#photo by joe hale; credited in the link !

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mondo duplantis (pole vault world record holder) and karsten warholm (400m hurdles world record holder) after their head to head 100m race

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New Jersey's Murphy echoes Sanders in Democratic bid for governor

http://ryanguillory.com/new-jerseys-murphy-echoes-sanders-in-democratic-bid-for-governor/

New Jersey's Murphy echoes Sanders in Democratic bid for governor

EDISON, N.J. (Reuters) – Phil Murphy, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs investment banker, might seem an unlikely champion of the working and middle classes.

FILE PHOTO: Phil Murphy speaks during the First Stand Rally in Newark, N.J., U.S. January 15, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith/File Photo

But New Jersey’s Democratic candidate for governor, who leads Republican Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno by double digits in polls, has pushed to increase taxes for corporations and the rich to pay for a plethora of populist policy proposals: tuition-free community college, increased school funding and tax credits for families.

His race, one of two gubernatorial campaigns in 2017, offers an early opportunity ahead of next year’s bonanza of congressional and governor’s races for Democrats to weigh how to win in the era of Republican President Donald Trump.

With Republican Governor Chris Christie’s record-low approval ratings dragging down Guadagno’s campaign, Murphy, a 60-year-old who has never held office, has pushed a decidedly liberal agenda that would put his state at the center of his party’s resistance to the president’s policies.

“A lot of people assumed that after the Democratic primary was over, he would pivot more to the center – we haven’t seen that happen,” said Brigid Callahan Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Guadagno, 58, portrays Murphy as an elitist millionaire – he has spent more than $16 million of his money on his run – and said he has no plan to finance his lofty goals.

“I will lower your taxes, and Phil Murphy will raise them,” she said last week at the close of their final debate.

Murphy’s stance reflects the national party’s leftward shift, following Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ insurgent primary campaign last year against eventual presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Like Sanders, Murphy has focused his message on a “fairer” economy, vowing to help the middle, not the moneyed, class. He highlights his working-class childhood as proof he understands financial struggle.

He has backed a $15 minimum wage, proposed a public bank to provide low-interest loans to residents and promised to force “corporations, hedge funds and the wealthiest among us” to pay their fair share.

“He seems like a hardworking guy who can relate to hardworking guys,” said Ed Coryell Jr., a carpenter who attended a union rally in Edison for Murphy earlier this month. “We look for people who are going to create jobs for our members.”

Murphy also has woven more traditional Democratic social issues into his campaign, even as he embraces liberal causes such as legalizing marijuana.

“Progressive means a lot of things, but I promise you it means at least three things,” Murphy said at a rally on Thursday with former President Barack Obama, under whom he served as ambassador to Germany from 2009 to 2013.

“We will fund Planned Parenthood again,” he said. “We will sign sensible gun safety laws to keep our communities safe. And we will do something about climate change.”

Most notably, Murphy has said he would extend protections for illegal immigrants, turning New Jersey into a “sanctuary state.”

Guadagno seized on that issue, airing a television commercial that said Murphy “will have the backs of deranged murderers.”

“Phil Murphy is even to the left of Bernie Sanders,” Guadagno campaign spokesman Ricky Diaz said. “Phil Murphy is out of touch with middle class families who want to make the state safer and more affordable.”

Though he has run to the left, Murphy has strong backing from the Democratic establishment, with Obama, Clinton and former vice presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore all campaigning with him this month.

By contrast, Guadagno, who is trailing badly in fundraising, has received minimal support from national Republican leaders.

There is little question that Murphy’s liberal positions have been buoyed by the headwinds Guadagno faces, given Christie’s and Trump’s statewide unpopularity.

That could mean Murphy’s campaign is not a perfect blueprint for other Democratic candidates, some analysts said.

“I think a lot of people will turn to New Jersey and say, ‘Democrats have to go progressive,’” said Matthew Hale, a political science professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. “But I would be very wary of Democrats trying to take a page out of the Phil Murphy playbook in any other place.”

Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Nick Zieminski

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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[awesomefelicitylewis-blog]

New Jersey's Murphy echoes Sanders in Democratic bid for governor

http://ryanguillory.com/new-jerseys-murphy-echoes-sanders-in-democratic-bid-for-governor/

New Jersey's Murphy echoes Sanders in Democratic bid for governor

EDISON, N.J. (Reuters) – Phil Murphy, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs investment banker, might seem an unlikely champion of the working and middle classes.

FILE PHOTO: Phil Murphy speaks during the First Stand Rally in Newark, N.J., U.S. January 15, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith/File Photo

But New Jersey’s Democratic candidate for governor, who leads Republican Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno by double digits in polls, has pushed to increase taxes for corporations and the rich to pay for a plethora of populist policy proposals: tuition-free community college, increased school funding and tax credits for families.

