t-bone streaks and democrats

I wondered, as she hit me repeatedly with her umbrella there at baggage pickup, who she was avenging. She's a frightening woman. Sort of a Maid Marianne meets Godzilla.

Well, thankyou BBB. Finn said something similar. I'm sure it was he. I won't have time to be around as much as previously as I have to turn my attention to increasing income and I have a blog now I'm trying to form into something worthwhile. But I'll be about a bit.

Can you lead us to your blog site?

BBB

Heartily agree with you on this, though I would not limit the affliction to just conservative talk radio. There are plenty of liberal talk radio shows on the internet and satelite radio that suffer the same disease.

These days most talk show hosts take up all the time listening to themselves spout dramatized rhetoric and only devote a few leftover minutes to a caller right before they have to break for the many commercials.

One of the conservative talk show stations in the Sacramento area has a late night host that is a fairly decent one. If I recall it correctly, I think his name is Jimbo Hansen and he affiliates himself with Westwood One. His show isn't limited to politics, he addresses a wide range of subjects. and initiates thoughtful discussion amongst his guests and callers of all political spectrums. His show is the only one I can stand to listen to.

B

The two are not anywhere near comparable in terms of outlets nor audience (nor in some other important criteria). But I understand the point you are making. It isn't merely black and white. If you can get your hands on Annenburg's "Echo Chamber" by Kathleen Hall Jamieson you'll find a wealth of statistical data and really fine analyses.

I guess we're allowed to do this now...
http://bernielatham.wordpress.com/

WOW! Your blog site is outstanding. I've only just started catching up with it's contents.

Your story about the old railroad songs and the photos “Bonus music - “Railroad Worksong”” caused me to reminisce about my grandfather, Anson Trumley. He worked for a California railroad in their office until he had a heart attack in his mid-forties. His doctor told him he wouldn’t have very long to live, so he retired to live on his pension. He dressed in his business suit and tie every day of his life until he died at age 84.

BumbleBeeBoogie

Blatham - eye poke noted, but in keeping with my conservative reserve, not returned - yet.

I note too that BBB delights in your intellectual acrobatics, but not mine. Clearly she is still smarting from my penetrating and ironic description of the encounter between Nanci Pelosi and the local Bay Area Union bosses a few pages back - and their mutual rejoicing in new legislation that will repeal requirements for secret ballots among workers targeted for organization by labor unions - so much for their dedication to democratic process.

One of my sons is a rather passionate conservative and a devotee of Rush Limbach. He and family were here for Thanksgiving and, among other entertainments, he tuned into the Limbach web site with its continuous internet broadcasts - something I had never done. I recall hearing snippets of his broadcasts on the car radio at odd intervals over the past 12 years, but that's about all. However the web broadcasts revealed nothing different: his chosen gig is often clever mockery of "liberal" positions, doctrines and public figures. That, of course requires carefully selected excerpts from events, occasional exaggeration, and a heavy dose of smartass irony. In substance though I don't find much difference between his outpourings and those of Keith Oberman, Bill Maher and other spokesmen of the left. All indulge in artful characterizations and mockery of those whose politics they oppose. Some on the left posture as though their material is of greater substance and intellectual merit, but no critical, objective observer could (or should) be deceived by that.

While I don't consider any of them to be serious sources of illumination or understanding of the contentious political debates around us, I don't see much difference among them or the degrees to which they may be among the "most poisionous and destructive forces" currently at play in public discourse. Vulgarity to be sure, but that is one of our hallmarks - and still we endure.

Certainly we are seeing the end of a political era and the beginning of another. However I don't think for a moment that conservative political views (whatever the phrase might mean) are finished here. Is there (or has there been) a conservative "movement" that has been "disembowelled"? Is there an opposing "progressive movement" that one day itself might become so disembowelled (or was previously disembowelled)? I am skeptical: Instead I think that the extremes of poth political parties tend to become well diluted in actual governance here. It is only the strident rhetoric of the contending extremes that continues to distract us.

So far Obama appears to be moving to the political center in his early nominations for political appointments and in his rhetoric about the current economic crisis. Meanwhile some of his strident supporters howl that he has deserted them. Similar things and voices were heard at the openings of the Reagan, Clinton and Bush II administrations. I suspect they are a more or less permanent feature of the American political scene -- our actual politics are a good deal more moderate and pragmatic than the political rhetoric of either extreme. This is also reflected in the results of the election - I believe Obama won by about a 6% margin in the total vote. While this is slightly larger than the margins of the last two or three elections, it is no landslide, and hardly an indicator of a permanent shift in the preferences of American voters. Indeed the margin was very small when one considers the media rhetoric of the past several years.

