Stress (2016Aug03)

Posted by XperDunn on August 3, 2016

Wednesday, August 03, 2016 12:58 PM

Myself, my family, my neighbors, and my friends are all suffering from stress. This is a modern-day condition that is nothing new. However, I accuse the media of doing everything they can to increase stress in their viewers. Getting people worried and upset has become their bread-and-butter. When I was younger, we looked to the media to keep us informed—and when something bad happened, like the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Kent State Shooting, it was covered with grave seriousness and sad dignity. It was not virtually celebrated as a new ‘Breaking News’-banner to follow yesterday’s, which followed the day before’s, etc.

The media has become much like the pet cat that graces you every morning with a dead bird on the front stoop. The cat is very proud and pleased, but we are disgusted. When I was younger, the media would sometimes augment their reporting by having a sober, thoughtful expert give us details about the issue. Today’s media has a panel of six ‘commentators’, one of whom may be a sober, thoughtful expert, with the other five being mouthpieces forwarding some spin agenda—changing the subject, roiling the debate, or just out-and-out lying. This is ‘balanced’ reporting? More like unbalanced. And by making every news-segment a shouting contest, the media raises the stress level—and the confusion—surrounding every issue.

Granted, the world is more complex and faster-paced today—and an endless string of sober, thoughtful experts would make for a rather grueling show—ratings would certainly suffer. But, at the end of watching such a show, viewers would come away with some actual information—possibly even facts—instead of confusion and increased blood pressure. Today’s media is more like a roller-coaster ride—viewers feel terrorized and helpless in the face of a kaleidoscope of fears, suspicions, accusations, and uncertainty.

The media refuse to say that anything is simply ‘true’—and there are many philosophical arguments which could support that stance—in the absolute sense. However, on a practical level, there are lots of things that are true, spin-doctors notwithstanding. For instance, lots of people die from being shot with a gun. Lots of women are unfairly paid less than men doing the same work. Lots of veterans are committing suicide. Russia is trying to expand into Ukraine. North Korea is a rogue state. There are facts out there—and they are frightening enough without enhancing our helplessness and fear.

The ‘commentators’ have become so blindly partisan that we can even see the futility in the faces of the anchor-persons forced to give them the dignity and privilege of air-time. That’s not even addressing the partisan news channels that inject their own bias into the news-editing itself.

My neighbor had a panic attack yesterday—and I suspect that she, like me and many others, has her stress-levels exacerbated by the steady drumbeat of fear issuing from our TVs, our PCs, and our I-phones. Modern news reporting should come with a Surgeon General’s warning. They’re making money off of making us worry.

Dossier (2016Aug02)

Posted by XperDunn on August 2, 2016

Tuesday, August 02, 2016 5:01 PM

You know me—quick trigger finger when I hear about injustice.

Right now, I’ve been compiling a dossier on Hillary Clinton. I tried to find reliable sources for the main conspiracy theories that paint her as the devil in a blue dress.

I must admit, she’s no saint—but neither do I find anything worthy of the hysterical venom directed at her.

Let’s remember that I am saying nothing of the innumerable good, and even great, things that Hillary Clinton has done in a lifetime of public service—I think people forget sometimes that the blips below arise, and could only arise, from someone who is deeply involved in the administration of our government. And, like the government, we are prone to stress the problems with Hillary Clinton without remembering all the good things we take for granted, every day, year after year.

Also, I would be remise if I didn’t mention the cretin who conflates, lies, insults, and accuses not just Hillary Clinton, but our president, our military, our vets, our minorities, our Muslims, and our women. He has made a catalog of every stumble in Hillary’s career, true or false, and blown them out of all proportion. Hillary can’t respond in kind, since he has no public service experience of any kind, at the age of seventy. She can point out his execrable business practices, but it’s not quite the same thing.

So, here we go—the worst of Hillary Clinton.

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewater_controversy

“David Hale, the source of criminal allegations against the Clintons, claimed in November 1993, that Bill Clinton had pressured him into providing an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons’ partner in the Whitewater land deal. Clinton supporters regarded Hale’s allegations as questionable, as Hale had not mentioned Clinton in reference to this loan during the original FBI investigation of Madison Guaranty in 1989; only after coming under indictment in 1993, did Hale make allegations against the Clintons. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation did result in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project. Jim Guy Tucker, Bill Clinton’s successor as governor, was convicted of fraud and sentenced to four years of probation for his role in the matter. Susan McDougal served 18 months in prison for contempt of court for refusing to answer questions relating to Whitewater. The Clintons themselves were never prosecuted, after three separate inquiries found insufficient evidence linking them with the criminal conduct of others related to the land deal, and Susan McDougal was granted a pardon by President Clinton before he left office.

The term Whitewater is also sometimes used to include other controversies from the Bill Clinton administration, especially Travelgate, Filegate, and the circumstances surrounding Vince Foster’s death, that were investigated by the Whitewater independent counsel.”

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/us/politics/25clinton.html

By PATRICK HEALY and KATHARINE Q. SEELYE – MARCH 25, 2008 – The New York Times:

“BLUE BELL, Pa. — As part of her argument that she has the best experience and instincts to deal with a sudden crisis as president, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recently offered a vivid description of having to run across a tarmac to avoid sniper fire after landing in Bosnia as first lady in 1996.”

“Mrs. Clinton corrected herself at a meeting with the Philadelphia Daily News editorial board; she did not explain why she had misspoken, but only admitted it and then offered a less dramatic description.

Mrs. Clinton said she had been told “that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire,” not that actual shots were being fired.

“So I misspoke,” she said.”

Source:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/14/hillary-clinton-has-no-regrets-about-libya/

“On the campaign trail, Clinton has not shied from defending her decision to support the intervention that toppled dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. “I think President Obama made the right decision at the time,” she said in the first Democratic debate in October as she pointed to the 2012 General Assembly elections in which Libyans voted mostly for moderate parties

But that answer focused on the more promising days of 2012 – before the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and the country’s descent into civil war. We are now, of course, in 2016. How does Clinton make sense of what went wrong in Libya in the years since she left the State Department? Her answer to that question is one of the keys to understanding how she will approach the Middle East if she makes it to the White House.”

Source:

http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2012/09/197628.htm

Statement on the Attack in Benghazi

Press Statement

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Secretary of State

Washington, DC

September 11, 2012

I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.

This evening, I called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government’s full cooperation.

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

In light of the events of today, the United States government is working with partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide.”

Source:

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/benghazi-timeline/

“About 10:00 p.m.: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issues a statement confirming that one State official was killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Her statement, which MSNBC posted at 10:32 p.m., made reference to the anti-Muslim video:

Clinton: Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”

“Sept. 12: Clinton issues a statement confirming that four U.S. officials, not one, had been killed. She calls it a “violent attack.”

Clinton: All the Americans we lost in yesterday’s attacks made the ultimate sacrifice. We condemn this vicious and violent attack that took their lives, which they had committed to helping the Libyan people reach for a better future.”

“Sept. 12, 3:04 p.m.: Clinton calls then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil and tells him, “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack — not a protest.” An account of that call was contained in an email written by State Department Public Affairs Officer Lawrence Randolph. The email was released by the House Benghazi committee. EMAIL:

http://benghazi.house.gov/sites/republicans.benghazi.house.gov/files/documents/Tab%2079.pdf

“Oct. 15: Clinton, in an interview on CNN, blames the “fog of war” when asked why the administration initially claimed the attack began with the anti-Muslim video, even though the State Department never reached that conclusion. “In the wake of an attack like this in the fog of war, there’s always going to be confusion, and I think it is absolutely fair to say that everyone had the same intelligence,” Clinton says. “Everyone who spoke tried to give the information they had. As time has gone on, the information has changed, we’ve gotten more detail, but that’s not surprising. That always happens.”

Source:

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system

“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

“While not the focus of our investigation, we also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department in general, and with respect to use of unclassified e-mail systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information found elsewhere in the government.

With respect to potential computer intrusion by hostile actors, we did not find direct evidence that Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail domain, in its various configurations since 2009, was successfully hacked.”

“In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.”

“I know there were many opinions expressed by people who were not part of the investigation—including people in government—but none of that mattered to us. Opinions are irrelevant, and they were all uninformed by insight into our investigation, because we did the investigation the right way. Only facts matter, and the FBI found them here in an entirely apolitical and professional way.”

***

So, there you go—food for thought—even, perhaps, food for suspicion—in the highlights of these and other over-inflated ‘scandals’ that the media and the GOP both feed on. But do remember that Secretary Clinton has gotten up every morning of her life and worked hard, achieving no small amount of good, week after week, month after month, year after year, and decade after decade. The above is the very worst that her enemies can say about her.

I don’t know—maybe our country’s most admired politician would make a bad president—well, second most admired (let’s not forget the guy she’s replacing). Maybe we should try four years with a vicious, vacuous clown? Naaah!

***

One last point, on the wording of Comey’s statement:

“All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.”

He could just as easily have said:

“We did not see clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; we did not see vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; we did not see indications of disloyalty to the United States; and we did not see efforts to obstruct justice.”

But he chose not to. Perhaps that’s apolitical, perhaps it isn’t….

I Can Dream—Can’t I? (2016Jul31)

Posted by XperDunn on July 31, 2016

Sunday, July 31, 2016 3:06 PM

It’s very damp and cloudy today—but not as hot, so I shouldn’t grouse. I am so glad that there’s only a hundred days or so until the election—I’m tired of being tortured by the media—no reasonable person at this point could take Trump seriously as a candidate, or even as a man—he is seriously dangerous to our mental health, never mind our country. I love Hillary—but go ahead and hate her if you must—just don’t vote for the GOP’s psychotic demagogue, please (even they don’t like him).

