Franken Still Slogging Forward

I've finally posted a quick review of Al Franken's Lies ... A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Here's a quote: "Sure, Franken uses humor to make his points, but he's largely 'kidding on the square'. "

Young Natalie Merchant and the Poor at Easter

I dug a 25 year old cassette tape out of the center console of my 13 year old truck today while driving to drop a check off at my dentist. (Not quite as painful as a procedure, but a little bit cringe creating even so.) The music was fresh once more, 10,000 Maniacs "In My Tribe". My gawd, Natalie Merchant, you sound young! Through the magic of recorded media it is a young you; I guess I've lately listened only to recent renditions of your older lyricism. Of course you were young then, about twenty years old twenty five years ago. You're younger than I am so let's not reverse the math to see where we are now, but you are singing idealized lyrics, the promise of youth. Did we change the world, bend it to our better vision? Are you (are we) doing it now, with the election of Barack Obama, the popularizing of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert and, possibly, the election of Al Franken? Along with the rise of the third world from poverty and preventable diseases? Will there be poor always, pathetically struggling? It's a good Easter question, and I'm not the only one who is asking. (See also Matthew 26:11, Deuteronomy 15:11, Mark 14:7, etc.) For now I'll listen to my youth, and to Natalie Merchant's, and to the other 10,000-plus maniacs I have known.

Freedom of Speech

With the impending inauguration of a new President, one that appears to be cut from a different cloth than our current one, maybe a different cloth than any in the last couple decades, it appears that more than just myself are reflecting on Freedom, and the ongoing fight to maintain or regain it right here in the good old USA. Neil Gaiman put down his credo a few weeks back; I could only fail to try to agree more. It's here; and well worth the time.

I often quote from the Alan Shepard speech in the movie "The American President" written by Aaron Sorkin (the full speech is here) when trying to express my own thoughts on our freedom:

America isn't easy. America, is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center-stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest." Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

I also hear Al Franken, reading from one his books today, talking about the home of the brave, and how it is a mature love that liberals have for our country, to want it to be better and to own up to its mistakes. It takes a brave people to do that -- and that'd be us.

Straight Talk from Al Franken

As the recount in Minnesota continues, I just started listening to Al Franken's audio book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right (from 2003). Now I wish I had more directly supported Franken's Democratic Senatorial bid, we could use the plain talk and fact checking. Man, he rips Ann Coulter up, down, and sideways. I don't know anything about her, but now I know too much (not that I've checked Al Franken's facts, and I really should, but he cites enough examples and sources to be pretty credible). I'll give a rating and brief review whenever I get through the whole thing, if I ever do (I think it's 10 hours of audio tape. As Dave Winer would say, "Oy."