So glad that singer/songwriters continue to write train songs. For a while you had to worry whether “City of New Orleans” would be the last.

This one is former Husker Du drummer Grant Hart performing “California Zephyr,” which namechecks many of the famous train lines. The Empire Builder!

Hart stopped off in Washington, D.C., last week for a show in the downstairs bar at the Black Cat club, with maybe 50 people in the audience. Bob Mould has had the more commercially successful post-Husker Du career, but Hart remains an appealing, quirky performer who wrote some of the best rock songs of the ’80s.

The Washington Post’s review nicely captured the evening in its review, “Grant Hart at Black Cat: Softer by Husker Du standards, but attitude still punk.” Along with the music, the audience learned that Hart was Harold Stassen’s paperboy and that he went to school with Tim Pawlenty. Boy, he does not like Tim Pawlenty.

Interestingly, there seems to be an outbreak of “California Zephyrs.” Here’s Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard performing a different tune with the same title.

NAM President John Engler appeared on Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s monthly radio program on WCCO today, a conversation that covered lots of issues. Showing more interest in the topic than presidential debate moderators, Gov. Pawlenty asked about the Employee Free Choice Act, that purposefully misnamed “card check” legislation would destroy secret-ballot elections in the workplace, allowing labor organizers to intimidate employees into joining a union.

Pawlenty: Why do the advocates want that? Why do they want the ability to do that without a secret ballot? Seems it just violates people’s privacy or confidentiality.

Engler: Just flat-out it’s a money issue. It’s a dues issue for the unions themselves. Union membership in the country has been declining and this is a way to force a lot of people back in, but what it does for the workplace is quite destructive.

 You can listen to the full two-minute segment on card check by clicking here.