Politics Plus

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Idomeneo,” an early piece by Mozart, based on the trans-cultural legend of the person away from home, in peril of their life, who vows to sacrifice the first living thing they see when they get home if they can only get there alive. Of course, the first living thing they see is their son (or, if they’re Hebrew, their daughter – cf. Jephthah.) Idomeneus was the king of Crete who went to fight at the Trojan War. That war took ten years from start to finish, and both sides pretty much stayed at Troy the full time, though there were things that happened elsewhere (e.g. Philoctetes), and there were some refugees. One of the characters is Elettra, a jealous (and somewhat nationalistic) princess who is a refugee from Argos and who falls in love with Idomeneus’s son Idamante, who is already in love with Ilia, a Trojan princess who is a POW. So Idomeneus has quite a kettle of serpents to untangle. At the end, Neptune relents – Idomeneus must give up the throne to Idamante with Ilia as his queen, but may live. Only Elettra is left out in the cold, but she has been driving people nuts with her jealousy, so no one much cares. The opera was a great favorite of Pavarotti (if the opera you wrote isn’t getting as many performances as you would like, if you can sell it to a diva or a divo who has the clout to talk an opera company into staging it, you will at the very least get a second chance. This is actually not a bad thing.) Today I’m off to see Virgil. Yes, I’ll pass on all your greetings and I’ll post a comment when I get back safely

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Letters from an American – April 20, 2023
Quote – There were a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated stories in the news that all seem to point to an important theme…. It hit me as I read through all this news that a key theme seems to be a new shift toward transparency and accountability. It jumps out at me that people are talking to lawyers and to the press about illegalities, irregularities, and, in the Sandy Hook case, horrors that in the past they have kept quiet. Whether it comes from disgust at the excesses of those who are attacking our democracy or from fear of the law, that transparency reminds me of the pivotal importance of McClure’s Magazine in the early twentieth century.
Click through for full letter. From Heather’s keyboard to God’s smartphone! I haven’t seen anyone else make this connection, but I hope she is correct.

Colorado Public Radio – As Colorado considers upzoning, here’s a look at how it’s gone in other states and cities
Quote – Democrats’ controversial land use bill aims to rewrite what kind of housing gets built in many of Colorado’s fastest-growing communities. But while it’s a new idea for this state, Colorado wouldn’t be the first place in the country to embrace this approach. States like Oregon and cities like Minneapolis have adopted similar laws over the last five years, often in the name of enabling construction and driving down housing costs — the same goals shared by Colorado’s bill. In New York, officials upzoned more than a third of the city nearly 20 years ago, a change that sparked a big building boom.
Click through for what is actually several (short) related articles and links to more. I get it. People don’t want to lose the kinds of housing which have “always” existed. But single-family dwellings on fair-sized lots are not only pricey for those who live in them, but also wasteful of resources which will be more and more critical as climate change continues to evlove. Cutting down on land use for housing will not solve all problems, but if it helps cut fossil fuel use, and also makes more land available for farming and wilderness, it can’t hurt.

Food For Thought