Kennedy Day Dinner this Friday!

You are invited to join in the celebration of our annual Kennedy Day Dinner on

Friday May 9, 2008 at the

University of Memphis Holiday Inn located at

3700 Central Avenue, Memphis at 7 P.M.,

V.I.P. Reception 6 P.M.

For additional info call: Barbara. Williams 829-3377

Keynote Speaker : Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper (5^th District)

Tickets

VIP Reception $50 Dinner $150

Emily Jones Shrader -- 1975-2008

I cannot imagine, having had none of my own, what it must be like to bury one's child, except that it could only be the worst tragedy possible.

Tom Jones, who is as much a part of the Memphis landscape as Overton Park and Poplar Avenue, and of course, who blogs at Smart City Memphis, lost his daughter, Emily Jones Schrader, to cancer at the way-too-young age of 32 this past Friday.  He has written a beautiful tribute to her at SCM, and you should read it.

We here at the Cracker offer our deepest condolences to Tom and his family, and hope that you will as well.

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What if Abortion were made illegal?

The New York Times editorial board blogs about this topic today, noting that the National Institute for Reproductive Health has come up with a video targeted at john McCain, who advocates the overturning of Roe V. Wade. Here it is:

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To my Email list members

Folks, if you are on AOL and you haven't gotten my emails for a few days, I DID send them while I was out of town. However, I have gotten bouncebacks from all of my addresses who have accounts at AOL.COM.

You may want to contact AOL to find out why the hell they are blocking my emails. If you have an alternate address and AOL won't help you, shoot me an email, it's sjs1959 at gmail dot com.

Now, if you have continued to receive these emails at AOL.COM, please email me and let me know that as well.

NOW do you understand why Net Neutrality is so important?

Breaking News: Knoxville News-Sentinel reports Janice Holder to become first female Chief Justice

I first saw through Kleinheider, who linked to R. Neal, who gave me the News-Sentinel link.

This is great news, and a well-deserved promotion for Justice Holder, who was selected by her colleagues to succeed retiring Chief Justice William Barker, who will be gone as of September 1. Governor Bredesen will select Barker's replacement on the Court from either East or West Tennessee; the new Justice will be an associate.

I have to post something?

How about this on Little League vs. Christian Little League. Geez, I thought regular Little League was full of holier than thou parents who push their kids too much. Remember, regular Little League has not just Christians, but lots of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Shinto, and various other religions so this guy who says Little League should embrace GOD is uh... wrong.

Wind farming comes to Lee County, IL

Photo by LeftWingCracker

As Lauren and I entered Lee County this evening near Sublette, IL, we saw these spectacular wind turbines rising some 90 feet in the air, and it was an awesome spectacle. I will have more photos from the digital camera later, this was taken from my cell phone. My nephew tells me that each blade is approximately 53 feet long. Amazing.

There are 15 such wind turbines, with more being built as we speak; once we can make such energy sources more efficient, it can help reduce the cost of energy and reduce, hopefully, our dependence on fossil fuels for heating, cooling and powering our homes, scvholls and businesses.

Mr. Carroll, report to the bridge, please

Photo by LeftWingCrackerYour humble Cracker, beginning tomorrow, begins a two-week vacation that includes a week-long trip with stops to see the fabulous Cathie Ryan at the Southern Illinois Irish Festival, which will also include a visit and overnight stay with local blogger/Ph.D candidate LeftWingCarolinaBlue.

Then, the next morning, we will wind our way north through Cumberland County, IL, ancestral home to my mother's side of the family. Lauren has never been to that part of Illinois before, and I want her to see it. This knowing that some day I will have to explore the unrelenting excitement that is Wichita, Kansas, but I digress.

Then, on Sunday afternoon, we will return to the place where I was born and Reagan grew up (before Nancy corrupted him), Dixon, IL. My hometown, bisected by the lovely yet polluted Rock River (which is hopefully back in its banks by now) is a town of 15,000 which was 20,000 when I lived there from by 1959 birth through August 1967, when we migrated to Northeast Arkansas. Of course, 5,000 of them were residents of the now-defunct Dixon State School, a state mental facility. (Note, they were always breaking out of there, I looked out our back door one evening when I was about 6, and a woman who looked like one of our neighbors but turned out to be one of the residents of DSS was there. Mom was upset, but the poor woman was harmless.)

