About Last Night...

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 "What was different from previous debates was Sanders’s eagerness to go on the offensive against Clinton, and particularly to highlight her most vulnerable area: her ties to the Wall Street plutocracy. Twice, Sanders mentioned that she has received generous speaking fees from Goldman Sachs. The NBC anchor Lester Holt, the co-moderator of the debate, asked Sanders how his approach to bank regulation would differ from Clinton’s. “Well, the first difference is I don’t take money from big banks,” Sanders replied. “I don’t get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs.” Sanders’s second jab came after Clinton claimed that she had the toughest, most comprehensive plan to regulate Wall Street. This time, Sanders added a dollar figure, pointing out that Clinton “received over six hundred thousand dollars in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs in one year.”

 http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/bernie-sanderss-big-night?mbid=nl_160118_Cassidy&CNDID=21497841&spMailingID=8444320&spUserID=MTE4NTcyMTAzMzUxS0&spJobID=841957019&spReportId=ODQxOTU3MDE5S0

 

 

The Lorraine Motel, Martin Luther King, And Me

 

 

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 The Lorraine Motel in Memphis is now the central feature of The National Civil Rights Museum.

But it is still the Lorraine Motel, frozen in time at the point just after Martin Luther King was shot. And the rooming house that is being pointed out in the photograph is still there as well, and you can go inside and look out the same window that James Earl Ray looked out of as he pulled the trigger. It is one of the most chilling and intense historical experiences I have ever had, right up there with my visit to Ford's Theatre and the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC.

This excellent New Yorker piece provides some historical context:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-lorraine-motel-and-martin-luther-king?mbid=rss

There are many reasons to visit Memphis, particularly if you love rock and roll and the blues. But if you go, you need to visit The Lorraine. 

Happy Birthday, Julia Louis-Dreyfus

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 "Getting older [is my secret to body confidence]," she says "It's like, 'Yeah, this is who I am, fuck off,' as opposed to, 'This is who I am, I'm sorry.' You know, there's something about getting older and owning who you are that is a good thing."

And with age comes changes, although Louis-Dreyfus doesn't seem to mind. The actress, who calls herself "curvy," has a motto when it comes to cellulite: "I try to push the worry down and pull the Spanx up!"

Ground Control To Major Tom

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Although we were contemporaries, and shared many of the same musical roots, I was never particularly affected by David Bowie's music, even though I understand the major impact he had within the rock and roll universe, and within the culture at large.

But I have been quite moved today at how deeply his death yesterday at 69 has affected so many of my friends.

So in order to show respect in my own way, I'm sending out this portion of David's "Space Oddity" to Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, ahead of next Saturday's NFL Divisional Playoff game against Kansas City:

Ground Control to Major Tom

Ground Control to Major Tom

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (Five, Four, Three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (Two, One, Liftoff)

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear

I wish for TB12 a better outcome than Major Tom experienced. 

And RIP, David Bowie.

The President On Gun Rights

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I found it encouraging that at last night's televised "Gun Town Hall" President Obama re-affirmed Americans' right to buy guns, and even said his wife, Michelle Obama, turned to him while the two drove through Iowa during the 2008 campaign and said that if she lived in a farm house with a sheriff's office far away, "I'd want to have a shotgun or a rifle to make sure I was protected and my family was protected."

 "And she's absolutely right," he said.

It is certainly an interesting image to conjure with.