Lou Reed

Before dawn on Wednesday, Frank Schaeffer, the world's leading expert on the sociology (and pathology) of evangelism, was up and tweeting. "It wasn't enough for Trump to nominate a pro-life Catholic to the Court," he wrote. "He had to pick a Catholic who is also a part of and leader in, an extremist protestant-style Pentecostal cult of domination and control that even most evangelicals find crazy. Amy Coney Barrett: Nutcase." Yep... a nut case who is better suited to be a minister in a fringe religious cult than a judge on any kind of a court of law, let alone the U.S. Supreme Court.

Biden had some more terrible news at dawn yesterday, or whenever he woke up. His numbers in California have collapsed. California, the state with 494 delegates. The only states with hauls anywhere near California are New York (320), Texas (261), Florida (248), Pennsylvania (210) and Illinois (184).

Earlier today, in the post about expanding The Squad, Flagstaff progressive Eva Putzova noted that "the future of this planet depends on this country getting a bigger squad." That was about the boldest comment any candidate I asked ventured. But boldness comes naturally to Eva, more so than most other congressional candidates.

I encouraged Lou Reed to play this song at a state banquet at the White House. I sat next to Orrin Hatch or Richard Lugar-- who remembers?... and whichever it was loved it and swayed to it in his seat.

It’s nice-- very nice-- that Macron pulverized Le Pen and her fascist party. In Sunday’s parliamentary elections, Macron’s party won 350 seats, an absolute-- and unassailable-- majority in the 577 member National Assembly. Le Pen’s fascists won just 8 seats. That, though, is different from having reason to celebrate a great progressive victory. Ultimately, the fact that Macron detests and reviles Señor Trumpanzee is just funny and admirable, not governance. Neither Macron, a centrist former banker, nor his prime minister, conservative Édouard Philippe, is remotely progressive.

Jay Dyer
21st Century Wire
Musician and researcher John Adams of The Afternoon Commute joins me to divulge new details in relation to his ongoing series with researcher Nino on the secret history of punk music. Arising from the psychedelic genre and the 60s counter-culture (so-called) movements, punk became an iconic sub-genre that would eventually have a tremendous impact on “youth culture” through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and into today.

This is the free half of a full talk which can be obtained at JaysAnalysis by subscribing at the PayPal links below.  Musician and researcher John Adams of The Afternoon Commute joins me to divulge new details in relation to his ongoing series with researcher Nino on the secret history of punk music. Arising from the psychedelic genre and the 60s counter-culture (so-called) movements, punk became an iconic sub-genre that would eventually have a tremendous impact on “youth culture” through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and into today.

If you’ve been to Europe recently or if you look at European media sources you’re probably aware of the enormity of the Italian banking crisis and of the fears that the contagion from the crisis will have world-wide repercussions. Trump hasn’t tweeted about it yet so it isn’t really being covered by US mass media.

Scaremongering xenphobia rarely hurts the scaremongers and xenophobesThere's been plenty of talk, including on this blog, about how the U.S. turned away Jewish refugees in the late 1930s-- sending many to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps-- but nothing was going to slow down conservative fear-mongering.

A couple of days ago a book came in the mail. Before I retired from Warner Bros, books used to come in the mail all the time. They don't any longer. I opened it and it was The Life Of Lou Reed-- Notes From The Velvet Underground by Howard Sounes. Never heard of him. Never heard of the book. But before I put it aside I noticed there was a note. Oh, I had heard of him. It was a note scrawled on a memo sheet thanking me for the interview. Ah...