But he played such a convincing gay guy in Miss Doubtfire

by liberal japonicus

Not meaning to make light of the Harvey Weinstein revelations, but this was funny:

On Oct. 5, The New York Times published a disturbing report detailing sexual harassment allegations against film producer and executive Harvey Weinstein, some of which dated back nearly three decades. After news of the allegations broke, the Weinstein Company fired the 65-year-old movie mogul, who co-founded the studio with his brother, Bob. The claims against Weinstein intensified Tuesday when the New Yorker published an investigative report, written by Ronan Farrow, that detailed rape allegations brought by three women. 

Unfortunately, the similar spellings of their surnames have lead many to confuse Weinstein for Fierstein, the legendary actor-playwright of “Torch Song Trilogy” fame and an LGBTQ rights icon. 

“I just can’t believe all these accusations of sexual harassment about Harvey Fierstein,” one person wrote. “I always thought he was gay.” Added another: “Am I the only one who confused this weekend because I didn’t know Harvey Weinstein and Harvey Fierstein were two different people?”

I should also add that Fierstein has also noted that "I’ve had some fun with the mix-up but, as you are well aware, the underlying issues of women being objectified is no laughing matter. So I think I am going to bow out of this discussion, stop making jokes, and let that story play itself out without my two cents.”

I have some thoughts about this, but thought we needed to another thread to hijack for gun control. Have at it.

Comments

[Fair Economist]

The names aren't that close - different first letters and syllables make them distinctive. I guess maybe it's a bit like the Chrises and the Ryans, where a similar first name and a passing similarity make them confusable.

[bob mcmanus]

Open Thread? A little politics this time, although to be honest, politics, current events, and the progressive blohosphere has become so depressing that I have been staying away.

The Trump changes to the ACA will be implemented differently in different states, with more kindness and generosity in blue states. Fine.

"The Big Sort" can be a strategy. As Red States become Hell, the poor, minorities and progressives will all move to California, so in 2020 Harris can maybe get 10 million useless wasted votes and lose the electoral college. And Republicans get a filibuster proof Senate and enough states for a Constitutional Convention.

Ewwww, but Texas is so icky, cept for Austin. Dallas. Houston. San Antonio. El Paso/Juarez. Not enough Thai restaurants. Fat people.

[bob mcmanus]

And related to above, a recent Article about QE

A new problem arose – one that most people wished they had. What to do with all that money?

"Around €500m can be found 1,100 kilometres from Milan, two storeys underground, in the form of concrete foundations at 20 Fenchurch Avenue in the middle of the City of London’s old financial district. Generali, which has received more than €8bn from the ECB’s money kitchen, decided to invest a chunk of its QE proceeds on building a giant office block to take advantage of the UK capital’s soaring property prices."

QE, or low interest rates, in this environment, fosters growth jobs prosperity and happiness in blue urban areas. This has been known at least since WJ Bryan's "Cross of Gold" IOW, California and NYC and Democrats have been screwing flyover country. You're not richer cause you're smarter nicer or prettier.

[formerly known as cleek]

California and NYC and Democrats have been screwing flyover country.

acreage does not get representation in Congress.

[Countme-a-Demon]

The usual republican/rumpian suspects will round up the Weinsteins, the Fiersteins, and the Soros' on any of the usual 2017-year old charges they can bring:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/harvey-weinstein-anti-semitism_us_59de57f7e4b00abf3645b90f

"The Big Sort" can be a strategy. As Red States become Hell, the poor, minorities and progressives will all move to California, so in 2020 Harris can maybe get 10 million useless wasted votes and lose the electoral college. And Republicans get a filibuster proof Senate and enough states for a Constitutional Convention."

Change "can be" to "most certainly is".

[Countme-a-Demon]

Kurt Allen Von Tillow

[Countme-a-Demon]

America is an ongoing 231-year-old thread hijacked by the punctuation of gunfire.

It's too soon to talk about it.

[Countme-a-Demon]

via Juanita Jean:

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/11/terrorist-donald-trump-airport-bomber-estes-asheville/

crickets

[Countme-a-Demon]

241-year-old thread, if you count a Wednesday afternoon in 1958.

[bob mcmanus]

acreage does not get representation in Congress.

Yes, it does. Every state, no matter its population, for the foreseeable future gets two Senators and one Congressperson and three electoral votes.

With 33 small pop states, the small state party would get a veto-proof Senate and an amendment machine. Repubs are quite close. This is the Koch goal.

guns?

A Left Argument For Gun Rights ...counterpunch

"The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition… Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.” ...Karl Marx

[russell]

well played, Harvey Fierstein.

This has been known at least since WJ Bryan's "Cross of Gold" IOW, California and NYC and Democrats have been screwing flyover country.

Longer than that.

Shays Rebellion was about snotty Boston elitists screwing over Connecticut River farmers.

Whiskey Rebellion was about snotty Washington and Hamilton screwing over western PA farmers.

Legitimate gripes, in both cases.

Different people have different interests. If you like, I can give you the long long list of the ways in which the worthy residents of "flyover country" have been screwing over all of us coastal elites.

Time to get the f*** over it. Either that, or lets just break the freaking country up along regional lines and be done with it.

Culture wars have past their sell-by date. I know it's a major national industry and profit center, but enough is enough. Time to focus on more important, more interesting, and more challenging, problems, or call it a freaking day.

