Sunday Funnies & Arts

As always, click to enlarge. For more New Yorker, Tom Tomorrow, David Horsey, Tom Toles, Tony Auth, and Zippy the Pinhead, go here, here, here, here, here, and here...

Hype & Glory: Rock and Rap Confidential issue #225 has published my review of Hank Williams: The Unreleased Recordings. The review appeared here in Citizen K. Receive a free subscription to RRC by writing to rockrap@aol.com.

Cowtown Pattie writes about Texas music on Time Goes By. The great thing about Texas music is that someone else could introduce the topic with completely different selections that would be every bit as valid...

Let Freedom Sing: The Music of the Civil Rights Movement, Various Artists. Three CDs of indispensable gospel, folk, blues, R&B, soul, rap, and world music. The first CD concentrates on the gospel, folk, and country blues that first helped bring the movement to a wider audience. The next two branch out to the great songs that brought a sense of purpose to popular music and that provided an avenue for the expression of black pride and accomplishment. A coda of contemporary sides expresses gratitude to the movement martyrs and heroes, then looks ahead to the work left to be done. The classics -- "Strange Fruit," "Blowin' in the Wind," "We Shall Overcome, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T," "We Are the People Who Are Darker Than Blue"---- give context for lesser known work by forgotten performers like J. B. Lenoir, George Perkins, Ray Scott, and Bob & Marcia in the same sense that the leaders of the movement couldn't have done it without the volunteers who risked their lives every day. Necessary not as a historical document -- although it certainly is that -- but as proof of the power of popular music to animate a righteous cause and of the power of a righteous cause to inspire great music...

Lawsuit against Army Corps of Engineering advances:

A lawsuit blaming the Army Corps of Engineers for flooding from Hurricane Katrina can proceed to trial, a judge ruled Friday in a case seen as a likely last recourse for storm victims seeking compensation from the federal government for alleged negligence by the agency...

It Could Happen to You: The Louisiana Family Forum wants to carve up Congressional districts. And, yes, the LFF is an affiliate of the diabolical Focus on the Family...

Sunday Gospel Time: Bessie Jones and children from the Downtown Community School sing "I'm Gonna Lay Down My Life For My Lord."

Weekly Address

"These investments are not a wish list of priorities that I picked out of thin air – they are a central part of a comprehensive strategy to grow this economy by attacking the very problems that have dragged it down for too long: the high cost of health care and our dependence on oil; our education deficit and our fiscal deficit..."

Earlier this week, House Republican leader claimed that there had been no deregulation of the banking and finance business:



Liberals have rushed to accuse Boehner of lying, but I'm not so sure. I suspect that he's so rigid and doctrinaire that he actually believes what he's saying. This perspective opens up a potentially productive line of attack for Democrats: On the few occasions when Republicans don't lie, the truth is even worse. Adlai Stevenson put it best back in the Fifties: If the Republicans will stop telling lies about us (Democrats), we'll stop telling the truth about them. (For more on Stevenson -- one of the great figures of the 1950's -- go here.)...

Yesterday, I treated myself to this video--

--and this morning I'm on a Bob Dylan jag, starting with Nashville Skyline and moving on to Freewheeling. I have a feeling that Bringing It All Back Home will be next...

Town and Country: Foxessa reports from New Orleans. Great pictures...Speaking of which, don't miss these old coots...Click here, scroll down, and enjoy...

R. I. P., Eddie Bo. Here he is at an in-store appearance at the Louisiana Music Factory:

Here, he performs "Mother-in-Law" with Lillian Boutte on vocals.

Hope

Shortly after I began working at the Very Large Software Company, I met a dynamic program manager named Trish Millines Dziko. She went on to become the Senior Diversity Administrator for the company, and left in the late nineties to form the Technology Access Foundation,  which has the mission of "preparing underserved children of color for higher education and professional success by providing a rigorous and relevant K-12 curriculum." TAF offers everything from afterschool programs in robotics to administration of an entire school, the TAF Academy in Federal Way (WA).