It will be interesting to observe how Obama deals with the many external contradictions out there - ranging from the obsession of Europeans to create legalistic "solutions" to international strife - in spite of their demonstrable ineffectiveness - and to tie us down like Gulliver with their various formalisms; to the ambitions of China; the murderous stridency of some Islamist fanatics; and the economics of a still competitive world. I expect we will both be disappointed in some particulars.

I don't think that God (or the gods - or luck or fate) gives much of a damn about the political questions that so obsess us. I don't hope for the perfection of mankind or even of human political structures. I am very interested in the process and I do have opinions and views about the issues before us. However, I don't generally confuse them with eternal truths.

I am as bemused by the strident certainty of left wing commentators that Sarah Palin is beyond doubt the dumbest and/or most corrupt politician to emerge in the last generation as I am by the equally one-sided mockery of Rush Limbach. They differ only in style and selection of targets.

However, I continue to enjoy and be stimulated by the discourse with you. The clash of viewpoints always makes me think more clearly about my own. Moreover, you educate me about contemporary liberal political thought in a way that I would otherwise miss, and occasionally lead me to rethink some issues.

Very true. She preemptorially challenged ne to an arm wrestling contest after I had whimsically recalled a time long ago when i was briefly arm wrestling champion of a bar in Carmel. I was amazed at the aggression involved, but had no trouble crushing her in the subsequent contest. The woman is dangerous !

Sorry everyone...we're putting in an office downstairs so I'm having to do some renovations (let me tell you how much I hate staircases).

BBB
Nothing like sepia photographs and railroad labor issues and a sad slide guitar and a good grandfather to get one feeling nostalgic. I'd misunderstood the nature of the musical project which that single record (by the Notting Hill Billies) represents. It was produced about the same time as Neck and Neck where Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins recorded together in Nashville creating some of the most sublime guitar work I've ever heard. I'd thought, mistakenly, that Knopfler had picked up some old Nashville studio pros for NHB but they are limies top to bottom, pros regardless. Tah, by the way.

Good. That's all that is required.

I liked that account. One has to look through your eyes (which I've spared above) and though that sometimes poses no slightest sense of disorientation at other times it is like trying to sing in Liberace's voice. Your chumming with local union bosses, as with your common defence of regular-guy-sailors, along with your love of the life of the mind suggests an honorable and emotionally well-rounded person and curious person. Like Sarah Palin reading Pushkin at the bowling alley.

Re Limbaugh "poisonous and destructive" and contrasts with voices on the left, etc... this takes some study and dedicated attention, george. It would also most certainly take you dropping that presumption (I've told you and told you) that the world always has a mirror running down its center. It looks an egalitarian sort of presumption and clearly serves well as a fine starting point for analysis but you use it as a short-cut to conclusions, avoiding the analysis bit. If you decide at some future point to invest neurons in the subject, let me know and I'll steer you to some good work.

No, that would be delusional. Canada is a fine example...the Progressive Conservative party disappears with Mulroney but the relevant demographics and dynamics reformulated after a delay to make another viable party. Further, it obviously wouldn't be a good thing for only one party remained standing for any length of time. But as you say, there appears to be a significant shift in eras here. That entails, necessarily, some pull back in the conservative movement and what we don't know yet how this will manifest...that's the debate going on in your camp now.

This is a bit of a give-away as to who and what analyses you are attending to, george. I don't think you are going to be able to name these people. Because they are fictional. I read broadly across the press and the liberal blogs along with listening to rightwing radio and Fox and reading rightwing web sites every day. There is, at this point, no strident howling anywhere from anyone of note. There's head scratching sometimes, mild anxiety, disagreements too. The idea that there are "howls" about "desertion" is has its reality in rightwing media only, and it exists there for the obvious propaganda reasons. But you could show me wrong by listing the names you have in mind. Alternately, you could reflect on exactly how you came to hold this false idea and tell me what comes up.

Re vote margins... people argue about words like "landslide" mainly to forward certain notions about 'my side winning' or 'you shot but you missed, nya nya'. It's a PR game mostly which has the goal of forwarding a particular narrative (thus hopefully forming/changing consensus on what is real which has deep political consequences...politically speaking, in most circumstances a thing is "real" if it is believed). But there are problems for Republicans up the road and the smart conservative analysts recognize this. Youth and Latinos are the two sharpest problems. And solutions for either are not apparent and won't be easy.

