Glenn Kirschner – The Biden campaign opens a Truth Social account – @BidenHQ – and OUTPACES Trump’s campaign account!
The Lincoln Project – Rick Reacts: Biden’s Strength In Crisis [zero punches pulled]
Armageddon Update – Israel Attacked…AGAIN!
Parody Project – Tom Dooley Parody about Judge Thomas – HANG UP YOUR ROBE (SPEAK TRULY)
Couples Takes Home Pregnant Stray Cat Living At A Car Rental Shop In Costa Rica
Beau – Let’s talk about what fiction can teach us about politics…
Glenn Kirschner – Judge Chutkan imposes gag order on Donald Trump in DC case to protect witnesses and others.
The Lincoln Project – The Choice is Clear
Thom Hartmann – This Army Aims to Stop Americans From Voting
Patrick Fitzgerald – Jackson (Johnny Cash Song Parody ft Donald Trump, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith) [The song on which this parody is based, which was a hit for Johnny Cash and June Carter, was not a love song but a marital duel. It was loosely based on “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.” If you llook up the lyrics, or watch a Cash/Carter video of “Jackson” you may find this even funnier)]
Guy Shows his Rescue Pittie the Wonders of Fall for the Very First Time
Beau – Let’s talk about much ado about $6 billion….
Yesterday, the radio opera was one of the ones which have me so excited – “Assassinio nella cattedrale” by Ildebrando Pizzetti. That means “Murder in the Cathedral,” and it is based on the T. S. Eliot play. So, though I didn’t even know it existed, I knew it could not have been written before 1935. In fact, it debuted in March 1958., at La Scala in Milan. The premier was recorded, as was a live radio broadcast in December of the same yesr. (I was 12 in March and 13 in December of that year. I had seen my first live opera – whe I was 8 – but I was definitely not tuned in to the international opera landscape then. I think I would have liked it. I certainly did yesterday.) The bass who sang Becket said {I’m paraphrasing) that if there was one word for what he wanted his character to conve y it would be “sincere.” I think he did that. Basses have it rough in opera when it comes to juicy parts, but this definitely is one. With luck, perhaps a bass with star clout will come along and make a case for doing it at the Met. Hey, I can dream. Certainly I’m not the only person who was excited about this production. The materials made available included 174 pictures. So I can tell you from photographic evidence that it was fully staged in a church (The Chicago Temple, to be precise) with gorgeous stained glass windows. Also, my new keyboard came. It has the Logitech layout, wich is what I am used to (with a few tiny differences) and is so fancy I had to go to support online to figure out how to set it up. It’s working now, I typed this sentence on it, but I am running late now.
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New York Magazine/Intelligencer – A Left That Refuses to Condemn Mass Murder Is Doomed
Quote – And no small number of supposed leftists found in all this cause for celebration. Others, meanwhile, loudly refused to condemn Hamas’s atrocities, insisting it was not their place to decry the “military strategy” or “violent resistance” of oppressed Palestinians. In my view, these responses constitute a betrayal of the left’s most fundamental values. Either one upholds the equal worth of all human lives, opposes war crimes, and despises far-right ethno-nationalist political projects or one doesn’t. What’s more, cheering (or publicly announcing your refusal to condemn) the murder of children isn’t just morally grotesque but also politically self-defeating.
Click through for argument (I doubt anyome here will disagree.) Other publications tend to be more generous with their archives than the latest news – New York mag does it the opposite way – this article is free “for a limited time.” So I “printed” it (by which I mean I converted it to a pdf file which I can easily email if anyone gets here too late for the free time. I almost never print on paper any more.) Possibly sounding like a broken record, I do think it’s a mistake to talk of this in terms of left and right. Left and right represent economic theories. This is a matter of authoritarian as opposed to egalitarian (yes, after a couple of hours with multiple thesauruses I finally came up with what I believe is the best word to use unstead of “Libertarian,” which has been poisoned by the so-called Libertarian party.) It’s natural to assume that leftism goes with egalitarianism because both require at least some compassion, and because with an economic theory with the principle that everyone should have enough money, it’s reasonable to pair that with the idea that everyone should have enough power. And vice versa. But human beings are not always consistent, and the author here is addressing leftist authoritarians.
Wonkette (on Substack) – What If Crowdfunding Is *Not* A Great Healthcare System?
