Anne Marie Harpen

I had previously blogged about Anne Marie Harpen's moving song, "Walk the Streets in Anger" on the Youtube video above (h/t Contrairimairi).

Anne Marie just posted a response to the blog as follows:

>Thank you for featuring my video and the kind words. I have a songblog with other songs and link to my CD. You made my day!

Anne Marie Harpen
www.harpensings.blogspot.com

I will certainly check out Anne Marie's site. Someone else added the comment:

>Anne Harpen just sent me five of her new CD's called "Walk The Streets In Anger." The title song electrified me in August of '09 when I first heard it. You cry and then you become stronger and work to end this "soft tyranny" as Mark Levin calls it. The CD may be sent for at:
http://harpensings.blogspot.com

David Boaz in Camelot

I just returned from David Boaz's talk at the Foundation for Economic Education. Mr. Boaz is co-founder and Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute in Washington. I drove down to Irvington-on-Hudson, which is a two hour drive, and I thought it was very much worth it. Mr. Boaz is an excellent speaker, brilliant and wise. He is surprisingly optimistic. He noted that the long term trend has been toward greater freedom. He noted that there is more freedom for blacks and Jews today than there was in the era of laissez-faire. Also, the degree of government intervention is less now than it was in the past. For instance, he noted that while 75% of the nation favored nationalization of banking in the 1930s, only 35% favors it today.

I enjoyed the talk but experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance with respect to all the optimism. While we are better off than we might have been had it not been for people like David Boaz, today we pay 50% of our incomes in taxes, when you include property, sales, state income tax and social security tax. If we do not have the freedom to dispose of half of our earnings I don't see how we can consider ourselves to be free. In the Whiskey Rebellion in the 1790s Pennsylvanians were ready to overthrow Washington over a small tax on whiskey.

I suppose optimism is psychologically preferable to pessimism. Nevertheless, Mr. Boaz reminded me of the black knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. King Arthur cuts off one of his arms, and the black knight says "'tis but a scratch." He cuts off the other arm and the black knight says "just a flesh wound". King Arthur proceeds to cut off both of the black knight's legs and he says "I'm invincible!" (see below).

John Lithgow in Dexter

John Lithgow has been in 84 films and he's played some excellent roles, including criminal roles. But in Season 4 of Dexter on Showtime Lithgow is in league with Anthony Hopkins and Lionel Barrymore, among the best villains of all time. Michael C. Hall (Dexter) has been wonderful for the past four seasons, as have the supporting cast including Oz veterans Lauren Velez and David Zayas, Jennifer Carpenter, who plays Dexter's sister, and Julie Benz, who plays his wife. If you get past the premise that a serial killer can be trained to kill only serial killers, the show's story line is rich. Dexter has been great TV, but Lithgow does one better. In the last scene of Season 4, No. 11, "Hello Dexter Morgan", Lithgow's performance is classic. And P.S.--It seems to me that Showtime is outstripping HBO this year.

How Dan Halloran Ran: An Interview with Phil Orenstein

My interview with Phil Orenstein on Dan Halloran's successful political campaign for the New York City Council (Queens) appears on the Republican Liberty Caucus's blog http://www.rlc.org/2009/12/09/how-dan-halloran-ran/