Ruth and I were talking today -- I took a break from New Hampshire. I needed a day away. So I darted over to Connecticut to visit with Ruth. And she has a great post that she is working on right now. It covers Diana Ross and music and different things. But she does not talk about, in the old days, when you needed an album and the store did not have it. Yes, even at my beloved Tower Records there were days when I could not find an album there that I wanted. When that happened -- this was before AMAZON -- you really couldn't order it unless (a) you were a member of COLUMBIA HOUSE and (b) they had the album. COLUMBIA HOUSE was a record club -- later cassette and later CD. Each month you'd get a mailing about the upcoming selection and you had to respond or they'd automatically send it to you -- and bill you. They'd send out catalogues when you joined about once a year after that and you could order from those as well. I'm covering pre-CD days so don't ask what about BMG or other questions.
Now if you didn't have that or if COLUMBIA didn't offer the album, what did you do?
You'd be in your store -- Tower Records, Musicland, Sam Goody, whatever -- and they'd have this huge book that was sort of like a yellow pages. By artist and by title, it would list every album supposedly available. Supposedly.
Example. Looking through it myself, as I usually did, I came across Carly Simon's WHY. This was pre-internet. What is "Why"? I didn't know that album. So I ordered it. And it came in. Not!
SPY. Carly's 1979 album. And this jerk tried to make me buy it. I showed my original slip as well as the postcard they mailed me when it came in. WHY was on both. SPY? I already had that album. I had to call over Misty (a friend but I was friends with most people at Tower -- they were usually very cool) and she said, "No, no, this isn't what she ordered." So she looks it up and she can't figure it out either but isn't going to make me take an album I didn't order.
Years later, I would find out that there was no WHY album. "Why" was a song she recorded for a film. Nile Rogers produced it.
But that's what we did when the albums we wanted weren't in stock in the stores. There was no AMAZON to order from online.
Sometimes you'd get bad news -- the album was out of stock or no longer manufactured. The only good thing there was that the announcement that they mailed that to you on would have a coupon on it for a dollar or two off your next purchase. My friend Maggie would immediately go to Tower and order an out of print or out of stock album anytime she found out it was just so she could get those coupons.
Imagine if AMAZON was that way. You order it and then had to wait 2 to 4 weeks to find out if it was in stock or not.
Who would order from AMAZON? But back then, we put up with it and thought it was normal and good service.
I had a huge vinyl collection back in the day. I still have a huge one but it does get pruned. A lover will walk off with a disc or two -- and become an ex-lover and keep it. A friend will borrow a copy of, say, Joni Mitchell's FOR THE ROSES or Stevie Wonder's TALKING BOOK and I'll have to replace it. I'm glad vinyl's still growing strong. Back in the day, I'd buy new at Tower. I would actually shop at any music store but Tower was my go-to. I would also go (gladly) to any Mom & Pop record store. I would go to places around campus. I would go to Goodwill. I went everywhere back in the day in search of good vinyl.
This year, I think my goal is going to be to get another turntable. I have a really good one but we are on the road so much, I'd like to get a smaller one and take it with me. I'm always sneaking off to some small store on the road that either we pass by or someone in a group we speak with tells me about. I never would have known Half Price Books if it weren't for going around speaking. And after I wrote about that, feeling like I'd made some bold new discovery, I got so many e-mails and apparently I was the only one who had not heard of Half Price Books. :D
I love vinyl but I really love it when it's something different and special. Like? The Mamas and the Papas' THE PAPAS AND THE MAMAS album has a cover that pulls back. Not only that, the cover that pulls back splits in half so you can have different bottom faces or top faces on Michelle, Cass, John and Denny. All of The Fifth Dimensions' covers were pretty much unique in that they folded out or folded up or did something different.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, February 5, 2020. Two days later and still no results out of Iowa.
On Monday, Iowans turned out to caucus. That generally means that late that night the country knows the results. It's not a day later, it's two. And the results are still unknown.
