Music of the Day: Bob Baldwin, Good Morning Love

My back is killing me and that means I’m in a bad mood; not even ice is helping, so I must have tweaked the back while mashing a few tennis balls the day after my birthday, either that or my back is wrecked from having slashed at various weeds around the ranch over the weekend. This isn’t good, but I’m hoping it will be better, or that it will just “go away” in a couple of days.

I think the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Obama, is hoping that someone named Ludacris will “go away” in the near future, too. Mr. Ludacris is described as a “rap artist,” which is better than, say, “rap musician” because as even rappers have acknowledged, rap isn’t music—although, honestly, what constitutes the “art” or “artistic” part of rap remains a mystery to me, even at this late date. Anyway, Mr. Ludacris has apparently written a rap “song” (if that’s the right term) lauding Mr. Obama and his candidacy, and “dissing” (if that’s the right term) Mrs. Clinton (“b**ch”) and Mr. McCain (who, according to the “song” ought to be “paralyzed”). Yeah, that’s art for ya’ and it certainly transcends any previous artistic endeavors by Beethoven or Copeland or Louis Armstrong or even Snoop (who by now must be terribly passé).

Aside from the obvious fact that “dissing” Mrs. Clinton at this point in time is something of a late hit out of bounds, a bit of unnecessary piling on (to double up on the football metaphor), the “song” by Mr. Ludacris, and its “lyrics” (if that’s the right term) might not be the best idea for Mr. Obama’s new campaign theme to be used at the Denver convention. Some mouthpiece/flak-catcher in his campaign organization mouthed the right words about how this “song” didn’t really meet Mr. Obama’s standards for family- and child-friendly “music,” but this person immediately did a CYA maneuver and called Mr. Ludacris “a talented individual,” based, I guess, on some of his previous “songs” and “art.”

I actually tried to listen to this “song,” but after about two minutes I came to the realization that I would rather have all of my intestines slowly ripped out, without the benefit of any anesthesia, by insane, drunken wolverines with a powerful blood-lust, rather than hear any more of this “music.”

Oh yes, the man, Ludacris, is practically oozing “talent,” and he’s showing his much-admired-by-the-Obama-campaign acumen for “business,” but now, I have to stop because it’s time for Max the Wonder Dog to go outside so that he can make use of his special scatological talent and do HIS business, which is not unlike the “talent” put on display by Mr. Ludacris.

Enjoy your day, readers!

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Stevie Ray Vaughn, Cold Shot

Go ahead, read this; it's by Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard.

Sweet Nothings
A close reading of The Speech.
08/04/2008, Volume 013, Issue 44

"Anyone who wants to understand Barack Obama would do well to stay away from the radio and the TV. Obama is a theatrical presence. That's what it means to be "charismatic": To an unnerving degree his appeal relies on sight and sound rather than sense. Better, in my opinion, to stick to the printed word. On paper (or the computer screen) his words can be thought about and chewed over. You can understand him at your own pace, undistracted by that rich baritone, the regal bearing, the excellent drape of his Burberry suits.

The printed word has its problems too, of course. You really need to be on your toes if you're going to get anything out of a newspaper's election coverage. You've got to tune your ear to euphemism and translate as you go. So last Friday, having missed the television broadcasts of Obama's speech in Berlin the day before, I read the Washington Post with a cocked ear, and when I saw that the speech was described as "broadly thematic" and "sober and serious" I knew exactly what it meant: a boring speech full of blah blah blah.

And so it was. In the Post as elsewhere, as much coverage was devoted to the speech's setting--the sprawling crowds and the dramatic backdrop and the tingling sense of anticipation--as to the speech itself. The paper didn't even bother to print verbatim excerpts, as it usually does with a big-time address. The occasion had been taken as an invitation to deliver a summary of Obama's view of America's role in the world. When his handlers decided to schedule a speech in Berlin, they teed up comparisons with the portentous speeches that Presidents Kennedy and Reagan had delivered there.

Instead, in the heart of Europe, before 200,000 breathless admirers, Obama pulled himself up to his full height, lifted his chin, unlimbered those eloquent hands, and said nothing at all.

Obama's "nothing" is sometimes interesting anyway; there are pointers in the vacuousness, as I saw when I read the full text on his campaign's website. He began the speech, as he often does, with a summary of his own life history, which elided into a history of the Cold War--mixing the two together, with his customary grandiosity. The history was nicely written up but not news. And the lesson he drew from it was, to be kind, idiosyncratic: The West's victory in the Cold War, he said, proved that "there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

This will come as a surprise to anyone who lived through the Cold War or has even read about it. The thing about wars, even cold ones, is that the world doesn't stand as one; that's why there's a war. And in the Cold War the Soviet side was as united as the West; more so, probably. Left out of Obama's history was any mention of the ferocious demonstrations against the United States in the streets of Paris and West Berlin during the 1960s and 1980s, when American presidents were routinely depicted as priapic cowboys and psychopaths. Probably a fair number of the older members of Obama's audience had been hoisting those banners themselves 25 years ago.