Yes, this is far more boring than our beloved Newscoma's Annoying Autobiographical Pause, but if I don't keep practicing, I'll never be as good a writer as she is. Oh, hell, like ANYONE will get to that level, but, again, I digress, back to our story.

My last note about that is that my grandfather, who was a carpenter at DSS, used to drive past our street on the way home, and I had this tendency to go to the corner, wave at him, and he would come to our house, confusing my mother, who would ask "Hi, Dad, good to see you, why are you here?" only to learn that I had flagged him down. Good times.

While Dixon isn't Sin City, there is great fun to be had in that area; there, we are two hours from Chicago, an hour from the Quad Cities. an hour from Rockford, and an hour from God's Country, America's Dairyland, home to Brennan's Market, Little Switzerland and, of course, THE MOUNT HOREB MUSTARD MUSEUM. OY, I almost forgot, The Grumpy Troll Pub of Mt. Horeb! I speak, of course, of Wisconsin.

Yes, they may be Packer fans, sadly, but otherwise good people, even if Joe McCarthy hailed from there. Remember, so did LaFollette and so does Russ Feingold and Tammy Baldwin; it's a hell of a state and it's beautiful, unless you're there in the winter, then it's nothing but snow and deer hunters.

So, I will be coming home with cheese, beer and sausage for a few (sorry, can't do it for everyone or I'll have to charge!) and will return before the Kentucky Derby on May 3. There may be posting from me while I'm gone, but it will be up to Mr. Carroll to keep the fire going until I return.

Enjoy!

If you're an older Cub fan, you remember this

Lee Elia was the manager of the Chicago Cubs, who had just lost yet another tough one in the spring of 1983. After being asked what he thought of the fans' boos, well, this happened (NSFW!):

As if you needed any MORE reasons to support our Congressman

Watch him grill Robert Mueller...

It's time for some MISSIONARY work, my Democratic brothers and sisters

Now, I know what you're thinking, here, folks, Travis Childers is likely to be a Blue Dog and not as progressive as we like. Well, for a R+10 district, he does right fine, supporting FAIR Trade rather than Free Trade, which equates to giving our jobs away for nothing.

Face it, folks, we have the opportunity to steal one away from the Goopers IN NORTH MISSISSIPPI!!!!! HEL-LOOO! Not only that, this will help Childers retain the seat in the fall and help the Senatorial campaign of Ronnie Musgrove as well. Anything that makes Haley Barbour soil himself is something I can support!

I know he's not likely to be on ActBlue (and, sadly, it might hurt him in the short-term if he WERE), so, can ya help a brother out here? Do you REALLY want Greg Davis working in Congress against everything we stand for? Or would you rather have a guy who will be with us more often than not? We report, you decide!

Hillary can STILL win this election! Here's how:

Thanks to Janetta for this...

Here's the current status of the Clinton campaign in a nutshell

Maybe he needs to ask his pal LAMAR! for help with the Shelby County Budget!

Check this out. Here is a list of thirty people from around the state who claim to be Democrats who couldn't freaking wait to endorse LAMAR! for a another term in the US Senate. Five are from Shelby County, but I am particularly upset about one of them, and NOT the one you probably think.

Willie Herenton is NOT an elected Democratic official, and, to my knowledge, he is NOT serving as co-chair of any Democratic coordinated campaigns this year, so he gets a pass. Besides, after Don Sundquist, Jim Rout and LAMAR!'s original Senate campaign in 2002, it;'s old hat by now, and despite his protestations, he is for all intents and purposes an independent. That's fine with me, as he holds a non-partisan office. Besides, who the hell has he ever gotten elected besides himself, anyway, but I digress.

There is ONE elected official from Shelby County on that list, someone who was elected TWICE to their office as the nominee of the Democratic Party, yet, just like with Bill Gibbons' 2006 campaign for AG, he couldn't WAIT to endorse a Republican. His name is AC Wharton.

AC Wharton, who apparently believes he owes Republicans more for his two elections than Democrats. I know, he's term-limited, so what the hell can you do about it?

Me? Not a damn thing. However, the Shelby County legislative delegation, to whom he must turn in order to get permission to pass a payroll or privilege tax sure can, and don't think they haven't noticed. I don't care who he takes up there with him to lobby for this ability, it's DOA. Any leverage that our Democrats in Nashville may have had with the leadership went out the window when this got out. Yeah, I know this happened three months ago, but this is the sort of thing that festers over time.

