Linda Ronstadt: “Grace and Dignity”

The Diane Rehm Show: Singer Linda Ronstadt on Her Life in Music

DIANE REHM: Thanks for joining us. I’m Diane Rehm. Legendary singer Linda Ronstadt has sold more than 100 million records in her 40-year career. She’s best known for chart-topping hits like “You’re No Good,” “Blue Bayou,” and “When Will I Be Loved?” Ronstadt was the first female artist in popular music history to release four consecutive platinum albums. But last year, a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease forced her to stop singing. She’s in Washington D.C. this week, where yesterday she received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama.

…. Tell us about that ceremony yesterday and how you felt.

LINDA RONSTADT: Well, I think most artists always will say, I don’t know if you agree with this or not, but I felt like a fraud. You know? I felt surely they’d made a mistake and they would be telling me any minute that, you know, I needed to go home. I was on the wrong list.

….. But otherwise I was delighted. And I am a great fan of President Obama and think he has been a fine president. And I’m very pleased that we’ve got to have someone of his grace and his dignity, which is rare in American culture these days.

REHM: Do you think, in part, it comes from his Hawaiian upbringing?

RONSTADT: Well, he — there’s a beautiful, beautiful ancient culture in the Hawaiian Islands and an old tradition of a lot of diversity. You know, there are Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Portuguese, Okinawan, and they all had to get along. And so there’s a high level of lovely, beautiful manners, you know? People treat each other with respect and courtesy in the islands that you don’t find in the mainland. And I think — and there’s a real gentleness, you know?

Of course people stand up for themselves too. You don’t want to get into a fight with a Hawaiian. Because if you want to push him, he’s a tough guy, you know? But he’ll give you an out before. And I think that he reflects a lot of that. Maybe his background in the Hawaiian Islands…

REHM: He was very warm.

RONSTADT: He was very genuine and he was very present. And I liked that. He was very aware of what was going on around him. We’ve had so many people that have just been, you know, so egotistical or so completely full of themselves they can’t tell what’s going on around them. And I don’t think that’s the case with him. And his wife Mrs. Obama couldn’t be more impressive. My god, she’s beautiful. She’s very beautiful in the photographs…

REHM: Absolutely gorgeous.

RONSTADT: …but she’s 50 times as pretty.

REHM: Totally gorgeous.

RONSTADT: And little looks going back and forth between them, you know? You can tell that that’s a strong relationship. I was very impressed. I expected to be impressed and I was very much more impressed…

 Full transcript here

Linda’s Wonderful Adventure

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Linda (@whatisworking)

It all started with an email invitation. My reaction after opening this message swung from excitement and serious tingling, to disbelief and suspicion. I could not imagine what I had done that was wonderful enough to earn an invitation to the White House for a party. Our team had an event every week, I faithfully listened to briefing calls from our state and national leaders, we had been involved in some innovative projects – but a holiday party at the White house was over the top.

I had fantasized about meeting the President, when he was in the SF area, shaking his hand, mumbling something coherent and trying not to pass out. Going to Washington DC, being able to attend an event at the White House with the President and Mrs. Obama was way beyond anything I had ever imagined.

Then that dark voice that lives in my head began to emerge. I kept looking at the part of the invitation that asked for my social security number and date of birth. Was this just a clever scheme to steal my identity? Drats… I called the number on the invitation but it was an answering machine. I wrote to my Regional Field Organizer asking her if she knew anything about it – Nope. I wrote to another volunteer asking if she had received an invitation, Nada…

linda’s story

AFP: In a cramped campaign office a couple of blocks from a sprawling General Motors assembly plant, Linda Koch rings the bell used to signal that a new volunteer has signed up for the fight to reelect President Barack Obama.

“Woohoo!” the triumphant Koch chirps. “She’s bringing her sister too!” …..

…..  In the month leading up to the January 31 Florida primary, the Obama campaign registered nearly as many new voters in the Sunshine State as it had in all of 2011.

Linda Koch is one of 15,000 “neighborhood team leaders” working on Obama’s ground crew. She says the most persuasive message she has is the story of why she got involved in politics for the first time a few months ago at the age of 56.

Koch was laid off from her job at a Detroit-area hospital shortly before she was diagnosed with throat cancer. Then Chrysler warned that it would go out of business without government help, putting her husband’s livelihood – and their health insurance – at risk.

“I didn’t want to die of lack of insurance,” she said. “It’s just not the way we should do things here in America – it’s not right.”

Politics came home to Koch when Obama was elected and pushed through the bailout of Chrysler and GM and landmark health care reform. Her husband’s job – and the US automotive industry – was saved. And people like Koch couldn’t be denied insurance coverage anymore because of a “pre-existing condition.”….

Full article here

what can you say?

A comment left on the blog today, in response to that Texas interview with the President, by a Linda Van de Riet from Missouri.

There’s also, coincidentally, a Linda Van de Riet on the Missouri Jefferson County Republican Central Committee. A relation, maybe?

You know, these people will be consumed by their own hate one day. Hopefully.

PS Another coincidence! There’s a Linda Van de Riet from Missouri on Facebook:

I see she’s ‘interested’ in God. But not in His teachings, it seems.

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Blackman reminded me of this rally in the comments – wow, that day must really have pained Ms Van de Riet:

Sen. Barack Obama waves as he arrives at a rally of 100,000 supporters in St. Louis, Mo., Saturday, Oct. 18, 2008

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Theo67: I’m grateful to see this nonsense from these types, because it reminds me how desperate this fight is for those who seek goodness and light. There are many who are wallowing in darkness, consumed by hate, and deceiving themselves that they are somehow fighting a “godly” fight – yet, as evidenced by this woman, the hate just spews forth from them – telling us the real story. We can never let these creatures win. This is not just a political fight. It’s much more than that, and I think it’s a battle that’s been raging for a long time.

I’m encouraged when I think of those who had to put their very lives in harm’s way, and those who still do in places far away, simply to gain the rights of being treated like human beings. Watching clips from the Civil Rights struggle, the clips from those fighting for their freedom now in the Middle East… if all we have to do is read nasty words from these lost individuals, then we have it so much easier. It does take a little away from your spirit each time you’re confronted with this stuff, but we can replenish our spirits quite easily because of … the many billions of people around the world who are not consumed by hate.

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Thank you Theo