Everyone fired up about gun rights likes to say "Hey, I never shot anyone!". Everyone fired up about the tyranny of Black Lives Matter likes to say "Hey, I never oppressed a black person!".

I'm fired up about the yeomen and -women of The Sainted Heartland bitching about "coastal elites", which apparently means people like me.

I'm not oppressing anybody. If middle America is unhappy with its situation, it needs to get off of its collective ass and change it. I'm happy to do whatever I can to help, but to the degree that heartlanders lives suck, the power to change that lies with them, not me.

Voting for the Trumps and Brownbacks and Ryans and Scott Walkers and god knows whatever other panel of benighted greed-mongering zombies flyover folks like to vote for is not going to get that done.

Enough of this "flyover country" bullshit. Get yourself some union representation. If you don't like unions, figure something else out, but what you don't want to do is mortgage the next generation of state and local taxes to some ginormous corporation in return for a couple thousand factory jobs paying $15/hour.

You by god don't want to revitalize your local economy by sending another generation or three of your young people down in a fucking hole to dig coal.

Hey, what do I, Mr. Coastal Elitist, know about any of that? Great-grandad died in a hole in the ground. Wife's grandfather died, young, of emphysema, after a lifetime of digging that crap out of the ground.

See, we're not all snotty know-it-all punks who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. You're mistaking us for that asshole you voted for for POTUS.

You can do better. Do better. Do it for yourselves and for your kids and grandkids. Don't want to watch your kids snuff themselves with oxy and fentanyl? Do better.

Vote in some people who aren't going to sell your sorry asses to the Koch Brothers or their ilk. Change your situation in life.

And quit bitching about people like me. It's tiresome. Whatever your situation is, it ain't because of me.

Want help? I'll do everything I can. Want to bitch? Talk to the hand.

Enough of this stupid, divisive, destructive bullshit already.

Thank you for your indulgence. This bullshit is getting up my nose a little too much these days.

[Countme-a-Demon]

I'm open to the argument that we need many, many, many more weapons in the hands of the citizenry before we can have fewer.

"Or perhaps I have missed the gun-control proposals that include disarming the police and the repressive state apparatus."

I've proposed that right here, but I'm nobody.

Yes, the state of mind is the root problem.

And yes, trucks as weapons. It makes you wonder why so many truckers carry guns too, when they could just run over Dreamers with their rigs at rump's instigation.

I remember Karl Benz, the purported inventor of the automobile/truck, telling Henry Ford that finally we have a weapon to kill human beings while taking the kids out for a Sunday ride.

On the other hand, Richard Gatling mused to his wife, I have an idea for a gadget but I just can't think what the gadget is supposed to accomplish, can you?"

[cleek_with_a_fake_beard]

acreage does not get representation in Congress.

Yes, it does. Every state, no matter its population, for the foreseeable future gets two Senators and one Congressperson and three electoral votes.

a state gets those things, regardless of its geographic area. acreage is not counted.

if sparesley-populated 'flyover' states don't like the fact that states with more people get a bigger say in Congress, they should get more people. we can send them educational material if they can't figure out how to do that.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Another proof for the gun lobby is that rump is figuring out a way to murder Americans with the deadly weapon of rumpnocare, without firing a shot.

It's like handing out free swimming pools.

[sapient]

Meanwhile, this is fine. Remember the days when we all cared about brown people in other countries?

[russell]

A Left Argument For Gun Rights ...counterpunch

Want a gun, have a gun. I don't give a crap. Don't be an idiot about it.

That said, I would pay good money to read one damned person talk honestly about the whole assault rifle thing.

It is in fact damned hard to pin down a definition of "assault rifle" that is legally useful. So I personally don't see a big win in any of the assault rifle bans, other than giving people a false sense that they're accomplishing something.

However.

An AR-15 or any variant of an AR-15 is not the same as a handgun or a shotgun or even other kinds of rifles.

It fires a round that travels at an unusually high rate of speed. Upon contact with soft tissue it may tumble and create quite large wounds. It will, and was designed to, penetrate steel plate at a distance of a couple hundred yards.

Depending on the firearm and the shooter, a handgun is accurate to 25 to 75 yards. If you can hit a target accurately at 75 yards, you're a damned good shooter. Frankly, if you can hit a live moving target in a stressful situation at 25 yards, you're probably a damned good shooter. Not my experience, but that's my understanding. Gun aficionados, correct me if you wish.

A shotgun has an effective range of 50 to 100 yards. For practical purposes, most likely the shorter end of that range.

Depending on what round you are shooting, an AR-15 has an effective range of 500-800 yards.

It's a firearm with lots of uses, so I am told, but it was designed to be an effective offensive weapon for shooting people and rendering them hors de combat in ranges of hundreds of yards. It's not the same, and does not present the same risks to public safety, as a handgun, or shotgun, or even other rifles which were designed for hunting larger game.

Want to bring "the truth" to the gun debate? Bring the whole truth.

[sapient]

Guess I didn't drill down to the actual article in my link. It's here.

[hairshirthedonist]

Dow futures are up! All is well!

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12836895/constitution-article-v/

[Countme-a-Demon]

My car insurance rates are up big time every year in Colorado, my annual premium, for liability and comprehensive alone, is now about what my car is worth, because of massive hail damage for the most part in recent years.

No damage to my car. Why is this MY fucking problem? I've done nothing to deserve this. Where is my fucking freedom from auto insurance mandates?

