Apr 072024
 

Yesterday, The radio opera was Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore” (“The love Potion”) and I’m afraid I slept through half of it. My alarm went off and I decided not to get up. I’m not a big Pavarotti fan, and while there were other major stars of the time, including one with whom I shared a violin teacher (not of course at the same time – decades apart actually) I just wasn’t inspired to get up then. I did get up in time fpre the second act (there are only two). One of the four main characters is a “snake oil salesman” and i see enough of that in real life.

Heather Cox Richardson is an historian, not an economist – but you don’t really need to be an economist to know that “supply-side” economics does not work. You just need to be over 40 and not blind. The Biden/Sanders video she speaks of is the second with Biden’s name on it in the list of Xitter videos below her list of links. Iy’s supposed to have sound, and it definitely has CC.

April, in the South, is Confederate Heritage Month. The Southrern Poverty Law Center find that less than acceptable. So they are pushing for a celebreation of good things in southern history to replace it – or at least alleviate the bad taste of it.

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May 272022
 

Yesterday, I received my grocery order and put it away. No substitutions – a few things missing, but I wasn’t charged for them. While waiting, I started working on cartoons for June. It’s a month with a lot missing and also a few dated, so it’s a ;large project. I got four put together (but not framed) which took me up through the ninth. I’d kind of like to get the tenth done this week yet, and then get farther next week, but we’ll see how it goes.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Daily Beast – The Supreme Court Just Said That Evidence of Innocence Is Not Enough
Quote – After losing in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Arizona’s attorney general appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. During those oral arguments, state prosecutors repeatedly argued that “innocence isn’t enough” of a reason to throw out Jones’ conviction. On Monday morning, by a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court concurred: Barry Jones’ innocence is not enough to keep him off of death row. The state of Arizona can still kill Jones, even if there exists a preponderance of evidence that he committed no crime.
Click through for verdist ana analysis. I don’t have any idea how to react to this – it is that warped.

CPR News – Hate crimes are on the rise. Here’s what you can do to help prevent them
Quote – If someone says something that I have never heard them say before, like something racist, as uncomfortable as that would be, I would want to say, “I’ve never heard you talk like that. Why are these things appealing to you? What’s changed with you?” Actually express concern about them, that something is off and they’re becoming angry and blaming people, which is really a warning sign. If, instead, you come with the opposite opinion, or try to use facts to dispute someone’s beliefs, sometimes it ends up having the effect of making you impossible to talk to. They think you’re the “other,” or shaming them, and they will pull away, and then maybe they won’t express these things to you, but they can continue to get more strident.
Click through for full conversation – and, since after all this is radio, you can also listen to it if thet works for you.

Letters From An American – May 25, 2022
Quote – It seems that during the Cold War, American leaders came to treat democracy and capitalism as if they were interchangeable. So long as the United States embraced capitalism, by which they meant an economic system in which individuals, rather than the state, owned the means of production, liberal democracy would automatically follow. That theory seemed justified by the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The crumbling of that communist system convinced democratic nations that they had won, they had defeated communism, their system of government would dominate the future…. In fact, the apparent success of capitalism actually undercut democracy in the U.S.
Click through as she bolsters the argument. It’s depressing, but iit’s also important. And it’s why it’s also so important to distinguish between Left v. Right economically and Autocracy v. Democracy as governance. See (and shre) The Political Compass.

Food For Thought

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