Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, August 14, 2022
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36 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a 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).
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America, land of the armed to the teeth and home of the terrified
All about the Benjamins. It always is:
I hope that Dominion doesn’t settle, and Fox is sued into oblivion. They have lost whatever small shred of credibility they ever had, and this sort of manufactured outrage needs to stop.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, after the bloodbath that was Uvalde, I can understand the parents’ “philosophy” pretty well.
‘Cold, cold blood’: why were eight Ohio relatives killed the same night?
I have only vague recollections of this crime. I have to say it is particularly horrific. Trigger warning: The story is rather graphic in it’s descriptions of the crime scene, including one thing that is literally the stuff of nightmares.
@CSK: All except for the one idiot who thought wrestling with cops while in possession of a firearm on school grounds was a good idea.
Once in a while, I take a music break with Ravel’s Bolero.
I don’t know what is abut this piece. It’s one of a few I can just listen to.
Some good, or at least better, news: Although he may still lose his right eye, Salman Rushdie is recovering. The ventilator has been removed, and, according to his agent, he’s talking–and joking.
I wish him a full and speedy recuperation.
His attacker, Hadi Matar, has pled not guilty to second-degree attempted murder.
@OzarkHillbilly: I would add the couple who were trying to help the guy taken into custody (because his gun had “fallen to the ground”, I’m guessing trying to pick it up for him).
@Kathy: Maybe you have forebearers from Madrid? Maybe you recognize genius. And Bolero isn’t even one of Ravel’s best works. I understand why Gershwin wanted to study with him. I also why Ravel declined saying “why become a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin.”
@OzarkHillbilly: @Just nutha ignint cracker:
To be fair to these parents, they were probably out of their minds with worry. I don’t excuse it. But I get it.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
None. They were all eastern European.
@Kathy: Be careful with that…
😉
I used to be reasonably accomplished on the electric bass, but next to Charles Berthoud? I might as well have been playing with my hands wrapped in coconut shells.
When a prog band gives you 60 seconds to audition, play this
@Kathy:
ReL Bolero…
Before a deployment they shot us up with a whole spectrum of vaccines including a rather new one for malaria…and many of us reported disturbingly intense, vivid dreams. Most were the common one of being unable to move in a dangerous situation raised to the power of ten, vivid enough to bring people awake with a bounce and a shout in the barracks. In my case, for whatever reason, I was haunted with the extremely vivid recollections of a movie I had seen as a child that used Bolero as a score for trippy animations. There was no getting out of it. Wake up, go back to “sleep”, and there it was again!
To this day I can not hear Bolero and not remember this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O35tfvWopAs
@Mikey:..play this…
I know nothing about YouTube feeds. Maybe you saw this following your video.
Les Paul with Olivia Newton-John
@Kathy: @Just nutha ignint cracker: I guess I’m the only low-brow here that can’t help thinking of Bo Derek on a beach when I hear Bolero
@MarkedMan: WA! Thanks for the link. Don’t have time to read the connective material right now, but it’s on my list. Looks interesting!
@dazedandconfused: Trippy. Indeed. Interesting meta theme, too.
@Mr. Prosser: Didn’t see “10.” Not a strong enough image for me.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Beyond that, saw a clip of the scene, and was underwhelmed at Bo Derek being the big reveal. With beaded dreads (Cornrows?) no less. (Yikes! This is a parody, right?)
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I’m not 100% sure of what their motives were there. In a meleee what looks like somebody trying to help another could be them just trying to get by. So for the moment I’m giving them a small benefit of a doubt, a very small benefit but it’s there. Chances are we won’t hear anymore of this incident.
@CSK: Yep. America, home of the terrified.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Indeed. It would be a bad look to prosecute otherwise law-abiding (as far as we know) people for trying to rescue their kids.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Swell that that’s what we’ve come to. Really swell.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: The idea that cornrows are “owned” by African Americans is a fairly new phenomenon. In fact, this whole “cultural appropriation” thing is fairly recent, and IMHO, the thing the younger generations are most likely to make fun of when they get old enough to write sit coms and need a charmingly clueless old character. Think of the 2000 era “aging hippy” characters.
Go ahead. Get out your calendar for 2050, mark it down, and just wait and see if I’m right.
@dazedandconfused:
Low fever get me vivid, half-waking or lucid dreams. The last were upon receiving the boosters with AstraZeneca.
@dazedandconfused:
I never saw that movie.
I saw one called “Les uns et les autres”, titled Bolero internationally. I forget how I came to see it, but it did feature Ravel’s piece at some point.
And there was also the Torvill & Dean number in 1984. I did see that live on TV.
@MarkedMan:
Dude, if I’m still here at 95, all y’all are in a whole heap of trouble! But listening to her nail Somewhere Over the Rainbow with the Les Paul Trio was killer.
@Kathy:
Always rather liked Beck’s Bolero myself.
If you are at all interested in other classical stuff, I highly recommend checking out the Proms on the BBC (assuming you can access in the US?)
There’s a massive amount of audio only on BBC Sounds, and a large chunk of video (BBC4 & BBC2).
I’d suggest having a look at Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis”
Listening to the Proms is how I spend most of mid July to mid September evenings.
YMMV.
Just finished watching Sibelius 2nd Symphony by BBC Philharmonic conducted by Eva Ollikainen, BBC4.
Magic.
🙂
Every dawg damned time, microsoft, or google, or Firefox, or Norton, updates my computer, I find myself promising to obliterate the kneecaps of software engineers the world over. Because they can’t just fix whatever minor glitch they found in the code, they have to make THE WHOLE DAMNED THING BIGGER AND BETTER THAN ANYONE EVER DREAMED OF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! which just means that after all these months of figuring out how all this shit works…
NONE OF THAT SHIT WORKS ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If there is a god, once I send these mf’ers to the next life in the most painful way possible, they will spend all of eternity firing up their computers only to find that whatever worked the last time…. Doesn’t. And now they have to relearn everything all over again.
@OzarkHillbilly:
“Your opinion is important to us, how would you rate your user experience today?”
Incidentally, did you ever here about the Apple update specifically for software pirates?
The iPatch.
🙂
@OzarkHillbilly: Benefit of the doubt works; I just didn’t go that way at first glance.
@MarkedMan: I just thought they were a dumb look is all. I wasn’t thinking culture at all.
@JohnSF:
Not really interested. Just a few pieces I like.
I’ve run across Proms, though. Toccata and Fugue in D minor. (another of my favorites). There are organ performances and orchestra performances. This is one of a few that uses both.
@JohnSF: I played Fantasia once. It was harder than it looks.
@MarkedMan: I’ll be 98 years-old in 2050. If I’m still here I probably won’t understand TV anymore.
@Just nutha: Neither did I, but after a bit of thought I gave it to them.