Why am I paying for these free-loading idiot snowflakes who park their Humvees outside? Healthy, non-hailed on me shouldn't be contributing to the welfare of sick jerks with hail dents in their cars and shattered windshields.

This, despite the fact the "insurance pool" is so much larger in Colorado because of massive population growth along the Front Range.

How do dat work, anyhoo, in pigshit America?

Furthermore, the front range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains should be evacuated and abandoned to human habitation, like New Orleans was, and Houston and Florida and Puerto Rico should be.

It'd be cheaper for all around.

I don't know what the original numbnuts were thinking when they settled this area, so prone to catastrophe. The first time their wigwams were pelted with hail, they should have cleared the area and skedaddled.

Didn't they have MBAs?

I want cheap auto insurance coverage, dammit, without all these add-ons, like if I kill a bunch of people with my car I have to pay a premium and deductible to "protect" myself.

If I want cheap coverage that stipulates that all the dead and maimed people get that I run over is a used chamois for their trouble, what's the harm?

[Countme-a-Demon]

Hospital and medical insurance stocks are down pretty big over the past couple of months.

Clearly, shareholders must be bailed out.

The price of medical care must rise.

They need debt collectors to suit up on their behalf with surgeons and their surgical units right there in the operating theater for every procedure.

That way they can claim their pound of flesh while the patient snoozes.

Such beautiful, beautiful medical care not named after a nigger.

I don't think the death merchants should be required to wash their hands either, because that would violate their religious rights.

[hairshirthedonist]

Does anyone remember the game KerPlunk? That's what I feel like Trump is playing, only the marbles are the United States of America.

There's this from 538:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-far-less-popular-than-the-economy-suggests-he-should-be/

When (not "if"!) he pulls the wrong stick and the thus-far blissfully disconnected stock market takes a nosedive, along with the economy (probably worldwide, because that's how things work), how unpopular will he be then, I wonder?

I wonder that in an academic sort of way, because it won't be all that important compared to the damage to countless lives.

[Countme-a-Demon]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/10/13/1706623/-Suspicious-U-S-Diplomat-illnesses-May-be-a-Ruse-to-End-U-S-Cuba-D-tente

The rump campaign and now the rump Administration are colluding with Putin's Russia, via these sound wave attacks on diplomats only, to scuttle Obama's rapprochement between Cuba and the United States.

Conservatives have a choice. Believe me or your lying gummint, the one you people hate.

Why would rump want Russian intercontinental ballistic nuclear warhead missiles back in Cuba?

Was John F. Kennedy a black man with a legacy too that must be destroyed.

[sapient]

More Nazi policy.

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-values-voters-summit

Yeah, things are changing back alright:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/roy-moore-led-charge-against-removing-segregation-from-alabama-constitution

They are going to have to step over a lot of dead bodies to get back there.

[wj]

if sparesley-populated 'flyover' states don't like the fact that states with more people get a bigger say in Congress, they should get more people. we can send them educational material if they can't figure out how to do that.

We can also provide material on Kansas' experience, for information on how NOT to do that.

[wj]

I don't know what the original numbnuts were thinking when they settled this area, so prone to catastrophe. The first time their wigwams were pelted with hail, they should have cleared the area and skedaddled.

Maybe they didn't get pelted with hail, back in the day. It could be more severe now, due to climate change....

[Countme-a-Demon]

My favorite headline until further notice:

https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/10/conservatism-is-dying-could-islam-help-save-it/

Once conservative Islam figures out that we liberal cultural Marxists want to promote teh gay in our "secular scheming", western conservatives and ISIS can join arms to kill Harvey Fierstein.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"Maybe they didn't get pelted with hail, back in the day."

Wigwams are more resilient to hail, you don't get dings and dents and broken glass.

That's why wigwam insurance rates are much more reasonable.

AND, I'm sure many of those flyover states want more population, but to only count them as 3/5.

[cleek_with_a_fake_beard]

Yellowstone will sort things out, in due time.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Actually, out West wigwams were called wikiups.

If you don't use the correct nomenclature, they cancel your insurance for undisclosed preexisting mispronunciation. Says right here, if you squint real hard: "Wikiup."

That's what happens when we allow insurance companies to sell across tribal lines ... they play endless word games with you. It's called a wigwam at company headquarters in New Jersey and "wikiup" in New Mexico ain't no wigwam.

It ain't no moop neither. If you want to claim it's a gunshot wound, you'll need three doctors signatures and the scalp of Woman Who Talks Funny as proof.

There's also a ten-year waiting period for talking about it at all.

One tribe's tumor is a scraped knee to another. We pay out for the latter regardless.

Look it up on Wikipedia.

Coverage denied.

It is a little known fact that the Comanche were climate change deniers and roasted anyone alive who thought differently.

[wonkie]

The flyover red states are not being screwed any anyone They are parasitic states with economies that are dependent upon government spending provided by blue states.

[Girl from the North Country]

Speaking of insurance, I've just ruined 8 years of a no-claims bonus by smashing into a concrete bollard while momentarily blinded by the sun. I'm unhurt, but the car is undrivable, was towed home tonight and is being collected to go for repair tomorrow. It's extremely annoying, because I have to go to London next week and should be taking lots of stuff with me. Trains: very expensive. Taxis etc: very expensive. I'm very, very pissed off!

[Countme-a-Demon]

Glad you are OK GFTNC.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Odd coincidence here.

