Politics Plus

Yesterday, looking at the weather forecast (which I automatically do on my way to get the times of sunrise and sunset, but normally don’t pay a lot of attention), I had the thought that this could be am – intersting – week weatherwise. Fristly, they are taking about snow for tomorrow, starting tonight (we could possibly have a couple of inches by 7 pm.) It’s a bit clumsy to describe the graph, but it’s a broad strip covering ten days from left to right, with temperatiure aand sunlight at the top and precipitation at the bottom and everything else you can think of in between – pressure, wind speed, even wind direction, and more. You can move your cursor across it, and wherever you put it, you’ll see a top-to-bottom line of everything. If you want to know what the wind direction will be next Tuesday at noon, you can set a line at that day and time and it will tell you. In fact, it tells me way more than I want to know. The reason I bother with it is that it has thousands, mabe tens of thousands, of weaher stations, and you can select, not just the zip code, but the exact weather station you want to track. And in Colorado Springs, where uou can go through three seasons just driving from 80911 in the south to 80921 in the north, that is important to me. The weather station I use is maybe four blocks from my house. And while even with that kind of pin point data, though still not perfect, it’s amazing how close to reality it can be. But I digress – I was going to say that, after tomorow, we an expect several days of sun, and a weekend with highs in the 50’s, before getting hammered again a week from today. Not unusual. But it does feel unusual to have a good idea what to expect.

I also learned that at least soe classical musicians and commentatore, probably beginning at Juilliard, are no longer using the perk “accompanist.”  Instead, they are saying “collaborativepianist.”  Ilikethat.  I’ve often thought accompanists do not get enough credit.  I was fortunate enough to meet one once, Anne Epperson, who told me that her teachers all wanted her to become a concert pianist, but that she preferred  making music in collaboration.  If you are ever thinking of investing in a CD (or whatever format comes along) of a piece with a soloist and a pianist, and you have a choice, buy the one with Epperson.  Also, apparently the State Department just issued a warning to any Americans in Russia to leave, and any not in Russia NOT to go there. While this is just common sense, I feel that bringing it up now probably means they know something we don’t.

Cartoon – 14 Oregon_map RTL + Valentine

Short Takes –

Capitol Hill Seattle BLog – Video shows East Precinct officers back down after bystanders step in over heavy response to Capitol Hill ‘shots fired’ 911 calls
Quote – The quickly formed and instantly tense standoff is an example of how fast a police response to a 911 report involving a gun can escalate and also shows how perceptions of police in a standoff situation have shifted after repeated incidents like the killing of Tyre Nichols…. According to East Precinct radio updates, police had been dispatched to the area after a 911 caller reported a gunshot and a second caller reported two shots along with somebody yelling, “Everybody is going to die.” But people at the scene told police there was no shooting and no gun — only a young person in a yellow sweater upset and suffering a crisis.
Click through for details. This story is going on two weeks old now, but re-reading it, I am still struck at how new it is. And that it couldn’t have happened just anywhere. It needs more visibility – a LOT more visibility.

The Conversation – Diversity and moderation over tradition – why Democrats moved South Carolina to the start of the 2024 presidential campaign
Quote – As political scientists in South Carolina, we understand how important the state’s primary is to the Democratic Party. Working at the College of Charleston for over a decade, we have seen dozens of campaign visits and events by presidential hopefuls of both parties to our city and campus. Given our front-row seats, we wrote “First in South: Why South Carolina’s Presidential Primary Matters,” a book about South Carolina’s primary process. Published in 2020, it examines South Carolina’s demographic makeup, the state’s primary electorate and how it compares with each party’s typical national primary and caucus voter. What we learned was, on several key metrics, South Carolina voters are a better reflection of the demographic diversity and moderate stance on issues the party prioritizes than voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Click through for rationale. Some are questioning spending money here, in a state we are never going to win (as if we arent already doing that in Iowa.) But remember, this is a primary we are talking about. Democrats in South Carolina are going to be good, strong Democrats with a good sense of what the nation actually needs. If we learn those lessons, and don’t forget them, I’m thinking our money will not be ill spent.

Food For Thought

I put this into a comment on Nameless’s recent MTG srticle, but I thought it too good for anyone to miss: