Open Thread October 2 2024

 Posted by at 4:58 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 022024
 

Could have sworn I posted this  before now – guess I didn’t.

Yesterday was International Coffee Day. Generally when Virgil calls me he has a cup of coffee in his other hand. So when he called, I wished him a happy International Coffee Day – and guess what, he had a glass of milk in hand instead. Irony lives. Also, I received a grocery deliviery, which was late, so I was late starting the debate. I observed that at least one mod was doing minimal fact checking. But I was so repelled, I couldn’t stand it and quit early. I’m not worried you won’t find out what happened, since it will be all over the net the second it is over. In any case, Walz is absolutely transparent and Vance shoots off his mouth so much, that the 19th was able to put this together before either one stepped on “stage.”

I get so accustomed to simply remembering that everything that comes out of a Republican mouth is a lie that I tend to forget how painful, how damaging, and mostly how misleading they are. Heather Cox Richardson reminds me why I shouldn’t do that.

And a little parody from our friends in Australia that we didn’t know we had (We knew we had Lona – but she doesn’t know “The Juice.”)

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Open Thread October 1 2024

 Posted by at 6:04 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 012024
 

Yesterday, a radio program dedicated to American composers featured Robert Russell Bennett. If you think you have never heard again, let me tell you what I have been calling him for almost 50 years now: “the man who wrote Rodgers and Hammerstein.” Seriously, hammerstein wrote the words, which is not a trivial thing, and rodgers wrote the melodies, also not a trivial thing. But bennett did all the prchestrations – yhe harmonies, the non-verbal countermelodies, the instrumentation – wrote out all the parts – and to do that, you must also know how to transpose some parts, because some instruments play in different keys from others. it ain’t easy – and it’s also not all mechanical. To do it, you must be a real musician. And he also found time to compose original works. (There is also a Richard Rodney Bennett, who is no relation – he’s a Brit -who has composed a whole bunch of movie and TV scores and been knighted for them. I have to keep pinching myself to remember they are not related, the names and their talents being so similar.) Does all this qualify as a “Now you know the rest of the story”?

Mary Trump’s morning dispatch addresses CBS’s decision not to fact check on TV in real time. If I am reading her correctly (and if she is reading them correctly) they will fact check in real time in their live blog in social media. But it seems pretty cowardly of them to fear being yelled at by Trump** – even to fear a lawsuit from him which would surely fail. I wanted y’all to know this in advance in order for you to find a more principled source (in fact, I bumped another of her articles to Thursday to make room for this one. And, if you already learned it elsewhere and have prepared, she also includes a meaty section on how finland teaches its citizens to discern propaganda.)  Also, I should say I plan on watching the debate tonight, but am not looking forward to it.

Rasmussen Reports used to have a halfway decent reputation. They were known to have a mild Republican bias, but only about 1.5 point. But then Nate Silver stopped using them, which says something – and now, I guess, they’ve lost any reputation they ever had.

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Open Thread September 15 2024

 Posted by at 6:05 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 152024
 

Yesterday,as I mentioned, the opera was a double bill of “Highway 1 USA” by William Geant Still and “The Dwarf” by Alexander Zelinsky. The former is a sad (though it ends well) story of a married couple who have already sacrificed much to send the husband’s younger brother through college, to fulfill the promise he made to his dying mother. The kid has grown up to be a narcissist. He attempts to seduce the wife without success, and in a rage stabs her (not fatally, but everyone thinks so for a while, because she loses consciousness). And then it gets interesting. The younger brother will no longer be in their household. “The Dwarf” also includes a failed seduction attempt and it apparently is semi-autographical = Zemlinsky was one of the “Practically all the top creative talent in central Europe” (to quote Tom Lehrer) who fell in love with Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel. She did not return his feelings and must have been pretty blunt. The literary basis for the libretto was “The Birthday of the Infanta” by Oscar Wilde, who must have been thinking of the painting “Las Meninas” by Velasquez, because all the characters from it are in the opera.

The trial of the man who shot up the King Soopers in Boulder, CO is bring put all kinds of stories of how people react in situations like that. It will probably not surprise you that many, maybe most, are very unlike the police force of Uvalde, TX.

I’m not 100% sure that cruelty is the point is this behavior, but I am 100% sure that Republicans don’t give a flying continental whether it is cruel or not – as long as it riles up the base and wins elections. If it stops winning electins, they might change their tactics – or they might not. But it it doesn’t stop winning electins, they’ll only whip it harder. I do know this has been discussed here, but I also feel the Wonkette take is worthy.

Belle shutdown

Cat

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Open Thread September 14 2024

 Posted by at 5:45 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 142024
 

The night before last, a wild hair got me strted clearing ut one of my desk drawers. This lead to my starting yesterday clearing off my desk. I actually made a lot of progress, but it was time consuming. And I also made enough time to look up the one of today’s double bill of short radio operas which is by William Grant Still (it should be very intense.) BTW the other opera on the double bill is “The Dwarf” by Alexander Zemlinsky, also from the 20th century. Anyway, I hope you’ll be kind to any typos today. Oh, I almos00t forgot to say, I did bake a another batch of oatmeal raisin cookies and they came out remarkably well. Thank you, Nameless for the tip.

