(Jumps in)

Okay, I brought the music. You've got your choice between The Clash, and their bassist Paul Simonon with a newer band called, apparently, The Good The Bad and The Queen.

Also, I've brought a beer tap, dozens of bottles of liquor, glasses, ice, and a fun sense of humor.

So.

(Jumps behind bar)

I'm bartender for the night, and I'll start with giving you your drink of choice, while I drink mine, and give you this to get the music crowd worked up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKvCEUJfQA4

I love this song.

Drinks, here, ya bastids!! Free drinks here!!

Baby got back! I cannot lie, you other brothers can't deny -

You've entered the twilight zone...another diminsion in the space time (HOW DO YOU SPELL THIS WORD here).

Be afraid, be very afraid. We should all be. Mothers, fathers, childless type A personalities, Lazyboy lovers (hmmm..an image appears), boys in boxers, ladies in lace, boys and girls in lace boxers, cardboard box home owners, old, young, ancient babies, baby seals, fat people, skinny bloggers who forget to eat, tall types, short shits, medium middle-of-the roadkill, rich, poor, white as trash, black as tar, think I may have gone too far...

McCain might win in November. Just imagine that.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I'm feelin' mellow.

Move me, Jeff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AratTMGrHaQ

And I'm bettin' more people play on number 4 than any other.

Me?

I'm thinkin'.

Listenin'.

Groovin'!

(sips a timid Light beer)

Good tunes so far.

But, where are the bastids? I'm looking forward to serving them up their drinks and tunes and stuff.

You were smoking dope when you wrote this, weren't you? C'mon, admit it!

You forgot Clearthinker's favorite: what're we gonna do when the oil's ALL GONE? He has an Armageddon in mind, I think.

I was listening to my almost namesake today. He and Walter were playing Kid Charlemagne:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylr2D4Pwn58

Also read this snippet from an essay, The Last Cars, by Dmitry Orlov:

However, the Singularity did manage prove its worth organizationally, by enabling the swift and universal introduction of so-called “driving plans.” Fuel could no longer be purchased directly, but only by entering into a contract with one of the two remaining oil companies: ExxonMobilShellBP and RosNeftGazProm. A driving plan entitled a driver to obtain a certain number of gallons per month from a set of approved gas stations. Unused gallons became “roll-over gallons,” which could be used during one of the subsequent months, and which eventually expired. A driving contract could be cancelled simply by going to the nearest hospital and donating a kidney – a brilliant arrangement that made cancellations quite rare.

The introduction of driving plans likewise did nothing to improve the situation with regard to the availability of transportation, which by the autumn of 2008 was bordering on the disastrous. To remedy the situation using a quick, Singularity-powered techno-fix, American auto companies teamed up to quickly design and mass-produce much smaller cars. In this, they recruited the help of the Shriners – America’s secret weapon when it comes to small car design. After a kick-off prayer breakfast, the executives and the Shriners poured out into the parking lot, where they torched three effigies of America’s previous failed attempts at small car design: a Ford Pinto, an AMC Gremlin, and a Chevy Vega.

Okay, I’ll give number one a shot.

Sorta.

I think it’s quite possible that we may be approaching the dawning of a new political consciousness.

It should be clear to the Republicans that the Age of the Power of Fear is dead on the table. After debilitating losses in November, expect the Republicans to move more to the center. For the most part, the Democrats are currently positioned smack dab in the center, so I’d say we’d see many move a shade left. Ergo, the center moves left. With the emergence of the netroots and its current political make-up (and because young people are, largely because of the war, entering their political lives as Democrats), I’d say we’re in for a slow, steady move by the voting public to the left. The parties --- both parties --- will react to that. At some point, this process will settle on the true center with most members of both parties snuggled quite closely against it. I expect that center to be considerably left of where we are now.

The results? A more progressive national politics defined less by party and more by actual stances on issues. The parties will likely to continue to exist, but the gulf between them will gradually evaporate. We’ll see increased bipartisanship. Real discourse. Real change. Who knows? Maybe even a return of true statesmanship and --- hallelujah! --- leadership!

