Well, it’s been 10 years and I hope I’m constantly surprising you with facets of my character I have not yet revealed even when I write within a restricted format (which is the essence of poetry).
I hate Borodin, just because of that commercial.
My therapist is leaving the medical group (oh, don’t worry, it’s all related) with which I am associated and in our final session they asked me-
“Do you answer to ek hornbeck?”
Yes, of course I do.
It’s not a common name so it’s easily picked out of the crowd whereas regular names like Robert or Bob have instantly a dozen heads spinning.
Well, I’m not like that. Not that my head doesn’t spin because it might be someone I know personally, but because I don’t share myself on the Internet. Personally I Google rather poorly, ek hornbeck much better, and my onion layers are part of the fascination-
Is he in Heaven? Is he in Hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel.
Except I’m more on the Robespierre side.
Tout institution qui ne suppose pas le peuple bon et le magistrat corruptible est vicieuse.
Yup, one of 500 and ignored on a rainy day.
But by 1833 when Borodin was born the struggles of 1789 were far in the past (hah). and he…
Well, he was an award wining chemist.
He dabbled in music and wrote several things but rarely finished any of them, still he attracted the attention of the more serious composers who saw flashes of talent and was considered one of The Balakirev Circle of new wave nationalist Russians because he was so conciously derivitative of popular folk tunes.
The Polovtsian Dances referenced in the commerical above were a part of his (unfinished) opera, Prince Igor, which was about the suppression of native Mongolians (the Polovtsians) by Prince Igor and has all the charms of Opera…
Let’s review the rules, shall we?
- It must be long, boring, and in an incomprehesible foreign language (even if that language is English).
- The characters, especially the main ones, must be thoroughly unsympathetic and their activities horrid and callous.
- Everyone must die, hopefully in an ironic and gruesome way.
Ballet is the same, but with more men in tights and without the superfluous singing.
with an admirable mixture of genocide of the culture you are stealing. It has all the charm of a musical about Greasy Grass in which Custer wins.
Oh and it and several other snippets were stolen by Broadway for Kismet. Someday I’ll chat about Nellie Forbush, a thoroughly unsympathetic character.
To his credit Borodin was an early advocate of Women’s Rights and despised by his “revolutionary” contemporaries in ‘The Five’ for writing in conventional formats like Quartets, Concertos, and Symphonies of which I offer you the two that he indesputedly finished all on his own.
So what does this say about me (aren’t we all the star of our own movie)? I like this role. He’s exactly like me only more in your face-
I’m not trying to prove anything. All I want to do is teach my students that man just wasn’t planted here like a geranium in a flowerpot. That life comes from a long miracle; it didn’t just take seven days.
But it’s against the law. A school teacher’s a public servant. He should do what the law and the school board want him to.
Has the accused have anything to say in his own defense? If not, I sentence you to life as a public servant. A silent butler in the service of your school board. Waste baskets for ideas on sale in the outer lobby.
I don’t see anything funny in this Mr. Hornbeck.
Objection sustained. Neither do I.
Then why don’t you just leave us alone? You newspaper people have stirred up enough trouble for Bert. What do you want anyway?
I came to tell Boy Socrates here that the Baltimore Herald is opposed to Hemlock and will provide a lawyer.
Who?
Who? I don’t know yet but what’s the difference? A new lawyer with old tricks, an old lawyer with new tricks. Wake up Copernicus! The law is still on the side of the lawmakers and everything revolves around their terra firma.
Then why bother, you and your newspaper?
Because I know that the sunrise is an optical illusion. My teacher told me so.
Sigh. I have to break in a new therapist. I think I’ll start with this one-
What do you call a schizophrenic Buddhist?
Someone who is at two with the universe.
And actually, that’s multiple personality disorder and I’ve never been diagnosed as anything except depressed and anxiety prone.
Yet.
Obligatories, News and Blogs below.
