Open Thread May 1, 2024

 Posted by at 6:21 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 012024
 

On Monday, Steve Schmidt’s two related articles got me thinking about the church during my lifetime, in which time there have been 7 popes: Pius XII, John XXIII (the one under whom I became a Catholic), Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and now Francis. Of them, only two IMO were any good: John and Francis (I think John Paul I might have been, but he only lived 30 days after election, so it’s not easy to tell.) “Catholic” is Greek for “universal” or, as we now say, “big tent,” and the bigger the tent, the more likely there will be rogues in it. That’s just a fact. But that’s one of the things the papacy is for – to correct the rogues. Not as was done for so long, by burning them alive, but through counseling. And if that doesn’t work – well, that’s what excomminication is for. Not every Catholic agrees with me on that, and that’s fine – a big tent is supposed to be big. It’s just how I feel, and it may be because I’m more aware of the dangers of – shall we say, allowing poisonous serpents around the house. And stories like this one – well, I’m sure y’all can see where I’m coming from.

Steve Schmidt is pissed, and so am I.  He posted two articles on this, one with more background, the other with more details on this assault.  Grrrr.

I can only hope this “Founders Sing” video (NSFW) about Don Snorleone (AKA the Nodfather) will alleviate some of the sting from the first article.

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Open Thread April 14, 2024

 Posted by at 5:54 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 142024
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Die Fledermaus” by Johann Strauss Jr (“The Waltz King”). This and “The Merry Widow” bY Lehar are the only two operettas I can think of which are sometimes done by regular opera companies. Both can be described as “zany.” Of course so can Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas – and, really, most operettas of the period. People have always enjoyed far-fetched humor. “Fledermaus” means “Bat,” and the premise is that, a year before the operetta, the lead tenor and the baritone went to a an event together, something between a party, a costume ball, and an orgy, and both got drunk. The baritone, who dressed as a bat, passed out, and the tenor (dressed as a butterfly) left him in a public park to sober up, and he woke to crowds pointing and laughing. This year, he wants revenge – and he gets it. And everyone except the tenor gets amusement and laughs at the tenors expense. When I was working as a volunteer costumer for my local college’s music department (before I got hired and paid by the theatre department), this was one of the shows I dressed. That was even longer ago than when the recording was made which they used yesterday to celebrate the operetta’s 150th anniversary (it premiered in April, 1876.) Also, I heard from Pat, who said her doctor’s apointment went well, and she is greatly relieved.

This is neither political, medical, financial, or helpful in any other way. It’s just interesting in that it reveals issues in the way we think about time (and probably other things as well.)

Many sources are discussing the decision by the Arizona Supreme Court that an abortion law from 1864 can stand. Much of the coverage includes lurid detail about the life and actions of the author of the law, which may be interesting, but really isn’t germane to the merits (and demerits, which outnumber the merits) of the law itself. This (gift-linked) article from the Washington Post doesn’t go there, instead concentrating on the effect of the ruling on the 2024 general election, both statewide and nationwide, and the reactions of Arizonans both in and out of politics.

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Open Thread April 7, 2024

 Posted by at 6:04 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 072024
 

Yesterday, The radio opera was Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore” (“The love Potion”) and I’m afraid I slept through half of it. My alarm went off and I decided not to get up. I’m not a big Pavarotti fan, and while there were other major stars of the time, including one with whom I shared a violin teacher (not of course at the same time – decades apart actually) I just wasn’t inspired to get up then. I did get up in time fpre the second act (there are only two). One of the four main characters is a “snake oil salesman” and i see enough of that in real life.

Heather Cox Richardson is an historian, not an economist – but you don’t really need to be an economist to know that “supply-side” economics does not work. You just need to be over 40 and not blind. The Biden/Sanders video she speaks of is the second with Biden’s name on it in the list of Xitter videos below her list of links. Iy’s supposed to have sound, and it definitely has CC.

April, in the South, is Confederate Heritage Month. The Southrern Poverty Law Center find that less than acceptable. So they are pushing for a celebreation of good things in southern history to replace it – or at least alleviate the bad taste of it.

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Open Thread April 5, 2024

 Posted by at 6:26 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 052024
 

Yesterday must have been an interesting day. I reveived four separate Axios alerts before 1:30 pm. The first was about Democrats putting pressue on Mike Johnson over foreign aid, particularly Ukraine (sure glad to hear that.) The second was that the judge on the Georgia cas rejected Trump’s “First Amendment” challenge to the gag order – also good. The third – and this is huge – No Labels is dropping out of the Presidential race. and the final one was to announce that Aileen (“Loose”) Cannon has again dismissed a Trump** motion to dismiss his case.Four good new breaking alerts in one day is, to put it mildly, rare.

I knew that this was a Civil Rights song. I did not know it was written specifically for the Little Rock Nine. I’m glad to have learned.

