I noticed this the other day, but didn't get a chance to post on it until now (partly for forgetting, partly for procrastination). From Wednesday's Los Angeles Times "Calendar" section:
Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek - Former guitarist for the Doors Robby Krieger's fret-burning skills will be on display once again at the Waterfront, where he'll be joined by Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek plus an all-star band for an evening of Doors classics and more. Waterfront Concert Theater, 4211 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey. 9 p.m. $10. (310) 448-8900. http://www.thewfr.com/.
Can you believe that? If you're a big Doors fan, Wednesday night's gig would have been pretty heavenly. I love their music, of course. But I was still very young when Jim Morrison's gang hit the big time. I have an interesting anecdote, however: Mr. Courson, my principal at Cerro Villa Junior High in the 1970s, is father to the late Pamela Courson, Jim Morrison's partner at the high-tide of the Doors' fame. Pam Courson died of a drug overdose a year or so after Morrison died. She's buried at Fairhaven Memorial Park, in Santa Ana, which is where I plan to be buried myself (just a few miles from where I went high school, in Orange, California). Check her Wikipedia information for more details. This is strangely a common memory for me when listening to the Doors' music.
Which reminds me, Los Angeles is the best place in the world for music and concert-goers. Much of the greatest music is created here, and bands come from around the world to play in Southern California. And still today, many of the great musicians from earlier eras continue to play live around town. Plus, "Touch Me" is a sentimental favorite for both girlfriend reasons and the saxophone. (Robby Kreiger's got a black eye at the clip, apparently from getting popped by Morrison in a fight. He refused to wear makeup for his performances, and this one's caught live)
I haven't forgotten about Kreiz's Smashing Pumpkins request, either, if any of my readers are keeping tabs!
(Added Aside: I found Kristina's blog while looking up the Krieger listing. She apparently just saw X in concert a couple of weeks ago, and was astounded how she was able to see Exene, John Doe and gang 30 years after their big heyday. Another example of the power and wonder of music, and Kristina's a leftist!)
Janet Napolitano -- former Arizona governor, now overmatched secretary of homeland security -- will forever be remembered for having said of the attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit: "The system worked." The attacker's concerned father had warned U.S. authorities about his son's jihadist tendencies. The would-be bomber paid cash and checked no luggage on a transoceanic flight. He was nonetheless allowed to fly, and would have killed 288 people in the air alone, save for a faulty detonator and quick actions by a few passengers.
Heck of a job, Brownie.
The reason the country is uneasy about the Obama administration's response to this attack is a distinct sense of not just incompetence but incomprehension. From the very beginning, President Obama has relentlessly tried to play down and deny the nature of the terrorist threat we continue to face. Napolitano renames terrorism "man-caused disasters." Obama goes abroad and pledges to cleanse America of its post-9/11 counterterrorist sins. Hence, Guantanamo will close, CIA interrogators will face a special prosecutor, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed will bask in a civilian trial in New York -- a trifecta of political correctness and image management.
And just to make sure even the dimmest understand, Obama banishes the term "war on terror." It's over -- that is, if it ever existed.
Obama may have declared the war over. Unfortunately, al-Qaeda has not. Which gives new meaning to the term "asymmetric warfare."
Robert Stacy McCain, Google-bomber extraordinaire, has gotta get a kick out of this one. As indicated by my Sitemeter the other day, apparently folks have been searching for "Jane Hamsher Nude." Interestingly, my blog does well in the search results:
Hate to disappoint my more salacious readers, but nothing fancy here, as the seach simply reveals my December 22 entry, "Jane Hamsher, Netroots' Most Despised Hypocrite, Called Out Again!" That's when "Hammering" Hamsher was herself hammered for appearing on Fox News.
The Dems face annihilation in 2010, IMHO - and won't be trusted with the purse strings again for decades, if ever.
ObamaCare is still far from a done-deal, and regardless the political damage is done.
Cap-n-tax? With the evidence looking weak lately, Obama’s own #s tanking … and 11% unemployment? Small wonder Dems are asking him to 86 the bill already.
The only major legislation enacted then would be the wholly-ineffective Porkulus. Obama has NO political cover on that one, due to the paucity of GOP collaborators- he owns it. All it will ever stimulate is inflation… in the months leading right-up to midterms.
The Democrats look to face a bloodbath next fall, with some like Dick Morris predicting a 100+ seat loss on the Hill.