Last month, I finally got around to serving as a volunteer for the afterschool TechStart program at Mount View Elementary in the Highline school district southwest of Seattle. Tech Start  

is a free, yearlong after-school program for students in kindergarten through 8th grade. The focus of TechStart is providing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) enrichment to underserved children of color through project-based learning and advanced technology tools.

I work with a group of kids in 4th-6th grade working with Lego Mindstorms products to buikd robots that mimic animal behavior.

Both parents and teachers tell me that Mount View Elementary is a wonderful school, and it certainly looks it. Think of every negative stereotype you have of an inner city school, then take your mind 180 degrees in the opposite direction. The school is well-kept, clearly a place that its administration, teachers, parents, and students care about. I'm not sure what I was expecting on my first day, but it wasn't this.

As for the kids in the TAF program, they are a World War II Hollywood movie caster's dream: Somali, African-American, Latino, Jewish, and Japanese-American. Invariably in a good humor, the most difficult thing about them to manage is their ebullience. They take great interest in each others' projects. One of the older girls, a Somali, is always ready to help. At yesterday's open house, she volunteered to read the paper from the project of the very shy Japanese-American boy whose partner had not shown. The point I'm making here is that these kids are oblivious to race. I suppose that will change, but right now just being around this makes me feel great about what lies ahead for this country...

A new First Lines today, replacing the opening sentences of Joseph Heller's Catch-22...

Amy Goodman argues that bailout money should go to the people who need it most...

NOLA Master Plan goes on-line today...

Spring has sprung in Lakewood...

Still life with still life...

Shadda-waddah-ya-waddah!...

Friday's Choice: Roy Smeck, The Wizard of the Strings, displays his virtuosity on the guitar, lap steel guitar, banjo, and ukulele. Robert Frost's Banjo has more about this amazing musician here. In the meantime:

Wounded Veterans to Pay for Health Care?

House and Senate Democrats have moved to eliminate a budget proposal that would require combat veterans to use third-party health insurance firms to pay for combat-related injuries, calling it "deeply troubling" and "the responsibility of the U.S. government through the Department of Veterans Affairs -- period." For its part, the Obama Administration does not appear committed to this proposal and already has a meeting scheduled with veterans' groups to discuss this and the overall VA budget.

Jon Soltz, executive director of VoteVets, spoke with Huffington Post about the proposal:

We don't know if this is going to be the proposal, or if it is a serious consideration or not. So, it's premature to go to the White House with pitchforks at this point. That having been said, if it is proposed, we would be opposed, and can't imagine any veterans group that would be for it. There's no appetite for it on the Hill, either. There are ways to eliminate waste at every level of government, though, including the VA. I think we'd all like to sit down with the administration and find areas of the VA budget that are redundant or wasteful, to make sure every dollar spent there is necessary.

It's pretty clear that this idea is a non-starter, as it should be. What's interesting is the hysterical response of the right-blogosphere ("Obama screws military!", "Radical Socialism!", "this makes me sick to my stomach"), which you can sample here, here, and here. Also of interest  is the official Fox News account.

First of all, Fox buries and no one else mentions that the Obama budget proposes a 10% increase in VA funding, an increase badly needed after eight years of Bush budget cuts and dereliction of duty. Moreover, they're all acting as if this were a done deal on the scale of the neglect at Walter Reed Hospital instead of a trial balloon intended as a means of paying for the overall increase. 

But what really surprises me is the emotional extent of the opposition. After all, wouldn't privately insured benefits payments simply allow injured veterans to take advantage of the wonderful world of free choice? It's an article of faith among conservatives that the United States has the world's best health care system, never mind the 50,000,000 uninsured and 60,000,000 underinsured. Why oppose a proposal that will allow veterans to participate in it instead of being subject to government-run health care, which by definition is evil, incompetent, and inefficient? 

It seems to me that conservatives can't have it both ways, much as they may want to. If privately insured payment of benefits isn't acceptable for combat veterans, why should it be acceptable to anyone else?

