Cambridge River Festival

The second and third weeks in June are usually quiet in Cambridge. Harvard and MIT are out for the summer, summer school doesn’t start till July, and the high school is still in class. So that’s when the Cambridge Arts Council puts on its annual River Festival. This year’s festival last weekend was on a warm June day, a pleasant break from the heat wave that had gripped us for a few days earlier in June.

I particularly enjoyed jazz Dominique Eade on the WGBH tent stage and The Resophonics on the Club Passim tent stage. The Be the Change folks were there as well. And there’s nothing like a pulled pork sandwich and a soft-serve ice cream sundae.

Glass blowers at work

Sidewalk art with Sidewalk Sam

More sidewalk art

The Resophonics on the Club Passim tent stage

John McCain in the News

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Sanity On Energy Policy
Tampa Bay Times: Crist Likes McCain's Drilling Plan, Wouldn't Rule It Out For Florida
Nashua Telegraph: McCain Forum Idea Deserves A Chance
Houston Chronicle: Visiting Houston, McCain Urges Diverse Energy Sources
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: McCain Brings Campaign To Southwest Missouri
Union Leader: A Plan For Defeat: Obama's Iraq Doublespeak
New York Daily News: John McCain Backed By Army Of Women In March To Presidency
Reuters: McCain Touts Energy Conservation And Oil Exploration
Washington Times: 'Maverick' McCain Bedevils Democrats
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Obama Takes Heat On Lack Of Iraq Trips
John McCain 2008 Launches New TV Ad: "Safe"
The Wall Street Journal: Why Obama Must Go to Iraq
Los Angeles Times: Obama The Naive
South Florida Sun-Sentinel: McCain To Visit Everglades To Seek Support Of Independents, Floridians
Chicago Tribune: McCain Says He's Ready to Bring Change
The New York Times: McCain Sharpens His Foreign Policy Attacks on Obama
USA Today: McCain To Urge Other Nations To Cut Off Funds To Iran
Washington Post: The Iraqi Upturn
Newsweek: The Man Who Made McCain
Des Moines Register: S.D. Senator Praises McCain's Credentials
Catholic News Agency: McCain Pledges to Use Roberts, Alito as Model Supreme Court Nominees
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin: McCain Attempts To Woo Blue Collars
Phoenix Business Journal: McCain Wants Expanded Disclosure Rules on Businesses to Aid in Child Porn, Sex Trade Investigations
Reuters: McCain Backs Incentives to Boost Offshore Oil
Greensboro News and Record: McCain Outlines Vision On Judges
USA Today: McCain Talks Free Trade, Freedom at Michigan University
Washington Post: McCain Vows to Push Religious Freedom
Detroit Free Press: McCain Focuses on Civil Rights During OU Stop
The Charlotte Observer: Voters To Get 'Stark Choice'
National Review: McCain's Judicial Promise
Reuters: McCain Woos Hispanics and Launches Spanish Web Site
National Review: The Right Rx
The New Republic: On The DNC's "Disingenuous" Attack Ad
Business Week: McCain's Health Care Proposal
Allentown (PA) Morning Call: Next Stop for Arizona Senator: Lehigh Valley Hospital
Time Magazine: The Great Health Care Debate is Finally Engaged
L.A. Times: Open-Market Healthcare is McCain's Goal
USA Today: McCain Would 'Put Families In Charge' Of Health Care
Associated Press: McCain Says Most Americans Willing To Sacrifice
Quad City Times (IA): McCain Strikes in Iowa
St. Petersburg Times: McCain Makes Health Care Policy Speech in Tampa
Miami Herald: McCain Pushes Tax Credits, Healthcare Reforms
The Allentown Morning Call: McCain Visit To Target Health Care

Barack Obama Goes Off the Dole

You know the check box on your tax return where you can earmark $3 to the Presidential Election Fund? Well that money goes to the two major parties candidates, $84.1 million apiece for the fall 2008 election campaign, if they decide to accept it.

There are some strings attached, the main one being that the candidate isn’t allowed to raise any private funds for the general election. But every major party candidate has opted to take the public money since the system was established in 1971, that is until Barack Obama.

Charging that the system is broken, Obama has decided to go off the dole and forgo the public money, banking that he can raise more through his own efforts. He argues that his system for raising money, where 90% of donations are from small donors, is true public financing.

