Capt Jake Cutter:Monsewer, you haven’t got the sense of a jack rabbit. Letting hot horses drink. Keep ’em away from the water till they’ve cooled out. Don’t you know anything about horses?
Paul Regret: I know enough about horses. When I want one I call a groom. When I’m done, I call a groom to take him and the groom says “Yes, sir, Mr Regret.” That’s all I wanna know about horses.
The Comancheros 1961
Wednesday I was reading an excerpt of William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech when he was the Democrat nominee for President in 1896 when my grandfather (Dad’s Dad) was a 16 year teen in Sicily. The speech concerned the big issue of the daysound, money a Gold standard vs Bi-metalism that is a gold AND silver standard.
The speech is of course famous for his big finish:
If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
Now in an age unlike today where everyone knew basic scripture this was a big deal, but today a good half of the country wouldn’t have any idea what he was talking about and the whole issue of “sound money” in a age when we print it on whims (something that would have shocked both parties in his age) is even more comical. Of course given today’s educational system the very idea that an American High School Student let alone a college student who have even heard of Bryan, a man who any student pre-1962 would have known, is an iffy proposition at best.
But there is an earlier line from that speech that jumped out at me that gets almost no play today that I want to touch on. (emphasis mine)
You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies.Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.
“There was no reason to leave before,” said a born-and-bred Upper West Side mom, who asked for anonymity. “Now, I’m done. I can leave tomorrow and never look back. If I never came back to this block, that would be fine.”
The six-months-pregnant mother of a toddler daughter just put her apartment of a decade near the Lucerne up for sale.
“I have definitely seen more crime, drugs and harassment in one week than in my whole experience growing up here,” she said. “I don’t want to see a child get hurt or raped, before they realize maybe it was a mistake to put [hundreds of] drug addicts and sex offenders near schools in the most dense residential population in the city.”
They’ve literally killed the cities. This is going to be the most transformative shift in 100 years.
This means we get to see if Bryan prediction of cities springing up again is right. In fact NYC is in many ways a shadow of its former self as suggested by this amazing video of a fellow touring the now comparatively empty sites:
There is no doubt that either NYC will correct this situation or other cites will rise because these people are going to live somewhere but Stacy McCain asks the key question concerning all these folks now fleeing for the safety of their families :
Thousands of families are now fleeing New York City, but the question must be asked: Who elected Bill De Blasio as mayor?
Probably a lot of those Upper West Side moms voted for De Blasio, because it was the trendy “progressive” thing to do at the time. Didn’t it occur to any of them to wonder what the consequences might be?
Nope they’ve been raised in Evan Sayet’s safe Kindergarten of Eden and they have no more idea how the real world works then Paul Regret knew how to water a horse. Their live has been so safe and comfortable that they had no idea how to deal when the reality of their voting record came knocking at their door.
So now they are fleeing and at least one Governor of a nearby state says come on down but does not include the required warning that I’ll helpfully add
but just remind them that if they vote in the way that turned their states into pits NH will become one.
So come on in but don’t bring your voting record with you
The other thing that might happen is that the migrants from high tax states might bring their political attitudes with them, moving to new, low-tax states for the economic opportunity but then supporting the same policies that ruined the states they left. This seems quite plausible, alas, and I’ve heard Coloradans lament that the flow of Californians to their state involved a lot of people doing just that. (I suppose that migrants from lower-benefits states to higher-benefits states might support change the other way, but people who live on the dole seem to have pretty similar voting patterns regardless of location, which is why the dole is so popular with certain politicians).
Surprise surprise Colorado went from purple to practically blue & Denver is becoming a pit.
If I were one of those conservative billionaires (hello, Koch brothers! hi, Sheldon Adelson!) who are always donating tens of millions to support Republican candidates, I think I might try spending some of the money on something more useful: A sort of welcome wagon for blue state migrants to red states. Something that would explain to them why the place they’re moving to is doing better than the place they left, and suggesting that they might not want to vote for the same policies that are driving their old home states into bankruptcy.
