Obama: Too Good to Be Black?

If there is any sea change in the current election, it is that for the first time, no one is running for sainthood. All of the candidates have public flaws. One is an adulterer, one is a former coke head, one is a loudmouth and the other shoots Bullwinkle's relatives and skins them.

You mean we are finally prepared to elect real human beings?

Wow! That is new.

On the humor front from the real culture wars, The Onion is still finding and exploiting those inconsistencies that are the mothers of our befuddlement.


Portrayal Of Obama As Elitist Hailed As Step Forward For African Americans

Amos Moses Is Gone: Jerry Reed

Among the pickers that are my personal heros is Jerry Reed. Most of you probably remember him as Burt Reynolds' sidekick in the Smokey and The Bandit movies, but for me he was first and always one of the hottest country rock players on a nylon string. He was good, he was funny, he was full of love and on fire. Jerry passed away last night and I don't know any details but I'm sad as sad can be about it. I usually post a video to accent some point I want to make on this blog, but this time, there are several posted just to remember what a fine fine picker this man was. Once again, God bless YouTube for making this stuff available.

Although better known for songs such as When You're Hot You're Hot and Amos Moses, the first song I ever heard him play was his first hit, A Thing Called Love.



Jerry was a fast hand but never better than when playing duets with Chet Atkins. Here's Jerry's Breakdown with Jerry and Chet Atkins.



Here is Jerry playing as he says, a song guitar players associate with him called The Claw.



And last, Jerry sings a Jim Croce song, and right well, an old man in a hat still doing it. Pick it, Amos!

God As Cave Painter vs The Sorceror's Apprentice

ABC claims that the image campaign for Palin is already lost given the recent US cover. As always, ABC claims we bitter typical small town types can't make up our own minds until we see what's on aisle eleven next to the mashed potatoes.

If anything, the Palin selection demonstrated that relying on emotional vectoring to steer the election is unreliable. Notice that in one day all of the effort to build up Obama leading to the Big Spectacle was undone and the poles switched to the other side. So I wouldn't count on that cover to change the outcomes. Expect a lot more of that kind of thing though.

Obama is insulated because... well.. umm... because he is.... ummm...a .... lawyer.

But the press only runs with what sells. Someone may find out that Obama's daughters sell their lunch for lipstick or something equally depraved.

The experience drum is loose at the rims. If there are two issues that will cause people to think, they will be:

1. EXTREME conservatism. It scares people when you tell them their children will be taught nonsense science and be unable to compete for a job with an Indian who was taught combinatorics at age ten while you were allowing your children to be told that considering all sides of a question means seriously considering the world was created 5000 years ago.

2. Leadership: at the end of every election cycle we are left with endorphin-addicts who fed on the hate generated by sites like Daily KOS. They have to do something with that energy so the question is can the winner actually redirect that destructive force to positive means or is he merely the Sorceror's Apprentice? See the history of the Sea Peoples in the Mediterranean. Now find a HUD map of the foreclosures in Detroit near the lake. These people will be on the move soon. Ask the Los Angeles police about the connections of uncontrolled immigration and organized crimes in the Bel Air area. Desperate people organize desperately.

Goals vs leadership. Bill Clinton had it exactly right. Are we in trouble? Yes we are. How shall we choose? I don't think that cover sells me against Palin, and that speech in Denver didn't sell me on Obama.

On to the debates. Maybe there will be an essential clue. It seems to be coming down to who can best lead and what are their achievable sustainable goals.

On Changes

Anyone familiar with my politics knows I've been against the Bush Company from Day One. I swore I'd never vote for a Republican. I'll probably keep that promise but by staying home on election day. A promise is a promise.

On the other hand, anyone familiar with this blog knows I won't vote for Barack Obama. He is the classic Southern-style Elmer Gantry with a Harvard degree in law and so far, a charismatic speaker without an ounce of credible experience to back up his lofty and inspiring but ultimately hollow promises. And a promise is a promise.

McCain's choice for VP is generating controversy, but it does signify change. I'm sure we'll hear more, but on the political blogs, all I am hearing is smear from the left. One pundit went so far as to accuse Governor Palin of being responsible for the condition of her youngest child.

