Friday Open Thread
Welcome to your Friday Open Thread. Yay! It is the end of the work week! I only worked 3 days and I’m exhausted.
So what is going on in the world?
This is a great idea — the Department of Labor released a smartphone app (iPhone or iTouch only for now) that will let you track the hours you work as a check on the hours recorded by your employer. There is also a hardcopy calendar that people can download to do the same thing. Always a good thing to encourage workers to ensure that their work time is tracked appropriately.
And because there is nothing better than an interpretation of U.S. history by Sarah Palin™, you need to watch this:
Special thanks to Delaware Dem for this video. For those of you that still might not have a grasp on history, yes, I’m looking at you delbert, here is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Paul Revere’s Ride.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.He said to his friend, — “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light, —
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”Then he said good-night, and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somersett, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,
And a huge, black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack-door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade, —
Up the light ladder, slender and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still,
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay, —
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely, and spectral, and sombre, and still.And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.It was twelve by the village-clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.It was one by the village-clock,
When he rode into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.It was two by the village-clock,
When be came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning-breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British regulars fired and fled, —
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm, —
A cry of defiance, and not of fear, —
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.
Tags: Open Thread
Longfellow was long-winded. I prefer my own version of Rudyard Kipling’s “IF” for inspiration.
“If my aunt had male genetalia, she’d be my uncle.”
“There is also a hardcopy calendar that people can download to do the same thing.”
Makes me think of John’s Phone – The World’s Simplest Cell Phone:
Check out the address book.
If you’re interested in the truth about the ride, the best work on it I know of is David Hackett Fischer’s “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Longfellow distorted some of the facts for his own purposes. For one thing, Revere himself did not make it to Concord, but Dr. Samuel Prescott, who joined Revere and William Dawes in Lexington, did.
All I can, uh, say is, uh, wow. Just lettin’ you know I’m, uh, firin’ those shots and bells and, uh, I’m gonna be armed.
Of course, anyone who’s seen “Assume the Position” with Robert Wuhl on HBO knows that while Paul Revere rode 19 miles from Boston to Cambridge, far enough to warn the dean of Harvard, Israel Bissell rode from Watertown, Mass., to Philadelphia, 345 miles in all, taking 4 days and 6 hours (and 2 horses). But, as Wuhl notes, Bissell wasn’t going to be honored in any poem because his name sounds like a Jewish vacuum cleaner.
That clip was priceless.
Watching the President address the Chrysler autoworkers, realizing how awesome a relection plan the Auto Bailout was for him. Ohio, Michigan… big electoral college states he now has hands down.
Thanks Geez.
I suppose George Washington didn’t chop down a cherry tree either?
An “awesome relection plan” it was for the President, and he made that plan before he was even sworn in. But in doing so he threw all the GM bond holders under the bus by trumping their positions with about 50 billion in GOV bailout debt. A lot of those bond holders were ordinary citizens. The union was already ahead of many of those bonds for IOUs from GM. The company should have been bankrupted without the bailout. It only lasted another 6 months anyway, and then the governmnt controlled it all. Should have figured it. Obama was a union dem to start with in Chicago.
Delbert: Yes, bond holders get screwed in a bankruptcy. Wah, wah, wah. You really think a lot of them were Democrats and African-Americans, eh?
“But, as Wuhl notes, Bissell wasn’t going to be honored in any poem because his name sounds like a Jewish vacuum cleaner.”
He also didn’t ride to warn anybody, just to tell them the news down in Philadelphia. Back then, there was no other way to get the news somewhere quickly. No British soldiers were there to interfere (Revere and Dawes were captured in Concord, and let go only when the British soldiers heard the gunshots and realized their comrades were under fire). So there are actually lots of good reasons Bissell never got immortalized.
Also, try to remember that Wuhl was once a comedian, and was playing the story for laughs. The actual distance from Boston to Cambridge, for example, is 6 miles, not 19.