That’s where I am with this election—no more finely reasoned arguments, no more he said-she said—the question has been answered many times in many ways and I’m done. Trump can issue as many more lies and as much more bombast as he likes—I’m not listening anymore.

So, let’s get back to ourselves. Forget the candidates. What would I like to see happen? That’s my new question. I’d like to see us build and renovate and repair. I’d like to see us hire and train and start new businesses and invest in new things, new ideas. I’d like to see us get serious about cryptography, hacking, firewalls, malware, and all the other threats of modern business and warfare—maybe a whole new branch of our military devoted to cyber-defense, with enough funding to tempt the top mathematicians and coders to civil service.

I’d like to see better training and oversight of the police—especially in trouble zones where police brutality against minorities is endemic. I’d like to see pot legalized, and other addictions treated as illnesses, not as crimes—and I’d like to see our prison system shrink down to where it is no longer a profit-center. In fact, it would be nice if our prisons could become actual rehabilitation centers that prepare inmates for re-entry into legit public life, preferably with voting rights and a chance at employment.

I’d like to see free public health care and free tuition to local and state colleges. I’d like to see the rich have to pay more taxes—or any taxes, come to that—same with corporations. I’d like to see a full bench on the Supreme Court. I’d like to see legislators get elected who will pass laws—any laws—and it would be nice if they didn’t shut down the effing government, too—as long as I’m wishing.

I’d like to see a lot of changes in the world. But change is hard—if it wasn’t hard to change, I’ve have abs instead of a pot-belly. But I can dream, can’t I?

I’d like to see community shops that are partially social settings—places that offer internet, coffee or other beverages, newspapers, maybe hot food—places where you don’t have to buy anything to hang out there—perhaps a sort of partially public-funded ‘town square’ for the twenty-first century. Maybe there could be a bunch of low-cost housing nearby, and bus stops or subway stations. Imagine a mini-mall that’s more about community than commerce.

What choice do we have? All commerce is happening online mostly now—and, absent Pokemon Go, everybody is sitting at home. We have to find new social interactivities or we’ll all end up in closets with VR headsets our only window on reality.

And there’s something else the 21^st century needs—we have to face the fact that working for a living, in an age of automation, robotics, and partial AIs, is an outmoded concept. We have to start thinking in more socialist ways—we have to accept that everybody deserves a decent life, and an occupation—even when all the old work is being done at the push of a button, and is owned by a handful of autocrats. I’ve talked about this before—it’s just common sense, with a teaspoon of extrapolation.

‘Earning one’s way’ in life is an old tradition—it won’t be easy to work out how we all live in a world where we don’t have to work—where we can’t work—and it’ll be even harder to convince the super wealthy that they don’t own the Earth or the Human Race. But I can dream, can’t I?

From yesterday:

ttfn.

Original Content (2016Jul30)

Posted by XperDunn on July 30, 2016

Friday, July 29, 2016 7:45 PM

Okay, enough politics—what do I know, anyway—other people are already saying anything I have to say—people who get paid for it. I’ve been so swept up by the spirit of the Democratic National Convention—it was thrilling. But patriotism is something only idle people have a lot of time for—most people have stuff to do. So—time to stop obsessing over the TV and C-SPAN, and go back to reading books and watching movies and talking about myself. I know I’m not interesting, but I am interesting to me—and I like to write—or I should say type—I actually hate to write. If I had to do this with a pen and paper—I wouldn’t bother. But in an age of digital records, there is no saving of effort or of paper—there’s just ‘original content’.

Original Content means something you wrote yourself—without reference to Star Wars or Orange Is The New Black—something no other reasonable person would want to sue you for stealing. Be warned—if you do write something profitable, unreasonable people will come out of the ‘word-work’ to lay claim to it. But most writing has little value—so as long as you know you wrote it, you shouldn’t worry. If you’re serious about money—apply for a copyright. It’s easy—it doesn’t cost much (if you really expect to make money)—and it’s the first thing any serious professional writer does.

Original Content also applies to photos, artwork, music, and especially video. If you generate original content, which then generates a lot of clicks—you’re supposed to get paid for that. But mostly that stuff is generated in-house, so it’s not like you can just shop stuff around—although that might be a possibility, I suppose—but you’d have to go meet people. You can’t do business online—not all business, and especially closing a deal. When the Internet was young, sharing stuff was a big deal—now everyone wants to make a buck online—it’s no easier than most office jobs, unless you get a lucky break.

But I’m retired. I generate writing, artwork, and music and I just post it online. I don’t want someone else to use it without my permission—but I have no plans for a cyber-empire. I just want to be a part of it. I can’t do what young people do—posting photos of my junk, making dates on the dating app (damn, what is it? I wanna say ‘Rascal’ or ‘Heartify’…), or multi-player gaming—which I assume is tough on ‘grandpas’ like myself, especially if your hands shake. Most of the new online stuff is ‘young people only’—they don’t say that, but old people who try to fit in ‘with the kids’ are just as creepy online as they are in person. So I do ‘grandpa’ stuff and I post it. I post my piano-playing on YouTube. I post my essays on WordPress. I keep in touch with friends and relations on Facebook. I posted my old drawings on Pinterest, but I rarely have cause to add anything new.

I don’t expect a lot of people to listen to or read my stuff—some nice people do, who know me and don’t mind sleep-inducing stuff. I’m basically just putting my work out there for my own satisfaction—I like to do it. I used to have a spark of ambition—not much of one—I used to think maybe I’d become a great artist. Then I thought maybe I’d become a teacher. Eventually, I decided I just wanted to live a life without a specific goal—that’s a bad approach, but I was lucky. I ended up with a loving family, surviving a fatal disease, and cancer, and becoming an actual grandpa—oh, and I eat regular. I can’t complain.

Sometimes, after I had done a good drawing, I’d Xerox it—and the Xerox copy would look more professional than the original. There’s something of that in my postings—they just seem more substantial for being online for the world to see. I’ve actually had people tell me not to post stuff—you can’t post online without encountering trolls—but I pay them no attention. It’s like they used to say, “If you don’t like what’s on TV, change the channel.” That’s even more true of YouTube posts—if you don’t like my piano-playing, don’t watch it. I usually listen to classical music, myself—I usually only watch my own stuff once through, to check that it uploaded okay. Or I listen to it on CD, when the radio isn’t playing anything I like. It’s my fallback music.

So, Claire is flying to CA soon to meet our new granddaughter—Spencer and I will have to rough it on our own for two weeks—I hope we survive. Jessy and Seneca and Seneca are doing great. My mom had her 85^th birthday today, down in Hilton Head, SC. I saw party pics on Facebook and wished I could have been there, instead of just calling to wish her a happy one.

I’ve gotten calls from Kevin Bouricius lately—he’s up in Massachusetts, trying to quit smoking. There’s a book of his oil paintings for sale online—it’s expensive, but the paintings are incredible. (http://www.blurb.com/b/4506248-paintings) He also has actual paintings, if anyone wants to go up there and buy one.

I’ll have to call Pete to set up our August jam—we usually try to post once a month, and I feel like I didn’t do too well this month, what with starting on anti-depressants at too high a dosage—I’ve halved it and I feel like I’m fully conscious again—although it was a great relief to be brain dead for a few weeks.

I was thinking, since Claire and I have our 36^th anniversary coming at the end of August, about how our tradition used to be that Claire took the kids to Cape Cod or somewhere, and I’d stay home and work—we spent our anniversary in different states for years. I know it’s a weird tradition—but we’re slightly weird people. Well, the kids are grown, I don’t work, and Claire does—so that tradition has lapsed in more recent years—but if Claire stays with Jessy long enough, maybe the old tradition will come back one more time. I love the weird traditions, the ones that our just our own, the best.

I’ve been letting my muttonchops grow out lately—I look like I guy who shouldn’t have muttonchops but grew them anyway. Hey, you get bored when there’s so little to do. I shaved all the hair around my ears yesterday—I look like an idiot—and the muttonchops only make it stupider. But I stay indoors all day, so nobody sees it—just like my weird clothes. It’s kind of funny when I do go somewhere in public—people look at me sideways, but what’s the use of being sixty if I’m going to care how I look?

I have no new videos. Here’s a reprise of some recent ones:

Time Is A River (2016Jul29)

Posted by XperDunn on July 29, 2016

Friday, July 29, 2016 3:15 PM

Hillary Clinton’s opponents try to characterize President Obama’s administration as a failure—pointing to exported jobs, employment woes, wage woes, and economic inequality, pointing to threats from terrorism at home and abroad. And they hammer away at every questionable action taken by either Obama or Clinton (we’re all sick of hearing about them because there are only a few, out of all the good both have accomplished).

Cherry-picking data is a favorite sport of the GOP. When they talk about Obama’s poor economic stats (which aren’t all that poor) they never mention Obama’s starting point—or rather, the end of eight years under Bush-43. We were in economic hell—there’s no other way to spin it. And the fact that most economic stats are at record highs, eight years later, with unemployment down to nearly reasonable levels (there is still work to do) makes it ludicrous that the GOP could pretend to any understanding of economics—or any ability to fix the problems. They created the problems—but you won’t hear them own up to that. They’ll even complain that Obama’s recovery was ‘too slow’—hey, maybe if you didn’t create the problem, you’d have the right to back-seat-drive the recovery.