Despite the headlines, no one says that wounded veterans will actually have to pay for their health care. I worked for a company that self-insured its employees but administered provider payments through a private insurer. I rarely paid any money out of pocket and never had a problem with provider payments being withheld. If I did have a problem or question, I dealt with my company's Human Resources department and not the insurer. Problems were rare because the company had a commitment to broad coverage.

Which for wounded veterans I would think is really the issue: What is the government commitment to coverage of treatment of combat wounds and combat-related disabilities? If an individual veteran has problem or question, will the VA resolve it? During the Bush years, the VA earned a poor reputation for providing and paying for the immense psychological damage experienced by Iraq war veterans, wounded or otherwise. (Bush cuts in the VA budget didn't make their job any easier.) It's instructive that veterans' groups would nonetheless still rather go through the VA rather than have anything to do with the private sector. Which raises the questions again: If private health insurance is bad for veterans, why is it good for the rest of the American citizenry? If government-run health care is the gold standard for veterans, why isn't it for everyone else?...

NOLA Weekend Happenings: The Tennessee Williams cocktail contest...the Amite Oyster Festival...the Audubon Pilgrimage...Earth Fest...Iowa (LA) Rabbit Festival (cookoff rules here)...Los Islenos Festival...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The Ten Best Irish Pubs in New England...

Five Irish novels not by James Joyce or Edna O'Brien that everyone should read:

The Secret Scriptures, Sebastian Barry

How Many Miles To Babylon?, Jennifer Johnston

Inishowen, Joseph O'Connor

Strumpet City, James Plunkett

The Story Of Lucy Gault, William Trevor

ZenYenta reminds us that on St. Patrick's Day, everyone is Irish...

...including in Lakewood, Ohio, Mouse reminds us...

Helen Wheels regales  regales us with Irish and Catholic humor...

In words and pictures, Premium T. tells the story of her Irish roots...

The Red Sox go green for St. Patrick's Day...

Kenneth the Page sues Bobby Jindal...

The Chieftains join a session at Matt Molloy's Pub in Westport, County Mayo:

Another session at Matt Molloy's. I believe that is him playing flute:

The So-Called Liberal Media Strikes Again

This Washington Post article about the recent elections in El Salvador makes it seem like Mauricio Funes is a Marxist demagogue cheered to victory by crowds waving signs that said "Yanqui Go Home":

Leftist Declares Victory In El Salvador Election

By William Booth
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 16, 2009; A11

MIAMI, March 16 -- Mauricio Funes, a former TV newsman who was recruited to run for president, declared himself the winner of El Salvador's presidential contest Sunday night, bringing into power a leftist party built by former guerrillas and ending two decades of conservative rule.

Funes, a dynamic speaker and political outsider who compares himself to President Obama and pledged to be an agent of change in the small Central American nation, was leading the polls late Sunday night with 51.2 percent of the vote and more than 90 percent of the ballots counted. Turnout was high and election day was mostly calm.

If the lead holds, Funes and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) will take control of a nation struggling with an economic crisis and a murder rate that is among the highest in the world. The country has also suffered through 12 years of civil war, which left more than 70,000 people dead.

Funes's opponent, former National Police chief Rodrigo Ávila, who represented the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), was trailing with 48.7 percent of the vote. Ávila conceded defeat, telling supporters, "We will be a constructive opposition."

During a rough campaign season, Ávila insisted that a win for Funes and the FMLN would transform El Salvador into a hard-left satellite state of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Ávila further warned that Funes would turn El Salvador away from the United States. The two countries have traditionally shared close relations. More than 2 million El Salvadorans live in the United States, and thousands traveled home to vote in the elections.

Funes promised to create a broad government composed of FMLN members and outsiders like himself. He said he sought a close working relationship with the United States and vowed to champion the cause of El Salvador's poor. "This is the happiest night of my life, and I want it to be the night of El Salvador's greatest hope," he said. "I want to thank all the people who voted for me and chose that path of hope and change.

Now, let's change a few words here and add a few there:

Progressive Declares Victory In El Salvador Election

MIAMI, March 16 -- Mauricio Funes, a former TV newsman who was recruited to run for president, declared himself the winner of El Salvador's presidential contest Sunday night, bringing into power a progressive party built by former guerrillas and ending two decades of ultraconservative rule.

