So Long, Marianne--Also, Voting Rights?
Jim Crow circling, but at least we have some great cartoons, music from Leonard Cohen, Brandi Carlile and Marvin Gaye, plus a sneak preview of a new Tiny Tim doc.
And away we go…don’t forget to comment, share and/or subscribe, it’s still free!
News & Politics
Today’s headline from The Onion: “Ted Cruz Decries Voting Rights Bill As Shameless Power Grab By American People To Control Country.”
Georgia’s roll back of voting rights is so Jim Crow-ish. Georgia’s own, R.E.M.’s Mike Mills: “Here it is. Voter suppression in clear daylight. Since Republicans refuse to craft policy that appeals to a majority of voters, they have to cheat to win. But their time in power is limited, and their day of reckoning is coming.”
Another from the great Steve Brodner on last night’s horror at his newsletter:
A little late, guys and gals: “House panel votes to repeal 19-year-old Iraq war authorization.”
Looks like there is a deal in my New York state to legalize recreational marijuana, and become one of the largest markets in the country. Millions of dollars in sales tax revenue would purportedly be reinvested in minority communities each year.
Joan Walsh tweeted after the much-hyped Biden newser: “White House press corps petitioning to delay future press conferences because they are not ready.” Margaret Sullivan: “Hundreds of Americans died of Covid today — but not a single reporter at Biden’s first presidential conference asked about the pandemic.” Susan Glasser at The New Yorker: “Thursday’s press conference reminded me of why I hated these staged events in the first place. It taught me nothing about Joe Biden, his Presidency, or his priorities. The problem was not that it was boring. It was that it was bad." Longtime media watcher Eric Boehlert: “I’m chuckling because press spent weeks bemoaning lack of press conference—it turns out they were the ones unprepared.”
My add to the above: Sad to see a new generation of younger reporters as bad at this as older ones—and women as bad as men. One “follow-up” after another (and then another). A follow-up to someone else’s follow-up. And the grandstanding. Yes, the question all America wanted answered: Will Biden keep Harris on the ticket 3 1/2 years from now?
Andy Borowitz “reports”: Tucker Carlson Accuses Biden of Faking Mental Sharpness for More Than an Hour.
Calling it a “scandal bigger than Watergate,” the Fox News host Tucker Carlson accused President Biden of “thoroughly faking mental sharpness” for more than an hour during his press conference on Thursday. “Doing everything he could to give the appearance of mental acuity, he answered questions in detail, stayed on point, and uttered suspiciously complete sentences,” Carlson alleged. “I’ve seen some shameless stunts in my time, but this one takes the cake.”
Law ‘n order Trump last night on Fox re: the Jan. 6 insurrection: "It was zero threat, right from the start... Some of them went in, and they are hugging and kissing the police and the guards... a lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out…..They are waving the American flag, and they love our country." Now, he added, some of them are being “persecuted.”
Seth Meyers’ popularity no doubt will peak after last night’s attack from Sean Hannity: “You’re just another limousine liberal socialist hypocritical asshole who does nothing but spew anti-GOP hate and has virtually nothing positive or productive to add to any political dialogue.”
Randy Friese, the trauma surgeon who a decade ago treated Gabby Giffords after she was shot in the head, launched a run for Congress on Thursday in Arizona. He remains close to her and husband Sen. Mark Kelly.
Today at NY Times: U.S.C. Agrees to Pay $1.1 Billion to Patients of Gynecologist Accused of Abuse “The staggering sum — a combination of three sets of settlements with thousands of alleged victims of Dr. George Tyndall — sets a record for collegiate sex abuse payouts.”
Far too much to go into here—though interesting to me—but after a long cooling off period, the debate over “what the hell happened with the pollsters in 2020” has returned. The two Nates had different takes yesterday. Nate Silver at 538.com had a long, long, take in which he claimed that inaccuracies last year were not so far from average while admitting they were pretty bad in many key respects. He rated the individual pollsters, and announced that perhaps his bias toward pollsters who actually talk to people may no longer be warranted, based on the results. Nate Cohn at the NY Times differed in several respects, but his main point was: “The quality of the survey data is decreasing, as response rates decline and polls go online. Pollsters compensate by weighting [the raw data], forcing industry-wide bias-variance tradeoffs.”
Murdoch’s News Corp. is buying Investors Business Daily.
Music
On this date in 1969, Marvin Gaye’s immortal version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” already a smash in the USA, went to #1 in the UK. Just two years earlier it had sold a million for Gladys Knight & the Pips but still Marvelous Marv made it his own. Here is an amazing, isolated audio of him singing the song—no auto-tuning, folks:
Cool livestream, partly benefit, concert by Brandi Carlile at the Ryman on Sunday night, go here for tix. Love Brandi, and here she does a rocking “Hold Out Your Hand,” a message for all of us right now….
One of the most amazing concert bills in all of human history. How’d you like to have been at that 11:45 show (or at least a fly on the wall in the Carnegie dressing rooms)?
Wild story from the New Yorker, online and in print: “Chronicling Rock and Roll’s Neglected Stories: Miriam Linna, who recently published a five-pound book on the history of Fortune Records, keeps her apartment teeming with jukeboxes, magazines, and records made more for love than money.”
Linna was in her apartment, or, really, her splendid athenaeum, in a converted schoolhouse in Prospect Heights—two big rooms teeming with scrupulously arranged books, records, and old magazines, as well as retired jukeboxes, radios, and various ephemera, such as a can of Campbell’s tomato soup signed by Andy Warhol and later inadvertently opened, emptied, and tossed in the trash by the oddball Norton rockabilly artist Hasil Adkins.
“I’m kind of a more-is-more person,” Linna said.
Film
Yes, there is a Tiny Tim doc coming. But will it cover that odd period hanging out with Dylan and The Band in Woodstock?
Don’t miss Colbert video mocking the new Justice League cut.
Song Pick of the Day
Perhaps Leonard Cohen’s greatest live performance of “So Long, Marianne,” from 1979. Jennifer Warnes and future Leonard collaborator (and singer on final tours) Sharon Robinson providing the backup singing.
Greg Mitchell’s film, Atomic Cover-up, has its world premiere at the Cinequest Film festival March 20-30. Go here to read more, watch trailer, buy tix. He 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. 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.