Baron Dave Romm
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By Baron Dave Romm
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This is an important election. Vote!
At this point, you're either convinced or not. I hope you're convinced that the Democrats have done pretty well, though you might have to grade on a curve, and the Tea Party Republicans represent an enormous step in the wrong direction.
Governorships are as important or even more important than Congressional races, since they will heavily influence gerrymandered Congressional districts for the next decade.
Eight False Things The Public "Knows" Prior To Election Day
Olbermann: If The Tea Party Wins, America Loses (VIDEO)
Encourage others to vote: Cell phone tree
This GOTV effort is gaining traction:
Polling is all over the map, and many snapshots seem suspiciously partisan. Surveys of polls suggest that people who rely on cell phones and have no landline are being seriously undercounted in most polls.
This suggests a strategy for Democrats: A GOTV Cell Phone Tree. Volunteers should call their friend's cell phones to urge them to vote, especially the ones without land lines. And get their friends to call their friends.
Arm yourself with the facts, and let your passion come through.
Let's put 21st Century technology to use!
Signs for optimism
The party out of power generally makes gains in mid-term elections, and 2010 will be no exception. But there are signs of hope.
For one thing, many of the Democrats who are going to lose are the Blue Dog Democrats. As I've always said, if the choice is between a Republican and a Republican, voters will chose the Republican. The Democratic Party will be better without them; the danger is that the goppies will pick up enough seats to have a majority in the House. This will transfer committee chairs to people who are batshit insane.
Predictions
We know what Republicans will do: They will lie. Further, they will cheat. Voter suppression is already a major scandal.
I'm going to be optimistic and stick with the prediction I made in the Spring: Democrats will wind up with greater majorities in the House and Senate than the Republicans did after the 2002 elections. I'm more sure of the Senate (2002 result: 51 R, 49 D including an I) than the House (2002 result: 229/204), so we'll see. Note that the 2002 elections were in the fear-soaked days post-9/11 and the goppies actually picked up seats in the offyear. While that's not likely to happen for the Dems in 2010, the teabagger attempts to recreate the climate of fear and hate have largely been confined to the GOP "base".
Major prediction: Everyone will find something to crow about. Dems will tout their wins and halting the teabaggers. Teabaggers will crow over their wins. Polls will tout how accurate they were, even if they weren't. The conservative news media will crow about the teabaggers, no matter how well they did or didn't.
Republicans in their own words
Allow me to break out a header for the fine work done by occasms hatchet on Daily Kos. Here are a series of diary entries chock full of videos and quotes straight from the horse's mouth.
The
Republicans, in their own words (Part 1): bats#!t crazy
The
Republicans, in their own words (Part 2): bigotry, hate and violence
The
Republicans, in their own words (Part 3): Big Fat Liars (and
hypocrites)
The
Republicans, in their own words (Part 4): 'Let 'em eat
applesauce'
Seriously: Do you want any of these people in power? Your vote is important.
Leftover links
Most
Intense Storm in History Cuts Across the US -- As Seen from
Space
Jack Phillips For America AARP Campaign video satire. Funny and to the point, with links to voting guide.
