May 282023
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was (finally!) “Champion” by Terence BLanchard. It’s based on the life of Emile Griffith, a closeted black welterweight boxer whose career began in the late 1950s and went off the rails (though it dontinued, and for a while with a stream of victories before becoming a string of losses) after an opponent who had outed him and whom he defeated with series of 17 blows went into a coma and died. The story has all the elements of tragedy except that he didn’t die young but lived into old age and dementia, which may be an even greater tragedy. Dying is easy – living is hard. (Living is also harder to write about, which may explain why so few creators have chosen to deal with it.) Blanchard chose to address it head on by splitting Emile’s role into three parts – in order of appearance, the old man, played by Eric Owens; the young man, played by Ryan Speedo Green; and even Emile as a child (Ethan Joseph.) Anyone who has ever had any regrets for anything (and what decent person hasn’t?) will appreciate the mechanism of the two adult Emiles having duets. It does feel like that. Not really on topic, but having kind of followed Green’s career and backstory, I’m aware he has mommy issues – and so did Emile, having been abandoned (along with six siblings) by her and raised by a fundamentalist cousin. Also interesting that when cast, he went out and studied boxing and did bodybuilding to be “worthy of the role.” And that Blanchard himself revised and added to the opera because he wanted it to be “worthy of the Met.” I wish I could tell them both that it’s sweet that they did that, but that they ARE WORTHY. Period. Except that that is something one really can’t tell anyone else. Everyone has to find it for themself.  And that – is kindof the essential meaning of the opera. Also yesterday, the Texas House of Repuresentatives voted to impeach texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Under Texas law, he must now step down while he is tried in the Texas Senate.  And one more thing – the White House and the GOP have reached a “tentative” deal on the debt ceiling.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – PIGS FLY: SCOTUS Rules In Favor Of The Little Guys In Tax Sale
Quote – The Supreme Court [Thursday] gave a 94-year-old Minneapolis woman a chance to recoup some money after the county kept the entire $40,000 when it sold her condominium over a much smaller unpaid tax bill…. A handful of states in addition to the District of Columbia allow local governments to keep the excess money, according to the Pacific Legal Foundation, a not-for-profit public interest law firm that represented Tyler at the Supreme Court.
Click through for details – Not that $25,000 will go that far, assuming she sees any of it – but the decision id a good one, and those are becoming increasingly rare.

The Nib (Levi Hastings and Dorian Alexander) – Drag Balls of the Civil War
Quote – The Civil War has always been romanticized as a tragic narrative of conflicting American idealism. It doesn’t matter if you’re a yankee or a rebel though, queerness has never been considered an American ideal. Naturally, that doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist…
Click through for graphic article (perfectly SFW). I have a couple more graphic articles which I want to get in – I now need to try a bit harder since The Nib is folding in August, and I don’t know how long they’ll be available.

Food For Thought

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May 252023
 

For this Glenn video, I pushed a Talking Feds forward a day, so the one on venues will be Friday.

Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump’s lawyers send ABSURD letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland

MSNBC – How Biden gave McCarthy a ‘victory’ on the debt limit — while giving away absolutely nothing

Parody Project – Still Jail-Free After All These Years

Marjorie Taylor Greene demands “decorum” — and hilarity ensues

Dalmatian Rescues An Abandoned Puppy In The Middle Of Nowhere

Beau – Let’s talk about Biden warming to the 14th Amendment….

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May 232023
 

Talking Feds (while Glenn is on vacation – he has some fillers but not to cover every day) – Novel Legal Theory TESTED in New Lawsuit to Counter Extremism

Farron Balanced – Giuliani Hit With Lawsuit From Man He Falsely Claimed Assaulted Him

Robert Reich – Haven’t We Learned?

Parody Project Strangers on the Right

Guy Is The Best Friend A Squirrel Could Have

Beau – Let’s talk about Democratic messaging issues….

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May 212023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Interview w/comedian Buddy Winston (part 2): writing for Jay Leno & appearing on … Bill O’Reilly?

The Lincoln Project – Brand Unsafe

Robert Reich – The First Step to Fixing the Electoral College

Parody Project – The Normalization Song

Mama Dog Who Lost Her Puppies Was Heartbroken Until She Got Kittens

Beau – Let’s talk about the Durham report….