The same is true of terrorism. Bush went to war with another country—by mistake—and then screwed the landing. He turned Iraq from a developed country into a chaotic free-for-all—and then doubled-down on military forces instead of addressing the hard work of re-building the country’s infrastructure and brokering between all the different factions a truce that had a shot at lasting long enough to get Iraq back to what it was. Now it is a wasteland, a breeding ground for ISIL—can they blame that on Obama or Hillary? No, but they can criticize the administration’s attempts to deal with the problem. It is childishly self-serving to spill milk and carp at the person wiping it up.

Our history did not begin at Obama’s inauguration. The GOP earned their total shunning in 2008—they had us all in a very bad place—and how they ever wormed their way back in two years later says more about our educational system than it does about their merit as civil servants. And since their majorities in the House and Senate, they have sabotaged the gears of government—just to try and embarrass Obama. Now they want to point to him and say, “He didn’t get anything done.” Well, that’s right—he only got done as much as he could those first two years (AHA and banking regulations and saving the auto industry) and then went on to do as much as a president can do alone, while the Congress jerks off. I’d say half of them are just cynical pols—and the other half are simply cracker bigots. How else do you explain more than half of our 500 legislators deciding that their job is to block anything the president tries to do?

Notice there is no qualifier to that goal—even if they really want something the president wants to pass, they’ll still block it. The proof is in their denial of Supreme Court nominee Garland a Senate hearing, for a year and counting—before he was nominated, the GOP wrote nothing but love letters about him—now they don’t want to know him. Politics can be nauseating.

So, if Obama’s administration has failed in important ways—he hasn’t done it in a vacuum—or rather, he has, though he shouldn’t have had to. The GOP created more than one crisis in this country, then they spent eight years blocking efforts to right the situation, then they spent the last two years working on one thing—trying to destroy Hillary Clinton’s image. From the polls, I have to admit they’ve done a great job—but again, that says more about our educational system than it does about their merit as civil servants.

I don’t know—maybe there’s something in uneducated people that wants to be taken advantage of. Other polls seem to show that no one with a college education will vote for the clown who hijacked the GOP. People who need dramas in their lives will hang on to all the propaganda, resurrecting the zombie lies for the nth time, making out as if there’s a real contest here. I’m sorry—this election was over when Trump said Mexicans were rapists. Even if Hillary Clinton wasn’t a great woman, and wouldn’t make a fantastic President—we’d still have to vote for her, just to keep him away from the big button—yikes.

Come Listen Young People Wherever You Roam (2016Jul28)

Posted by XperDunn on July 29, 2016

Thursday, July 28, 2016 5:28 PM

My heart is full—I’ve been binge-watching the Philadelphia convention all week—the straight CSPAN feed (I want to make up my own mind—both about what’s worth watching and what I think about what I see and hear). Next week, I can go watch PBS, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, & FOX to see what the ‘buzz’ is. So far, it’s been like singing the national anthem—which I love to do—I love what’s best about our country. That doesn’t mean I ignore our problems. It certainly doesn’t mean I don’t worry. Neither does it mean that I believe everything I hear (from either side) nor was I born yesterday.

I’ve been a studious guy my whole life—I’ve studied world history, American history, and I follow politics. I’m sixty, which doesn’t make me an expert, but it does mean that I’ve lived through the same period of recent history as either candidate. I know what it was like for African-Americans in politics in the 1960s—and for a woman in politics in the 1970s—or rather, I remember what it was like for them—young people don’t know. If you had talked about a black president or a woman president back in those days, people would have laughed in your face. And if a gay person came out, he (or she) would have been dragged into a back alley and beat to death by an angry mob. No one can laugh at the first ‘if’ any more. Gays are still subject to violence—but the attackers don’t get a pat on the back anymore—they get charged with a crime.

People too young to have lived through those decades can be excused for not feeling Hillary Clinton—she’s just an old politician to them, with plenty of bad press. But they should recognize that Secretary Clinton has been getting bad press since before she graduated from law school—she has been a target of conservatives since she first appeared on the public stage, going undercover down south to prove that private schools maintained ‘hush-hush’ segregation, in violation of federal funding provisions.

People too young to know of Bill Clinton’s presidency can be excused for wondering what’s up with his cheating, their marriage, and therefore, her sincerity. Bill Clinton was a very young president when he got a blow-job from Monica Lewinski, an adoring, worshipful intern—then got in trouble when he swore he ‘didn’t have sexual relations with that woman’. He meant he hadn’t had intercourse, but others insisted that fellatio is a sex act and that he had lied. Now, Bill was a very popular president, very capable—and the GOP had to destroy him—they tried to impeach him, but couldn’t quite get him out of office. The whole country talked about blow-jobs for two years—it was stupid. Hillary stood by Bill, publicly, both as a believer before-hand, and as a wronged wife after the truth was publicized.

Now, people say that their marriage is a sham—as if no other marriage had bad problems and recovered. We’re coming up on our thirty-fifth anniversary next month and I can tell you—no marriage is without its ups and downs—long marriages are not a convenience, they are proof of character. But the press, comics, and her opponents, like to dredge this stuff up decades after the Clintons, I’m sure, have put it behind them.

Benghazi was Ambassador Stevens’ valiant choice, but her opponents insist on labelling it Hillary’s mistake. Her email server mistake did no demonstrable damage to national security or personal privacy—and she was not the only government official to do this—she was just the only one being stalked by her long-time haters. And let’s say that I have too high an opinion of her—that she has serious flaws. Look at her record, look at her achievements—recognize that the kind of work she does makes enemies in powerful places—recognize that she has been a target since before most of you were born.

If Hillary Clinton is an imperfect person, she has somehow managed, in spite of that, to do good for millions, to get healthcare for children, to broker a brief but important peace in the Mid-East, to get compensation for New York City, its police and its first-responders in the health crisis that was the aftermath of 9/11 rescue efforts. And much more—watch the convention for the full bio on CSPAN.org—it’s pretty damned impressive—and we should all be impressed. This is the lady who should be ‘locked-up’?! Yeah, by a dictator, maybe….

People say they don’t trust Hillary—I wonder who convinced them to think that way? People say Hillary makes mistakes—their list of complaints is mighty short for a decades-long career—maybe they had to look extra hard, maybe they had to inflate some things out of proportion—for instance, who the hell hasn’t had trouble with their email?

I trust Hillary because I have followed her career since she became First Lady—and I’ve learned about her life before that. There is a reason everyone in Washington assumed she’d be president two years ago—it wasn’t because she was an ‘insider’—it was because all of Washington knew her to be one of the brightest stars in American politics that anyone, on either side of the aisle, had ever seen. They won’t admit it now, during campaign season—but they’re still thinking it.

Anyway, I gotta go—don’t wanna miss her speech tonight…

Here’s a little something I played today—this convention is really lifting my spirits:

..ttfn

Belated History (2016Jul27)

Posted by XperDunn on July 27, 2016

Wednesday, July 27, 2016 12:50 AM

Yesterday’s nomination of Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic party’s presidential candidate and, with a little luck, the first woman president, was a major historic event—undercut only by the fact that it took us two hundred years and 44 male presidents to get here. The UK’s first woman leader is already a quaint bit of nostalgia—and many other democracies have been graced by women leaders—and we’re just getting around to it.

That’s the trouble with America—we’ve done so much—yet there is even more still left to be done. Michael Moore recently made an entire movie about good ideas that originated in America, were adopted by other countries (who benefitted greatly) yet failed to catch on, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. And every time a progressive puts forth a good idea for making America a better place there’s a stubborn autocrat who finds a reason to block progress. Democracy is slow, grinding work—especially when it’s swimming upstream against the Citizen’s United ruling that opened the lobbyists’ coffers.

We saw an old lady at the convention who was a little girl in 1920, when the nineteenth amendment gave women voting rights, and lived to vote for the lady who we hope to be our nation’s first Madam President. Barack Obama’s presidency has given the empowerment of dreams to millions of African-American children—Hillary Clinton is in line to do the same for half our nation’s citizens, and every little girl in America. The GOP wants to minimize this aspect of Hillary’s candidacy, but our President is first and foremost a symbol to the world—and it’s about time we broke the gender wall. Everyone calls it a ceiling, but that’s just to emphasize the unfairness of holding women down—it’s really a wall and we need to break through.

I was also pleased to see so many details of Hillary Clinton’s long and selfless service to the people of America—state after state credited her with making a positive difference in their lives. The truth about her civil service only makes the GOP smear campaign, over the decades, that much more reprehensible. And after tonight’s endorsements from her friends, her constituents, her colleagues, and her husband, the idea that the GOP nominee can stand up to any comparison is ludicrous.

As president, one is expected to interact with Congress—that’s 100 Senators and 435 Representatives—over five hundred legislators—it helps if you’ve been to law school. As president, one is expected to make decisions about things happening around the globe, things happening in science, education, health, farming, industry, energy—and business. Knowing about business is great—but knowing a lot about a lot of things, knowing a lot of people, knowing how government works—these are all important, too. The presidency is a tough job for a qualified person—for a newbie trainee, it would be a tragic farce.

I was always a problem student—I grasped concepts at once, and got very restless waiting for the rest of the class to catch up—my notebooks had more doodles than notes. Nobody appreciates the egghead who screws up the bell curve. But trust me—I’ve already solved this little multiple-choice problem and I am more than restless—I’m scared to death that the rest of the class might not catch up by November.

Yes Mindy, There Is A Hillary (2016Jul24)

Posted by XperDunn on July 24, 2016

Sunday, July 24, 2016 3:42 PM

I agree with you, Min—choosing Pence for a VP pick was lucky for Pence, since his anti-gay and anti-abortion legislative efforts have angered his Indiana constituency—not to mention his resistance to a free-needle program to stop the spread of AIDs in his state—and it was unlikely that he could win re-election as Governor. On the other side, Hillary has chosen Tim Kaine, whom The New Yorker’s Adam Borowitz jokingly said, “exhibits none of the outward characteristics of a sociopath or clinical narcissist”—meaning he’s never had a scandal or an investigation or a fraud charge, so how can we take him seriously as a politician?