We’d like to know if 90% of the money Obama is raising comes from small donors, or whether as we suspect there are large numbers of small donors but most of the money is coming from a few large donors. The Obama campaign does say that over 69,000 people have donated since they made the announcement Thursday night.

This may be the end for the proponents of campaign finance reform. Republicans have always viewed the system suspiciously, thinking it principally a ploy by Democrats to equalize campaign spending between their candidates and better-financed Republicans. With the Democrats dumping the system the first time they seem poised to out fundraise the Republicans, they are surrendering the high ground on this issue. John McCain has stuck his neck out on campaign finance reform many times, often at personal political cost, and that fact will also not be lost on Republican officeholders.

On the other hand, LBOTC finds something undemocratic about the current public finance system and has never checked the box on our tax returns.

Keeping up with Rickie Lee Jones

It was standing room only Thursday night at Johnny D’s in Somerville as Rickie Lee Jones took the stage. The Duchess of Coolsville played for almost two hours. Her jazz folk rock style went down smooth, playing first on piano and then on acoustic guitar. Her four-piece band was always with her, even when she went down the cul-de-sacs of forgotten lyrics and improvised bridges, and never over-powered. She was, as on the last two occasions, I’ve seen her, the consummate performer and her voice is as beguiling as ever.

We stood out on the edge of the packed dance floor for a while, then gravitated to the back and hung out with Peter Wolf, frontman for the J. Geils Band (“Love Stinks”).

Rickie Lee Jones will be back at Johnny D’s on Thursday, June 26 and Thursday, July 3. Johnny D’s is still mourning the death this past April of longtime owner Tina De Lellis. We hope the place doesn’t change too much.

Re: Memorial Day Weekend

For those interested, my 1993 Jeep Cherokee is fully repaired and back on the road.

Iowa Woes

Q: Every time I see a picture of flooding in Iowa, I worry about your family. Are they safely out of the path of the floods? Is everyone ok?

A: Yes, everyone in my family is OK. Most of the flooding has been in the Mississippi watershed and we are in the Missouri watershed. There has been some flooding along the rivers in Southwest Iowa where my family lives, but not to the extent as in the Des Moines, Iowa City, and Cedar Rapids areas which are north and east about a hundred miles and further. There was some flooding a couple of weeks ago along the West Nodaway River that flows through Clarinda where my parents live, but I don’t think it got into the town at all and they live on a hill. Only a small portion of our farm is in a flood plain, on Honey Creek, which is not a major river, and does go out of its banks every two or three years. And we've got about three acres on the East Fork 102 River.

The story that has everyone heartsick is the 4 Boy Scouts killed and 48 injured in the tornado at the Scout Ranch near Little Sioux, Iowa on June 11. They were camped in tents, which are a bad place to be in a tornado, and had taken shelter in two or three buildings, but the tornado destroyed one of the buildings.

My father and grandparents had a brush with a tornado about 25 years ago. The tornado took the roof off my father's barn and destroyed an old garage and a corn crib, before passing a few hundred yards north of my grandparent's house, which was not damaged. My father spent a good hour before the storm hit arguing that he and my grandparents should take shelter in the cave, but they wouldn't go so neither did he. This was a great irony as we kids had spent a good amount of time in our basement at our father's insistence listening to tornado watches on the radio.

Laura Bush to the Rescue!

Back in February, Michelle Obama made on off-hand remark at a speech in Milwaukee for which she has been widely vilified, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country."

Now Michelle seems finally to have put this behind her, with help from current First Lady Laura Bush. Asked about the statement in an interveiw on ABC last week, Laura came to her defense saying, "I think she probably meant 'I'm more proud,' you know, is what she really meant." Michelle sent Laura a thank you note.

Of course, what Michelle probably really meant was to dig at Bill Clinton, who was President for eight years of her adult life.

Michelle seems to be learning a thing or two from studying Laura. Appearing on The View, Michelle expressed her gratitude to Laura:

"I was touched by it. And that's what I like about Laura Bush. You know, just calm, rational approach to these issues. And you know, I'm taking some cues. I mean, there's a balance. There's a reason why people like her. It's because she doesn't, sort of, you know, fuel the fire."