Republicans Against Bankruptcy Legislation
Those of you in-or from-Nashville may know of Dave Ramsey, a local debt management/financial planning consultant with a radio show that has gone national. He makes good sense in general, so long as he's not talking national policy. But even he has come out against the Republicans on the bankruptcy bill.

The House version of the bill is HR 685. Of course, it will pass. But I'm interested to see how some Democrats will vote, especially Harold Ford. He aspires to hold Frist's Senate seat. I just don't see how a yes vote joining Republicans really helps him out, other than making him able to claim the mantel of bi-partisanship. Since none of his potential opponents are required to vote, I would expect them to appeal to lower and middle-class voters by hammering him should he vote yes. I could be wrong, but I feel like states like ours are crawling with Dave Ramsey types that cross party lines.

Alan Greenspan is on Crack
Here's his logic as I read it:
1. I supported Bush's tax cuts for the rich because I thought that "large surpluses would stretch into the future."
2. I was wrong about that. We have deficits instead.
3. Deficits are bad for the economy.
4. As more people retire and collect social security, our practice of running deficits will become even more problematic.
5. I still like the tax cuts.
Conclusion: we should cut social security benefits.

Read the story of his testimony today and see if you can find a hint as to whether he's smoking crack or if he's using it some other way.

MEDIA MONDAY
What have you been listening to, watching, reading?

Lewberry recommends DVDs: The Blind Swordman: Zatoichi and Word Wars. He also suggests you leave Halle Berry-Sharon Stone fights where they belong: in the forefront of your imagination and off of your TV.

Project Greenlight
I watched this show last season on HBO, even though it has lots of I'm-embarrassed-for-you-cringe-moments, which normally I hate. This season it's on Bravo and starts this week. I still think it's funny that Ben Affleck gets to help decide which script seems most promising and worthy of effort and money. I'm not saying they should fire him - it's his show. I'm just saying it's funny.

Tim Riley on Pete Townshend on Petra Haden singing The Who Sell Out
I don't know The Who well at all. Or Petra Haden. But this seems to have interesting people interested.

Heard Live over the Weekend
Caught 2 interesting bands over the weekend at Exit/In. VHS or Beta (kind of like if Tears for Fears and The Cure had a love-child.) was an opening act for Ambulance, who I really liked. They both seemed a bit annoyed with the Elliston Place crowd, because there was not much dancing (the former), and because a good 1/3 of the audience trickled out before the show was over (the latter). But that's what you get in this town when you don't start until after 12. Even on a Friday.

Woody Allen
I've always been a big fan, but even I have been unable to see the last film or 2 (not sure really how many I've missed). Crimes and Misdemeanors is the last brilliant one I think. But others since have been nice: Husbands and Wives, Alice, Mighty Aphrodite, Manhattan Murder Mystery. I even thought Everyone Says I Love You had some nice moments. But I can't escape the feeling in most of the last 10 or so that if I hadn't known it was his film, and wasn't trying to search for redeeming qualities, that I would have really--really--disliked them. (Here's a list of all his films)

AO Scott in the Times thinks that just the opposite is true: that we expect too much, and all the wrong things, because they are Woody Allen films:

even his most successful movies have been held up against, and have suffered in comparison to, the standard of his earlier work. Not an aesthetic standard - it is hard to deny that his skill and resourcefulness as a filmmaker have grown over the years - but one that is more invidious because it is impossible to live up to. His newer movies - 25 years' worth! - are found wanting because they don't live up to our memories of what the earlier ones meant to us.

Which was what, exactly? In the 1970's, Mr. Allen seemed to be a representative man, always a dangerous position for a popular artist. For one thing, he crystallized a distinct ethnic identity in the midst of a generational odyssey from lower-middle class provincialism to worldly success and cultural prestige - from that noisy shack under the Coney Island roller coaster in "Annie Hall" to the labyrinthine Upper East Side apartment where so many of his subsequent films were shot. But more than that, his high-strung, nebbishy, woman-crazy persona embodied a newly emergent urban male type, one prefigured in the comic strips of Jules Feiffer and the novels of Philip Roth. And Mr. Allen's particular blend of high culture and low, his autodidact's ardor for Dostoyevsky and Ingmar Bergman coupled with his roots in Borscht-belt standup, represented something new and potent on screen, a sensibility at once romantic and cynical, utterly silly and striving after some kind of intellectual seriousness.
[SNIP]
There is also the intimation that the world he conjured up so brilliantly - of anxious, white, erudite New Yorkers falling in and out of love as they haunted revival houses, used book stores and the paths of Central Park - no longer quite exists, either as a social milieu or a cultural reference point.