Funes, a dynamic speaker and nominee of the majority FMLN party who compares himself to President Obama and pledged to be an agent of change in the small Central American nation, was leading the polls late Sunday night with 51.2 percent of the vote and more than 90 percent of the ballots counted. Turnout was high and election day was mostly calm.

If the lead holds, Funes and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) -- which already controls a majority of the El Salvadoran legislature -- will take control of a nation struggling with an economic crisis and a murder rate that is among the highest in the world. The country has also suffered through 12 years of civil war during which the party representing the death squads of the Eighties received U. S. aid and political support, which left more than 70,000 people dead.

Funes's opponent, rightist former National Police chief Rodrigo Ávila, who represented the Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), was trailing with 48.7 percent of the vote. Ávila conceded defeat, telling supporters, "We will be a constructive opposition."

During a rough campaign season, the ultraconservative Ávila insisted that a win for Funes and the FMLN would transform El Salvador into a hard-left satellite state of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Ávila further warned that Funes would turn El Salvador away from the United States. The two countries have traditionally shared close relations. More than 2 million El Salvadorans live in the United States, and thousands traveled home to vote in the elections.

Funes promised to create a broad government composed of FMLN members and progressives like himself. He said he sought a close working relationship with the United States and vowed to champion the cause of El Salvador's poor. "This is the happiest night of my life, and I want it to be the night of El Salvador's greatest hope," he said. "I want to thank all the people who voted for me and chose that path of hope and change."

Now read this and decide for yourself which version is more accurate. Here's the lede:

A desire for change isn't a sentiment unique to voters in the United States, and it's not something that our country should fear when embraced by our Southern neighbors. El Salvador, a country that will hold presidential elections on March 15, is a case in point. It's a place where a single party has been in power for two decades. It has long been mired in poverty, crime, and corruption. And its own Cheneys and Rumsfelds remain in power. A victory by the progressive frontrunner in the electoral contest -- the first Latin American presidential elections since President Barack Obama's inauguration -- would give the new White House an opportunity to reject fear-mongering about the rise of left-leaning governments in Latin America and instead praise the regional wave of democratic transformation.

The full story, written by Mark Engler of alternet.org, details both the origins of a U.S.-supported right wing party (ARENA) with roots in the Salvadoran death squads of the Eighties as well as the rise grass-roots progressive movement (FMLN) that now hold a majority of the El Salvador legislature. And yet the so-called liberal media insists on portraying FMLN as an extreme leftist group beholden to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, while the right-wing ARENA party comes across as upholders of law and order despite the high crime rate in El Salvador. Go figure...

Sugar Bird, Paul Reddick. Canadian Reddick comes from a distinguished national singer-songwriter tradition that boasts Bruce Cockburn, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young. What distinguishes Reddick from them and everyone else is that he writes blues songs, an art form that has just about disappeared, as today's blues performers focus primarily on guitar virtuosity. With verses like this-

Sometime when you look at me
All my troubles cease to be
You are lovely, you are fine
You've got the devilment on your mind

Oh so fine, a heart so pure
You're alluringly demure
You're the fruit upon the vine
You've got the devilment on your mind

--Reddick draws inspiration from the lyric and melodic excellence of Robert Johnson.  On Sugar Bird, Reddick commands a variety of blues styles with such aplomb that that it seems perfectly natural and right for the rollicking "It's Later Than You Think" to succeed the aching "John Lennon In New Orleans." Any Reddick CD is worth having, and Sugar Bird is a great place to start. Highly recommended...

New Orleans book trade labels (tres frais!)...

Paul Reddick sings "Villanelle" at the Crossroads Cafe in Antwerp, Belgium:

Sunday Funnies & Arts

As always, click to enlarge. For more Ben Sargent, Tom Toles, Tom the Dancing Bug, Tony Auth, Zippy the Pinhead, Pat Oliphant, and Tom Tomorrow, go here, here, here, here, here, here, and here...