If you count only the visible guilty faces in this crowd (see photo in the article of celebrating murderers), they total 58, the same number of innocent people murdered in Las Vegas.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12846097/republicans-support-trump-obamacare-assault/

Made you count, didn't I.

[Girl from the North Country]

Thanks Count. It's still very inconvenient, but since posting I've checked my policy, and I must have paid extra for a protected no-claims bonus. I remember considering it, and I obviously went for it, thank all the gods.

[JanieM]

GftNC -- I had a minor fender bender not long ago and it was upsetting enough even though almost nothing happened! Sorry to hear you're going through it....glad you're okay, though.

[byomtov]

QE, or low interest rates, in this environment, fosters growth jobs prosperity and happiness in blue urban areas. This has been known at least since WJ Bryan's "Cross of Gold"

Huh?

The speech, and the monetary controversy of the time, were about the conflict between westerners - farmers and ranchers - and "East Coast urban elites." It was the former who wanted loose money and the latter who were "sound money" advocates. Farmers are debtors. They like inflation. Bankers are creditors. They hate it.

Bryan wanted to get away from the gold standard and have coinage of silver - quantitative easing of a type. The hard money types hated the idea.

And, btw, in modern days, why should easy money - low rates - help urban areas and harm rural dwellers? There is no reason I can think of.

[sapient]

I'm so happy you're okay, gftnc. I've had two friends who had car mishaps lately - they were hurt.

But remember what Nigel posted some short time ago: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-sorrow-and-the-shame-of-the-accidental-killer

Don't be pissed off.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Why don't they just hoist the Jolly Roger over the stinking government and be done with it:

http://juanitajean.com/god-save-the-zinke/

[Girl from the North Country]

Thanks, JanieM and sapient. It is upsetting and annoying, but sapient is right: I'm not hurt and I didn't hurt anyone else (the bollard came off pretty badly though!) And as the very sensible Mr GftNC says, in a couple of weeks it will be as if nothing happened.

[sapient]

And as the very sensible Mr GftNC says, in a couple of weeks it will be as if nothing happened.

Nice to have that voice of support. Again, all is well, although a pain in the ass (which, yes, I'll tell my daily stories).

[Countme-a-Demon]

I'm gonna need a bump stock on my keyboard:

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/10/if-you-have-to-license-guns-reporters.html

The guy in Vegas could have opened the hotel window and mowed those people down by flinging the New York Times on to their heads and yelling words at them.

[Priest]

Had to go look up bollard, as I don't believe I've encountered the word before (though I got a general idea from the context). Will do an informal survey at the bar tonight to see if it's a British vs. American English thing or if I'm just a dullard about bollards.

[sapient]

Will do an informal survey at the bar tonight to see if it's a British vs. American English thing or if I'm just a dullard about bollards.

Speaking of ards, dotards come to mind. Thank goodness, we're being schooled.

[sapient]

Mallards, though. I hope they don't ever violate posting rules.

[JanieM]

Since this thread is rambling around, here's another direction: Apollo's Fire playing Brandenburg Concerto No. 3.

I'm not well-versed in classical music, but I was exposed to a few things long ago that I have treasured ever since, and this concerto is one of them. I stumbled across this rendition on YouTube a couple of years ago, and ... wow. It's great to listen to and fun to watch as well.

The story of the founder/conductor of Apollo's fire, Jeannette Sorell, is cool too.

And they're based on Cleveland. Who knew? (Well, I'm sure a lot of people did, but not me.)

[liberal japonicus]

You might like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljojjoBGLYw

Glenn Gould playing Brandenburg 5 on piano. Unfortunately, in addition to the split up video, the youtube video sound quality makes the piano sound harpsichord-ish, I have the recording on a remastered cd I got here in Japan and it is pretty astonishing to hear it on piano.

Youtube being what it is, this popped up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBOJDTvG0DQ

Perahia playing #5 on piano. While the harpsichord is authentic, I do like it with the piano.

[JanieM]

George Bernard Shaw wrote a five-play cycle called Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch, as forgotten as the title deserves. But I did my dissertation mostly on this play, so pieces of it are still stuck in my mind. To wit, from the stage directions to the fourth of the five plays, "Tragedy of an Elderly Gentleman":

Burrin pier on the south shore of Galway Bay in Ireland, a region of stone-capped hills and granite fields. It is a fine summer day in the year 3000 A.D. On an ancient stone stump, about three feet thick and three feet high, used for securing ships by ropes to the shore, and called a bollard or holdfast, an elderly gentleman sits facing the land, with his head bowed and his face in his hands, sobbing.

I'm 100% sure I've never heard the word "bollard" used out loud.

Also, from the first of the five plays, "In the Beginning," the serpent talking to Eve:

When you and Adam talk, I hear you say 'Why?' Always 'Why?' You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?'

A version of this passage is often attributed to Bobby Kennedy, because he used it, but it was Shaw's first.

[JanieM]

Thanks, lj, I'm listening to the Glenn Gould now.

[liberal japonicus]

Headed out the door, but the mention of bobby kennedy reminded me of this

http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/derbyshire.html

An obituary of Desmond Derbyshire where Kennedy makes an interesting appearance.

[JanieM]

Thanks for the obit link too. Makes me wish...ah, never mind.

[JanieM]

P.S. The Perahia is great.

[russell]

Will do an informal survey at the bar tonight to see if it's a British vs. American English thing or if I'm just a dullard about bollards.