Downs Syndrome is a chromosomal defect caused by extra genetic material (21st chromosome). The facts are all there. All Governor Palin did was decide to let the pregnancy proceed to term and then raise her child. If you have a problem with that, take it up with your pastor, your spouse, shrink or fellow Obamabot.

My son told me last night why he objects to Obama. He said, "They don't support him. They worship him. That's scary and wrong."

If we admire Sarah Palin, it is because in the face of hard choices, she made the right choices. If we don't admire Obama, perhaps like my son, we don't like what he represents, mindless adoration, subservience to the media machine, and in the end, a man who cannot choose between a pastor teaching hatred from the pulpit and his own political ambitions.

The Democrats put on a good show, but their smugness and superiority over the people who get up every day and go to work, who when faced with a lifetime of caring for a child that will almost certainly never be able to care for themselves completely in their life, choose life, that reveals the depth of the hypocrisy at the center of their campaign. These people are about The Great Get Even, and that is not something I can vote for.

Whatever else you think of Sarah Palin, she promised her child a life. A promise is a promise.

Maybe that is the change we need: elected officials who keep their promises.

Palin

Palin is the perfect contrast to Obama. She is honest, smart, articulate, and passionate while still being funny.

McCain has an ace: Marge Simpson as America's first female vice-president.

Hillary wouldn't give them Mom. Palin will.

Wow! Go Navy!

So then the question is, can she be commander in chief?

At my house, that rank is held by a woman. Yes. She probably can.
Her majesty's a pretty nice girl.

:-)

The Shooting In Little Rock

The shooting in Little Rock is about to erupt into Spy vs Spy before the facts are in.

Take note:

Quit thinking two-dimensions. Think in terms of dynamic statistical distributions. For any large polytropic sample, there will be edge cases in every dimension or trope. As the stress increases marginalizing some members of the population, they will exhibit ever more extreme behaviors in an attempt to reassert control. Both sides have been building with extremes, but it is the left that has the most diverse coalitions which are fragile.

That doesn't mean the left is the source. It means it is contributing the most stress to the overall polytrope.

McVey was far right. Oswald was far left. There is no reliable predictor of where it comes from just that it will come.

Culture and Politics and Who Is Worth Watching

I read blogs that decry the current state of popular culture asking the question, why were artists in the 1960s and 70s so much more politically aware, expressive, and yes, powerful? Has our modern culture become deadened? Are musicians just in it for the bucks? Are we that shallow?

Yes. Yes. and Yes.

And No.

One, the retrospective analysis of the 1960s like retrospective analysis of the post-Civil War era relies too much on self-reflection. The yearning for days gone by is far too colorful a filter.

Two, when looking back and comparing, we try to compare apples with apples and sometimes the present is not a season for apples. A common thread among these bloggers yearning for a collective sigh is they are Bob Dylan fans and covertly, fans of Paul Winchell. They keep looking for the next Howdy Doody with a guitar and not finding him, they claim no one is trying hard enough.

Perhaps they are looking in the wrong place. Art forms shift in their dominant power over a society at different times. Music, particularly rock and blues and their bastard children in pop, is largely mined out. The trestles are still running, the water is still being drained from the tunnels, but for the most part, the stripping of cultural landscapes to feed the pop music conveyor belts has exhausted most of the rich veins.

On the other hand, the comedy circuit has been doing very good work for at least a decade and a half. It may be the case that the mavens of zeitgeist despair lack the one quality they need to see where art is indeed reflecting society: they are unable to laugh at themselves. It just doesn't fit their self-image as much as despair and the societal loathing that allows them to lift themselves above the common masses.

Thus, they fail to see they are exactly the kinds of people the people they admired from the Sixties abhorred. The logic of time is that it only comes once. The logic of culture and politics is that we can't tell what role history will assign to us because we can't be out of a time and in it at the same time.

Rubber Dolly

We seldom can share our memories without the pain of what is unrecoverable in our lives. Sometimes when people ask me about my family, I tell them "We are the Darlings from the Andy Griffith Show" and they think I'm joking.