So if "standing as one" didn't win the Cold War, what did? Obama didn't stop to answer, since his own reading of history seems to deny the premise of the question. Instead he hustled on to the present moment. Now, he said, "we are called upon again." To do what? Presumably to stand as one all over again, in the face of "new promise and new peril." Included in the latter are terrorism, global warming, and nuclear proliferation. But those perils aren't the worst of it. "The greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another."

The sentence is the heart of the speech and an instance of Obama's big weakness--his preference for the rhetorical flourish over a realistic account of things as they are. Most politicians share the weakness, and the preference has proved wildly attractive to Obama's supporters. But think it through: "New walls to divide us" is just a metaphor, a trope. A trope can't be the "greatest danger of all." A terrorist setting off a nuclear bomb in London--that's a danger. A revolution in Islamabad--that's a danger. A figure of speech is just a figure of speech.

And what will Obama have us do to avoid those nonmetaphorical dangers? He declined to get specific, aside from urging us to "answer the call." Floating along on a cloud of metaphor and generality allows Obama to do what he wants to do, in the Berlin speech and elsewhere. As a public figure he means to rise above any hint of conflict, and to suggest that problems and dangers dissolve when we "come together." And coming together, "standing as one," is simply the logical outcome of every participant's correctly understanding his best interest. What could be more reasonable?

It doesn't matter that human affairs never work out this way, no more in domestic politics than in foreign policy. The assumption that they do is what lends so many of Obama's utterances their greeting-card simplicity and appeal. The effect is almost soporific: "America cannot turn inward," he says. Check. "Now is the time to build new bridges." All set to go. "We must defeat terror." True dat. "Every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday." Roger. "We must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East." Go ahead: Argue.

To pump a little vigor into his limp sentiments, Obama attached them to a hypnotic refrain. "This is the moment," he said in Berlin, repeatedly. But where's the urgency come from? What's the rush? In the long train of platitudes he suggested no discrete, definable policy that needed to be adopted urgently, beyond his call to unity, which isn't a policy but an aspiration. You get the idea that the urgency doesn't arise from an assessment of reality but from a rhetorical need. He's got to keep the folks on their toes somehow.

Obama couldn't come to Berlin and deliver a speech full of portent, as Reagan and Kennedy did before him, and as his publicists suggested he might. For all the talk about this being our time and us being the people, Obama shows no sign of really believing we live in portentous times. This is surely part of his appeal. It's not surprising that when he came to Berlin and said nothing at all, none of his admirers seemed disappointed. After eight years of overheated history, nothing comes as a relief."

Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

'Nuff said.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM'S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Fourplay, Bali Run

The Olympics will soon be upon us; regular readers here already know that Average Joe will NOT be watching the Olympic Games because they’re being held, once again, in a nation with, at best, an authoritarian government or, at worst, a totalitarian government that keeps its own people under pretty damned strict control, if not outright oppressive control. The Chinese government is no friend of liberty. In previous posts here I’ve made reference to silly people in California who think that saving water creatures is more important than the U.S. Navy practicing SONAR defensive measures off the California coast—some readers may have thought I was merely being unreasonable in my protestations about the goofiness of the California Coastal Commission, but a recent piece about the nature of the Chinese challenge to freedom and liberty, by Mark Helprin, Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute, in the Claremont Review of Books (Volume VIII, Number 3, Summer 2008, page 41) reads thusly:

“As China rises rapidly from a small base and the United States crawls ahead relative to a large one, eventually the twain shall meet. We have already partially ceded the field to China and a resurgent Russia by contenting ourselves with the fallacy that never again shall we have to fight large, technological militaries; and by making the pathetic bet that, if we do, we can prevail with our extraordinary and rather delicate new weapons in obviously, patently, and painfully insufficient numbers.

For example, the call for the F-22, the world's most capable air dominance aircraft (although it will forfeit that title during the latter part of its museum-bait service life) was reduced over approximately a ten-year period from 648, to 339, to 183. This means that, exclusive of maintenance, training, and test, roughly 125 aircraft will be available to cover the entire world. China, India, and Russia are narrowing the distance between their first-line fighters and ours, even the F-22, and they will build theirs in greater numbers. The same story is repeated without relief throughout our diminished air echelons, shrinking fleets, and ground forces that have been turned from heavy battle to nation-building and counter-insurgency, the work not of an army but of a gendarmerie.

This may be illustrated by the following: in 1989, the U.S. had a wondrous anti-submarine-warfare establishment, and 133 submarines to China's 93. Today, the U.S. has 71 submarines to China's 62, and for almost 20 years has allowed anti-submarine-warfare to wither on the vine. To balance the potential of the largely coastal Chinese submarine fleet, the United States must revive its anti-submarine-warfare capacity by, inter alia, practice in our own territorial waters, as other coasts belong to other nations. But whereas the passion in China is to "let the civil support the military," including building the People's Liberation Army Navy, the passion in this country is to protect sea mammals from sonar, thus successfully blocking coastal anti-submarine-warfare training.”

