Labor Day Thoughts

Would anyone have objected if Bill Cosby were to speak to the American schoolchildren? Responding to the kerfuffle about President Obama's speech, Education Secretary Arne Duncan pointed to the amazing 30% dropout rates of America's high school students as maybe one of the reasons the President wants to deliver the speech. Combined with the growing number of college dropouts, this is a dangerous sign of a country who has to compete globally.

The great Nate Silver over at www.fivethirtyeight.com commented on the growing Republican demographic of angry seniors. While a long term detriment to the GOP's chances on a national level, it is a benefit for the 2010, since seniors tend to vote in higher percentages than other groups. Will this see a Republican wave as Washington pundits predict, over at the Dailykos, there was a look at all the by-elections to date and Republican have not fared well, even when they tried to nationaliz the election by tying the Democrat to Obama's health care plan or to gay marriage. That's why I think the governors' elections in New Jersey and Virginia will constitute a false dawn for Republicans. At this writing both Republicans are leading in the polls but are now drawing flak for past deeds and actions. Even if victorious, it's going to be hard to justify any national trend.

I happen to subcribe to the Bill Clinton theory that if health reform is passed, President Obama's approval ratings will climb and the Democrats might dodge a bullet in 2010 elections. It's hard to see what a Republican vote would accomplish except to re-enforce the party's message of "No". If the elections go as the past, the President's party should lose between 15-20 seats in the House. That still will not be enough to fulfill Newt Gingrich's Dream Number 2 of replaying 1994.

Look to see Harold Koh as the leading contender for the next slot on the Supreme Court when Stevens retires. The former Dean of Yale Law School and a defender of human rights globally, he will draw the fire of the right as he has recently. Koh is a very decent and very likeable man and accomplished man but that won't stop anyone.

Glenn Beck tasting blood over the resignation of Van Jones wants to go after Cass Sunstein, the former law professor from the University of Chicago and friend of Barack Obama. Dr. Sunstein is a very peculiar target for Beck. During the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama disappointed his supporters for his support of the FISA bill. Sunstein gave out interviews on why Obama did this. In the interview, he recalled that during all the Bush maneuverings on civil liberties Obama consulted him and asked him to lay out the soundest legal arguments one could make in defense of the Bush actions so he understood them. It seems to me that someone who could actually make these arguments--even if he didn't support them--is hardly material for attack. In particular, Beck wants to expose Sunstein's writings that concern the possibility of using organs from the deceased without a family's consent. A theoretical article about a theoretical situation--something professors are apt to do. But it would fit into the death panel-death book-euthanasia themes that are so popular among the Beck audience. I can see him now--Obama-Sunstein-Chicago-Ezekial Emmanuel--Socialism.

Keith Olbermann seems to have sensed that Glenn Beck is no longer the joke he enjoyed while explaining the symbolism of Rockefeller Center. He has put out a request on his Daily Kos blog for all leads, tips, informants on Mr. Beck's past and present. I hope he comes up with some good stuff.

Van Jones wounded himself with signing the 9/11 petition. However, I found his tape about Columbine truthful and interesting. He said that only white boys shoot up schools, while black boys don't. Since I can't find anything that disputes this, it actually is a subject worthy of analysis. Naturally, this tape was to show how racist he was but I found it disturbingly accurate.

The NAACP criticized President Obama for letting Van Jones go because of criticism from the right. The Washington Post, the company newspaper, said that this showed the problem of vetting in the Administration. Unfortunately, it reminds me of the loss when Tom Daschle could not make it as Health Secretary, a blow to the health care plan. Van Jones had a compelling personal history that led him naturally to the place of being a Czar for Green Jobs.

Old Governor Sunbeam--California's Attorney-General Jerry Brown--has opened up an investigation into the abuse of health insurance companies who demand employees attend townhall meetings to voice talking points against reform. Brown said that, while this practice may be legal in other states, it is not in the state of California and represents a specific abuse of workers' rights, according to the statutes. Well done. The insurance industry has ordered employees out in every state, armed with talking points created by their lobbyists. Some news reports put this figure at 47,000 people placed in these various townhall meetings.

The oil companies thought this astro-turfing ideas is so great that they are now mobilizing protests against the Cap-and-Trade bill before Congress. This is a fantastic moment in our democracy--American corporations are organizing street protests--what a concept?! Billionaires for Weathfare--one of more favorite protest groups--should appear at these protests with a new chant,"We all want to shop at the Company Store!"

My friends in the Natural Gas industry constantly complain about President Obama, mostly I think because they are all from Texas. But underneath the radar, it has been the Coal Industry lobby on the Hill blocking the expansion of natural gas, which is cheap, plentiful and clean.

