Frank Zappa Bust At Highlandtown Library

Bust to be erected at the Southeast Anchor Library

The Baltimore Sun reports that the bust of Frank Zappa given to the city of Baltimore by the Zappa by a Zappa fan club in Vilnius Lithuania will be placed at the Southeast Anchor Library in Highlandtown.  This is the new branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library opened this year. Frank Zappa,  a Baltimore native, was a controversial musician  and composer. Comments on the Sun website show that the controversy is not over yet. Zappa was a social libertarian, whose defense of the first amendment was a defense against the conservative nanny state, which wants to order the lives of individuals according to it’s own restrictive set of rules.

 

The Secret of Happiness is . . .

“low expectations.”

Barry Schwartz, psychologist and Swarthmore College professor’s compelling argument for limited choices. Did you ever notice that poor people seem to be happier than rich ones? Merry Christmas.

 

Two TED Videos

Here are a couple of “lectures” from a TED conference that are worth your time. In the first Benjamin Zander will attempt to show you that, yes, you really do love classical music. He  will also teach you something about teaching, how to do it, why to do it and how to know if you are doing it right.

 

Evelyn Glennie will then teach you how to listen. Did I mention that she is deaf?

 

 

Good Googly Moogly

Morton Salt girl grows up.

I haven’t posted anything on this blog in six months and I find I have 40 or 50 hits a day still. The world has been going to hell in a hand basket without my wisdom and guidance, too.

So how are you people out there? Everyone still employed?

 

“They’re Navy SEALS”

Vice President Joe Biden gave a speech this weekend on a US Navy ship. Fortunately the “Mission Accomplished” banner was nowhere to be seen, however in his comments he told a story about something that Admiral Mullen, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a secret, hush hush meeting with the President. “I can’t tell you the event because it’s classified, but I can tell you what happened,” the V.P. said.

You can’t tell us that it was about the recent pirate hostage rescue, Joe? How come?

 

Club for Growth Causes Republican Shrinkage

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter’s announcement Tuesday that he is abandoning the Republican Party is the latest sign of a shift in the political wind. GOP spokesmen have been hard at work painting Specter as a political opportunist, switching to the Democratic Party in order to avoid losing the coming Republican Primary to a well funded, more “conservative” opponent, Pat Toomey, head of the Club for Growth. I would call it self defense.

The Club for Growth is, or has, a PAC, which supports Republican candidates for Congress. Here is a quote from the Club for Growth website “The primary tactic of the separate Club for Growth PAC is to provide financial support from Club members to viable pro-growth candidates to Congress, particularly in Republican primaries.” The most important part of that statement is “particularly in Republican primaries.” In fact what the Club for Growth does is to target Republicans in Congress that do not follow their hard line anti tax, anti regulation, leave the driving to us, pro big business posture. The Club for Growth is helping to destroy the Republican Party by driving out moderates.

Often, after a Club for Growth candidate wins a primary, the Democrat wins the general election. Case in point, my own Congressman, Wayne Gilchrest. After seventeen terms in office, as a very popular Congressman, he was beaten in the primary by a Club for Growth supported opponent, State Senator Andy Harris. My new Congressman is Democrat, Frank Kratovil. Andy Harris remains in the Maryland State Senate. It is fairly easy for a well funded candidate to torpedo a popular moderate Republican, when only Republican voters are involved, but much harder to sell a right wing agenda to the general public, which is not in tune with the Club for Growth’s extreme pro business political philosophy.

Removing moderate Republicans from office and replacing them with Democrats causes the Republican Party to become more narrow in it’s focus and obviously smaller. In the next couple of years I predict we will see more self defense defections like Specter’s. Maine’s Olympia Snow could well be next.

 

Why Is David Plouffe Still Asking Me For Money?

I got another one this morning, an email from David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s campaign manager, asking for a donation. Plouffe’s email says that it is to help overcome the negative messages of those defenders of the status quo who are calling for Obama to fail. I guess he means Rush.

Excuse me, but I was under the impression that President Obama had the resources of the entire executive branch of the U.S. government at his disposal. Why does he need another $25 from me? Come 2011, 2012 I will be ready to donate to his reelection campaign, assuming he continues to have policies that I approve of. I’m not donating to operating budget of the White House.

I see, according to the omniscient Wikipedia, that Plouffe does not even have a job with the Obama White Hose. He’s writing a book about the campaign. Do I get a copy of the book for my $25?

 

Is Bacon Pork?

Photo from LIFE Magazine archive.

On Thursday, President Obama signed the long delayed Omnibus Spending Bill. He also said that he was going to do something to control earmarks in the future. Congress had attached some 8,000 earmarks in the bill. Each earmark an example of Congresspeople and Senators bringing home the bacon to their respective districts, or of the other guy’s pork barrel spending. John McCain was quite upset that the President signed this pork laden bill, which enables the Federal Government to continue operating, which the last Congress was unable to pass at all. I guess he should have just shut the Government down instead.

When is an earmark bacon and when is it pork? The total cost of the earmarks is less than 2% of the total spending bill. Each of them is for a project that a Congressperson or a Senator asked for in order to benefit that Congresspersons constituents. They go back to their districts and brag about the fine projects that will help the people of their districts, providing much needed jobs, infrastructure or whatever. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. They talk trash about their neighbor’s pork even while they are bragging on their own bacon. Hey, if it smells like bacon it came from a pig. Bacon and pork are indistinguishable.

We can make fun of studies of the sleeping habits of bears in Montana, overhead projectors in Illinois or fish waste processing plants in Mississippi but when you look at individual projects they do seem to be beneficial and not as outlandish as their critics pretend. Maybe the Federal Government should get out of the business of funding school construction, funding research, highway building and job creation. Arizona is doing without, since John McCain refuses to play the game . . . er, he does refuse to bring earmark money to Arizona right?

President Obama wants to bring more transparency to the earmark process but not to eliminate them. He would like to see all earmarks published on a website with the names of their Congressional sponsors attached. It will be interesting to see how that works for him. Congresspeople and Senators loves them some earmarks. They don’t care to have a lot of people looking over their shoulders, though.

 

Rush Rushes to Defend Bobby Jindal

Well I guess people didn’t like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s response to President Obama’s address last night to a joint session of Congress, at least that’s what I hear. People seemed to think that there was something lacking in his style or his presentation. Now I watched most of Gov. Jindal’s response last night, until I grew bored with the repetition of tired themes like walking to school in a Louisiana blizzard ten miles uphill both ways with a bucket of milk from the family farm in one hand and a basket of eggs in the other, to pay the tuition for his private education because his family refused to accept a handout from the public schools. I finally turned it off and went to bed, knowing that the liberal media would fill me in in the morning.

One person has stood by Bobby Jindal, though. Good old Rush, he knows a good Republican when he sees one. Bobby is colorful and young and has that je ne sais quoi about him that just might be the thing to bring the party Rushing back. I love a good logical argument, devoid of ad hominem attacks. You can always count on Rush to be precise, logical and factual. Give him a listen, you might learn something.

P.S. Another defender of the good Governor is my good conservative friend Jon Swift.

 

Carnival of maryland #53 Has Been Posted

This time the host is The Political Octagon, a blog with more than a slight rightward tilt. That’s OK, this is America where one blog is just as good as another, if not a darn sight better, even with one leg shorter than the other.

The photo at left comes from that other carnaval that they have down in Rio this time of year. For some reason pictures like this increase my blog traffic. No idea why.