Obligatories
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when
we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED)the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
I would never make fun of LaEscapee or blame PhilJD. And I am highly organized.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
–Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)
This Day in History
News
Weakened surveillance reform bill is ‘yesterday’s news’, civil libertarians say
by Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian
Friday 17 April 2015 06.00 EDT
The USA Freedom Act, a bill that aims to stop the National Security Agency (NSA) from its daily collection of US phone records in bulk, is set for a 2015 revamp after failing in the Senate last November. Supporters pledge to unveil it late this week or early next week.
This time, as reported by the Guardian, the bill is shaping up to be the preferred piece of legislation to extend the lifespan of a controversial part of the Patriot Act, known as Section 215. The NSA uses Section 215 to justify its domestic mass surveillance. The FBI considers it critical for terrorism and espionage investigations outside typical warrant or subpoena channels. Section 215 expires on 1 June.
The bill’s architects consider the USA Freedom Act the strongest piece of legislation to roll back the domestic reach of US surveillance that Congress will pass. But a new coalition of civil libertarian groups on the left and the right is already looking past the bill, in the hopes of broadening what is possible – something they consider realistic, thanks to the intelligence community’s fervent desire to avoid the expiration of Section 215.
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Some members of the coalition, dissatisfied with the diminished ambitions of the USA Freedom Act – which only addresses one aspect of bulk NSA surveillance, the domestic phone records collection – prefer the long-shot Surveillance State Repeal Act, which would unravel the legal foundations of US mass surveillance.“We think of the USA Freedom Act as yesterday’s news,” said Shahid Buttar of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, “and we’re interested in forcing the [intelligence] agencies into a future where they comply with constitutional limits.”
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“Four weeks from now, they face a binary choice: this, or sunset,” explained a congressional aide.But the question for surveillance reform advocates is whether the result of that wrangling is worth supporting. Some, like Robyn Greene of the Open Technology Institute, see the USA Freedom Act as “a first step” on the path of reform. Others consider it a tactical mistake.
“If passed, it’ll be the only step,” predicted Patrick Eddington of the Cato Institute, a former House staffer, since the next expiration date for a major piece of surveillance legislation is 31 December 2017.
Vitka, leaving the tactical disputes within civil libertarian circles aside, noted that the hardly guaranteed end of Section 215 would still leave the US with a host of far-reaching surveillance authorities, including those of the Drug Enforcement Agency that are aimed at US citizens.
“It’s not just 215,” Vitka said. “If 215 goes away, we’ll still have mass surveillance of Americans in this country. That’s just the way it is.”
Chicago Public Schools chief requests leave of absence amid federal inquiry
Associated Press
Friday 17 April 2015 15.09 EDT
The Chicago Public Schools CEO, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, requested a leave of absence on Friday amid a federal investigation over a $20.5m no-bid contract the district awarded to a training academy where she once worked as a consultant, according to her attorney.
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Emanuel and the board of education president, David Vitale, confirmed earlier this week CPS was being investigated by federal officials, but did not provide details. A spokesman for Supes Academy in suburban Chicago said it has turned over records and files to federal investigators.
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The news follows a hard-fought re-election battle for Emanuel, who spent much of the time on the campaign trail defending controversial schools decisions and his choice of Byrd-Bennett. Among the most scrutinised moves was a 2013 push to close dozens of neighbourhood schools. During the campaign, Emanuel said it was a tough but necessary decision to improve school achievement and he was proud of his choice of Byrd-Bennett.
FBI investigating death of teen shot 16 times by Chicago cop
By Jeremy Gorner and Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune
April 14, 20 15, 6:15 AM
On Monday, federal authorities confirmed the FBI is leading a criminal probe of the officer who fired the barrage of shots. According to a statement by U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon, the joint investigation also involves the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police misconduct.
The investigation comes amid public outcry nationwide in recent months over police use of lethal force and as a veteran Chicago police detective is on trial on involuntary manslaughter charges for a fatal off-duty shooting of a 22-year-old black woman in 2012.
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Since neither officer was armed with a Taser, one of them requested that a dispatcher send another officer to the scene who had one, Patton said.
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Camera footage captured the other car pulling in front of the teen and two officers exiting with guns drawn before one of them opened fire.