OK, I know what a bollard is. But then again, I know what a hacking knot is. So, grains of salt as needed.

A harpishcordish tone seems exactly right for the intersection of Gould and Bach.

[Nigel]

Perahia is great.
If you haven't listened to his Mozart concertos, do. The clarity and beauty of his interpretation is wonderful.

[Nigel]

Glad you came off better than the bollard, GFTNC.
... What are bollards called in the US ???

[JanieM]

Nigel - This is kind of rambling, but cute.

I suppose "post" is as good a word as any, but (maybe because of Shaw) I think of a bollard as something near the sea, and I have no idea what I'd call the things in that link's top picture on the left, i.e. thingies used along roads and not near piers.

Maybe, like the blogger, I'd call them "posts." Or "barrier thingies." ;-)

[russell]

hey, why not. the world is a mess, it's in my kiss. so, lemme chuck a little jazz in the mix. but maybe stuff folks will dig.

Hank Jones and Charlie Haden, playing old gospel chestnut "Steal Away"

Bill Frisell, "Strawberry Fields Forever"

Gregory Porter, "Be Good". I don't know what the hat is about.

Fuck Donald Trump and the horse he rode in on. The world is still full of music. It's in our hearts, he can't touch it. It ain't for sale.

Stupid vain old man. He'll never make anything this beautiful in a hundred lifetimes.

Sucks to be him.

[JanieM]

thanks, russell

"old gospel chestnut 'Steal Away'" is a favorite of mine -- maybe that's my way into jazz, relatively simple songs that I already know and love, so that I can hear the "conversation" that's going on a little better.

I really liked that one, and also the Bill Frisell "Moon River" that followed Strawberry Fields at autoplay's discretion.

[JakeB]

I indulge a kind of perverse snobbery in refusing to listen to (or enjoy listening to) Baroque music played on the piano. No Bach on the piano, ever, for me. Except for Glenn Gould. That SOB was really something.

I also realized this evening that going from Frank Zappa to Bach as listening material works strangely well. That pervert could sure write a song.

[JakeB]

Also, let me also say I'm glad you weren't hurt, GftNC, when you struck the bollard. There aren't so many people around who go by the name of one of my favorite Dylan songs that we can afford to lose them.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Thanks, russell, for the music, and everyone.

I love Gould humming as he plays; like McCartney, he can't keep his voice down when there is music.

Perahia, of course.

"nothing is real" from Strawberry Fields Forever gets me through my days.

"Be Good" is so good. I want that to be the soundtrack from now on.

[novakant]

This is the Brandenburg Concerto recording I first encountered in my teens and since then everything else sounds a bit wrong to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztJRm4-FqHA

It's by "Musica Antiqua Koln" and it's FAAAST...

They played on original instruments and tried to recreate the performances of the time - apparently their recordings are not without detractors but I love them, though I prefer the piano for other Bach pieces.

Gould made two recordings of the Goldberg Variations 25 years apart and they're very interesting to compare (1955 very fast / 1981 very slow). I also like his Beethoven Sonatas, especialy the last 3 which are insane.

He had a radio show which I believe is archived somewhere online and there's a good documentary demystifying him a bit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/movies/05gould.html

[Donald]

Hijacking to talk about gun control

https://medium.com/ginsudo/youre-wrong-about-second-amendment-rights-395af5253674

[formerly known as cleek]

GFTNC, glad you're OK!

[Pro Bono]

GftNC: I did a mischief to my car in Newcastle not long ago, and was surprised by how cheap it was to rent a replacement for a few days.

[Girl from the North Country]

To all lollards, dullards (not that we have any), dotards (ditto) and (just possibly) mallards:

My bollard was kind of similar to the one at top left of JanieM's link, but made of concrete and aggregate (if that's not a tautology), and approximately two and a half feet high. Today, it certainly does look like it picked a fight with the wrong guy. I can't blame myself having examined it today - I continued driving straight, whereas if not blinded I would have seen that I had to veer right. To pursue the point of sapient's New Yorker link, the bollard seems exactly the height of a toddler, and one of those could easily have been standing on that part of the kirb immediately in front of the bollard, so all in all this was a miraculously lucky escape. Also, my profligate car insurance choice seems to have included a courtesy car for the duration (it will take 2-3 weeks), so really, all things considered, a bit of inconvenience is a small price to pay.

Meanwhile, thanks to all for kind and good wishes. I am now settling down to enjoy all the musical links.

Fuck Donald Trump and the horse he rode in on. The world is still full of music. It's in our hearts, he can't touch it. It ain't for sale.

Amen to that.

[Girl from the North Country]

Bill Frisell's Strawberry Fields Forever was completely blissful - it's my favourite Beatles song, so that also helps.

Gregory Porter's on Jools very often, it's not just the crazy hat (which he is always wearing), what wasn't very visible in this video is that it also connects with and seems to sort of control his beard. I have wondered in the past if it is a religious thing, like sikhs and their turbans....

[Michael Cain]

The Wall Street Journal's 24/7 put together a list of 50 best US cities to live in. Three of the top five are Denver suburbs. We live in #3 on the list. Skimming down the list, it's clear that whatever criteria they used, those really favor largish suburban cities.

The New York print media seems to be suffering some Colorado envy. This list, and the NYTimes Upshot picked Denver to be the winner in the Amazon HQ2 competition.

