Unca Darrell

SEPTEMBER 30 / Dancing at the Cajun museum

   

 

THE PRAIRIE Cajun Cultural Center in Eunice, Louisiana, not only exhibits Cajun stuff, but it also shows off Cajun life. On this Saturday afternoon, three musicians provided the music. The audience provided les danseurs.

The performers: Bubba Frey on fiddle, Albert Rozas on accordian, and Claudia Wood (a National Park Ranger) on guitar. Click below for more shots of the event.

After the show, Mr. Frey gave a lecture on how to make hog's head cheese. (Don't ask.)

SEPTEMBER 30 / Reasons to vote against Obama-Biden

REASON NO. 17 / That business about "The One" is meglomaniacal, messianic, and creepy.

"[Miss Jane Pittman] would approach the children. She would ask each one, 'Are you the one? Are you the one?' Remember how she stood in that doorway and she held that baby in her arm and she said, 'Are you the one, Jimmy? Are you the one?' Well, I watched that movie many years ago, but I do believe today I have the answer to Miss Pittman's question. It's a question that the entire nation is asking. 'Is he the one? Is he the one?' South Carolina, I do believe he's the one to bring us the audacity of hope: Barack Obama." (Oprah Winfrey, emphasis added)

"We are the ones we've been waiting for. . . . We, we are the change we seek." (Barack Obama, emphasis added)

"We know that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored, that will not be deterred, that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, make this time different than all the rest." (Barack Obama, emphasis added)

"Because if we are willing to work for it and fight for it and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs for the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." (Barack Obama, emphasis added)

SEPTEMBER 29 / Reasons to vote for McCain and Palin

REASON NO 13. / President McCain would be more likely to appoint judges who respect the proper limits of the judiciary in a self-governing republic.

From the McCain-Palin Web site:

We are a free people. This means that the rules we have agreed to live by are those made by the people themselves, not a small elite that claims to be wiser than everybody else. Our laws are legitimate precisely because they reflect decisions solemnly made by the people -- in the case of Constitutional law, through the process of ratification and periodic amendment; in the case of statutory law, through their elected representatives in the legislative process. When applying the law, the role of judges is not to impose their own view [of] the best policy choices for society but to faithfully and accurately determine the policy choices already made by the people and embedded in the law. The judicial role is necessarily limited and one that requires restraint and humility.

SEPTEMBER 29 / Fannie? Freddie? No problema

EVERYBODY ELSE is running this video, so I will too.

It shows Democrats in the Senate and House piously averring in 2004 that Fannie and Freddie are doing just fine and implying that the reformist critics are basically racists.

SEPTEMBER 28 / Handing our democratic destiny to the courts

There are little issues (who will be the next president, for instance). And then there are big issues (the entitlements mess, Islamic terrorists, the demographic time-bomb triggered by gender-specific abortions in China and India).

ANOTHER IS the future of democratic self-governance in the face of near-universal opposition from clever people in the judicial system, the bureaucratic state, and the international system, cheered on the professoriate and journalistas.

All of which is a long, long wind-up for this pitch: For the judicial assault on democracy (as on much else), an indispensible source is Stuart Taylor.

SEPTEMBER 26 / Bush-Clinton Coastal Recovery Fund

The weekend is here. Time to do something for someone else.

This week, consider a gift to the Bush-Clinton Coastal Recovery Fund.

SEPTEMBER 26 / Whatever happened to the bounces?

They're both dead, gone, and buried.

IN A NUTSHELL: Both parties had post-convention bounces. Both bounces were small. The Republican bounce was greater than the Democratic bounce, but not by much. Both bounces have now disappeared.

SEPTEMBER 25 / Waltzing back to Eunice

It's been a while since we last traveled together, so let's return to Savoy Music Center on State 190 just east of Eunice, Louisiana.

ANOTHER view of the famous Saturday morning cajun jam at Savoy's.

To see earlier posts about Savoy's (including a group shot in which this multi-talented man is playing an accordian), go here, here, and here.

SEPTEMBER 24 / Good feedback

A thoughtful reader takes exception to the Paulson plan.

This long-form comment that deserves to be a post, so here it is, lightly edited:

SEPTEMBER 24 / Bummer!

I was typing away on a post to recommend that Senator McCain suspend his campaign and go to Washington to help resolve the financial crisis when . . . the rascal suspended his campaign to go to Washington to help resolve the financial crisis.

Scout's honor.