REPORT: Renewable Standards Will Create Two Million Jobs, Unless Right-Wing Candidates Kill Them Wonk Room 10/20/10
Gingrich scam continues, even as presidential rumors float David Waldon on Daily Kos 10/19/10
You've heard the lies, now believe the facts salon.com (click through the ads) 10/27/10
Why I Like a Big and Powerful Federal Government Chronicle of Higher Education 10/26/10
Democrats shrank US spending, deficit in last fiscal year, figures show Rawstory 10/26/10
Companies that received bailout money giving generously to candidates Washington Post 10/24/10
Eric Cantor against Healthcare for Children YouTube video 10/23/10
Recent political essays
Bartcop-E 9/6/10 featuring The Campaign Begins
Bartcop-E 9/13/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Returning the Favor
Bartcop-E 9/13/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Returning the Favor
Bartcop-E 9/20/10 featuring Campaign 2010: In Karl Rove's Face
Bartcop-E 9/27/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Why You Should Vote Democratic
Bartcop-E 10/4/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Grading On A Curve
Bartcop-E 10/11/10 featuring Campaign 2010: Bullet Points
Bartcop-E 10/18/10 featuring GOTV: Cell Phone Tree
Bartcop-E 10/25/10 featuring Zero Tolerance For Republicans
And go to Comedy Central for videos and coverage of The Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Not all of it worked, but parts were very effective. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were wonderful. Yusuf (Cat Stevens) and Ozzie Osbourne leaving the stage arm-in-arm was just one great moment. C-Span coverage (from the Comedy Central feed) of all three hours. Funny signs from the rally and around the world. Rally to Restore Sanity - Jon Stewart's closing speech (full text)
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. A nascent collection of videos are on Baron Dave's YouTube channel. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Bill Press: Governor Jerry Brown, the Sequel (billpressshow.com)
Yes, Meg Whitman's right. Under Jerry Brown in the '70s and '80s, California led the nation in innovative ideas and a can-do entrepreneurial spirit. So this is one time that "Back to the Future" makes sense - with a new, older, and wiser Jerry Brown, the sequel.
Marc Dion: Vive La Co-Pay (creators.com)
Rioting in France makes me wanna throw a croissant through the window of an HMO company, if HMOs have offices. With windows. If they don't just exist in the air, brought to life only by a cranky voice mail system asking me something about "Espanol." The French believe there is something particularly French about not working as a Wal-Mart greeter until you're 95. They're willing to fight the cops over it, too.
Andrew Wolf: Sputnik Screwed Up American Schools and Superman Can't Save Them (huffingtonpost.com)
Maybe it's not the teachers, but the curriculum and the teaching methodologies that are holding back our kids? Maybe we're stacking the deck against teachers with the "reform" math that came out of the last set of reforms created during the educational hysteria we witnessed decades ago.
Bob Samuels: Everything Stanley Fish Knows About Higher Education Is Wrong (huffingtonpost.com)
Instead of calling for the end to the Humanities, we should celebrate and protect these areas, and to do this, we need to recognize who really pays the bills and delivers the goods in higher education.
Jason Schmitt: "Tenure is for Wimps: An Untenured Professor (re)Contemplates Life" (huffingtonpost.com)
I love having the ability to interact with my region -- but I can't do it for much longer. It is not physically possible to do what I do (to get a real livable salary) without a tenure track job.
ALAN JACOBS: Edupunk'd (bigquestionsonline.com)
Can the innovative 'do-it-yourself' education movement really replace the dying university model?
roger ebert's journal: Hugh Hefner has been good for us
From the moment that Hal Homes and I slipped quietly into his basement and he showed me his father's hidden collection of Playboy magazines, the map of my emotional geography shifted toward Chicago. In that magical city lived a man named Hugh Hefner who had Playmates possessing wondrous bits and pieces I had never seen before. I wanted to be invited to his house.
Terry Savage: The Blue Gold Rush (creators.com)
I spent part of this past week at a fascinating conference in Montreal focused on a precious global resource. No, it wasn't gold. And it wasn't oil. It was all about a resource that threatens to become even more scarce and thus have a more devastating economic impact: water.
Richard Roeper: A nick on King James' crown (suntimes.com)
Raise your hand if you got a charge out of seeing the old-school Boston Celtics hold the lights-camera-action Miami Heat to just nine points in the first quarter in the season opener for both teams Tuesday night.
"R. Crumb, The Art of Comics No. 1" Interviewed by Ted Widmer (theparisreview.org)
"It knocked you off your horse, taking LSD. I remember going to work that Monday, after taking LSD on Saturday, and it just seemed like a cardboard reality."