He is a lot like Joe Biden—when you go to smear him, you realize there’s no mud on the ground. A seemingly decent person who works hard as an honest politician—it’s confusing, I know.

I also agree with you about the legislature—both the house and senate GOP swore they would block anything and everything Obama tried to do—just so they could call him a ‘do-nothing’ president. But the Democrats did manage to regulate the banks and pass healthcare reform before the GOP slipped back into Congress—so when the AP did a fact-check on all the doom and gloom of Trump’s acceptance speech last week, they found that he lied about most of it—the economy is better, employment is better, crime is down, Iran can’t manufacture nuclear weapons, we have our first global climate-change accords, relations with our neighbor Cuba are being normalized (with Congress blocking the dropping of the fifty-year-old embargo, of course) and Obama has appointed a fantastic Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, who has just set a record for the longest an appointee has ever had to wait for a Senate hearing (almost a year now—and counting).

And let’s not forget that the origin of our financial woes came from the GOP’s spendthrift war-mongering and lax banking oversight—they left Obama with quite a hole to dig the country out of—but he did it, and has us back to better than before the bank crashes. So ‘just more of Obama’s policies’ sounds pretty good to most people—just think what a Democratic president could do with a working legislature.

To get that, we need more than just Hillary Clinton for president—we need some more Democrats in both houses of Congress. Both Clinton’s and Kaine’s Senate records show that they worked well across the aisle—so even if we don’t take the House or Senate, they still have a shot at some real governing, unless the GOP’s thinly-veiled racism simply transforms into thinly-veiled misogyny. Their acceptance of the orange Mussolini makes me feel that nothing is beyond them any more. They supposedly did some re-thinking after Obama won his second term—maybe when Trump gets his ass kicked, they’ll do some thinking worthy of the name.

Book Report: “The Jennifer Project” by Larry Enright (2016Jul24)

Posted by XperDunn on July 24, 2016

Sunday, July 24, 2016 2:59 PM

(NOTE: This review was previously posted to amazon.com)

I’m sad to have just read the last page of “The Jennifer Project” by Larry Enright—check that box on the good-read checklist. This is a light-hearted romp—the dated nerd vernacular of the hero is almost embarrassingly comforting, like listening to your old stoner uncle. Jennifer herself shows some nerdy wit—and super-intelligence that acts more like magic than tech. Still, there is enough tech-speak and buzz-word scientifical-ness to help the willing suspension. Thrilling concepts are explored as if they wouldn’t need a book-shelf’s worth of ground-breaking new physics to implement—something I truly enjoy in my science fiction.

Terribly fast-paced—I read this book the same way I eat potato chips when I get the munchies—it must do without any tremendous amount of depth. The characters are what one would expect them to be—and we know little about them beyond their actions in advancing the story. The story’s ending might be too obvious to the experienced fan, but with the rush of words, one reaches the end before it becomes irritating. As with the better science-fiction, if you’re paying too much attention to the people and not enough to the ideas, you’re missing all the fun.

Larry Enright is a consummate speculator on future possibilities—and he knows how to entertain his readers. He’s sort of a cross between Harry Harrison and Michael Crichton. I will be reading as many more books like this as he cares to write—don’t miss out.

Pinocchio (2016Jul22)

Posted by XperDunn on July 23, 2016

Friday, July 22, 2016 9:08 PM

The popularity contest that is a presidential election doesn’t treat intellectuals very well. People such as Al Gore get tagged as ‘college-boys’ with lots of smarts but no experience or heart. And I find it ironic that we have, in Donald Trump, the real threat that such fear supposes—he is an incredibly clever man—but he has no experience and no heart. These top-tier wheeler-dealers of our financial stratosphere are well-known to pride themselves on their heartlessness. And business tycoons like Trump have a very narrow, very one-sided view of what government is and what it does. Business owners rarely get to own billions-of-dollars-worth of assets by virtue of their tender humanitarianism or their sense of civic duty.

That he is manipulative is proven by the fact that he has taken a woman whose life is indeed one of tender humanitarianism and a sense of civic duty—a public servant virtually all her adult life—an educated, experienced, competent lady and a doting grandmother—and reduced her to a satanic conspiracy of lies and greed. Not too long ago, Trump claimed he had sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to dig into President Obama’s birth records and expose him as the foreign-born Muslim intruder the GOP wished he was. This was after the election—when President Obama was already serving his term. This was after President Obama had already released his birth certificate. Trump actually claimed that his investigators were finding ‘incredible things’.

But a few years have gone by, at least one or two—since he splooged that particular bit of narcissism—so let’s forget that he tried to smear the President just to get attention from the media. Let’s ignore the fact that he has yet to show any interest in the day after the coming finale—I mean election. Let’s just take his word that Hillary Clinton, without leaving any evidence, has spent her whole life trying to destroy America. We’re much better off with the world’s worst boss, I figure. He’s so entertaining—why shouldn’t I listen to him?

But that is a question. Everyone who has ever worked for Hillary Clinton just goes on and on about what a sweet, thoughtful boss she is, how smart and caring. We don’t hear a lot from Trump’s underlings (I assume he thinks of them that way) and there’s a good reason for that. NDAs. NDAs are non-disclosure agreements—they are legal papers some people make you sign before you can work for them. Trump can sue anyone who tells the world what it’s like to work for the guy. Not that he wouldn’t sue just about anyone—he has a long list of former litigants. And that’s another question—we’ve had lots of lawyers who became president—but we’ve never had a litigious businessman—I wonder which countries Trump would sue first? I wonder if I could bring myself to sue someone for telling the truth about me? Hmm.

Here’s how I see it—Hillary Clinton couldn’t possibly be the Machiavellian super-villain her detractors paint her as—and that’s not to deny her imperfections. She simply doesn’t have any of the symptoms of a person who only cares for herself—she’s not nearly as comfortable huckstering herself to the public as Trump is (or her husband was)—she’s too sincere for that. And the fact that she has it in her to be sincere—too sincere perhaps to be comfortable tap-dancing in the public eye—disqualifies her completely from being anything near as bad as her detractors would like to believe.

Trump however reminds me of nothing so much as the barker who inveigles Pinocchio into joining the after-party at the carnival. The American public is the Pinocchio in this scenario, you understand—and we’ll all wake up with asses-ears, being loaded into a truck like cattle. At today’s rally in Tampa, Hillary told the crowd, “I never thought I’d say this—but Ted Cruz was right.” She was referring to Cruz being booed at the RNC convention for saying “Vote your conscience.” I don’t care for Cruz, but right is right—we could all probably use a Jiminy Cricket right about now.

Arrival (2016Jul20)

Posted by XperDunn on July 21, 2016

Thursday, July 21, 2016 4:03 PM

Jessy spent two days in the hospital having her daughter, Seneca Duffy Burr—we didn’t get nervous until yesterday afternoon, when she stopped calling to go into delivery, and we didn’t hear back until 8:30, when we got to be the first to see our new grand-daughter via Facetime, straight from the delivery room, before they even weighed her (8 lbs., 4 ozs.) Jessy looked very tired, with good reason, Seneca looked relieved, and baby Seneca looked like a sleepy angel. I have never seen Claire so joyful—and I couldn’t stop grinning either. We went from worry over our baby to having a new baby (okay, so we’re just the grandparents—she’s still ours).

We’re still walking around on clouds today. There are no words. But here’s a thousand words worth:

and here’s a couple of re-posts of the ‘before’ Jessy:

Unconventional (2016Jul19)

Posted by XperDunn on July 19, 2016

Tuesday, July 19, 2016 5:59 PM

There’s something very ‘high-school’ about this Republican convention in Cleveland. In a way, Trump’s entire race has had the childish aspect of someone who can’t be tried as an adult—and knows it. And this freedom isn’t due to his own youth, but to the uncritical thinking of his supporters, and of RNC boosters generally. Just before the convention began, Trump excused his running mate, Pence, for his vote on the Iraq War, with rationalizing that belied his claim that Hillary Clinton’s vote on the same was criminal incompetence. He can’t see his own random snap-judgments as anything but strength of personality—the childish clinging to one’s preconceptions regardless of any evidence of alternate interpretations. Stubbornness is a strength—but it helps if you’re right to begin with.

The convention itself incites us to compare it to one of Mickey and Judy’s attempts to ‘put on a show in the old barn’. But that would insult the memory of those fine performers—what the RNC is putting on in Cleveland is closer to the Little Rascals’ put-on-a-show episode—or a high school dance. Queen disclaimed any authorization for Trump’s use of “We Are the Champions” in a complaint-tweet—and Stephen Colbert remarked on the oddity of Trump choosing the song of a bi-sexual foreigner.

Melania ‘borrowed’ some of her more personal remarks from Michelle Obama’s speech of eight years earlier—but they were, in her defense, excellent phraseology. And it’s nice to hear Republicans applauding Michelle’s thinking, even if they were tricked into it.

The most high-school aspect of this unconventional convention, though, is the level of discourse. Various speakers laud the goodness of Trump—where we who have witnessed earlier conventions are used to hearing about important geopolitics, economic policies, social justice concerns, et. al. When the speakers run out of adjectives in praise of Trump, they damn Hillary Clinton as if the woman were in the dockets at Salem, lo these centuries past.

