Upper Left

Born July 14, 1912…

2009-07-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

Woody Guthrie Archive

"Come back, Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now.
Raise your eyes from paradise
And try to rise somehow.
If you run into Jesus,
Maybe he can help you out.
Come back, Woody Guthrie, to us now."

Steve Earle

Pleasant? Sure...

2009-07-13T23:24:00.005-07:00

...but not so surprising. Via Political Wire...

Sen. Chris Dodd's (D-CT) re-election effort "brought in more than $1.2 million in the second quarter of 2009, topping his first quarter fundraising total and outraising all other candidates in the race," the Hartford Courant reports.

The fact that he's raising this kind of money in the wake of some early ugliness in the polls is evidence of a rally that I expect will be reflected in future surveys.

Better that pleasant, really. It's great news for Senator Dodd and that's good news to me.

It's time for...

2009-07-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

Tell your schoolboard...

2009-07-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

There are, of course, shirts and such.

Hat tip to PZ Myers.

Hammer, nail…

2009-07-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

BANG! Debra at Big Brass Blog...

Schwarzenegger is California's version of hurricane Katrina.

Yep.

Ten again...

2009-07-11T03:27:00.000-07:00

...from the ipod this time...

Jimmy Buffett - Six String Music
Kinky Friedman - Sold American
Jim's Big Ego - In A Bar
Don Gibson - Blue Blue Day
Dan Bern - Kurt
Roger Miller - Engine Engine #9
The Lovin' Spoonful - Nashville Cats
Sam Bush - Eight More Miles To Louisville
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys - Stay A Little Longer
John Lennon - Stand By Me

'Cuz if you feel my thigh...

2009-07-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

...you're gonna go up high… David Brooks...

I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, ehh, get me out of here.

One is left to wonder why he didn't just get himself out of there.

Yep.

2009-07-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

Jed Lewison…

There's lies, there's damned lies, and then there's Fox "News."

I'll type very slowly…

2009-07-10T13:00:00.000-07:00

…so everyone can understand. If it's "jobless", it's not a "recovery."

Not no how. Not no way.

Chart of the day.

2009-07-09T19:31:00.000-07:00

Via Tengrain...

The usual click drill works.

From the "Do as we say…" file.

2009-07-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

Via Juan Cole…

As a result of the likelihood that torture will be applied to them, the US military is declining after all to turn 26,000 Iraqi prisoners in its prisons in Iraq over to the Iraqi government.

From the "Just the facts" file.

2009-07-09T16:36:00.000-07:00

Because info is ammo. Via the AFL-CIO blog...

Profits at the 10 largest public ally traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent between 2000 and 2007.

From the "Sad but true" file.

2009-07-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

Broder, via DougJ...

Palin, the most colorful and charismatic figure to pop up in the GOP since Ronald Reagan...

Yeah, but ouch.

I mean, who needs Sarah…

2009-07-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

…when there's a Boehner boner just laying there?

When U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner told a newscaster Sunday that not a single stimulus-funded road contract in his home state of Ohio had been let, he was wrong.

The Ohio Department of Transportation has OK'd 52 stimulus-funded road and bridge projects at a cost of nearly $84 million.... An ODOT spokesman called Boehner's statement "disappointing."

And Scott Varner noted that ODOT had just OK'd six more stimulus road projects which will cost about $43 million.

Can he even find Ohio on a map anymore?

Hat tip to Steve Benen.

OK, just one more...

2009-07-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

Almost Ex-Governor Palin is ready for her closeup...

Sparkling white tee - Check.
Clean, dry waders - Check.
Makeup - Check.
Coiffure - Check.
Manicure - Artfully concealed.
Oh yea, she's working the hell outta that fish camp.

I can't help it.

2009-07-07T13:45:00.000-07:00

I hate to seem so 'all Sarah, all the time,' but I'm compelled to speak out again, because this time the attacks truly have gone a step to far.

C'mon folks, you know as well as I that Sarah knows there's no "...department of law there in the White House…". "Department of law" is, as every Alaskan schoolboy knows, just folksy shorthand for "Department of smarty pants ivy leaguers who think they know so much but can't even gut a fish."

Please kids, play fair.

Flag of the day.

2009-07-06T02:14:00.000-07:00

The Flag of Equal Marriage...

"an evolving protest flag for equal marriage rights in the United States," whose stars "represent the states that actively perform same-sex marriages."

Hat tip to Studio 360 via David Schmader at Slog.

Let the games begin!

2009-07-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

Via The General...

He's got shirts and stuff here.

From the "Faint Praise" file.

2009-07-05T00:59:00.000-07:00

Josh Marshall...

...I think there’s a small chance there’s no specific scandal and that Palin is just very mentally unstable.

Actually, having an elected official with that degree of mental instability seems specifically scandalous to me, although many Republicans doubtless disagree.

It's time for...