[Nigel]

I indulge a kind of perverse snobbery in refusing to listen to (or enjoy listening to) Baroque music played on the piano. No Bach on the piano, ever, for me. Except for Glenn Gould. That SOB was really something.

I respect, but can't agree with this. The piano adds a dimension of (must be controlled) expressivity that I wont willingly lose. But yes, of course, about Gould.

I also realized this evening that going from Frank Zappa to Bach as listening material works strangely well. That pervert could sure write a song.
Zappa wasn't a total slouch, either...

[Countme-a-Demon]

Michelle Vo

Also this

[wj]

Donald, that is a really, really fascinating article. Especially since I have been listening to the (empassioned) discussions going on at the IETF over Internet security.

And just the thought of some of the flaming liberals I know becoming 2nd Amendment (as reinterprete) fans brings a smile.

[formerly known as cleek]

Raleigh @ #10 !

In Raleigh, 50.8% of adults have at least a bachelor’s degree, far more than the 31.3% national share.

and we're surrounded by a vast sea of ... North Carolina.

[bob mcmanus]

Re:Donald's article

"The problem is that the disparity of destructive power between the weaponry of the government and the weaponry that people can own has become too great. Even if all citizens were armed with fully automatic assault rifles, this arsenal would pale in comparison to the firepower available to state and local police forces, never mind the world-ending power of the national armed forces."

I was thinking about this the other night. I am not so sure how it would work out in practice, but I deny that an armed citizenry would go down so easy in a civil war. There are some recent incidents, like Dallas, and we could remember the militia Shia vs Sunni period after the US invasion of Iraq.

Gov't would have to worry about urban warfare, collateral damage, destruction of the political economy, and soldiers running away from the brutality or switching sides. Just cause the tyranny has nukes, doesn't mean they'll use them against their own people.

The trick here is to disperse and intersperse, to mix in complicated spatial ways with your enemies or non-combatants. ISIS used some of that.

Course, with all the Democrats in coastal cities huddling together, a Right tyranny would have less of a problem in America.

[bob mcmanus]

Oh, and in response to the lack of necessity for AR-15s mentioned above, Karl Marx in the quote listed *cannons*. Artillery.

Of course you want range weapons and area effect weapons. The point is not to defend your house or hunt bunnies, but to kill gov't soldiers in resistance or as deterrent.

Personal nukes or chemicals would be abused, so I don't go that far.

[sapient]

The article that Donald posted is based on a false premise, and cites links that point out the falsity of the premise.

The "well regulated militias" were not a defense against tyrannical government, but a way to deal with threats to the government (in other words, citizen armies to fight rebellions). In fact, laws required people to have guns and to show up with them to practice.

It is fascinating that an article can be wrong in so many ways.

[Girl from the North Country]

For anybody who is interested in the question of whether torture works in obtaining information, as opposed to whether it is wrong, the following is the "long read" in today's Guardian, and is very interesting. It is subheaded:

Expert interrogators know torture doesn't work - but until now, no one could prove it. By analysing hundreds of top-secret interviews with terror suspects, two British scientists have revolutionised the art of extracting the truth.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/13/the-scientists-persuading-terrorists-to-spill-their-secrets

[wj]

I am not so sure how it would work out in practice, but I deny that an armed citizenry would go down so easy in a civil war. There are some recent incidents, like Dallas, and we could remember the militia Shia vs Sunni period after the US invasion of Iraq.

Nobody doubts that the "armed citizenry" could kill a lot of people. How many of them would actually be Federal troops (or policemen) might be another story. And I suppose you could count on an increased body count, should the Feds get sufficiently impatient that they cease focusing on zero collateral damage.

But be a serious threat in a civil war? That's just delusional. It's totally unlike, to use your examples, the incident in Dallas (was the military even involved?) or the civil war in Iraq (both sides with relatively equal weapons).

[Doctor Science]

Stopping in from the public library to say Hi! A windstorm took down our electric & FIOS lines early Tuesday morning. We got power back by noon, but the live wires were still drooping and tangled with the FIOS lines, so Verizon couldn't do any repairs. Took until today for PSE&G to untangle them, internet should be restored on Monday. They tell me.

It's AMAZING how much time I have in the day when there's no internet.

[JanieM]

It's AMAZING how much time I have in the day when there's no internet.

QFT.

[Nous]

I am not at all convinced that the violent and widespread civil unrest we seem to be headed for in the USA would ever escalate to the point of a Civil War of some organized separatist group against the (putative) federal government. And given that Russian provocateurs seem now to be targeting the USA's military personnel and veterans, I'm not sure that the military itself is going to be functional as an institution in the face of open conflict. Same goes for law enforcement.

IOW, Civil War 2.0 may not look at all like Civil War 1.0:

“We keep saying, ‘It can’t happen here,’ but then, holy smokes, it can,” Mines told me after we talked, on Sunday, about Charlottesville. The pattern of civil strife has evolved worldwide over the past sixty years. Today, few civil wars involve pitched battles from trenches along neat geographic front lines. Many are low-intensity conflicts with episodic violence in constantly moving locales.

No one should smile if progressives begin embracing the Second Amendment and continue purchasing firearms at the same rate they have been since the elections. It would mean that they too have lost faith in federal government as a remedy for societal injustice, and that political fragmentation is likely to follow.

This will not be good for anyone and will leave another legacy of violence and generational trauma to overcome at a time when the US seems already to be faltering both politically and economically on the world stage.

