There’s something about Badfinger that for people of my general background and in my particular sub-generation probably embodies the sense of promise and then disappointment of the late 60s and early 70s, musically and otherwise. Without getting too deep, I’d note that a lot of us came to assume that the next album by our favorite artists would be another triumph of the human imagination, and that music would keep getting better and better. Then Disco arrived, at about the same time Pete Ham committed suicide–and all right in the middle of a recession that was a lot worse than most people who didn’t graduate from school right into it probably don’t realize. And for a lot of us, our inherited faith in the inevitability of human progress sank a bit more every day.
Here are some midday news/views snacks to cleanse the palate of my ruminations:
* Greg Sargent keeps us up to date on the increasingly tense intra-Democratic arguments over TPA and TPP.
* Jamil Smith deals (effectively, I’d say) with complaints that TNR publication of criticism of Cornel West continues TNR legacy of racial myopia.
* At the Prospect, Paul Waldman discusses the self-fulfilling prophecy of MSM ranking of presidential candidates.
* Pretty classic example of post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy in conservative interpretation of report on stagnant wages occurring as immigration rates rose.
* At the Atlantic, a handy-dandy Russell Berman piece on the potential funders of GOP Super-PACs in the presidential cycle.
And in non-political news:
* Nashville swingers club calling itself a church to get around zoning restrictions.
As we break for lunch, here’s another great Pete Ham composition for Badfinger: “Name of the Game.”
