Mid-Week

Via ESPN…the aptly named “That Ain’t Right,” a slide show of automotive monstrosities from the SEMA show in Vegas. The pic I’ve chosen to pique your fancy features my pet peeve of current automotive abominations…those outsized wheels that seemingly “grace” every other mildly or wildly customized SUV, Caprice, or other big-assed vehicles prowling the streets these days. To my way of thinking the money spent on “22s” would be better spent on a supercharger or some other horsepower enhancing device. Or decent shocks, based upon some examples I’ve seen around these parts…

Today’s Musical Moments… Two tunes from Leo Kottke. The first is contemporary Leo, playing his interpretation of the ol’ Duane Allman classic, Little Martha.

Short and sweet, as the saying goes. And simply frickin’ brilliant.

Now this piece ("Vaseline Machine Gun") is what originally turned me on to Kottke in the waaay-back, circa 1970 or so. The first time I heard this piece I simply didn’t believe it was only ONE guy on guitar…I just knew it had to be an instrumental duet. But, no. Just Leo. I bought the album and became a life-long fan.

Amazing, isn’t he? I’ve seen Leo at least three times…and always in a small venue with no more than a hundred people…at the very most…in the audience. The man has marvelous rapport with his audience and his stage banter is self-deprecating and virtually defines the word “eccentric,” as in funny-eccentric. There are few guitar players that are Kottke’s equal, and fewer still that are better. None come to mind as I write…

Today’s Political Moment of Zen (apologies, Jon)…courtesy of the WSJ:

To get the conversation rolling at that D.C. dinner--and perhaps mischievously--I wondered aloud whether Bush hatred had not made rational discussion of politics in Washington all but impossible. One guest responded in a loud, seething, in-your-face voice, "What's irrational about hating George W. Bush?" His vehemence caused his fellow progressives to gather around and lean in, like kids on a playground who see a fight brewing.

Reluctant to see the dinner fall apart before drinks had been served, I sought to ease the tension. I said, gently, that I rarely found hatred a rational force in politics, but, who knows, perhaps this was a special case. And then I tried to change the subject.

But my dinner companion wouldn't allow it. "No," he said, angrily. "You started it. You make the case that it's not rational to hate Bush." I looked around the table for help. Instead, I found faces keen for my response. So, for several minutes, I held forth, suggesting that however wrongheaded or harmful to the national interest the president's policies may have seemed to my progressive colleagues, hatred tended to cloud judgment, and therefore was a passion that a citizen should not be proud of being in the grips of and should avoid bringing to public debate. Propositions, one might have thought, that would not be controversial among intellectuals devoted to thinking and writing about politics.

But controversial they were. Finally, another guest, a man I had long admired, an incisive thinker and a political moderate, cleared his throat, and asked if he could interject. I welcomed his intervention, confident that he would ease the tension by lending his authority in support of the sole claim that I was defending, namely, that Bush hatred subverted sound thinking. He cleared his throat for a second time. Then, with all eyes on him, and measuring every word, he proclaimed, "I . . . hate . . . the . . . way . . . Bush . . . talks."

Much has been written about BDS and I’ve linked more than a few of these pieces. This one is as good as any and better than most. Not the least of which is this pithy observation:

In short, Bush hatred is not a rational response to actual Bush perfidy. Rather, Bush hatred compels its progressive victims--who pride themselves on their sophistication and sensitivity to nuance--to reduce complicated events and multilayered issues to simple matters of good and evil. Like all hatred in politics, Bush hatred blinds to the other sides of the argument, and constrains the hater to see a monster instead of a political opponent.

Which, of course, has never failed to amaze me. Read the whole thing.

(h/t: Lex)

It’s not a nice day here on The High Plains of New Mexico… a front is moving in and the wind is up. “Howling” is a much more appropriate, albeit overused, term. I won’t be going out today, reduced as I am to using Miss Zukiko for basic transportation, and today is not a good day for motorcycling. Ya, the Green Hornet runs and all her mechanical systems save one are intact. The one system that isn’t functional is the hood latch, and the hood remains in place…which is to say down… thanks only to the emergency catch. It’ll be a slow slog over to the body shop in Clovis tomorrow. But until then, the wounded Hornet will remain parked. I’m not one to tempt fate.