Open Thread July 30, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:02 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 302023

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Li zite ‘ngalera” by Leonardo Vinci, neither of which/whom I had ever heard of (Of course I know who Leonardo da Vinci is, but this is an 18th century namealike.) It is a comedy; the title translates to “The Newlyweds;” the libretto is in the Neapolitan dialect (Neapolitan composers as a group are credited with re-shaping operas in the direction of the form we recognize from the 19th and early 20th centuries.) The plot is easily described: Carlo leaves his fiancee Belluccia for greener pastures; she follows him disguised as a man; she ends up cutting him out with his new flame and s couple of other girls and he ends up back with her. But “easily described” is not the same thing as simple. I can see, and you likely can too, all kinds of complications, not even including the one that Belluccia’s father is furious with Carlo, and she has to save his life from her Dad. It premiered in 1722. Handel had left Italy (where he studied Italian opera) in 1710 for the court of Prince George of Hanover (later George I of England), but since he wrote a good number of Italian and Italian-style operas in England and was very successful until “The Beggars’ Opera” hit one out of the park (causing Handel to switch to oratorios), it’s not impossible that he knew it. I didn’t hear any influence on Handel in the music, but I did hear the beginnings of the recitativo-aria pattern which was standard by the time of Mozart. (I also heard some “gender-bending” which was pretty standard in opera at the time. Carlo sung by a woman may have been an attempt to replace a castrato role, but that would not explain the presence of a female character sung by a tenor.) The production is from La Scala from this year.

Since Pat B is away for the weekend on a family outing, I am going to slip in a couple of TJIs which I would ordinarily have sent her.
TJI #1 – (A response to DeSaster’s word salad while being questioned about his travesties of education policy) DeSantis was trying to wrap himself in the Cloak of Invisibility but instead slipped on the Hoodie of Absurdity. – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
TJI #2 – Justice Alito secured his place in history as the Court’s cranky old man yelling at Americans to “get off my lawn!” – Robert Hubbell

Off to visit Virgil – will post when I return as always.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

AP News – Biden openly acknowledges 7th grandchild, the daughter of son Hunter and an Arkansas woman
Quote – “Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” Biden said in a statement. It was his first acknowledgement of the child. This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter,” he said. “Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy.”… The president, who has made a commitment to family central to his public persona, has faced increasing criticism from political rivals and pundits for failing to acknowledge the granddaughter. According to a person familiar with the matter, he was taking the cue from his son while the legal proceedings played out. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters.
Click through for story. I could have told you that Joe would do this just as soon as Hunter taking responsibility for his actions got to the point it has now reached. And not a moment sooner. (And I can also tell you with no additional evidence but with complete moral certainty that he is incredibly relieved that the time has come. Joe’s primary motivator is love – it’s that simple.)

Letters from an American – July 28, 2023
Quote – On Wednesday, soldiers of the presidential guard overthrew Niger’s democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, and replaced him with a military general, Abdourahmane Tchiani…. Niger is a key player in the struggle to establish democracy in Africa, and Bazoum’s overthrow is part of that larger story. Niger is a landlocked country about twice the size of Texas in the center of the Sahel region in Africa, a dry grassland region that crosses the continent from the Atlantic to the Red Sea…. That region has also been plagued by violent Islamic groups, and strongmen promising to restore order have launched successful coups in the countries of Mali and Burkina Faso, which are Niger’s neighbors. (When Vice President Kamala Harris went to Ghana in March, her visit was partly to shore up democracy in that country, which is on the edge of the Sahel region and under pressure from militants in Sahel countries.)
Click through for details. Reuters had this story and so did MSNBC, though not in the headlines. I didn’t see it anywhere else, though I didn’t look everywhere, and of course, Heather has all the history. I find this scary on a level with Trump**.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 7/26/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:00 pm Open Thread, Politics

Jul 262023

Trying to get a little ahead in anticipation of next month’s recap
Talking Feds – Alabama Republicans OPENLY DEFY Supreme Court [I would agree that “that’s the legal term.”]

The Lincoln Project – VP Harris’ Speech on Revisionist History in FL

Michigan AG Dana Nessel Charges 16 ‘False Electors’ with Election Law and Forgery Felonies

Brent Terhune – Jason Aldean Stands Up For Small Towns (In case you haven’t heard about this controversy, click here or here for starters)

Cat Who Has To Wear Sunglasses Loves Getting Attention – BAGEL

Beau – Let’s talk about a NJ commutation and Trump….