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May 192023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Justice Matters public service announcement; Interview series – Using Humor in the Fight for Justice

The Lincoln Project – How Many Lies

MSNBC – We don’t have a choice’: Sen. Markey on expanding Supreme Court to 13 seats

Rocky Mountain Mike – Drag Ron (Parody of “Rag Doll” by The Four Seasons)

Growling Baby Foxes Turn Into Sleepy Puppies On Their Rescuer’s Lap

Beau – Let’s talk about Missouri and a failed power play….

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May 172023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Georgia DA Willis files 22-page smackdown of Trump’s motion to quash/throw out grand jury report

The Lincoln Project – Wrongump

Thom Hartmann – Hate or Fascism: Which Came First? History Of Fascist Hate Revealed

Randy Rainbow – Welcome to DeSantis!

This Baby Goat Is Smaller Than A Cat

Beau – Let’s talk about the SCOTUS shadow docket case that could make waves….

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May 162023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Republican billionaire & Clarence Thomas’s bestie Harlan Crow says he won’t provide info to Senate

MSNBC – Fred Guttenberg on gun control: ‘stop listening to the liars’

Ring of Fire – DeSantis Hit With Lawsuit Over Bogus ‘Election Fraud’ Arrests

Parody Project – Should Old Offenses Be Forgot?

Rescue Kitten Begs To Go To Sleep So She Can Snuggle Her Dad In The Morning

Beau – Let’s talk about a Tuberville quote and readiness….

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May 142023
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “Aïda.” It was commissioned by the Egyptian government of the time to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal. IIRC, it was a bit on the late side, but it was a hit anyway (which suggests that Egyptians of the day didn’t know their history much more accurately than we know ours today.) I got to thinking about how tastes can change over time. A hundred years ago, Gounod’s “Faust” was so popular, and therefore performed so often, that one critic nicknamed the Met “Das Faustspielhaus” – a pun on Wagner’s “Festspielhaus” at Bayreuth (a story in its own right). Both Aïda and Boheme existed (1874 and 1895 respectively), but they weren’t all that popular. Fifty years ago, the three most performed operas at the Met were Aïda, Boheme, and Carmen, in that order. The ABCs of opera. Today, Boheme is the most performed, followed by Aïda, and there may not be a clear third. This is not a bad thing. If tastes didn’t change, new operas would not have a chance of success. But I digress. Aïda is a love trianglein which all three apexes are doomed. Aïda is a POW from the last war between Egypt and Ethiopia, and has been given to Amneris, the Pharaoh’s daughter as a slave. Both are (secretly) in love with Radames, a general in the Egyptian army. Egypt receives intelligence that Ethiopia is planning to attack them, and decides to hit Ethiopia back first.Radames is chosen to command the attack. Egypt wins and Radames brings home prisoners, including Aïda’s father. There is a huge triumphal scene, notorious for the number and variety of animals on stage, inclidng a march which is so famous and so often played on its own that you have probably heard it. The Pharaoh rewards Radames for his success by giving him Amneris’s hand in marriage (not exactly what he was hoping for.) Radames and Aïda consider running away to escape this fate, but her father shows up at their meeting place before Radames does, and puts the screws to her to get Radames to tell her the Egyptian battle plan. Unwillingly, she does so, and at that moment Amneris and the High Priest show up and condemn Radames as a traitor. There’s an off stage trial, Radames does not defend himself and is condemned to be locked into a tomb (and asphyxiated.) Aïda sneaks into the tomb first and they die together while Amneris prays for peace for her soul. Aïda’s music in the final scene is written in such a way that musicologists have suggested it demonstrates she has been waiting for him in the tomb long enough to already be noticeably low on oxygen, and I think they are on to something. Totally unrelated: I bombed the Conversation’s quiz this week – only 4 correct out of eight. Told you I couldn’t keep it up. 🙂

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Short Takes –

The Brighter Side – Breakthrough antibody kills all known variants of SARS-CoV-2
Quote – Researchers from Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital have made a significant breakthrough with the development of a new antibody. This antibody, during laboratory examinations, effectively neutralized all presently recognized variants of SARS-CoV-2, which includes all known variants of Omicron.
Click through for some medical detail. However, this is not a journal, so it’s pretty well simplified.

Crooks & Liars – Shocker: NYT Headline Admits Biden Didn’t Do Anything Wrong
Quote – And in a rare turn of events, the NY Times ran this story with a completely unambiguous headline: “House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden.” Man bites dog! It’s a low bar, but I’ll take it.
Click through for a bit more. This is good news, but it’s still sad when an accurate headline is itself newsworthy for its accuracy alone.

Food For Thought

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