Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, September 22, 2024
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30 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter and/or
BlueSky.
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Via Balloon Juice, first comment this morning, Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Ozark Hillbilly, Irreplaceable Inspiration.
https://outsidethebeltway.com/saturdays-forum-212/#comment-2961519 Follow up to my yesterday’s posting on a high school band being denied participation in the 2025 Super Bowl:
‘This is nuts’: Mayor intervenes after HISD forbids band’s Sugar Bowl trip
Sanity prevails.
Cards Against Humanity sues Elon Musk’s SpaceX over alleged damage to land near U.S.-Mexico border
@Scott: Elon makes it a habit to ignore all laws and shit all over anyone anywhere. He leaves a trail of pollution and filth behind like a slimy slug. He should be in jail.
No wonder trump lusts for him.
Melania is now peddling Christmas ornaments! Only $75 to $90 apiece!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/who-gives-a-f-about-christmas-melania-trump-does-now?ref=home?ref=home
Well, I won’t back down, no I won’t back down you can stand me up at. . . Okay, I’ll back down.
And there’s also this:
Elon backing down, and Hollywood walking away.
Yesterday’s Gone
Autumn Equinox September 22, 2024 7:44am cdt
space.com
(This is also the first time that I have seen the narrow EDIT window.)
@becca:
Vance maybe on to something with his talk of de-naturalization. Harris/Walz should pick up that idea when the enter the WH and make the musk rat the first and only one to be sent packing. Send him back to South Africa.
@Sleeping Dog:
Don’t forget this nation’s worst immigrant: Rupert Murdoch.
@Sleeping Dog: Absolutely! Nothing says “respect for the ‘rule of law’ and even handed justice” than taking the opponent’s cynical and publicly-criticized stance and using it against a political enemy.
@Michael Reynolds: Or two.
The AP has a piece out about how scant GOP door to door efforts are in swing states. If Trump manages to lose this race, despite the obvious tilt towards the GOP in the electoral college, it’s going to be because of stupidity like stripping out the party’s GOTV capabilities by putting his clueless daughter in law in charge.
@Jen:
A good opportunity to remind people that GOTV doesn’t show up in polls. And if folks here have a few spare bucks, go on ActBlue and send some to state Democratic parties in swing states. Chuck Schumer just threw a bunch of money to the candidates, so they’re fine on ad buys. At this point GOTV is the thing.
Music history for the weekend: The creation and evolution of Pictures at an Exhibition.
Democrats are making Project 2025 a centerpiece of their campaigning. A Republican might object that Trump has disowned 2025, so why is it a legit issue? Ezra Klein (gift link) has an excellent answer at NYT.
@Kathy:
When I was in high school (class of 1966) one of the courses that was required for graduation was The Arts. I remember first hearing this composition in my sophomore and junior years as the music came through the walls of classrooms adjacent to the mini auditorium where The Arts was taught. I finally sat for the class in my senior year. I know we covered other works that semester however Pictures at an Exhibition is the only one that has stuck with me all these years.
Trump told Sharyl Attkison today that he doesn’t see himself running in 2028 if he loses this November.
Who knows what that means?
Picking up on yesterday’s discussion about fusion power, last year I saw LLNL Director Kim Budil at an event where she spoke extensively about LLNL’s “fusion ignition” – it was very impressive.
If I remember correcly, the process required for ignition involved generating significantly more power than the entire U.S. electrical grid generates for a fraction of a second.
So, the challenge of fusion power is not trivial, but we have crossed a major threshold. Lots of money and sustained effort will be required to continue to move forward.
@Kathy: Years ago, I saw a multimedia presentation of Pictures with what purported to be* the pictures in question. I came to the same conclusion as the presenter in your YouTube; the compositions are far greater than the sum of the pictures they represent. (I will also note that The Great Gate of Kiev is the only really lasting section of his suite and that the orchestrations are more significant than the original piano suite. There are lots of things pianos can’t do justice to; Pictures is one of those things**.)
*”Purported” because I have no idea at all about whether the pictures were actually preserved.
** On the other hand, Scott Joplin rags are almost always better than orchestrations of them.
@Michael Reynolds:
Tom Petty song ref for the win!
@CSK: [Waving hand furiously] I DO! I DO!! PICK ME!!! PICK ME!!!!
IT MEANS NOTHING. Nothing at all!
“… Mike Lindell is facing backlash online after his company marked down some of its pillows to $14.88, a figure seen as symbolic for white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Gosh and golly gee willikers. Ya think?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I agree the composition is several grades above the paintings. However, it was a tribute to a dear friend, whom Mussorgsky liked as an artist as well. Too subjective, IMO.
Here’s a piano version in the slower tempo. Here’s one in the original faster tempo Comparing just the first promenade in the opening of both, the slow piano tempo, IMO, gives the part an ethereal quality.
Now, the orchestra version in the Ravel orchestration, in contrast, feel portentous. As if the music indicates something great and remarkable is about to happen.
Really, its like three very different pieces, even if the notes are the same.
@JohnSF:
If a Portuguese-speaking, B-tier power can make him cave, Elon’s just made himself every government’s bitch.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
It could mean that he’s acknowledging that he could lose this time. And thus be a…loser.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: it means Trump does not love America. If he will give up if he loses a second time… there’s no commitment there.
@Kathy: The most significant thing that I learned in 20-some years of performing music of various types was that interpretation wasn’t the most important thing, it really is the only thing.
@Michael Reynolds:
Girl from Ipanenaba beats Elon Muskdela.
Seriously, the tech-bros never seem to calculate: f@ck the the money: who has the guns?
The other side of the equations is ALSO true, but in the longer term.
Which is why sensible aristocrats aim for a sensible guns/money/equity balance.
And hence why European aristocratic and mercantile dynasty’s generally continue to live quite comfortably: because they are not, on the whole, idiots.
There seems to be a current tendency of American “alt right” silliness to think that their current socio/political security is somehow ordained of the heavens, rather than being a contingent outcome of Western history.
@CSK: @Gustopher: Okay. If you say so.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Let’s assume, for a moment, that the $14.88 price was an honest mistake. Do you know what would have prevented such an issue?
A diverse workforce where people are empowered to raise issues.
(Walmart runs into this because $X.88 is one of their common prices, for rollback items. Also, the heirs of Sam Walton are all Nazis)
If you’re reading this post, you’d be interested in the very excellent podcast Master Plan. It details the history and execution of the Powell Memo, the blueprint for today’s reality of corporate capture of courts and life in general.
Powell, elected to USSC somehow with the reputation as a “centrist” even though he was initially the lead defense attorney for Philip Morris in their little case, had a problem. According to this wingnut, The Government was at that point [1971] “too responsive” to the needs of its citizens. We should be so lucky.
The story goes that Powell saw Ralph Nader’s picture on Forbes magazine at one point, got mad that anyone anywhere was doing a thing to benefit people rather than his precious corporations, and basically wrote the country’s first 30-page Reddit thread/manifesto by hand. And today we live in a utopia because all corporations are beneficent, so problem solved!