Video Thread 7/25/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:01 pm Open Thread, Politics

Jul 252023

Glenn Kirschner – Has Mark Meadows flipped on Donald Trump? Here’s an important new data point

The Lincoln Project – They Would Be Ashamed of Him

Thom Hartmann – Russia Behind FAKE Hunter Biden Laptop Story? Shocking Revelations Revealed! [File under No s***, Sherlock]

Dog Obsessed With Water Goes to Waterpark (He’s a “yellow labmarine.”)

The Never Again Trump Song [parody of “Harrigan” by George M. Coham]

Beau – Let’s talk about Tupac….

Everyday Erinyes #380

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 1:59 pm Politics

Jul 232023

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

Ameican History has probably never been taught as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in our K-12 schools – it certainly has not been done in my lifetime, and I was in K-12 in a fairly rational time and in a fairly rational community (as college towns tend to be.) But no one alive today has ever seen such a travesty of American history as is being taught today in Florida. That is ironic, as you will see in this article; it was South Carolina and specifically Charleston which was in the “slaves” corner of the triangle trade. And some of the slaves received in Charleston escaped, or attempted to escape, to Florida, which then belonged to Spain. But now it is in Charleston where the Internatinal African-American Museum has been founded, one of its goals being to set the record straight.
==============================================================

International African American Museum in Charleston, S.C., pays new respect to the enslaved Africans who landed on its docks

One of the exhibits of notable Black people on display at International African American Museum.
courtesy of v2com/International African American Museum

Bernard Powers, College of Charleston

Before Congress ended the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, the Port of Charleston was the nation’s epicenter of human trafficking.

Almost half of the estimated 400,000 African people imported into what became the United States were brought to that Southern city, and a substantial number took their first steps on American soil at Gadsden’s Wharf on the Cooper River.

That location of once utter degradation is now the hallowed site of the International African American Museum. Pronounced “I Am” and opened in June 2023, the US$120 million project financed by state and local funds and private donations was 25 years in the making and is a memorial to not only those enslaved but also those whose lives as free Black Americans affected U.S. history and society through their fight for full citizenship rights.

As a historian and founding director of the College of Charleston’s Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, I served as the museum’s interim executive director and know firsthand how difficult the road has been to build a museum focused on African American history.

The museum’s mission is to honor the untold stories of the African American journey and, by virtue of its location and landscape design, pay reverence to the ground on which it sits.

America’s widespread historical illiteracy

Many Americans don’t know much about the nation or its history.

In the 2022 “Nation’s Report Card,” the National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed ongoing deficiencies in eighth grade students’ knowledge of U.S. history and civics.

Only 20% of test-takers scored proficient or above in civics, and, for American history, only 13% achieved proficiency.

The adult population shows similar deficits.

A 2018 Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation survey shockingly revealed only 36% of people who were born in the U.S. knew enough basic American history and government to pass the citizenship test.

And conservative political candidates are working to prevent current students from learning key information about the country’s founding and development by mischaracterizing the teaching of slavery and civil rights as critical race theory.

A small advertisement with large black letters gives the details on the sale of 25 Black people. — An advertisement details the auction sale of 25 enslaved Black people at Ryan’s Mart in Charleston, S.C., on Sept. 25, 1852.
Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images

Though critical race theory is typically taught in graduate and law schools, at least 36 states had banned or tried to ban lessons on Black history from public K-12 classrooms.

In this highly politicized environment, efforts to restrict how race can be discussed in public schools have led to widespread calls from parents and politicians for the censorship of certain books on race.

These new restrictions have had an impact on public education, according to the National Council for History Education.

A 2022 survey of teachers conducted by the Rand Corp. showed the restrictions “influenced their choice of curriculum materials or instructional practices,” as many “chose to or were directed to omit the use of certain materials” deemed “controversial or potentially offensive.”

South Carolinians’ overlooked national impact

One of the first things visitors see at the museum is an African Ancestors Memorial Garden, which includes a graphic stone relief depicting captive Africans during the Middle Passage.

But the museum is not just a memorial site of enslavement.

Exhibits show how the lives of Black people and their resistance to enslavement helped shape state, national and international affairs.

For example, South Carolina’s 1739 Stono Rebellion, in which fugitive slaves attempted to escape to Spanish Florida, precipitated conflict between Spain and Great Britain.

