A.M. Headlines

(Philadelphia Inquirer): "Obama, Christie together again"

(Politico): "John McCain in Syria, meets rebels"

(New York Times): "Obama plans 3 nominations for key court"

(CNN): "High court poised for a month of high-stakes ruling"

(The Hill): "House lawmakers press on the IRS investigation over recess"

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P.M. Headlines

(USA Today): "Abandoned car closes the Brooklyn Bridge"

(USA Today): "Sen. McCain slips into Syria, meets with rebels"

(The Hill): "Obama honors fallen as US turns ‘page on a decade of conflict’"

(CNN): "Poll: Do you support or oppose the health care law?"

(Fox News): "Study on possible border entry fee sparks opposition"

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Memorial Day 2013

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(image)

On November 11 each year, Remembrance Day (also Veterans Day in the U.S.), I post a poem from the First World War, from a great poet of that apocalypse like Wilfred Owen or Isaac Rosenberg.

Today is Memorial Day in the U.S., and so today I want to post a poem by an American poet of that war.

The writer and editor Archibald MacLeish was born in Glencoe, Illinois in 1892. A future Librarian of Congress, recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes, as well as an expatriate in Paris during the swinging '20s (along with Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, et al.), he served as an ambulance driver and artillery captain during the Great War.

MacLeish died in 1982. There's a good piece on him at the Poetry Foundation.

Here is one of his more well-known poems, "The Silent Slain":

We too, we too, descending once again
The hills of our own land, we too have heard
Far off -- Ah, que ce cor a longue haleine --
The horn of Roland in the passages of Spain,
the first, the second blast, the failing third,
And with the third turned back and climbed once more
The steep road southward, and heard faint the sound
Of swords, of horses, the disastrous war,
And crossed the dark defile at last, and found
At Roncevaux upon the darkening plain
The dead against the dead and on the silent ground
The silent slain --

My best to our American friends and family, and readers. Have a happy and safe Memorial Day. But do try to remember what it's all about.

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A.M. Headlines

(CNN): "One week later: The daunting recovery in Oklahoma"

(L.A. Times): "A third George Bush steps up to the political plate in Texas"

(New York Times): "Groups flagged by I.R.S. tested political limits on tax status"

(The Hill): "Dems prepare game plan for Benghazi"

(Reuters): "On Memorial Day, remembering friends, family with ‘a heavy but grateful heart’"

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P.M. Headlines

(USA Today): "Obama to Oklahoma: "You are not alone"

(Capital Gazette): "Schumer: Group of senators to look at media leaks"

(Politico): "Franken gets last laugh"

(New York Times): "California faces a new quandary, too much money"

(Washington Post): "In North Carolina, unimpeded GOP drives state hard to the right"

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Listening to Now: Dave Douglas Quintet - "Be Still My Soul"

By Richard K. Barry

Dave Douglas is on the cover of the current issue of Downbeat.

Wiki:

He is an American jazz trumpeter and composer whose music derives from many non-jazz musical styles, including classical music, folk music from European countries and Klezmer. He has been a member of the experimental big band Orange Then Blue. Douglas is currently the director of the Festival of New Trumpet Music, which is held annually in New York City.

Since 1993, Douglas has recorded more than twenty albums as a bandleader. He has also performed and recorded with dozens of musicians, perhaps most notably with various John Zorn ensembles. With his own groups, Douglas has pioneered new settings for the trumpet in jazz. In more recent years, he has explored collaborations involving modern dance, spoken word/poetry, and film.

This is the title track from a new recording called "Be Still My Soul."

From Dave Douglas's website:

The continually evolving trumpeter & composer settles down for a ballad-like set that presents a series of hymns and folk songs with an intensely personal connection. Be Still brings out the most lyrical side of Douglas, and introduces both a newly configured Quintet — Jon Irabagon (saxophone), Matt Mitchell (piano) , Linda Oh (bass), and Rudy Royston (drums)— and an important new collaborator, vocalist Aoife O’Donovan.

 

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"Making it" in today's GOP

By Richard K. Barry

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole was asked today if he thought he and those in his cohort would have a place in the Republican Party as it is today:

Politico:

"I doubt it," he said in an interview aired on "Fox News Sunday" when asked if his generation of Republican leaders could make it in today's GOP. "Reagan couldn't have made it. Certainly, Nixon couldn't have made it, cause he had ideas. We might've made it, but I doubt it."

What a statement coming from one of the grand old men of the Republican Party: Having ideas is a disqualification in today's version of the Grand Old Party.  

And this from The Washington Post:

The current GOP ought to be “closed for repairs” because it lacks a vision and is unable to strike deals with Democrats, Dole said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday”.

Yeah, but who's going to listen to this guy?

(Cross-posted at Phantom Public.) 

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