Quote – Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton is very sick and in the hospital with what is being referred to as “a rare form of pneumonia.” That’s very sad, as is the fact that she does not have health insurance and thus cannot afford her stay in the ICU. They started a crowdfund for her, which has since blown past its $50,000 goal all the way to over $375,000. This included one $50,000 donation from Linda McIngvale, wife of Gallery Furniture magnate Jim McIngvale…. Now, when I first heard that Retton didn’t have health insurance and her family was raising money on GoFundMe to pay for her medical treatment, I immediately assumed it was some kind of very tragic Erin Moran/Brett Butler situation and that despite her former fame, she couldn’t even afford health insurance…. “How very American!” thought I, until I looked into it and saw that she is, in fact, likely still very rich, lives in a very fancy 9,000 square foot mansion, and very likely just kind of chose not to have health insurance.
Click through for article. I think we all know that crowdfunding does not a great healthcare system make – particularly when the crowdfunding is abused, which I am not saying this is, but it would be hard not to notice that it looks like it. I think we also all know that a Democratic supermajority in both the House and the Senate would be needed to effectively put in a health care ayatem which would be great.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – DA Willis says Jim Jordan is “abusing” his authority & “obstructing” her RICO prosecution of Trump
The Lincoln Project – Good Night America – very soft, and no CC, so here’s transcript:
Mom: Hey, honey –
Child: what, mommy?
M: You asked me to wake you up to tell you the results of the election
C: Who won?
M: Trump. Trump won.
C: You said he could only be President two times.
M: (Whisper) Not any more
Mob chanting: I can’t make it out. It sounds to me like M-R-U or N-R-U but I can’t make sense of that.
Ring of Fire – Furious Sean Hannity Delivers Most Ironic Rant Ever On Fox News
Patrick Fitzgerald – The Longest Time (Donald Trump / Billy Joel Song Parody)
Bunny Thumps At Mom When He’s Mad
Beau – Let’s talk about an update and what we know….
Yesterday, I saw Virgil (who returns all greetings, spoken and unspoken.) We played Scrabble, getting very liberal, even multilingual, especially the last game. But it’s all in fun. After I got home and posted my safe note, I was listening to tha radio and heard something I certainly never dreaned it was possible, and I’m not 100% positive how it was done. I heard four snare drum rolls (2 sets of 2) played by a classical guitarist, on the classical guitar. It was in an orchestral piece, transcribed for guitar, which starts with a little fanfare of two drum roll and then repeats it later. It was a piece I’m familiar with, so though they didn’t sound exactly like drum rolls, I recognized immediately what they were meant for. No transcription ever sounds exactly like the orchestral piece anyway, so I thought they were pretty darned good. My best guess is that he knocked or slapped the guitar through the open strings – but that’s quite a feat , since the parts of the strings that are directly over the sound box of the guitar are mostly over the sound hole.
I apologize for not making a graphic for Indigenoua People’s Day. The reason was that – there are so many tribes – all over the Americas – and every single one of them has rich cultural traditions and images – and every single tribe also survived over 2000 years by living sustainably. Even just in my corner of the United States there are multiple tribes with multiple traditions. And I didn’t want to leave anyone out, nor did I want to fall back on stereotypes, many of which are not even respectful. So I’ll just wish you a happy indigenous people’s day and leave it at that.
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TeenVogue – The Supreme Court Must Protect Domestic Violence Survivors By Overturning the Rahimi Decision
Quote – When I was a young girl living in South Carolina, my mother, Patricia Ann, was shot and killed by an abusive dating partner. He murdered her in front of my three younger sisters — who were 10, 11, and 12 at the time — with an sawed-off shotgun. He was a convicted felon who should never have had access to the firearm he used to take our mother away from us forever. My sisters and I are grown now, but we still feel her absence every single day…. The Fifth Circuit’s decision in Rahimi is putting domestic violence survivors living in the Fifth Circuit in danger right now. I know firsthand that this is not an abstract exercise. If the decision is not reversed, domestic violence survivors face the prospect that their abusers can arm themselves immediately. This ruling is a potential death sentence for countless women and families.
Click through for article. If you had the idea that TeenVogue was a shallow, ditsy publication all about clothes, makeup, and maybe a little sex, hold that thought – for when you are around MAGAts. For the sake of democracy, never let them find out how woke it is. It is stepping in where schools and scared parents fear to tread – has actually been doing so for some time.