An image of a black man is shown near docks on a river. — An exhibit detailing African people’s migration around the Atlantic.
courtesy of v2com/International African American Museum

Many Americans know about white abolitionist John Brown’s 1859 attack against the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, which led to the Civil War.

But few know that Shields Green, a South Carolina fugitive slave, assisted in the planning and execution of the fateful attack.

Even fewer know of South Carolina’s role in the Civil Rights Movement.

Many know the name Rosa Parks, but it was Charleston’s educator and activist Septima Clark who inspired Parks and led the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern educational and voting rights initiatives.

In fact, King once called Clark “the mother of the movement” and considered her to be a “community teacher, an intuitive fighter for human rights and leader of her unlettered and disillusioned people.”

A monument to freedom

The museum’s educational goals are ambitious.

It is an interdisciplinary history museum, where educators plan to work with teachers and administrators around the world to make sure students in American schools – and everyone who lives in the U.S. today and in the future – learns about South Carolina’s significant role in U.S. history.

In my view, that collaboration will likely be challenging, given the efforts to sanitize the nation’s racial history and teachers’ apprehensions about teaching supposedly controversial subjects.

“This is a site of trauma,” Tonya Matthews, CEO and president of the museum, told CBS News. “But look who’s standing here now. That’s what makes it a site of joy, and triumph.”

Indeed, the International African American museum is, by design, a monument to freedom – and an honest engagement with America’s troubled racial past.

Bernard Powers, Professor of History Emeritus, College of Charleston

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

==============================================================
Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, literally the only way we can get even the smallest glimpse of the future is by looking at the (unvarnished) past in order to understand how this happening led to that happening, and so on. Anyone unable to do that will live in delusion. Disney may have built a “Fantasyland,” but DeSantis is the one who is actually living (and forcing Florida’s children to live) in a Fantasyland which is certain to eventually come crashing down around them. Anything you can do to help prevent that happening to the children will be most appreciated. I wouldn’t worry or bother about DeSantis. He’s old enough to know better. He’s welcome to FAFO.

The Furies and I will be back.

Open Thread July 4, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:02 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 042023

Yesterday, I seriously overslept – by choice – but it did cut into my working time. I’ve been having some issues with pain cutting into both my sleeo time but, even more to the point, into the amount of actual rest/recovery I get when I am asleep. I ran the TENS for extra time today, which has helped – I don’t suppose this will resolve the issue, so I’ll keep on it. On a brighter note, The New Yorker decided to run a group of 9 Name Drop quizzes together, all of them on literary figures (which helped up front), and I actually got all of them. Not spectadularly – five of the nine on the las clue and the rest somewhere between the socond and the fifth – but I’m still quite pleased about it. (I bombed the daily one, though.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Axios – Scoop: Hunter Biden’s lawyer roasts IRS whistleblowers in message to GOP chair
Quote – Why it matters: The White House has been struggling to answer questions about the IRS agent transcripts over the past week, but Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell is now taking the lead in fighting back against the Republican-led committee. The letter comes after Chair Jason Smith last week released transcripts of interviews with two IRS agents who claimed that the investigation into Hunter Biden was improperly handled along with a purported WhatsApp message that showed Hunter leveraging his father to close a business deal.
Click through for article (and full 10-page letter). I’m glad they are pushing back – no that anything we say will get through to MAGAt cultists, but there are sane people out there who need to get exposed to facts.

Letters from an American – June 30, 2023
Quote – It turned out that limiting the Fourteenth Amendment to questions of race and letting states choose their voters cemented the power of a minority. The abandonment of federal protection for voting enabled white southerners to abandon democracy and set up a one-party state that kept Black and Brown Americans as well as white women subservient to white men. As in all one-party states, there was little oversight of corruption and no guarantee that laws would be enforced, leaving minorities and women at the mercy of a legal system that often looked the other way when white criminals committed rape and murder. Many Americans tut-tutted about lynching and the cordons around Black life, but industrialists insisted on keeping the federal government small because they wanted to make sure it could not regulate their businesses or tax them. They liked keeping power at the state level; state governments were far easier to dominate. Southerners understood that overlap: when a group of southern lawmakers in 1890 wrote a defense of the South’s refusal to let Black men vote, they “respectfully dedicated” the book to “the business men of the North.”
Click through for full letter (as always, click “Continue reading”). It’s an historian’s view of the SCOTUS’s recent prejudicial decisions in the context of out history.

