Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 11

The blues is bluesy, all right, but also cathartic and therefore uplifting. If you want music dripping with pain and self-pity (and, yes, beauty), make it country.

Here it is, your moment of Zen...

... or eight seconds, to be precise. Look, don't make fun of me, it's my first video taken by phone. Turn up the volume for soothing drip-drops...

Escalon and Oakdale

On the way up Highway 120 to Yosemite, I always enjoy my drive through little Escalon, CA, with its attractive older middle-class homes along tree-shaded streets. But should you stop for lunch? The photo below was snapped behind Hula's burger joint on 120 east of "downtown." Aidan and I stopped in because the place looked to have some local flavor, and the sign outside boasted of the best burger in town. Well was it? Seems doubtful. And the tables smelled of bleach.

A better bet for lunch (or dinner) near the halfway point is in neighboring Oakdale, one of those classic Central Valley agricultural entrepots, and former home of a Hershey's factory. On 120 heading east out of town you might notice a brown-shingled shack that looks more like a dive bar than anything. It's Ferrarese's Deli Restaurant, a place we've eaten a couple of times. The simple fare is very tasty, decent beer on tap, the walls are interesting, and it's a real favorite with locals. You can't do much better.

From

Irrelevant economics

Judging from Henry Aaron's observations, it appears that the most fundamental insights from over a century of economic thought on public policy will play almost no role in the Supreme Court's debate over the health care law. Sorry to have wasted your time, students.

Black Steel

Sometimes the cover of a classic is as good as the original...

The mandate

I have no qualifications whatsoever to judge the constitutionality of Obamacare, but it is supremely ironic (perhaps even contradictory?!) that exercising federal police power to fund universal socialized health insurance to people over 65 is perfectly fine, while preserving and in fact facilitating a private market approach to health care is quite possibly verboten. Not to mention that Congressman Ryan's Medicare "reform" plan is to replace it with an underfunded version of Obamacare for old folks. If that should come to pass under President Romney, I wonder whether the questioning from Justice Scalia will be equally hostile...

I made this too

TC won't believe it, but I did, and it was good!

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 10

The video doesn't quite do justice to her piano chops... but still, the answer is yes, baby baby sweet baby...