That’s just a small excerpt from an excellent article you can find on-line by using the link to the right for the Claremont Review of Books. And I hate to tell you that I told you so, but I told you so—our coastal defenses are not what they should be, thanks in part to groups like the California Coastal Commission. So, what’s it gonna’ be—protecting the cute little fishes and dolphins and the pretty whales or saving lives (and, more specifically, American lives) if some really bad people decide, again, to attack the United States? The answer to that question lies in the future, and assuming that we’re all still here to learn the answer, I’ll do my best to keep you posted. By the way, I like cute little fishes and dolphins and pretty whales and sea turtles and all other sea creatures (except squid—they taste terrible), but I think I like Americans, even Californians, mo’ better.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Dave Boswell, Café Bohemia.

Sunday was my birthday. See above. Do the math.

It was a fun day once MLB (My Lovely Bride) got the blender fired up—she makes good medicine in the form of the world’s best margaritas and I needed the medicine on Sunday. I was struggling with some kind of weird, inexplicable stomach-thing that had me feeling puny and cranky all day. But that first dose of Dr. P’s Massive Margaritas really helped; dose numbers two and three didn’t hurt, either. Neither did Donna G’s killer margarita cake, which we kept outside for safekeeping until the time was right. Steve brought a nice dessert wine, which disappeared after the cake was consumed. By bedtime I no longer cared if my stomach was doing weird things or not—I was glad to be alive, amongst friends, and well medicated. Honestly, I think the weirdness came about because of an overdose of, and I know this is going to sound silly, bran—as in raisin bran, which I consumed for three or four consecutive mornings and which I will now eschew for a few days until I get right again.

The other good news was that I heard from all of our wonderful offspring over the course of the weekend and all are well—new jobs for some, new classes for others, big changes in the offing for all four, and good vibes comin’ from them to me. When is the last time you read, or heard, someone say something about good “vibes?”

Public, but badly belated, birthday greetings to RAP out there in Arkansas—we were in Hawaii, dude, when your b-day rolled around and my ancient coal-fired cell phone couldn’t locate a signal with both hands, so I didn’t call ya’. Anyway, hope you had a great day on 7/11/08!

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Earl Klugh, Frisky Biscuits

Our bi-annual trip to America’s most southern state has come and gone; we had two fantastic weeks with family and friends on the island of Kauai and we arrived back home a few days ago. I had hoped to do some blogging while away, but my ol’ laptop was too ancient to use the wireless system where we stayed, so I had to forego the business of writing while on the “road.” No matter; we had daily access to something called “Times Digest,” which is a synoptic version of the New York Times. As regular readers of Average Joe might suspect, I do not ordinarily read the New York Times, which is undoubtedly the most biased newspaper in the land (which might account, in part, for its recent horrific profit report), although it has some close rivals in the race to the bottom of that particular heap.

Anyway, I snagged four copies of the “Times Digest” to peruse over the course of our two week stay away from home; for the most part we only watched local news on the island, so we have been out of the national news loop for half a month. Interestingly, we saw only political placards for local candidates—there wasn’t a single McCain sign or bumper sticker to be seen, which isn’t that surprising given Hawaii’s generally liberal voting history. But just an interestingly, we didn’t see a single Obama sign or bumper sticker, either; frankly, I was a little shocked by this, as I expected to see lots of evidence of support for the Senator from Illinois.

I’m not sure why this was the case—could it be that folks who are largely dependent on tourist dollars are more reluctant to announce a liking for a candidate who has made it plain that he intends to tax the hell out of the kinds of people who might visit Kauai for vacation and, despite the local disclaimers that things were still good in the tourist business, it was clear from the lack of traffic on the island, and the closure of stores that have been in business for more than a decade, that tourism is down on Kauai. One resident confirmed in a brief conversation that investments in various stalled or cancelled development projects on the island were down; he further stated that he thought next year would be worse because it has become much more expensive to travel to Kauai because of fuel costs for airline companies.

As for the “Times Digest,” it provided more or less exactly what I expected—editorials bashing the current administration and lots of what I call standard fear-mongering articles about: decreased Toyota truck sales, electrical risks at U.S. bases in Iraq, Al Gore and “a global economic and ecological cataclysm,” (which is much more scary than a mere “crisis”), a dilapidated jail in Chicago, investors who were “disappointed” because Google and Microsoft “missed” profit expectations, some screed about how “Americans are sharply divided by race,” and ominous missing e-mails from various Bush administration figures. Yar!

We’re still not “right” yet—it’s the “lag” thing and while I recognize that complaining, even a little, about “suffering” from temporal displacement, weird sleep patterns, unfamiliar food, and having to return to work after a couple of weeks on one of the prettiest islands in the world is really bad form, it is an honest fact that we’re still a little goofy from the return trip. I find it amazing that merely sitting on an uncomfortable aircraft for five and a half hours, overnight with no sleep, followed by another couple of hours in an airport, and another flight home, and a two-plus hour drive up the mountain to home, all on our ever-expanding rear ends, can be so damned tiring! How can that be?

So we’re jet-lagged but alive and, mostly, rested and glad to be home and astoundingly blessed to be able to visit one of the loveliest spots in our country, the Garden Island.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS RIGHT OF MANKIND.