Reagan youth

I was just reading Ronald Reagan's 1989 Farewell Address, and discovered these words:

Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons--and hope for even more progress is bright--but the regional conflicts that rack the globe are also beginning to cease. The Persian Gulf is no longer a war zone. The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The Vietnamese are preparing to pull out of Cambodia, and an American-mediated accord will soon send 50,000 Cuban troops home from Angola.

Wow. Afghanistan and the Gulf, we all know about. Cambodia and Vietnam continue to have various disputes, but there is substantially less conflict and strife there than during the 1970s and 1980s. Angola has been a disaster area, due to civil war as well as disease, for most of the last ten years, despite the departure of -- hah! -- Cuban troops in 1989.

Reagan said all this in the context of discussing free markets, cutting taxes, and globalization, and appeared to be taking credit for these steps toward world peace through trade. I hope he is resting comfortably in his shining city on a hill.


FMFM: The Pernice Brothers' Live A Little, possibly their strongest collection of songs since the unbeatable The World Won't End. While the production is less creative than on the band's last outing, the melodies are more immediate and the string charts are spectacular, especially as heard on the "outtake" versions that arrived on a bonus disc with my pre-order. I'm not quite sure why they re-made "Grudge F***" (although I think the self-censorship in the title is hilarious), but I'll take it.

Joe Pernice's ability to condense information into a small space -- generally, one of the challenges of poetry -- will keep me unpacking these songs for quite some time. There are times when he delivers so many images so quickly that I feel like he's rushing me, but one day I think I'll appreciate those moments more. And the bonus disc, featuring demos with wordless singing, lends a valuable insight into his creative process. Five stars.