"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Monday, July 13, 2009
Will Sarah Palin Campaign For Blanche Lincoln And Joe Lieberman?
McCain says Palin's not a quitter and that she'll be a part of American politics for a long time to come, never mind all the missteps and idiocy. Frank Rich put it less positively: She broke the GOP and now she owns it. But my favorite picture of the Palin future in politics is how she plans to campaign for conservative ideals, not just for Republicans. The Washington Times says she could well campaign for the conservative Democrats as well.
When I woke up this morning-- 4AM when the roosters all over Ubud started crowing-- I found an e-mail from Jacquie that included a message from a right-wing extremist propaganda site she monitors. They were crowing about how the GOP is luring half a dozen Conservadems to help them destroy Obama's agenda for change.
The biggest threat to President Barack Obama's agenda on healthcare and climate change could come not from Republicans but from six centrist [rightists and their duplicitous allies in the media refer to ultra-conservative Democrats as "centrists as a way of attacking normal moderate Democrats and inferring that they are somehow "leftists"] Democrats in the Senate. GOP leaders have been reaching out to the half-dozen legislators, and any defections from the party line could cost Democrats the 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority they achieved in the Senate with Tuesday's swearing in of Al Franken."The Democratic Conference has 60 votes, if they're all here, and if they are straight party-line that means that Republicans cannot stop legislation," said Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona.But "if a couple of Democrats don't vote with their party, then it doesn't matter that they have 60 votes," Kyl noted.
The potential defectors include Sen. Ben Nelson, a pro-business Democrat from Nebraska; Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent Democrat from Connecticut; and Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, according to The Hill newspaper.
Lieberman has indicated he might vote against Obama's healthcare reform effort. Nelson has expressed opposition to the healthcare proposal and is against the cap-and-trade program to limit carbon emissions. Landrieu is expected to oppose both initiatives.The other three Democratic senators being wooed by the GOP are Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Bayh opposed the $410 billion omnibus spending bill and joined Nelson in voting against the budget. Lincoln and Pryor have both voiced concern over the Employee Free Choice Act, a top priority of labor unions that is supported by most Democrats, The Hill reported.
Pryor has said: “Liberal groups need to understand that we are not elected to represent the president. We’re elected to represent our states." Ron Bonjean, Kyl's former chief of staff, told The Hill: "Creating bipartisan coalitions on key issues is important to prevent Democrat legislative victories. Getting Democratic moderates is extremely important."
I would love to see if Palin has the intestinal fortitude to take on the Republican Party in any of these states to support even one of these right-wing Democrats. My guess is that she's all talk. Extremists, racist and youngish, fascistic hate mongers like Audra Shay admire her. But even Republican pundits are saying she's a worthless disaster on two legs.
"I can't tell you one thing she brought to the ticket," said Stuart K. Spencer, who has been advising GOP candidates for more than 40 years. "McCain wanted to shock and surprise people, and he did -- in a bad way."
..."People at the grass roots see a charismatic personality who is popular with other people at the grass roots. But their horizon only goes so far as people who think like them," said Mike Murphy. The veteran GOP ad man eviscerated Palin -- a "political train wreck," "an awful choice" for vice president, her resignation an "astonishing self-immolation" -- in a column published Thursday in the New York Daily News.
Non-Confederate Republicans have made it clear they don't want Palin coming to their districts to campaign for them. But I'd love to see her and Biden campaigning together for a shit-for-brains Democrat like Blanche Lincoln against whichever GOP sacrificial lamb the Repugs manage to dig up to run in Arkansas. And, speaking of Lincoln, please help Blue America end her disgraceful corrupt career in politics and warn other fake Democrats like her that people are paying attention.
Yesterday the Sunday talk shows rounded up a gaggle of paid off shills for the Medical-Industrial Complex to come on TV and bad mouth Obama's plans for health care reform and declare his chances for success DOA. Hacks like Judd Gregg (R-NH), Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ), each of whom has been paid immense sums of money by Big Pharma, HMOs and Insurance companies for this specific task, led the way in the rightist war against ordinary American families.
Some 46 million are uninsured and have little access to routine healthcare, relying instead on costly emergency room visits.
These unfortunate millions are the enemies and the victims of the Jon Kyls, Lamar Alexanders and Judd Greggs of the Republican Party, who think they can round up enough duplicitous paid off Conservadems-- the Blanche Lincolns, Joe Liebermen, Evan Bayhs, Mary Landrieux and Ben Nelsons-- to deep 6 Obama's plans to lift these families out of their untenable situation. The Republicans in the House of Lords went ape-shit when they heard that the House plan includes "a tax on Americans earning more than $350,000 per year that would raise $540 billion over 10 years. The tax would begin in 2011 and have higher rates at the $500,000 and $1 million income levels."
Violently anti-family right-wingers in the House have no power to stop anything but extremists like Virginia corruptionist Eric Cantor are on the warpath on behalf of their generous paymasters, threatening that wealthy industrialists will take their jobs and move to low wage countries, as if that hasn't been exactly what they have been doing for the past 2 decades... often with the connivance of the political elites they own. Sarah Palin campaigning for Evan Bayh, Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln in the Senate and for fake Dems like Heath Shuler (D-NC), Dan Boren (D-OK), Travis Childers (R-MS), Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ), Walt Minnick (D-ID) and Bobby Bright (D-AL) in the House will help clarify the nature of bipartisan class war in America and show once and for all which side right-wing Blue Dogs and sleazy DLC scum are on.
Broken news: Sometimes there's just no way to keep the lid on a breaking story
Looks like Manny won't get a shot at that 27th season win.
by Ken
Probably the team was just waiting for a way to make the announcement more dramatic.
When washingtonpost.com sends out a news alert, you know there must be, er, some news. Of course sometimes the news is of more local than national interest. Still, when this alert was sent out, this morning at 3:58am EDT, you knew this was news that couldn't wait even till 4:00!
News Alert 03:58 AM EDT Monday, July 13, 2009
Report: Acta Says He's Out as Nationals Manager Manny Acta told ESPNdeportes.com on Sunday he has been fired as manager of the Washington Nationals. The Nationals went into the All-Star break with the worst record in the majors at 26-61.
By 6:45am, the news was official. Even the Nationals acknowledged that Manny was history. Of course the Post scoop may have forced the team's hand.
Governor Rick finds a different loon for the Texas Board of Ed but affirms his support for "The Republican War on Science"
Gail Lowe, an "outspoken creationist" with no visible
educational credentials, is Texas Gov. Rick Perry's
choice to head the State Board of Education.
