"Things Are Gonna Change Now": Bob Dylan on Election Night

Bob Dylan played the Twin Cities area in Minnesota, his home state, on Election Night. Here is a great report, from a Minnesota blog, on the evening. First, think about it --President-elect Obama assembles his own Lincoln-styled "Team of Rivals." The Obama kids may be getting a puppy. Snow flurries are possible in NYC on Monday ! Have a great weekend! -- Brooklyn Beat

No one was expecting Bob Dylan to say a thing during his two-plus hour concert last night at Northrop Auditorium. For years, Dylan has been known to keep to himself during shows, often only speaking between songs once in order to introduce his band members. But last night, after a lengthy break between his regular set and his encore which I can only imagine was spent discovering that Barack Obama had won the election, Dylan returned to the stage to play "Like a Rolling Stone" and then turned to the audience and spoke.

"I was born in 1941," he said, a wavering sentimentality in his scratchy voice. "That was the year they bombed Pearl Harbor. I've been living in darkness ever since. It looks like things are going to change now."
--Andrea Swensson's review in Citypages

An affecting story of Election Night with Bob Dylan in the Heartland. Full story here: http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2008/11/bob_dylan_thing.php

There is More Than One American Dream: Envisioning a Knowledge-Based Presidency

After the cheering, after the tears, and the euphoria, and the possible baby boomlet resulting from the sheer joy of this victory of rationalism and progress after 8 years of chaos in the executive office, and the decades of the political ascendancy of extremism on the right and neo-conservative hegemony, we are still at a remarkably dangerous time in our history. The GOP and its extremist ideology has pushed the pendulum as far as they could to the right, and now we are in a phase of counter-swing, that seems so essential. It's not just politics. Based on the Fox News story about "W's comments on the first Obama-Bush meeting when the 44th President was still a freshman, incoming senator, it is clear that 43 was not operating from a place of pragmatism and humanism. And it sounds more and more that he was not functioning with, as they say, "a clear head." Despite all of the chaos created by the GOP free market obsessed free-booters, there are calls for the incoming President to govern from the center. We need progress, creativity, intelligence, combined with thoughtful, pragmatic, managerial and technology-based vision.

The time for "let it all hang out, let's see what happens, political action," as witnessed in Iraq, in New Orleans during Katrina, and on Wall Street is now over. The Founders established separation of church and state, balance of power, checks and balances at the root of this democracy. America cannot function with only a private sector, just as it cannot function with only a public sector. The past 8 years has proven the importance of a strong, rational government through its absence. But the forces of greed and ignorance will still be clamoring for a return to power.

Nicholas Kristof on the importance of intelligence (the brainy kind) in the White House:
Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.

Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.

Full Article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09kristof.html?em=&pagewanted=print

Frank Rich on What It All Means:
It Still Felt Good the Morning After
By FRANK RICH
ON the morning after a black man won the White House, America’s tears of catharsis gave way to unadulterated joy.

Our nation was still in the same ditch it had been the day before, but the atmosphere was giddy. We felt good not only because we had breached a racial barrier as old as the Republic. Dawn also brought the realization that we were at last emerging from an abusive relationship with our country’s 21st-century leaders. The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America.

For eight years, we’ve been told by those in power that we are small, bigoted and stupid — easily divided and easily frightened. This was the toxic catechism of Bush-Rove politics. It was the soiled banner picked up by the sad McCain campaign, and it was often abetted by an amen corner in the dominant news media. We heard this slander of America so often that we all started to believe it, liberals most certainly included. If I had a dollar for every Democrat who told me there was no way that Americans would ever turn against the war in Iraq or definitively reject Bush governance or elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama president, I could almost start to recoup my 401(k). Few wanted to take yes for an answer.

So let’s be blunt. Almost every assumption about America that was taken as a given by our political culture on Tuesday morning was proved wrong by Tuesday night.

Full article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09rich.html?_r=1&em=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Thomas Friedman on the True Test of Support for the 44th President:

But I wouldn’t exaggerate it. The minute Obama has to exercise U.S. military power somewhere in the world, you can be sure that he will get blowback. For now, though, his biography, demeanor and willingness to at least test a regime like Iran’s with diplomacy makes him more difficult to demonize than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

“If you’re a hard-liner in Tehran, a U.S. president who wants to talk to you presents more of a quandary than a U.S. president who wants to confront you,” remarked Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment. “How are you going to implore crowds to chant ‘Death to Barack Hussein Obama’? That sounds more like the chant of the oppressor, not the victim. Obama just doesn’t fit the radical Islamist narrative of a racist, blood-thirsty America, which is bent on oppressing Muslims worldwide. There’s a cognitive dissonance. It’s like Hollywood casting Sidney Poitier to play Charles Manson. It just doesn’t fit.”