On the book front, I received notice from Amazon that Bill Burroughs' Evil River will not be published this September. Now the due date is September 2010. That means four years since I first ordered it. Now, Burroughs has been dead for years, the manuscript has been in the hands of the publisher for at least five years. Certainly, there is an editor around by now.

The one book I look forward to is Ralph Ellison's Three Days Before the Shooting about the assassination of a biracial Southern politician who passed as white but was raised by a black family. But with the current climate of hate rhetoric against President Obama,I'm not so sure I'll be as receptive to it as I might be.

The stupid award goes to Hank Williams, the descendent of the great Hank Williams, who proclaimed that "We all know that President Obama is only President because of the electoral college. The electoral college is the problem." Maybe, he's President for receiving the largest amount of popular votes in American history. Or, maybe not.

While Washington braces for Glenn Beck's 9/12 project, some of us are anticipating the 9/9/09 project--the release of all the remastered Beatles albums. I'm usually skeptical about these re-issues of the classics as some new money making proposition. But, the exercise looks like it might actually contribute something to finally obtaining the "real sound" of the Beatles. I'll report in due time.

Music and Missing Books

An old favorite of mine Jorma Kaukonen has released River of Time on Red House Records. This album is without his old sidekick Jack Casady and contains 13 cuts of Jorma and his group on acoustic. Recorded at Levin Helms studio/ house in Woodstock, it's the best sounding album of Jorma's over the last few years. The pleasure comes in hearing a musician become even more accomplished at an instrument you first heard him play at 13. If you want, you can learn Jorma's finger-picking style at the Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio at his workshops. Jack is also there for bass lessons.

But the real purpose of this entry is to ask the question about books that are missing and we're--alright only me--are waiting for.
1. Ralph Ellison's second novel Three Days Before the Shooting has been promised for over a year. This is a great story for literature fans. Long rumored not to exist. Ralph Ellison claimed the manuscript was burned in a fire at his home in western Massachusetts and subsequently rumors went around that Ellison never really wrote it. He suffered from writers' bloc. After his death,his executor received from his widow boxes of mauscript pages and floppy discs (remember them) from a variety of computers and in different software. Together with a student assistant, he pieced together the final draft of a huge novel. The student assistant had to locate the various computers--some almost PC prototypes--to decipher the text and create a time chart of each draft. Ralph Ellison always told Albert Murray it existed and they often talked about chapters but after years people began to think it was like Truman Capote's Unanswered Prayers, a novel which was talked about but didn't exist in manuscript form. The first excerpt of the novel was published as the long "Juneteenth" several years ago. And we have been promised the full masterpiece over the last year. So far, I have not found any pub date and it keeps being pushed off.
2. William Burroughs' Evil River. In Bill Burroughs estate, a completed novel was found. Amazon has had it listed off and on for the past three years. I have pre-ordered it for the whole length of time and have now gone two Christmas' without it. Now Amazon promises an April 1 pub date, which I'll believe it when I see it.
3. Herman Melville's Complete Poems and Billy Budd as edited and annotated by Melville scholar Herschel Parker. Both volumes have been promised in the Newberry series of the Complete Herman Melville. It's hard to imagine the hangup on Billy Budd. The Complete poetry I understand since it has only been in the last few years that newly-found bits and pieces have come to view.

Then we have Missing Authors:
1. James Ellroy. Since becoming a cult writer and cult figure, James Ellroy has only surfaced as the writer of very short pieces. At one point, he suggested in an interview he had been researching the Clinton years with an eye of writing about them. A perfect idea since the Clinton years brought back in force the use of private detectives such as Terry Lenzer, who would be a prefect tool for melding Hollywood and Washington decadence.
2. Ian Rankin. This is unfair since Exit Music came out only a short time ago. In it Detective Rebus retires. But Rebus takes with him the dead cases from his career. It was clear that Edinburgh had outgrown Rebus' character. It had become yuppie-ized and European. The dead cases allow both Rankin and Rebus to go back to a nitty-grittier time more in character with the main character.
3.George Pelecanos. Pelecanos is the only novelist writing now that actually captures the real Washington away from the political world. After his last novel, he said he was exhausted and that it was harder each time. He's been writing for television shows like The Wire. Don't go, George.
4. J.G. Ballard. Last year Ballard left his readers with the distrubing news he was dying of cancer. We just want to know how's he doing.
5. J.D. Salinger. The New York Times already did their annual J.D.Salinger story. Has he been writing all this time? Is Janet Malcolm right--there are two completed novels in his workroom? Will we ever know? Is this the biggest Truman Capote?
6. Mary Oliver. One of our leading poets has actually been prolific since her life companion died a few years back. It's just that I could use another Mary Oliver soon.