Open Thread January 5 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 052025
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Les Contes d’Hoffman” (the tales of Hoffman) by Jacques Offenbach, who is best known for having composed the “Cancan.” The Tales of Hoffman was his only serious opera, and it is not without comedy. The most obvious is, I think, the “Doll Song,” in which the soprano plays a mechanical, life sized doll with whom Hoffman has fallen in love. During this aria, the soprano “runs down” twice and the toymaker has to run up behind her and “wind her up.” Literally. Back in the day, I was driving on the Washington DC beltway, and this aria came on the radio, sung by Joan Sutherland. Even without the sight gags, she made it so funny that I had to pull off – I was so distracted with laughter – until it was over. The doll is one of three women with whom Hoffman falls in love and loses – this one because she isn’t real, the second because she dies, and the third because she has stolen his soul – well, that’s pretty un-comic. There is also an “evil genius” who in some way comes between Hoffman and all of the women he falls for. It is filled with catchy tunes, a specialty of Offenbach. If you have ever heard his “barcarolle,” which is a real earworm, this is the opera from which it comes. Also yesterday, I received several emails about Ann Telnaes leaving the Washington Post. I’ll link to Andy Borowitz on this, although Heather Cox Richardson also covered the story. We can hope hat she finds a position worthy of her talent and integrity.

In keeping with my intent to reserve the Sunday Open Thread for good news, here is a story from Colorado Public Radio, about a remarkable man, and the tribute to him which is now being paid.

This from Axios is at best halfway good news. I was hoping something better would come along, but sadly, if it has, I haven’t seen it (and I have been looking.)

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Open Thread January 4 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 042025
 

Yesterday, while looking at a petition to the Senate to reject Kash Patel as FBI director, I started thinking of why his photos, and particularly his eyes, unnerve me so much. So I looked up the body language of “wide-eyed stare” and discovered it has three possible interpretations – attraction, fascination, and intimidations. I’ll give you three guesses what his is, and the first two don’t count. Also yesterday, Mike Johnson was reelected Speaker. Form the remarks that have been released, I suspect some Republicans had to superglue their noses to vote for him – just holding the nose wasn’t enough. Not that we didn’t all know they were all mouthbreathers anyway (normally I take exception to that word because severe allergic reactions have caused me to temporarily have to breathe through my mouth or suffer possibly fatal anoxia – but for this it seemed to fit.)

Heather Cox Richardson revisits the year 2000 and the “millennium bug” fears. I lived through it and I expect y’all did too, and it’s hard to believe that it’s been 25 years. I still have my “Crash: the millennium bug” stuffie which, if you throw it at something hard, like the floor, makes the sound of shattering glass.) But it’s not just nostalgia – there’s, if you will, a moral: “Crises get a lot of attention, but the quiet work of fixing them gets less. And if that work ends the crisis that got all the attention, the success itself makes people think there was never a crisis to begin with.” And also some actual news.

Robert Reich sums up what our final recourses are for just about everything. You may want to bookmark this one.

(possible rerun, but id so, it’s been a minute)

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Open Thread January 3 2025

 Posted by at 5:49 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 032025
 

Yesterday, I expect everyone knows that a couple of Cybertrucks were uses in incidents in which people were injured or killed or both. There’s a lot of speculation, but what appears to have been confirmed is that the two drivers – a white man from Colorado Springs who drove the truck to Las Vegas, NV, and a black man from Houston who drove the truck to New Orleans, rented the trucks, both from the same company online, Truro (or Turo – I didn’t verify which was correct.) We need not to jump to conclusions. In better news, my state’s Attorney General, Phil Weiser, announced that he is running for Governor. That’s good news, and gave me some hope. I’d been worried about that since our current Governor is term limited out, and I couldn’t think of anyone else who had the necessary visibility who hadn’t already served (and been term limited.) Phil has a real chance, and, while I’m now worried about the Attorney General position, I feel this is more important.

As a non-subscriber to Crooks and Liars, I find it difficult to read their stuff. And this particular one I wanted to save, since it has a lot of advice I’ll want to keep on hand, at least for the next four years – including a few Substacks (and I remind you that you can subscribe to any of those for free). I didn’t want to print it, even just to a PDF, so I used Ctrl A followed by Ctrl C to copy everything – then Ctrl V to put it into a Notepad file, and deleted everything before and after it (in simple text, it isn’t hard to tell when it starts and stops. If y’all subscribe, you shouldn’t need to do that. But it works for me.

Robert Reich could easily have written this years ago. It’s too bad he didn’t. Not that it would have changed much except a few people’s minds, and people not powerful enough to change much at that.

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Open Thread January 1 2025

 Posted by at 5:52 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 012025
 

Yesterday, my prediction was not wrong – I received well over 200 emails (180 just by noon.) The number I actually had to open, however, was about the same  as usual – between 40 and 50. I managed to deal with them. A few were unexpected. Otherwise the day was pretty calm. Which is fine with me. Every day being calm is my idea of living my best life.

Harry Litman of Talking Feds addresses the development of disagreement going on in the Republican Party, particularly in the Trump** administration (including potential administration if he can get them confirmed, which doesn’t look like a certainty – although any of the current rogues’ gallery of nominees is too many.) My feeling is that, since I don’t see how we can look for anything positive from (or under) this administration, the best we can hope for from is “presidency” is nothing at all. I would think internal feuding would make that increasingly likely – so I just hope they all eat each others’ faces.

