I am really frustrated over the media-wide sensationalism regarding Barack Obama's "bitter" remarks regarding Pennsyvlannia voters at a San Francisco fundraiser last week. Here is what he actually said (which was suprisingly hard to find on the internet):
“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them,” he continued, “And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not,” Obama went on. “And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” So far, voices across the internet and television, and print have been in unison declaring Obama as elitist & out of touch, as well as decreeing this as a major political blunder. Mary Matelin on
Meet The Press declared that this proves Obama is not the "different kind of politician" he claims to be.
Is everyone taking crazy pills here? This remark highlights
exactly how Obama offers a new direction for America. He is
dead-on here. People need to wake up. The Republican party's meat & potato issues for ordinary, working-class Americans (whom the party has long-ago left behind) over the past 40 years have been guns, abortion, and religion. It has always amazed me how people vote against their better interests because of those three key issues. Like, poor people vote for Republicans because they hear "lower taxes" and they automatically assume more money in their pocket. They don't realize that their lower taxes are also (much) lower taxes for the wealthy, fewer government programs which benefit EVERYONE (like new roads, bridges, hospitals, mass transportation, corporate regulation *airline industry*- do any of these things sound like problems?) & more money for public education. In fact, I would say its part of the insidiousness of the conservative charge that they put LESS money into public education, hence denying poor, working class Americans a decent education so as to be able to see past Guns, or Religion, or Abortion to the actual problems, like kids going into their schools and blowing people away.
Obama represents something new for this country for the fact that he has the balls to tell it like it is, which is precisely one of the things he has touted about himself from the get-go. I find it extremely troubling that everywhere I turn I read, see, hear someone decrying Obama's elitism, or calling him out of touch, yet it took me a half an hour googling on the internet to find the exact comments he made, and all over the blogs, & television & post & daily news are criticisms without providing the original context. I think people need to take a long, hard look at this and appreciate the opportunity we have here, to have a leader, finally, who has the courage to tell it like it is.
Not to overestimate my own ability to personally affect the outcome of a Major League Baseball game, but be it sheer coincidence that upon praising Nate McLouth's early season performance, the guy unloads off Los Angeles Dodgers ace closer Takashi Saito for a go-ahead three-run dongy in the top of the 9th to lead the Pirates to a 6-4 come from behind victory? I think not.
One of my favorite albums as a kid was my mom's cassette tape of The Beatles' Yesterday...and Today Most Beatles fans know that until Sgt. Pepper came out, Beatles' albums in the U.S. were released in different versions than those in England. Capitol Records did this to squeeze every ounce of profit out of the Beatles that then could. Anyways, when the Beatles' catalog was released on CD in 1987, Capitol rectified this by releasing only the British versions of their records. Aside from the fact that those albums were (poorly) remixed at the time, there were only few notable differences. One of the main differences were in three songs from Yesterday...and Today: Dr. Robert, And Your Bird Can Sing, and I'm Only Sleeping. The versions of these three songs were different mixes than the versions that were released on Revolver, and were never released on CD. Hence, the only way to hear these versions, the ones I grew up with, are to hear them on vinyl. But Hark!!! Technology exists to rip vinyl to digital now!!!! Here is the original Yesterday... and Today mix of I'm Only Sleeping, one of my favorite songs ever!!! 
Two songs from my favorite Polvo album, Today's Active Lifestyles. 
Nate McLouth of the Pittsburgh Pirates is off to a fantastic start this season. I always root for homegrown guys on perennially disappointing teams. I hope McLouth can bring back an heir of respectability to the Pirates, who were one of the most dominating teams in baseball in the heydays of my youth, the early 90's.