"The scientists identify poor media coverage of science as a key problem. And, journalistic analyses of media reporting on global warming agree with that. Thus, the challenge isn’t expert knowledge, but communicating that knowledge to the general public with a thick and confusing media filter while dealing with determined disinformation campaigns."
This is what comes of setting the bar low. All laughingstock Texas Gov. Rick Perry had to do was get out the word that he was thinking of appointing a fugitive mental patient to chair the State Board of Education, and his actual designation of a merely unqualified intellectual hooligan becomes a sort of act of "moderation." At the same time, since there's nothing remotely moderate about the designee, it seems unlikely that he's risking fallout from the neanderthals whose hearts and minds he's wooing in his struggle to win renomination against the challenge of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
As our Capitol Annex colleague Vince Leibowitz noted in connection with the reports that certifiable wingnut loon Cynthia Dunbar was being considered for the job: "If Perry does this, it is part of his ongoing campaign to govern Texas solely for the amusement of one million Republican Primary voters who will likely decide between Perry and U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison next March. Perry’s got to shore up his rightwing base, and a Cynthia Dunbar appointment would no doubt earn him a lot of points in that camp."
Rachel Weiner reported yesterday on the Huffington Post:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has chosen Gail Lowe, an outspoken creationist, to run the state's Board of Education.
It was actually the less controversial choice. Cynthia Dunbar, reportedly under consideration for the post, believed government should be guided by a "biblical litmus test" and thought public education was a "subtly deceptive tool of perversion." (She home-schooled her own children.) She has also endorsed conspiracy theories suggesting President Obama is not a natural-born citizen.
Lowe, on the other hand, thinks evolution should be taught and "kids ought to be able to hold religious beliefs and still study science without any conflict." But in 2008, she took the position that "biology textbooks which do not teach both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of the theory of evolution must be rejected by the board." She has voted against new textbooks that do not contain those "weaknesses." She is a newspaper editor, not a teacher.
Lowe will replace Don McLeroy, another self-described creationist and dentist whose reappointment was blocked by Democrats. He had been chairman of the board since 2007 and will remain a member.
Freedom of speech being a bedrock of American democracy, Gail Lowe is free to say anything she likes about the theory of evolution. But anyone who fantasizes a role for her in the education of American schoolchildren has an obligation to recognize that nothing she says about "the strengths and weaknesses of the theory of evolution" can be allowed to have any influence of any kind over educational policy because she gives no evidence of any knowledge of (a) the theory of evolution, (b) its "scientific strengths and weaknesses," or (c) anything else to do with science. She is simply spewing the reality-thumbing propaganda of Crap Christianity.
It is tiresome to have to say it yet again, and pointless too, because the people who need to grasp these simple realities have disconnected the batteries that power their brains. Still, actual scientists have been addressing the "weaknesses" of evolutionary theory since evolutionary theory was first formulated, which is why the theory has evolved to such a great extent. That's how science works. It's not like propaganda, which is simply concocted in the minds of people to suit their prejudices and agendas. So-called "creationism" bears no relation to science; it's just a facade invented to advance the Crap Christian agenda while pretending the motivation is something other than crap-religious.
* “Both scientists and the public overwhelmingly say it is appropriate for scientists to become active in political debates about such issues as nuclear power or stem cell research.” * While scientists self-identify as liberal, most American’s don’t see scientists as liberal. Thus, engaged experts might view themselves as politically liberal, the general public is likely not to view them in this way. * Scientists are the third most respected profession (after the military and teachers)
These three combine to suggest that scientists could be strong spokesman for “liberal”, “progressive”, “science-based” policy.
As Stephen Colbert put it, “reality has a well-known liberal bias”. Scientists work in, specialize in understanding reality. Should it shock anyone that they have a liberal bias?
Now, disinformation on key issues clearly has had an impact. 87% of scientists state that evolution is the result of natural processes with just 32 percent public agreement.
[T]he near consensus among scientists about global warming is not mirrored in the general public. While 84% of scientists say the earth is getting warmer because of human activity such as burning fossil fuels, just 49% of the public agrees.
These sort of significant gaps between expert and informed knowledge and general, public view should be -- are -- troubling. The scientists identify poor media coverage of science as a key problem. And, journalistic analyses of media reporting on global warming agree with that. Thus, the challenge isn’t expert knowledge, but communicating that knowledge to the general public with a thick and confusing media filter while dealing with determined disinformation campaigns.
If you missed the pilot of Hung, you may be surprised to find that the show isn't just likable, it might be lovable
You don't want to call these people "losers," exactly -- not Tanya (Jane Adams) or Ray (Thomas Jane) or the rest of this woebegone lot of life's left-behinds paying good money to be inspired in their life "dreams" by none other than Seinfeld's Kenny Bania (Steve Hytner). But then, you couldn't exactly call them "winners" either. Lyric bread?
by Ken
I really wasn't expecting much from HBO's new series Hung, which -- as I imagine you already know -- means "hung" in exactly the sense you were afraid it does. The show really is about a guy who tries to cash in on his last remaining possibly bankable asset.
The thing sounded pretty repulsive to me, and I'm hardly a prude. It just sounded, well, icky.
Of course, if you reduced Hamlet or Moby-Dick to a one-sentence plot premise, I'm not sure they'd sound like "mustn't miss" entertainments either. And I learned a lesson with HBO's Six Feet Under. If you'd asked me before the series started whether there was even the remotest possibility that I might not only watch but enjoy a show about a family that owns a mortuary, I would have sworn, "No way!" In fact, I still don't recall what exactly induced me to watch the first episode. (Maybe it was the participation of Alan Ball, off his brilliant script for American Beauty?) Nevertheless, within a few minutes, I was hooked. As with a lot of people I know, the six seasons I spent with the Fisher family remain one of my great viewing experiences.
I confess that I don't always apply this open-minded attitude. I've taken a pass on a bunch of the recent HBO and Showtime offerings -- you know, the ones in the Mormon-vampire and drug-dealing-lesbian-vampire genres. I'm prepared to believe I've missed some riveting TV drama, but I have to draw lines somewhere.
I gave the Hung pilot a shot, though. And this is in part a tribute to one of the great unheralded virtues of the DVR. A much lesser commitment is required of a person just to record a show as against actually watching it. Then, once you've got the thing on your hard drive, your options remain open, at least until you have to make the space-based decision to watch or erase.
In this regard, I sometimes think that I, with my cable-company-supplied DVR with its meager 20-some-hour capacity, have an advantage over those swells who are forced to buy the commercial rigs that are effectively bottomless veritable video vaults, where stuff can just keep accumulating, beyond human control, until presumably you're forced to do a mass purge. Those of us with the more spartan machines are forced to take stock of our storage-buildup situation on a regular basis.