Manhattan remains my favorite film of all time I think. And anyone would could write Love and Death, or Hannah and Her Sisters, should be heard just for the chance to run across the occasional poignant or hilarious (or both) line, even inside a mostly craptacular movie. All this comes up now because his newest film, Melinda and Melinda, is set for US release this weekend. I'm hopeful - and will probably see it - if for no other reason than Will Farrell.

Million Dollar Baby: A Liberal's Disappointment
Boston College law professor and friend to Article 19, Kent Greenfield, expresses his wariness about the film as a guest poster to the American Constitution Society blog here. Warning: It is a spoiler. He addresses many of the issues that have concerned me in earlier posts, but he says it way better. Meanwhile, the NYT profiles the film's screenwriter for, among other things his complex characters...

The Northeast vision of the poor South is really shockingly, cynically stupid.

More on Beatallica
Boing Boing posts on the band and its plight can be found here. I only recently actually heard the music. Mash-up is probably the wrong word for it. It's really arrangements of Beatles songs in a different style and with significant changes to the lyrics. Echoes of the Beatle versions can be heard throughout (melodies, counter melodies and background vocals). It's in a funny place between a cover and a parody. Kinda like Weird Al, but funnier in a more creative kind of way. And without the permission Weird Al gets, whether he needs it or not.

Listen to SxSW Music Online
In the comments, Doug and Stevie T recommend (and I agree!) the South by Southwest Music Festival site that lets you listen to tunes for free.

Metacritics on New Music
Highest reviews of new and recent music releases on Metacritics:
1. Antony and the Johnsons--"I am a Bird Now" (87/100)
2. LCD Soundsystem--"LCD Soundsystem" (87/100)
3. Roots Manuva--"Awfully Deep" (86/100)
4. Bright Eyes--"I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning" (84/100)
5. Buck 65--"This Right Here is Buck 65" (84/100)

Weekend Box Office
1. Robots
2. Pacifier
3. Be Cool
4. Hostage
5. Hitch

Haven't seen any of the top 5--and no plans to. You?

Beatallica
Arrangements of Beatles classics in the style of Metallica. With some lyrics changed to indicate Metallica influence. Sadly, Beatallica is under a cease and desist order (thanks, Sony) to keep them from distributing the music online. It's great fun, though. "And justice for all my loving..."; "Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band.."

IT'S AWESOME BABY!!!
Do you think you've got what it takes? Are you king of the brackets or just sweet sixteen? I'm throwing out an invitation to all Article 19 readers - join my tourney pool. The group password, which you'll need when you join us, is: itsawesomebaby

Its free, so you got nothing to lose. Plus you might win some fabulous prizes -ok the prizes are most likely beer -but it's still free. You'll need to register with cbssportsline, which takes all of 2 seconds. Then you can join in the fun, b/c its awesome baby. The pool will have live updates so you can check your progress while the Zags (a 3 seed this year) continue to win! The brackets will be posted tonight.

Brackets are here. --don

Kentucky
Bad day for the commonwealth in hoops. But a decent, overdue day in public health/tax policy:

Kentucky's 3-cent-a-pack cigarette tax - the lowest in the nation - will rise to 30 cents on June 1 as part of a tax overhaul passed by the General Assembly this week.

The hope is that the increase will help solve the state's fiscal woes.

Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a physician who originally proposed a 31-cent increase, called the move "historic."

Why not make smoking ridiculously expensive? In a tax devoted to health care? There's virtually no cigarette tax level that would be too high for my taste. Or better yet, just buy out all the tobacco farmers.

As for the hoops team, I've thought all year the Wildcats have benefited from a weak league and some smoke-and-mirrors coaching magic from Tubby. At this point, 2 wins in the NCAA tourney is all we fans can ask. 3 would be great. 4 would be amazing. It takes 6 win the whole thing. As long as Duke doesn't win, I'm content.

Where've you been?
Try this form (via Yglesias and others) - generates html that announces where you've been (in bold), where you've lived (underlined), and where you live now (in italics). Mine is below. Which one would you most like to change? I wouldn't mind seeing California one of these days. Also, New Mexico.