But while the world appears poised to give Obama a generous honeymoon, there lurks a much more important question: How long of a honeymoon will Obama give the world?

To all those Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, Russians, Iranians, Chinese, Indians, Africans and Latin Americans who are e-mailing their American friends about their joy at having “America back,” now that Obama is in, I just have one thing to say: “Show me the money!”

Don’t just show me the love. Don’t just give me the smiles. Your love is fickle and, as I said, it will last about as long as the first Obama airstrike against an Al Qaeda position in Pakistan. No, no, no, show me the money. Show me that you are ready to be Obama stakeholders, not free-riders — stakeholders in what will be expensive and difficult initiatives by the Obama administration to keep the world stable and free at a time when we have fewer resources.

Full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09friedman.html?em=&pagewanted=print

Building the Progressive Future on the Fierce Urgency of Now:
Karl Rove, who has not gotten enough credit for political strategies that helped make Democrats’ landslide victories in 2006 and 2008 possible, had a telling line last night on FOX News. While he was announcing that Obama had won Virginia, and was well on his way to a landslide, Bush’s campaign chief insisted that the United States remained a “center-right” nation.
Until last night. After winning control of the House and Senate in 2006, Democrats in 2008 greatly added to their numbers and also won the White House.

Why would a center-right nation not only reaffirm the allegedly left-wing leadership of Pelosi and Reid, but then expand their power by giving a landslide to Barack Obama?

After nearly forty years of an ascending conservative political movement, it is understandable that Rove and many pundits are now in deep denial. But the voters are demanding progressive change, and it is incumbent upon all those who made phone calls and/or traveled to other states to take a break, get refreshed and then plunge back into transforming a victory at the polls into policies and programs that set the nation on a new course.

Rove is not the first to make this point in recent weeks..
Full article here:
http://www.progressivefuture.org/blog

Coda: Coney Island of the Soul -- Seasons Change With the Scenery

Left, On the Beach; below, Boardwalk Littoral: Sand Washed Up During Recent Storms, November 9, 2008


Polar Bears Out for A Dip, November 9, 2008

Election fever and school application mania not withstanding, on Sunday, it seemed like a touch of nature and a long walk were in order, so we headed down to the sea. While, in terms of commerz, Coney Island is in more of a state of quietude, there is such a wonderful sense of the natural world at this time. Still, plenty of excitement: Polar Bears in beachwear getting ready for a dip; a few vendors still open for business on the boardwalk and off; kiteflyers by the shore. The boardwalk now features some sand in spots where recent weather and tidal action have made for some very powerful waves indeed. A deep trench seems to have been cut by the waves, just east of the long pier. Seems too deep to have been human-made.

And in the mix, a solo electric blues guitarist performing some very soulful tunes for the strollers on the woodenway. Blues for a lost lover, blues for the future of Coney Island, and simply blues for the passing of the seasons.

But also, for this stroller, blues for a nation that seems to have narrowly escaped despair, at least for the moment, but that still has a long way to go to pull ourselves out of the trench that has been created by the storms of the last 8 years.

Theater of the Absurd or Dans Macabre: Deep in the Heart of the High School Application Process

At left, audition rehearsal night at MS 51 last week. Photo by Brooklyn Beat

Just a moment of acknowledgement, and sympathy, to other Brooklyn parents who, like we do, have kids in that transitional year from 8th grade to high school in the New York City public schools. Auditions, interviews, high school admission exams, the ordering of the high school choices, the open houses, the high school admission workshops over the summer in Manhattan, the mobbed school visits at some of the specialized and screened high schools, getting up extra early and getting to work extra late due to the morning visits to schools, and then having to leave work early to attend the evening visits to schools and open houses, sometimes on the same day.

Well, I feel your pain. Even though we have been through this twice before with our older kids, it seems to become more complex and fraught with tension each time as the high school admission rules changed. And, while private school was never really an option for us, now the economy appears to have driven even more families into the application and admissions mix. Some of the open houses have been literally jammed to the rafters.