What the hell possessed him to do this? Even if for some unknown reason he WANTED LAMAR! to win, he could have kept his damn mouth shut and disappeared whenever the Senate race came up for discussion.

I know, some of you are going to say, gee whiz, LAMAR!'s not like the other Goopers, he's part of the Baker-Alexander-Donelson Old Guard tradition and he's not knee-jerk. You see, he's not a maverick, either, and like others of that tradition, he has basically shut up and done what he's been told to do by the most reactionary GOP leadership since the beginning of their party in 1860. And he should be punished for this by removal from office this fall.

However, these weak-kneed Democrats ran to him just as soon as Mike McWherter chickened out of a challenge, and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so. This is what Kos, Chris Bowers, Atrios and others are talking about when they say more and BETTER Democrats, Democrats who support progressive politics and positions and don't turn chickenshit at the first sign of trouble.

Because of this, Mayor Wharton, you have crapped in your own bed; now you're going to have to lie in it.

Say, I've got a thought; why don't you call your buddy LAMAR! and have HIM lobby the General Assembly for you? I'm sure he'd LOVE to help you get more tax revenue for Shelby County, because he would support any tax hike for OH, WAIT, he's a REPUBLICAN, he never met a tax hike he liked, except when HE was Governor. Oh well, I tried, the rest is up to you.

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THIS was sure a smart thing to do......

NOT.

Does the junior Senator from New York have a deathwish for her campaign? The Huffington Post has a story (with audio) of Senator Clinton badmouthing Democratic activists like MoveOn.Org and those who support her opponent, Senator Barack Obama. Here's an excerpt of her remarks:

"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings
out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. (LWC note: that's a lie) I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."

Here's the money quote from Celeste Fremon, who also writes for OffTheBus:

The disclosure of Clinton's statement disparaging the prominence of party activists in the caucus process comes after she repeatedly suggested that Obama's electability had been compromised because he had allegedly offended other key Democratic constituencies.

What part of THE BASE DOES NOT WANT YOU have you not figured out, Senator?

Kleinheider's back

And the Nashville Post has him! And yes, he's going to be on the blogroll again in just a minute...

Now, THIS is an endorsement

With a hat tip to Joe Sudbay at AmericaBlog, here is the Philly Daily News endorsement of Barack Obama:

VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA

THE CHOICE in Tuesday's Democratic presidential
primary is not only the one between a white woman and a black man. It's a choice between the past and the future.

More specifically, the nation must decide how to face the future racing toward us in the form of slumping home sales, unstable financial markets and increased joblessness - and staring at us from the Green Zone in Iraq and the beds at veterans hospitals.

Should Democrats choose someone who will employ hard-won - even bitter - experiences gained in a past Democratic administration, or reach beyond political truisms toward a new (and untried) model of governing?

Neither choice is obvious. Perhaps that's why the race has gone on for so long.

But the long slog through 44 primaries and caucuses has confirmed for us that Sen. Barack Obama's vision of change - and the way he plans to pursue it - is what we need right now. Badly.

This is a campaign that really began six years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001. Not only was the U.S. attacked and seriously wounded, it did not bounce back the way "the land of the free and home of the brave" should have. In fact, it still suffers from post-traumatic stress.

That day and its aftermath cried out for a revolution of values: a clear-eyed shared vision, a cooperative effort, a unified purpose. It cried out for a recognition that conventional warfare and conventional responses to domestic challenges in an era of globalization were not enough.

That cry was not answered.

Instead, the Bush administration embarked on an unconscionable plan to exploit the fear we all felt that day for political gain. It lied us into a disastrous war in Iraq, a staggering, record deficit at home, a weakening of the constitutional structure on which the country rests, and poisonous lines of division among Americans. It led us to a place where 81 percent of Americans say we're on the wrong track.

Contrary to Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign slogan, we believe Barack Obama is more likely to be "ready on Day One" to lead us in a new direction. Because of his experience.

Sure, Clinton has more "experience" of a sort. For one thing, she has 14 more years on earth. How much of this experience is directly applicable to the job of president is, at best, debatable.

We are frankly troubled by her assumption that her husband's administration and accomplishments were her own. And if her equation holds, that the first spouse is an equal partner in the administration, then the reappearance of Bill Clinton in the White House is a prospect we have a hard time reconciling with the work that needs to be done.

THERE IS a way to match Clinton's and Obama's performances on a relatively equal playing field: their campaigns.