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Momentum of Freedom
Great cartoon from Tom Toles.

What do I know about Trade?
Not very much--unless you count the sting of my brother having traded our Johnny Unitas football card for a few Star Wars cards back when we were kids. Still, I was skeptical of the argument I've heard a few times that Greenspan/Bush are allowing the dollar to weaken on purpose, and should, to improve our trade deficit, since it makes it cheaper to buy US goods. Do I have a counter-argument? No. But I do have evidence. The dollar is still weakening. And the trade imbalance has never been worse than the stretch we're in.

So, what's the plan now?

GUEST POST: KENNY B
Thanks for guesting on such short notice--Don

How much of our freedoms are we willing to give up for our own sense of safety, property values, etc? Or I should say, how much of OTHER PEOPLE's freedoms are we willing to give up for our own safety. My wife and I are expecting to soon move to East Nashville, a historic area that is reviving but still has a reputation for crime and poverty.

Recent local news stories have heralded the Nashville police efforts to crack down on crime by a high number of traffic stops. (For the life of me I cant find them on the web now, but I read them). These stories and opeds laud the fact that police are stopping a huge amount of automobiles in east nashville and also searching more cars which is leading to more drug and weapons charges. During this love fest, no one has raised the issue of whether this is also showing an increase in illegal stops and search and seizures. (which helps no one because the cases get thrown out, or if not, we have allowed someone's rights to be trampled on).

My time in Boston at a criminal defense clinic taught me a lot about the well-founded lack of trust minorities have of the justice system. Many of our cases started with improper searches of minorities or their vehicles. I launched some novel theories to attack the traffic stops based on a new law in which Massachusetts required police officers to identify the race of everyone they stopped on tickets. A freedom of information act request revealved shocking statistics. In one of my cases, in the three months prior to my client being pulled over, officers had stopped more than 90 percent black or hispanic individuals. Yes, this was a predominantly black and hispanic area, but not 90 percent.

It seemed to follow what I learned from my law school colleagues. In my criminal procedure class, the professors asked people who had ever been stopped to raise their hands, and about 75 percent did so. He began saying, how many have been pulled over twice, three times, ... and hands began to drop. When he got to six, every black law student's hand in the room was still up. They each had a story to tell that would make you gulp.

Everyone says they are against racial profiling and acknowledge that it exists generally. But they never seem to be willing to admit that a specific situation indeed is ever really profiling. They expect the proof to be that some police officer on the CB says, hey there's a minority, pull him over. Of course, that type of proof is never there. What we are left with is a whole country of people who admit racial profiling is awful, but 90 percent of the country think that it only happens in someone else's neighborhood. As I was going to tell a judge (until my law school supervisor correctly cautioned me): Prosecutors and Judges acknowledge racial profiling in speeches and at weekend cocktail parties. But Monday thru Friday in criminal court, they'll be damned if they ever see a case of it.

A Tennessee lawmaker is asking police to keep the same records of stops here. But, my question generally is how do we convince white middle class types to stand up for civil liberties when they rarely have the type of threats to their liberties that minorities do? In this homeland security area, where do we draw the line even if it means the bad guys get away?
--Kenny B

Bankruptcy Bill Passes the Senate
75-24. Clinton abstained with Bill in the hospital. Matthew Yglesias observed yesterday that Indiana Senator Evan Bayh's vote on the correct side of the cloture vote in light of his likely Presidential run in 2008. But with the vote on the bill, Bayh returned to the dark side (where, frankly, he looks more comfortable) as one of 75 voting yes on bankruptcy tightening.

Why bother trying to hold up a vote if you're just going to cave when it gets there?

Presidential Scorecard...
Voting with the credit industry: Bayh, Biden, Hagel, Frist, McCain, Santorum.

Voting with reason and good sense: Boxer,Feingold, Kerry

Headed the right way, but saved by her husband's operation: Clinton.

UPDATE: If Matt is right (he probably is) that Bayh's vote demonstrates some political cunning, what does Hillary's abstention demonstrate? Makes you wonder how she would have voted.

Anyway, if Bayh's a genius for voting againstthe bill (tapping the Democratic base, like with the Condi vote) and a genius for voting for the bill (political cunning), that pretty well makes him a genius no matter what he does. Must be nice. The only way to blow it now would be to announce that he "actually voted against the bill before voting for it."

