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Here is the behind-the-scenes tick tock story of how Spokane came to be the opening night venue of the Paul McCartney national tour, and here is the jaw-dropping playlist of his set (with no opening act):
Start time: 8:09 p.m.
1. “Can’t Buy Me Love”
2. “Junior’s Farm”
3. “Letting Go”
4. “Got To Get You Into My Life”
5. “Come on to Me”
6. “Let Me Roll It”
7. “Getting Better”
8. “Women and Wives” (first song at piano)
9. “My Valentine” (with video featuring Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp)
10. “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five”
11. “Maybe I’m Amazed”
12. “I’ve Just Seen a Face”
13. “In Spite of All the Danger”
14. “Love Me Do”
15. “Dance Tonight”
16. “Blackbird”
17. “Here Today” (tribute to John Lennon)
18. “Queenie Eye”
19. “Lady Madonna”
20. “Fuh You”
21. “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”
22. “Something” (tribute to George Harrison)
23. “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
24. “You Never Give Me Your Money”
25. “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”
26. “Get Back”
27. “Band on the Run”
28. “Let It Be”
29. “Live and Let Die”
30. “Hey Jude”
31. Encore at 10:30 p.m. after Washington state, Ukraine, U.S. and British flags onstage, “I’ve Got a Feeling” video duet with Lennon.
32. “Birthday”
33. “Helter Skelter”
34. “Golden Slumbers”
35. “Carry That Weight”
36. “The End”
End time: 10:51 p.m.
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May I present to you the cold-eyed (but not cold-hearted) view of my brilliant friend Scott Davis about what is happening now. Scott and I go back and forth on a regular basis about whether this is a rough patch for America and the world — or something much more fundamental and much darker.
SCOTT PROPHECY: BIG TECH DESTROYS, BIG TECH RESTORES
Consistent with Jonathan Haidt’s recent Atlantic feature + podcast with Bari Weiss:
1. Social media is incompatible with democracy
2. It silences the sane, amplifies the extreme
3. As a force to divide, It destroys - but never builds unity of our people
4. Our representative democracy follows - attracting only the fiercest partisans - Madison Cawthorn, MTG, AOC, Rashida Tlaib
5. We fight over the “old” - the 300 year old structure of democracy now being destroyed
6. The ensuing revolution is violent and jarring
7. When we sue for peace - after the orgy of violence - we negotiate a new way forward
8. Big Tech now builds. Representative democracy dies as we know it.
9. Global Networking now gathers affinity membership. Blues and Reds organize and live virtual lives
10. The pressure to force-fit opposite values ends - geography and nationhood become secondary organizing features as global virtual nation-building emerges
11. We will sit side by side with the opposite “party” and never know it. They will belong to a global networked membership to Blue or Red institutions with separate leadership
12. Big Tech is destroying the old model, but within this destructive force lies the seeds of regeneration - we simply haven’t seen this yet
13. This is how massive transformations work. Only creative destruction (winter) forces human beings to abandon the status quo and pursue new opportunities (spring). This always involves pain, suffering, and a death of the old. We are going through this now. The violence to come will be the impetus of “child birth” to bring forth the “post democracy” world that Big Tech, A-I is foisting on us
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And here is the ligher view of Charles Franklin Benvegar, originally published in 1967 in “The Songs of the Free State Bards,” compiled by Vincent Godfrey Burns:
A Builder Or a Wrecker
As I watched them tear a building down
A gang of men in a busy town
With a ho-heave-ho, and a lusty yell
They swung a beam and the side wall fell
I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,
And the men you’d hire if you wanted to build?”
He gave a laugh and said, “No, indeed,
Just common labor is all I need.”
“I can easily wreck in a day or two,
What builders have taken years to do.”
And I thought to myself, as I went my way
Which of these roles have I tried to play'
Am I a builder who works with care,
Measuring life by rule and square?
Am I shaping my work to a well-made plan
Patiently doing the best I can'
Or am I a wrecker who walks to town
Content with the labor of tearing down?
“O Lord let my life and my labors be
That which will build for eternity!”
Let’s build, everyone.
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The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll:
President Biden’s standing with Americans has improved slightly over the past two months, but he remains in negative territory in most assessments of his performance in office and Republicans hold substantial advantages over Democrats on key economic indicators that are shaping the midterm election year, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The new survey, while better for the president and his party than his low point two months ago, nonetheless underscores the head winds Democratic candidates are facing ahead of the November balloting. With a 42 percent approval rating overall, Biden gets low marks on his handling of the economy and inflation and Republicans are significantly more trusted than Democrats on both measures.
Biden’s overall approval rating among voting-age adults is five points higher than in February, when 37 percent of Americans said they approved of his job performance. His disapproval rate is now at 52 percent, slightly lower than February’s 55 percent, but that shift is within the margin of error. He has ticked up among men and women and shown improvement among independents and slight improvement among Democrats — but has made no gains among Republicans.
Still, there is a significant difference in the passions people bring to their assessments of the president. Overall, 42 percent say they strongly disapprove of his job performance, while 21 percent say they strongly approve….
Biden’s worst ratings come on the dominant issue of inflation, with 68 percent saying they disapprove compared with 28 percent who give him positive marks. The president is notably weak on this issue among independents, who could hold the key to the outcome in many contested House and Senate races in November. Just over 1 in 5 independents, 22 percent, say they approve of how Biden has been dealing with rising prices.
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