Wallace Baine: Music journalist looks back on a career chronicling California's contribution to rock history (Santa Cruz Sentinel)
When Joel Selvin first began writing about rock music in the San Francisco Chronicle in the early 1970s, there were precious few journalists doing rock criticism in the mainstream press. When he retired from the Chronicle in 2009, there were also precious few rock writers in the mainstream press, for entirely different reasons. But, in between, what a party.
Libby Brooks: Zombies, vampires, ghouls: the stuff of cultural catharsis (guardian.co.uk)
Horror films offer an inventive filter for our real anxieties - which may explain the genre's current renaissance.
David Bruce has 39 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $39 you can buy 9,750 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
Hubert's Poetry Corner
"Frequent Alternate Response Therapy"
The Weekly Poll
Current Question
The 'Call it as ya See it' Edition...
The 2010 Mid-term Elections. No media intro or links are needed, I'm thinkin'...
We all know what's at stake here... So, gaze into yer Crystal Ball, break out the Ouija board, shuffle the Tarot cards, read yer tea leaves or just take a wild-ass guess and make yer prediction on the outcome, if'n ya dare...
The Democrats will:
1.) Retain the majority in both the House and the Senate
2.) Lose the House, but retain the Senate
3.) Retain the House, but lose the Senate
4.) Worse case scenario... and you know what that is, dagnabbit!
Cut-Off is 8pm (EDT) Today (11/01/10)
Predictions will be posted the morning of November 2nd.
... and may The Force be with us!
Send your response to
wrote:
said:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
Purple Gene's Mini-Review
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS NEST
"THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS NEST"
FIRST WE SAW SWEDISH BLOCKBUSTER "THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO"
THEN WE WITNESSED THE BLOODY SEQUEL "THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE"
YESTERDAY I SAT THROUGH THE FINAL CHAPTER IN STIEG LARSSON'S TREQUILL...
"THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS NEST"
THIS 148 MINUTE LONG GRUELING CINEMATIC GRINDER FINDS OUR HEROINE (LISBETH SALANDER) EITHER IN A HOSPITAL BED OR A PRISON CELL......BARELY EVER SPEAKING AND WITH A COMPLETELY BLANK LOOK ON HER TORTURED FACE....
MEANWHILE, ALL AROUND HER, IS THE MAKINGS OF INTERNATIONAL INTRIGUE AND THE STRANGEST FAMILY DYNAMICS I HAVE EVER WITNESSED....
NOT UNTIL THE FINAL STUNNING CONCLUSION OF HER MURDER TRIAL DO ALL THE PIECES COME TOGETHER AND LISBETH GETS TO GO CRAZY ON THE BAD GUYS....
IT WAS WELL WORTH THE WAIT
HOLLYWOOD HAS A VERSION OF THE ORIGINAL MOVIE "THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO" STARRING DANIEL CRAIG AND ROONEY MARA (AS LISBETH)
THERE IS NO WAY HOLLYWOOD CAN MATCH THE GRUESOME AND GRITTY PERFORMANCES OF THE SWEDISH ORIGINAL.
PURPLE GENE GIVES "HORNETS NEST" A BIG 7.5 OUT OF 10 FOR BEING CAPTIVATING AND CONSUMING BUT ONLY 3/4 OF A MASTERPIECE.
That MadCat, JD
GO GIANTS!
IT'S A CUSTOM FOR THE MAYORS OF COMPETING CITIES IN THE WORLD SERIES TO MAKE A WAGER.
THE MAYOR OF ARLINGTON TEXAS HAS WAGERED THAT IF THE RANGERS WIN THE SERIES TEXAS CAN SECEDE FROM THE UNION.
THE MAYOR OF SAN FRANCISCO HAS WAGERED THAT IF THE GIANTS WIN THE SERIES TEXAS MUST SECEDE FROM THE UNION. GO GIANTS!!!
JD
Thanks, JD!
