FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2026
Or so Hank Williams said: Is something "wrong" with President Trump? At this site, we would assume that it seems like there is.
Next week, we'll be examining some of the basic concepts involved in this somewhat complex conceptual arena. Early this morning, as we pondered the possible dangers involved in the current state of affairs, we also thought of Hank Williams.
The president's niece believes that her famous uncle is seriously unwell. She regards this as a very dangerous state of affairs—though she also takes us back to what she regards as the start of the story, when her uncle was two years old.
We've suggested that (serious) "mental illness" should be regarded as a deeply unfortunate illness. This morning, we found ourselves thinking of where this sort of thing can start—and of these Hank Williams lyrics:
Tramp on the Street
[...]
He was some mother's darling, he was some mother's son.
Once he was fair and once he was young.
And some mother rocked him, her darling, to sleep
But they left him to die like a tramp on the street.
Some mother rocked him, her darling, to sleep?
Mary Trump suggests that it actually wasn't that way inside her uncle's dysfunctional childhood home. She also says, sympathetically though only up to a point, that it went downhill from there.
That said, Williams was one of the greatest of our American voices, and you can hear him sing those lyrics simply by clicking this.
(As you'll see if you click that link, you'll hear him do that as part of a radio show called "The Health and Happiness Show.")
In fact, "A Tramp on the Street" was a hymn. At this particular time in the Christian calendar, it may have a specific resonance for believing Christians.
In the larger sense, the song encourages us to know how to pity those who may be deeply afflicted in various ways. We strongly recommend that performance by one of this nation's most resonant voices, by a giant star who died at an early age—29!—a bit like his "tramp on the street."
I’m beginning to think anyone who thinks we should pity Trump or express sympathy may also be suffering from some form of mental illness.
ReplyDeleteThat Hank Williams song was not written for Trump but for the victims of billionaire excesses. How dare Somerby misappropriate it! Somerby is scum.
ReplyDeleteYes, and Somerby has often quoted from Dylan’s “I Pity the Poor Immigrant” without ever applying it to … actual immigrants who are being cruelly arrested, detained, and deported.
Delete"I Pity the Poor Illegal Immigrant" hehe.
DeleteIt is a depression song.
DeleteOnly a Trump was the Donald's sad fate
ReplyDeleteA person we all were instructed to hate
And once the Republicans suffer a loss
He'll soon be impeached, that is, nailed to the cross.
What a profanity you just shitted out here, DiC head.
DeleteProfane to compare an evil person to Christ, micking Christians in the process. Fuck off David.
DeleteNow even his friends say its time to cut bait.
DeleteTrump dies for our sins? Seems more like the reverse is true.
DeleteRepublicans excel at crucifying others for their own sins.
DeleteTrump was widely disliked in NY long before he made the rounds nationally. This is because he is a racist and a crook. Leave it to an amoral troll to write a poem about him.
DeleteI nominate Hector 2:58 for Comment of the Day.
DeleteOne and a half trillion dollars--annually.
ReplyDeleteUp $600B from just last year. And who knows how many more "military operations" a totally unconstrained and possibly unhinged president might launch during the rest of his term?
DeletePoor DiC must be despondent over this out-of-control spending and its effect on the unsustainable federal debt load.
DeleteWe could build 10 hospitals for each day we waste on the Iran War - Operation Epstein Fury.
DeleteMeanwhile, Republicans want to fund the Iran War by cutting healthcare even more, and we are likely to lose 400-700 hospitals, mostly in rural areas.
Weird priorities, Americans are starting to notice.
"Poor DiC must be despondent over this out-of-control spending and its effect on the unsustainable federal debt load."
DeleteLOL. Good one, DG.
Hank Williams is so cool, let's see, he copped much of his shtick from his Black mentor Rufus Payne who died penniless, he cosplayed as a cowboy to sell his records, he had a couple of bad marriages and impregnated another woman while wooing his second wife (your cheatin' heart indeed!), couldn't support the war effort so literally tried selling snake oil for a while, was addicted to drugs and alcohol since he was a teen, he may have fathered a child with his own cousin, his mom may have been running a brothel out of their boarding house, he got in a bar fight a few days before he died of a heart attack, and his son and sort of namesake grew up to be a deeply repugnant person.
ReplyDeleteThis "great American voice" is most known for his hit Hey Good Lookin', with its complex insights into the soul of America, except it turns out it was a throwaway song of Cole Porter's that Hank just nicked.