By 2012, most people will wince at the very mention of the name “Obama” - and the GOP could take 40 states running Gilbert Gottfried -
Party’s over kiddies- time to put the grown-ups back in charge ...
Robert Stacy McCain's new Wordpress blog is now live: "The Other McCain." Robert is traveling to Southern California next Tuesday, January 5th, for the Bowl Championship (the Texas vs. Alabama game is January 7th). I should be free on Wednesday to meet him somewhere up in the Pasadena area for some lunch and perhaps some old-fashioned carousing. I'll take my camera, and will report on developments shortly thereafter.
I admit that I didn't follow the Duke rape case all that closely back in the day. I was just getting started as a blogger, feeling my way around the 'sphere, and being careful as far as my own reputation and relationships go. (I used to read Betsy's Page a lot at the time - a great blogger who had the story down cold.) I don't worry about that as much now, the rep thing, although I'm sure being a partisan blogger steps on a few toes here and there.
Having said that, I'd rather be honest and forthright than shameful. And, sorry to have to say it, but it looks like that's what happened with Paula McClain, who is Professor of Political Science Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender at Duke. In 1999, for my upper division course in Black Politics, I assigned chapters from McClain's book, Can We All Get Along?" Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics.
Anyway, I mention all of this after reading John Hinderaker's essay from last night, "What ever happened to the "Duke 88?" (Via Memeorandum.) It turns out that none of the 88 Duke University faculty have apologized for their roles in the 2006 Duke University lacrosse case. And as Hinderaker notes, regarding the Duke 88's unfounded ad campaign:
The ad appeared almost four years ago. Stuart Taylor takes a look at what has happened since to some of the 88 thoroughly wrongheaded professors who signed it.
First, according to Taylor, no member of the "Duke 88" has publicly apologized. Many have expressed pride in their rush to judgment.
Second, sigining the ad seems to have been a pretty good career move. In 2007, one member of the group -- Paula McClain -- became head of Duke's Academic Council, the highest elected position for a faculty member ....
Among the most prominent signers of both the ad and the letter were Karla Holloway, an English professor, and Paula McClain, a political science professor. They also slimed the lacrosse players in opaquely worded, academic-jargon-filled individual statements full of innuendo.
Duke University is pleased and honored to be home to the APSA Ralph Bunche Summer Institute. We are also pleased to have faculty leaders such as Paula McClain and her colleagues, who are willing to put in the enormous time and energy to bring the Institute here and to lead in the teaching and mentoring of its participants. Diversity and inclusion are central to building a strong, vibrant academic community and to the development of scholars who can teach and do research that enhance the disciplines and professions. Duke is enriched by our contribution to this effort in Political Science.
Dr. Lange is also a Professor of Political Science at Duke. He gave a research colloquium at UCSB in the 1990s, when I was completing my graduate training there.
To his credit, at least initially, Dr. Lange refused to join the Duke lynchmob in 2006. As Provost he responded to English Professor Houston Baker (who is cited by Hinderaker as a most "execrable" members of the Duke 88, now on the faculty at Vanderbilt University). Lange writes there, for example:
I cannot tell you how disappointed, saddened and appalled I was to receive this letter from you. A form of prejudice - one felt so often by minorities whether they be African American, Jewish or other - is the act of prejudgment: to presume that one knows something "must" have been done by or done to someone because of his or her race, religion or other characteristic. In the United States our sad racial history is laced with such incidents, only fully brought to light in the recent past and undoubtedly there are uncounted numbers of such incidents not yet, or ever to be, known.
I don't know enough of Dr. Lange's later leadership at the university to say one way or the other, but considering how things developed (as told in the Taylor essay), it certainly appears not all that good.
There's more at Taylor's piece, and I've said enough. Folks can see why, though, when it comes to academics and race, I'm often embarrassed as a professional. The standards of excellence in my field, at least on this score, have sunk low.
Well, I watched the ball drop in Times Square, and a little bit of Dick Clark, God bless him. Now I'm hitting the sack. Happy New Year everyone. Hundreds of thousands turned out in downtown Manhattan, so if you're up for some reading pleasure at this time of morning, see, "Celebrations in Times Square Despite Troubled Times." I have lots of blogging planned for today (after I wake up!), and throughout 2010. I'm especially excited about politics. I think we're at the beginning of a two-year election cycle that will bring the GOP back to the White House. The Republicans will be given a mandate to restore genuine conservatism in the United States. More on that later. For now, enjoy your January 1st, and build up your power for our coming battles against the left's forces of class struggle and destruction.