Iowa is not a vastly populated state. It has approximately 3.1 million residents and, of those, about a quarter are children (under 18). By contrast, NYC has a population of 8.6 million and Los Angeles has a population of 4 million. Those are cities.
2,325,000 is the approximate number of voters in Iowa. The most recent data (2010) has 645,000 registered Republicans in Iowa. That would leave you with 1,680,000 eligible voters. That's if they all participated in the Democratic caucus -- 700,000 is the number of registered Democrats per the most recent data. Not everyone participated in the caucus. (NPR's Mara Liasson said approximately 170,000 participated in the caucus. That's a very small number if it's correct.)
There is no excuse for this failure to have happened. There is no excuse for the results to still remain unknown. The process failed and this was agreed on this morning in a discussion featured on NBC's TODAY SHOW.
By releasing a partial result yesterday evening, the Democratic Party in Iowa did further damage. We don't need a news dump for the evening news that was about 71% of the tally. This is outrageous.
Yes, Iowa should suffer consequences.
So should the hideous Shadow, Inc who sold the state party the new technology.
On Monday, Iowans turned out to caucus. That generally means that late that night the country knows the results. It's not a day later, it's two. And the results are still unknown.
Iowa is not a vastly populated state. It has approximately 3.1 million residents and, of those, about a quarter are children (under 18). By contrast, NYC has a population of 8.6 million and Los Angeles has a population of 4 million. Those are cities.
2,325,000 is the approximate number of voters in Iowa. The most recent data (2010) has 645,000 registered Republicans in Iowa. That would leave you with 1,680,000 eligible voters. That's if they all participated in the Democratic caucus -- 700,000 is the number of registered Democrats per the most recent data. Not everyone participated in the caucus. (NPR's Mara Liasson said approximately 170,000 participated in the caucus. That's a very small number if it's correct.)
There is no excuse for this failure to have happened. There is no excuse for the results to still remain unknown. The process failed and this was agreed on this morning in a discussion featured on NBC's TODAY SHOW.
By releasing a partial result yesterday evening, the Democratic Party in Iowa did further damage. We don't need a news dump for the evening news that was about 71% of the tally. This is outrageous.
Yes, Iowa should suffer consequences.
So should the hideous Shadow, Inc who sold the state party the new technology.
Pinned Tweet
We sincerely regret the delay in the reporting of the results of last night’s Iowa caucuses and the uncertainty it has caused to the candidates, their campaigns, and Democratic caucus-goers.
That pinned Tweet? After mid-day Tuesday, that wasn't nearly enough. Last night? You mean two nights ago? Shadow, Inc should announce that they recognize the harm they've done and they'll be closing their doors before they cause further problems.
Ronald Brownstein (CNN) points out, "The meltdown in reporting results made it extremely unlikely that the full momentum that has often followed a caucus victory would flow to any of the candidates [. . .]"
Responsible call by @nprpolitics colleagues, per @NPRnie: “Various individual Democratic campaigns are releasing their own numbers with estimates of how the Iowa caucuses turned out. We are NOT reporting these numbers, which are hand-picked.” We’ll get you reliable results.
Will you, Steve? You will? Because this morning, you reported on (here for THE MORNING EDITION segment) partial results. That's not reliable results. We still do not know who came in first -- we can't know that with what you termed this morning "some vote totals."
I'm not interested in partial counts. The only thing I will note is that Joe Biden may come in fourth when the full totals are released. May not, but he may. In yesterday's snapshot, I noted he came in fifth in 2008 and appeared to do the same this go round. If the results hold, he will come in fourth. That's still not enough to justify his remaining in the race. He had the biggest name recognition. He had the easiest press. He was declared the front runner the moment he announced he was running for the nomination. Bill Barrow and Brian Slodysko (AP) report:
Joe Biden’s third
presidential bid enters a critical stretch after a disappointing finish
in the Iowa caucuses sent the former vice president on to New Hampshire
with a skittish donor base, low cash reserves and the looming threat of
billionaire rival Michael Bloomberg and his unlimited personal wealth.