The feistier ones will take the occasional poke at Obama, too—but it’s hard to hack through both his positive stats and his immense approval rating to find cause for blame and shame. I heard Scott Baio actually question Obama’s Christianity, pointing out that he had a foreign-sounding name—“Does that sound Christian to you?” he asked. Oh-Em-Gee, Chochi—that was last election—and absurd, if you remember that one of the first things they tried to tag Obama with was his lifelong relation with his ‘activist’ Christian minister.

Giuliani shouted out that we had to “protect our police”. Several officers have been killed by madmen in recent days—but Giuliani’s tone left me wondering if he wanted to protect them from armed madmen—or from criticism of their tendency to shoot unarmed minorities. I think our police forces will survive the criticism. The unarmed madmen—well, they’ve been to schools and movie theaters and nightclubs from coast-to-coast—police are just their latest fixation. Black Lives Matter has not been arming anyone, so far as I know—that’s all on the NRA and the second amendment.

I could never understand the Conservative agenda—but the fact that significant numbers of the far right are Stop-Trump-ers indicates that this is not a left vs. right election. This is something else—something that defies description—and sometimes beggars belief. I imagine it’s similar to what people felt in other countries, when they saw their countrymen falling for a demagogue’s over-heated rhetoric and quailed at the thought of the destruction to come. But, in this convention, we are seeing a consensus—an alliance of bullies backing the head bully. High school bullies are bad enough, in situ—make one the President of the United States and –watch out!

Summer Daze (2016Jul16)

Posted by XperDunn on July 17, 2016

Saturday, July 16, 2016 4:38 PM

Summer is supposed to be hot and lazy, but I’m finding this summer kinda nerve-wracking. Our geopolitics are simmering dangerously close to a full boil—at this point it would be easier to list the countries that are stable and enjoying business-as-usual, if indeed there are any, rather than compile the list of trouble-spots and terror attacks. On the domestic front, we seem to be having a presidential race that is more a referendum on fact-based democracy than a choice of parties. The gun violence has hit record highs without anyone having a clue as to how to stop it. Violence of every kind piles atop itself, barely a day going by without a new atrocity in the news—it’s actually pushed our obsessive election polling off the top-stories-list these past few days.

I saw a Medium post this morning—a tongue-in-cheek essay listing the many horrors of the last six months, claiming that ‘due to extreme disapproval ratings the rest of 2016 has been cancelled’. I applaud this blogger—she or he has succeeded in finding anything funny to say about the first half of this year. I wish I could. The only positive message sensible folks like President Obama or Secretary Clinton can offer lately is ‘things aren’t as bad as they seem’, and ‘we all have to work together’. I can’t disagree—my life, compared to the average American, is just a bowl of cherries—and I’m far better off than the usual unemployed sixty-year-old.

And I would far rather welcome refugees from war-torn countries, and make allowances for long-term undocumented workers, especially those whose children were born here. Those who face these ideas with fear and anger are forgetting that none of us are native, except Native Americans—and they are overlooking that the net effect of all immigrations is always a plus for America. We have never failed to integrate and welcome any group into our nation before (well, eventually, of course) and I don’t see why we should start now. This nonsense about building walls, deporting masses of people, and banning religions—it’s not just un-American, it’s stupid. It’s a mistake we’ve never made before, so some people can’t envision just how horribly such ideas would work out in practice. With one exception—we’re still pretty embarrassed about the Japanese-American camps at the start of WWII. That failure of our national nerve still pinches—and it gives us a good idea of what extreme nationalism can do to the spirit of this country.

Our national spirit is a fragile thing—like many valuable treasures it can easily be misplaced or damaged. It can also be warped to the purposes of a charlatan—jingoism masquerading as patriotism, capitalist greed masquerading as national security, discrimination masquerading as religiosity, and other tap-dancing by power-seeking narcissists. Practicality is often used as an excuse to stifle our national spirit—we can’t afford it; it’s too dangerous; it threatens our children; it abridges our faith—but in the end, more of us are willing to trust in our spirit, our humanity, which is how we’ve gotten to our present level of social justice, work-in-progress though it may be.

Other nations marvel at our freedom of speech and of the press—they don’t really believe that such freedom can exist. Other nations marvel at our gender equality—women’s rights are severely curtailed in many nominally ‘developed’ countries. Even in Europe, many of their foreign nationals aren’t nearly as integrated into the fabric of their communities—they exist in separate enclaves that exaggerate the separation of cultures rather than combine them into a whole. America has its failings—don’t get me wrong. The persistence of racial division is undeniable and women are not yet fully equal in pay rates and other stats. The power of the wealthy is undermining our governance, our culture, and the economic divide is ever widening. And guns—boy, do we have a problem with guns.

For Americans, guns are the good guys. The colonists used guns to defend against the ‘savages’ and the many four-legged predators of the New World. The revolutionaries used guns to win our liberty as a nation—and one of their first new rules was ‘everyone can have a gun’. Guns made up both sides of the Civil War, and afterward, guns went west and made it wild—until other guns came and tamed the Wild West. Then we used guns to win the War with Spain, the First World War, and the Second World War. America wouldn’t be America without guns—and lots of’em.

Curiously, at present, we virtually ignore our armed military, those who are facing action in at least four other countries—and focus on gun misuse by Americans against Americans. Mental health seems to be a major factor—but I sometimes wonder whether the crazed gunman isn’t at least partly a product of a crazed community. The whole country is kinda gun-crazy—the mass murderers are getting their ideas from somewhere—and they’re getting their arms from somewhere too. I wish I had a solution to offer, but I’m as stumped as everyone else. I’m just on the lookout for those ‘better angels of our nature’ that have seen us through tough times before.

It’s looking like a long, hot summer. Here’s some music to help cool off:

…

A Fool Can Ask (2016Jul13)

Posted by XperDunn on July 14, 2016

Wednesday, July 13, 2016 9:44 PM

They say a fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer. As a political strategy, this seems to be working for Trump. David McCollough and Ken Burns have started a Facebook page “Historians on Donald Trump” , a forum where various historians can discuss Trump’s divergence from American Values and American History. In yesterday’s New York Times, McCollough explained, “I’ve always said, ‘My specialty is dead politicians.’ In that way, I could sidestep the question without getting myself involved. But this time around, I don’t feel that way any more.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has also thrown the traditional reticence of Supreme Court members to the winds to lambast the presumptive GOP nominee in no uncertain terms.

Much was made on today’s news of whether or not Notorious RBG behaved improperly or not—and I can see where that might seem the most sensational angle to take. But I can’t help thinking that there’s a larger question here. What would make people, whose careers virtually require silence on such current politics, feel required to speak out and warn people?

George Will, longtime conservative columnist and lifelong champion of Republicans, has quit the GOP over Trump’s candidacy saying, “This is not my party.” Many GOP figureheads will not be attending the convention, leaving the Trump campaign scrambling for speakers to fill the three days’ ‘festivities’. Elected Republican legislators run from reporters who might ask them to explain Trump’s daily statements. The “Anti-Trump” movement is still viral within the party, even though everyone agrees it has little chance of blocking his nomination.

Even foreign governments are getting nervous at the thought of a Trump presidency. In a way, Trump is like Climate Change. Anyone with expertise will warn you against it—the Democrats fear it, and the rest of the globe fears it—only the GOP finds either phenomenon acceptable. I think Hillary’s campaign can run attack ads simply by airing 1930s newsreel footage of Il Duce—Trump’s role model, in both manner and ideology.

Why his apparent success? Well, people are unhappy—that much is crystal clear. Plus, Donald Trump isn’t really running for President of The United States—he’s running for Most Popular. When people sincerely run for President, they usually lay some groundwork in law and politics. Trump has hired lawyers and thrown parties for politicians—maybe he thinks that’ll do. But basically Trump’s message has been, “I can be mean.” His implication is that he’ll be mean for us, but I think he’ll just continue to be a mean person, a bully—and most bullies are cowards, with little interest in the common welfare.

But I think what maddens the educated, knowledgeable people, like historians, columnists, and Supreme Court justices, is the tremendous gulf between Trump’s ears when it comes to America and what American government is really about. Trump, being without experience in anything but deals and sales, doesn’t have the breadth of vision to encompass the enormity of the task he’s asking for. He’s not just too ignorant to do the job—he’s too ignorant to know what the job really is. He may win the popularity contest in November, but his presidency would make Brex-regret seem like a mild hangover, compared to a suicidal impulse. After centuries of glorious liberty, Trump is poised to make American democracy eat its own entrails.

Huzzah! (2016Jul12)

Posted by XperDunn on July 12, 2016

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 7:40 PM

Don Pietro del Cianflone has returned from summer hiatus—sing laude and strike the tambor! Here, we have the Buds-Up Semi-Ensemble wreaking havoc with the laws of both rhythm and harmony in a spectacular display of bongo-osity and piano-tivity. If you spot this duo—notify the musical authorities at once. If you hear something—you’ve heard too much!

The rest of this is just me—nothing to see here, just move it along…

That’s that, for now. A big thanks to Peter Cianflone for the jam session!

Icarus (2016Jul06)

Posted by XperDunn on July 6, 2016

Wednesday, July 06, 2016 3:14 PM

I’ve been watching the PBS series “The Greeks”—fascinating stuff, and it ties together the ancient history of Greeks with their present-day, and ours. In last night’s segment they touched upon the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, father and son. Daedalus was a legendary scientist and engineer, forced by King Minos (so the legend goes) to design and build the great maze which imprisoned the Minotaur and the monster’s victims—a group of young people sent annually from the other islands of King Minos’s reign, to be sacrificed to the Minotaur in tribute to the king.