With the political divide largely bridged, there would be no need for blowhards like Hannity, Limbaugh, etc. Even Olbermann would need to become less of whatever you think he is to survive. And, if we can change the media, we can change the game.

Truly.

Imagine a media that actually sees as part of its role to educate the masses about issues, necessarily driven to do so by the lack of blowhards at either end of a narrowing political spectrum.

Imagine less “Gotcha!” and more “Get it?”

It could happen.

Even sooner than you think.

Cue music!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEOkxRLzBf0

You're bored. So bored, that you write a Phd. paper here then you give people points for their responses to it. That's what's here, yes?

Are you talkin' to me? Cause I don't think you can handle it, Mr. Countman.

And if you don't like it & wanna go postal on me, I'll send you my address & you can come threaten me.

Ooh! I been tryna figure out where to spend a little time this summer for vacation. Maybe I'll check you out! Now, where do you live?? Canada?? (Please, please let it be B.C.--I love the Pacific Northwest!) It's hotter'n hell in my neck of the woods right now. Over 100 degrees F every day.

Your post is very intriguing. I'm kinda thinking about following up on your number 4, but I wanna run my idea past you to make sure I've understood what you're looking for.

Over the last coupla days, I've been absorbed in heated discussions about intolerance--inflicted by both religious zealots and atheists. It occurs to me that there's a great lack of understanding between people who have very different existential/spiritual lives. When this subject is approached, defensiveness kicks in; and our words to each other, instead of sinking into each other consciousness and providing enlightenment, end up bouncing off each other, futilely and wastefully rolling into a huge foul zone that becomes the scrap heap of our wasted time and effort.

The sad part is that offense is served up (often gratuitously) and it is taken, even when no real incompatibility exists between the parties in conflict. The real reason divisions develop and become entrenched is because the parties don't listen to each other. Really listening would require a willingness to throw aside defensiveness. Make oneself vulnerable. But instead we arm ourselves by filling our rhetorical quivers with verbal arrows crafted on the basis of our presumptions of "the other," and we stand ready to shoot them at the first sign that we're being attacked by someone who has malicious intent or uses intellectual or emotional dishonesty.

I have high hopes that the generations to succeed us evolve in the ability to listen fully and develop a skill (yes, I consider it a skill) for deeply understanding people who are very different. What would grow (in our more globalized awareness) is a genuine ability to tolerate, accept, and defend people who have been so mysterious and different for so long. I imagine the younger generations becoming true citizens of the world, who cultivate a confident self-knowledge but avoid self-absorption, and become less self-focused, more other-focused.

So do I need to create a story about this that kinda resembles the Exodus?? Cripes, man! That's a big project! And I guess it would have to be a collaborative effort, too. Right?

I'm trying to wrap my brain around what you envision for a finished product and how you might suggest a workable process.

Gotta admit it.

Shapeshifting was less boring.

Oh, and music. Hmmm. I can't think of anything to enhance a theme or anything.

Here's something I hope you'll really enjoy, though. It's a tune from my absolute favorite local Austin band called Soulhat. (Heh--the accompanying video is unrelated.)

Sorry, I don't thrill no bastids who ae dead on the road, even if I did declare my love for them on anothr thread. That was then, this is now.

Should I try to do some more? It's 25 or 6 to 4. But one is the loneliest number that you'll ever know. Me? I'm 32 flavors and then some, including:

Vanilla Ice.
Raspberry Beret.
Strawberry FIelds Forever.
Lime in the Coconut.
Parsley.
Sage.
Rosemary.
Thyme.
Mickey's Monkey.
Watermelon Crawl.
Red, Red Wine.
Flaming Lips.
The Lemon Song.

AND MORE!

One for the road.

He's late and he was great.

Listen for this line and realize this was recorded in 1976:

Work all day
Still can't pay
The price of gasoline ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44Rwu5yPUrc

What do ya means no monies after January?

Naw. not gone. Just taking countman's advice. Which, if I can boil it out, was.... Shut The F Up (once in a while.) So, seemed worth a try. It's a heck of a strategy, I'd say. Gotta try it more often. Damn the countman....

If you wander by late, give this a spin. Great song. Video's alright.