Much to my surprise, I found I really liked poor downtrodden Ray, the hero of Hung. It's almost impossible not to feel for him. This is a guy whose life has followed a pretty much straight-downward trajectory since his glory years of high school athletic stardom. Along with his career, his once-promising marriage crashed and burned, and his ex-wife has traded up to financially secure suburban respectability. His two kids are nobody's prize, and even they have no use for him. His career as a high school basketball coach has tanked; it's looking very much as if his teams may never win another game.
As a running visual image of Ray's humiliation, unable to afford any better post-divorce lodging, he has been forced to move into his parents' dwelling, the hovel he grew up in. And here I detect the eye of pilot-episode director Alexander Payne, one of Hung's executive producers. In one of my all-time favorite movies, Election, he displayed a positive genius for purely visual depictions of the way a hostile universe was closing in on the doomed high school teacher played by Matthew Broderick. Remember that microscopic car he drove? Hopelessly cramped even for a person of MB's not exactly overwhelming physical stature? (He's seen below with his go-go sweeter-than-sugar student-from-hell nemesis played so frighteningly by Reese Witherspoon.)
For Hung the location scouts -- or somebody -- found a shack for poor Ray that all but screams "humiliation," especially set alongside the palatial spread of the next-door neighbor who's one of Ray's principal tormenters and humiliators. And then Ray gets burned out of even that hovel. Having naturally (Ray being Ray) failed to keep up his homeowner's insurance, he can't even begin to afford repairs, and is forced into living in a tent.
Ray's plight is so feelingly as well as hilariously drawn that I don't see how he can fail to win the heart of anyone who's ever even fleetingly taken stock of his/her life and been forced to wonder, "How the fuck did this happen to me?" He is, in other words, an even more advanced and, yes, even more pathetic case than the going-nowhere parents of Malcolm in the Middle. As I was writing the caption for the above clip, which takes us to the Losers' Anonymous self-improvement class Ray attends in his desperate search for some way out of this dead end, it occurred to me that what Hung -- created by Dmitry Lipkin and Colette Burson -- does is to somehow make you feel the pain of these left-behinds, and I suspect to feel it more acutely than some of them are able to.
You want desperately for there to be some kind of hope for these people. And while the show could yet get icky as it gets down to, well, business, I'm fascinated to see where it's going.
THE SECOND EPISODE OF HUNG AIRS ON HBOTONIGHT AT 10pm ET . . .
. . . right before the season premiere of Entourage. Now there's an hour of must-see TV. Of course, the episode airs again right after Entourage, and we can expect the usual zillion repeats on the various HBO channels. There are also bound to be opportunities to catch up on the pilot for those who missed it.
It's always possible that Judge Sotomayor's opponents will tell the truth about something (anything), but don't hold your breath
"When Frank Ricci testifies against Judge Sotomayor, it will be worth recalling that under any other set of facts he would have looked to his GOP sponsors like the kind of unscrupulous professional litigant Rush Limbaugh lives to savage. Is America's conservative movement really ready for an anti-affirmative action hero who has repeatedly relied on the government to intervene on his behalf to win him -- and help him keep -- a government job?"
-- Dahlia Lithwick, on Slate.com (see below)
by Ken
Tomorrow the Senate Judiciary Committee begins hearings on the nomination of one of the country's most experienced and respected federal Appeals Court judges, Sonia Sotomayor to replace retiring Justice David Souter as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. How strong the opposition will be remains to be seen, but the ugliest, most reactionary and bigoted pustules within the Republican Party are marshaling whatever strength they have behind SJC Ranking Minority Member Jefferson Sessions, a lifelong confirmed racist.
These people are representatives of truly the vilest, most hating, and most hateful people in the country. If they can get away with the assault of ignorance and savagery they have the power to unleash, it's unlikely to derail the Sotomayor nomination, but if they show any serious strength, they will not only defame an impeccably credentialed judge but create a poisonous climate for the next person nominated to the High Court.
As I keep pointing out, these are people with no regard for truth. They are people who appear literally incapable of intellectual or moral honesty or decency, but spend their lives trying to drag the rest of society down to their level of spiritual degradation. It has been obvious from the start that they don't give the tiniest damn about Judge Sotomayor's actual qualifications or even beliefs. They guessed correctly that she isn't another wizard in the white-corporatist-supremacist tradition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice "Sammy the Weasel" Alito, who got through their confirmation hearings by lying their heads off under the protection of the the Judiciary Committee's then-majority Republicans.
The Republicans have done nothing but lie ever since. They were never interested in evaluating Judge Sotomayor; they were only interested in a desperate search for "gotchas" in her background. What they came up with is so pathetic that they're lucky they're also incapable of shame.
The attack on her off-the-cuff comment about policy being made at the Court of Appeals level simply displays their total ignorance of the workings of American government; it has nothing to do with "activist" judging, it's just a fact. (It would be helpful to remember that the "activist" judges today are the rampaging ultra-right-wingers on the Supreme Court: Roberts, Alito, and Justices Nino Scalia and Clarence Thomas.) Her comment about bringing a distinctive perspective to the Court as a Latin woman is again the merest and most obvious statement of fact; every Supreme Court justice brings his/her particular background to bear, which is why we need a diversity of representation. Former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as well as Justices Thomas and Alito made virtually identical statements.
And then there's the Ricci case, in which the Supreme Court has only just overturned the Circuit Court panel opinion in which Judge Sotomayor sided with the majority, ruling that the city of New Haven was within its legal rights, based on existing law, to abandon the firefighters' promotion exam in which no minorities received a passing grade and plan a future retest.
To Rush Limbaugh the Ricci case is proof that Sonia Sotomayor is a racist, but then, Rush Limbaugh lies for a living, and takes no prisoners. No one of any legal competence has suggested that Judge Sotomayor or the rest of the panel majority were legally wrong. They did their job reading the existing case law.
Now a bit of digging has turned up an interesting wrinkle on the Ricci case. It appears that the intrepid Frank Ricci, to white racists everywhere the hero of this drama of vile discrimination against an oppressed white man, has amazingly selective contempt for anti-discrimination laws.
At this point, I'm going to turn the floor over to Slate.com's veteran Supreme Court correspondent, Dahlia Lithwick (for links click through to the onsite post):
JURISPRUDENCE Fire Proof The New Haven firefighter is no stranger to employment disputes.
