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, the radio opera was “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X” by Anthony Davis. Most of us probably remember Malcolm X, if not in great detail. The important parts of his life were not published at the tiem, and after his death mostly in books, which fewer people read than read newspapers or the equivalent. At that time there were some real journalists, and I can’t help wondering what they would have come up with for public consumption at the time if only black people had been considered to have any importance. I don’t expect we’ll ever know. There was, as Lona predicted, a choke-up moment – according to the opera Malcolm’s last words were “As-Salamu Alaikum” – peace be upon you – and then the gunfire. Those who were closest to him at the time don’t agree, but the variants they remember, although in English, are actually pretty close. Musically – well, I’ve said for years the man can write music, and I stand by that. I was reminded a little of Lin Manuel Miranda discussing how he determined in what style to write all the Hamilton characters’ music – partly by their ages. “X” covers several decades, and Davis nods to that specifically in the jazz styles. In a different way, it struck me that three operas I have heard which were writtin by black composers about black people have all included a boy soprano to play the protagonist as a child. I don’t recall any other opera depicting that, and I have to wonder why not.
Also yesterday, I saw Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letter from an American” from Friday, since it came, as always, late in the day. I got a feeling of deja vu, and quickly realized it was because it was the same information Beau provided in the video in February 3’s Open Thread – except that Heather’s letter was in National-Security-speak whereas Beau’s was in Beau-speak. Still, it was cool to revisit the same story in different words.
I subscribe to newsletters from both the Atlanta Black Star and The Root – not just for Black History Month, but all the time, because it helps keep me on track with the perspective. For some reason, every time I attempt to load a full article at The Root, the screen goes white after a short time (I know, I know, past time for an upgrade. But it will have to wait until I am ready.) It’s long enough for me to get inough detail to search for the story elsewhere, and this time it was long enough to tell me that MSN had reprinted the story – for which I was most grateful. It helps to clarify the difference between money and votes. Yes, they go together, sort of – but they are not each other, and the one is not necessarily a predictor of the other. And the one will not win elections. But the other one will. Jaime Harrison is a rising star in the Democratic Party, and I believe his opinions are worth a listen. And I deeply believe we need to show more love than we are currently showing to black Democrats. Especially now, going into an election which we cannot win without them.
Yesterday,it was pretty quiet again, though there was a grocery delivery. I may be getting the hang of how to ask for help getting them in the house, or I may just have been lucky in who was assigned, but either way, it went smoothly.
VoteVets is up in arms, almost literally (quite literally if you can count words and images as weapons of war.) Yes, the link I’m providing is to a donation page, but at least at this page you can watch it without YouTube ads popping up. If you’re not aware of the kerfuffle from MAGA after they released their previous ad, this one may make you furious.
I don’t know how well I’ll be able to keep up with black history this month, but I don’t think I could have passed this up in any month. It’s good, very good, to see the “backbone of the party” receiving some the recognition which it so richly deserves.
Yesterday, the weather was less spicy – at least here. We are expecting a day or two witn some snow, but starting Saturday, it could easily be back to sunny with highs in the fifties.
Wonkette ran a guest article today, written by another substack person, Marcie Jones. I’m not going to say something like “you won’t believe it,” because, if you are paying attention, there really shouldn’t be anything you wouldn’t believe about Republicans, and especially MAGA gun-toting book-burning Republicans (Oops, i left out hard-drinking).
You all have probably seen this story … I thought that Law and Crime might actually be asking some of the right questions, though it doesn’t look much like it. It doesn’t actually take long for a video to get 5,000 views – especially if viewers are mass-forwarding the link and everyone is watching it at the same time. At least Pennsylvania has a clue what actually constitutes “Abuse of a Corpse,” as opposed to Ohio (no insult intended to Democratic Ohians who do know very well.) Young Justin had better be grateful that no state or country today still uses the Imperial Roman punshment for the crime of patricide. It was epic.
Taxes are probably the least of our worries just now – but I did think this cartoon made its point.
Yesterday, I slept late, wnt to bed early-ish, and accomplished very little in between. I can’t say I feel bad about it – it was clearly needed – but I was finding it difficult to describe it. I guess this is as good as anything. Now, tomorrow – on the 31st – I will load all the contining logos and images that we use. I was in no shape to do it on December 31, but on January 31st, I’ll have no need to stay up late to do it. And I won’t have as many as I did a year ago either.
While this is good news, it is also too little, too late. Between the systemically excluding black jurors (from the jury pool – they never made it to voir dire) to the truly outrageous use of a blind man as an eyewitness, this case should have been laughed out of court before it started.
Another gift from my cousin. The Post calls this an opinion piece – but I see very little opinion accompanied by a lot of history and Constitution (which might actually be a good rule for opinion pieces in general, mightn’t it.)