Hacked emails between Sony, Cuomo administration
By Rick Karlin, Albany Times Union
Published 11:03 pm, Friday, April 17, 2015
A trove of purloined emails detailing how Sony Pictures Entertainment executives poured money into Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s campaign coffers after the state acted on a $26 million payout to the company has reignited criticism of New York’s Film Tax Credit Program.
Opponents say the program, which costs $420 million annually, is wasteful and nourishes pay-to-play culture at the state Capitol.
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On Thursday, the digital guerrilla organization WikiLeaks posted the cache of 173,132 emails in indexed and searchable form. A search for “Cuomo” turned up discussions of the tax credit as well as plans by Sony executives to raise money for the governor – a “strong protector” of the tax credit, one executive said.In a string of emails from December 2013, Keith Weaver, executive vice president of Sony, wrote to Rhoda Glickman, an official with the state’s Empire State Development Corp., which administers the film tax credit program. The exchange was reported on Friday by Capital New York.
“I need your help, as we need to resolve a number of pending production tax credits by 1/15/14 in order to realize the benefit this year,” Weaver wrote to Glickman. ” … We have approximately $26M in tax credits outstanding.”
Glickman wrote back the same day: “Send me everything you need to get resolved.”
Weaver later wrote to fellow Sony executives that the tax credits have been pushed through, adding “Happy Holidays.”
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Several days after his back-and-forth with Glickman, Weaver wrote to Sony CEO Michael Lynton about an upcoming Cuomo fundraiser hosted by a film executive in California.“Cuomo’s people would like us to support in the following ways:
1) You lending your name to the invite host committee
2) We commit to raise $50K by July of this year.”Weaver acknowledged that $50,000 was “a heavy lift since most of it needs to come from individual contributions (only $5k can come from corp.), but I recommend we do it. Cuomo has been a strong protector of the film incentive – even amidst recent criticisms of the program.”
The fundraiser later that month reaped roughly $500,000 for Cuomo’s re-election efforts.
“There’s a clear recognition on the part of folks who want favors from government that cash donations can help pave the way, and the bigger the donation the smoother the pavement,” said Michael Kink, director of Strong Economy for All, a union-backed group pushing for a higher minimum wage, fewer corporate tax breaks and more robust campaign finance overhaul.
“If you want to take special interest, political rent-seeking out of government, you’ve got to eradicate tax loopholes and preferences like this,” said E.J. McMahon, president of the fiscally conservative Empire Center.
Others were even more blunt. “This is just dripping with corruption,” said Rensselaer County GOP Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, a frequent Cuomo critic. ” … We should be holding hearings.”
Referendum Reshapes Scottish Political Terrain
By STEVEN ERLANGER, The New York Times
APRIL 17, 2015
Five years ago, the Scottish National Party won six of Scotland’s 59 seats in the British Parliament, while Labour won 41 (the Conservatives retain only one seat in Scotland). But if the polls are accurate, the National Party will win more than 40 seats in the national election on May 7, devastating Labour in Scotland and becoming the third-largest party in Parliament. In such a close election, a Labour collapse here could allow the Conservatives to win the most seats in Westminster, if not a majority.
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Many thought that September’s independence referendum in Scotland, which the pro-independence side lost, 55 percent to 45 percent, was the end of the debate for a generation. Instead, it electrified politics here.Despite the referendum defeat and the resignation of its leader, Alex Salmond, the Scottish National Party has seen a huge increase in membership, to nearly 110,000 people, becoming the third-largest party in Britain, and it has managed to win and retain the support of those, including many Labour voters, who wanted independence.
The reason, Ms. Black said, is simple: Scots believe that the Labour Party has betrayed its working-class roots and become “red Tories,” little different than the Conservative Party.
In The Future, Yellowstone National Park Could Turn Incredibly Dry
by Natasha Geiling, Think Progress
April 16, 2015 at 11:19 am
In a recent paper published as part of a special park report on climate change, Yellowstone officials decided to ask those two scientists to revisit their research from over two decades ago – and what they found was a lot less uncertain. Climate change is set to have a potentially huge impact on Yellowstone’s ecology by the end of the century, increasing the potential for wildfires and decreasing the amount of snow the park receives. Combined with rising temperatures, these changes could alter Yellowstone’s landscape from a mostly forested mountain ecosystem to something more akin to the U.S. Southwest.