By Dahlia Lithwick Posted Friday, July 10, 2009, at 6:50 PM ET
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have announced that Frank Ricci, the firefighter who recently prevailed in his "reverse discrimination" lawsuit against the city of New Haven, Conn., will testify at Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings. Ricci has become a sort of folk hero for white men everywhere, having dared to stand up against the evils of affirmative action and race-based employment preferences. Next week, he will be called on to make the point, as David Paul Kuhn put it, that Sotomayor, for all her talk of empathy and the real-world impact of judicial decisions, "demonstrated no empathy for the 'real-world consequences' of affirmative action on Ricci."
Ricci is invariably painted as a reluctant standard-bearer; a hardworking man driven to litigation only when his dreams of promotion were shattered by a system that persecutes white men. This is the narrative we will hear next week, but it somewhat oversimplifies Ricci's actual employment story. For instance, it's not precisely true, as this one account would have it, that Frank Ricci "never once [sought] special treatment for his dyslexia challenge." In point of fact, Ricci sued over it.
According to local newspapers, Ricci filed his first lawsuit against the city of New Haven in 1995, at the ripe old age of 20, for failing to hire him as a firefighter. That January, the Hartford Chronicle reported that Ricci sued, saying "he was not hired because he is dyslexic." The complaint in that suit, filed in federal court, alleged that the city's failure to hire Ricci because of his dyslexia violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Frank Ricci was one of 795 candidates interviewed for 40 jobs. According to his complaint, the reason he was not hired was that he disclosed his dyslexia in an interview. That case was settled in 1997 with a confidential settlement in which Ricci withdrew his lawsuit in exchange for a job with the fire department and $11,143 in attorney's fees.
In 1998, Ricci was talking about filing lawsuits again, this time over a dispute with his new employer, Middletown's South Fire District -- which had hired him in August of 1997. According to a Hartford Courant report of Aug. 11, 1998, Ricci was dismissed from the Middletown fire department after only eight months. He promptly appealed his dismissal, claiming that fire officials had retaliated against him for conducting an investigation into the department's response to a controversial fire. A story in the Hartford Courant dated Aug. 9, 1997, has Ricci vowing "to pursue this to the fullest extent of the law."
In August of 1998, a state Department of Labor investigation cleared Chief Wayne S. Bartolotta of any wrongdoing in the firing. The Aug. 3, 1998, letter from the state Department of Labor indicated that the case was closed with a finding of no violation. "After a thorough investigation, it was determined that the South Fire District did not discriminate against Mr. Ricci." Ricci's response? According to the Courant, Ricci contended "Their decision was political, it has nothing to do with who was right and who was wrong." He told the paper he would "pursue the matter in civil court."
Ricci also tried to discredit his former boss, Chief Bartolotta, by disparaging his professional credentials. His fight over access to Bartolotta's professional training records was resolved between the two of them a week before the matter was slated to be taken up with the state Freedom of Information Commission, according to a Jan. 13, 1998, report in the Hartford Courant.
Eventually, Ricci made his way back to the New Haven Fire Department, where he famously aced his promotions test, then sued, yet again, in 2004.
Ultimately, there are two ways to frame Frank Ricci's penchant for filing employment discrimination complaints: Perhaps he was repeatedly victimized by a cruel cadre of employers, first for his dyslexia, then again for his role as a whistle-blower, and then a third time for just being white. If that is so, we should all be deeply grateful for the robust civil rights laws that protect Americans from unfair discrimination in the workplace. I look forward to hearing Republican Sen. John Cornyn's version of that speech next week.
The other way to look at Frank Ricci is as a serial plaintiff -- one who reacts to professional slights and setbacks by filing suit, threatening to file suit, and more or less complaining his way up the chain of command. That's not the typical GOP heartthrob, but I look forward to hearing Sen. Cornyn's version of that speech next week as well.
When Frank Ricci testifies against Judge Sotomayor, it will be worth recalling that under any other set of facts he would have looked to his GOP sponsors like the kind of unscrupulous professional litigant Rush Limbaugh lives to savage. Is America's conservative movement really ready for an anti-affirmative action hero who has repeatedly relied on the government to intervene on his behalf to win him -- and help him keep -- a government job?
MORE FUNNY BUSINESS IN THE RICCI CASE: JUSTICE SAMMY BENDS FACTS TO FIT HIS OPINION
Our attention has been called to this interesting report by the New Haven Independent's Paul Bass in the wake of the Ricci ruling:
Three of the Supreme Court justices who voted against New Haven in Monday’s landmark firefighters case ruling zeroed in on one character they saw playing a nefarious role: the Rev. Boise Kimber.
In fact, Kimber’s role as a New Haven politico, felon, and FOJ (Friend of John, Mayor DeStefano) ended up sparking a lively debate between the Supreme Court’s conservative and liberal wings. . . .
Justice Samuel Alito singled out Kimber in a concurring opinion to Ricci v. DeStefano, the case in which a 5-4 majority ruled that New Haven can’t ignore the results of a fire department promotional exam just because no African-Americans scored high enough. . . .
From the start, the New Haven 20 — the one Hispanic and 19 white firefighters who sued to have the exams’ results honored — argued that New Haven’s DeStefano administration scuttled the test because of political pressure. And they specifically mentioned Kimber in their lawsuit. Rev. Kimber, a prominent vote-puller for Mayor DeStefano in past elections, sits on the Board of Fire Commissioners. He played a vocal role at the Civil Service Commission in arguing to have the test results ignored.
Alito, in an opinion also signed by Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, noted that “even the District Court” (the lower court that ruled on behalf of the city in this case) “admitted that ‘a jury could rationally infer that city officials worked behind the scenes to sabotage the promotional examinations because they knew that, were the exams certified, the Mayor would incur the wrath of [Rev. Boise] Kimber and other influential leaders of New Haven’s African-American community.”
The opinion proceeds to present a three-paragraph attack bio of the good reverend, going back decades over terrain familiar to Kimber’s New Haven critics. . . .
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who sided with the city in the case, takes on Alito’s Kimber-bashing in a dissenting opinion. She argues that Alito “exaggerates” Kimber’s influence and his role in “engineering” the outcome.
She notes how Alito “recounts at length the alleged machinations of Rev. Boise Kimber (a local political activist), Mayor John DeStefano, and certain members of the mayor’s staff.”
She then points out that neither Kimber nor the mayor’s staff made the call to disregard the exam results. The mayorally appointed Civil Service Board, “an unelected, politically insulated body,” in Ginsburg’s telling, made that decision.