A candidate's campaign may be the best indicator of how she or he will govern. If so, an Obama administration would be well-managed, inclusive and astonishingly broad-based. It would make good use of technology and communicate a message of unity and, yes, hope.

It would not be content with eking out slim victories by playing to the narrow interests of the swing voters of the moment while leaving the rest of the country as deeply divided as ever. Instead, an Obama administration would seek to expand the number of Americans who believe that they have a personal stake in our collective future - and that they have the power to change things.

It would motivate them to hold their representatives accountable for
making it happen. That is, after all, the only way to get us out of Iraq, to
address global warming, to make us energy-independent. It's the only way to resist the forces arrayed against providing universal health care, rebuilding our infrastructure and returning our schools to world-class status. It's the only way to give our children the means to compete with children in other parts of the world who are healthier, better-educated and have more opportunities than many of our own.

An Obama administration would be freer of the corrupting influence of big-money donors and corporate interests. Obama has raised $240 million overall, with half coming in contributions of less than $200. People who contribute to political campaigns can feel they "own" a
candidate and so Obama would owe allegiance to the wide swath of America that has financed his campaign.

Based on his experience in running a quarter-billion-dollar enterprise with thousands upon thousands of volunteers, we could expect an Obama administration to be well-managed and cost-effective, with the president choosing forward-thinking advisers committed to his program, demanding that they work as a team and pay attention to details.

He would be steady and calm, given neither to irrational exuberance or outbursts of anger. He would make mistakes, that's for sure, but he could be expected to recognize them, adjust, and move forward.

He would adjust his views to reality rather than trying to adjust reality to his views.

Obama's unprecedented appeal to younger voters is significant not only because it expands the electorate, which is vital. It's also a validation of his promise as a president to be free of the baby-boomer/Vietnam/segregation-era hangups.

Younger people are more egalitarian, more accepting of diversity, and more comfortable with rapid change. They also are less confined by old resentments or regrets.

AND AN OBAMA administration would lower the tone of the rhetoric that separates us.

As New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has said, Obama is a
once-in-a-lifetime candidate who has the skill and eloquence to help us raise our eyes and our aspirations beyond individual, personal concerns, beyond religion or region or race or gender, beyond our well-founded fears to a shared destiny.

Most candidates claim that they will change the way business is
done in Washington. Barack Obama has made us believe that, yes, he can. *

Tuke for Tennessee

Tuke for Tennessee

Bob Tuke finally has his website up in his Senate race (H/T to Sharon Cobb), and I hope you'll go over there and take a look at it, and sign up for email updates. So far, among elected officials from Big Shelby, only Lois Deberry has signed up with the former TDP Chair, but I hope more will follow.

Yes, he also supports Obama, that's an added bonus. Go give him a shout out!

Update: here's the announcement video:

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Yahoo! I made it to 1000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ladies and germs, this is your humble Cracker's 1000th post, in our fourth year of operation, and I want to thank YOU for your viewing, your reading, your comments, and your support.

Thanks also to Jon for his commentary, I'm glad he settled here to help out with this effort.

Onward to 2000 and beyond!!!!!

UPDATE: in addition to the wonderful comments you have left, our beloved Newscoma is leading cheers at her place on this milestone, for which I am thankful...

Could we have an upset brewing in North Mississippi??

Brownsox at Daily Kos says it could happen, even though he also says Southaven Mayor Greg Davis should be favored, Democrat Travis Childers is moving up:

Frankly, given the area's Republican nature, I think it's highly impressive that we're competitive in this district at all. The fact that this race is competitive speaks to Childers' strengths as a candidate, as well as to the popularity-or lack thereof-of his rather controversial opponent Greg Davis, who apparently has a somewhat unpleasant history with racist groups:

In Mississippi's Second District, Southaven Mayor Greg Davis
agreed in 2001 to accept a plaque as a gift from the Council of Conservative Citizens, thanking the town for flying the state flag in the midst of a controversy over the flag's Confederate emblems, according to press reports at the time.

There was a brief public outcry, during which Davis initially
defended accepting the gift from the CCC, which is well-known for espousing doctrines of "racial integrity." In the end though, Davis declined the gift. The episode involving the CCC hasn't emerged as an issue in the current campaign -- yet. But Davis won a seriously contested primary, and might just be vulnerable against Prentiss County clerk Travis Childers, the Dem challenger.

Stay tuned!