Food For Thought

Open Thread June 24, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:15 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 242023

Yesterday, being Friday, was the day the Conversation published its weekly quiz (I got 6/8). One wrong answer had me literally laughing out loud, though. The question was “What do we call city regions, with few trees and lots of blacktop, that are prone to extreme heat disasters?” (The correct answer was “Urban heat islands.”) The wrong answer which cracked me up was “Fresno.”

Cartoon – 24 Roe 6-24 RTL

Short Takes –

Child Watch Column – Listening Again to Loving
Quote – Mr. Loving may not have known how the state would treat legal interracial marriages that had been performed elsewhere, but five weeks after their wedding they received a very literal rude awakening: acting on a “tip,” sheriff’s deputies surrounded their bed with flashlights at two in the morning demanding to know why they were there together. Their reply that they were husband and wife made no difference. The Lovings were arrested, and Mr. Loving was held in jail overnight while the pregnant Mrs. Loving was forced to stay for several days. Both were charged with violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act. Under a plea bargain, in order to avoid a year-long jail sentence they were forced to leave the state and were prohibited from returning together for 25 years. They settled in Washington, D.C., but missed the small town where they had spent their entire lives. These were the conditions that led the Lovings, inspired by the growing Civil Rights Movement, to reach out to Attorney General Robert Kennedy asking for change.
Click through for history. The Supreme Court could take us back to those days, with no recourse but a Constitutional Amendment or reframing the Court itself.

Colorado Public Radio – Jeffco joins Pride month with special marriage certificates
Quote – Every June, many of Colorado’s biggest cities host huge Pride parades, parties and drag shows to celebrate the LGBTQ community. Now some county clerks are joining the party. The new Jefferson county clerk, Democrat Amanda Gonzalez, has created a distinctive rainbow seal for people who want the specialty marriage certificate. “Equality and inclusion is really important in my office,” she said. “And being potentially the first queer clerk here, it’s especially important to me to protect the right for everybody to marry who you love no matter who you are.”
Click through for details. What a difference between this take and the previous one. (JeffCo is in the SW quadrant of the Denver Metro area.)

The Daily Beast – ‘Good for Nobody’: The Biden Cabinet Pick Who Can’t Even Get a Vote
Quote – “I can’t predict what other people will do,” [Sen. Tim] Kaine [(D-VA)] continued. “But I do know this: Keeping it just hanging out there is good for nobody—not for the country, not for her.” At least three senators have refused to publicly say how they’ll vote: Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Joe Manchin (D-WV). With Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and dozens of GOP senators vocally opposing Su, GOP moderates like Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have stayed mum on their positions, making clear that Democratic votes will make or break the nomination.
Click through for article. I note that the three holdouts are the usual suspects. Manchin is not going to survive reelection with Jim Justice voting against him. Sinema is being opposed by Ruben Gallego. If Tester loses, it will be to a Republican. Not that they are all up at once – I don’t thnk they are – but it does point up how badly we need real Democratic Senators in other states if we want to be able to keep our democracy.

Food For Thought

Everyday Erinyes #374

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 3:12 pm Politics

Jun 112023

Heaven knows what is happening with Donald Trump** these days is truly unprecedented in the history of the U.S., and maybe in any country’s history. There are plenty of nations which have been betrayed and/or abused by their leaders; some have faced accountbility, others not so much. Donald can be happy (if he even knows how to be happy) that he is not Charles I of England, nor Louis XVI of France, nor Nicholas II of Russia. But one thing there is a precedent for is running for President against a former colleague (I put it that was because this story includes a matchup between a former President against the prsimptive nominee his former VP rather than the other way around.)
==============================================================

Mike Pence is jockeying against Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination – joining the ranks of just one vice president who, in 1800, also ran against a former boss

Former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence appear together in November 2020.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Shannon Bow O’Brien, The University of Texas at Austin

Former Vice President Mike Pence filed paperwork to declare his candidacy for president on June 5, 2023 – placing him in unusual ranks.

While 18 of the 49 former vice presidents have gone on to run for president, it’s rare for vice presidents to run against their former bosses. Six of these former vice presidents, including President Joe Biden, were ultimately elected president.

Pence, alongside other candidates, officially announced his bid on June 7.

Pence and former President Donald Trump have had a complicated relationship. Pence’s devout conservative evangelical Christianity was a crucial ingredient in helping carry Trump to victory in 2016.