“The ecological effects of climate change will be more dramatic and far-reaching than we realized,” the report reads, noting that climate change is likely to create dry conditions in Yellowstone that haven’t been seen in the area in 10,000 years – a climatic and ecological condition the researchers describe as “uncharted territory.”
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As future fires become more frequent, dense stands of pine and spruce that now dominate Yellowstone’s landscape could become less common, replaced by young trees, grass, and shrubs. Without time to grow back between increasingly frequent fires, the park’s old mountain forests would, essentially, turn into open woodlands. More frequent fires could also push out native tree species like the whitebark pine, a keystone species that acts as an important source of food for grizzly bears and other wildlife in Yellowstone’s subalpine areas.
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“Like many treasured places around the West, Yellowstone will be experiencing devastating impacts related to climate change, from wildfire to reduced snowpack,” Diana Madson, executive director of the Mountain Pact, told ThinkProgress. “These ecosystem changes will not only hurt Yellowstone’s celebrated plant and animal species but the neighboring local economies that rely on tourism.” Climate adaptation is crucial, Madson notes, not only for the ecosystem of Yellowstone, but for small mountain communities that rely on tourism revenue.
Gulf health 5 years after BP spill: Resilient yet scarred
Seth Borenstein and Cain Burdeau, Associated Press
Friday, Apr 17, 2015 11:30 PM EST
Federal data and numerous scientific studies show lingering problems. Splotches of oil still dot the seafloor and wads of tarry petroleum-smelling material hide in pockets in the marshes of Barataria Bay. Dolphin deaths have more than tripled. Nests of endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles suddenly plummeted after the spill. Some fish have developed skin lesions along with oil in internal organs. Deep sea coral are hurting.
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“The spill was – and continues to be – a disaster,” said Oregon State marine sciences professor Jane Lubchenco, who was the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during the spill. “The bottom line is that oil is nasty stuff. Yes, the Gulf is resilient, but it was hit pretty darn hard.”
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NOAA chief scientist Spinrad said the government hopes to finish its five-year assessment on the health of the Gulf by the end of the year, so it is too early to make any real conclusions. Some problems may show up later. It was not until 10 years after 1989′s Exxon Valdez spill that scientists noticed a dramatic crash in the vital herring population.
Sábado Gigante: Univision’s frenetic variety show ends after 53-year run
Associated Press
Friday 17 April 2015 16.01 EDT
Created by its Chilean-born host, the boisterous presenter with a huge grin known as Don Francisco, the weekly three-hour show Sábado Gigante has long been Univision’s most popular program.
With an average of 2.2 million viewers, the show remains No 1 on Saturday nights among Hispanics in the US and was up this season among younger viewers, according to the Nielson company. The show also is broadcast to more than a dozen countries throughout Latin America.
Univision did not say why it was ending Sábado Gigante, nor what kind of programming will fill its slot. The network said Don Francisco, whose real name is Mario Kreutzberger, will continue to work on special programs and a telethon that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to benefit disabled children.
Why Baseball Needs More Yasiel Puig, Not Less
by Travis Waldron, Think Progress
April 16, 2015 at 11:36 am
Puig, a Cuban immigrant, is one of the game’s best and most exciting young players, but his bat flips and other aspects of his game (and yes, some mistakes) have made him a lightning rod over his first two seasons. Now, he has vowed to change, despite the fact that his flip seemed in mid-season form just a few weeks ago, and the future of baseball has been undoubtedly spared.
This is sad and almost hilarious, not just because there is absolutely no reason for Puig to feel this way (can you really “show up” a pitcher any more than you already did by rocketing one of his pitches 500 feet into the night sky?), but because of the context in which it is happening. As a new baseball season dawns, it is impossible to ignore the pleading for new superstars in the wake of the retirement of The Last Great Superstar, for new players to emerge to make baseball popular again, especially among young people, especially among young people of color.