Offbeat interviews Bo Dollis, a pivotal figure in the history of the Mardi Gras Indians:

The mystical power of the word at the heart of Mardi Gras Indian ritual resided in Dollis, whose preacher’s powers made him stand out after he joined the Wild Magnolias. Though he was a relative newcomer, Dollis quickly rose from Flag Boy to Big Chief in 1964 largely because of his singing ability. As Big Chief of the Wild Magnolias, Dollis helped refashion the nature and practices of Mardi Gras Indian culture and protocol through the 1960s, preserving the traditional ritual texts but changing the nature of the competition between tribes and bringing the Indians to a wider audience. Bo Dollis was part of a new breed of Mardi Gras Indians that eschewed violence and sublimated the competition between gangs into a contest of costumes, the prettier and more elaborate the better.

Mardi Gras Indian culture made a dramatic breakthrough to the outside world in 1970 when Dollis and his childhood friend Monk Boudreaux of the Golden Eagles organized a Mardi Gras Indian second line as part of the inaugural New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which took place across the street from the French Quarter in Congo Square. New Orleans had just emerged from the social restrictions of segregation. It was a truly historic moment for a city scarred by the American original sin of slavery to have an African American secret society lead an integrated public parade to a spot where their ancestors had been sold as chattel. The voice of Bo Dollis called the way into the Promised Land...

The Found Poetry of Postcards: Sarah Boxer's slide show essay on recent installations of the postcard collections of Walker Evans and Zoe Leonard...

The Forgotten War...

Premium T. and I watched Gone With The Wind last night. Yes, the second part drags in the middle, neither Clark Gable nor Leslie Howard would stoop to using southern accents, and the racism is palpable. But Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland do the heavy acting lifting anyway, and the movie set a new standard for storytelling and filmmaking.  Leigh was all of 24 when she portrayed Scarlett O'Hara in what gets my vote for Best Performance by an Actress in a 20th Century Picture. I counted once, and she's in all but five scenes of the 3:42 film -- an astonishing effort, especially considering that she is superb throughout. Leigh essays Scarlett's underlying character so compellingly that the character remains consistent from a flighty belle of the ball to a flinty businesswoman who finally acknowledges her beating heart. Here is her great "I'll never be hungry again" scene from just before intermission:

Jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, whose album A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina), chronicled the psychological destruction of Hurricane Katrina, is recording his new album at New Orlean's Patrick F. Taylor Library. Here's a an excerpt from the "Funeral Dirge" portion of the requiem, performed with the Louisiana Philharmonic at last year's Jazz Festival:

Food, inglorious food...

Leonard Pitts writes that no one should be surprised that we are losing our religion:

And people of faith should ask themselves:

What is the cumulative effect upon outside observers of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker living like lords on the largesse of the poor, multiplied by Jimmy Swaggart's pornography addiction, plus Eric Rudolph bombing Olympians and gays in the name of God, plus Muslims hijacking airplanes in the name of God, multiplied by the church that kicked out some members because they voted Democrat, divided by people caterwauling on courthouse steps as a rock bearing the Ten Commandments was removed, multiplied by the square root of Catholic priests preying on little boys while the church looked on and did nothing, multiplied by Muslims rioting over cartoons, plus the ongoing demonization of gay men and lesbians, divided by all those "traditional values" coalitions and "family values" councils that try to bully public schools into becoming worship houses, with morning prayers and science lessons from the book of Genesis? Then subtract selflessness, service, sacrifice, holiness and hope.

Do the math, and I bet you'll draw the same conclusion the researchers did...

Note: Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ben Sargent, whose work is a regular feature of Citizen K.'s Sunday Funnies, has accepted an early retirement buyout from the Austin American-Statesmen.  For the time being, he plans to develop one cartoon a week, some of which will no doubt appear here...

Sunday Gospel Hour: Orville Noble sings "I Don't Know What You Came To Do" at the homegoing service for his mother, Rev. Vera Bell. Rev. Aubrey Ghent accompanies him on sacred steel guitar. If all churches were like this, Leonard Pitts might not have had anything to write about today...