Marianne Williamson is polling higher than Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Jay Inslee...

I say out loud (as I read about a new poll of registered voters in New Hampshire).

The response from Meade was singing: "Hey, Marianne, what's your game now, can anybody play?" Based on:



It's a pretty small poll — only 390 respondents — but it's fascinating that Marianne Williamson got 1.5%, and "serious" candidates Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Jay Inslee lagged behind (with 1.2, 1.0, 0.7, and 0.3, respectively).

ADDED: If a pollster called you up, why wouldn't you say "Marianne"? It says so many things. For example it says: I know who you are pollster, but you don't know me, you don't know anything about my world.

AND: Screw the pollsters! Everyone should say "Marianne."

Those mean Republicans at the state level of Wisconsin government won't give women free tampons, but...

... the kindly Democrats at the local level here in Dane County (i.e., Madison) are ready to serve:

The move follows an effort by state Rep. Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, to require all publicly funded school and state buildings to supply those products on the state’s tab. After circulating the measure for co-sponsorship, Sargent said the bill has been turned in with only Democratic support. Though Sargent is not hopeful the bill will pass this session, she sees the debate that it has stirred as a success.

“It has started a wave of conversation of why is it that women and girls don’t have all their basic public health needs in bathrooms in the same way that men do,” Sargent said. 

What do men get in bathrooms? What are we talking about here?

“There are a number of bills being produced now in regards to who uses what bathroom,” she said. “If people are concerned about bathroom equity, they should also back this.”

Since we're talking about bathrooms for one reason, let's try to come up with all the other bathroom-related ideas for spending tax money and driving a partisan wedge into the citizenry.

“I strongly support it and I haven’t heard any opposition,” said Carousel Bayrd, the board’s first vice-chair....

So Carousel Bayrd has not heard any opposition. This is an occasion to analyze the meaning of silence. If you haven't heard anything, what does it really mean?



People fighting for their places just get in my way....

ADDED: What about the environment? Should we be subsidizing the use of disposables?

AND: Speaking of starting "a wave of conversation" made me think about the wave that is the red tide of menstruation, so let's listen to this Laurie Anderson performance of "Beautiful Red Dress":

Well, they say women shouldn't be the president
Cause we go crazy from time to time
Well, push my button, baby
Here I come
Yeah, look out, baby
I'm at high tide
I've got a beautiful red dress and you'd look really good standing beside it...

The government needs to buy us all a red dress of freedom.

"David Crosby and Nash claimed they hadn't played 'Page 43' in years..."

"... deciding to add it to the setlist after an afternoon run through. Given the impressive end result, that must have been one heck of a rehearsal."

Crosby, Stills and Nash played in Milwaukee last night.

A stray quoted from David Crosby: "These songs kept coming. So I quit smoking pot. I know, its shocking. But I think if the muse is going to stop by that often, I want to have the doors open and the lights on. ... I'll get back to it I'm sure."

Anyway... I was never a Crosby, Stills and Nash fan. I held them responsible for wussifying rock and roll. (I liked Neil Young though. And I loved Crosby as a Byrd, and I was fine with Stills in Buffalo Springfield, and had no problem with The Hollies.)

But this song "Page 43." I didn't know it. Listened to (half of) it here. And then I got distracted by the existence of a Snopes article on the song. What's the controversy? Is it a reference to the New Testament?

Paraprosdokian.

"I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long."

That's a Mitch Hedburg joke, and an example of paraprosdokian, "a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part." It's usually done for comic effect, but not always and not in the example that got me reading about paraprosdokian, "He ain't heavy, he's my brother."

"He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother," is the title of a song, which you probably know from the Hollies' 1969 recording. (The phrase itself seems to go back much further, perhaps to 1884.) I looked up "He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother" because I couldn't remember who recorded it. (I was thinking The Moody Blues, for some reason.) And the subject came up because, over at the Isthmus forum, they're talking about what's happened to the notorious Wisconsin protester Segway Jeremy. There were reports that he was on his deathbed, and then some confusing contradictions, and somebody linked to this inane montage — "nice tribute" — which uses "He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother" as the audio track.

It's mostly lefties over there in The Forum, though Meade likes to prod them with questions and jokes (which they either don't get or pretend not to get). Meade is skeptical of the beatification of Jeremy.