Warning the British by ringing bells and firin shots, too,uh.. also, armed. With people like Paul Revere on our side, it is a wonder we won the war.
Geezer: Bondholders, as opposed to stock holders, get PAID in a bankruptcy; except when your governmnet steps in and throws them under a bus. Now GM has $20 billion of debbt wiped off its books, and it’s business as usual for those worthless overpaid monkeys on their back (union). What kind of a message does that send to the credit markets? And how long do you think they will last with this bandaid once the Chinese cars arrive? I give them another 10 years. Let me rephrase that: I was one of the ones who gave them another 10 years, thanks to Obama.
Bondholders *MAY* get some of their capital back, but it is often pennies on the dollar. For GM — some of those bondholders had credit default swaps — meaning that they were going to be made whole (or close to it). Some of them got some equity in return (warrants). But the bottom line for any bondholder is that bonds are not a risk-free instrument, and sometimes a BK wipes out alot of people. For GM, that wipeout turned out to be a very good thing for GM and some of the people who work there.
And if the decision is to try for saving a bunch of jobs at GM and their suppliers vs. making bondholders whole — I’d say that keeping people working and producing is the smarter play. At least with government funds. Because if the government had made the GM bondholders whole, delbert would be parroting the GOP talking points about bailing out these bondholders.
The short answer is that delbert doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.
The govenment didn’t have to make the bondholders whole. The goverment needed to STAY THE HELL OUT OF IT. NO GOVERNMENT FUNDS. Let the company declare bankruptcy on its own. Then let the courts do what they are designed and in place to do. And Delbert WAS a bond holder, by the way, and didn’t want to be bailed out. Just wanted the government not to intervene and throw us under the bus. But Obama wasn’t going to let that happen because then it would be NO MORE UNION. Jobs still there, union gone. He paid back his union favors by taking a shit on the credit system.
Then your complaint is just plain stupid. You would have taken a beating any way this went down since apparently you didn’t qualify for warrants or stock. And a majority of GM bondholders *approved* this deal. It isn’t as though the government just muscled in on this thing.
But a month or two back, unsecured creditors (including bondholders) got some GM stock or warrants from the bankruptcy estate. So it isn’t as though most of the bondholders got nothing. Which, of course, ruins your talking point, but there you have it.
AND @puck — John’s Phone is killer. Just killer.
The bondholders AND THE UNION MEMBERS would have owned the company in a normal bankruptcy, because we were the creditors. Then in the restructuring the union contract would haver been declared dead and removed. The new GM would have had no union or a very weak one. AND NO GOVERNMENT DEBT AHEAD OF THE DEBT IT ALREADY HAD that served no purpose but to stall the inevitable (bankruptcy) for six months and let the government (Obama administration) dictate the reorganization of the company. And yes, the bond holders did vote for it because by then it was already played out and over. The bond holders did not vote for the government to bail out GM. It was already done and allowed by the company board under the guise of avoiding bankruptcy. The bankruptcy, as it turned out, was unavoidable and the company and your government knew it.
September 2009
In her strongest statement yet, Pelosi said that any bill “without a strong public option will not pass the House”
July 2010
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday rejected extending tax cuts for the wealthiest tax bracket that are set to expire at the end of the year.
June 2011
Pelosi said that cuts to seniors’ benefits are “absolutely” off the table in the ongoing deficit reduction negotiations
The bondholders AND THE UNION MEMBERS would have owned the company in a normal bankruptcy, because we were the creditors.
There would have been nothing to own if the government had not stepped in. Certainly no one on Wall Street was stepping up to provide the capital that they needed, and nor were they going to. So the unions would have been gone, but so would you and so would GM.
So now, the unions are still working (but with fewer people) as are the hundreds of thousands of others (suppliers, dealers and their workers); GM is functioning in a way that gives them a long-term chance; GM is making money; some of the creditors are getting stocks or warrants; the US is getting its money back and then some and apparently you are nursing a grudge because you lost out on an investment that *never* carried a guarantee.