BadtotheboneBob
Pontiac
Pontiac, maker of muscle cars, ends after 84 years
Detroit- Pontiac, whose muscle cars drag-raced down boulevards, parked at drive-ins and roared across movie screens, is going out of business today. The 84-year-old brand, moribund since General Motors decided to kill it last year as it collapsed into bankruptcy, had been in decline for years. It was undone by a combination of poor corporate strategy and changing driver tastes. On Oct. 31, GM's agreements with Pontiac dealers expire...
Little GTO, you're really lookin' fine
Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389
Listen to her tachin' up now, listen to her why-ee-eye-ine
C'mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out GTO...
Ronnie and the Daytonas, 1964...
Pontiac, maker of muscle cars, ends after 84 years | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Thanks, B2tbBob!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Only had 60-70 Trick-or-Treaters.
Pee-wee Rides Again
Paul Reubens
The Secret Word today is: Comeback. Pee-wee has returned from exile.
Paul Reubens, who virtually abandoned the cult character he created nearly two decades ago following scandal, is making his Broadway debut with a reworking of the same theatrical show that started Pee-wee's career in the late 1980s.
"I think it's full circle. I view it even a little fuller, I guess. I feel that it's full circle in that I can come back around to a really good place where I was. As opposed to having my career end on this really sour note," says Reubens during an interview before a recent rehearsal. "I absolutely feel like I want to redeem myself to a degree and this seemed like a really pure way to do it."
Reubens, now 58, has been soaking up the attention this time around. He has donned his Pee-wee suit and popped up all over New York to drum up attention for "The Pee-wee Herman Show," which officially opens Nov. 11. Everywhere he goes, people say: "Welcome back!" and "Glad you're back."
Paul Reubens
Violent Video Game Case
SCOTUS
Before picking up any Wii games or downloading apps on her iPhone for her two daughters, Lillian Quintero does her homework. She'll first read reviews online and in magazines, then try them out for herself. If she thinks the games are engaging and educational enough, 4-year-old Isabella and 2-year-old Sophia are free to play.
Quintero and her husband, Jorge, are some of the parents who support a California law that seeks to ban the sale and rental of violent games to children. The law, which has bounced around the legal system like a game of "Pong" since Gov. Arnold $chwarzenegger first signed it in 2005, was declared unconstitutional last year by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday about the federal court's decision to throw out California's ban on violent games, marking the first time a case involving the interactive medium itself has gone before the Supreme Court. It's another sign that the $20 billion-a-year industry, long considered to be just child's play, is now all grown up.
California's measure would have regulated games more like pornography than movies, prohibiting the sale or rental of games that give players the option of "killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being" to anyone under the age of 18. Only retailers would be punished with fines of up to $1,000 for each infraction.
The federal court said the law violated minors' constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth amendments and the state lacked enough evidence to prove violent games cause physical and psychological harm to minors. Courts in six other states, including Michigan and Illinois, have reached similar conclusions, striking down parallel violent game bans.
SCOTUS
Rhinestone Trimmed
Aubrey Huff
Since San Francisco first baseman Aubrey Huff began wearing a red thong under his uniform two months ago, the Giants have risen from outsiders into championship contenders.
So it's no wonder that the 33-year-old American has continued to wear his unique rhinestone-trimmed skimpy underwear in the World Series.
When Huff began wearing the red thong on August 30, the Giants were five games behind San Diego in the National League West division and out of the playoff picture.
Huff's thong made him just another one of the guys on a team which has long-haired pitcher Tim Lincecum, better known as "The Freak", closing relief ace Brian Wilson with his trademark black beard and designated hitter Pablo Sandoval, the "Kung Fu Panda" who has fans wearing fake Panda head caps.
Aubrey Huff
More Lethal Than Heroin
Alcohol
Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin and crack cocaine, according to a new study.
British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.
Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.
Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, were the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.
The study was paid for by Britain's Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and was published online Monday in the medical journal, Lancet.
Alcohol
Rupert Über Alles
Broadcasters
A recent spate of TV blackouts and the lack of government intervention suggests that broadcasters have the upper hand over TV signal providers when it comes to negotiating fees, at least until Congress decides to act.