Trying to figure out what Moody Blues song I had confused with "He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother," Meade came up with "Legend of a Mind" — which most people probably think is titled "Timothy Leary's Dead," that being the familiar lyric. Timothy Leary was not dead at the time, but there seems to be some LSD-influenced connection between getting high and being dead, as noted in this morning's post about The Beatles' "She Said She Said."

And now Meade's done a "Legend of a Mind" parody about the mystery of Segway Jeremy.

ABBA, Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, Stooges, Hollies.

The new Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees.

We visited the Hall a couple weeks ago. Never got around to blogging about it! You can't take pictures inside, and I've blogged about it on a previous visit, so I didn't have too much to say. From the outside, it looked like this:

ABBA, the Chantels, Jimmy Cliff, Genesis, the Hollies, KISS, LL Cool J, Darlene Love, Laura Nyro, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Stooges and Donna Summer.

Such are the nominees this year for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Patrick Goldstein moans:

It's pretty pathetic when you consider that you can vote for the Chantels and Darlene Love, but not for Linda Ronstadt, Steve Miller, Chicago, Rush, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Journey, Dire Straits or Stevie Ray Vaughan, just to name a few of the ineligible worthies... Those of us who are actual voters are asked to choose a maximum of five nominees, using numbers (1-2-3-4-5) to signify our preferences. You can do the same. Here's how I'd make my choices as of now, but I'm open to being swayed by any especially passionate or persuasive arguments:

1) The Stooges....

2) The Red Hot Chili Peppers....

3) Laura Nyro. (Nearly forgotten today, she was a seminal influence on Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash and untold other singer-songwriters.)

4) LL Cool J....

5) KISS....

Laura Nyro, nearly forgotten?! Crazy! Can you surry? Can you picnic? Perhaps you think no one even asks questions like that anymore, but we do.

"American Idol" -- results!

ADDED: If you're looking for the newest results show, click on the banner at the top -- Althouse -- and then scroll down to the most recent "Amercian Idol."

ORIGINAL POST: Exciting, isn't it? 35 million votes. Ryan Seacrest still has his incipient beard. And have you noticed he's wearing elegant suits, not those sleazy shirts of yore? I like that sleek, skinny tie -- with a tie tack.

Kenny Rogers sings a song. I TiVo ahead.

I love the commercial the kids do for Ford. Really! They sing the cool Hollies song "Just One Look," and they're all working on a car in the "Pimp My Ride" style, but in the end it comes out a Ford. Kellie is the big star of the commercial. I don't even care. I love "Just One Look" -- that's all it took. That's what a candy-colored pop song should be.

Ryan announces the theme for next week: the music of Queen! A squeal of intense delight is heard across America. This is it, folks! The ultimate crazy absurdity of "American Idol" will peak. We remember the wonderful Constantine singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" last season. But this will be everybody straining to reach the Queenish heights. And we get to see a big teaser for next week, with the kids all throwing themselves into "We Will Rock You." Oh, this is too sublime! I'm declaring this, in advance, the greatest "American Idol" episode of all time.

Now, to the results. They've thought of an exquisite new form of torture. They will divide the 9 kids into 3 groups. Group 1 begins with Taylor Hicks. Group 2 with Mandisa. Elliot joins Mandisa's group. So does Paris. That looks to be the bottom 3, I think. Group 3 begins with Ace. Kellie joins Taylor, so Group 1 cannot be the bottom 3. Chris gets to join them too, so clearly, this is the top. Katharine and Bucky are sent over to Ace. Very interesting. Either 2 or 3 could be the bottom. Group 1 is told it is safe, and that is no surprise at all.

And the bottom 3 is Group 2. Mandisa, Elliott, and Paris have never been in the bottom 3 before. And they are all terrific singers. Paris is told she's safe. It's Mandisa and Elliott at risk -- the two that Dial Idol put at the bottom. And Mandisa leaves. Standing ovation. I cry a few tears for the beautiful Mandisa, don't you? She blesses us in the name of Jesus.

At the library.

Most interesting paragraph in Todd Purdum's account (in the NYT) of President Bush's remarks at the opening of President Clinton's library:

There was no mention of the sex scandal that led to Clinton's impeachment. Bush recalled that shortly before leaving office, "President Clinton said, 'Christ admonished us that our lives will be judged by how they do unto the least of our neighbors.' Throughout his career, Bill Clinton has done his best to live up to that standard and Americans respect him for it."