The headline post from The F* News – “Sanders Calls Trump’s Bluff” is already promising, and does not disappoint. But there’s also more in the post. Read as much as you like. Not bad for a slow news day.

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Open Thread December 31 2024

 Posted by at 6:05 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Dec 312024
 

Yesterday, I was still in shock over Jimmy Carter’s death. But at least the news sources I read were all respectful – I hear the New York Times brought up the “killer rabbit” story. That’s not his legacy. His legacy is one of goodness and decency and service – and out of all of them, I’ll link to Robert Hubbell. But in case anyone wants it, I will provide a link from Steve Schmidt to a CNN documentary on Carter’s life. I haven’t seen it, and I don’t know when it was made, but Schmidt speaks of Carter with respect, so there’s that. To change topic, I was dreading today after the avalanche of year-end email yesterday, all requesting donations, and fearing today would be worse. We’ll see how that turns out.

Wonkette is one of not a lot of news outlets mentioning the bird flu – and cats – and Louisiana. CPR touched on the bird flu but only as it affects Colorado, which is not a whole lot. Crooks and Liars did pick up the Louisiana angle, as did The F* News (am I seeing a pattern here?) and large numbers of people disregarding the advice of health professionals, regarding vaccinations and masks, certainly had a big part in spreading the pandemic farther than it needed to be.

This from Heather Cox Richardson has gotten coverage, but I haven’t seen any as detailed as her version – taking names and kicking – well, you know.

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Open Thread December 30 2024

 Posted by at 6:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Dec 302024
 

Yesterday, we lost one of the only two Presidents (of my lifetime – because I wasn’t the ones before that through good chunks of their lives. I have thoughts but no evidence.) whose entire lives were marked by a deep love of, and an equally deep commitment to, pure goodness. I’m just not able to process it yet. Nameless, however, has posted an In Memoriam – you’re on the home page just scroll down one post, and if you are on the page which allows comments, go back one post with the direction under the comments section. (And, after that, do whatever you did one more time to read a new  “Sound Off” by Freya.  I’ll try to send a letter out but don’t know whether I’ll be able to. As nearly as I can tell, he died while Virgil and I were playing cribbage (and enjoying it immensely.) I don’t believe he would have minded that one little bit.)

I do wish Robert Reich would take a look at The Political Compass. Yes, I realize everything is linked – but for those of us not as smart as Robert (and I am certainly one), looking at them all at once is distracting. And, frankly, the pictures help. I would have no problem to adding civic morality to economic systems and government style to make a three dimensional graph – which I guess Windows can now do that. (Adding personal morality would alienate far too many Americans.) Also, I disagree with myth #11. I’m afraid that one’s true. I grant they may not have been ignorant before they started following Trump** – but having done so for eight or nine years – they are ignorant now.

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Christmas is over, but Hannukah continues, Kwanzaa has begun, and New Year’s Day awaits. So it’s still the holiday season. (And Robert Hubbell also has a surprise holiday gift in the astrophotography today.)

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Open Thread December 29 2024

 Posted by at 6:01 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Dec 292024
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Hansel and Gretel” by (the original) Englebert Humperdinck. It was a performance from 1982 (Christmas Day, actually) which featured Judith Blegen as Gretel. I mention her because she is an unusual talent – she could as easily had a career as a violin virtuoso as she had as a operatic soprano, and I know that because I took lessons from one of her former violin teachers. You won’t find his name in Wikipedia, because only some of her teachers of voice and violin are named there. Gian Carlo Menotti denied that he had written his opera “Help, Help, the Globolinks” with her in mind – but he certainly had no difficulty with her playing Emily in the American debut, which requires the lead soprano to also play the violin. Hansel was played by Frederica von Stade, whom I mention because of her sense of humor. One of her voice coaches was a cat person, and at their first lesson, the coach’s cat threw up on her shoe. All she said was, “I hope it wasn’t my singing.” That’s not to belittle the rest of the cast, who were also excellent – just personal memories of mine.  Off to see Virgil now – will check in when I get home.

From Wonkette, a piece of good news that everyone else appears to have missed. I thought it belonged on Sunday. I doubt we’ll get many more for some years.

And one more piece of good news, also from Wonkette. No spoiler.

Okay, this, from Steve Schmidt is now VERY late (yet still far more recent than the history it discusses.) Steve Schmidt may not know as much history as Heather Cox Richardson does. But he does have a flair for knowing about moments of history which invoke strong feelings – and for telling them so that you almost feel you are there. The Christmas he tells of here was also in a dark night for America. That we came through it may give us some hope. But you may still need a hanky.

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Open Thread December 28 2024

 Posted by at 6:06 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Dec 282024
 

Yesterday was another day I didn’t do much. I enjoy being idle, but I’d also like to get more done. Oh well, if I don’t, then I’m the one who has to live with it.

Robert Reich – the reich on the left – is right. How right is he? So right that I feel the need to emphasize it by meming a quote from it for today’s cartoon.

Christmas Eve is past, but, as Joyce Vance points out, this is too important to ignore. I suspect some (not here, but elsewhere) may be thinking that at least he’s turning his crazy on someone besides us. But at a veteran, I have to point our that out military IS us – and when you include the families and colleagues and friends in whose circles veterans, active duty military, and those now considering enlisting live, that involves a lot of us.

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 16: Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich testifies before the Joint Economic Committee January 16, 2014 in Washington, DC. Reich joined a panel testifying on the topic of “Income Inequality in the United States.Ó (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

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