One of our daughters was fortunate to be able to participate in the audition night at MS 51 last week, which seems to have a wonderful theater program. She had been working with a weekend and after school group at the Old Stone House. The number of kids -- really talented kids-- who are interested in one of the theater programs, and who are auditioning for LaGuardia, PPAS, TU, or Murrow, must be at some kind of all time high. I was chatting that evening with a wonderful actress and drama coach, who is herself the parent of an 8th grader, and who has worked with our daughter, and we were talking about how amazing it is that so many kids are interested in the arts today, especially drama, and how talented so many of them are. It made me think that, with this volume of interest, and the huge number of kids applying at LaGuardia, how do the screened theater high schools choose kids out of this pool of talent ? Very daunting. Although every parent hopes/thinks their kid who has an arts interest has "Talent," given the complications of this high school process, you never can predict the outcome, especially with the screened programs, and our daughters have expressed some frustration, and even shed a few tears, as we try to help them navigate these next few weeks and then the couple of months of waiting for the results.

So, anyway, parents, hang in there, it is coming down to the wire. The auditions are in full swing, maybe beginning to arc toward conclusion, the visits are beginning to wind down, and though the tension is still high, our school has a late November application due date in advance of the December 2nd official high school application date. So, by Thanksgiving, the die will have been cast (or the dice will have been rolled in the vernacular).

And then again, consider yourself lucky. In addition to finding high schools for our twin daughters, our older son is applying to college for the fall. For those of you who know, that is another story. So take heart, It Can Always Be Worse.

Post-Election Notes: Power & Magic - From Brooklyn & Beyond

Post-Election Note #1: My mom said she was in church this morning in Bensonhurst, at St. Athanasius on Bay Parkway to be exact, and a young professional woman she sees in church frequently, who is Black and has young kids said to her "What did you think about the election?" My mom said "Well, my guy won" and the woman was surprised and delighted that an elderly retired white Italian American lady had voted for Senator Barack Obama. You've got to love this country...our capacity to change and grow.

Post-Election Note #2: The Wall Street Journal reported that the Obama transition team, along with the re-energized Congressional Democrats, are leaping into action now. This is clearly an administration that has learned a lot from the past and is using the opportunities available in the transition to their fullest, rather than waiting until after the inauguration. Reviewing regulatory structures to better protect investors, while balancing the need to not over regulate. Seeking to invest in the US auto industry while encouraging fuel efficiency. Yes, the free market, having swung as far as it could, with some disastrous results, is now in its counter-swing, where some regulation and virtual-nationalization will be necessary.(Will this be the era of neo-nationalization, or neo-socialism, to balance the bankrupt and bankrupting era of neo-conservatism that has just concluded? ) Nevertheless, the internet is already reporting on "Impeachment" sites, http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=081105214913.k5rna1c2&show_article=1
and you can see that the lunatic, no-doubt nutty and racist fringe, is already sharpening their claws. Obama won by taking the high-road and avoiding election-trash talking. But clearly the new base of the Republican party, with Sarah Palin as their future standard bearer, no doubt, who could win election-after-election by brutal propagandizing and marketing through "527s" (i.e., Swiftboating), but who proved over the last 8 years that they could not effectively govern, will do everything they can to tear down the new administration before the inauguration and then fight it every step of the way. The 44th President's administration is going to have to stand tall and fight hard. They will have many enemies, both among the wealthy classes who will fight regulation, taxes on capital gains, etc, as well as among the disaffected, angry right wing base. Not to mention the always present possibility of enemies and terrorists, both foreign and domestic. The new administration will need to advance its initiatives boldly, to the greatest extent possible, while not disappointing supporters since it would appear that even with the best and noblest intentions, politics is not equivalent to magic and their are few quick fixes to our most vexing problems.

Off and Running: 44's Transition Team Announced

CNN Reports that President-elect Obama has announced this transition team. Brooklyn's Patrick Gaspard is right there in the thick of it.
CNN:
Chicago - For the past several months, a board of advisors has been informally planning for a possible presidential transition. Among the many projects undertaken by the transition board have been detailed analyses of previous transition efforts, policy statements made during the campaign, and the workings of federal government agencies, and priority positions that must be filled by the incoming administration.

With Barack Obama and Joe Biden's election, this planning process will be now be formally organized as the Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501(c)(4) organization to ensure a smooth transition from one administration to the next. The work of this entity will be overseen by three co-chairs: John Podesta, Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse.

