UW offers course on Springsteen

A University of Wisconsin professor is teaching Bruce Springsteen to 19- and 20-year-olds who may not listen to the boss's music but probably know the America he sings about -- abandoned factories, suffering military veterans, shattered dreams.

We strongly suspect the course is easier than Organic Chemistry, but we also think there's merit in reflecting on characters like the hungry and the hunted who explode into rock and roll bands. Or contemplating an American landscape of a dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets. Or thinking about the dad who sweats the same job from mornin' to morn and can't afford a new car.

The AFL-CIO tells us the class is called "Bruce Springsteen's America" and you can follow it on the Huffington Post: Here's how he describes the class:

Each week, we listen to one of Bruce's albums -- at the moment we're finishing up Born in the U.S.A. -- and read sections from Dave Marsh's biography of Springsteen along with three books about American society since the 1960s: Jefferson Cowie's Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class; Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community; and David Sirota's Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now--Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything. For each class period, six or seven students submit e-mail posts in which they reflect on how Bruce's music responds to the world he was living in and what call it's making to us as we grapple we the problems we're facing in ours. In turn, those posts serve as the calls which spark class discussion. Sometimes that takes us deeper into the music in its original context: Sometimes it spins out towards today's world.

We kind of wish New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would be required to take the course. Though he's a huge Springsteen fan, he'd probably get an F.

2 NJ funerals today

One was held in Trenton, N.J. The other was held at the Royal Poinciana Chapel in Palm Beach Florida.

The first was a funeral for the death of collective bargaining and the Democratic Party as we know it. It was held during the biggest protest of the year -- The Second Battle of Trenton -- in New Jersey.  Union members and their allies are trying to prevent the state Assembly from concurring with the Senate on an anti-worker bill. It would destroy workers' collective bargaining rights over health care and raise their required contributions for pensions and benefits. One protester drove a shiny black hearse draped with a "Soul of the Democratic Party" banner. Others carried a coffin covered with signs that said, "The Death of Collective Bargaining." 

The Newark Star-Ledger gives us an update:

4:19 Scenes from the Statehouse
The rally is winding down. Assembly members killing time while waiting for the session to start.

The Boss gave the eulogy today at the second funeral in Florida, this one for The Big Man, Clarence Clemons, who died Saturday. The towering E Street Band saxophonist was the backbone of the band, which for decades chronicled working-class dreams and struggles.  Gov. Chris Christie, a huge Springsteen fan, ordered flags in New Jersey flown at half-staff. One can't help but think, though, that he is tone deaf to the band's message. Springsteen summed it up once as a prelude to a performance of "Jungleland," during which Clemons gave up one of his signature solos. Said The Boss,

Nobody wins unless everybody wins.  

Let's hope the Assembly has listened a little more carefully to the E Street Band than the governor, the Republican lawmakers and the Democratic leadership.

The Boss slams NJ budget cuts in letter to editor

Bruce Spreingsteen praised his hometown paper for describing how New Jersey's budget cuts were hurting the middle class as well as the poor. In yesterday's letter to the Asbury Park Press, he writes,

...your article shows that the cuts are eating away at the lower edges of the middle class, not just those already classified as in poverty, and are likely to continue to get worse over the next few years. I'm always glad to see my hometown newspaper covering these issues.

(It's a sentiment we share, btw.)

The story that The Boss likes so much (read it here) notes that the state's lard-ass Gov. Chris Christie raised taxes for the poor, cuts services to the middle class and slashes taxes for the rich.

Ironically, Christie is such a Springsteen fan he keeps a collection of ticket stubs from The Boss's concerts. You have to wonder: Does Christie think "Nowhere to run, nowhere to go" is a good thing?