This comment misses, at a pretty deep level, how performance, persona and songwriting actually work.
DeleteIsn't all art a kind of cosplay?
DeleteCountry music in general does not resonate with me, so not a fan of Hank Williams, and didn't know much about him, so I appreciate this comment for providing context to inform my perspective. Dug into it a bit and this comment seems fairly on point.
DeleteCole Porter's version is a tongue in cheek look at the tension between charm and predation, but Williams version just dumbs that down and frankly smuggles in normalizing a certain amount of patriarchy and sexism.
Or to phrase it for the snowflakes, Hank’s version feels like it removes the irony and ambiguity, leaving a more straightforward and more traditionally gendered interaction.
Interesting.
DeleteThe two versions of Porter's song would make a compelling comparative analysis.
Porter wrote the song in the wake of the New Deal in the early 40s and his song is full of irony and self awareness, whereas William's version was done in the wake of the burgeoning Movement Conservatives and uses a cowboy image to normalize certain values that aligned with those conservative so that you could draw a line from Hank Williams to Marlboro Man to Reagan. That is a simplification that needs fleshing out but the general thrust is interesting.
Artists do use cosplay frequently, it seems more authentic when it conveys some meaning, but in Hank Williams case it seems more like a combo of a pr stunt and virtue signaling.
Good discussion.
DeletePicking up on your self awareness point, and reflecting that the original song was written in the New Deal aftermath, while Hank Williams wrote in the postwar mass culture slowly shifting towards neoliberalism, you could say the earlier environment rewards self awareness, while the later environment discourages it. With Porter self awareness is a virtue, whereas in Hank Williams' world self awareness can undermine perceived authenticity.
Porter’s Hey Good Lookin’ reflects a culture comfortable with irony and the performance of desire and women being strong characters, while Williams’ version reflects a culture that favors perceived sincerity and a sort of normalizing of lust as cutesy and women reduced to being good looking and good at cooking (not literal from the song but implied).
This shift in tone corresponds to a broader movement toward simplified identity (White cowboy with no need for government) and traditional roles, later echoed in conservative political narratives of rugged individualism.
Porter was also a gay man, which may have informed his songwriting.
DeleteHank William's recorded songs are the archetype rules of poetic songwriting.
DeleteExcept his most famous song he "borrowed" from Cole Porter.
DeleteWe could say the rules of songwriting are more about collaboration and building off previous work, and are a function of influences, derivation, and copying.
You said Williams nicked or borrowed the song as if it was a bad thing, as a criticism. Now you know (thank you, AI) he was engaging in the normal creative songwriting process and working within a tradition.
DeleteI'm glad to see that you've learned Williams was doing exactly what all songwriters (including Porter) do. The creativity and originality he brought to this tradition made him widely regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century, an artistic giant who left footprints in the sands of time like few others ever will.
Now we can discuss your seriously misguided accusations about cosplay. Or just spend a few minutes with the AI and it will set you straight.
DeleteThank you for the link to that recording.
ReplyDeleteI hope it;s permissible to thank President Trump when he accomplishes something good.
ReplyDelete"Cuba releasing 2,010 prisoners as the US pressures the island’s government"
DeleteGreat accomplishment, indeed--until a boat full of those prisoners turns up in the Florida Keys. Then we'll hear that Cuba is "emptying their prisons and asylums."
DeleteHarming more innocent people in order to release fewer non innocent people, is hardly a trade to brag about.
DeleteJesus, Republicans really are bloodthirsty psychopaths.
At least we can look forward to Scarface 2 now.
People in the know are saying that back when Trump was still traumatizing women and girls with his sexual predation, he always prefaced it by saying "Say hello to my little friend".
DeleteNow he still uses the phrase, but its when he removes his diaper. People aren't sure if he means his tiny penis, or the poop in his diaper.
He has never done anything well let alone good. Unless you count destroying our nation as ordered by Putin good.
Delete'A U.S. strike on Thursday on a major Iranian bridge that was under construction killed eight people celebrating the close of Persian new year. Iran decried the strike on civilian infrastructure, while Trump cheered the bridge’s collapse and threatened, “Much more to follow.”'
ReplyDeleteWe're the bad guys. You know that because our leader exults in the death he brings to innocent people.
It is a straightforward case of a war crime.
Delete@7:38 - Where was your concern about war crimes when Iran sent hundreds or thousands of missiles aimed at civilians in a bunch of countries?