We’ll let you know when you are ready to be at the Adult Table, OK?
@ delbert The bondholders AND THE UNION MEMBERS would have owned the company in a normal bankruptcy, because we were the creditors
I’m sure the union would have voted their contract away just to make the bondholders happy ????????
No matter what actually happened, the perception now is that he saved GM, he saved Chrysler, he saved everyone’s jobs, and the jobs of those who depend on them down the line. His whole speech was a giant self-congratulatory reminder that He. Is. the man. and deserves credit for everything. His whole speech was a giant grandstanding reminder of how awesome he was for doing what he did.
One huge pat on the back.
..and those who are working there ate it up. They have friends and family members who vote, word of mouth is big.
He will take Michigan and Ohio, without question. Those are two huge states.
“He will take Michigan and Ohio, without question. Those are two huge states.”
Don’t be too sure. Eighteen months is a long time in politics. Would you have guessed 18 months out that O’Donnell would defeat Castle?
The bankruptcy court would have voted the union contract away, Pol.Wiz. It would have been the first thing to go in a court run reorganization. But the company was just as much at fault as anyone. They should have acknowledged the hopelessness of it by mid 2008 and declared Bankruptcy then while they still had funds. By Dec.2008 they were “running on fumes”, to use their own parlance.
Give it up, Del. Democrats are OK with what happened, and Republicans aren’t.
delbert assumes that a bk would have kept GM alive in the first place. And given GM’s straits at the time, that was not looking likely. Why is that? Because there were no operating funds. And Wall Street certainly wasn’t stepping up to give them any. Without the government stepping in GM is unlikely to exist today.
A thing you’d think a bondholder would know.
Please go to democracynow.org the last two night programs. Last night Seymour Hirsch (The New Yorker) was on. He has written about how we the american people are being set up for another illegal war with Iran. He says, “there is no threat from Iran, they are not building any nuclear anything (but have 2 power plants that supply nuclear power for electricity and science. Obama has surrounded himself with very few advisors (he is now in a bubble) gets no information except that fed to him by the neo con demorats who surround him. Thrusdays program addressed the attempted coup of the democratically elected President of Honduras who is now back in office after 2yrs. The Ambassadors to many of these countries are the same neo con Ambassdors that George WAR Bush put in place, and they are very busy making Venezula out to be the bad guy. Venezula offered Haiti a great deal. They would supply them with oil cheap so they could get their electric back on. Cuba sent electricians to fix the poles down since the earthquake…but Hilary the Zionist Clinton has done everything she can to undermine that deal. Her and her zionist lobby friend Lanny Davis are using the CIA to go into these countries and demand they follow what the US tells them to do. We have a problem people…and Hilary Clinton is the main problem in the State Dept. We cant get peace in Israel and Palestine because of her. Bill Clinton has done nothing in Haiti, refuses to even listen to the Haitians, and installed another puppet dictator to make sure Haitians never get their freedom. Haiti has become another military base for the imperialist American empire. I urge you to listen to those shows and get some real information.
While there can be no doubt that the US State Department demonizes the humanitarian efforts of Venezuela and Cuba (a long US tradition in the case of Cuba that spans the administrations of both Democratic and Republican Presidents), I doubt that US will invade and occupy Iran because they have a formidable fighting force. The US likes easier pickings like a depleted Iraqi army, a primitive Afghanistan, and a tiny Grenada.
Read Seymour Hirschs article…then make a decision. Yes the US is considering attacking Iran, they have been leading up to that for years now. They blame everything going wrong in the middle east on Iran, when the real terrorists are the zionists…we should all know that.
Hirsch’s sources have been telling him that a US invasion of Iran is imminent since the middle of the Bush administration. I believed him then. Now he is coming across as the little boy who cried wolf.