Yesterday, Trinette came over again, to run the car, bring in mail, and take out recyclables (I didn’t have enough trash to make that worth while.) She says “Hi back, especially to Nameless.
This is late news, but as Susie Madrak points out, you wouldn’t know it, from the coverage it didn’t get. And it’s game-changing – if only it can gain traction.
Yesterday, I posted Steve Schmidt’s opinion on Robert Hur before I had seen Robert Reich’s, or, for that matter, VP Harris’s. Both pointed and worth seeing.
Because today is what it is, I am using a Superb Owl pic in lieu of the usual logo.
The SPLC’s report on the attitudes of young Americans toward guns and gun safety, compiled with assistance from the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) is complete, and can be found here. The study examined “young people’s access to guns, experiences with gun violence, feelings of safety and mental wellbeing, as well as their views on male supremacy, racial resentment and the Second Amendment.”
Yesterday, I didn’t have to read up on the opera – in fact I may sleep theough it – because it’s not a full opera but a selection of love duets for Valentine’s Day. I am so much intp opera as a vehicle for storytelling and plot that I can’t get excited about selections. But if anyone is interested in a sampler, it bradcasts at 1:00 pm EST, 12 noon CST, 11:00 am Mountain, and 10:am Pacific. All of those are the same time. KCME.org will broadcast, as aell as WFMT.com in Chicago, WQXR.org in New York. I wasn’t able to confirm KUSC.org in Los Angeles (though as active as LA OPera is I’d be surprised if it doesn’t), but if you are listening on the internet, the sound isn’t any better from somewhere close than is is from the other side of the country.
I expect everyone’s heard of Trump**’s plan to alter the hiring criteria for Federal civil service so that he can fire anyone he doesn’t think is “loyal” enough and replace them with someone he thinks is. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) takes a hard look at the implications of this here.
I know crap when I see it, and I presume y’all do also. But, sadly, Steve is still right.
Yesterday was another quiet day, which is fine with me.
Harry T. Burleigh, born in 1866, was a black man with a desire to become a classical composer. With the encouragement and assistance from Frances McDowell, the mother of Edward McDowell (“To a Wild Rose” and much more), he was admitted to the New York Conservatory of Musicon work study as a janitor. While he swept the halls, he would sing Spirituals, and was heard by Antonín Dvořák (New World Symphony), who was enchanted, and requested Burleigh to sing for him as much as possible. (Contrary to myth, Dvořák did not use any actual spirituals in The New World Symphony, though he was good enough at working in the style to make people think he did, and a later Black American wrote words to the most recognizable theme therein and called it “Going Home.”) Burleigh graduated and had a career as a composer, writing both instrumental and vocal music. In particular he composed songs to poems by “Laurence Hope” (a pseudonym for a woman, – and not only was it next to impossible for a woman to get published then in her own right, but a lot of those poems were pretty hot stuff for the day) including a set called “5 Songs of Laurence Hope.” Jim Ginsburg, the son of Marty and Ruth (Bader) Ginsburg, and the founder of Cedille Records, is featuring a record of music by Black composers, called “Dreams of a New Day,” sung by Will Liverman (the baritone protagonist of choice of today’s Black opera composers) which includes Burleigh’s “5 Songs of Laurence Hope,” and the first of them is available on Spotify at this link. Call me a name-dropper, but I think those are some names worth dropping even when it’s not Black History Month.
This column is a rant, and an exceedingly righteous one at that, IMO. I could wish I’d said it first … but it’s better this way, since he has the larger following. Basically, he compares and contrasts encouraging news with the discouraging words in which the media presents it. Certainly we should never take winning for granted. But the media seems to want us to take losing for granted, and that is a bridge too far for us to be going over. I did get some encouragement myself from Hubbell’s counterarguments, and hope you also will.