The co-chairs will be assisted by an advisory board comprised of individuals with significant private and public sector experience: Carol Browner, William Daley, Christopher Edley, Michael Froman, Julius Genachowski, Donald Gips, Governor Janet Napolitano, Federico Peña, Susan Rice, Sonal Shah, Mark Gitenstein, and Ted Kaufman. Gitenstein and Kaufman will serve as co-chairs of Vice President-elect Biden's transition team.
Supervising the day-to-day activities of the transition will be:

Transition Senior Staff:

Chris Lu - Executive Director
Dan Pfeiffer - Communications Director
Stephanie Cutter - Chief Spokesperson
Cassandra Butts - General Counsel
Jim Messina - Personnel Director
Patrick Gaspard - Associate Personnel Director
Christine Varney - Personnel Counsel
Melody Barnes - Co-Director of Agency Review
Lisa Brown - Co-Director of Agency Review
Phil Schiliro - Director of Congressional Relations
Michael Strautmanis - Director of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs
Katy Kale - Director of Operations
Brad Kiley - Director of Operations




CNN Ticker:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/05/obama-transition-team-announced/#more-29462

YES WE DID: Change Has Come ----President-Elect Barack Obama

A visionary. Healer. Orator. A new generation moves onto the stage having defeated the politics of the past. Recognizing the necessity for a new politics and a new model of America, as Lincoln did, as FDR did, as JFK did, even, as Reagan did. A vision for change and the courage to pursue it.

What a remarkable time to be alive in this fantastic country. History unfolds. Promising a government that crosses party lines and creates something entirely new. We are at a time of promise and, yes, hope.

Electoral college and polls: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/barack-obama-president-elect-of-united.html

The speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJBmpXyBGTE&eurl=http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=213563

Brooklyn on Election Day: Wake Up

Brooklyn Heights at noon on Election Day 2008 is quiet. I did a pass-by of the Brooklyn Municipal Building which was jammed with lines out the door this morning. Voters are lined up waiting patiently inside. Not as amazingly jam packed as the early morning voters, but there is a bit of a lunch-time line neverhteless. The Tuesday Greenmarket is in action. The Obama button and t-shirt guys are all out there selling their wares. Historic election art that I expect to see at the NY Historical Society (or the Smithsonian) some day, the way that we now see JFK, Thomas Jefferson, and other historic Americans.

An interesting sense of ownership about this process. A woman, African American, sitting in the park on Cadman Plaza outside the Supreme Court building, under the statue of Brooklyn's famed abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, is exhorting passersby to vote. "You have til 9 PM tonite to vote, please don't forget to vote" she reminds us warmly. No candidate mentioned.

As I walked, another couple of young guys chatting, reflecting the hopes and the fears of this possibly historic day: "I'm just worried, man, they always go after the great ones." Reminded me of Rage Against the Machine's "Wake Up." Shake that off, time for faith and hope.


Abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, Brooklyn Heights, Election Day 2008 Photo by Brooklyn Beat

Comes a Time

This is an historic day. The outcome of this election, in view of the last 8 years, will say a lot about where we go as a nation, and also a lot about where we are and who we are as a country. My daughter who is studying in Europe said the perception there is this is a chance for America to redefine ourselves. But the USA is a Big country, and our population and ideology is reflective of a lot more than the two coasts and the news media. Let's see what America believes early in the 21st century. It's a time for Hope, at a time when our country desperately needs Change.


"Comes A Time"

Comes a time
when you're driftin'
Comes a time
when you settle down
Comes a light
feelin's liftin'
Lift that baby
right up off the ground.

Oh, this old world
keeps spinning round
It's a wonder tall trees
ain't layin' down
There comes a time.

You and I we were captured
We took our souls
and we flew away
We were right
we were giving
That's how we kept
what we gave away.

Oh, this old world
keeps spinning round
It's a wonder tall trees
ain't layin' down
There comes a time.

--Neil Young

"Comes a Time" - 1987 Neil Young:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY78hECM8-0&feature=related

Metaphors for Living: The Marathon's End

Photos by Brooklyn Beat/TN

Get Ready to Rumble: No Electioneering Beyond This Point

Polling machines await at MS 51 in Park Slope.

What will the future hold?

Fouad Ajami in the Wall Street Journal, like much of the mainstream financial media, at least publicly, sees gloom and doom, in the Obama campaign's offers of Change. There will be no quick improvements. There may be more taxes. The country may be in for a realignment. But, while we await the Hope, and Fear, of Change, we need to acknowledge that, in view of 9/11. Iraq, Katrina, the severe economic downturn, health care issues, retirements, etc., things are not heading in the correct direction and new ideas are needed. That is the great secret of this election. We have nothing to fear but fear itself, but that is true everywhere -- People are willing to stick with the past, solutions that haven't worked, fear of elites, but also fear of the "GOP base", fear of religion, fear of losing my religion, fear of taxes, fear of financial derivatives of mass destruction...you get the idea.