Article 19 Topic Revisited: Mis-use of Logical Fallacies
I don't suppose there's any reason in resisting the will of the people on this point, at least if it means I am being needlessly snooty just because I had a Philosophy class or 2 in college. Kevin Drum is tired of being battered over misusing "begs the question," especially when it's misused way more than it's properly used. Maybe it's time for us complainers to just shut up about it. Anyway, people who make as many mistakes as I do probably can't afford to nitpick.

More Greens for God
Link

The association [of Evangelicals] has scheduled two meetings on Capitol Hill and in the Washington suburbs on Thursday and Friday, where more than 100 leaders will discuss issuing a statement on global warming. The meetings are considered so pivotal that Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and officials of the Bush administration, who are on opposite sides on how to address global warming, will speak.

People on all sides of the debate say that if evangelical leaders take a stand, they could change the political dynamics on global warming.

Lieberman and the Bush Administration are on opposite sides? That sounds like news.

More enviro(funda)mental logic:

"We're not adverse to government-mandated prohibitions on behavioral sin such as abortion," he said. "We try to restrict it. So why, if we're social tinkering to protect the sanctity of human life, ought we not be for a little tinkering to protect the environment?"

Moderate and progressive religious leaders need to step forward and take the lead on this issue. Of course, I'll be glad to see something good happen for the environment either way, but reasonable religious folks need to see more than just new faith-based arguments. They need new leaders to follow.

Religious Holiday
Consider this an open thread - no posting until maybe late tonight. What's on your mind? Mine is focused on one thing - it's Elvis Costello at the Ryman night. I assume people that go on a yearly religious pilgrimage feel a little bit like I do today. Does anyone else have pseudo-spiritual artistic experiences? I want to know about them. Or whatever else you're thinking about.

Article 19 Activity Time
Wanna try the experiment that produced the budget wish list in the post below? Here you go. Here are the instructions laid out in the study questionnaire.

As you may know, the White House proposes a budget to Congress. In this survey, you will make up a budget for 17 major areas of the budget. We’re not including some big entitlement programs like Medicare or Social Security, which by law cannot simply be adjusted year to year. For these 17 areas, a budget of about $912 billion has been proposed for 2006. Please imagine that you have $1,000 of your tax money to divide among these 17 areas.

Here is how your $1000 is presently allotted, by the President's '06 budget:
--Education.............................................$75.23
--Energy: Conservation--Developing Renewable Resources..$2.37
--Job Training and Employment...........................$7.87
--Medical Research......................................$32.04
--Veteran's Benefits....................................$34.46
--Homeland Security.....................................$29.96
--Housing...............................................$32.92
--Environment and Natural Resources.....................$30.72
--UN and UN Peacekeeping................................$2.48
--Military Aid to Foreign Countries.....................$8.97
--Humanitarian and Economic Aid to Foreign Countries....$15.56
--State Department......................................$6.66
--Space Program and Science Research....................$27.10
--Federal Administration of Justice.....................$45.12
--Transportation........................................$76.22
--Defense/Military......................................$478.96
--Iraq/Afghanistan Supplemental.........................$93.36
--Deficit Reduction .....................................$0.00

To see how the respondents adjucted the budget (made up of about 30% independents, 33% Republicans, 35% Democrats), check the study here. I listed the increases/decreases that a majority agreed upon in my post below.

This is probably more properly an exercise in psychology rather than a gauge of true public priorities; some of these categories are more explicit in purpose (veteran's benefits) than others (transportation). Still it's interesting. These programs, at 910 billion, amount to less than half of the total budget which is over 2 trillion. Still, if you wanted to balance the budget using only these 17 program areas, and if my math and understanding are correct, with the proposed deficit at 390 billion, you'd need to bring that deficit reduction number up to about $428.57 from 0---almost half of our allotment. Which would you increase? Which would get cut?

Spring Break C-Span Watching [UPDATED]
We discussed the evils of proposed bankruptcy reform below. The Senate is pushing through the bill, and have killed all reasonable amendments, including one to exempt military personnel, to carve out a safety net for those who file bankruptcy due to medical catastrophe, and Kennedy's amendment to raise the minimum wage, among others. In an hour or so, at 1:15 central time, the vote on cloture will occur. Democrats are in a caucus lunch at this time. If they cannot stay united and defeat the cloture vote, this bill will pass the Senate and will have smooth sailing in the House. Krugman discusses the importance of this vote today:

When everything else goes wrong, Americans can still get a measure of relief by filing for bankruptcy - and rising insecurity means that they are forced to do this more often than in the past. But Congress is now poised to make bankruptcy law harsher, too.