Here is an intimate glimpse of my life growing up playing the old songs with my Dad and brothers. That's my younger brother, Mike, on the mandolin, brother Chuck with the gray hair on rhythm guitar, and myself next to him. Dad of course, is the fiddler.

As Dad died in the next room, my brothers and I went into the little bedroom you see here and played his favorites for two hours. When we stopped, he passed. It seems right.

Here are the Bullard's playing "Rubber Dolly".

Laughter IS The Best Medicine

This gets funnier and funnier. The world is ending because of a video. Last time it was a magazine cover. When will it ever end? Scandalous!

Look folks, all week you argued like crazy people about the race card, and you know racism is like herpes: no one really wants to talk about it or give to it anyone else. It's a bummer.

But a good joke where lots of people laugh and Friday comes easy? That is pure gold. So thanks! Laughter is the best medicine as Reader's Digest said.

Have a good weekend!!

Sibelius: My First Published Score

Just a note to those who express interest in my musical scores. I put the first one up at Sibelius.com today. You can find "Epiphany" there under "Claude Bullard" (defaults to my first name).

Epiphany was originally an instrumental piece for the University in Perth (Western Australia) 3D web world project headed up by Chris Thorne who commissioned the piece. (Thanks Chris and OZ!!) I used the funds to buy Sibelius V. The score is a choral version with lyrics and orchestration I wrote at my wife's request for a piece for her ladies section at Hazel Green United Methodist.

A Proper Ettiquette for Adultery

jane sez:

I would like to finally have a POTUS that I can be proud of.

Me too. Unfortunately I'm stuck with these turkeys.

I can remember being in Paris during the whole Bill and Monica thing and my host saying that French politicans have mistresses, but are smarter than to mess with plump little girls and are too discreet to get caught. UGH.

I guess we have a lot to learn from the French about the proper etiquette for adultery. Here, cuckolded wives have to stand next to their husbands at the press conference. In France, wives stand next to the mistresses at the funerals of their husbands.

Flip Flop and Splish Splash

Predictably, Obama is trying to move to the center and the volatile elements of his coalition are angry. The agent of change is seen to be the agent of the same old same old. Obama is for Obama.

Big surprise. Yawn.

Is he flip flopping? There is a difference between changing one's mind in light of new evidence and doing it to follow polling numbers.

Take the changes individually and ask what new evidence caused his reconsideration. If he replies that a change signifies leadership, in other words, he defends his character but does not present new evidence, he is flip flopping.

Whoda believed Obama could make Dick Cheney look like a man of integrity and character? Sometimes it really is a well-scrubbed, well-polished act but that is all it is.

Now we have the New Yorker page. Liberals go crazy. Yawn.

Some complain "The satire is lost on average folks." and that they will believe it.

How many of them are reading New Yorker? Of course the right wingers will use it to make their case and so will the left wingers.

That's how satire works. People are up in arms because it is Obama and everyone knows he needs to be cuddled and coddled. And after that, they still expect us to vote for him?

Cluetrain: we don't care about white guilt. We don't feel guilty. In fact, the longer this goes on, the less guilt there is to be found. THAT is the cost of this campaign. It isn't making us more aware. It is desensitizing us not because we are haters but because we aren't hypocrites.

Sheesh. They said nothing about Hillary's picture on a urinal target and dozens of other tasteless displays. The elite needs to figure out another way to play Spy vs Spy because no one really cares what that cover means. They want to know how to keep themselves on the road at $4 a gallon and if their money is still IN the bank.

Annie Getcher Gun

The question is did Obama flip-flop on his position on the right to bear arms in the case of the District of Columbia law that prohibited handguns. The answer is that based on his prior statements that this was constitutional law, yes he did.

But not so fast.

"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." Second Amendment of the US Constitution

Try to find the bit that says individuals have the right to own guns.

Try to find the bit that says a State or municipality can't pass laws about the kinds and types of arms that an individual can bear.

Try to find the bit that says this applies to women as well as men.

