Popular Culture

Earl Scruggs

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The king of the five-string banjo has finger picked his last. Along with Lester Flatt, Chubby Wise and of course Bill Monroe, he invented a new American jazz form. And of them, he was the last to go. If there’s a heaven, let’s hope they get their own instruments, and not harps.

[Update a couple minutes later]

(Transplanted Brit) Andrew Stuttaford remembers him.

Here he is (via Alex Massey), playing his signature classic with Steve Martin, who has some thoughts here.

[Late afternoon update]

I should add that, with all respect to Lester Flatt, he wasn’t the pioneer that the others were — he was just in the right place at the right time. He is known primarily for the “Flatt lick,” which he didn’t invent, but did popularize, but as any bio will tell you, he didn’t want to move into the sixties, and he wasn’t a real flat picker — he really just played rhythm. It took the likes of Doc Watson, Clarence White, Dan McCrary, Norman Blake, Tony Rice (and others I’m probably leaving out) to catch the guitar up to the rest of instruments in the genre, in terms of virtuosity.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

The White House/Media Cocoon

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…and why it led them so far astray on ObamaCare. My latest is up at PJMedia.

[Update a while later]

ObamCare, and how nice people crush freedom:

…there’s always a good reason to take your freedom away — your health, the poor, your evil opinions, the lousy way you raise your kids — and never a reason to preserve freedom except the love of freedom itself. Thus, so often, the people destroying the American way of life are actually nice people who just want to help.

The paving stones of the road to perdition…

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The President’s Dangerous Demagoguery

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Thoughts from VDH:

What do all these presidential interventions teach us — other than that there are two sides to every story? First, that race and gender are flashpoints in our culture, as liberals see justice routinely denied to Americans on the basis of their sex and skin color, and conservatives believe these issues are continually trumped up to further divide the country and serve the political interests of a partisan elite.

But a larger lesson should be the president’s, because a disturbing pattern has developed in his editorializing, which is aimed exclusively at those whose policies and language he implies lead to horrific acts like the shooting of African-American teenagers, the smearing of young feminists, the shooting of Democratic congresswomen, or the jailing of African-American professors. Yet in every case, further evidence, more information, and subsequent events suggested that the president had offered either incomplete or misleading commentary to the nation, predicated not on a desire for healing or truth, but on a wish to gain partisan advantage.

With the world in recession, facing energy shortages, and on the brink of war, it is politically unwise for the president of the United States to offer commentary on contentious issues, especially before the facts of such disputes are fully known. To do so at worst can interfere with ongoing investigations, and at best pits the office of the presidency against private individuals. In every case, Barack Obama cannot conclude that his commentary created greater unity rather than further polarization.

Oh, he’s clearly quite capable of coming to all manner of delusional conclusions.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!