Colorado Public Radio – Colorado’s Black history — and future — go on display in a new unlikely center of Black culture: Boulder
Quote – [A] new exhibit at the Museum of Boulder, called “Proclaiming Colorado’s Black History,” gives the community and the state another chance to reflect on the past, celebrate the accomplishments of those who have persevered, and create joy for the future. The exhibit opened Sept. 29, and the museum plans to have it on display for two years. It comes shortly after a documentary released in 2022 called “This Is [Not] Who We Are,” which explores “the gap between Boulder’s progressive self-image and the lived experiences of its Black citizens,” and the opening of the university’s new Center for African and African-American Studies, which is meant in part to help build community…. Adrian Miller, the lead curator of the new Museum of Boulder exhibit… is conscious of the specific cultural moment when this exhibit is opening, three years after massive protests for racial justice, and amidst a celebration of Black culture in Boulder centered around the football coach.
Click through for story and some pictures. CPR calls Boulder “unlikely” on the basis that Boulder is like 90% white and only 1% black. But the thing is, the main University of Colorado is there. And one of the things Republicans hate about education, especially higher education, is that academics tend not to shy away from research, from finding out truth, and then from sharing that truth. My only issue with this being in Boulder is hoping that fact doesn’t turn out to limit access.
Food For Thought
Yesterday, the radio opera was “Jephtha,” by George Frideric Handel. (If you want to use the German form, that’s Georg Friedrich Händel, and the King quite possibly did, since I don’t believe he learned English, but everyone else used the English form.) Jephtha is an oratorio based on the Bible, and it was presented as one in this live recording from September 2022 by Music of the Baroque. It’s one of those old Dude-in-dire-straits offers to sacrifice the first living thing he encounters if divinity will save him, and that turns out to be his child – in this case, his daughter. Scholars differ in this case as to whether the sacrifice involved death or instead a lifetime commitment to serve the temple. There is some evidence for either. Handel went with the service one, complete with an angel to command Jephtha to resolve it that way, which isn’t in Jodges, but does recall the Genesis story of Abraham and Isaac. It’s late Handel, likely the last thing he wrote, and his compositional skills were just fine, as was his hearing, but his eyesight was going, and he had to stop writing when he could no longer see the page. I don’t know how anyone who didn’t know that could deduce it, though. The music is definitely accomplished, beautiful, and baroque.
If I wait for all the other juicy Beau videos to be posted before posting this one from yesterday, it will be too late. It might not even get seen. So here’s a link to the video on events in the Middle East from the dude some of his viewers are starting to call “Beaustradamus.” Off to see Virgil now – will comment later.
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Robert Reich (Substack) – Capital vs. labor under Biden
Quote – Today, this struggle takes the form of giant corporations that have monopolized their markets and workers who are trying to organize labor unions. This is why you’re hearing so much about the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department going after Amazon and Google, respectively. (They’re also going after Ticketmaster and Live Nation, Kroger and Albertsons, and a wide range of other giant corporations and proposed mergers.) And why you’re also hearing so much about strikes — the UAW, writers and actors, nurses, workers at Kaiser Permanente, Starbucks baristas, and others. And about attempts to organize Amazon and other anti-union companies.
Click through (to Substack) for full article. Yes, you are hearing about Biden supporting labor. But you are getting it piecemeal rather than as an overarching theme, and you are not hearing about the basis of the struggle, nor about the meaning of the struggle. This is a good, solid look at all of that. You might even want to bookmark it.
Democratic Underground (sheshe2) – Joe Biden: According to a new book
Quote – According to a new book by Franklin Foer, Joe Biden isn’t just the president of the United States, he is the West’s father figure, whom foreign leaders call for advice and look to for assurance. Foer writes: “It was his calming presence and his strategic clarity that helped lead the alliance to such an aggressive stance, which stymied authoritarianism on its front lines. He was a man for his age.”
Click through for DU article. Ordinarily I wouldn’t run just a book review, or if I did I would at least cite the original source for the review. But I don’t have and haven’t seen the book, and the original source is Xitter, and I just thought the DU article had good news.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Trump files frivolous motions to dismiss his criminal cases; divulges nuclear secrets at Mar-a-Lago
The Lincoln Project – Biden Warns about MAGA
PoliticsGirl – One of these things is not like the other…
Founders Sing – We Are Cowardly (CC in lower left)
Rescued Kitten Becomes One Of The Girls
Beau – Let’s talk about Newsom’s pick for Senate….
Glenn Kirschner – FINALLY a judge – NY Judge Arthur Engoron – has GAGGED Trump to STOP his dangerous speech and posts
The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party October 3, 2023
Joe Biden – The Difference | Biden-Harris 2024
Parody Project – Capitol Hill
Cat Carries Around Baby Potatoes In His Mouth
Beau – Let’s talk about the shutdown deal, McCarthy, math, and milk….