Second Gen (2003-2016, 2016- )
Elderly well dressed couples from Austin show up in the afternoon, strolling among the evacuees smiling broadly and kindly at all of us. When they asked me, with the air of Princess Diana, “How are you doing? We see you managed to get your computer out,” I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I was from Serbia, and that I am doing fine.”
These observations at an Austin Texas refugee center are very interesting.
Four up with three weeks to go. Just saying. Don’t blame me for just saying if it doesn’t happen. The world doesn’t work that way…does it?
Someone I know says “longhair music!” with a humph when the wrong sort of classical music comes on the car radio.
There is another sort. I was thinking – as I am thinking too much – of the flooding down south and I remembered that I used to have a live double lp of Professor Longhair, the New Orleans blues pianist, probably on Atlantic records. I probably sold it in the great purge of ’92 when I sold my worldly goods to travel west. I recall the guy who bought it at the flea market saying “why are you selling this” – just like the person did who bought my They Might Be Giants CDs and like the kids did who I let pay less for my KISS comic book by Marvel (with real blood from the band members in the red ink!)…except they worked “woa” and “dude” into the question a few times.
There was something bouncy dancing about the piano played by Professor Longhair that I figured today I needed to get back – especially on “Big Chief”. I only found one cut, “Tipitana”, on a mixed discount CD of generic blues piano. Not good enough. I know I bought it in the 80s and I know I sold it over 13 years ago. It appears though that his albums were all live and pretty much all had a version of “Big Chief” [clip of version #37] and “Tipitana” [clip of version #841]. I would have thought the internets would have figured this stuff out by now.
Now it is all memory work, playing each 30 second cut from “Big Chief” from each CD – the concert in Germany (too fast), the concert in London (too slow) – over and over at Amazon to figure out which one it was. Thank God I held on to all my punk lps. That is all I can say. Thank God.
I am surprised by the interest I am apparently sustaining in reading Saul Cornell’s book The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828.
One thing I am learning a bit about is whig republicanism, a movement that probably (if I knew anything) can be dated between roughly 1660 to 1820 in the USA and UK. It is pre-romantic but post-divine right. Something about meritocracy combining with disinterested civil duty. Natural leaders leading the three classes with respect for the roles of each of the three classes. They never fully organized in the UK and never really led the American revolution but heralded the transition to democracy…sort of…I think.
Anyone know more about the whigs and can you recommend any reading?
Up in the middle of the night with too much road head. We went into CNY for some Labour Day weekend treat gathering, flipping back and forth between sports radio and crisis news until the Prairie Home Companion took us around eastern Lake Ontario, through sunset and dusk, north along beautiful highway #3 from Oswego to Watertown.
Through our travels we got to give to the Sally Ann as well as the American Red Cross through folk making it easy to give while going about doing their job. Rudy’s in Owsego had big jugs on the counter on a very busy Saturday night pouring all tips and whatever else customers wanted, all to be given to the ARC. Good to see. Good also to see that they were happy to take Canadian as well both for the tip jar and their wonderful fish sandwiches and little crab cakes. $2.09 USD for a Genny Cream to go with that…except they let me pay in CND at par. What was that about – a tribute to Bangour Maine circa 1975? The tip jar got the difference and more.
Gas prices were everywhere from $3.15 USD in Clay, a suburb NW of Syracuse, to around $3.60 USD in the Watertown area another hour north. The same US gallon cost around $4.11 in USD in Canada – that’s at $1.30 CND a litre. portland reported $3.00 USD in southern Maine Friday. I took my own over out of some personal plan to micro-manage gas supply. Crossing back we got to witness four early twenties lassies make the error of trying to sneak a shopping spree past customs. Oh dear.
Best line of the day? NPR’s Car Guys:
Brother #1: what happened to all the drive-in movie places anyway?
Brother #2: global. warming.
[Brother #1 then has coffee come out his nose and laughs for the next five minutes.]
In a day almost entirely based on going to place already known and liked, we even got to have lunch at Ann’s in Cape Vincent, home of the nicest waitresses on the planet, right after being allowed to enter by the nicest US customs guard who, when we said we may go to the State Fair, looked right into the back seat at the kids and said with a big smile “you let get them to buy you lots of candy, lots of candy, you hear?”
It’s those “know-it-all Canadian media pundits”. Man. They ruin everything…
I wrote this over at Michael’s place:
If you look at the Louisiana Constitution it does state:
The military shall be subordinate to the civil power.
This does allow for directed the legitimate use of the military by civil officials and, while what you say about unarmed people is entirely correct – who cares if they have seven DVD players – there is also this (from CNN):
Before Thursday night fell, police were stopping anyone they saw on the street and warning them that they were not safe from armed bands of young men who were attacking people and attempting to rape women.
That is not looting. That is organized violent opposition. How can you deal with an evacuation, dealing with fires and exploding chemical train cars, removing the dead if you also have people sniping at you. What happens if it does not dissipate of its own accord? An organized civilly directed use of military force in an urban setting may be required.
What an awful prospect.
Having officials threaten use of a standing army against the population may well responate with Americans more than elsewhere given what gave rise to their nation. That is why state constitutions speak against military rule under any circumstances. There may, however, have to be some use of the military by civic officials which may not be as random as suggested in this perhaps rash statement by the Governor:
She said Thursday night that 300 soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard had arrived — “fresh back from Iraq. These are some of the 40,000 extra troops that I have demanded,” Blanco said. “They have M-16s, and they’re locked and loaded … I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will.”
For the military to engage rather than just take up the good cause of assisting in a disaster, there would have to be a plan which they would accept operating under. The sort of planning I think John does. For one soldier to fire, however, just takes a sniping idiot. And they seem to exist.
I think the Flea is right, though. I think in Canada the lads in green would have been in a wee bit earlier. But it would have been both as assistance and less about deterrence perhaps – but we are a different country with different expectations and comfort levels. In the end it is all so hard to compare and judge which is what makes it awful.
I like this idea. To celebrate the memory of the massively influential BBC radio host John Peel, who died last year, people are encouraged to put on their own gig of some sort:
The very first John Peel Day will take place on Thursday October 13th. The day will be a celebration of John’s life and massive contribution to music and broadcasting with as many venues as possible staging gigs across the UK under the banner of Peel Day.
Maybe Gordon and the Salty Hams will reform for John Peel Day. That and a drum and cymbal parade around the living room surely are in order.
Update: On a somewhat unrelated note, if you have broadband, check out Hayseed Dixie on BBC Player. That is why the internet was created.