His race, one of two gubernatorial campaigns in 2017, offers an early opportunity ahead of next year’s bonanza of congressional and governor’s races for Democrats to weigh how to win in the era of Republican President Donald Trump.

With Republican Governor Chris Christie’s record-low approval ratings dragging down Guadagno’s campaign, Murphy, a 60-year-old who has never held office, has pushed a decidedly liberal agenda that would put his state at the center of his party’s resistance to the president’s policies.

“A lot of people assumed that after the Democratic primary was over, he would pivot more to the center – we haven’t seen that happen,” said Brigid Callahan Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

Guadagno, 58, portrays Murphy as an elitist millionaire – he has spent more than $16 million of his money on his run – and said he has no plan to finance his lofty goals.

“I will lower your taxes, and Phil Murphy will raise them,” she said last week at the close of their final debate.

Murphy’s stance reflects the national party’s leftward shift, following Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ insurgent primary campaign last year against eventual presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Like Sanders, Murphy has focused his message on a “fairer” economy, vowing to help the middle, not the moneyed, class. He highlights his working-class childhood as proof he understands financial struggle.

He has backed a $15 minimum wage, proposed a public bank to provide low-interest loans to residents and promised to force “corporations, hedge funds and the wealthiest among us” to pay their fair share.

“He seems like a hardworking guy who can relate to hardworking guys,” said Ed Coryell Jr., a carpenter who attended a union rally in Edison for Murphy earlier this month. “We look for people who are going to create jobs for our members.”

Murphy also has woven more traditional Democratic social issues into his campaign, even as he embraces liberal causes such as legalizing marijuana.

“Progressive means a lot of things, but I promise you it means at least three things,” Murphy said at a rally on Thursday with former President Barack Obama, under whom he served as ambassador to Germany from 2009 to 2013.

“We will fund Planned Parenthood again,” he said. “We will sign sensible gun safety laws to keep our communities safe. And we will do something about climate change.”

Most notably, Murphy has said he would extend protections for illegal immigrants, turning New Jersey into a “sanctuary state.”

Guadagno seized on that issue, airing a television commercial that said Murphy “will have the backs of deranged murderers.”

“Phil Murphy is even to the left of Bernie Sanders,” Guadagno campaign spokesman Ricky Diaz said. “Phil Murphy is out of touch with middle class families who want to make the state safer and more affordable.”

Though he has run to the left, Murphy has strong backing from the Democratic establishment, with Obama, Clinton and former vice presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore all campaigning with him this month.

By contrast, Guadagno, who is trailing badly in fundraising, has received minimal support from national Republican leaders.

There is little question that Murphy’s liberal positions have been buoyed by the headwinds Guadagno faces, given Christie’s and Trump’s statewide unpopularity.

That could mean Murphy’s campaign is not a perfect blueprint for other Democratic candidates, some analysts said.

“I think a lot of people will turn to New Jersey and say, ‘Democrats have to go progressive,’” said Matthew Hale, a political science professor at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. “But I would be very wary of Democrats trying to take a page out of the Phil Murphy playbook in any other place.”

Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Nick Zieminski

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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[londontheatre]

Claudia Jolly (Katherine Draper) and Sam Reid (Gene Laine) in GFTNC at The Old Vic. Photo by Manuel Harlan

Bob Dylan’s music is like a favourite old overcoat which warms you, comforts you, soothes you as you retrieve it from the coat-rack and wear it again to ward off the approaching winter chill. But it has surprises. You reach into the pockets and discover forgotten memorabilia languishing: the jingle-jangle of some coins, a dog-eared shopping list, that pen you’ve been searching high and low for and the neatly folded order of service from a funeral. And there are other, unknown, objects left, perhaps, by someone else to whom you lent your coat: yes, Dylan’s music always surprises; always tugs at the heart strings; and it always grabs your soul.

Of course, I understand that not everyone is an aficionado. But it would be difficult to come away from Girl From The North Country without acknowledging that Bob’s got rhythm, Bob’s got melody and Bob’s got the lyrics to go with them.

We have folk, we have gospel, we have Judas-music (folk-rock), perhaps not played as “f***ing loud” as Dylan would like, but performed by an on-stage band of exquisite musicality, directed by Alan Berry, with songs delivered by some exceptional voices, top-notch singers who are experts at their craft and who demonstrably know and feel the songs.