Which is exactly what Putin is aiming for and achieving, with or without active coordination.

[Michael Cain]

But be a serious threat in a civil war? That's just delusional.

Yep. Speaking as the (one of the?) resident secession lunatic(s), if it comes to shooting in this age in a developed country, you lose. The only winning move is a peaceful partition. In the US, that means 38 states that believe they'll be better off without some of the others. It's not necessary for all 38 to agree on who "the others" are, or to agree on why they'll be better off.

An unanswered but interesting question is how much popular support the political class would need to pull it off. IIRC, in both the American Revolution and the Civil War it only took having about a third backing the idea to get into a shooting war.

[formerly known as cleek]

i admit i haven't read a lot of history about Jefferson, but it seems odd to me that someone who had just gone through so much effort and struggle to form a new nation would be so cavalier about having it overthrown, let alone being eager to give people the tools to tear it down. after all, the Constitution contains within it the ability to reshape itself and the government however people want. did he think it wasn't going to work?

do people ever see his writings on this stuff as really being retroactive justifications for the American revolution - and that his high-minded writings about "tree of liberty" and such were just ways of dressing up what amounted to treason?

all the hunting rifles in the US are going to be useless against a squadron of B52s. just sayin.

[Donald]

The article I linked linked to this article—

http://factmyth.com/factoids/thomas-jefferson-called-for-rebellion-and-revolution/

The point of this second article is that Jefferson took a nuanced view of armed revolt— he didn’t want the government he helped establish to be overthrown, but a little armed rebellion every now and then was a good thing and the rebels should not be treated too harshly.

I am pretty unsympathetic to the notion of armed rebellion in this country, but bob mcmanus has a point — if revolts by people with small arms against governments ( whether with B52’s or Bears) were that hopeless an enterprise then the history of the 20th century would be very different. It does help a lot to have allies from outside, however.

[JanieM]

Donald, btw it's nice to see you. :-)

[sapient]

Here's an interesting article about militias, actual militias, the ones they were referring to in the 2nd Amendment. They were contemplated by states rights people as a way for states to have some power over the armed forces. They didn't work very well, which is why the 2nd amendment was thereafter pretty much ignored until the NRA types rewrote its history to somehow enable revolution against the federal government.

About Jefferson, and his evolving view of militias:

The chief difference between a crowd and an army is discipline. Writing to James Monroe in 1813, Jefferson insisted that "we must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a part of collegiate education." Six years earlier Jefferson had come to the conclusion that a "well-regulated" militia demanded federal supervision of training and, borrowing a leaf from Knox, Jefferson had gone so far as to recommend "a classification which shall constitute a select and a reserve militia"—that is, a trained cadre plus a manpower pool. Early in 1810 a Senate committee reviewed this proposal but reported that "prejudices against such a mode of organization in many parts of the Union" made such a project impractical.

[formerly known as cleek]

so, his "a little revolution" seems to mean a local uprising against a specific action. basically, armed protest.

he is not talking about overthrowing the federal government.

[Donald]

Cheek, I think that is about right, based on the article in my second link. It is a lot more extreme than I would be willing to support. My first link was advocating complete security against government surveillance on the internet as a type of check against governmental overreach.

I wonder where Jefferson would have come down in 1861? Not trolling. Genuinely curious. He was a slaveholder opposed to slavery. Gary Wills said some harsh things about Jefferson’s views on slavery some years back, but I have forgotten all the details.

Thanks Jamie.

[Donald]

And by way of the Nakedcapitalism people, where I got the first link, another link that says the militias in the 2nd Amendment are really there for the purpose of putting down slave revolts.

http://www.carltbogus.com/edmund-a-blog/72-the-hidden-history-of-the-second-amendment-redux

[Snarki, child of Loki]

John Brown's raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry (with the goal of starting an armed slave uprising) is the kind of "insurgent attack" that one might see in these modern times.

Brown was put down, brutally. But his acts energized the paranoid overreaction of the southern slaveholders to start the US Civil War, where (after much bloodshed) THEY were put down, brutally. Yet not brutally enough, IMO.

[bob mcmanus]

Oh, my reading of the 2nd is that the "well regulated militias" were to defend against, oh fur instance, slave uprisings. The main point of the 2nd in practice and why state militias were mentioned were to keep the right to regulate and ban firearms in the states, so they could keep free blacks and other funny looking types from getting guns. There were a lot of state restrictions on the books in 1789.

[Michael Cain]

Oh, my reading of the 2nd is that the "well regulated militias" were to defend against, oh fur instance, slave uprisings.

Or, say, a bunch of white grain farmers in western Pennsylvania who refused to pay their taxes.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

IMO, the 2nd and 3rd Amendments were both "things that Americans didn't like about pre-Revolutionary War America", and were quickly found to be completely irrelevant.

If they had waited until 1815 or so (certainly, post-1812, when the Militia didn't exactly cover themselves in glory), they'd never have been passed.

