More Music, More Music, More Music

1. I've mentioned Jon Carroll before;  this column is about comfort music.
A quote for flavor:

"One of Us" is a perfect example of a comfort song. It was way overplayed when it was popular; it was the theme song of a bad TV series; it flirts with drippiness the whole way through. But when the lyric reaches "Just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home," I am hooked. I like songs about people going home, or looking for home, or whatever. I have issues. Songs have issues.



2. Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast hits for the cycle.

But it occurred to me yesterday while watching the extraordinary crowd reaction to the new president-to-be that the only way Democrats have won the White House in the last twenty-eight years is to run extraordinarily charismatic candidates -- the kind that don't come marching into politics every day. When we don't have candidates as with the kind of force of personality that Barack Obama has, and that Bill Clinton had, we lose. And I'm sorry, folks, but that means that we still aren't getting the message out.

3. Skippy gets at something that has irked me for a long time, although usually the rant was triggered by someone speaking of unemployment as equivalent to welfare.

however, letting people label them as "entitlements" also lets people imply that they are not things i and millions of americans have earned, and thusly are bound to be taken away on a moral basis, quite incorrectly, thus profiting the elite class.


4. Remember Poe?  It's his birthday, and Driftglass cooks up special cake.

The time in 1843 that a fan of his -- Robert Tyler, son of President John Tyler –- got him invited to the White House to meet the President, at which time he blew an opportunity to gain valuable support and status by showing up drunk and trying to sell Tyler a magazine subscription.

5. And I'm going to make a point of getting some Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Also, apparently more stores are going down in this economy, and it's time to make like a (cheap) vulture.