Spring is busting out all over. Don’t forget to share, comment, and subscribe if you have not (it’s still free). If you missed this past weekend’s Profile in Music, go here for Richard Thompson/Sandy Denny.
News & Politics
The Onion: “Man Questions How Economy Recovering From Pandemic If He Only Made $4.1 Million In Q1.”
Twitter today will launch a major advertising and social media campaign urging people to follow local journalists and support their work.
Steve Kornacki even picked the Kentucky Derby winner on Saturday.
Legendary joke writer for the early seasons of The Simpsons, John Swartzwelder, grants what The New Yorker calls his first major interview ever.
The tracks of our tears: Oliver Darcy of CNN, "How is Facebook hoping to convince users to let the company track them across apps with Apple's latest privacy update? By suggesting that users are helping to keep the product free by allowing Facebook to collect data on them. Pop-up notices that urged users to 'help keep Facebook free of charge' were noticed over the weekend.”
Biden: His time. Sixty-four percent of Americans said they’re optimistic with the direction of the country, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll. “The last time the country came close to that level of optimism about the coming year was in December 2006.”
Third, and long, for Dems: In Saturday’s Texas special election for the U.S. House, Trump-endorsed Susan Wright topped a 23-person multi-party field. Likely second-place finisher is also GOP: state Rep. Jake Ellzey. So no Dem in runoffs, even though Trump in 2020 won this district by just 3 points. Dem turnout raises red flag for them in 2022.
Republican state lawmakers in 20 states have introduced at least 40 bills that would expand the powers of poll watchers, including in Texas where a vote in the House could come this week, the NY Times warns. That bill, which would impose a raft of voting restrictions, is among the most severe in the nation.
Retirements by House Dems in competitive seats are starting to add up, and that could imperil their chances at holding onto the House, Wash Post relates. Meanwhile, “only one Republican from a competitive seat, Rep. Lee Zeldin of NY has so far signaled he will leave the House.”
Acid relief? According, to Axios,
Efforts to use psychedelic drugs to help treat psychiatric disorders are fueling a search for compounds that don't produce hallucinations, Why it matters: There's a tremendous need for new tools to help people with mental and substance use disorders, which are a leading cause of disability globally. Studies have found that using psilocybin — a compound found in psychedelic mushrooms — in tandem with psychotherapy can help some people.
Politico: Check out ex-Trump felon Michael Flynn botching the Pledge of Allegiance at a “Bikers for Trump” rally at the Honky Tonk Saloon in Ladson, S.C., on Sunday. (What a sentence!) He was there to back QAnon/election conspiracist Lin Wood, who’s aiming for state GOP chair. The video.
Jake Tapper on Sunday: "It's my opinion that the United States needs a healthy, thriving, fact-based Republican Party. It is difficult to look at these events, all of them just from the last week, and conclude that we have one..." Meanwhile, have to love CNN’s Jim Acosta for referring to Trump’s “old Elvis act” at Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, the bloat, the ultra-makeup, the reliance on old applause lines….
Depressing NY Times headline today: Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe. “Widely circulating coronavirus variants and persistent hesitancy about vaccines will keep the goal out of reach. The virus is here to stay.”
John Oliver on HBO last night debunked vaccine myths.
Harper’s magazine each week sends out an email with its latest, always engaging, “week in review” made up of often surprising one-line nuggets. Here is a sample from this past week, as you have surely missed most of these:
American honey made in the recent past was found to contain radioactive fallout from nuclear-weapons testing in the Fifties and Sixties…Days before Philadelphia’s first official day of remembrance for the 1985 police bombing of the MOVE organization, it was revealed that the bones of black children murdered in the siege had been used without permission for an online course titled Real Bones: Adventures in Forensic Anthropology….In Des Moines, Iowa, a woman who ran over two children with her 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee because of their ethnicities pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder, and in Oklahoma, Governor Kevin Stitt signed a bill that protects drivers who run over protesters…..
After SpaceX and NASA successfully launched the spacecraft Crew Dragon Endeavour, its crew was warned of a possible collision with a flying object that, according to NASA, was classified as “unknown,” before arriving safely at the International Space Station, which no longer has enough beds for all the astronauts on board; and a NASA executive pleaded guilty to using pandemic relief loans to pay off his Disney Vacation Club membership fees….A Taiwanese couple got married four times and divorced three times over a period of 37 days in order to take advantage of the country’s eight days of paid marriage leave….A French mayor convicted of rape received criticism from feminist groups for continuing to run the town from his prison cell.
Music
Forty-nine years ago today, Bruce Springsteen recorded his first demo for Columbia Records. As we first revealed in early 1973 in our groundbreaking Crawdaddy feature, his manager Mike Appel had fast-talked Bruce’s entry into the NYC office of legendary talent scout John Hammond. Impressed, Hammond ordered Springsteen to lay down a few (acoustic) demos the next day and, to see how he did with a live audience, booked him at the Gaslight. Here he does one of those May 3, 1972, demos, “Growin’ Up,” live, a few months later.
Ringo named his favorite Beatles song on Colbert show on Friday, and a bit of a surprise: “Come Together,” he says. “I just think it worked perfectly with the band and the song and John being John. I loved that moment.” Here’s John doing it live in 1972 with Elephant’s Memory.
Speaking of surprises, Billie Eilish (now a blonde) dropped first cut from upcoming album and it’s very quiet, acoustic, the vocal more whispered than sung. Also features a large snake.
Pete Seeger, who lived straight up the river from me, would have been 102 today.
Song Pick of the Day
There’s a new Guy Clark doc and this song is not in it—but here is his stellar version of his boozin’ buddy Townes Van Zandt’s “To Live Is to Fly.”
“Essential daily newsletter.” — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire
“Incisive and enjoyable every day.” — Ron Brownstein, The Atlantic
“Always worth reading.” — Frank Rich, New York magazine, Veep and Succession
Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including the bestseller The Tunnels (on escapes under the Berlin Wall), the current The Beginning or the End (on MGM’s wild atomic bomb movie), and The Campaign of the Century (on Upton Sinclair’s left-wing race for governor of California), which was recently picked by the Wall St. Journal as one of five greatest books ever about an election. His new film, Atomic Cover-up, just had its world premiere and is drawing extraordinary acclaim. For nearly all of the 1970s he was the #2 editor at the legendary Crawdaddy. Later he served as longtime editor of Editor & Publisher magazine. He recently co-produced a film about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
The Hunter Biden smear campaign now rivals -- perhaps it's surpassed -- the bogus Hilary email frenzy. Stop the steal? How about can the con? E.J. Dionne in the NYT says the GOP is "stranded on Trump island." Appears all attempts at rescue are being shunned.