The Arts and Letters Daily header on an article by Clive Crook on the relative superiority of the American and European economic systems is "Any European intellectual can easily tell you: Europe, not America, offers the world the best model of social and economic life." Well, it might... for a European intellectual, offering every intellectual's dream: influence without responsibility.
What can we say about Europe's influence in the world today? Let's consider your Uncle Bob. Back in the day, Bob was really something. Scholar and athlete. His picture is on the university football team's Hall of Fame and he's still remembered for that last-second 75-yard touchdown run against Tech back in 1956.
Bob seemed to have the world at his feet. But that was then. Alas, Bob made some really bad decisions. Got into a couple of fights that cost him dearly. Made some terrible investments. There was a marriage that turned sour and cost him a lot of money.
Bob, in short, hasn't done anything of note for the last many years but still talks as though he was something big and thinks he knows better than you. He's around your place a lot because he hasn't anything better to do. He complains about the way you keep your house but when you ask him if he'd help with something he complains that his "bad knee" is acting up again.
Bob's getting a little soft in the head and, frankly, Bob's a bore and often irritating but you don't tell him to go to hell as you're often tempted to because, after all, you're family.
Europe that is home to the supercilious intellectual class pointing out America's faults is your Uncle Bob, once powerful but now played-out and impotent but still pretentious. We may admire Ancient Greece as the birthplace of democracy, but no one turns to the Greeks today for lessons in political science.
Oliver Stone is working on a 10-part documentary entitled, "The Secret History of the United States." Mr. Stone, whose last foray into history - "JFK" - lionized the absurd theories of a megalomanical district attorney, says that Hitler was "enabled by Western bankers."
This blog now brings to you other stunning revelations seen in previews of Mr. Stone's new work:
- Andrew Jackson? Gay as a French horn.
- Kinetoscopes of the McKinley assassination show that Leon Czolgosz could not have fired both bullets. A conspiracy of Rough Riders figures strongly.
- Grace Coolidge wore a form-fitting leather outfit while tying up and whipping her husband Calvin.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt's illness was covered up by the press during the 1944 campaign (Oh, wait...)
I was listening to the stream from WGUC on the computer last night while reading. A piece I'd never heard of by a composer I'd never heard of was announced: Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridsen.
From the first few measures, I was transfixed. Scored for chorus and small orchestra, this is an extraordinary work. In five sections and based on the Catholic Requiem mass, each section refers to light and the work as a whole may be thought of as a movement from darkness to light. Now pungent, now serene, now simple, now complex, Lauridsen's writing never fails to go straight to the heart. We may be reminded in its mood of the Fauré Requiem but Lux Aeterna stands on its own, transcending the modern and the ancient to embrace the eternal longing for peace and rest.
The performance was by the Los Angeles Master Chorale conducted by Paul Salamunovich. Recommended enthusiatically.
The special election in Massachusetts appears to be, at the very best, uncomfortably close for the Democrats' taste. More pessimistically, the seat may well be lost to the Republican candidate.
How is that possible, some may cry. After all, this was the seat held by Ted Kennedy, who held the seat for 46 years.
But why must a Senate seat held by a member of one party for many years be retained by that party on the death or retirement of the incumbent? History is full of examples of party switches:
1968: Carl Hayden (D-AZ), who held the seat for 42 years, was succeeded by Barry Goldwater (R)
1974: George Aiken (R-VT), who held the seat for 33 years, was succeeded by Patrick Leahy (D)
1978: James Eastland (D-MS), who held the seat for 36 years, was succeeded by Thad Cochrane (R)
1983: Henry Jackson (D-WA), who held the seat for 31 years, was succeeded by Dan Evans (R)
1988: John Stennis (D-MS), who held the seat for 41 years, was succeeded by Trent Lott (R)
2004: Ernest Hollings (D-SC), who held the seat for 38 years, was succeeded by Jim DeMint (R)
2008: Pete Domenici (R-NM), who held the seat for 34 years, was succeeded by Tom Udall (D)
The affection voters have for a long-standing incumbent may be for them alone, not the party. The politics of states can change over a long tenure. Or maybe, as in Massachusetts, voters may be sufficiently ticked off at events to throw the bums out. Even so, if Martha Coakley wasn't an unattractive candidate of almost limitless ineptitude this one would be in the bag for the Democrats.
With Lacey no longer with us, we wanted her sister Silver to have a companion as a house dog and decided on Silver’s half-sister Belle. We figured that quiet, unassuming, unassertive Belle would be the perfect house-mate for our old lady.
We were wrong. Within days of coming into the house, Belle went completely off the rails: taking things off counters and out of containers, chasing the cat, taking over the only bed in the laundry room, sneaking through doors we opened a crack to get through, shoving her way into first place to lick off plates and pans, loudly reminding us at 8:00 PM sharp to start making her dinner and stomping her feet and tossed her head in anticipation of getting it. In short and in sum, she was displaying all the privileges regally assumed by her late half-sister. It’s as though even if Lacey was no longer with us in body, her spirit had been assumed by another. Odd. Indeed, eerie.
The Vengeance Trio from Act II of Götterdämmerung, with Birgit Nilsson as Brünnhilde, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Gunther and Gottlob Frick as Hagen. Georg Solti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Ch. Soyara's Silver Angel JC (Silver) Ch. Bokhara Soyara Fjor (Fred) Ch. Soyara's A Joy to Behold (Joy) Ch. Soyara's Beautiful Dreamer (Diva) Ch. Soyara's Singer of Songs (Alan) Ch. Soyara's Faith Tis Herself (Faith) Ch. Soyara's Magnolia Honey (Honey) Ch. Soyara's Southern Belle (Belle) Ch. Soyara's Sir Agravaine Ex Libris (Knight) Ch. Soyara's Ace of Spades (Sarge) Ch. Soyara's The Force of Destiny (Ali) Ch. Soyara's Smoke and Mirrors (Smudge) Ch. Soyara's Cunning Little Vixen (Tess) Soyara's Gandalf of Dana Dan (Stanley) Soyara's Against All Odds (Chance) Soyara's The Flying Dutchman (Dutch) Soyara's Ilya Murometz (Ilya) Soyara's Celeste Aida (Aida) Soyara's Carmen Fantasy (Carmen)
Plus Talker the Whippet and Fluffy (God, what a name!) the cat.
The Dallas Cowboys - the greatest sporting team that ever was, is or ever will be - lost for the second straight week, today to the Chargers 20-17. On next Saturday to New Orleans to play the 13-0 Saints.