Re Obama and the external world... it's the stuff that ages presidents so noticably, I think. We'll both be disappointed, yes. I can imagine no situation or potential candidate where that would not be so. Drop Lincoln into this situation and I'd be no more at ease.


Again with the mirror. I actually didn't read/hear much about her and corruption. However I did read much about how "dumb" she is. Not only did I read it, I wrote it myself.

I have never seen such a poor candidate for such an important post ever, anytime, anywhere which is an opinion shared by many thoughtful people in your own party. Whatever "corruption" might be involved as regards Palin relates not to her but to choosing her. This was an absolutely cynical marketing ploy and irresponsible beyond belief.

The only plus of that nomination was a theoretical one...it allows people like myself who are interesting in understanding the actual power points of your party and in understanding the mechanisms and agencies of modern propaganda to have to hand a highly transparent case study...who is pushing this lemon? how are they going about it?


Oddly, george, a review of our exchanges shows that I've enjoyed myself more often than not. The margin is 6%.

The account I've heard included beads of sweat on your upper lip during this encounter.

She and I were going to go at it too but somehow we forgot the idea. She was probably intimated by the size of my vitamins.

I once saw a photograph of the yearly national arm-wrestling championship. These people had clearly given up (if they ever had it) any allegiance to the aesthetic values of physical symmetry. One side was Popeye and the other side was Olive Oil.

OK...back to renovating

I was almost captured by this until I realized it was but a setup for the Palin/Pushkin metaphor. I shoud have known better.

True we have addressed this issue before. However, I simply observed and noted the basic similarities of the mockery practised by Limbach with that done by Maher, Oberman and others -- no particular insight or cerebral activity required for that. Clearly you and I disagree on the degree to which the mockery of the two sides may be justified (or rationalized) based on our different political viewpoints. However, that both are examples of exploitive and often self-promoting mockery seems to be beyond dispute.

My "mirror", as you term it, is nothing more than an observation on the constancy of human nature - irrespective of political inclinations. Not much more to it than that.

Well there were comments - whether they were "howls" or not is an argument over a metaphor. The essential point is that the reactions among left wing Democrats were similar in kind and intensity to those among some right wing Republicans following some of Reagan's initial appointments; same story with other Presidents. That, and the cited tendency of our politicians to campaign to the extremes of their parties and subsequently govern more to the center are entirely valid -- and I believe you know that.

Very clever and very much in form -- the blatham I know and appreciate so much !

I enjoy the discourse with you - not much else left on A2K that I do. I hope your renovation project goes well, and that you and Lola have a great Christmas and New Year.

I was a witness to that "bout," and the way georgeob tells it --- well, what can I say. LOL

What the hell do you mean with that "What can I say ..." crap, Cicerone ???!!! You are my only unbiased witness - clearly we can't rely on McTag.

I was amazed and taken aback by the woman's aggression and chutzpa. However, I had no trouble at all administering her the crushing defeat she so richly deserved. I was even gracious and considerate in my moment of victory - though still thoroughly amazed.

Yes, you ought to have known the risk there. But note that the chances Palin would actually read Pushkin are squeezing up against absolute zero. Not so with you, george. You and I, or you and Obama for that matter, have far more in common intellectually than do you and Sarah Palin. It...isn't...even...close. It's why we get on, in part. And you clearly appreciate, I'm sure, how insufficient either you or I would be to meet the responsibilities and scope of the modern presidency. Her nomination was utterly preposterous and deeply irresponsible. One might imagine her running for the presidency in four years with Joe the Plumber as her nominee for Vice President and the full irresponsibility comes into sharper focus. I spent a lot of time reading mainstream and conservative press/commentary to try to understand how Palin came to be nominated. The most credible account had McCain intending to nominate Lieberman but being pushed into the Palin nomination by the 'social conservative' leaders who threatened a damaging (almost certainly terminal) floor fight if he went with Lieberman.


I enjoy it too, george. And I consider myself priviledged to have bumped into you and to have had the chance to talk with you over these years.

The renovation task isn't terribly complicated but like all plaster-lathe structures, straight lines and right angles are a rarity so things take longer than expected and tend to become a pain in the ass.

Jane and I (with one of her daughters) will be heading up to Vancouver Island to my twin brother's place for Christmas. This will be the first Xmas I've been with family in four years so it will be damned fine. My girl is travelling in Asia, the singular bummer this year. Merry Christmas to you and yours, george.

ps...I'm seriously considering sending in an application for the Secret Service. I believe that I have the courage and the discipline to put myself in front of the President and take a shoe for him.