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Perhaps, though, this is no surprise in another context in which Puig exists. The “respect the game” phenomenon, as Will Leitch noted Wednesday, seems more common now, growing in a way that has largely coincided with the increase in the number of ballplayers from Latin America. The game today features more players from Latin, Carribean, and South American countries than ever before, and they have brought with them flair and flamboyance typical of the game in their homes. Puig and others, like Carlos Gomez, play the game with the type pure emotion and uninhibited effort – and yes, both the celebratory outbursts and mistakes that come along with that – that have earned other players plaudits for their hustle. The “respect the game” attitude has led to criticism of other, non-Latin players too, but it’s hard to deny that who is playing this way is different, and whether consciously or not, that maybe that has drawn a different sort of reaction from plenty of players and sportswriters.
Beyond the bling: the most pointless luxuries ever
by Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian
Friday 17 April 2015 05.30 EDT
Try to imagine a hat made out of golden fleece, a fleece very like the one that Jason brought back from Colchis. The gold has been spun into the finest of threads, one-fifth of a human hair in diameter, before being woven and braided into a close-fitting cap that looks as if it belongs to a particularly flashy Cossack. The cap itself is magnificent, but it is the rim that makes it mythological. Constructed from short strands of golden wire, the effect is a pelt of fiery fur.
It took Italian metallurgist-artist Giovanni Corvaja 10 years to develop the techniques that persuaded 1.5kg of gold to do his bidding, to bend without breaking. Then it took him another two years, working 80 hours a week, to weave and braid the hat itself, which is modelled on one of Peter the Great’s crowns. Such a tally of obsessive labour and precious raw materials makes the hat priceless, in the sense that no amount of money can recoup its cost. And since it is made not for wearing but for looking at, it is, strictly speaking, pointless, too.
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“We want visitors to be nudged into thinking about what luxury means as a category and what it means to them personally,” explains co-curator Jana Scholze, who points out that the show opens with a list of one-word prompts, from “authenticity” to “privacy” to “expertise”. “Bling” is not a term on offer, which is hardly surprising, given that the show is mounted in conjunction with the Crafts Council. Craft, indeed, runs as a theme and counterpoint throughout the show, sharpening definitions of luxury by functioning as both its prop and its foil.
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This business of whether it is materials, design, labour or a contextual backstory that makes a particular object luxurious is buoyantly at play in Nora Fok’s Bubble Bath. Fok has made a necklace out of the froth of a thousand “bubbles”, each of which she has knitted from nylon microfilament. The finished piece gives a permanent form to the transient bubbles, yet replaces one utilitarian material (fishing line) with another (soapy water). Hanging the extravagantly frothy necklace around the neck makes the wearer look as though she is soaking in a bubble bath, indulging in that most mundane yet precious of luxuries, time to oneself.
Blogs
- SEC Boss Can’t Keep Her Story Straight On Whether Or Not SEC Snoops Through Your Emails Without A Warrant by Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
- How a Troll-Spotting Algorithm Learned Its Anti-antisocial Trade, MIT Technology Review
- The Media Fall for Hillary Clinton’s Gensler Gambit, By William K. Black, New Economic Perspectives
- Ain’t No Family Farms Lost Due to the Estate Tax, by Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research
- Hillary Clinton, Progressives & the Uphill Climb, by Gaius Publius, Naked Capitalism
- Obama’s Free Trade Deal Lets Corporations Impose Their Will, by Alan Pyke, Think Progress
- A Trade Rule That Makes It Illegal to Favor Local Business? Leak Shows TPP Would Do Just That, By David Korten, Truthout
- The Collective Yawn at America’s “Weaponization of Information”, by emptywheel
- Recent poll shows more people support sentencing Tsarnaev to LWOP than death in the Boston area, By: Masoninblue, Firedog Lake
- First in Flight? Connecticut Stakes a Claim, By KRISTIN HUSSEY, The New York Times
Umm… Completely True as anyone from Connecticut (who’s had the 8th grade trimester in Connecticut history) knows.
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