Yesterday, what I mostly did was finish two knitting projects – one fair-sized one on which I’ve been working for some time, and one so small I started and finished it after finishing the large one. Not exciting, but there it is
Crooks and Liars has posted a video by Cliff Schecter which really points up the difference between the time when the Republican Party had Joe MacCarthy, and now, when all Republicans are Joe McCarthy. And you may learn something about the Illinois loyalty pledge too. It’s under 7 minutes, and if you watch it at C&L you won’t have to pay YouTube to avoid ads.
Margaret Atwood has been using her Substack to share a multi-part history of what the French Revolution (which she calls “The French Revvie”) was really like. This link it to Part IV – subtitled “The Vengeance.” I used to warn that if we didn’t make some corrections – and quickly – we’d have another French Revolution. And, yet, when I saw it, I didn’t recognize it. Margaret did. No surprise that she is smarter than I am.
Yesterday, as I said, the radio opera was “Carmen” by Georges Bizet. Though Bizet was French (some of the most Spanish of Spanish music written in the 19th century was written by Frenchmen) evryone thinks “Spain” about Carmen, and it is set in Spain – but Carmen is a Roma. So are her two closest friends. So are pretty much all the smugglers Romani. That kind of hit me in the face when i realized that yesterday was Holocaust Remembreance Day – and theRomani were as much a target of the Nazis as the Jews. Trying to read up in the Roma quickly is a little like trying to collect syrup in your hand – a little sticks, but more slips out. They are the largest ethnic minority in Europe, but they also live all over the world. They have been called “gypsies,” but they are not from Egypt. They have been called “Bohemians,” but they are not from what is now Czechoslovakia. Neither are they from Romania, but originally from northwest India. They have endured slavery along with other forms of abuse. I’m linking to both Steve Schmidt’s Substack – it’s not new material, but a collection of links to his earlier writings on antisemitism – and to The Conversation, to an article which addresses some of the ways in which the Jews and the Roms were linked by the Nazis (I needed a hanky. But it’s all very well to mourn the lost – it doesn’t do too much to prevent it ever happening again.)
Heather Cox Richardson’s Friday night letter did quite a decent job of summarizing highlight from the week, including a couple I hadn’t heard. If you have time, I recommend it.
Over the weekend, someone on DU shared the information that under New York law, you can appeal a civil suit, but if you do, you must first deposit the full judgment plus a small percentage with the court. I don’t know whether the legislators were thinking of interest, or court costs, or justice delayed – possibly all three. But if Trump** is going to appeal the most recent judgment, he will have to deposit $99 million with the court.
Yesterday, I didn’t have to prepare for today’s opera – it’s “Carmen” by George Bizet. I’ve heard it a lot of times and seen it several times as well. For one production, I played second violin in the pit orchestra. All the string parts are extremely difficult, mostly because Bizet liked to run very fast scales starting in the basses and running all the way up to the first violins umpteenth position, and then back down again just as fast. I did my best (which wasn’t very good). But even then, I can’t say it was a bad production. There may not be such a thing as a really bad production of Carmen. And today’s radio cast is outstanding. Now, next week will be another story.
This certainly doesn’t surprise me. We have simply got to stop believing everything a Republican presents as fact. They just make things up.
I know there are many Democrats who think that, like Manchin, Jon Tester (D-MT) is useless other than for keeping our Senate majority (which is oretty thin.) I would invite all of those Dems to read at least parts of this article about two Republicans, one of whom will be in the Senate if Tester loses his reelection bid. Sheehy is the crazier of the two, but Rosendale is close behind.
By now everyone will have heard this, because it is, to quote the article’s headline, “a big non-fracking deal.” And it certainly took climate experts by surprise. Bill McKibben said, “[I]f it’s true, and I think it is, this is the biggest thing a U.S. president has ever done to stand up to the fossil fuel industry.”
Trinette was over today and helped me get a bunch of trach and recyclables out for pickup – more recyclaeles athan trash really, and they pick up trash twice as often as they do recyclables. Always wonderful to see her.