In
New Hampshire on Tuesday, Biden insisted he had a “good night” in Iowa
even as he trailed the top moderate candidate, former Mayor Pete
Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and the leading progressive, Bernie
Sanders, according to initial returns from 71% of precincts. Biden was
running fourth, close to Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who just days ago
polled in single digits.
[. . .]
Biden aides have
said for months that he didn’t have to win in Iowa or on Feb. 11 in New
Hampshire because he was better positioned in Nevada’s Feb. 22 caucuses,
South Carolina’s Feb. 29 primary and a slate of March 3 primaries with
more than a third of Democrats’ national delegates at stake on a single
day.
That never meant, however, that Biden could sustain a bad showing in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"This is a very disappointing finish for Joe Biden," NPR's Mara Liasson observed this morning and noted that this was low even after his campaign had attempted to lower expectations and she noted that some had been saying that "he really had to come in a close second to in order to raise the money to keep on going."
Not a single poll in Iowa had @JoeBiden performing as badly as he did. They were off, in most cases, by nearly 10%.
We think it shows that Biden’s polling is badly inflated by landline polls and that polling for Biden also misses new voters, young voters, and independents.
Shaun may very well be right. However, there may be more to it. It's also true that historically what this usually means is that people who are really not paying attention and don't plan to vote often say they will be voting when called on the phone for polling. In other words, you're put on the spot by a pollster and you go with the first name you know while pretending you'll be voting when you actually don't plan to show up. That really sounds like Joe's base. Smart campaigns always prepare for that possibility if they're seen as the front runner.
Kenneth R. Rosen (NEWSWEEK) reports:
The War in Iraq cost nearly $2 trillion, roughly $8,000 per U.S. taxpayer, representing 9 percent of the national debt.
The current cost to the federal government for conflict zone operations in Iraq is an estimated $1.922 billion, including increases to the base budget in funding from the U.S. Department of State and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), homeland security, reenlistment bonuses, healthcare costs for active-duty and war veterans and accrued interest, according to a new report from The Cost of Wars project.
Without a war tax and few war bonds, direct war spending by the Pentagon resulted in interest payments of about $444 billion, the report estimated. The author warns even if the fighting stopped today, and the Trump Administration pulled out of all ongoing fights in the "Global War on Terror," those cumulative interest payments would continue to rise. If all war spending stopped today the existing war debt would "rise ... to $6.5 trillion by 2050," according to the report's estimates.
While the report does estimate that amount of interest on the debt, they do not attempt to estimate the costs of treatment over the coming years for the veterans of the war.
In Iraq, the protests continue.
University and institute graduates protest in Kirkuk after controversial hiring plan scrapped
nrttv.com/En/News.aspx?i… #NRTnews #Iraq #Kirkuk #TwitterKurds
#Iraq journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who became famous for throwing shoes at President Bush at a 2008 press conference, answers questions on the protests and the contemporary situation in Iraq
#IraqProtest #iraq_Protest #iraqprotest #Iraqi_demonstration| Demonstrators inside Tahrir come out with big number of demonstrators against Sadr attitude towards and Calls for resignation of #Mahamad_Aalawi_Tawfiq a new iraqi PM.
0:24
The Blue Hats gangs burned more than four tents at #Baghdad's Al-Umma Park early today
#BaghdadPost #IraqProtests
#saveIraqipeople #FreeIraq
#Save_the_Iraqi_people #muqtada_is_a_terrorist
1:22
In other news, this is being reported . . .
#BreakingNews | #Iranian pilots arrive at #Balad Air Base with an #Iraqi militia team to seize Iraqi F-16s.
#BaghdadPost #IraqProtests
#saveIraqipeople #FreeIraq
#Save_the_Iraqi_people
Is it true? I have no idea. Did anyone worry about that when the US was making this deal with Iraq? Uh, we did raise the issue here.
The following sites updated:
