One picture is worth a thousand words.
Fred R. Barnard
Laugh of the Day
I saw this comment posted on The Hill in response to Obama's $3T cut proposal (thumbs DOWN! predictable gross incompetence from Obama: more in tomorrow's commentary):
I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
BY WHIMPY on 09/18/2011 at 22:26
I really don't think readers need for me to explain why this is hilarious (he or she has today's federal Democrats spot on), but J. Wellington Wimpy is a character in classic Popeye the Sailor Man cartoons whom has a prodigious appetite for hamburgers, which he promises to pay for at a later date. Do I really need to remind people that the Democrats, as usual, only talk about cuts in automatic budget increases, not the baseline itself? Or they'll cut Medicare/Medicaid "overpayments"--keep in mind most providers say that they have to subsidize the costs of these programs, which already underpay by 20% or more--despite the real issue is an increasingly older population (age correlates with health care costs) and exacerbating medical cost inflation, which is aggravated by surging demand for medical products and services, much of it due to misguided government mandates (including coverage for ordinary expenses) and inadequate vesting of patients in health care spending? Not to mention the mention the typical government pattern of pushing serious cuts later, versus sooner in a 10-year cycle.
1928 Democratic Presidential Nominee Al Smith's
1936 "Betrayal of the Democratic Party":
Notable Quotes and Comments
Alfred Smith, former Democratic Governor of New York, was the 1928 Democratic nominee battling Republican Herbert Hoover for the White House. In the process, he drew (as the first Catholic nominee) a number of new groups to the Democratic coalition, including Catholics, urban, and blue collar. This actually sowed the seeds to the end of the classless Fourth Party System. Smith had prided himself as a good/efficient government Progressive, with an emphasis as social mobility. He also focused on government services at the local/state level, not the federal level, and believed in close cooperation with business. He battled his gubernatorial successor and protégé, FDR, for the 1932 nomination.
In what must seem like an out-of-body experience for today's Republicans/conservatives, we have this description of Republican Hoover running for reelection in 1932:
In his addresses, Hoover attacked Roosevelt as a capitalist president who would only make the Depression worse by decreasing taxes, reducing government intervention in the economy, promoting "trade [with] the world," and cutting "Government--Federal and State and local."And what did FDR rage about in his acceptance address at the Democratic convention? Government spending, waste and inefficiency, free trade, tax (tariff and income) hikes, etc. One should wonder why the GOP Presidential candidates don't describe Obama's policies as Hooverian...
This provides the context for Al Smith's 1936 address that, of course, modern-day Democratic progressives consider heretical and declare as little more than sour grapes over his loss of the 1932 nomination to his successor/protégé:
"It is not easy for me to stand up here tonight and talk to the American people against the Democratic Administration....What are these dangers that I see?"Dangers of the Democratic Administration
- "The first is the arraignment of class against class...there certainly can be no permanent recovery upon any governmental theory of 'soak the rich'."
- "The next thing that I view as being dangerous to our national well-being is government by bureaucracy instead of what we have been taught to look for, government by law."
- First plank: "We advocate immediate and drastic reduction of governmental expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagance to accomplish a saving of not less than 25 per cent in the cost of the Federal Government."
- Another plank: "We favor maintenance of the national credit by a Federal budget annually balanced on the basis of accurate Federal estimate within revenue."
"Forget the rich; they can't pay this debt. If you took everything they have away from them, they couldn't pay it; they ain't got enough. There is no use talking about the poor; they will never pay it, because they have nothing.This debt is going to be paid by that great big middle class that we refer to as the backbone and the rank and file, and the sin of it is they ain't going to know that they are paying it. It is going to come to them in the form of indirect and hidden taxation."
- Another one: "We promise the removal of Government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and national resources in the common interest."
"NRA (National Recovery Administration)! A vast octopus set up by government, that wound its arms around all the business of the country, paralyzed big business, and choked little business to death."
- Here is another one: "We condemn the open and covert resistance of administrative officials to every effort made by congressional committees to curtail the extravagant expenditures of Government and improvident subsidies granted to private interests."
I strongly suspect that if Obama ever read Smith's 1936 speech, he would be convinced that it came out of Speaker Boehner's office....
