Today, September 9, should be a National Holiday. Your Bloguero is well aware that it isn’t. Not yet. And your Bloguero also knows that you, dear reader, don’t yet know why today should be a NH. Your Bloguero will explain. Eventually. Your Bloguero knows that some day justice will be served and today will be celebrated as a NH. After all, today is Otis Redding’s birthday. Had he not died at age 26 (in 1967) there is no question whatsoever that he would have been recognized as the absolute King of Soul Music. The pinnacle. The apex. The zenith. And that his birthday would, of course, have to be a NH. At least among people with ears and souls.
Why all this raving? You need to listen to Otis Redding. And if you listen to only one song all the way through, let it be this one. In your Bloguero’s judgment, this 1968 recording is among Otis Redding’s most remarkable recordings:
No, it doesn’t have an exciting video with it. That’s because it’s pre-MTV, pre-Youtube. It’s a 53 year old recording, though you won’t believe that if you listen to it.
One of the joys of being your Bloguero is playing songs as wonderful as this. In fact, playing it over and over again is rewarding, too. It becomes a kind of mental floss that caresses the heart while it sweeps out all of the contamination and toxicity of the past week. Cataloguing the past week’s bumper crop of awfulness is something your Bloguero will eschew. Suffice it to say that replacing all of that with this song is a step in the right direction, a step toward hope.
This Week In The Dream Antilles is usually a weekly digest. Sometimes, like now, it is not actually a digest of essays posted in the past week at The Dream Antilles. For that you have to visit The Dream Antilles. Please leave a comment so that your Bloguero will know that you stopped by. Or click the Encouragement Jar. Your Bloguero likes to know you’ve visited.
So now we’ve heard Barry’s big “jobs speech” and it turns out to be the exact opposite of what is needed to rescue the crumbling nation. No surprise there.
Obama’s so-called “jobs plan” is huge cuts in the payroll tax that are designed to manufacture a real future shortfall in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which will then be used as the rationale for imposing deep cuts on, or even the elimination of, all three programs. Corporate tax cuts will drain even more revenue from the treasury, which will make extending unemployment insurance for the unemployed who currently qualify, not to mention infrastructure repair, highly unlikely.
WASHINGTON – The centerpiece of President Obama’s job-creation plan, a proposal to further reduce Social Security taxes, is emblematic of a package of modest measures that some economists describe as helpful but not sufficient to lift the economy from its malaise.
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The cuts, which would deprive the government of about $240 billion in revenues next year, are the largest items in the president’s $447 billion job-creation plan, which includes payments to unemployed workers, incentives for companies that hire workers and increased federal spending on infrastructure. All of the measures will require the support of Congressional Republicans.
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But some advocates, noting that temporary tax cuts have a history of becoming permanent, worry that reducing direct Social Security revenues could undermine political support for the program by making it seem more like a form of welfare.
WASHINGTON — In his jobs speech before Congress Thursday night, President Barack Obama appeared to call on congressional Democrats to cut Medicare, a politically toxic proposal that undercuts a previous Democratic campaign strategy.
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As Ezra Klein reported for the Washington Post on Wednesday, Obama is planning a separate deficit reduction package that liberal groups expect to include raising the eligibility age. Making this change for both Medicare and Social Security hits poorer participants in the programs hardest, since they are more likely to die at a younger age.
According to Zap2it, of the 5 major broadcast networks, only ABC is going to carry the Presidential Address on Jobs in front of a Joint Session of Congress. Even MSNBC is saying that they’re going with a Tweety repeat. Don’t blink, you might miss it.
The rest? Entertainment Tonight, Jeopardy, and Wheel of Fortune. In short, Local Programming.
I’ll allow you to ponder for a moment what that says about prospects for Electoral Victory in 2012.
NBC is going to be showing Football Night in America without Keith Olbermann and if you don’t care to watch that and are as television addicted as I, here is some other programming to accompany your Season Opening Kickoff party.