DeleteDiC, how should Iran have defended themselves against the unprovoked US attack?
DeleteHector - Three independent responses.
Delete1. I think we need more selfishness. I want government policies that first and foremost are good for me and other Americans.
2. Equating the US to the Mullahs and the IRGC is offensive. They are not as bad as Hitler, but they come close.
3. A lesser point. Our attack was somewhat provoked by their hatred of America combined with their expressed commitment to creating a nuclear arsenal combined with all the terrorism they and their proxies commit.
The American people are all over how much Trump's policies have benefited them, and recent polling attests to that. He is a malignant grifting pile of human garbage at this point and when all is said and done will go down historically as the worst president in history. The midterms will be the logical outcome of failed Republican policies that they will, going forward, try to distance themselves from and pin on Trump.
DeleteMakes me ill that anyone would still support the schmuck. The corruption alone should be a big fat nope.
Delete"Three independent responses."
DeleteNone of which respond to my question.
7:39: Dickhead in Cal was hoping you wouldn’t notice that. His aim is to divert, distract and deflect.
Delete"None of which respond to my question."
DeleteAnd all of them wrong.
“Our attack was somewhat provoked by their hatred of America”
DeleteWell, we’ve told them we’re going to bomb them back to the Stone Age, which leads them to hate us, and that hate is what provokes us to bomb them back to the Stone Age, right?
Oh that 'ol viscous circular firing squad
DeleteOh that 'ol viscous circular firing squad
DeleteTry increasing temperature or adding water to reduce viscosity.
DeleteIran is dealing with an unprovoked attack and has responded relatively carefully in order to avoid both military and civilian casualties. Their main act of defense has been to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, for the US and its allies, which is why US allies are now breaking with the US. It turns out diplomacy works better than bullying.
Iran never had a nuclear weapons program, they express explicitly an opposition to nuclear weapons, and even the hawks in US intel agencies say Iran gave up whatever nuclear program they had back in 2003.
The Trump admin is clearly not operating under America First, they obviously do not give a fuck about Americans, they are just using America to personally get rich and avoid prosecution for their crimes.
Americans have woken up to this, Trump is now the least popular president in modern history.
David has not woken up to this because he is a foreign troll repeating whatever talking points he is handed.
@4:10 - Are you not aware that Iran fired a large number of missiles at civilian targets in neighboring countries other than Israel -- countries that had not even attacked Iran. Here's a chart
DeleteCountry / Territory Ballistic & Cruise Missiles (reported)
United Arab Emirates 357
Kuwait 178
Israel 220
Qatar 13
Bahrain 102
Jordan 60
Iraq 20
Did they have military bases used by the US to attack Iran?
DeleteAccording to a Friday report from HuffPost, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon held a Protestant-only Good Friday service at its in-house chapel, with no Catholic Mass scheduled for one of Christianity’s holiest days.
ReplyDeleteThe setup, which excludes a Catholic service for the first time, drew frustration from at least one Pentagon employee after an internal email made the arrangement explicit.
“Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel,” read a Friday email sent by Air Force leadership, according to a copy shared with HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery.
White Christian Nationalism! The Secretary of War will decide which religion is approved
DeleteIt is a well established fact that genetically Catholics are browner and greasier than Protestants. That is why the couch fucker converted to it. Cause his kids are brown and smell like curry.
DeleteThe Christian religion generates the majority of groomers, sexual predators, abusers, and grifters.
DeleteHegseth is a product of his religion.
@4:13 - The Islamic religion generates the majority of groomers. There were a great many in England
DeleteHegseth is more into murder than grooming.
DeleteThe Imminent Threat
ReplyDelete"Just prior to the US-Israeli attacks in early March 2026, Oman's Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who acted as the primary mediator (and was chosen by the US), stated that Iran had made significant concessions, including an agreement to never stockpile enriched uranium and to allow full and comprehensive verification by the IAEA.
Albusaidi indicated that the breakthroughs included:
Zero Stockpiling: Iran agreed to never stockpile enriched uranium, a development described as a "major breakthrough".
Down-Blending Material: Iran agreed to "blend to the lowest level possible" and convert to fuel all of its existing highly enriched uranium, making the process irreversible.
Irreversible Steps: The concessions meant Iran would cease building up 60% enriched uranium stockpiles.
Full IAEA Access: Iran offered to accept "full and comprehensive verification" of its nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency."
- from AI Overview