And those songs: those lonesome, haunting American anti-dream polemics depicting the lives of the downtrodden, the struggles of the oppressed, the lost values of a rampant commercial world. And there are love songs, too: unashamed eulogies to lost soul-mates and faded dreams. It’s poetry, poetry set to music and the underlying theme has always been – from Dylan’s early Ballad of Hollis Brown, through Joey, right up to Duquesne Whistle, featured in this show, – is pathos: the poetry is in the pathos.

So – how do you turn all this into a play. You call, naturally, for the Grand Master of dramatic story-telling – which is, apparently, exactly what Bob Dylan did. One assumes, but one doesn’t know – he likes to maintain the mystique around his persona – that Dylan had come across – and liked – Conor McPherson’s work at some point. Perhaps he appreciated the edgy, discomfiting, unapologetic story-telling that we see in McPherson’s The Weir and the recent television play Paula. Whatever the route into the writing partnership it became possibly the strangest theatrical collaboration since Andrew Lloyd Webber got together with the deceased T.S. Eliot to produce Cats. Dylan told the playwright to “use any song in any way you like” and that was it. McPherson doesn’t even know if the Great Troubadour is going to come and see the play that he has lovingly created.

[See image gallery at http://ift.tt/1FpwFUw]

  When the playwright set to work he realised the timeless quality of Dylan’s songs and thus set his play in 1930s Depression-riven, rust-belt America, in Dylan’s birth-place, Duluth Minnesota. Nick Laine (Ciarán Hinds) is the impoverished owner of a guest house with a myriad of family problems, foreclosure looming and a collection of quite weird and wonderful guests. From this rich seam of possibilities a wealth of individual stories emerge and meander like tributaries from the main river and the songs, mirroring the various characters’ dreams and disappointments and motives are woven in by McPherson like a living tapestry, a knowing dialogue with the audience that seems to be saying: OK, this is a story, this is a play and these are songs: sit back, breathe in and enjoy. Helping this, McPherson, who also directs, makes the inspired decision to have the songs sung directly to the audience with retro mikes on stands so that we feel that although we may be interested voyeurs of the intricate lives that are being bared before us we are also invited in to the brittle warmth of this diversely peopled gust house.

Joe Scott (Arinzé Kene) is the former boxer, wrongfully imprisoned, who gives us a stirring rendition of Hurricane. The superb Bronagh Gallagher, as platinum-rinsed blonde not-quite-bombshell Mrs Burke, has that dark, husky slightly slurred intonation of the archetypal Country and Western singer, often whilst tapping away on the drum-kit. Nick Lane’s unmarried but pregnant adopted daughter, Marianne, is empathetically portrayed by Sheila Atim who is the real deal as a vocalist and brings a vibrant, bluesy realism to her interpretations of Dylan’s more mournful compositions: great singer. But best of all is Shirley Henderson as Nick’s demented wife who’s apparently mad and provocative observations contain a certain knowing child-like wisdom: her vocals are raw but cultured; haunting but tangible; distant but close-up and personal. Henderson performs the numbers as if her very existence depended on it and that pathos in Dylan’s words is never more evident.

There are no weak links in this troupe of singers and McPherson’s inspired use of the ensemble for backing vocals and chorus – getting an authentic gospel feel to some of the numbers – is testament to his innate understanding of how music can be used to enhance, to underscore and to develop the narrative. It must have been quite something for the cast to have a director who strummed his guitar and sang along with them in rehearsals. Credit, too, to Musical Supervisor Simon Hale for his arrangements and orchestration.

Clever framing of the action by Designer Rae Smith gives the show that wistful, desolate look of an Edward Hopper painting, complemented by Mark Henderson’s subtle and effective lighting. And Simon Baker’s Sound ensures that we get the very best resonance from these sublime singers.

Matthew Warchus, Artistic Director of the Old Vic, is searching for a word to describe this type of show – neither bona fide “musical” or typical “play with songs”. It’s a “Dylanesque”, Matthew. It’s bound to set a trend. There will be more Dylanesques – though not necessarily with Bob Dylan’s music. And it will be difficult to replicate the atmosphere and melancholy of Girl From The North Country.

Review by Peter Yates

Duluth, Minnesota in the midst of the Great Depression. A family adrift, their future on a knife edge. Lost and lonely people drifting through the rooms of their guesthouse. But Nick Laine thinks he’s seen a way out…

The full cast list includes Sheila Atim, Ron Cook, Bronagh Gallagher, Shirley Henderson, Ciaran Hinds, Claudia Jolly, Arinzé Kene, Debbie Kurup, Jim Norton, Sam Reid, Michael Shaeffer, Jack Shalloo, and Stanley Townsend.

GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY Booking Period: Until 7 October 2017 The Old Vic 103 The Cut, London, SE1 8NB

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