Warren Buffett recently made headlines by saying America is more likely to turn into a "sharecroppers' society" than an "ownership society." But I think the right term is a "debt peonage" society - after the system, prevalent in the post-Civil War South, in which debtors were forced to work for their creditors. The bankruptcy bill won't get us back to those bad old days all by itself, but it's a significant step in that direction.

And any senator who votes for the bill should be ashamed.

This is a difficult issue for Democrats because so many Americans are convinced that any and all financial debts are moral issues. And, since we are all in a land of equal opportunity, any request to come out from under those liabilities is not a sign of weakness and suffering so much as it is an immoral act of irresponsibility. This bill in many ways sums up the Republican surge of the last 12 years. There is still a chance the cloture vote can be defeated. 41 votes are needed. Stay tuned. A helpful blog devoted to the bankruptcy bill is here.

[UPDATE] The cloture vote passed I'm sorry to say, 69 -31. Democrats voting to keep the Republican war on the poor rolling along included: Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Carper and Biden (DE--home of MBNA), Lieberman (CT), Byrd (WV), Landrieu (LA), Lincoln and Pryor (AR), Stabenow (MI), Johnson (SD), Conrad (ND), Kohl (WI), and Salazar (CO).

In truth, there are only 31 Democrats in the US Senate. Mental note for 2008: Clinton voted for poor people; Biden voted to strengthen the hammer of the credit industry.

$1 Billion
That is our national interest payment on the federal debt. Every year? Every month? No. Every day. Representative Gene Taylor of Mississippi says it is immoral to do this to future generations. Meanwhile, a new study (pdf file)shows that if voters could change the federal spending budget in their own way, revenue neutral, what they would most increase is payment on deficit reduction. And what they would most decrease is the defense budget. So they vote for Bush. Go figure.

Programs the majority of the public would cut in spending:
--Defense (on conventional war expenses) 31%
--Iraq and Afghanistan supplementals 35%
--Transportation 18%
--Justice Administration 21%
--Space Program and Science Research 5%

Programs the majority of the public would increase in spending:
--Deficit Reduction
--Education (39%)
--Energy (1090%)
--Job Training and Employment (263%)
--Medical Research (53%)
--Veteran's Benefits (40%)

MEDIA MONDAY
What have you been reading, listening to, and watching?

Doug enthusiastically recommends Art Brut's single, "Formed a Band"! Their official home page appears to be here.

Lewberry recommends the documentary The Weather Underground, now on DVD.

"When I Was Four I Knew I was Weird."
The Guardian has an intervew with Robert Crumb, who is about to have a retrospective art showing in London. He is one strange bird. The documentary about him, Crumb, is one of the more disturbing film portraits I've ever seen, perhaps most of all when you realize that he is the normal one of his family. I have a hard time being moved much by his very honest artistic expressions when they are so clearly that of a racist and a textbook misogynist. And that's just how his wife describes him. If all he did was marvel over the butt of Serena Williams--as he does here--without drawing pictures of himself having sex with headless women, he might be a more charming neurotic.

Famous Wrappers
Edward Sozanski of the Philadelphia Inquirer offers his closing thoughts on The Gates

Give the artists credit for creating a spectacular public event. Yet as the 7,500 orange panels began to come down Monday, I couldn't help but wonder: Does public art now have to be bad to be effective, accepted, even loved? Because as art, the big-footed, 16-foot-tall "gates" - gallowslike frames hung with pleated fabric panels that arched over 23 miles of park walkways - defined banality.

Yet the $20 million installation inspired what amounted to a worldwide pilgrimage to see the latest creation by the world's most famous wrappers of buildings and girders of islands.

The Atkins Diet Opera
Link

Opening in Oxford on Friday, the production - which extols in rhyming couplets the virtues of avoiding carbohydrates - is one of the high-spots of an annual tour of Ig Nobel award-winners, given as ironic counters to Nobel prizes for those who carry out research 'that should never be repeated'.