2009-07-05T00:37:00.000-07:00

Good question.

2009-07-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

Check that. Excellent question. Avedon asks...

"If you are worried about costs, why don't you support single-payer, which will save hundreds of billions of dollars?"

Yeah, why not? Because the 'socialism' thing, well, they're going to use that anyway. Like Avedon, I'm not much interested in promoting a public option, mainly because it seems to lend legitimacy to the existence of a private option, which belongs in the 'part of the problem' column. The main part.

As it stands, any health care solution coming out of this Congress, while perhaps marginally better than nothing at all for some, will remain woefully inadequate for many.

And then...

2009-07-04T03:39:00.000-07:00

...a random ten.

Lyle Lovett - Farther Down The Line
Dwight Yoakam - Honky Tonk Man
That Dog In Egypt - Hunter Thompson
Frank Sinatra - Ring-A-Ding Ding!
Joe Turner & His Blues Kings - Shake, Rattle & Roll
Wylie & The Wild West - Hooked On Honky Tonk
Slim Harpo - I'm A King Bee
Mollie O'Brien - Brown Eyed Handsome Man
Jerry Jeff Walker - L.A. Freeway
James McMurtry & The Heartless Bastards - I'm Not From Here

Hey you!

2009-07-04T02:30:00.000-07:00

Yeah, Moosegirl, you. Under the bus…

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — daughter of Frank Murkowski, who was defeated by Sarah Palin in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary — released a statement Friday after the governor announced her decision to leave office by the end of the month. Full text:
“I am deeply disappointed that the Governor has decided to abandon the State and her constituents before her term has concluded.”

"...abandon..." I don't imagine that word's in there by accident. Alaska's Republicans have their script now, and the almost former Governor's been cast as the villian. I'm assuming at least one of the scandal stories is true, because there's really no way this works out to her political advantage. America is looking north and laughing it's ass off, Governor. Goodbye and good riddance.

Quote of the day.

2009-07-04T01:41:00.000-07:00

“This proves once again that the lesson of history is that we don’t learn the lessons of history.”
Terence Doherty on China's grim economic future (though it's easy to find broader application.

Hat tip to ballgame at Cogitamus.

A war story.

2009-07-04T00:26:00.000-07:00

I don't tell a lot of 'em here, but this one's become a Fourth of July tradition. First posted in 2004, I've run it here every year since because, well, I still can't think of a better way to say Happy 4th. Once again, here 'tis ...

I was a soldier once...

...and one of the lasting effects has been to make Independence Day a bit more meaningful to me. 33 years ago today I was on a plane bound for the air base in Bien Hoa, Vietnam. We took off on July 3 and about 24 hours later, landed on July 5. That year, there was no Independence Day for me. The international date line swallowed the 4th of July whole.

A year later, I celebrated the 4th as a civilian for the first time in three years, and every year since, it's given me pause as I've reflected on that trans-Pacific voyage and the events that followed. I served at a time when the war was over for a lot of people - people who accepted Nixon's strategy of slow withdrawal. Thousands were coming home, after all. Still, many of us were still going over. We were the 'left overs,' the 'clean up crew.' We were the men John Kerry was speaking for in his famous Senate testimony, the ones who risked being among the last to die for a war that had by then been widely recognized as a mistake.

Today, the Brilliant and Beautiful Bride of Upper Left and I journeyed across the county to visit the traveling reproduction of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, commonly known as The Wall. As I walked along the panels carrying the 58,228 names of those who died in Vietnam, the black tablets grew larger, and at the very apex, filling three of the tallest panels, I found the names of those who died while I was in country. Hundreds and hundreds of names. Among them the name of one of my basic training sergeants. A case, I prayed, of mistaken identity, hoping, but not at all certain, that there must have been another Sgt. Luis Campos, and the gruff bear of a man that taught me to use a rifle with confidence and a bayonet with ferocity retired comfortably without facing another tour in Vietnam.

Whether he was my Sgt. Campos or not isn't so important, really. I was lucky. My battalion took losses, but my company came through unscathed. I saw bodies, but not of those I knew best, those I called friends. Still, each of the names on that wall, and especially on those three tall, silent panels, was more than a stranger. They were, they are, my brothers, every one.

I missed a 4th of July in 1971. They've missed every one since. Tomorrow, I'll put on a uniform and travel north to parade with a veteran's drill team in a small town celebration, and come home to burn some meat and drink some beer with my family. It's bound to be a good day. I have 58,228 reasons to celebrate, because they can't, and I owe them.

Happy 4th.

The plans change from year to year. No parade again this year, but I'll be firing up the big patio grill at the perfect tavern for an afternoon of beer, burgers and bluegrass. If you're anywhere near, well, y'all come. I restrung the 12 string this week, so my George M. Cohan medley should ring right out. Wherever or however, have yourself a great day. There are a few thousand more folks missing the celebration this year, and we owe them, too.