romani . . . romance . . . ravel

Ravel's "Tzigane" as played by Liesl Schoenberger (violin) and Jessica Osborne (piano) at Morse Recital Hall at Sprague Hall on the campus of Yale University, December 2010. Video production by John Thordarson (www.tribalfilms.net)

jimi, a true patriot . . .

All is not always well in all ways . . .

pondering the new century . . .

So we are well into the new century with all of the bright promises of the Jetson set.

As it turns out the new century wasn't like The Jetsons at all. Instead it's just like Star Trek. Not Trek the Movie, or Trek the series. Star Trek the set.

Remember the doors on Star Trek? Every time Kirk charged off the bridge, they opened with a snappy sideways slide and a high-tech swoosh. The thing is, behind the scenes, those doors were pulled back by hidden stagehands. That's the world we've inherited: a coat of shiny gloss made possible by a lot of unseen, unappreciated human effort. It's a world in which everything we wear, everything we carry, and most of the things in our home have the vitreous sheen of quality—a polish put there by tens of thousands of people working in crippling sweat shop conditions, for pitiful pay, in nations where raising a complaint means being discarded. The appearance of progress pasted over Dickensian tragedy.

it takes a village . . . always has . . .

fingers crossed . . .

There is a good chance that Dana Milbank makes a good point.

Gingrich himself remains so unpopular that his own chances of beating Obama seem dim: His 29 percent favorability rating is about where it was before he was dumped as speaker by his House colleagues in 1998. But by making Romney as unpopular as he is, he has made Obama look good by comparison. Obama’s favorable rating is up to 53 percent from 48 percent in December.

Gingrich has long regarded himself as a “transformational figure” in world history, and now he’s about to prove it: For the second time in his career, he is about to save the reelection bid of a foundering Democratic president.

tweetology . . .

The future may include tweet seismology . . . ?

Seismologists have long used layperson reports of shaking to study earthquakes, particularly for historic earthquakes that lack high-quality seismographic measurements. The concept today is the same, but technology has greatly increased the quality and availability of that information. Besides Twitter activity, Allen lists a few more examples. The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center uses hits on its website, resolved geographically by IP address, to learn about the areas affected by earthquakes.

you know, the ones working two jobs . . .

What about all of the rich schoolteachers?

Brown also took on President Barack Obama for proposing tax hikes on families who earn more than $250,000 per year, saying that would hurt “teachers, firefighters, policemen, folks who work two jobs.”

Asked which public servants earn that much money, Brown said it is common for police officers to earn well over $100,000 annually when overtime is factored into their pay.

“You throw in a teacher who’s working, plus a summer job, it adds up pretty quickly,” he said. “There’s quite a few of them.”

locating the center of journalism . . .

As long as the MSM "journalists" keep to their he said/she said formula of "journalism" then others gotta call the bullshit . . .

What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them so refreshing and attractive to a wide variety of viewers (including those so-important younger ones)? I would argue that, more than anything else, it is that they enthusiastically call bullshit.

the throw aways . . .

Why are the animals complaining?

When workers are already treated as machines, perhaps their replacement by robots should be a cause for celebration. But the question then becomes: what do the displaced do for a living? Is there an alternative to exploitation?

you gotta be pissed off . . . and you should be . . .