She calls it “striking that Justice Alito’s concurrence says hardly a word about the CSB itself, perhaps because there is scant evidence that its motivation was anything other than to comply with Title VII’s disparate impact provision.”
And, she points out, the firefighters union — another politically influential group — was just as vocal on the opposite side as Kimber.
“The real issue, then, is not whether the mayor and his staff were politically motivated; it is whether their attempt to score political points was legitimate (i.e., non-discriminatory),” Ginsburg writes. “Were they seeking to exclude white firefighters from promotion (unlikely, as a fair test would undoubtedly result in the addition of white firefighters to the officer ranks), or did they realize, at least belatedly, that their tests could be toppled in a disparate-impact suit?”
Yale law professor Drew Days (pictured) said Monday that Ginsburg “got it right.”
Alito et al. made Kimber “the main culprit in the story,” said Days, who argued cases before the Supreme Court as President Bill Clinton’s solicitor general.
But that’s jumping to a unproved conclusion, Days said: “Whatever people in New Haven might think about all this, the political process is rough and tumble. If people don’t like what the city does or is about to do, they make a lot of noise. Is the city trying to make sure its constituents are being heard? Or are they pandering and doing something that is illegal to get political support?"
Sunday Classics: Presenting the patron saint of the banksters c 2009: Fafner the dragon sits atop his hoard of gold
Patron saint of the banksters:The giant Fafner, having transformed himself into a dragon, does nothing but sleep and sit on his hard-won treasure.
by Ken
When I think of the banksters -- what they did to the economy with their crooked deal-making, and what they're doing to the economy by refusing to behave like bankers -- I think of Fafner the Dragon sitting on his hoard of gold.
We're going to look at how the giant brothers Fasolt and Fafner came into possession of the Nibelung gold hoard, including the "Ring of the Nibelung," the potentially all-powerful ring fashioned by the dwarf Alberich from the Rhinegold, and the Tarnhelm, the magic helmet forged by Alberich's Nibelung brother Mime, which enables the wearer to transform himself into any life form. For now we need to know that after taking possession of the hoard, in the final scene of Das Rheingold, the "prologue" to the Ring cycle, Fafner murdered his brother and took treasure for himself.
Having taken violent possession of these immeasurable riches, what did he do with them? He more or less literally sat on them, just like the banksters have been doing with all that cash we've been shoveling on them, imagining that they would begin lending it and thereby help get the economy moving again. But no, they seem to be emulating the model of Fafner, who decamped to the secluded eastern forest and holed up in a cave, transformed (thanks to the magic of the Tarnhelm) into a giant dragon to guard his hoard. And guard it is about all he does, along with eating and drinking and sleeping. He seems to do a lot of sleeping. Twice in Act II of Siegfried he is awakened.
Because we have two substantial scenes from the Ring cycle to look at and listen to, and I'm not going to put you through them without texts, and just the English texts will eat up large chunks of space, you'll be relieved to hear that I'm not going to comment much on the proceedings. I think in any event the key to understanding Wagner is just listening, hearing how the music works and beginning to recognize for yourself the play of the musical leitmotifs, which enable Wagner to create a musical dramatization of the interplay of characters, objects, and ideas. Good listening also opens you the staggering imagination underlying the music, and the staggering beauty of the finished product.
And for once, glory be, we've got pretty decent performances of both our scenes!
* * * * * * * * * *
Young Siegfried wakes the sleeping giant Fafner (Siegfried, Act II)
Since Das Rheingold, the grasping Mime -- a small-time operator who nevertheless has big dreams -- has abandoned the traditional home of the Nibelungs, Nibelheim, and in the very same forest where Fafner has taken up residence has assumed custody of the newborn Siegfried following his mother's death in childbirth. In another cave in the forest Mime has raised Siegfried singlehandedly, claiming to be the boy's mother as well as father, intending to use the young hero to wrest control of the Ring and the Tarnhelm from Fafner. (The crucial thing to remember about Siegfried is how totally innocent he is of most everything in the world. He literally knows nothing except what he has been told by Mime, which he has the good sense to distrust, and what he has been able to observe growing up in the natural environment of the forest.)
In Act II of Siegfried, perhaps the eeriest and most eerily delicious act Wagner ever imagined, the whole world seems to converge on Fafner's cave: first the god Wotan (now presenting himself as a "Wanderer") and his Nibelung nemesis Alberich, then Mime and Siegfried. The act is mostly a series of shadowy confrontations, lightened only by Siegfried's brief enjoyment of the natural beauty of the forest (including the famous orchestral "Forest Murmurs").
The stage representation of Fafner is always a problem for designers and directors. Wagner actually made a detailed drawing of how he imagined the stage dragon to be built (I tried to find it online but couldn't). In the Met production, still in use through this past season, designer Günther Schneider-Siemssen' and director Otto Schenk made him mostly part of the scenery.
SIEGFRIED ROUSTS THE SLEEPING GIANT
Siegfried (tenor Siegfried Jerusalem), left alone for once to enjoy the natural beauty of the forest, has tried and failed to improvise an instrument that will enable him to reply to the sound of the forest bird that has so delighted him. As our clip begins, in frustration he resorts to his trusty horn, sounding what's known for obvious reasons as "Siegfried's horn call." In this April 1990 Metropolitan Opera performance it's played -- very nicely indeed -- by longtime Met horn principal Howard T. Howard, who retired just recently, after the 2006-07 season. In this clip from the Met video Ring (see the audio and video "Quick Hits" below), bass Matti Salminen sings Fafner, and James Levine conducts.
(English translation mostly from this Wagner website) Eventually [1:59] FAFNER awakens and emerges from his cave in the form of a monstrous dragon, emerges from the cave
SIEGFRIED [2:28]: Ha ha! So my strains have roused something lovely! You'd make me a pretty playmate!
FAFNER [2:38]: What's that there?
SIEGFRIED [2:43]: Well, if you're a beast that knows how to speak, perhaps there's something I can learn from you? Here is someone who does not know fear; can he come to know it from you?
FAFNER [2:53]: Is this bravado?
SIEGFRIED [2:58]: Bravery or bravado - how do I know? But I'll cut you to shreds if you don't teach me fear.
FAFNER [3:07]: I wanted a drink: now I've also found food!
SIEGFRIED [3:21]: A delicious maw you display, trrth laughing in a dainty muzzle! It would be good to close your gullet: your jaws gape too wide!
FAFNER [3:33]: They are not suited to idle chatter, but my throat is well made to gulp you down.
SIEGFRIED [3:48]: Ho ho! You grim, gruesome knave! I've no desire to be digested by you; but it seems right and proper that you should die the death without delay.