[russell]

jefferson wrote the famous "tree of liberty" thing in response to shays rebellion. from france. where he was hanging out with real live tyrants, drinking their lovely wine, romancing the ladies not to exclude young sally hemmings aka his chattel property, and having sally's brother, aka his other chattel property, trained in french cooking.

so, whatever. beautiful writer, not necessarily such a great guy or role model.

shorter me: had jefferson put his own personal ass on the line, i'd find his nattering about the tree of liberty more persuasive.

after a few years of reading whatever i came across about the 2nd A., what I conclude is:

states were surrendering their sovereignty to the feds.

they had mixed feelings about this,

they did not want to be in the position of having the feds dominate them via force of arms.

so they wanted to retain the institution of the civilian militia under local civil control, as a counter to a standing federal army.

the distinction between "individual right" and "collective right" would not, I think, have made any sense to them. anyone who could afford a firearm probably had one. there was no local police force per se, a firearm meant personal security and free meat. folks in the 18th C, as far as I can tell, had guns like we have cars and TVs and smartphones.

and, you employed your firearm in the context of your participation in militia. which - the times being what they were - most adult white males participated in.

as of 1792, you were in fact required by federal law to own a firearm and use it for that purpose.

it was not a matter of "folks should have guns *in case* we ever need to assemble a militia". folks had guns, and they were in the real, live, actual militia.

it was also not a case of "me and my buddies decided to form our own militia". the militia might be assembled under private sponsorship - i.e., colonel jones who happened to live in your county might put up the money for materiel and possibly uniforms - but it was subject to civil authority.

it was also not a case of "me and my buddies have a gripe and we're taking up arms". that did actually happen, more than once, and the "me and my buddies" folks were crushed. by the militia.

the institution of the militia no longer exists in any recognizable form. the closest thing are the various national and state guards. if you keep and bear a firearm as part of your guard obligations, i doubt anyone has a problem with it.

the reason the militia went away is because it was a half-assed form of national defense. the swiss make it work, but switzerland is a small,politically neutral country with no global ambitions, which is located in mountainous territory which can be effectively defended from invasion by protecting a small number of passes.

that ain't us.

we have a very large and robust standing army, which the founders would have been suspicious of. virtually every municipality in the country has a police force and/or other public safety organizations more or less commensurate with the local need for insuring public safety. the institution of the militia has evolved into the various guard organizations, who do good work but who neither require nor receive universal participation. all of those things have replaced the institution of the militia in american public life.

the 2nd A is, as far as I can tell, analogous to the 3rd. it refers to institutions and practices that no longer exist.

if you want a gun, have a gun. don't be a knucklehead and most likely nobody will care all that much.

but the 2nd A is about preserving the institution of a well regulated militia, under local civil controland authority, for peace-keeping and general self-defense.

that's why the plain language of the text refers to a well regulated militia.

as of the dick act, that institution no longer exists. it went away because it didn't work.

if you want to spark a civil war, different topic. but when you go there, you are by definition outside the bounds of the constitution. you are in burn it down and start over territory.

and, you're on your own. bon chance.

[Michael Cain]

if you keep and bear a firearm as part of your guard obligations, i doubt anyone has a problem with it.

Honest question: Are there Guard outfits where you can just show up with your own weapon? Or does the Guard issue you a weapon if/when you need one? Certainly if I were doing logistics for the Guard I'd be worried about consistency of ammunition, repair parts, etc.

[Countme-a-Demon]

All of the angles regarding revolt have shifted dramatically since November 9, 2016.

These are the ones with the weapons:

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/10/what-white-nationalists-where-here.html

key quote "I love President Trump. He’s really evolved… He has a biblical worldview now as opposed to just a billionaire’s worldview.”

A biblical worldview? That crazy woman is allowed to walk around, probably with guns.

Damaged, sick, malignant, dangerous snowflakes:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/16/birth-of-a-white-supremacist

Their champions occupy the White House and parts of Congress, so the fucks cited above aren't looking to overthrow the government, other than the decent Americans serving in the bureaucracy, who they'd be happy to fucking kill, they ARE the government.

Who do we think the rump/republican government and the white nationalist scum and those who quietly support them among the percentage of Americans who own most of the weapons in the hands of the citizenry are going to slaughter when push comes to shove?

Each other?

Who will ICE and the INS, all armed, side with? Who will the U.S. military side with. Who will the FBI side with? Who will so-called Homeland Security, all armed. side with?

Us?

We're sitting ducks.

[Countme-a-Demon]

All killers, all murderers:

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/10/14/bannon-decries-ridicule-trump-demands-personal-loyalty-all-gop-senators/218224

[Nigel]

The legal violence that has been done twisting and expanding whatever the original sense of the Second Amendment might have been seems to me a blatant example of the 'judicial activism' which conservatives claim to abhor. FWIW,

Anyhow, this Atlantic discussion on 'evil' is germane, interesting, and brief:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/evil-in-politics-alan-wolfe/542745/

[formerly known as cleek]

Who do we think the rump/republican government and the white nationalist scum and those who quietly support them among the percentage of Americans who own most of the weapons in the hands of the citizenry are going to slaughter when push comes to shove?

random strangers in the airport, clearly.

http://wlos.com/news/local/asheville-airport-bomb-scare-suspect-has-criminal-background

[Countme-a-Demon]

http://www.publicbooks.org/big-picture-resource-extraction/

Keep 'em untrained, with minimal health insurance, no unions.

Arm them with weapons of war.

Let the russians and eastern european bots brainwash them, convince them of their victimization and rachet up their hate for the Other, during election campaigns.

But most of all, keep em glassy-eyed and doped up:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/10/15/no-info-for-the-dea/

The republican party is The Force For Evil in the world.

It's a biblical worldview.

Their Bible doesn't have a happy ending for most of the rest of the world, including us.