Try to find the bit that says a felon can't bear arms.

Try to find the bit that says deranged lunatics can't bear arms.

Try to find the bit that elaborates individual vs States rights.

Obama's statement that the new Supreme Court ruling striking down the DC law is useful guidance is correct. The Court did its job. Trying to determine if this makes sense in an era of ubiquitous unregistered Uzis and Glocks is an altogether different problem. That is the essence of Obama's dilemma or really any thinking person with an understanding of the implications of open borders and a society with a wide chasm between haves and have nots.

Understanding constitutional law is not the problem. Understanding the role of the executive in context of the oath of office in real world events is.

Guidance is not always given and there isn't enough time to ask for it in some situations. Caveat emptor.

Shaq Attack

Some days are just more interesting than others at my job. Really... my boss is the master of schwooze. Shaquille O'Neal was here a few minutes ago to meet with us. That's my programming team standing out front. They're the best crew I've sailed with in many a moon. In case you can't tell, Shaq is on the back row with his hand on the ugly guy with the glasses and thinning hair.

The difference in this job and my last job is simply astounding.

Very Old Possum Miss

The seal said "Vero Possumus"

The segull squealed, "Very old possum miss?"

The turtles exclaimed, "Not nice. Possums have rights too."

(a) Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

In case we need to impeach him later.

Just Keep Saying It Until They Believe It

Michelle Obama goes on The View to be one of the girls. She praises Hillary, talks about sexism, tries to make nice. This is the political makeover a very highly paid PR firm is putting together.

Yet this is now and this is what she was saying a short time ago.

I don't mind the Obama's being blatant hypocrites. I mind them doing that while their supporters are still engaged in destroying Hillary Clinton to break that 18 million voter bloc Clinton controls. The Obama's believe possibly rightly that Goebbels was right: just keep saying it until they believe it.

Meanwhile the Obama campaign moved two women wearing hijabs from behind the platform for the appearance with Al Gore. This kind of staging has occurred before and Obama apologizes afterwards, but his campaign continues the practice so it isn't something he can honestly say he isn't aware of. "All for the show, ya no", as Mick Jagger said. His supporters defend it by saying Fox would have a field day with the photos. And they are right. On the other hand, courage is doing the thing that is dangerous because it is the right thing to do.

He is the rock candidate alright. Or as Reverend Wright said, "Just a politician." Whatever. This isn't change anyone with half a brain can believe in.

Obama isn't about change or hope or us. Obama is about Obama. That's what rock stars do... or candidates for the job anyway.

Come The Day

I've forgotten much about the music that affected me in the early days. Going from being a kid playing folk in the churches in the 1960s to the boy playing pop in the restaurants in the 1970s to the man playing rock/blues/jazz in the 80s to originals in the 90s, and now, back to folk, one rediscovers the roots and some surprises.

1960s folk was not just protest music. Grounded in the Hootenannies of the late 50s, it was very spiritual. Gospel is as much the tap root of 1960s folk and pop ever since. We tend to forget that as we have become dance-centric. Now that I'm past the time I really need or want to play in the loud bands, I am enjoying rediscovering these roots and wondering how this will affect my songwriting. The influence has always been there with different emphasis but as my son pointed out when I was orchestrating "Fee Fi Fo Fum" for the children's play, "Dad, that's really the Mamas and the Papas soundwise" and he was right.

Come the day, I find I want these sounds back in my life. Perhaps as a fan once noted about "Sam (for Liz)", we come to an age where we need a little innocence back.

More Seekers... Judith Durham is medicine to the wounds.

A World of Our Own

I read at YouTube this song became a gay/lesbian anthem.

Excellent!! Songs of freedom are for everybody!!

Free The Slaves

If you are one of the women who bought into the Obamalosi campaign, remember that the only reason he is the Democratic nominee is because the media was allowed to stomp on his competition while giving him a free ride.

If you don't get that, come Independence Day, be sure to clean house, wash dishes, iron shirts and all that. Free slaves is an oxymoron.

The Devil In The Details

An opinion piece worth reading...

There are wars and rumors of wars. The devil is in the details.