Daedalus didn’t care for his bloodthirsty, despotic boss—neither was he too pleased with being a captive employee—Minos had forbidden him to leave. So Daedalus invented marvelous wings made of wax and feathers, etc. He intended for himself and his son, Icarus, to escape the evil king by flying away to another island. He warned his son, before take-off, that the wings would get wet and fall apart if he flew too low, too close to the sea—and melt and collapse if he flew too high, too close to the sun.

Icarus’s flight is a popular tale—he ignores his father’s advice and is drawn towards the Sun, flying too high. His wings melt and his father, Daedalus’, joy at successfully reaching a free island—is dashed by his grief at watching his son plunge into the sea and die. Everyone has seen a picture or painting of this iconic scene—in my art-study days, I even drew or painted a few myself.

PBS’s “The Greeks” makes a connection between the fall of Golden Age Greece and Icarus—they, like most, take from this myth the lesson of Hubris—an overweening pride. I can’t argue with their interpretation of Ancient Greece’s fall—they got rich off the backs of their over-taxed protectorates—transforming the powerful unity of democracy into an elite that abused their power. They did indeed forget what it was that made them great to begin with. And one of their over-taxed satellites was Sparta—you know you’ve gotten too big for your britches when you go and make Sparta mad.

But Icarus I see quite differently. To me, the story of Icarus is the story of wisdom, learning, and maturity creating sophisticated mechanisms that can’t be trusted in the hands of the young and foolish. Daedalus invents a machine—a machine that, according to legend, he was able to use as it was meant to be used. But in sharing it with his son, he put a power that required responsibility into the hands of the irresponsible. It is, in a way, the story of modern man.

No genius ever invented the next big thing and thought to himself or herself, ‘what will the dumbest kid in the world do with this?’ No, they just invent new things, find new powers—and present them to the human race as a whole. But our technology does eventually end up in the hands of the dumbest among us—with predictable results. To me the story of Icarus teaches us that a wise man can invent more than a foolish man can be trusted with.

A Chat With An Old Friend (2016Jul06)

Posted by XperDunn on July 6, 2016

Wednesday, July 06, 2016 10:29 AM

It was convenient for Hillary that no charges would be filed—but it was equally convenient for the FBI director to cast aspersions on her without the need to prove them in a court of law. He says there’s no evidence that she was spied on, but that she MAY have been spied on. He says that out of 30,000 emails, about one hundred held classified info—but only eight held info that was classified at the time of the email—plus, he doesn’t give us anything regarding how HE decided this stuff was classified. Basically, Director Comey said ‘no harm, no foul’ out of one side of his mouth and ‘shame, shame’ out the other. It seemed a little partisan to me.

If you look at the email-server findings and the Benghazi findings, they both condemn the State Department. One wonders if it isn’t a little too easy to have someone be the head, the Secretary of State, and then, once he or she is done, lay a bunch of incompetence and malfeasance at their feet. An under-funded beltway bureaucracy, two centuries old, that gets a new boss appointed every few years—there’s your real bad guy.

Bill, the big dog, was less than circumspect in visiting aboard Loretta Lynch’s jet in AZ—but it sounds a little forced when people howl with laughter at the thought that these two could talk for thirty minutes about personal stuff. Really? You can’t blow a half-hour bullshitting with a friend? Has Bill done anything but, since he left office? Trump-eters who hail this as a sign that our ‘entire government is rotten to the core’ are being just a little bit hysterical. Nothing new there.

As always, the GOP witch-hunters who failed yet again to make a legal case against their nemesis have found ways to tag little PR addendums onto the statements clearing her. Politics is a rough game and no two ways about it.

Logos and the Summer Reading List (2016Jul05)

Posted by XperDunn on July 5, 2016

Tuesday, July 05, 2016 1:03 PM

Kindle Purchases as of July 5, 2016:

Title Author

Super Extra Grande Yoss

Infomocracy: A Novel Malka Older

Mechanical Failure (Epic Failure Book 1) Joe Zieja

Illuminae (The Illuminae Files) Amie Kaufman

Porgy Dubose Heyward

Shakespeare’s Sonnets William Shakespeare

Wandering Stars Sholem Aleichem

The Noise of Time: A novel Julian Barnes

Into Everywhere Paul McAuley

Something Coming Through Paul McAuley

Little Machines Paul McAuley

Insistence of Vision: Stories David Brin

The Technician (A Novel of Polity) Neal Asher

Dark Intelligence (Transformations) Neal Asher

Not Alone Craig A. Falconer

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Ken Liu

Ruined (TCG Edition) Lynn Nottage

As Good as New: A Tor.Com Original Charlie Jane Anders

Six Months, Three Days: A Tor.Com Original Charlie Jane Anders

The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model Charlie Jane Anders

Hello World Peter Cawdron

This Long Vigil (A Short Story) Rhett C Bruno

Saturn Run John Sandford

Against a Dark Background Iain M. Banks

Excession Iain M. Banks

The State of the Art Iain M. Banks

Use of Weapons (A Culture Novel Book 3) Iain M. Banks

The Player of Games (A Culture Novel Book 2) Iain M. Banks

Been There, Run That Koplovitz

Apex: Nexus Trilogy Book 3 (Nexus Arc) Ramez Naam

The Artificial Kid Bruce Sterling

Seeds of a New Birth (Kindred Series Book 1) Orrin Jason Bradford

The End of All Things (Old Man’s War Book 6) John Scalzi

The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past) Cixin Liu

Among Others (Hugo Award -Best Novel) Jo Walton

101 Great American Poems(Dover Thrift Eds) Am.Poetry&Lit Project

Armada: A novel Ernest Cline

The Golden Transcendence (Golden Age Book 3) John C. Wright

The Phoenix Exultant: (Golden Age, Book 2) John C. Wright

The Golden Age John C. Wright

Idempotency Joshua Wright

To Stand or Fall: The End of All Things #4 John Scalzi

Can Long Endure: The End of All Things #3 John Scalzi

This Hollow Union: The End of All Things #2 John Scalzi

The Life of the Mind: The End of All Things #1 John Scalzi

Mysterium Robert Charles Wilson

A Bridge of Years Robert Charles Wilson

Pandora’s Brain Calum Chace

Schild’s Ladder Greg Egan

The Girl With All the Gifts M. R. Carey

The Turing Exception (Singularity Series Book 4) William Hertling

The Last Firewall (Singularity Series Book 3) William Hertling

A.I. Apocalypse (Singularity Series Book 2) William Hertling

Avogadro Corp: TS.. (Singularity Series Book 1) William Hertling

Nexus (The Nexus Trilogy Book 1) Ramez Naam

Crux (The Nexus Trilogy Book 2) Ramez Naam

Cards of Grief Jane Yolen

The Alien Chronicles (The Future Chronicles) Hugh Howey

The Essence of Aptitude (CorpusChronicles Bk1) Esha Bajaj

The Defeatist Sophie Bowns

The Fold: A Novel Peter Clines

(R)evolution (Phoenix Horizon Book 1) PJ Manney

Curse 5.0 (Short Stories by Liu Cixin Book 7) Cixin Liu

The Water Knife Paolo Bacigalupi

Taking Care of Gods (Short Stories Book 10) Cixin Liu

The Wandering Earth (Short Stories Book 2) Cixin Liu

The Three-Body Problem(Remem.of Earth’sPast) Cixin Liu

Seveneves: A Novel Neal Stephenson

Vessel Andrew J. Morgan

H2O Irving Belateche

The book of the courtier Baldassarre Castiglione

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci Complete da Vinci

Godless Nerdistry: Or How to be a Bag of Chem Dale DeBakcsy

Consider Phlebas (A Culture Novel Book 1) Iain M. Banks

Fear the Sky (The Fear Saga Book 1) Stephen Moss

The Lost Starship (Lost Starship Series Book 1) Vaughn Heppner

Stars & Empire 2: 10 More Galactic Tales Jay Allan

Stars & Empire: 10 Galactic Tales Jay Allan

Fluency (Confluence Book 1) Jennifer Foehner Wells

The Road to Hope Crissi Langwell

Edge of Eternity (The Century Trilogy, Book 3) Ken Follett

Robogenesis: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) Daniel H. Wilson

A Burnable Book: A Novel Bruce Holsinger

Wool Omnibus Edition (Wool 1 – 5) (Silo series) Hugh Howey

Wool: The Graphic Novel #1 (Silo Saga) Hugh Howey

YES Leonard Chance

The Fault in Our Stars John Green

The Divergent Series Complete Collection: D,I,A Veronica Roth

The Nostalgist: A Tor.Com Original Daniel H. Wilson

Electric Blues (Arty Book 1) Shaun O. McCoy

Ride of the Late Rain (Vergassy Chronicles Bk 1) James Young

The Pattern Ship (The Pattern Universe Book 1) Tobias Roote

After Shock: (Lucy Guardino FBI Thrillers Bk 4) CJ Lyons

The Forgotten Land Keith McArdle

The First Kipjo Ewers

The Princess and the Goblin (Illustrated) George MacDonald

The Water Babies [with Biographical Intro] Charles Kingsley

The Shriver Rpt:A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back Maria Shriver