Of course that will be their kids problem to figure out where to flee to if their parents turn their new homes into a pit. Let’s hope those parents love their kids enough to keep this from happening.
fyi I’ll be talking about this piece at 3 PM EST on the DaTechguy off DaRadio Livestream podcast
Last week Stacy McCain noted a young lady named Alison Young doing a Buddy Holly Song on youtube and marveled how the technology allows her follow her dream (and build a large following of 50k youtube followers (aprox 49.3 k more than mine without the following hassle and expense:
Back in 1957, Buddy Holly had to travel to Clovis, New Mexico, to record in Norman Petty‘s studio, where “Everyday” was recorded as the B-side of “Peggy Sue.” You couldn’t just program a synthesizer (or use an Omnichord) for your backup track, either. You had to have an actual band to accompany you, or else pay studio musicians at union scale. Because the equipment needed for recording — what Marx would call “the means of production” — was so expensive, getting access to studio time usually required the support of a manager or a record company. Young musicians would generally spend years playing bar gigs and such before they could hope to get a shot at a recording contract. By the time the Beatles signed with EMI in 1962, they had been together five years, played every dance hall in northern England and done four stints as a house band in bars in Hamburg, Germany.
What the advent of cheap high-quality recording technology has done is to topple the barriers between musical talent and the audience. You don’t need a manager or an agent, you don’t need a record company, a studio, a producer, a contract — no lawyers, no paperwork, nothing — to be able to record a song, produce a video and upload it to YouTube where, potentially, you could become an instant superstar.
This is cause for celebration as it allows the audience access to potential articles that they might never hear. There is however one other aspect of this technological revolution that Stacy is missing and it’s a significant one. This young lady has gained a modicum of fame (and hopefully a small living) without having to subject herself to what would have been called in Hollywood the “casting couch”
Imagine if Miss Young was coming up in the 50-90’s. Imagine the groups of executives, agents, studio folks who were all empowered by their ability to give access , equipment or introductions necessary to give you a shot at the audience she now commands. How many might have demanded a less than honorable price for said access?
Think of how many names, big names, paid Harvey Weinstein’s price, or Bill Cosby’s price or Matt Lauer’s price or the prices of the hundreds if not thousands of other Weinstein, Cosby or Lauer wannabees of a lower level that if they couldn’t get you to the top of the ladder demanded their fee to get to the next rung?
Because of this technology Alison and many like her is able to bypass everyone one of those Weinstein wannabees and just make her music. In fact if she proves popular enough they might have to come to HER rather than vice versa.
This is an actual victory for the right of a woman to make the most of her life based on her talents outside of the bed and the real joy of it is thanks to the ability to produce this on her own she will not only avoid being their prey but might be able to happily produce her music without every knowing such people even exist.
Chaos erupted in downtown Chicago early Monday morning, with widespread looting at countless businesses, property damage and shots fired both at and by police.
The unrest began at around 12:20 a.m., when police were called to reports of a mob scene on Michigan Avenue. Large crowds gathered outside the Saks Fifth Avenue and Coach stores, with hundreds of people yelling and throwing things at officers.
Looters were captured on video in multiple locations, with merchandise taken and storefronts vandalized. Officers were told to respond wearing helmets and there were multiple reports of gunshots.
And they thought the George Floyd Riots were a one off.
Here is a screen shot of a live report from the local NBC affiliate
This is being called “the commute that wasn’t” because getting into the city was restricted after this started.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that these aren’t Trump voters.
Apparently unlike Seattle and Portland where “justice” involves burning down Federal building and attacking police, in Chicago “justice” is grabbing what you can so one can say the folks are at least a tad more pragmatic.
Pinball capital not withstanding I don’t think I’m planning on visiting again anytime soon.
Closing thought: The last republican Mayor in Chicago left office in 1931. That’s four years before the late Olivia DeHavilland who just died at 104 got her 1st big break staring with Errol Flynn in Captain Blood.
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