Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

When we show up, we win.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

T R E 4 5 O N

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

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Reader Interactions

31Comments

  1. 1.

    opie_jeanne

    I have loved this since I first heard it. Beautiful and appropriate today, I think.

  2. 2.

    Violet

    Oh, Alison Krauss has the most beautiful voice. Thanks for posting this. So appropriate today.

  5. 5.

    Merrily

    Time to give my cat his favorite food for a Tunch Lunch, in tender appreciation of his cattitude and as a way to hoist one in honor of our sorely missed friend.

    (He’d getting his favorite form of tuna, chicken lunchmeat — as opposed to gushy food tuna, or hard tuna.)

  6. 6.

    InternetDragons

    Wow, beautiful and a balm to the soul.

    It’s funny how music like this can walk into the hearts even of many like me who aren’t religious.

    Some things just transcend those boundaries.

  7. 7.

    Laura C

    Last night by the time I saw the Tunch thread it was too long to comment from my phone. But wanted to say here on the site how terribly sad I am.

  9. 9.

    Botsplainer

    Learned something vaguely distressing last night – the lengths to which some young women will go to get band access. A cute little early 20s hardbody was trying to grind fat, old-enough-to-be-her-dad me in order to hitchhike onto my all access pass to dance right in front of the Black Keys and take off her shirt (told her I didn’t think it a good idea); or, in the alternative, for me to take her backstage. She hovered around me like a hungry horsefly; I’m pretty sure she’d have screwed me had I taken her back there. Happily, she found another friend, and stopped tempting me.

    I went backstage and didn’t see her – I assumed her new friend was with her in a crew bus.

    Besides, since the crew pass was a found item, I didn’t want to fuck up; going to see Robert Plant tonight, and backstage will be awesome. Avett Bros. to follow. Last night, I used it to hang with The Flaming Lips.

    It was pretty neat to look out across the crowd from the stage – there were easily 40000 out there.

  11. 11.

    currants

    Anybody have a link to a version of this with a black choir? My google-fu appears to be weak today.

  14. 14.

    raven

    @currants: No version but this info:

    The traditional Appalachian song “Down in the River to Pray” is well-known, especially since Alison Krauss and the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”(released in 2000) popularized it. Yet, its composer remains a mystery, at least in some measure. Research indicates the song was written by slaves in the 19th Century who worked in the fields. Other people believe it was perhaps a derivative of a native American tribal song that was adapted with Christian lyrics. It was reportedly published in Southern Harmony, a 19th Century hymnal, prior to many African-American spiritual songs being gathered and published during the Civil War and the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. And, what if someone told you it was written by George H. Allan in Nashville, Tennessee during slavery in the South, and was published in a slave songbook in 1867? Its appearance in “Slave Songs of the United States” in 1867, with words uniquely colloquial to black slave spiritual songs of that period, seems to point us in that direction to this song’s genealogy. The song had a different name, too, than the one by which we commonly know it today.

    The song as originally composed was known as “The Good Old Way”, and is attributed to a G.H. (George H.) Allan in the contents section of the slave song book of 1867. The song may also be known as “Come, Let Us All Go Down”, but has also been known as “Down to the River to Pray”, and alternately as “Down in the River to Pray”. However, as originally constructed by Mr. Allan (or perhaps some other contemporary, most likely a slave), the song entreats worshippers to go to a valley, not a river…

    choralnet.org/view/257262

  16. 16.

    currants

    @raven: Thank you–I had the sense that it was a slave song (and river makes sense, if you think about baptism), and have some recollection of hearing it sing by maybe an AME choir (?), but maybe I’m just making shit up.

    ETA: PS Choralnet–very cool resource!

  18. 18.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    The whole Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack is wonderful, as is the movie. One of my faves.

  19. 19.

    scav

    @currants: It’s sad that my first thought was eeeeeee, that’s way too many uniformly too white people in that choir, with the whiff of added xianist cringe. And I’ve adored that song since the movie. Weird what a few more years of life can do to a person, and given the pallor of my skin, it’s going to be rough if I start cringing around groups of the melanin deprived. Family reunions are right out. Probably too old and cranky to be adopted at this point.

  21. 21.

    gogol's wife

    For those like me who don’t like doing donations on the internet, if you go to the MARC site, they give their mailing address. I believe I’ve done this before — you can just send them a check made out to MARC. Don’t forget a note to tell them it’s in Tunch’s memory.

  22. 22.

    La Caterina

    We sang this today for Tunch and Trayvon:

    Respond ye souls in endless rest,
    Ye patriarchs and prophets blest,
    Alleluia, alleluia
    Ye holy twelve, ye martyrs strong,
    All saints triumpha raise the song!

    (Ralph Vaughn Williams adapt., Melody from Auserlesene Catholische Geistliche Kirchengeseng, 1623)

    I’m going out now to do some constructive action feeding feral kitties. Everyone gets tuna today!

  23. 23.

    raven

    @currants: I saw Nina Simone in the early 70’s in Champaign-Urbana. The first thing she did was to have all the white folks move to the back of the auditorium. Then she said she was glad “we can have our song back” and sang Amazing Grace.

  24. 24.

    PsiFighter37

    After the BJ meetup, my buddy gave me energy strips and we raged. Destroyed the contents of the minibar, followed by an excursion to Zig Zag Cafe. I tossed and turned all night and have muscles that feel really tired right now.

    What a night

  25. 25.

    scav

    @raven: Nina! Off to rummage for Cds, I’m on a news blackout except for this site and one for weather. thanks!

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