Carl Scott

This was initially composed as a comment to what West says in the “American Liberty: An Introduction” thread below—it’s still pretty off-the-cuff and rough-draft, even if Peter would say that somewhere around the 700 word mark it probably needs a GONG intervention. Tom, you and . . . . Continue Reading »

Here are some more fragments from my current prospectus for my five conceptions of American liberty book, the basics of which are sketched in the post below. I welcome your criticisms and suggestions. . . . Usually, the discussion of American liberty is conducted in dichotomous terms. Mark . . . . Continue Reading »

So alongside my rock songbook, I’m inaugurating here a new series about the American idea of liberty. I have a peculiar framework for thinking about the American idea of liberty, which I first developed for a class, but which I’m now hoping to develop into a book. Here is the beginning . . . . Continue Reading »

Well, Obama has been taken through the wringer.  Public opinion is overwhelmingly against him on Syria, and his “not MY red line” remark, along with Joe Wilson’s “you lie” interjection, is one of those phrases that will permanently define his reputation.  I . . . . Continue Reading »

My selections get even more arbitrary here, because I’m both including songs deliberately seeking to revisit or rework the original sound, and ones that, perhaps unintentionally, to my mind evoke it. What is more, my knowledge gets spread more thinly here—I’m very spotty on . . . . Continue Reading »

Jean Yarbrough makes a very apt comment on Powerline , in reference to the recent stories on the obscene and lawless bullying of the entrepreneur who brought Buckyballs to market , and the similar IRS bullying of the True the Vote leader: We need an updated online primer in American government and . . . . Continue Reading »

I need to limit the category pretty strictly to decide. But it’s not simply a pragmatic limitation. Earlier Songbook posts have laid the groundwork for my main assumption, that the basic folk-rock recipe was to inject the purity and longing of the gentler, Baez-esque , side of the folk sound . . . . Continue Reading »

The best show on NPR was Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz.” I don’t think I was ever sorry for having it on in the background, or ever sorry when I got drawn in to listen more closely.  You could usually learn to appreciate something about the more aggressively modernistic . . . . Continue Reading »

In “A World Learning to Manage without the U.S.,” he argues there is an emerging Russia-Saudi-Chinese axis. (All three have reasons to hate the Muslim Brotherhood, for one.) A grimly fun piece in which Mr. Goldman understandably touts how many times he’s been right on foreign . . . . Continue Reading »

Word has it that San Diego Democrats have finally gathered up enough moral spine from among their thousands of officials and functionaries to pressure Bob Filner, Mayor of San Diego and Honorary Emperor-for-Life of Harassamentstan, into resigning from the first of those posts. But lest such a . . . . Continue Reading »