Due to poor service on the part of our web host, this blog will be discontinued.  I have recommended that Dave go back to posting on Blogger.  Click on the word Blogger to get to the old (new) blog.

Wharf Rat

Allen Farm Technical Support

    The United States has had 55 Presidential elections. The first nine have very poor records existing of the popular vote and I will not consider those.  Of the remaining 46, fourteen of the winners received less than half of the popular vote.  There were more than two candidates in all of these fourteen.

          In 1824, Andrew jackson had 43% of the popular vote to John Quincy Adam's 30.5%, but Henry Clay threw his 13% to Adams to allow him to win the electoral college vote. The 1844 election was won by James Polk with a popular vote of just under 50%.  In New York, the anti-slavery Liberty Party's Birney received 15,800 votes, more than Polk's margin of 5,100 votes.  A victory in New York would have given Henry Clay a 141-134 edge in the electoral college.  In 1848 Zachary Taylor won with only 48% of the popular vote when the Democrat vote was split between their candidate Cass and the splintered Free soil party.  Abraham Lincoln was elected with only 41% of the popular vote in 1860 when three other candidates split the remaining votes.  Close numbers also mark the elections of 1880, 1884, 1892, and 1948 (Truman over Dewey).  Theodore Roosevelt split the Republican vote (a nine per cent advantage) in 1912 to allow Woodrow Wilson a electoral coup.  Nixon's close victory in 1968  might have been a landslide without George Wallace and his 13%.  In 1992, Clinton won with  only 43% of the popular vote when third party candidate Ross Perot"s 19% certainly reduced Bush the elder's almost 38%. 

    The remaining three are interesting in that winning the popular vote did not assure the presidency.  The Compromise of 1877 marred the 1876 election when three states' electoral votes were disputed and Rutherford Hayes became President although Samuel Tilden had received over 51% of the popular vote.  In 1888 Benjamin Harrison had more popular votes but Grover Cleveland got more electoral votes as George Bush did in 2000, although Gore received about 400,000  more votes and would easily have won if Nadar had dropped out.  (Florida would not have been so close if the news media had not announced the polls were closed in Florida when in the conservative pan handle, a different time zone, the polls were still open for another hour.)  

    The electoral College is the law of the land, and I am not saying it is wrong or should be changed: that is a different question. The only point I am attempting to make is that a third candidate often drastically effects the results. How different our country might be today if Teddy Roosevelt had not run in 1912.  Perhaps if Huckabee had dropped out of the Republican race a month ago, Romney might be the front runner.  Perhaps not.  But we can never know how our history has been effected by third running candidates in not only the Presidential elections, but also the primaries, and lesser elections.  

    Sports films usually do a poor job portraying the atheletic aspect of sports.  I took a class recently in which we were asked to view a number of sports films.  My opinion has not changed in that I still think there are few good ones.  I do have a theory why this is true.  Sports are only the vehicle used to transport an idea.  Often these ideas are very worthy, and I always wonder why no one takes the time and care to get the athletics correct.  I watched the "Jackie Robinson Story" yesterday, and while the athletics weren't too bad (Jackie played himself), the movie seemed patronizing.  It seemed the movie told a needed-telling story, but treated the audience as low intelligence racists that must be spoon fed with simplistic examples.  Maybe this was all too typical of hollywood at that time, but it is also typical of many liberals today.  They treat others as incapable of rational thought and feel only they have answers.  They insist upon burdening the country with their mandates without logical reasoning or meaningful debate and in fact will shout down arrogantly and angerly with ill-conceived rhetoric anyone that dares have a dissenting opinion.  This arrogance carries over to film when attention to detail is neglected (if the film makers don't know a subject, the audience won't,. either).  And if they do a poor job with what I know, maybe they are also doing a poor job with what I don't know.  Is it possible that some liberals have more prejudicies than the masses they are attempting to enlighten?   

To paraphrase the old saying about government, “language is a terrible form of communication, but it is the best we have”. Because we have different ways of learning and thinking, what seems simple and straightforward to one, can be incomprehensible to another. While most think “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”, means that outlaws will always be able to get guns, I used to interpret it as meaning gun bans would force those law abiding citizens who own guns to become law breakers in order to preserve their second amendment rights.

Some people have a charisma that allows them to say and/or do almost anything and still be perceived positively. Others, (I am a member of this set), have the opposite effect. There was a period of my life that I was doing things for a certain person out of love. I was stunned that everything I had done with the purest of motives was misconstrued to have had the vilest of intents. I eventually realized that I had no control over how my actions would be interpreted, particularly if was in this person's best interest to believe the worst.

A teacher once explained that the difference in constructive and destructive criticism is whether or not one has a viable solution to the problem. My criticisms are rarely about things to which there is no solution, but usually have a simple solution, and I am frustrated and dumbfounded that a solution hasn't already been implemented. Do not assume I am being negative, but understand that I think things could be better.

    I would like to thank not only our local station that prides itself on playing "classic Rock", but all those other stations that seem to be using the same service.  I have a collection of vinyl that covers much of the period that I was a teenager and a few years beyond.  The songs I don't have seem to be the ones these stations play over and over and over...     The reason I did not buy these records is I did not like them when they were first out (and I still don't like them).  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion (and mine is that many songs they play are not classic,and some are not even rock), but wouldn't it be nice if this service would play a variety to introduce more songs and artists to those who did not grow up in this period, and stop playing the same tired songs day after day?  My theory is that those who choose this very limited selection 1) probably did not grow up during the hayday of rock and 2) are not very knowledgeable about music. 

    The D. J. Alan Freed began using the term "rock and roll" just previous to my birth and since he died in 1965, he ceases to be an authority for whether or not any song done after 1965 is considered rock and roll.  Those of us that grew up listening to this music would probably agree that the term "rock " is used a bit too freely today.   For those younger, check out this music - if you truly like rock, you will be amazed at the explosion of groups and great songs from this period (the fifties and particularly the sixties).  As a teenager (admittedly just after Freed's death), it seemed new songs were coming out each day and rock was getting progressively "heavier".  I thought Ian Anderson's expressive breathiness as he played the flute in Jethro Tull was just a further step in the evolution of rock and roll.  But then alas for me, somehow simplistic and often out of tune songs seem to start a backlash against the complexity I loved in rock.  This is the time I feel that rock, if not died, then at least partially retired.  In the suceeding decades, songs and groups I liked were (and are) few and far between, whether or not one considers them rock. 

     I used to say that rock was concerned with the beat and the notes; the words did not matter - if you were more concerned with the words, get a poetry book.  I guess I still feel this way for the most part.  Christiam music is an exception in that the music can take me to one level (physical and/or mental?) , but the words add so much more (making it a spiritual experience).  I presently listen to Rhapsody and such non-rock artists as Al Jolson, Jim Nabors, and Dean Martin.  Part of me feels a need to apologize and explain that it is the beauty of their interpretation of their songs I enjoy, but I still listen to Led Zepplin, Meatloaf, and Lynard Skynard.  And oh, still my favorite is the Temptations' "I Can't Get Next to You", no it's Vanilla Fudge's version of "You Keep Me Hangin" On", final vote - Joe Cocker's interpretation of "The Letter".