Pants Party

I went to sleep at 4AM this morning anxiously searching through the precinct results in the Montana senate race. Waking up this morning (heh), I see things have gone well. The Bush news conference gave the ol' Schadenfreude receptors a good work out. The jitters are over.

Count me squarely in the camp of those hoping the Dems don't fumble the gift they've been given. If Iraq continues to go badly (or get worse), the electorate may be perfectly willing to "throws the bums out" again in '08. I hope, by then, that the Democrats will have produced some effective legislation so that the next beneficiaries of Dean's 50-state plan will have something with which to run.

Count me in with Kunstler (or, for those who know me well, count Kunstler in with me) in the belief that one of the most important things the Dems could do, in some sort of effort to decrease our nation's dependence on oil (foreign or otherwise), would be to resuscitate our nation's passenger railroad. Chuck in land-use reform and some new fuel economy strictures while you're at it. The pessimist in me says that these types of things--useful, course-changing moves--will get buried in fights over those "activist judges" and the debate over whether to "cut and run/save American lives" or "stay the course/protect the oil with blood."

Yes, I am being chipper.

As I am wont to do, I've become a little obsessed with a particular piece over the last couple of days: Brahms, Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in G major. To start a (hopefully) series of commentaries on music, I thought it might be well to start in the middle.

Of all my composerly attachments--to name a few: Mahler, Holst, Verdi, Wagner, Queen, Shostakovich, Britten, Schumann--I am most consistently delighted by Brahms. While I clutch certain pieces by those other composers (and one super-awesome band) closely to my chest, there are sometimes whole categories of their works that I could do without. Britten's purely orchestral works often seem pointless; a Shostakovich opera wears me out; and, well, then there's Tristan, which I've never been enthusiastic about since falling asleep--multiple times--while listening to Bernstein's five hour and twenty minute recording back in undergrad days. I'll take a Ring with a side of Grail, but go light on the Liebestod.

( More on Brahms, with [corrected links to] music clips! )

Those in the know may have gleaned that, once upon a time, I used to associate myself with the ol' GOP. Growing up in upstate New York, surrounded mostly by the type of folk that like to keep their religion and politics forcibly separate, it was not too difficult to drift through the Reagan years believing that the Republicans were still the party of Lincoln, even if they weren't as fiscally responsible as they should be. After Reagan came Bush I, a moderate liberal (gasp!) patrician northeast-type (now surely a RINO), whom I genuinely liked.

Well, then things changed. The Republicans hated Clinton, and, seeing the writing on the wall, turned more and more to God; hence, I turned away from the Republicans. These trends seem to be culminating in W, who seems bent on singlehandedly creating a new "silent majority," but one that hangs a bit further to the left than Nixon's.

Which brings us to our topic, the 2008 presidential race. Considering Bushie and his administration's mishandling of Iraq, we're either going to end up with a "moderate" Republican nominee or a fire-brand conservative that will have no chance of winning. (Well, unless the Democrats put up another John Kerry. Hopefully it'll be the new AlGore 2.0 instead.) "Moderates" like McCain (who really isn't a moderate) and Rudy Giuliani seem to be positioning themselves for a run, but a recent Slate article presents the moderates' dilemma:

Rudy Hits the Campaign Trail:

"'Time out,' he said bringing his hands together to make a T. 'Time out.' The crowd quieted down. 'The other thing we have to learn is that we can't get into this partisan bickering. The fact is that Republicans and Democrats have the same objectives. … Democrats are loyal Americans. Republicans are loyal Americans. I think we have better answers, but we have to respect each other.'

This guy is never getting the nomination."

*******

Where Rudy Giuliani would be useful is (Houston, we have a title) in the Senate, an organ of government where reaching across the aisle should be the daily business. To my mind, while, in the House, congresscritters beat each other with sticks, senators are over in the other chamber making deals over coffee (or something harder); the House should be where politics is played with the unbridled violence of, say, a hockey game, and the Senate where politics takes on the air of a chess match. More Moynihans (RIP) in the Senate, fewer Santorums. Giuliani's bipartisan experience--being the Republican mayor of a certain Democrat-laden city is a good credential--would serve him well as... the junior senator from New York.

You see, Giuliani threw his hat into the ring (and then danced his way back out) against the wrong person. This long-time RINO has to say it: Hillary Clinton has been a great senator. But Chuck Schumer? Oh... Chuckie. Chuck likes cameras, and he'll say anything necessary to make sure they follow him. Hillary gets Owego defense contracts; Chuckie complains about video gamers. (And Chuckie's a Harvard boy... need I say more?)

So, Rudy Giuliani in... 2010.

Now that I've started a LiVEJOURNAL(tm), I'll probably head out and get a cell phone, start listening to hip bands, play the Xbox all day, and cultivate an appropriately non-plussed attitude towards the world. Or perhaps I'll lay in my bed with earphones blaring depression all day, thinking about how everyone in the world is cruel to kitties and that makes me SO SAD. :( LOL! My LJ (as I hear they're called) will slowly morph into a black-backgrounded, anime-bespangled, cool-band-referencing someday artifact of the early twenty-first century, ready to be cited by some future historical anthropologist as what happened when the youngest of the supposed Xers (the 20th century's actual lost generation) started to act like the so-called "millennials" in another pathetic attempt to belong somewhere, anywhere.

So, I have some ambivalent feelings towards this new enterprise. I'm worried that I'm giving up some of my neo-luddite cred, even though it, like most things I do or have done, was somewhat of a posture anyway. I'm worried that this space may become another place to bitch and moan about the state of the world (or of my life) and distract me from doing anything useful about changing that state. I'm (somewhat) worried that, especially after my dissertation advisor (finally) returns my pages to me, this LJ may become yet another in a long line of projects to which I've faux-dedicated myself (including that pesky dissertation) without any actual intention of following through.

Well, there's nothing to do but to start.

Since you're reading this missal, one must assume that you have some sort of connection to me. Things you will not be surprised to read about in this journal, hopefully on, at least, a bi-daily basis:

• My knowledge of and love for classical music in all its forms, hopefully in some semi-serialized exploration of favorite works
  
• My ever-present distaste for low culture
  
• My secret fascination and love for certain items of low culture
  
• Whatever happens to strike my fancy on the NYTimes front page
  
• Smut, especially if it appears on the NYTimes front page
  
• Chicago, its urban beauties and its unfathomable mistakes (hopefully with pictures)
  
• Our nation's pathetic excuse for a (or is that valiant and persistent) passenger rail system, brought to you by our nation's pathetic excuse for a political class
  
• Probably more smut
  

A cheesier writer might sign off with something like, "Welcome to the Party." But I wouldn't do that, especially since it would imply that everyone is in my pants. No, no, I wouldn't do that.