But Trump blames Pence for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots and has said he is angry with him for certifying the 2020 election results. Pence remained trapped at the Capitol during the attack, which Trump did nothing to try to end.

There are only a few other times in American history that are vaguely similar to the unfolding battle over who will become the Republican presidential nominee. Both were extraordinarily bitter, and centuries later, their strife still makes historians and experts on the presidency – including myself – raise eyebrows.

A man with white hair looks to his side at a man with an open mouth and light white hair who is speaking. — Mike Pence, left, is the second vice president to run against his former boss for election.
Win McNamee/Getty Images

Name-calling in 1800

There is one other time in history when a vice president ran against the president he served with in office.

In the election of 1800, Vice President Thomas Jefferson challenged incumbent President John Adams. Adams had won the presidency in 1796, and Jefferson was runner-up, making him vice president. Until 1804, the person who came in first in a presidential election became commander in chief, while the person who brought in the second-most votes became vice president.

Jefferson, though, wanted the top job.

And so when Adams ran for reelection, Jefferson ran against him in one of the most notorious races in American history.

Jefferson’s allies called Adams “a hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”

An Adams ally with the pseudonym of Burleigh, meanwhile, offered an omen if Jefferson won the presidency: “Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced, the air will be rent with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes,” Burleigh wrote.

The two used proxies to level vicious personal attacks against one another in the press. But neither one gained the advantage. The election ended in an Electoral College tie. This set up what is sometimes known as the Revolution of 1800 – the very first time one group in political power peacefully ceded that power to another group, based on the results of an election.

Jefferson emerged victorious from the election.

A black and white photo shows a large room filled with people, in a stadium like setting. — A view of the Republican National Convention in June 1912, when William Howard Taft was nominated to serve on the ticket.
PhotoQuest/Getty Images

‘Dumber than a guinea pig’ in 1912

But there is another point in history that is similar to the Trump vs. Pence race that is about to get underway.

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency after the death of President William McKinley in 1901. Roosevelt was reelected in 1904 and decided to leave office in 1909, rather than seek another term.

Roosevelt endorsed William Howard Taft, his secretary of war, for president. And Taft won the race easily.

But Roosevelt grew unhappy with the Taft administration, as he felt it was not upholding his beliefs that the president should do what is necessary for the good of the country, as long as it is not explicitly forbidden by law.

In one instance, the Taft administration filed a lawsuit against U.S. Steel Corporation for violating antitrust laws that prevent unlawful mergers or other business practices.

Roosevelt went into a fury. Other factors were at play, but he had personally approved the steel company’s trust and viewed Taft’s actions as a personal attack against himself and his administration’s legacy.

Roosevelt challenged Taft for the Republican nomination and ran against him in 1912. The former president dusted off his bully pulpit and used his rhetorical knives to their maximum advantage against Taft.

In the spring of 1912, Roosevelt referred to Taft as a “fathead,” “puzzlewit” and “dumber than a guinea pig.”

Taft then used the term puzzlewit in a humorous, self-deprecating way to draw attention to what he felt were failures of Roosevelt. This included Roosevelt’s opposition to treaties with Great Britain and France.

Taft also said in a 1912 campaign speech in Ohio that, “I hold that the man is a demagogue and a flatterer who comes out and tells the people that they know it all. I hate a flatterer. I like a man to tell the truth straight out, and I hate to see a man try to honeyfuggle the people by telling them something he doesn’t believe.”

The 1912 Chicago Republican Convention, where the two faced off, was one of the most raucous in history. Taft and Roosevelt supporters even got into into fistfights.

The Republican Party leadership ultimately backed Taft. And Roosevelt, in dramatic fashion, removed his supporters from the convention after a speech, in which he declared, “… we stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord!”

Then, Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party and split Republicans, paving the way for Democrat Woodrow Wilson’s presidential win.

No other time exactly like it

Pence’s decision to run against Trump has no direct equivalent in American history.

This election cycle will break new ground and help establish future expected norms – in part because Trump is the only candidate to have run while facing a criminal indictment and multiple other ongoing investigations of potential criminal activity.

However, if the past is a prologue, the Republican primary season will likely have more in common with the Roosevelt and Taft match-up than others, at least in terms of direct insults and attacks upon leadership style – things Trump is known for doing.

