Weekend Open Thread

"Can't You Hear Me Knocking" - Rolling Stones

How the hell are you?  I forgot about the presidential election for a bit and headed out to see "Argo," Ben Afleck's new film.  It's really well done -- and for those of us who lived through the Iranian hostage crisis, really evocative.  The film has a great, crappy '70's look.

- I am going to try to lay off the horse race stuff for a few days.  I just checked in with Nate and felt my heart sink a bit, but something tells me that this may well be the low moment for the Obama campaign.  I guess we will know more after Tuesday's debate -- I have a feeling that the inevitable narrative will be about the President's comeback.  Or so I hope.

- This piece -- linked to by Sully -- describing the labor militancy going on in China was a very interesting read.  It describes things that were reported to me a few years ago by a friend who was in the AFL-CIO's Asia office.  He had indicated that wild cat strikes were rampant, along with occasional acts of violence, including the murder of management officials.  This sort of thing is largely under the radar screen of the American media, but may well be the most significant thing happening in China today.

- Check out the vintage campaign cartoon for FDR's 1944 fourth term bid posted by Erik Loomis. 

I am going to try to post a few things about books I've been reading lately as a change of pace -- a biography of John Quincy Adams, a biography of David Foster Wallace, and Tony Judt's final book, a dialogue conducted while Judt was suffering from paralysis from his ALS.  Hope to at least get the Adams piece up by Sunday.

What's going on with all of you?   

Comments

[beckya57]

I'm also ignoring the election for a few days--I'm in the Vancouver BC area for a ukulele workshop, and marveling at the resiliency of the St Louis Cardinals. I'm also getting away from my job, which has been an absolute killer the last few weeks. Yes, there is more to life (strum strum strum)......

[Linkmeister]

I am on the verge of retiring from watching any more baseball this postseason, since the interesting teams are done. I'm left with only the Tigers if I want to root for any of the survivors. I'm tired of the Cards and as a Dodgers fan I can't possibly root for the Giants or Yankees.

Gosh that was an awful ending to the Nationals' game this evening. Storen's name will go down in history with other blown playoff saves (Niedenfuer, Broxton, Garber, even Mariano Rivera (Arizona, 2001 WS).

[scott]

I love this song. I still think Exile on Main Street is the best for me, but Sticky Fingers is way up there. Thanks!

I'm kinda detaching too from the anxiety. It is what it is, you do what you can and get on with it.

[Sir Charles]

Wow, the Nats have a Red Sox moment.

It might've been nice to have Strassburg available.

Scott,

I love that song too -- and Sticky Fingers as well. I was surprised to find such a good live version. I still prefer Mick Taylor to Ron Wood, but I thought this a really credible effort.

I am trying not to sweat every minute of the election -- but I will be heartbroken if Obama loses.

[kathy a.]

love the bullet train!

becky, your musical interludes must be so fun -- definitely a break from the work.

i'm not a sports person, but the locals were all seriously jazzed about the A's and the giants both making the playoffs. now that the A's are out, we don't have to worry about another world series earthquake. ;)

my local dem club came by with their recommendations for the november ballot. i was pleased that they recommend yes on prop 34, the ballot measure to eliminate the death penalty and convert the existing 725 death sentences to life without possibility of parole. (cog friend janinsanfran is working hard on that campaign.)

i'm very hopeful that this will pass -- there is a steady stream of newspaper editorials supporting the measure, as well as a great many law enforcement types, progressive and social justice organizations, and even families of victims who would rather see some of the huge cost go toward more crimes being solved. (estimated $184 million per year, over and above the cost of life imprisonment.) the measure is part of a national trend toward abolition of the death penalty, which virtually all industrialized nations have abandoned. so, here's a cheer for jan and her good work!

[Don K]

kathy -

Good luck on getting rid of the death penalty in CA. Cheers from Michigan, first English-speaking jurisdiction in the world to abolish the death penalty (in 1846).

Meanwhile, here in MI, we have to worry about defeating a CA-style 2/3 majority of the legislature to enact a tax increase amendment.

[kathy a.]

best to you in that fight, don. the annual budget rodeos are hell.

[kathy a.]

also, michigan is seriously under-rated as a leader in human decency.

[big bad wolf]

i like that version of knockin. i think it is smart of the stones to take the emphasis of the guitar solo. taylor's solo is magnificient, but that is a great song because they were a great band and the performance in moving from bobby, to mick's harp and maracas, to ronnie, and all enabled by charlie, reminds us of that.

i'm a partial to the time before keith lost self-control. that is 68 to 72. as good as mick taylor is in the the 69 live shows the sound of the band comes from keith's dark, rhytmic lines, which are matched by jagger's dark visions. so too most all the great ideas on those great albums. taylor is an element, but a subsidiary one. in a way they all were, because keith's control was less control than a sense of wanting to form a particular team. taylor was a beautiful player, but it often seemed he was on the wrong team. he wanted to be in a different band. all that said, his solo was and remains a killer.