I mentioned in a comment that the person who spilled the beans on Kyle Rittenhouse was the defense lawyer at his trial. This story has the details. I think he’s upset that he was taken in and wants to ensure as best he can that no one else is.

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Open Thread April 2, 2024

 Posted by at 5:58 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 022024
 

Yesterday, it literally took me more than four hors to payy just one medical bill with a credit card. A big part of that was that the bill showed a single figure which I had to go through 11 MSNs (formerly EOBs) where i found more than 10 line items for this particular service, not all of which were from this provider, and the only way I could find out which were was by trial and error adding p combinations until I foundthe combination that matched the bill. That took about three hours. Then I spent 15-20 minutes making a PDF of just the claims which applied to this provider,because it would have taken even longer to do it later, and w=even paying by credit card on line I willl eventually have to provide documentation to my HRA. The outher hpur was spent fighting with the provider’s billing agency’s website. I wasn’t expecting that, and after spending all that time just putting the information tpgether, I was not in a good mood to begin with. And then I had to get back to my email inbox, which was pretty well stuffed.

This is a “Missouri leads the way” story, which I can now put up because Nameless’s computers (yes, that’s plural – everything was down) are fixed. It’s not the Missouri government, of course – it’s individual Democrats working together to unsure there is a Democrat in every race.

This is a very moving story about an extraordinary person, who has a warning for all of us.

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Open Thread March 31, 2024

 Posted by at 6:04 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 312024
 

Yesterday, the opera was not an opera, but Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem Mass. It is dramatic certainly (the Dies Irae alone takes 40 minutes to perform, and the whole mass is only an hour and a half), and Verdi was criticized for makng it “too dramatic,” but if you can’t be dramatic about death, what can you be dramatic about?

Three Substack writers this weekend posted articles which are profound, too much so to ignore any of them. Joyce Vance writes about Treump**’s latest threat of violence. Robert Hubbell writes about the real purpose of government, including quoting Lucian Truscott on the subject. And Heather Cox Richardson writes abot Russian disinformation, and how it it Russia’s strongest weapon against Ukraine, and also against us insofar as it affects our electoral process. I hate to be grim on what should be a joyous holiday – but unfortunately we can’t afford to ignore reality.

Senator Ron Wyden (the other Democratic Senator from Oregon) is asking questions which need to be asked – and answered – and that very publicly.

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Open Thread March 24, 2024

 Posted by at 5:58 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 242024
 

Yesterday, Trinette came by. She came straight from the hairdresser, and looked great (not the she doesn’t always.) She took out my recyclables, and, because I have now cleared as space from old boxes which is large nough to work with, vacuumed that space.once I move another piece of furniture (a table) partly into that stace, iI’ll gain access to some other areas which need to be cleared out. And I did listen to the opera, which was Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette.” You’ve probably heard part of it – for years (and for all I know, maybe still) there couldn’t be a Miss America pageany without some young soprano singing it. I don’t dislike the opera, but I’m also not passionate about it. I hear it as elevator music. Pleasant to listen to, but not memorable. The people in the Met audience had a much higher opinion – the applause was deafening. I’m glad of that. All the major-[art singers are nice people, did a great job, and deserve credit.

Apparently I am not the last living American who doesn’t hate Merrick Garland. Joyce Vance doesn’t either. And, being a lawter, including a former DOJ prosecutor, she has some words. (For another view, here’s a gift link)

Public schools (and public prisons) are the most obvious examples of how privatization hurts everyone (except the owners of the businesses which bleed government. ITPI (In The Public Interest) is the watchdog group which monitors abuses of privatization (not that every example isn’t an abuse.) Their newsletters are often long and in fine print, difficult to read (because there is so much privatization.) This example is so egregious that they limited this newsletter to it alone.

 

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Open Thread March 17, 2024

 Posted by at 6:27 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 172024
 

Yesterday, I did listen to Turandot after all. Of course it was lovely – but I was also fascinated to observe that the Met’s announcer as well as the steeped-in-opera expert who seerves as her sidekick (you know that opera which the listeners voted on a few weeks ago? Well, he was at that performance when it happened. And was an adult at the time) both pronounced the name of the opera “Turandot” but the singers pronounced it “Turandough.” I believe “Turandough is more technically correct, based on a letter Puccini wrote suggesting that pronunciation, but I do like the sound of “Turandot” better myself. Not that it really matters. Oh, the conductor was the first Ukrainian, and therefore also the first Ukrainian woman, to conduct at the Met. Aside from that, I basically just laid out (in tiny bottles) my meds for the next two weeks. Boring, but it has to be done.

I am not deliberately seeking for Women’s History month stories which are also Black History – I just keep running into them, and they’re good ones.

Heaven knows I cannot generally recommend the New York Times for journalism, but this appears to have some valuable information. Hopefully you won’t be negatively affected by all the eye-blinking in the caricatures.

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