FAFNER [4:00]: Bah! Come on, braggart boy!
SIEGFRIED [405]: On your guard, growler! Here comes the braggart! [4:08] He draws his sword, springs towards Fafner and [4:54] plunges the sword in him up to the hilt.] [5:01] Lie there, murderous beast: you have Notung through your heart!
FAFNER [5:21]: Who are you, bold boy, that have pierced my heart? Who kindled your childish courage to this deadly deed? Your brain did not conceive what you have carried out.
SIEGFRIED [6:07]: There is much I still don't know, not even who I am. You yourself goaded me to engage you in mortal combat.
FAFNER [6:27]: You bright-eyed boy, who do not know yourself, I will tell you whom you have nurdered. [7:00] Of the towering race of giants, the brothers Fasolt and Fafner both now are dead. [7:30] For the accursed gold gained from the gods I dealt death to Fasolt. He who defended the hoard as a dragon, Fafner, last of the giants, has fallen to a fresh-faced hero. [8:13] Keep a sharp watch, jubilant boy; he who prompted you in your blindness to this deed is now, after your triumph, plotting your death. [8:51] Mark how it will end! Heed my words!
SIEGFRIED [9:15]: Then tell me where I came from: in your death, dragon, you seem wise. You will know from my name: I am called Siegfried.
FAFNER [9:43]: Siegfried...! [He dies.]
SIEGFRIED [10:06]: The dead can tell no tales. Then lead me, my living sword! [Siegfried pulls his sword out of Fafner's chest, and his hand is wet with blood.] Its blood burns like fire!
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The giants Fasolt and Fafner claim their contractual payment for building Valhalla (Das Rheingold, Scene 2)
We're backing up now to Das Rheingold, the "prologue" to the three "days" of The Ring.
As our clip begins, the first of a series of marital battles between the gods Wotan and Fricka is interrupted by the arrival of the giants Fasolt and Fafner, a pair of brothers -- I think family relationships are important in The Ring, and are worth noting and keeping track of -- who may sound vaguely ominous in their lumbering deep-bass representation, both in the orchestra and in their voice placement: a pair of deep basses, but who have merely come to conclude a piece of business.
Wotan has engaged the giants to build the gods a glorious new castle, Valhalla, befitting the superior races he imagines his kind to be. This contract is so important that it is engraved on the wooden spear (carved from the glorious World Ash tree, which killed the tree -- but that's another story), which is the symbol of Wotan's power. The promised payment is Fricka's sister Freia, the goddess of beauty and youth, and already Wotan is in trouble, because it's a payment he has never intended to make, which means that the deal carved into the spear was bogus from the beginning, not exactly a promising foundation on which to build the glorious reign Wotan has in mind.
The beginning of our clip is actually an exceedingly interesting place to begin, because I've found that one of the crucial points in most Ring lovers' journey into the inner life of the drama is the discovery that the giants have individual personalities, personalities that are quite detailed and striking. And like many pairs of brothers, they could hardly be more different.
The first thing to note, and it could hardly be more obvious, is that at first it's Fasolt who does all the talking for the giants. And the second thing to note is how astonishingly beautiful his music is. Fasolt is a grand exponent of the dignity of labor. He knows he's not much more than a plodder, and his expectations in turn are hardly exorbitant: honest payment for honestly performed work, and in there somewhere he hopes to find a home with female warmth and companionship and a touch of beauty. Listen, as he reminds Wotan of the payment specified in the contract [1:40], to his achingly beautiful evocation of "Freia die holde, Holda die freie. (Like many characters in The Ring, Freia is known by more than one name, both Freia and Holda.)
It's possible that Fasolt is the most entirely sympathetic character, or at any rate the most untarnished, in the whole of The Ring, and it would be hard to imagine a voice "too beautiful" for the part. (In our clip, Karl Ridderbusch sings very nicely indeed.) It's nice to have Fafner sung beautifully too, but it's vocal beauty of a very different kind serving a very different human purpose. When Fafner finally enters the discussion, it's after Wotan has made clear that he has, and never had, any intention of honoring their contract. Fasolt [2:22} is shocked; Fafner [2:37], in unctuous, insinuating, almost slithery tones, mocks his brother for ever having trusted this bunch of con artists.
And when it comes to contract enforcement, it's Fafner who knows how to hit the gods where it hurts. I"ve always found it one of the most immediately arresting musical passages in The Ring, Fafner's evocation of the "golden apples" [5:55] that keep the gods from growing old, which only Freia knows how to grow. Her beauty and gentleness and all that romantic rot hold no interest for him, but to deprive the gods of her would also mean depriving them of the golden apples. This is the sort of thing Fafner can warm to. In our clip, bass Louis Hendrikx is one of the better Fafners I've heard.
THE GIANTS COME TO COLLECT
The brothers Fasolt (sung by bass Karl Ridderbusch, acted by bass Gerd Nienstedt) and Fafner (bass Louis Hendrikx) come to claim from Wotan (baritone Thomas Stewart) the agreed-upon fee for building Valhalla: the goddess Freia (soprano Jeannine Altmeyer). Rushing to her defense are her brothers Froh (tenor Hermin Esser) and Donner (sung by baritone Leif Roar, acted by Vladimir de Kanel). (Seen but not heard: mezzo Brigitte Fassbaender as Fricka.) This 1978-ish film (the Alberich, Zoltan Kelemen, died in May 1979), available on DVD, lip-synched to a prerecorded soundtrack, was directed as well as conducted by Herbert von Karajan, with the Berlin Philharmonic.
FASOLT [0:27]: Sleep softly sealed your eyes while we two, unsleeping, built the fort. Toiling mightily yet untiting, we heaped up massive stones; a lofty tower, door and gate guard and enclose the hall of the fine fortress. [1:04, pointing to the castle] There stands what we raised, brightly shining in the light of day: now pass in and pay us our fee!
WOTAN [1:33]: Name your fee, my men: what do you think of asking?
FASOLT [1:40]: We asked what seemed to us fair; is your memory so weak? [1:48] Freia the fair, Holda the free, it was agreed we should take home.
WOTAN [2:04]: Has this contract sent you off your heads? Think of some other fee: I cannot sell Freia.
FASOLT [2:22]: What say you? Ha, are you planning treachery? Betray our bond? The marks of solemn compact that your spear shows, are they but sport to you?
FAFNER [2:37]: Most trusty brother! Simpleton, do you now see the swindle?