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Fleetwood Mac, "Go Your Own Way". This was Fleetwood Mac's first Top 10 hit and, in my opinion, the best pure pop/rock song. [Yes, I wrote I prefer the Stevie Nicks' contributions, but I see her music more as art pop, in the sense she is more of a poet than most songwriters.] I love strong guitar work melded on a solid pop melody, like Eric Claptop's "Layla", Boston's "Don't Look Back", or, of course, The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". Almost everyone knows that Lindsey Buckingham (the singer/songwriter of this song) and Stevie Nicks were a couple and in fact recorded an album together before Bob Welch left Fleetwood Mac. Buckingham was invited to replace Welch in band, and Nicks joined the band as part of the deal. I've recently read some accounts of the relationship and its breakup soon after the band achieved breakthrough status on the pop charts. Of course, pop star couples often break up (e.g., ABBA).
This song reflects Buckingham's view of their breakup, and Nicks is notably upset with his verse "packing up, shacking up is all you want to do". My personal take: that wasn't very chivalrous. I wouldn't have written that line even if I had issues with my former girlfriend.
I do recall breaking up after a short period with someone I liked at UH, and she didn't handle it very well. My Mom was always after me to meet a nice Catholic girl at church; while I was at the off-campus Catholic Newman Center one day, this very tall girl approached me and started flirting. I had attracted her attention because I was the only guy whom went to Mass wearing suits; she was worried I wouldn't like her because she was a couple of inches taller. She wasn't a student but lived very near campus. Anyway, we were still in the early stages of dating; I had recently taken her to the museum, but already had plans to go to a Houston Astros game a subsequent Saturday afternoon. When I got back home, I found a long, obsessive series of "not important" answering machine messages from her. The next morning after Mass, during a coffee and doughnuts social, she came up to me and demanded to know where I was. I told her I was at the game. Now she wanted to know why I didn't ask her to go to the game with me. I said, "I didn't know you liked baseball." She looked at me with contempt and said, "I don't, but I would have done it for you because you did something nice for me." [She was talking about the museum, but I did it for both of us.] I'm already confused by why she's arguing with me over my not asking her to a game she never wanted to see. She then abruptly changed course and said, "Well, my boyfriend and I were wondering what was going on at the Astrodome when we drove past there yesterday." Oh, now she's invented a boyfriend to make me jealous; isn't that special? A boyfriend whom didn't have a clue as to why the parking lot near the Astrodome might be full on a summer day. He was incredibly thoughtful to have stopped at every phone booth along the way so she could leave me an answering machine message. Not to mention the fact that she would have been willing to ditch her date with him in order to go with me to the baseball game. I didn't say a word, of course.
She continued to hold a grudge about the baseball game; I seem to recall most calls after then were at my own initiative and I don't recall any follow-up dates (lots of excuses, no suggestions). Finally, noticing I was carrying the conversation (again) I asked, "Would you prefer for me not to call you again?" She snapped that she was a big girl and if she didn't want me to call, she would tell me. I had had enough: I broke up with her. I should have known what to expect next (i.e., about having the last word: there are 5 women in my family.)
Two or 3 days later, I got a typewritten, unsigned letter from her on Merrill Lynch letterhead, explaining SHE had decided to break up with ME, and then proceeded to explain why. To be honest I never read after the first 2 or 3 sentences. Totally unnecessary. I had always been very nice and sweet to this woman. I ended up dropping out of Catholic Newman several months later (let's just say the passive-aggressive behavior didn't stop with the letter). I don't know what happened to her and don't care. There will never be a song about her.
Getting back to the song, It's clear that Buckingham wanted to marry Nicks and still wants to at the time ("I'd give you my world...You won't take it from me...Everything's waiting for you.") There's some speculation that Nicks didn't want to get married or have children, that she felt it would be get the way of her own career. It's fairly clear they both have strong personalities, and they had arguments; it's possible like a number of very creative people, Buckingham came across to Nicks as unduly controlling, impatient, aggressive, and/or angry. I know I wouldn't marry someone whom came across to me in that intimidating manner--but I wouldn't be living with her, either. I think it's very clear, despite saying Nicks "can go [her] own way", he was still in love with her.
I can't judge Lindsey and Stevie's relationship and was not there to observe their disagreements. As a man who also holds traditional values, I am naturally empathetic to Lindsey's desire for marriage and family with the woman he loves. (Buckingham eventually got married and has 3 young children.)
But the attitude, the raw emotion, the frustrations of unrequited love, the great guitar work: they make for a great rock song, just like Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl".