[Linkmeister]

Random thought while watching/listening to the video: I suspect Mick Jagger is the wealthiest former student the LSE has ever had.

[Paula B]

Got burned out by politics and went off to France for a few weeks. Mike Taibbi's piece in Rolling Stone was enough to get me fired up again. Then this, http://nyti.ms/R63iN3, in yesterday's NYT reiterating some of the things I've said all along about Mitt's miserable governorship. Would your boss let you work from home or take off 100 days a year, even if you assured him/her you were only a phone call away? Give me a break. Imagine what the Repugs would say if Obama had done such a thing. I'm counting on BHO to turn this thing around Tuesday night.

[low-tech cyclist]

I'm back from my week on Annamaria Island, largely away from the Internet: my wife had a 3G connection on her iPad, but even that was as slow as molasses, and not really worth the effort.

OTOH, the house we rented had cable, so I experienced the Nats' running up and then blowing their big lead in game 5 in real time. The thing that pisses me off most about that is that, after Gio was clearly starting to lose it in the 4th inning, Davey didn't get anyone up in the bullpen, and so when Gio fell apart in the 5th, he had to just leave him in there.

As my wife and I were saying at the time, this wasn't game 118 of a 162-game season; this was the deciding game of a playoff series.

There's a time for patience, and a time for a quick hook, and when the other team is one swing away from reducing your 6-1 lead down to 6-5, and you should be torn between worrying that your starter can't find the strike zone, and worrying about what sort of gimme he'll have to throw in order to find it, it's time for a quick hook. Bring in Stammen, Matheus, whoever.

You just don't want to let the other team back in the game if you can help it. At 6-1, the Cards weren't really back in it yet. At 6-3, they certainly were.

Other than that, the beach was great, the kid enjoyed the water (as always), a sting ray was swimming laps around us one day and I got it on video, and the pelicans that congregated in the tree overhanging our beach put on a great show for us daily as they'd scan the water for fish, and then go diving almost vertically for the kill.

I won't say I didn't think about politics at all, but I thought about it a lot less than usual.

[beckya57]

The Cards are in the process of blowing a 6-0 lead. I can hear my sister screaming hysterically all the way from Texas (huge Cardinal fan).

My uke retreat is over (boo!), but I'm only in the office for 2 days this week, then off to Chicago for a conference. The best thing about that is that my best friend from high school lives there, so I'll get to see her and her family. I was just on the phone with her, and she was obsessing about the election: she saw the debate, and noted that Romney was doing well, to her dismay. Her husband didn't think he was, because he knew Romney was lying through his teeth, and I gather he was startled by how little attention that got. I told her I still think Obama is going to pull it out, while also acknowledging having some anxiety about the next debate on Tuesday.

[kathy a.]

romney peddling the flim-flam, from the plum line.

nicholas kristoff on a possibly fatal mistake , the one the RR team hopes everyone falls for.

[kathy a.]

study: privatized medicare would raise rates. (which we knew was true, but kaiser family foundation has spent some time on this.)

i would really like to hear the obama/biden team talk more about medicaid, as well -- this is THE critical safety net when an elder family member needs nursing home care.

[big bad wolf]

ouch, anyone see the new yorker debate cover?

what do people think of this

[nancy]

bbw -- That's pretty ouch, but then the Oct. 1 cover with Mitt being "chauffered" on the back of a prancing white horse while reading the newspaper is maybe more generally accurate. Chauffeur with jodhpurs. Gosh.

Like father, like son? Not quite. George Romney's longtime aide writes an essay.

what do people think of this . I'm speechless. Any sensible person can see where this leads rapidly. Anybody ever heard of taking attendance? Or is that just too pre-security-state retro? Another new 'industry' takes hold. The possibilities abound. If I were a parent in this district I'd cooperate with this for about < nanosecond.

[Bill H]

I feel your sister's pain beckya57, the Chargers led 24-0 at the half and managed to lose 35-24 to the Broncos. That thud you heard from the west was Qualcomm Stadium imploding.

[kathy a.]

my dears -- check out this brilliant ad by the dnc.

[kathy a.]

also, ryan's fabulously inept dish duty. it takes true talent to demonstrate one's commitment to the little guy by [a] barging in unannounced, [b] to clean pots that were already cleaned, after the soup kitchen's clients had all been fed, [c] without asking permission, which [d] would have been denied if he had asked, because this non-profit can't afford to lose its funding by taking political sides. about sums up the core values of the campaign, no?

[Sir Charles]

Kathy,

See my new post above.

I was blown away by this one.