FASOLT [2:45]: Son of light, easily swayed, hearken and beware: hold firm to your bond! What you are, you are only by contracts: limited and well defined is your power. You have more wisdom than we have wits; you bound us, who were free, to keep peace: [318] I will curse all your wisdom and flee from your peace if openly, honourably and freely you do not know to keep faith in your bond! [3:38] A simple giant thus counsels you: wise one, weigh his words!
WOTAN [3:52]: How cunning to take in earnest what was agreed only in jest! The lovely goddess, bright and light, of what use is her charm to you louts?
FASOLT [4:08]: Do you mock us? Ha, how unjust! You who rule by beauty, radiant, august race, how foolishly you strive for towers of stone, and place in pledge woman's beauty for fortress and hall! [4:40] We dullards toil away, sweating, with our horny hands, [4:49] to win a woman who, winsome and gentle, will live with us poor creatures: and do you now upset our bargain?
FAFNER [5:22]: Cease your idle chatter, we'll get no gain from this. Custody of Freia serves little purpose; but to carry her off from the gods is worth much. [5:35] Golden apples grow in her garden; only she knows how to tend them! By eating the fruit, her kindred are endowed with eternal, never-ageing youth; sick and wan, their bloom will wane; old and weak, they will waste away if they are forced to forego Freia. [6:14] So let her be taken from their midst!
WOTAN [6:20]: Loge delays too long!
FASOLT [6:22]: Straight give your answer!
WOTAN [6:25]: Think of another fee!
FASOLT [6:27]: No other: only Freia!
FAFNER [6:31]: You there, follow us! [FASOLT and FAFNER grab Freia. FROH and DONNER rush in.]
FREIA [6:34]: Help! Help from these ruffians!
FROH [6:42] [taking hold of Freia] To me, Freia! [to Fafner] Let her be, rascal! Froh will protect the fair one.
DONNER [6:54]: Fasolt and Fafner, have you yet felt my hammer's heavy blow?
FAFNER [7:00]: Why do you threaten?
FASOLT [7:02]: Why do you rush upon us? We sought no strife and only want our wages.
DONNER [7:13]: Many a time have I paid giants their due. Come on, the size of the payment I'll weigh in full measure! [He swings his hammer.]
WOTAN [7:24] [thrusting his spear between the combatants]: Hold, hothead! Violence avails naught! My spearshaft protects bonds: spare your hammer's haft.
QUICK HITS: THE RING ON HOME AUDIO AND VIDEO
We really can't get into this now, can we? Let me just say that if I were starting out, I would still want to start with either the Karajan/DG or the Solti/DeccaRing. Karajan is certainly the more imaginative conductor (this Ring, all in all, seems to me one of his most durable recorded accomplishments), and draws richer and more varied sounds from the Berlin Philharmonic; it would have been interesting to hear what a more imaginative, less pushy conductor than the Solti of this period might have asked from the luscious Vienna Philharmonic. But the Vienna Phil certainly plays beautifully, and Birgit Nilsson's Brünnhilde hasn't been matched since, and the rest of the cast is generally solid -- especially so in the culminating opera, Götterdämmerung. But then, Karajan's Götterdämmerung is at least as strongly cast, and his overall cast balances out pretty evenly.
We really can't begin to consider the options, but I have to at least mention the 1953 Furtwängler/Rome Radio cycle, despite its radio-studio mono sound and a cast that is generally more combat-ready than vocally ingratiating, as a demonstration of the depths a great conductor can plumb in this endlessly absorbing music.
On video, the safest recommendation seems to me the Met cycle, despite the merely adequate conducting of James Levine and the make-do casting -- it has some pleasing ups, but also some disturbing downs, among which I would have to include Hildegard Behrens's well-meant but hard-to-listen-to Brünnhilde. As our Siegfried clip suggests, Otto Schenk's staging and Günther Schneider-Siemssen's sets tend to the solidly traditional, and tell us a lot more about The Ring than the video competition.
On both audio and video, Daniel Barenboim's Bayreuth recording still offers what seems to me the most compelling recorded representation of the orchestral part of The Ring, and the cast balances out competitively with the more recent versions -- some ups, some downs. On video, Harry Kupfer's futuristic staging tends to be merely distracting.
Can We Get A Little of That "New Moment Of Promise" Obama Promised Ghana Here Too? Or Is Corruption In America Too Ingrained For Anyone To Take It On?
Obama gave an inspiring speech to the Ghanian parliament yesterday. The guy's so eloquent and such an effective communicator. He gave the parliamentarians-- the African ruling elites throughout the continent-- a lesson in tough love.
He spoke of his grandfather, a cook for the British in Kenya called "boy'' by his employers. He spoke of his father herding goats in a tiny village, and he spoke of the problems that have persisted across the African continent.
"It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for these problems on others,'' he said. "Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner.
"But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants,'' he said. "Here in Ghana, you show us a face of Africa that is too often overlooked by a world that sees only tragedy or the need for charity. The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on a firmer footing, with peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections... Africa’s future is up to Africans.
...[T]o realize that promise, we must first recognize the fundamental truth that you have given life to in Ghana: Development depends on good governance. That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That's the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.
The official White House transcript is available. For the billions of people in the third world, corruption drains away resources and condemns the overwhelming majority of people to lives unfulfilled, not to mention to lives in which hunger, disease, abject poverty, and despair are dominant forces.
This is about more than just holding elections. It's also about what happens between elections. (Applause.) Repression can take many forms, and too many nations, even those that have elections, are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves-- (applause)-- or if police-- if police can be bought off by drug traffickers. (Applause.) No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top-- (applause)-- or the head of the Port Authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. (Applause.) That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end. (Applause.)
In the 21st century, capable, reliable, and transparent institutions are the key to success-- strong parliaments; honest police forces; independent judges-- (applause); an independent press; a vibrant private sector; a civil society. (Applause.) Those are the things that give life to democracy, because that is what matters in people's everyday lives... With better governance, I have no doubt that Africa holds the promise of a broader base of prosperity.
Obama spent a great deal of his speech talking about effective health care and how getting control over corruption will facilitate that. I hope he's right; in fact I have no doubt it is. And I have no doubt that getting control of government corruption in our country will be just as effective in making life better for normal working people-- health care-wise being just one of the more crucial aspects.
Ever since I first started traveling in the Third World in 1969-- Morocco was the first country I visited-- I was aware about how all pervasive and how blatant corruption is in every aspect of daily life. Later I realized it was the blatantness that differentiated corruption in the Third World from corruption in the First World. In the U.S. corruption is no less pervasive and no less destructive.
