicans

In the aftermath of her decision to drop out and cash in, Palin’s standing in the G.O.P. actually rose in the USA Today/Gallup poll. No less than 71 percent of Republicans said they would vote for her for president. That overwhelming majority isn’t just the “base” of the Republican Party that liberals and conservatives alike tend to ghettoize as a rump backwater minority. It is the party, or pretty much what remains of it in the Barack Obama era.

Mr Rich says it here.

Los Lobos - When The Circus Comes

It was money, but it wasn't the money. It was the way the money was handled that just seemed to show a complete lack of respect. He owed me money and said he would pay it but didn't. Eventually someone in his family took care of it for him. There was more after that, but that was the beginning of the end. All those years, gone. Deaths and births shared. Los Lobos explain the situation.

Krugman on Why the Stimulus is Not Enough, Part 2

I guess he makes so much sense that it irritates the powers that be. Even with Bush out of office.

For the past 30 years, we’ve been told that government spending is bad, and conservative opposition to fiscal stimulus (which might make people think better of government) has been bitter and unrelenting even in the face of the worst slump since the Great Depression. Predictably, then, Republicans — and some Democrats — have treated any bad news as evidence of failure, rather than as a reason to make the policy stronger.

Miles Davis - Prelude (Part Two)

There was a biography of Miles Davis on the Ovation Channel, good enough reason to post some electric Miles. The only reason this is as short as it is is because of the file size limit on Vox--this was the era of twenty-minute-plus songs for Miles.

Sarah Palin, True Believer

A few months ago I had a post in which I compared some of the aspects of the current conservative movement in the US to aspects of life for many people in North Korea. My point was that if you grow up and never are exposed to anything other than one set of political beliefs, even a wacky set, then you never suspect that there is anything else.

I was thinking about that again in relation to Sarah Palin. It occurred to me that one of the reasons there is a disconnect between what she says and how it is interpreted is that she cannot conceive that there could be more than one way to interpret it. To take one of her better-known public statements, her answer to Katie Couric's question about the economy last fall, it was widely seen as a rather inept evasion. I think it's possible that Palin did not even realize that she was evading the question--that she was answering in what she saw as a straightforward way, but that her thought processes were so disorganized and her knowledge of the issues so poor that the result was a nonsensical answer.

Palin is of the generation whose first votes were for Ronald Reagan. So for her, growing up in a largely conservative environment in which her views were never challenged, her beliefs may simply be set on a poor intellectual foundation. She may well believe every word that comes out of her mouth, and be genuinely baffled when what she says is seen as meaningless crap. For her it has meaning: what she says is as carefully reasoned and well-informed as the political thought she has always known.

Steve McNair

I've been putting off posting anything about Steve McNair, just because the whole situation made me so sad. Generally I'm not a big sports follower, but Steve McNair caught my attention early -- his talent was exceptional, but his determination was even greater. In a New York Times article several years ago, his brother told about what it was like to play on the same college team as Steve McNair. When the game was on the line, sometimes McNair would get so intense, so focused, that his brother would realize that Steve at the time did not even register the presence of his own brother in the huddle. At that moment nothing mattered but playing the game to the utmost of his ability.

Off the field he was basically the opposite, relaxed, polite, even a little shy. Which makes what happened to him all the more shocking. A secret relationship with a lover who eventually crafts a murder/suicide seemed like the last ending possible for Steve McNair. Maybe he was too straightforward a person in some ways to see it coming. Maybe someone less trusting would have walked away sooner. But he did not. He made few errors in judgment on the field--he paid far too high a price for this one off it.

As a reminder that such things are not new, check out the names Billy Jurges and Eddie Waitkus.

Nada is More Than Just a State of Mind

Nothing today, sorry.