New York-area cable TV operator Cablevision Systems Corp. tested the limits of government intervention in October, calling early and often for the Federal Communications Commission to step in and force News Corp.'s Fox to keep providing its broadcast signal while it pressed for arbitration in a fee dispute.
Fox declined and the FCC did little more than suggest mediation if both parties were willing to participate. When the two sides couldn't reach a deal, Fox blacked out its signals to 3 million Cablevision subscribers for 15 days, through two games of baseball's World Series. On Saturday, Cablevision finally accepted terms it said were "unfair" for the sake of its customers.
Ultimately, the FCC said that its hands were tied.
Broadcasters
World War II Bombs Found
Galapagos Islands
Fishermen have found a dozen bombs believed to be from World War Two buried on the Galapagos Islands, a local government official said Tuesday.
The bombs were found on Bartolome Island, one of the Galapagos group located about 600 miles off South America's northwestern coast.
The islands are a province of Ecuador, which let the United States set up a military base on one, Baltra Island, during World War Two due to its strategic location southwest of the Panama Canal.
Luis Martinez, chief of operations for Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island, told Reuters that the bombs posed no danger to the public but that the Ecuadorean navy had been informed as a precaution.
Galapagos Islands
Only 2 Survivors Remain
Treblinka
They are believed to be the last two survivors of the most chillingly efficient killing machine of the Nazi Holocaust: the Treblinka extermination camp in occupied Poland.
Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, 87-year-old Israelis, are devoting their final years to trying to preserve the memory of the 875,000 people systematically murdered in a one-year killing spree at the height of World War II. Almost all of them were Jews.
Only 67 people are known to have survived the camp, fleeing in a brazen revolt shortly before Treblinka was destroyed. Following the recent death of a prominent chronicler, Israel's national Holocaust memorial says the two Israeli men are now the final living link to one of the most notorious death camps in human history.
Treblinka holds a notorious place in history as perhaps the most vivid example of the "Final Solution," the Nazi plot to rid Europe of Jews.
Along with the lesser known Belzec and Sobibor camps, it was designed with the sole intention of exterminating Jews, and Treblinka was by far the deadliest. Victims, transported there in cattle cars, were gassed to death almost immediately upon arrival.
Treblinka
Found In Burma
New Monkey
A new type of snub-nosed monkey has been found in a remote forested region of northern Myanmar Burma which is under threat from logging and a Chinese dam project, scientists said on Wednesday.
They said hunters in Myanmar Burma's Kachin state said the long-tailed black monkey, with white-tufted ears and a white beard, could often be tracked in the rain because its upturned nostrils made it prone to sneezing when water dripped in.
"It's new to science. It's unusual to travel to a remote area and discover a monkey that looks unlike any other in the world," Thomas Geissmann, lead author of the study at the University of Zurich-Irchel, told Reuters.
Studies of a carcass and four skulls showed the monkey differed from snub-nosed monkeys in China and Vietnam. The experts had no photos of a live Myanmar monkey.
New Monkey
Weekend Box Office
'Saw 3D'
Lionsgate's "Saw 3D," billed as the final installment in the series about Jigsaw's legacy of bloody terror, debuted as the Halloween weekend's No. 1 movie with $24.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
"Saw 3D" also had a soft debut compared to the previous weekend's No. 1 movie, Paramount's "Paranormal Activity 2," a newer fright franchise that opened with $40.7 million. "Paranormal Activity 2" slipped to No. 2 this weekend, raising its total to $65.7 million.
Summit Entertainment's action comedy "Red" continued to hold up well, finishing at No. 3 with $10.8 million and lifting its total to $58.9 million.
Another franchise playing in 3-D for the first time, Paramount's "Jackass 3D," crossed the $100 million mark, coming in at No. 4 with $8.4 million. The stunt and prank comedy raised its haul to $101.6 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Saw 3D," $24.2 million.
2. "Paranormal Activity 2," $16.5 million.
3. "Red," $10.8 million.