Shannon Bow O’Brien, Associate Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

==============================================================
Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, We can all be grateful the winner-President-second-place-VP system did not last, and the Adams/Jefferson Presidency must have been a big reason why it didn’t. It would have been a lot like having Trump as President and Hillary as VP. Adams was not evil, but he was about as opposite Jefferson in his politics as two people can be (and to top it off, Jefferson had a crush on Abigail.)

I realize this is not exactly the hottest news today, and what is hot is the full indictment, which Jack Smith has suggested that literally everyone should read. It’s a speaking indictment, so it could be a lot harder to get through, and it is at the bottom of the page at this link.

The Furies and I will be back.

Open Thread June 11, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:05 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 112023

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Der Fliegende Holländer” (The Flying Dutchman”). This was the earliest of his operas to feature the theme of a man’s redemption through a woman’s love by means of her death. Yes, that’s totally nuts. But he wasn’t alone – literature, music and art all had influential practitioners in 19th century Europe who were obsessed with this idea. Most of his operas after this one riffed on the theme. Exceptios would be “Lohengrin” (he doesn’t need redeeming, and Elsa doesn’t die – maybe) and the Ring Cycle (unless Brynhilde’s immolation redeems Siegfried – but he’s already dead when that happens.) But I digress. In any case, the music of the Dutchman is impressive. It was written before he fine-tuned his “leitmotif” system but is already characterized by tone painting. A lot of music has been written by a lot of people purportedly depicting storms at sea, but Wagner’s in this opera is the one that convinces me. Senta is self-destructive and as dunb as a MAGAt, but at least she doesn’t take anyone else down with her, and her music convincingly depicts her obsession. And so on.

Also yesterday I received a petition from Move On titled “Convict Trump” I was shocked. I had to go to their website to send a message, but I thought it was necessary. Here’s what I said: “Have you lost your minds? No, I’m not going to sign a “convict Trump**” petition. Only a jury can convict Trump** (or anyone else), and they are not supposed to have any outside influence. Sending a jury a petition like this is jury tampering. Unless he makes a plea deal – that would result in a conviction – but do we really want that? Come back to me when you have a petition which is Constitutional. This one isn’t.”

Cartoon – 11 0611Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Colorado Public Radio – Sen. Michael Bennet wants to strengthen the watersheds that help protect clean drinking water
Quote – The bill reauthorizes the USFS’s Water Source Protection Program (WSPP), which helps fund projects that prevent pollution at the source, usually by restoring forest health and watersheds. It would increase funding for the program to $30 million per year for the next five years for work done in partnership with local communities, water utilities or agricultural producers. WSPP also tries to prioritize projects that focus on drinking water or improve resilience to wildfire or climate change.
Click through for story. I’m certainly aware of watersheds. But it never occurred to me what, besides lack of precipitation, might threaten them, nor of what could be done to keep them strong. D’oh! So i’m very glad to know that I have been voting for a Senator who does know.

The Conversation – Forts Cavazos, Barfoot and Liberty — new names for army bases honor new heroes and lasting values, instead of Confederates
Quote – The renamings so far have come off without controversy – and with no one seriously defending why the bases should continue honoring Confederates. As Trevor Noah said on “The Daily Show,” “Imagine being a Black soldier training at a base that is named after somebody who didn’t even think of you as a human being.” Celebrities popular with conservatives have praised the base redesignations, too. For example, Mel Gibson applauded renaming Fort Benning for Col. Moore, whose memoir was the basis for “We Were Soldiers,” a 2002 film starring Gibson.
Click through for details. How many people know more than one or two names of Hitler’s henchment? Honoring Confederate generals is not history – it’s just disgusting. And if even Mel Gibson – not just a conservative favorite but a – not terribly nice person – doesn’t mind, then really no one should.

The 19th – Could access to child care be the key to helping parents clear arrest warrants?
Quote – Cierra was among dozens of people who came out in early June for the so-called warrant clinic, one in a series of nationwide events that aims to address active warrants, usually those tied to outstanding traffic violations and misdemeanors. The periodic one-day events can be life-changing. People with lifted warrants can get back a driver’s license. They can apply for jobs. They can seek services that help with housing and food insecurity. They can also vote. “We are adding capacity to the justice system,” said Anza Becnel, the creator of the warrant clinics and the founder and executive director of Growing Real Alternatives Everywhere (GRAE), a nonprofit that helps organize the clinics. “We are adding capacity to things that we’ve identified that the community needs.”
Click through for more. If you didn’t realize this was a problem … you’re not alone … and you’re probably white.

Food For Thought

Older Entries Newer Entries