The Smallest Studio with the Smartest Plan and the Biggest Library
Today's NYT tells the story of one of the only remaining independent film studios, Lions Gate, which released Fahrenheit 9/11 among others. It won't last forever, a likely takeover target. Note its place in box office and video charts below...[UPDATE: "independent" shouldn't be confused with "quality", I suppose, having read Ebert's defense of his 1-star review of Lion's Gate's Diary of a Mad Black Woman. He's being accused of not "getting it." It sounds like I probably wouldn't get it either.]

Weekend Box Office
1. The Pacifier
2. Be Cool
3. Hitch
4. Diary of a Mad Black Woman (Lion's Gate)
5. Million Dollar Baby

Weekend Video Rentals
1. Saw (Lion's Gate)
2. Taxi
3. Ray
4. The Notebook
5. I [Heart] Huckabees

Read this
I don't know if it's true or not. But if it is, it's one of the damnedest things you'll ever read, a diary from DKos. Read it through to the end....

Non-Starters
I like Robert Reich--he's a smart guy, committed to making government work for lower and middle class folks. So, I clicked the link with anticipation when I saw the headline that promised his new plan for improving schools. But, here's his plan: undo all property tax school-funding systems and replace them with a national "wealth" tax in which we would pool one-tenth of one percent of our assets and allocate them to school districts based on their size and need with the goal of lowering class size and attracting quality teachers everywhere.

Letdown.

Listing the reasons why this will never happen would take longer than explaining the plan itself, starting with the predictable (and maybe appropriate) public recoil over federalizing the public education systems.

This reminds me of Paul O'Neill's "plan" to fix social security and Medicaid by instituting a new system that would guarantee every American a one million dollar annuity at retirement.

These are serious and intelligent men, living in the real world, right? Aren't there enough possibilities for action here on Earth that they could be working on? I can at least imagine that O'Neill may have hoped that, in the haze of social security options no one likes, his bold solution could gain bi-partisan traction in a thinking-outside-the-box kind of way. He would have been wrong, of course, but still.

But what is Reich's excuse? Is this kind of utopian "planning" ever useful? And how? When was the last time we undertook such a fundamental change, no matter how good an idea it may be? Maybe there are examples of this kind of thing being embraced that I am missing. But right now, I would think Marketplace might want their money back for that effort, and I would like my last 5 minutes back...

Legacy and Memory: Guest Post by Doug
I've been thinking lately about legacy and memory. This was caused by a recent work project I was researching. We were looking for biographical information about various people, some I'd heard of and many I hadn't. One name that was new to me was Jose Yglesias. We didn't find enough about him to include him in the project, but I did find enough to make me wonder why information was so hard to come by.

Yglesias was a writer of fiction and nonfiction, and his work appeared in the highest-profile newspapers and periodicals: The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, et al. He died at age 75 not quite ten years ago. (I wonder if we'd have more information if he'd survived a little bit longer into the Internet age.) He was prominent enough that upon his death, he rated a mention in Time magazine's Milestones column, but he seems to have fallen into obscurity fairly quickly. He has left a bit of a trail behind: His son is novelist and screenwriter Rafael Yglesias (he adapted his novel Fearless for the Peter Weir/Jeff Bridges film), his stepson is author and Columbia film professor (and former SDS activist) Lewis Cole, and his grandson is American Prospect staffer and blogger Matthew Yglesias (who I'd add to the Blogroll at left, if I were Don). But except for suggesting that the elder Yglesias really did have writing in his genes (although any influence he had over Cole would've been of the nurture rather than nature variety), his descendants don't really tell us much about the man or his work. Jose Yglesias's father was a cigar-maker in the Ybor City section of Tampa, so I asked a friend of mine who works in Ybor City if he could nose around and find out anything about him. Even after checking with local libraries, he came up mostly dry (some of the info the reference librarian gave him was incorrect, to boot). I'm sure there's information to be had, but I'm not exactly sure how to go about getting it.

All this certainly begs the question of what legacy we leave behind and how we are remembered, but I'm more intrigued by how those of us who are still here remember. What do we owe to the memory of those who have gone before us? How can we make sure that people or things that are no longer with us remain in the public memory? Who are some writers, artists, or performers that you want to keep from fading into obscurity?

As for me, I'm intrigued enough about Jose Yglesias that I've ordered his first novel, A Wake in Ybor City. I'll let you know what I think.