I found it odd that Obama would be lecturing the Ghanian parliamentarians about the evils of corruption. Was Rahm Emanuel accompanying him? Emanuel's political role has been to act as a bagman for greed-obsessed politicians and business profiteers looking for a way to drink the blood of the public. The first time I ever wrote about him was to declare that he's the Democratic Party version of Tom DeLay. Now he's Obama's chief of staff.
Upwards of 80% of Americans want-- and are willing to pay for-- national health insurance. But Congress, especially the Big Business-owned Senate, is working overtime to thwart that on behalf of the campaign contributors from the Medical-Industrial Complex and Insurance Industry who have pumped billions of dollars into the campaign coffers of politicians, who have carefully written rules and regulations that allow them to funnel that money into their personal budgets. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal bemoans the plans of some progressive House members to tax the wealthy who benefitted so very richly under the Bush Regime, to pay their share of the national health plan. Republicans, of course, are screaming like stuck pigs (on behalf of their wealthy patrons).
Look at the members of the Senate who are fighting the hardest to derail health care reform and you will find that these are the members who are being the most richly rewarded by the industries which will benefit the most by a continuation of the status quo: Max Baucus (DLC-MT), Arlen Specter (D-R-PA), Joe Lieberman (DLC-CT), Grassley (R-IA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Ben Nelson (DLC-NE), Mary Landrieu (DLC-LA), Blanche Lincoln (DLC-AR), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Jim Bunning (R-KY)... all corrupt, all political hacks who should spend several lifetimes in prison for consistently betraying their constituents.
State governments are even easier to buy off-- believe it or not-- than federal officials, as Coloradans are discovering today. And certainly the 4th estate hasn't been immune to the siren song of corruption. Last week the Washington Post, mouthpiece of the the Inside the Beltway bipartisan Establishment, was exposed trying to sell access to lobbyists, professional corruptionists.
What can mere citizens do? How about working to defeat corrupt politicians at every turn-- regardless of which party they belong to? If you think that Tom DeLay was a disgrace but forgive Rahm Emanuel because he's "ours," you deserve what you get. Right now we have an opportunity to defeat Blanche Lincoln, one of the most corrupt members of the Senate. Yes, she's ostensibly a Democrat, but she votes against working families at every opportunity and opposes everything that benefits ordinary Americans. No one should be any more surprised that she's against Employee Free Choice than by her opposition to health care reform. What makes her a Democrat? Little more than what puts someone on one side or the other in a game of pick-up basketball. Apparently our barrage of TV spots in Arkansas has her worried and on the run. Her support for the Insurance Industry CEOs is suddenly something she's embarrassed about. Please don't stop now-- every cent that comes in goes right onto the air. We can do it-- one corrupt piece of crap with eyes and a mouth and a nose at a time.
Sunday Classics: Classical music posts (updated 7/12/09)
by Ken
Fafner, patron saint of the banksters (from Wagner's Ring cycle) music: from Scene 2 of Das Rheingold, the giants claim their payment, from the film of Rheingold directed and conducted by Herbert von Karajan; from Act II of Siegfried, the death of Fafner, from the Metropolitan Opera video Ring conducted by James Levine. [7/12/09]
Could Brahms be underappreciated? music: First Symphony, 2nd movement, played by Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic; "Vergebliches Ständchen," sung by Victoria de los Angeles, with pianist Gerald Moore. [7/5/09]
It wasn't easy being Brahms, but the composer has already done all the heavy lifting music: Double Concerto, 2nd movement, played by Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Myung-Whun Chung conducting; Horn Trio, 1st movement, played by Adolf Busch, Aubrey Brain, and Rudolf Serkin. [6/28/09]
Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free: Aaron Copland on "Simple Gifts" music: "Simple Gifts," "Long Time Ago," and "At the River" from Old American Songs, sung by Marilyn Horne; final section of Appalachian Spring, chamber version. [1/25/09]
Schubert: So much beautiful music from one mind, and in such a short lifetime music: String Quintet in C, 2nd movement, played by the Alban Berg Quartet; "An die Musik," sung by bass-baritone George London [1/18/09]
Puccini: Measuring the soul of his Girl of the Golden West music: first 10 minutes of Gianni Schicchi (Met, 2007); "O mio babbino caro" (Renata Scotto, Met, 1983) [1/11/09]
Johann Strauss II and his family: There are good reasons why conductors bring their "A" game when they play their music music: Johann Strauss I's Radetzky March; Johann Strauss II's On the Beautiful Blue Danube as used in 2001: A Space Odyssey) [1/4/09]
The Magic Flute: Mozart's spiritual testament music: Pamina-Papageno duet from Act I, sung by Dorothea Roeschmann and Simon Keenlyside
Maureen Forrester sings Mahler: It doesn't get more eloquent music: "Urlicht" from Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, with Glenn Gould conducting -- left-handed!
Comedy Tonight: I don't remember the last time we dumped on Harry Reid -- it must be at least a day, no?
Of course, these days I'm lucky if my memory spans as much as a day. Still, to be on the safe side, this cartoon comes from R. J. Matson of Roll Call and the New York Observer. -- Ken
[Click to enlarge. I know you know, but what about people who may be new to this?]
on the other:
, lip-synched to a prerecorded soundtrack, was directed as well as conducted by 
or the 
Ring. Karajan is certainly the more imaginative conductor (this Ring, all in all, seems to me one of his most durable recorded accomplishments), and draws richer and more varied sounds from the Berlin Philharmonic; it would have been interesting to hear what a more imaginative, less pushy conductor than the Solti of this period might have asked from the luscious Vienna Philharmonic. But the Vienna Phil certainly plays beautifully, and Birgit Nilsson's Brünnhilde hasn't been matched since, and the rest of the cast is generally solid -- especially so in the culminating opera, Götterdämmerung. But then, Karajan's Götterdämmerung is at least as strongly cast, and his overall cast balances out pretty evenly.
, despite its radio-studio mono sound and a cast that is generally more combat-ready than vocally ingratiating, as a demonstration of the depths a great conductor can plumb in this endlessly absorbing music.
, despite the merely adequate conducting of James Levine and the make-do casting -- it has some pleasing ups, but also some disturbing downs, among which I would have to include Hildegard Behrens's well-meant but hard-to-listen-to Brünnhilde. As our Siegfried clip suggests, Otto Schenk's staging and Günther Schneider-Siemssen's sets tend to the solidly traditional, and tell us a lot more about The Ring than the video competition.
and 
, Daniel Barenboim's Bayreuth recording still offers what seems to me the most compelling recorded representation of the orchestral part of 