Wicked Sci-Fi Pulp -From1954 The Real Stuff Ill Philip K. Dick

10 Lost Vintage Sci-Fi Short-Story Masterpieces Chet Dembeck

Linked List of over 350 Free SciFi Classics Morris Rosenthal

Distraction Bruce Sterling

Vege Press-Cooker-50 Recipes for Busy People Maria Holmes

The Seventh Science Fiction MEGAPACK Robert Silverberg

The First Science Fiction MEGAPACK Robert Silverberg

The Second Science Fiction Megapack Robert Silverberg

The Third Science Fiction MEGAPACK Fritz Leiber

The Fourth Science Fiction MEGAPACK Isaac Asimov

The Fifth Science Fiction MEGAPACK Gardner Dozois

The Sixth Science Fiction MEGAPACK Johnston McCulley

Weird Science Fiction Tales: 101 Vol. 8 (civitas) Various

Weird Science Fiction Tales: 101 Vol. 7 (civitas) Various

Weird Science Fiction Tales: 101 Vol. 6 (civitas) Various

Weird Science Fiction Tales: 101 Vol. 5 (civitas) Various

Weird Science Fiction Tales: 101 Vol. 4 (civitas) Various

Weird Science Fiction Tales: 101 Vol. 3 (civitas) Various

Weird Science Fiction Tales: 101 Vol. 2 (civitas) Various

Weird Science Fiction Tales: 101 Vol. 1 (civitas) Various

The Edmond Hamilton MEGAPACK 16 Tales Edmond Hamilton

The H. Beam Piper Megapack: 33 Stories H. Beam Piper

The Works of Alan E. Nourse [Illustrated] Alan E. Nourse

Over the last two and a half years I have read some books—not as many as I would have back in my ‘bookworm prime’, but I still enjoy reading better than almost anything else. The above list is not exact—in the sense that I have not read every book—or every word in every book—just most of them. (Let he who reads every book he buys cast the first stone.) Also, a few of these listed are just Kindle duplicates of books I read long ago, and subsequently re-read as e-books. But by and large my reading list for the past coupla years is fairly represented above.

I could not tell you what most of these books are about. I read them and forget them, as far as details go—if I retain the main concepts and story arcs, I figure I’m doing well. My memory does not work well—I often have trouble, during a big book, keeping things straight as I read—remembering stuff afterwards is a bonus for me. I can re-read a book and get a few chapters in before the sense of familiarity starts to come to me—I’m often disappointed to do that, because the more I read, the more I remember, until I give it up and go looking for a new book. Memory is weird stuff—especially when it’s as dysfunctional as mine.

You’ll notice I mostly read Sci-Fi books. Science Fiction isn’t exactly educational in the strictest sense of the word—that word ‘Fiction’ tells you why. But Sci-Fi does have the advantage of letting science-educated people play with the concepts they were taught—and there is great value in that.

Real math and science are very complex, they’re taught in school (often by uninspired teachers to unwilling students) and they tend to be thought of as rote data. But the sciences are a living thing, growing and changing with every day—and Science Fiction provides a safe space for playing with scientific concepts and ideas, clarifying their meanings and highlighting their possibilities. It can be a thrilling peek at the future or a dire warning to the present—but my favorite aspect of Science Fiction is that it can conjure fantasies about what the human race can become.

And Science Fiction has a strange habit of deciding, every once in a while, to become Fact. It is not so strange that speculation on the future can become prediction—even fortune-tellers get it right sometimes, and Sci-Fi writers have the extra advantage of not talking in general terms, but of extrapolating aspects of real science into stories about where that science might lead. Star Trek once speculated on the idea of hand-held communicators and, lo and behold, we now have I-phones (an actual improvement, since I-phones can do much more than allow conversations between two people). Arthur C. Clarke once wrote a story about a geo-synchronous satellite used for communications—and thus his name appears on the first patent for a communications satellite. I could go on—the historic connection between science and Science Fiction is long and full of anecdotes.

Science Fiction can also lead to greater interest in Science. Among the print books left off the above list are some biographies. Recently, I have read “Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel” (2006) by Rebecca Goldstein and “Joseph Henry: The Rise of an American Scientist” (1997) by Albert E. Moyer (which I’m still reading). I’ve also recently read “Henry James: A Life” (1985) by Leon Edel and “Beethoven: The Man Revealed” (2014) by John Suchet. I’ve read James, but truthfully I was intrigued to read his biography when I read, in Henry’s bio, that he was a tutor of the young Henry James in 19^th-century Albany, NY. The Beethoven bio was a gift from friends who knew I liked classical music and reading.

So I do have other interests—Sci-Fi is simply my favorite genre. Biographies are great, too—but, being works of intense research, it gets tricky finding someone who can dig up the info and also write well. Biographies can be fun—some historical figures have whole bookshelves of biography written about them—I’ve read three different biographies of Einstein, for example, and learned as much from their differences as I did from their explicit writing.

Sarah Vowell, Barbara Tuchman, Jared Diamond, and Laura Hillenbrand are some of my favorite writers of general history. I’ve also read some lackluster histories by other authors, but I have found that, with biography and historical non-fiction, the lack of literary talent can be balanced out by one’s interest in the subject. I have read some terribly boring books, simply because I was fascinated with the subject matter. Plus, they help me appreciate the really good writers.

In the Gospel of John we are told “the Word was with God and the Word was God”, the word ‘Word’ having been translated from the ancient greek ‘Logos’, which means “a ground”, “a plea”, “an opinion”, “an expectation”, “word”, “speech”, “account”, “to reason”—later becoming a philosophical term meaning ” a principle of order and knowledge”. Thus Logos has always held a fascination for modern writers and thinkers. The interface between words and meaning is a slippery one. Semiotics become complex. But the struggle between what we mean and what we say (or write) goes on—words may be amorphous, but they’re the best tools we have. And so, this summer, go and get your words on.

Happy Fourth (2016Jul04)

Posted by XperDunn on July 4, 2016

Monday, July 04, 2016 2:33 PM

I like the idea of a public hearing—it could even be a new cable-TV channel—regular folks get up and say what they’re going through and what they would like to see the government do about it. Each statement could be followed by the names of the speaker’s town officials, their state officials, (with contact information so that people could call or write in) and the relevant legislation and programs that already apply, and a list of legislation that has been proposed but not passed. There could also be additional segments about legislation that was passed solely on the impetus of lobbyists—why they passed it, what the corporations get out of it, and how it deteriorates the public good.

That governor who recently got his corruption conviction overturned by the supreme court—he may not have done anything technically illegal, but with segments on our new show that link politicians to major campaign contributors, we could get rid of these jokers the old-fashioned way—by getting the word out, so they don’t get re-elected.

Of course, the same old problems apply—who would run such a TV channel and whose pocket would they be in? It would have to be very strictly administered to avoid the possibility of it being co-opted by a single group. And the financial needs of a TV channel would make it nearly impossible to avoid the same kinds of malfeasance that politics itself suffers from. Still, I like the idea.

Charles M. Blow wrote an editorial in today’s New York Times called “Giving Clinton Her Due” and I thought, ‘well, finally, some journalism about all the great stuff that Hillary Clinton has done over the decades’. But I was disappointed—the article was all about how well her campaign has done over the last month, compared to Trump. I just can’t fathom how people can pretend there is a comparison to be made between one of our most notable statespersons of the last four decades—and someone who hasn’t done squat, ever. Am I crazy or is this not the stupidest thing in the world today?

Even if Trump were sane, sensible, and thoughtful—wouldn’t it still be true that a complete novice, a green newbie like him, is a poor chose for ‘king of the world’? Add in the fact that he’s a narcissistic, psychotic imbecile and I have real trouble understanding how anyone can say his name, in conjunction with the election for Leader of the Free World, without laughing out loud. I can understand the talking heads—they get paid to say ridiculous things with a straight face—but regular folks? I just don’t get it.

And don’t tell me Hillary is a liar—who the hell isn’t a liar? Name another president who never stretched the truth—it’s practically a job skill in that regard. And the question isn’t just who is lying—it’s also who are they lying to? In the case of Trump, it’s a lifelong record of lying to everyone, for money. In Hillary’s case, when she misspeaks it’s usually in defense against the lies being spread by her enemies—she’s not lying to us, not the way Trump is. She’s just being a politician. And besides, let he or she who is without lying cast the first stone.

So get out there and set off some ‘works, everybody—happy Fourth of July!

Be The Government (2016Jul03)

Posted by XperDunn on July 3, 2016

Sunday, July 03, 2016 5:46 PM

Well, this is embarrassing—I wrote my Fourth of July post yesterday and now I want to write something else—but it’s still the day before Independence Day, so what am I supposed to do, pretend it’s not happening and just write about random stuff? Yeah, that’s the plan. So much for topicality.

Oh, it’s funny—and kind of exhilarating—when you look back at stuff that pissed you off and had you all off your game and under the weather for days—and you realize that your memory isn’t good enough to really remember what all that was about, so who cares anymore. If I can’t interface with the Internet without somebody getting in my face, then I just play Snood for a while and the whole thing’s forgotten—I’d like to take the credit, but honestly, it gets forgotten whether I like it or not.

Sometimes time moves too fast (usually) and sometimes time moves too slow (that’s the worst so I’m glad it’s the rarer of the two). Sometimes time seems to stand still—but if you wait awhile, you’ll need to go to the bathroom eventually. For me time has always been a little too elastic—my musical friends are always trying to encourage me to use a metronome—but that really just makes it worse—I get confused about the time between the clicks. So I made a deal with myself long ago—that even though music is primarily about rhythm, it was okay for me to do everything without a good rhythm, anyway—we’ll just call it an overabundance of rhubato, that’s all. It’s not that I don’t want to be rhythmic, it’s just that I can’t—time won’t let me, as they say.

I mean, I can feel an anger inside me—but through a combination of not remembering and not wanting to go there, I really have no idea why. Lots of things make me angry—I have an itchy trigger finger and a short fuse. Must be the Irish in me. Back in the day you could pick one thing to be angry about—the War, or Nixon, or Nuclear weapons, or the Ecology. But now there are just too many things going on, both good and bad—not getting angry is becoming an important skill, because the media will latch onto to that and make you watch TV all day or surf around the Internet until your eyes bleed.

