Politics Plus

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Rigoletto” by Verdi. It’s pretty well known, and I’ve written about it here before. Din I mention it’s based on a play by Victor Hugo? I know I’ve mentioned many operas are based on his works. (In the late 19th-early 20th century it was David Belasco. But Puccini, though he set a couple of Belasco’s, did’t so much look at the author – he’d go to see plays in languages he didn’t know, and if he could follow the plot anyway, he’d consider the property. That’s one reason why his operas were immediate classics – it was a very effective way to choose properties which had deep and broad appeal.) “Rigoletto” was the second operea of which I ever owned a complete recording, and yes, that was on vinyl, and yes, I still have it.I didn’t buy it – it was a parting gift from the enlisted Marines whose boss I was at my forst duty station, and I’ll never forget their kindness – particularly the kin=dness of the corporal who volunteered to find out what opera I wouls like without letting on that was why he wanted to know. He was just about the last person I would have suspected of that, and his patinence at my rambling – it must have been a real challenge for his wife, also a corporal in the office, not to break out in giggles. Today, I’ll be seeing Virgil. Of course I will pass on all greetings to him, and will post a comment here when I get back.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

Robert Reich – When will the GOP reach the anti-Trump tipping point?
Quote – When will the GOP finally reach its anti-Trump tipping point — when a majority of Republican lawmakers disavow him? Again and again, it looks like the tipping point is near but the GOP remains under Trump’s thumb…. [per Mitt Romney: “He’s got such a strong base of, I don’t know, 30% or 40 % of the Republican voters, or maybe more, it’s going to be hard to knock him off as our nominee.”
Click through for his thoughts – I’m pretty sure he (and therefore Mitt) are right. And that brain-dead base doesn’t care about anything that actually matters. This trading card fiasco may chip away at the base, but I’m not holding my breath for a major reversal.

Left Jabs – SCOTUS is Developing a Taste for Chaos
Quote – State-v.-state lawsuits are already starting to fly, and the legal positions are already being hardened. Interstate cooperation — a crucial component of daily life — is already fraught, and could at any time turn ugly. It’s almost as if chaos were the point. The six “conservative” justices — they’re conserving very little these days — are pushing everything in the direction of chaos. Whatever the democratic institution they’re invited to tear down, they seem willing to go there. Like they’re remaking the legal system in the image of Ginni Thomas.
Click through for full opinion. TomCat called the Court “SCROTUS” (R for Republican, and pun intended) since Roberts became Chirf Justice – And now it’s far beyond that. I’m not expecting the outcome of this particular case to be quite as bad as “Left Jabs” thinks, but I can’t think it will be good either.

Psyche – Heartbreak is more than a metaphor. Are you at risk?
Quote – But how much medical truth is there to ‘heartbreak’? This was a not a question that was taken particularly seriously – not until an unusual syndrome began appearing in Japanese hospitals in the 1990s. In X-rays, doctors saw the hearts of traumatised patients changing shape. They resembled takotsubo, the small clay pots used in Japan to catch octopus. The story of Takotsubo syndrome, and how it got its name, is the story of how heartbreak became more than a metaphor.
Click through for details. There is plenty of ancedotal evidence, through the centuries, for this. But the imaging results – showin two clearly different ways the hear can actually reshape itself under stress and/or grief – not to mention the preavalence of each differing by gender and age – that’s amazing.

Food For Thought