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Oh, Don’t Get Up

Lights Out, Nobody Home 

 America was awash with InfectiousOptimism®, as an avuncular Ronald Reagan rolled towards 1984’s crushing of Walter Mondale.  Reagan was campaigning in Hammonton New Jersey, when he felt a song coming on…

“America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts…It rests in a message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen.“

  Bored In The USA

It was the start of a classic GOP trope*,  rope in the youngsters by referencing that rock music.  It was also the beginning of musicians asking the Republicans to please stop.

Reagan labored under the misconception that Springsteen shared his cornball vision, and even better, cultural seer and future enemy of denim-clad youth George Will was the fount of this error.

 Hammonton was apparently so thrilled with Reagan’s visit the town ignored the event’s fallout, and plunked down a monument to the legendary day.

The years have not been kind to the stone.

 A recent visitor writes:

“When I visited this late afternoon, the landscape was kind of dull and the light in front of the rock was broken and off its mount. I found a blog where citizens are debating whether it should be repaired and if so where would the money come from.“

*Attempted again in the 2008 campaign, and for Springsteen, twenty-five years on some of the faithful continue tirelessly beating the same horse.

                                                        

A monument to Confederate denial is rising again in Biloxi Mississippi, with 90% of the cost paid by federal and state taxpayers.

Cracker bitter-enders have rebuilt Beauvoir, Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s home destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and are now working on the accompanying “presidential library,” completely destroyed by the storm.

Things To Come: Enough Pillars? 

The complex is run by the Mississippi branch of the Sons of Confederate War Veterans.  The Sons are a coven of cranks determined to put across their claim that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, which has taken them into the nether worlds of  Lost Cause-ist racists, Black Confederate fetishists, and “heritage” activists who enjoy presenting creepy readings of history with much winking and nudging

“We note with interest the revelation that Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has slave owners in his ancestry. This news demonstrates an interesting irony with respect to contemporary multi-cultural American politics...For candidate Obama, the news is perhaps more complex since his African roots may link him to African tribes that traded their brothers and sisters into slavery.“

  Obtuse Apologists

When Bugs Cry   

Indonesians of all ages turn out to see a splendid new statue commemorating Barack Obama’s brief childhood sojourn in the capitol Jakarta.
The BBC has locals hero worshiping Barack In Bronze, but the Jakarta Globe talked to a less happy resident.

Raditya Ayu speaks for youth:

“I think people should make a statue of someone if that person has done something for the people. And I don’t think Obama has done anything for Indonesia. …I think they should have erected a statue of SBY [Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono] here, or even a statue of Michael Jackson. If you travel to a place where there is no TV, I’m sure you will find that people will still know him [Jackson]. He is really great.”

Pre-Presidential knees in representational art have proud precedence of course in the Michigan Boy Scouts stirring tribute to local Eagle Gerry Ford.

This Christmas, Give The Gift Of Possible Copyright Infringement!  

In time for the holidays, the Abraham Lincoln Library is flogging their “Civil War In Four Minutes” on DVD for the low, low price of $12.99, or less than $4 per minute!

The brief animated film tells the history of Civil War battles and the collapsing Confederacy.   A version appeared on YouTube when the Library first opened, but got yanked for possible copyright infringement.

Now you may own this sacred tape, but must you go through the Lincoln Library itself?

Whack-A-Mole efforts to suppress online versions continue, so your only chances to celebrate the North’s triumph for free at home may be here, here,  here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.