"North American Scum" - LCD Soundsystem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieT_lf9wK28

countman's messin' with me. Nope and nope. Maggie Thatcher was my most hated person in the 80's. Went back to England late-90's to do my little bit to help undo her nastiness. Annie Lennox frequented the same greasy spoon as I. She hung to herself, or with other famous people, also wanting to be incognito. Nada happened. Nice lady.

Well, 18-20. And it's fully tricked out. Leather, XM, moon roof ... everything but navigation. I love it. Rides better than any car I ever owned.

But when I bought it, I actually had a fully tricked out (navigation and all) Civic in mind. Then I saw this baby.

Needless to say, the wife was pissed.

But she loves it now.

I just noticed that this is #3 right now on the NYTimes most emailed list, a day after it was published. The print edition blurb is "Who's really the snide elite? W. and Rove or Obama?"

Love her or hate her, the reason this interests me is that she still knows how to spread campaign memes and spin a narrative that really resounds with people (one of the main reasons, mho, that Todd Gitlin has often been on her case in the past, because he knows her stuff spreads fast, and it can help or damage a campaign.)

I don't know how many people know her full history. I've been reading the NYT long enough to remember how she ended up being a columnist. It was by turning her first job at the paper, of an "on the bus" campaign reporter, into a whole new kind of gig. She's one of those responsible for the switch from reporting what the campaigns wanted reported (like in the 'good old days' when reporters tried to help Kennedy maintain his Camelot image) to tattling on what the real poop going on was, she'd tattle on what narratives they were attempting to spin. You can get that kind of info. 24/7 on blogs now, but back then, it was new and unusual, you couldn't get that kind of straight poop on what was going on in campaigns from anyone else. She gets blamed for always doing gossipy horse race, and spinning narratives on that, but the thing is, gossipy horse race is what she has always done and she's never presented herself as doing anything else. If there's no election going on, she does horse race narratives of jockeying for power.

In this one, I suspect she really caught a lot of readers with the "he's not Richie Rich, W. is." Pity she couldn't come up with that one in 2004, put the "guy I'd have a beer with" thing to death.

Drifter. You never showed up. When you read this, just remember that you and I are no longer friends, OK? And you say you are a real hobo. Pshaw...

Fish on your own, driftwood.

Hey quinncy-boy, I don't know ya, never talked to ya, but thanks for the gratuitous insult ya FUNNY bastid. Hugs all 'round. LOVING the affectation, I mean the affection.

Maybe I DID talk to ya & just didn't know it. Seems like you just showed up a few weeks ago knowin' everybody who's anybody in these parts. And riffing on yer pic & singin' the praises of Billy G & Des too. Reminds me of someone. The blue guy. Where'd he go?

Anyway, cool, nice meetin' ya. Guess I won't hold my breath for a beer from ya.

No, no, don't be sorry. I hear these kinds of concerns all the time in doing my job. You're not alone.

This is the real challenge. You have this big pot of Federal dollars that has to filter down to the States and then flow out to the Districts and the Schools in a way that will have positive impact in the classrooms and on the children that are supposed to be served by these policies. But, all of that ends up getting lost in the process. And thus - frustration. The process gets in the way.

And it's not just bureaucracy that causes problems - it's not just that things are slow and government is clumsy in responding to local needs - it's that politics gets in the way of children actually getting their needs met.

Here's the thing, though. And this is why I really love my job. You tend to think of government as being about the people who are elected to office. But, I find that a lot of what really matters in government happens within the agencies. By the bureaucrat who's been there for 30 or 40 years, through administration after administration. Who has his own political views, but keeps in mind his commitment to the children being served, regardless of which Party is in office and what pet legislation they happen to be pushing at the time.

I love it. Watching the Dept of Ed - at the Federal, State, and local levels, do their jobs in the NCLB environment during the last 8 years has been fascinating. And although I know that everyone who really cares about these kids is exhausted and frustrated, it's been really inspiring, too. I can't wait to see what happens under a new administration. Probably not revoluationary - but the change will be interesting to watch.

What happened while I was gone? Quinn got excited finally?

tag teaming....sometimes needs a whole cast.