Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch, finch, beech
Democracy for NH
Live Free or Die
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Granite State Progress
Seacoast for Change
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
Tomorrow's Progressives
Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Krauss
Landrigan
Lawson
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Primary Wire
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes
Welch
Campaigns, Et Alia.
Paul Hodes
Carol Shea-Porter
Ann McLane Kuster
John Lynch
Jennifer Daler
ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC
National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
The Next Hurrah
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo
50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
"What I want to know, what I want to know, is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?
What I want to know, is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting tax cuts which have bankrupted this country and given us the largest deficit in the history of the United States?"
The great thing about primaries is that they give people choices. Those choices then inform the future of the party and its principles. If that choice hadn't been around in 2003 after my getting kicked in the stomach, I probably would've just declared a pox on both houses and walked away, not having had much foreknowledge in what the parties stood for.
(Update by Mike: Adding Vid embed) The speech that motivated me to pay attention and get involved. Goosebumps start at the 30 second mark.
In the 90's I read with great interest Robert Byrd's history of the Roman Republic, with its many comparisons to the American system of checks and balances, particularly those on the executive.
Yet in, 2003, the most recent, greatest test of that system, I was not there for Senator Byrd when he cried out for us to listen:
I hope what I have learned from Robert Byrd will keep me from erring so badly again.
Adding: Should be fun times today for the Right Wing Wurlitzer in using Byrd's intolerant past against his current legacy.
Nothing like a cool, clear spring in summer (from Horace's Ode III.13):
te flagrantis atrox hora Caniculae
nescit tangere, tu frigus amabile
fessis vomere tauris
praebes et pecori vago.
And with none of the graceful architecture and juxtaposition of the Latin order:
The cruel season of the blazing Dog Star
doesn't know how to touch you. You provide a pleasing cold
to oxen tired from the plow
and to the wandering flock.
I've embedded this before, so forgive the repetition. But I stumbled on it last night, and I think it might just be my all-time fav YouTube:
Imagine Fred Rogers' reaction to what passes for children's TeeVee commercial programming today.
This is an Open Thread.
UPDATE: A remarkably insightful observation from the comments:
Another strange thing here is that the senator is actually receptive to Mr. Roger's remarks. His questions are not posed to provide soundbites but to offer an exchange, to draw on the expertise of the witness. And upon hearing that expertise, his opinion is shaped and transformed. We really don't see this anymore; we have ritual instead of government, acting instead of action.
Two interesting reflections on Old and New Media have cropped up - both well worth a read.
First, Scott Brooks' farewell to the UL and the decline of local coverage:
I can think of dozens of times over the last two and a half years when officials were meeting in City Hall and I was the only one in the gallery.
And secondly, Rogert Ebert totally getting it about the nature of New Media's impact on his field.
This is a golden age for film criticism. Never before have more critics written more or better words for more readers about more films. But already you are ahead of me, and know this is because of the internet.
...Film criticism is still a profession, but it's no longer an occupation. You can't make any money at it. This provides an opportunity for those who care about movies and enjoy expressing themselves. Anyone with access to a computer need only to use free blogware and set up in business.
This is an Open Thread. Smack in the middle of a digital revolution, the outcome of which is unclear.
We see the one less traveled by great nations. I can imagine the end of this century quite differently. I imagine the great Appalachian Mountains in all their beauty, the coal operators long gone and the people again making a thousand good uses of the bounty of nature. I can imagine great arrays of solar cells and all the newer energy technology, harvesting the energy we need here at home from the natural processes of nature. I can imagine a people who look to their children as the nation's greatest resource, and they nurture them with an imaginative and engaging education and a perfection of health care. I can imagine a nation where the freedom and creativity of the people bloom in a daily display of great joy and abundance.
The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth, have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. In the history of the earth hitherto the largest and most stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler largeness and stir. Here at last is something in the doings of man that corresponds with the broadcast doings of the day and night. Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations. Here is action untied from strings necessarily blind to particulars and details magnificently moving in vast masses. Here is the hospitality which forever indicates heroes...
Pinsky in Slate takes a look at The Poet to see if he's a modernist or not. There was a time I too was interested in such questions.
He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For a sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
...And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
...Were music enough for him, for one.
These days I tend to think Frost's songs were guided more by the sound of words and the sight of what those words described than any particular genre or movement, but that's because New Hampshire's Poet and Rome's Poet occupy the same spot in my head when I read them.