Also, yesterday being Friday, Robert Reich‘s new series got another entry – which he is calling #2 and #2-1/2/

This is a long article about the Tina Peters case. It’s an interview with the DA who tried the case, and the interviewer asked a lot of very good questions which might not have occurred to most people and elicited some answers that were not exactly obvious. If you don’t have time for ir, that’s fine. The people who really should be reading it are mostly election workers, whether elected or appointed.

Yes, It does need to be noted. Thanks, Lincoln Project, and particularly Trygve Olson for pointing it out.

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Open Thread September 13 2024

 Posted by at 6:13 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 132024
 

Yesterday, I came across a just-under-six-minute presentation by Anonymous on Christian nationalism – in the Christian nationalists’ own words. It’s pretty awful. But it should get as wide exposure as possible so that as many people as possible become aware of the real stakes in this election. All those people who are thinking about the economy, or womens’ rights, or anything else, don’t get it. Sure, all those things are important. but Trump**II would destroy all of them and far more.

Well, this is encouraging, and what really makes it so is the fact that the author at the source holds focus groups with swing voters.

They are telling the same lies about Aurora, Colorado –  but if Aurora has a four-generation journalist resident, he or she has not yet spoken up in the way that David Dewitt of the Ohio Capital Journal has. It’s highly personal and it is touching in a way thay MAGA Republicans can never hope to be (not that they would want to), and here it is.

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Open Thread June 12 2024

 Posted by at 6:05 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 122024
 

Yesterday, Trinette’s son Zach was by to “mow the grass” (a very charitable euphemism for “mow thw weeds. And I did reach the exterminator, who confirmed they are coming in the late afternoon tomorrow. So that’s all good. Also, as I’m sure youall know, Hunter Biden was convicted of a gun felony. And then too, in case anyone cares, I looked up the no paywall link to the Rolling Stone article which captures the Alitos’ real political ideas. It’s here. And one last thing – the Theater of War production scheduled for 6 pm Eastern today was featured on PBS News Hour over the weekend and the segment can be streamed here if anyone is interested. I’m sure they aren’t finished with this project.

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls this geoup “The greatest threat to democracy you’ve never heard of.” The HuffPost Fringe shares the information.

I do hope TFG (Can also stand for That Felon Guy) doesn’t actually try this. However, as Virgil’s mother used to say, “Xit in one habd and hope in the other and see which gets filled first.

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Open Thread June 6 2024

 Posted by at 5:52 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 062024
 

Yesterday, Wonkette’s newsletter provided a gift link to a New York Times opinion piece, written by Michelle Goldberg (not by some right-wing lackey), whichdoesn’t contain anything we hadn’t figured out, but says it well and clearly. And the gift link makes it easier to share if you’d like to (don’t cut it – the stuff after the question mark is needed to validate that it’s a gift.) Also, Andy Borowitz “interviews” the new President of Mexico, who has thoughts on the U.S.

Well, this is interesting. It’s hard to be sure what it means at this point, other that Republicans are so good at creating “plausible deniability” that they have gotten bad at using it, trying to make it work all the time. Denying everything is admitting everything.

Well, this is really interesting. Like puppetmaster, like puppet, I guess. Now, before anyone says “Money is the root of all evil,” let me point out it is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil (or as Chaucer quoted in the Canterbury Tales, “Radix malorum est cupiditas.”)


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Open Thread May 23 2024

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 232024
 

Yesterday, I observed that Donald Trump** is now claiming that Biden ordered him assassinated, specifically on the day of the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Magats are, frankly, to evil to eben be able to imagine a person who just wouldn’t do that, so perhaps we should counter with something like “Democrats get things done. If Joe wanted him assassinated, he’d have been assassinated. He wasn’t. End of story.” Also, among the petitions I signed was one for Thomas and Alito to recude from the Trump** immnity case. Actually, I’d rather leave those to on and have the three he nominated recuse.Knocking out those two still leaves it 4-3, and the best hope we have is for Roberts to do the right thing. But if we knock out Gorsuch, Javanaugh and Barrett, it’s now 3-3. Unless Roberts does the right thing, there’s an unbreakable tie.

I’m going to word my hanky alert differently on this by quoting Shakespeare’s Mark Antony: “If youhave tears, prepare to shed them now.” Yes, I’m preaching to the choir. But sharing it couldn’t hurt.

Just as I’m highly in favor of the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact, because I don’t see any possibility to amend the Constitution without the nation being able to see that the popular vote works, I also don’t see equirable tax reform happening unless people can see it works. That’s why I;m posting this,and enci=ourage sharing it as widely as possible.

And here is yet another article which desperately needs to be widely shared. I’ll try to help on this one with the”Food for Thought” cartoon below.

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