Word: haggardly
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...Merle Haggard has always had his guitar hardwired to the gutbucket pulse of Middle America. Back in the Vietnam era, he seemed the essence of a historic political migration: white males fleeing the feminized, antiwar, politically correct Democratic Party. He was your basic Reagan Democrat, fully loaded with a resonant, iron-edged voice and the ability to write razor lyrics that stuck in the mind and the craw. His brilliant anthem-Okie from Muskogee-became a rallying cry for those who were disgusted by the "hippies out in San Francisco" smoking marijuana and burning draft cards. His next patriotic volley...
...black T shirt and jeans driving a politically incorrect white Hummer. "Believe it or not, this is a pretty nice little town," he said as we headed out to his ranch, past a bleak, unending landscape of big-box stores that brought to mind a recent Haggard lyric: "Everything Wal-Mart all the time, no more mom and pop five and dimes... What happened, where did America go?" A vague populist annoyance with big stores and big shots is one of the themes that have led Haggard to "change labels," as he told me with a laugh. "The folks...
...Haggard's greatest complaint is a matter of pride-and pride, in his hardscrabble past and his country, has always been his favorite song. "The thing that gets under my skin most about George W. is his intention to install fear in people," he said, after walking me down a hallway lined with gold and platinum records. "This is America. We're proud. We're not afraid of a bunch of terrorists. But this government is all about terror alerts and scaring us at airports. We're changing the Constitution out of fear. We spend all our time looking...
...question: Is Merle Haggard indicative of a larger movement among his white male country brethren? This is a key to the next election, the subject of a new book by David Paul Kuhn, The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma. Kuhn accurately links the Republican dominance of the past 40 years to the loss of the Haggard vote. The percentage of white males identifying themselves as Democrats has declined from 47% in 1952 to about 25% in 2004. Much of that decline was an unavoidable consequence of two honorable positions the party took in the 1960s: in favor...
Somewhere beyond the haggard indignity of economy class, and the mere adequacy of a standard hotel room, lies another kind of travel experience to which the passport is money - and lots of it. Scored a huge bonus? Won the lottery? Or are you just plain loaded? Here are five places to stay that will swaddle you with personalized attention and luxury, as well as relieve you of much cash...