Yesterday, the radio opera was Wagner’s “Die Walküre”. Since the German article “Die” can be either feminine singular or all-gender plural, it may be confusing whether he meant just one or all nine, but I have it on good authority he meant just one, and that one is Brünnhilde. She is the kind of fighter we want all our elected Democrats to be – which just occurred to me. Wotan is only concerned with getting back the Ring, and even his own children (which she, Siegmund, and Sieglinde all are) are just pawns to him in getting that done. Brünnhilde, ordered to make sure Siegmund loses his duel with Hunding, is instead so impressed by his devotion to Sieglinde that she changes her mind and instead attempts to make sure he wins. She fails at that, but then determines to save Sieglinde and with her Siegmund’s just-conceived child, and at that she succeeds. Of course she is punished by Wotan, who turns her from a goddess into a mortal woman, but she has no regrets for doing what she believed to be the right thing. The morality, or lack of it, all through the Ring cycle is, to say the least, weird. But at least in Wagner’s mythical world, NO ONE – not even the gods – is above the LAW. In his pursuit of the Ring Wotan tries to take a step that is outside the law, Fricka reads him the riot act, and he MUST back down. I searched for synopses just to check my memory, and found that some are highly inaccurate – not so much in the action but in the motivations and back story (The one at The Met website is accurate). It certainly is thought provoking. Also yesterday, The Conversation’s newsletter included the quip “AI is CliffsNotes on crack.” I couldn’t agree more.
I would not normally call this good news, but I do think it’s a good (maybe great) response to ignorant racists and it did make me smile and even chuckle.
This is good news. There’s not a paywall if you allow ads. As an alumna, I was wondering when Stanford would get in on this. It does sound like “The Stanford Daily”‘s long reputation for sass is still deserved.
I have mixed feelings about this – as much pleasure as I have gotten from Zoos in my life, I also really think wild animals should be allowed to be wild. On the other hand, I don’t want any species to go extinct, and zoos, if they are well run, can help to prevent extinction. And then there’s the additional fact that babies are adorable.
In case anyone doesn’t recognize, or doesn’t remember “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” …
