Bo Diddley - Pills

For anyone who needs to feel better.

Van Morrison - And It Stoned Me

Hope it don't rain all day.

The Last Budget Standoff and Lessons Learned

From David Atkins at Digby's blog:

Let's all stop pretending that the President was playing 11th dimensional chess in 2011. He wasn't. He wanted a grand bargain on the deficit (wrongly) and he thought the debt ceiling negotiations would be a good time to get it. That was an even bigger error that emboldened Republicans and put the nation at risk. Those of us who called it an error were right, his defenders were wrong, and the President is now admitting that and acting on it--much to his credit. 

The Shirelles - Soldier Boy

When Scott Carpenter made his Mercury mission into space in May 1962, this song was high on the charts. It was a different world, but the one thing the world never does is stay the same.

Alice Munro Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

This is good news. Thirteenth woman, first Canadian, and a specialist in the short story instead of the novel or poetry, Munro is a genius with a heart, which is supposed to be what literature is about, one hopes. Here's more from the Toronto Globe & Mail:

Jane Smiley [has] noted that: “the surface of Alice Munro’s works, its simplicity and quiet appearance, is a deceptive thing, that beneath that surface is a store of insight, a body of observation, and a world of wisdom that is close to addictive.”....Fellow short story writer Cynthia Ozick has called Munro “our Chekhov.”

RIP Phil Chevron

Paul McCartney & Wings - Mrs. Vandebilt

As so often these days, just a song I've had in my head.