4. "Jackass 3D," $8.4 million.
5. "Hereafter," $6.3 million.
6. "Secretariat," $5.1 million.
7. "The Social Network," $4.7 million.
8. "Life as We Know It," $4 million.
9. "The Town," $2 million.
10. "Conviction," $1.8 million.
'Saw 3D'
In Memory
Theodore Sorensen
President John F. Kennedy's aide and speechwriter, Theodore C. Sorensen, a symbol of hope and liberal governance, died at a time of contempt for Washington and political leaders.
Sorensen's passing Sunday came just as supporters of his friend and boss were preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a very different moment in history: The election of Kennedy as president and the speech that remains the greatest collaboration between Sorensen and Kennedy and the standard for modern oratory.
With its call for self-sacrifice and civic engagement - "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" - and its promise to spare no cost in defending the country's interests worldwide, the address is an uplifting but haunting reminder of national purpose and confidence, before Vietnam, assassinations, Watergate, terrorist attacks and economic shock.
But to the end, Sorensen was a believer.
He was 82 when he died at noon at Manhattan's New York Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center from complications of a stroke, his widow, Gillian Sorensen, said.
Of the courtiers to Camelot's king, special counsel Sorensen ranked just below Kennedy's brother Bobby. He was the adoring, tireless speechwriter and confidant to a president whose term was marked by Cold War struggles, growing civil rights strife and the beginnings of the U.S. intervention in Vietnam.
Some of Kennedy's most memorable speeches, from his inaugural address to his vow to place a man on the moon, resulted from such close collaborations with Sorensen that scholars debated who wrote what. He had long been suspected as the real writer of the future president's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Profiles in Courage," an allegation Sorensen and the Kennedys emphatically - and litigiously - denied.
They were an odd but utterly compatible duo, the glamorous, wealthy politician from Massachusetts and the shy wordsmith from Nebraska, described by Time magazine in 1960 as "a sober, deadly earnest, self-effacing man with a blue steel brain." But as Sorensen would write in "Counselor," the difference in their lifestyles was offset by the closeness of their minds: Each had a wry sense of humor, a dislike of hypocrisy, a love of books and a high-minded regard for public life.
Of the many speeches Sorensen helped compose, Kennedy's inaugural address shone brightest. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations includes four citations from the speech - one-seventh of the entire address, which built to an unforgettable exhortation: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
Much of the roughly 14-minute speech - the fourth-shortest inaugural address ever, but in the view of many experts rivaled only by Lincoln's - was marked by similar sparkling phrase-making:
Theodore Chaikin Sorensen was born in Lincoln, Neb., on May 8, 1928. His father, C.A. Sorensen, was a lawyer and a progressive politician who served as Nebraska's attorney general.
He graduated from Lincoln High, the University of Nebraska and the university's law school. At age 24, he explored job prospects in Washington, D.C., and found himself weighing offers from two newly elected senators, Kennedy of Massachusetts and fellow Democrat Henry Jackson, from Washington state.
As Sorensen recalled, Jackson wanted a PR man. Kennedy, considered the less promising politician, wanted Sorensen to poll economists and develop a plan to jump-start New England's economy.
"Two roads diverged in the Old Senate Office Building and I took the one less recommended, and that has made all the difference," Sorensen wrote in his memoir. "The truth is more prosaic: I wanted a good job."
After Kennedy's thousand days in the White House, Sorensen worked as an international lawyer, counting Anwar Sadat among his clients. He stayed involved in politics, joining Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968 and running unsuccessfully for the New York Senate four years later. In 1976, President Carter nominated Sorensen for the job of CIA director, but conservative critics quickly killed the nomination, citing - among other alleged flaws - his youthful decision to identify himself as a conscientious objector.
Survivors also include a daughter, Juliet Sorensen Jones, of Chicago; three sons from his first marriage, Eric Sorensen, Stephen Sorensen and Philip Sorensen, all of Wisconsin; and seven grandchildren.
Theodore Sorensen
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