The bottom-line: How can anyone be worried about Senator Obama, since look what a free-market oriented, neo-conservative, jingoistic President has unleashed. Damn, I don't expect miracles overnight, no one should or can, but at least there isa possibility of balance, a corrective to the 8 years of excess we have just experienced. The hope of this country is based on the potential of peaceful revolution and change. Think of these 8 years of radical neo-conservative realignment. The Marxists no doubt are viewing this as an inevitable ending to advanced capitalism. America needs to remain a democracy. That is in our soul, at the root of our being. But what the last 8 years have proven is that a country of our size and economic complexity cannot exist without a strong government to balance powerful corporations. Our social institutions will and must remain strong and democratic but economically, perhaps, we have unwittinlgly unleashed an economic explosion that has propelled our economis system, along with the rest of the world, through the looking glass and into a Brave New World.

America: 2008

Not sure of the source of these eloquent and poignant photos of an American candidate and a quintessentially American family. No matter how you cut it, we are living in interesting, challenging, yet very hopeful times. Wow.

Theater in DUMBO: Floating Brothel at Galapagos

The Galapagos Art Space, an intriguing space at 16 Main Street at Water Street in DUMBO, has a great program of upcoming events.

http://www.galapagosartspace.com/events.html

Of particular interest is "The Floating Brothel" on Monday October 27th, 8pm

A 1600 square foot indoor lake. Five actors telling the story of a ship full of convict women; the underbelly of London; unknown continents; all told within the confines of a 3'x6' platform that serves as the stage and world for this performance.

Ticket info here: http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showCode=FLO6

Sen. Chuck Schumer: Sees Huge Margin for Obama

Politico.com reports that Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) predicted Tuesday that Barack Obama will win more than 300 Electoral College votes when voters go to the polls in two weeks. (The Electoral College consists of 538 popularly elected representatives who formally select the President and Vice President of the United States.)

“I think this is one of those rare tectonic plate elections where the deep plates beneath our politics move. I think it's changing things not just for an election cycle but, perhaps, for a generation,” Schumer, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chairman, said during an appearance at the National Press Club.

Schumer, appearing with GOP counterpart Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, said he expects an Obama win to come with coattails, but would not go as far as to forecast that the Democrats will have 60 seats when the Senate convenes next year.


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14798.html

The Electoral College consists of 538 popularly elected representatives who formally select the President and Vice President of the United States. In 2008, it will make this selection on December 15. The Electoral College is an example of an indirect election.

Rather than directly voting for the President and Vice President, United States citizens cast votes for electors. Electors are technically free to vote for anyone eligible to be President, but in practice pledge to vote for specific candidates[2] and voters cast ballots for favored presidential and vice presidential candidates by voting for correspondingly pledged electors. Most states allow voters to choose between statewide slates of electors pledged to vote for the presidential and vice presidential tickets of various parties; the ticket that receives the most votes statewide 'wins' all of the votes cast by electors from that state. U.S. presidential campaigns concentrate on winning the popular vote in a combination of states that choose a majority of the electors, rather than campaigning to win the most votes nationally.

Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of its Senators and Representatives in the United States Congress. Additionally, Washington, D.C. is given a number of electors equal to the number held by the smallest states.[4] U.S. territories are not represented in the Electoral College.

Watch Out What You Wish For: Senator Biden on "Augean Stables" and What Comes Next in This Brave New World

And, if the economy alone isn't bad enough, Senator Joe Biden is giving the dark low down on the likely crises faced by the next President. Whoever is lucky, or unlucky, enough to prevail in November faces an enormous load of issues, an "augean stable" of a mess to address, with the likelihood that the new President will have his mettle tested by international conflict. The fact that some view us as vulnerable at the moment suggests just how complicated things are:

Senator Joe Biden ABC :

Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride. This president, the next president, is gonna be left with the most significant task. It's like cleaning the Augean stables, man. This is more than just, this is more than – think about it, literally, think about it – this is more than just a capital crisis, this is more than just markets. This is a systemic problem we have with this economy."

Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."

"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."

Biden emphasized that the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is of particular concern, with Osama bin Laden "alive and well" and Pakistan "bristling with nuclear weapons."

One would hope that the next decade will pull Americans together into a post-partisan political partnership but Biden's comments suggest that the camps expect the US political scene to remain much as it has been in the past.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/biden-to-suppor.html