He did "his best," and we won't be uncivil and point out that he wasn't always perfect. And note how elegantly Bush implicitly takes a swipe at those who criticize his religiosity: he quotes Clinton beautifully connecting public service to religion (and not just amorphous "ceremonial deism," but Christianity.)

I wrote about the umbrella decisions yesterday, but there's good new detail here:

The wives of the four presidents walked out to the stage, each with an umbrella. Their husbands followed with no umbrellas.

As the men took their places, the women hurried to try to cover them. Bush first took refuge under Chelsea Clinton's umbrella, posing for pictures with his arm around her, then settled on pairing with his wife. Barbara Bush eventually prevailed in convincing her apparently reluctant husband, the elder Bush, to come under her umbrella as well.

So the undersized umbrellas were the women's umbrellas. The manly thing to do is to stride out there with no umbrella at all. (Don't want to be the "man with the umbrella.") But it won't do to look sodden in all the photographs. The hairspray melted out of Clinton's hair, de-pouf-ifying it into a Julius Caesar style. So the women rescued the men. Then, there they were with the undersized women's collapsible umbrellas, emasculated en masse.

UPDATE: A reader sends this link to the Army Officer's Guide:

There is a long-standing taboo against a male officer in uniform carrying an umbrella. However, it is authorized and proper for women in the Army to do so when not in formation.

Three of the four Presidents who went umbrella-less in the rain are, of course, former military officers. They may have a strong sense that carrying an umbrella is inappropriate for a man. Ironically, this left them open to being pestered by the women to hold dinky women's umbrellas after they'd paid the price of manhood and gotten soaked. Interesting that Bush got help from Chelsea before he "settled on pairing with his wife." I'll bet Laura, unlike Barbara Bush, did not prevail upon her husband to take umbrella-shelter, and Chelsea offered the umbrella and the two of them had a nice little relationship. Time to quote this Hollies lyric:

Bus stop, wet day
She's there I say
Please share my umbrella
Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows
Under my umbrella
All that summer we enjoyed it
Wind and rain and shine
That umbrella we employed it
By August she was mine

Connecting Jon Peter Lewis to the right 60s pop star from Manchester. As noted last night, Quentin Tarantino likened JPL to 60s British pop star Freddie Garrity (of Freddie and the Dreamers). And I agree that Freddie was awfully geeky, in fact, way more geeky than JPL. And JPL isn't really more geeky than anyone since Freddie: David Byrne was geekier than JPL (and so were a lot of those 70s new wave guys). Freddie tied back to the Buddy Holly line of popdom, and in fact, emphasized his resemblance to Holly by wearing the same type of glasses. We know JPL's favorite 50s star is not Holly, but Elvis, based on key song choices, such as last night's Jailhouse Rock. His dance style is an homage to Elvis (even as it is a touching and open acknowledgement of the impossibility of being Elvis).

The 60s Manchester pop idol that JPL actually resembles, who was much less geeky then Freddie, was the teen-boyfriend cute Peter Noone--"Herman," of Herman's Hermits. Oh, how I loved Herman's Hermits. I still enjoy listening to their greatest hits CD. They should do a British Pop 60s night on American Idol so JPL can sing "I'm Into Something Good."

Manchester bands were an interesting contrast to the Liverpool (and London) bands in the 60s. For some reason, at that time, Manchester produced poppier bands. The greatest one was The Hollies. (How can you not enjoy a Hollies greatest hits CD? Look Through Any Window, Bus Stop, He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother, etc.). Another Manchester band was Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders. I didn't care about them, but the Mindbenders had one truly sublime single after Fontana left the group. I'll never forget the single with the light blue label that I played over and over: "Groovy Kind of Love."

UPDATE: Perhaps a love of Buddy Holly rather than Elvis actually is the explanation of the difference between the Manchester and Liverpool bands of the 60s. The Beatles' love of Elvis is very well known. Freddie's connection to Holly is noted above. The Hollies connection to Holly is right there in the name. How about Herman's Hermits? One of their earliest album tracks was a perfect rendition of Holly's "Heartbeat," which was nice because they also had a hit called "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat?"

FURTHER UPDATE: And now JPL is gone! Goodbye, JPL!