Firstly, this wasn’t really a major story in the big scheme of things, but I find it awfully illustrative as to the character of the opposition and it reminds us not just who we fight but who we fight for.
I happened to be hanging out on Twitter when it went down, I follow @rosannecash and I admire the way shehandled Boehner, as well as the subsequent personal assaults by craphurlingwinged monkeys unleashed by Politico’s post.
Secondly, what Merle says below sort of points out that no one of us, whether in heartfelt admiration (my grandma was fond of saying that she loved Johnny Cash just like she did her own equally flawed yet mostly goodhearted sons) or in venal opportunism (Boehner), has any real rights of appropriation to the individuals who become our cultural icons, but we still keep trying to possess them nonetheless, usually to their ultimate detriment. And to ours.
Thirdly, that said, when such an individual, or said individual’s family, tells you to back the f*ck off, backing the f*ck off is usually considered the decent thing to do, at least by principled folk.
Fourthly, on the eve of a monumental election, shouldn’t Politico have been putting their energies to something, I don’t know, a bit more substantive?
Fifthly, as expletives go, “asshat” barely qualifies, despite Smith’s pearlclutching.
And finally, even when I was a kid, this song always made me cry, and it still does. Splits me open straight to a tender, unguarded place. That tender ragged place is a good place to be this dark morning, rather than curled up, closed off, defended, and blind.
“Till things are brighter,”this is good practice for these times. So, I guess thanks to theGreat Pumpkin are in order for this reminder of our marching orders, and a chance to revisit an enduring piece of art by one of our great flawed warriors.
virgo – great song selection. This too is one of my favorite JC tunes. Here is another – perhaps one quite appropriate to our situation today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhtcaRRngcw
RP
Now that I have left NOLA for the Midwest I am SO thankful that I can look to First Draft as an island of sanity up here.
Thanks!
Who says NOLA’s an island of sanity? 😉
Kentucky is not the Midwest. *ducks*
Thanks, Virgo, we need this.
I love Roseanne. She speaks truth to power, thank goodness.
This song feels appropriate for this morning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhtcaRRngcw
“You can run on for a long time. Sooner or later God’ll cut you down.”
“Go and tell that long-tongued liar, go and tell that midnight rider, tell the ramblers, the gamblers, the back-biter, tell that God’s gonna cut ’em down.”
“As sure as God made black and white, what’s done in the dark will be brought to the light.”
Virgo – I listened to this driving to work this morning. Couldn’t think of anything I’d rather hear after Facebook friends posted the “Cash” foolishness yesterday, without Rosanne’s response.
Thank you, again and again, for sharing it today.
Remember in Deadwood, when Ellsworth says he’s f*cked up his life flatter’n hammered shit but he stands before you beholden to no man? That’s what I’ve always deeply admired about Cash, and I think that’s why my grandma loved him like a son because damn did my uncles have a lot of hammered shit in their messed up lives… Cash messed up on a gigantic scale over and over and over, personally, publicly, professionally. I mean the man drunkenly started a forest fire that killed all but 3 of remaining California condors in a protected wildlife refuge, not to mention damn near destroying his family time and again. But he believed he get back up and could do good in the world and be an example for people who f*cked up even worse than him, that anyone could keep striving for atonement and hold their head up. That anyone, even murderers, could achieve some small bit of grace in life.
Remember in Deadwood, when Ellsworth says he’s f*cked up his life flatter’n hammered shit but he stands before you beholden to no man?
I have been alternating clips of that, the best of Ray Person from Generation Kill, and Dylan tunes all morning.
A.