Yes, there are problems out there—it’s time we stopped getting scared about it, or angry about it, and started getting serious about leadership instead. We are about to have an election in which a miserable, dangerous candidate has a shot just because people are so angry and so uncomfortable—and so poor. And that’s on our establishment, no question about it. They’ve been lying down on the job—doing everything but their job. It’s time we elected new people—but not the worst person in the world, just because he sees an opening.

We need to elect local officials who are not wealthy or corrupt, who have public service in mind. Then we need to do that with our state officials, then our congresspersons. Only when we have regained control of our political infrastructure can we do anything about the big dogs—the governors, the senators, vice-president, and president. Those things are just shiny objects for us to jump up and reach for while all the real work gets done behind our backs.

A vote won’t do it. People have to start going to town meetings, state party meetings, I don’t even know what kinds of meetings—that’s the sad part. The NRA’s zombie army all have the itinerary—surely the rest of us can start to realize that the crazies need to be beaten back at every river ford and mountain pass, that the lobbyists need to face down protestors outside their offices and in the halls of government. The reason we have such bad government now is because we have taken it for granted—but it needs work, just like your house or your yard—and they are overdue for a lawnmowing.

We don’t get paid to participate in our government, local, state or whatever—we may not even get what we want, personally, by participating. But if we think of it as an appliance that works when you push the button, then we get a government that has no brain, no heart. Only when large numbers of regular people show up will our government ever resemble our desires, or even our needs. We don’t need smaller government or bigger government—we need to be the government.

The Revolting Day (2016Jul02)

Posted by XperDunn on July 2, 2016

Saturday, July 02, 2016 12:22 PM

Considering the time of year, I guess we can’t really criticize the UK for Brexit—there were a lot of naysayers back on that first Independence Day. In fact, we rarely talk about the Tories—early Americans who took exception to the colonists’ decision to flip George III the bird. Back in the day, their lives weren’t worth a plugged nickel—especially once the Revolutionary War really got started. It must have been strange to move so far while standing still—one day they are patriots—good citizens of His Majesty—and the next day, traitors—dirty turncoats who sided with the lousy Redcoats.

We can never tell how history will paint our portraits. Benedict Arnold, a much maligned figure in our history, was one of our greatest military officers—a fierce fighter and brilliant tactician—he found the Continental Congress of his day just as useless and frustrating as we do ours today. He saw them being negligent and inept, more concerned with their own well-being than with the fate of the young country. The rebels were suing the French government for military aid and financial backing—and Arnold felt that we were better off sticking with the British, bad as they were, than turning our country over to the French. So he turned spy—but with the best intentions. History, however, was definitely not on his side.

And ever since, we have had historical figures who, at first blush, were labelled traitors, troublemakers, and insurgents—anyone who tried to see things from the Native Americans’ point of view, anyone who condemned slavery, anyone who worked towards votes for women—were all roundly booed, sometimes until long after the injustices were irreversible. There are even people today, over two hundred years later, whose parents have raised them still to belittle Native Americans, African Americans, and women of any type. More recently, the late Muhammad Ali was branded a traitor for refusing the draft, as were many anti-war protestors. Good isn’t ‘good’ until it wins the PR war and gets the imprimatur of history. It is not so much that history is written by the winners as that history is written by the winning.

Like religion—source of humanity’s greatest comfort and engine of its worst atrocities—America has a wonderful, idealistic side which we use to block out the memory of all the horrendous reality that we’ve chalked up since we first gave out those poxy blankets, long before we decided to write declarations about human rights. We like to get on our high horse about the great American Experiment—but the nation that invented Public Education celebrates its big day by having the ill-educated go out and blow off their extremities with explosives—if they survived the car trip to the picnic area, that is.

It’s lucky I’m gonna be a grandpa soon—here I am grumbling about firecrackers on Fourth of July Weekend—what kind of American am I, anyway? I still approve of barbequed hamburgers and hot dogs—even though I can’t decide which has more carcinogens—lighter fluid or maple wood chips. And I still like the flag—even though I can’t fly ours because a tree branch grew across the flagpole and the powerlines are too close (I think it’s a really old flag pole, so it would probably fall down with a flag on it anyway).

Plus, I’m retired—holidays suck once you’re retired—what good’s a day off if you don’t have any days on? The biggest change for me during holidays is the theme that Turner Classic Movies uses to mark the occasion in their day’s programming.

VOD Movie Reviews: “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” and “Kung Fu Panda 3” (2016Jun29)

Posted by XperDunn on June 29, 2016

Wednesday, June 29, 2016 1:01 AM

“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” stars Tina Fey—I can’t think of any previous dramatic film role, unless you want to count “This Is Where I Leave You” (2014) which was a dramedy—a humorous take on a serious subject. And there is certainly humor in “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”—though it has rare moments of comic relief rather than an overarching comedic tone. So it would be stretching things to claim that Ms. Fey has suddenly dived into dramatic roles. Still, it would be wrong to overlook her jumping decisively into this wholly dramatic role with both feet—and sticking the landing, IMHO.

Tina Fey’s performing career is just a late bloomer, I guess. She did a whole lot of writing before she became a well-known SNL cast member—I’m not an expert on her career arc, but to take on a serious movie role for the first time, a few years after winning the 2012 Mark Twain Prize for her life’s work in virtually every aspect of the comedic side of the entertainment industry—that’s taking one’s time in developing an acting career.

I don’t know much about Kim Barker, either—I haven’t even read her war-correspondent memoir “The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan”, on which the film is based. I’m both tempted to go and read it now, having seen the movie, and reluctant to go even deeper into the troubling truths being confronted in the film.

There’s the ‘big picture’ stuff, like how our military can fight and bleed in a faraway country while the citizens at home can’t even be bothered to hear about it on the news. And there’s the personal, like how a woman can find herself trapped between the opposing extremities of being an invisible desk drone—or doing stand-up reports amidst flying bullets and shrapnel. In the end I was left with the impression that the big, cold world is more pervasively evil than the discrete violence of a war zone. In spite of my penchant for happy, sappy, ever-after-type movies, I enjoyed being fed this more serious fare, with Tina Fey as the spoonful of sugar that made it go down.

Being sixty years old, I was, of course, embarrassed to watch “Kung Fu Panda 3” all by myself—this stuff was much easier to explain when the kids were small. But I loved it—sue me, I’m a sucker for a good animated film. And I was reminded that these films are serious business when the end credits listed the voice actors (most of whom spoke in all three films): Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, J.K. Simmons, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Kate Hudson, James Hong, Wayne Knight, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Try making a live-action movie with a cast like that—it’d be a hundred-million-dollar budget before you even began shooting. Angelina Jolie must have enjoyed the recording sessions the most—all of her and Brad’s kids are also voice-credited in the film.

I know that the messages in these kid films are simplistic—but I still believe in teaching kids to care, even with a silly movie. When Po sacrifices himself to save the whole village, it cuts a little close to the edge—the authors of the New Testament may have a case for plagiarism there—but he returns from the ‘world of the spirit’ (falling on his butt upon landing) so we are left with the ‘out’ of interpreting the whole thing as ‘clever strategy’, rather than a re-telling of The Messiah, so no harm done.

I think I favor the Kung Fu Panda franchise because its fantasies always have two components—the traditional threat of a big, mean bad-guy, and the search for wisdom as a means of defending against the impending evil. Po spends equal amounts of screen time worrying over the enemy’s arrival and his struggles to please his teachers and learn the lessons he’s being taught. He doesn’t go looking for a great weapon or go on a quest to destroy the one ring—he always goes looking for wisdom. I like that.

Wakey-Wakey (2016Jun28)

Posted by XperDunn on June 28, 2016

Tuesday, June 28, 2016 10:26 AM

I’m sick of it—every time one of my Facebook friends posts a new bit about the disgrace that is Trump, some jackhole responds with a comment like, “But Hillary is a big, fat liar.” First of all, genius—Hillary’s state of grace has zero to do with all that’s wrong about Trump, so that response is worthy of a three-year-old brat—and changes nothing in the area of Trump being an embarrassment—only slightly less of one than the absolutely mortifying numbers of supporters who can’t think straight enough to see through him. Secondly, it is Hillary’s accusers who are the liars.

What did yesterday’s Benghazi Report tell us? One—it told us that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did nothing wrong—and she certainly never refused assistance to Americans in peril. Two—it told us that the months (and the millions of dollars) spent investigating and re-investigating the Benghazi incident failed to produce anything new—that, basically, no matter how badly her detractors wanted to find it, there was zero fault to be found with Clinton’s handling of a bad situation. I won’t even get into the fact that everyone is ignoring the true lessons that came of the investigation—that there is no big hullbaloo about revising State Department protocols in the wake of this tragedy.

And the email server—what have we learned there? We’ve learned that Hillary made a mistake, that she apologized for it, and that not a single bit of classified intelligence was ever leaked due to her mistake. But did Hillary go on to make mistake after mistake, like her idiot opponent—or did her witch-hunters latch onto the email server simply because Hillary’s mistakes are so rare? If she was as incompetent as they would have us believe, wouldn’t they have a wider menu to choose from?

I find it disheartening to see the parade of accusations and attacks on Hillary Clinton, all of which are either disproved entirely, or found to be minimal lapses unworthy of such outrage—and yet we never turn to her accusers and say, ‘Stop lying.’ No—years and years of their shameless misrepresentations go unindicted, while even somewhat-sensible people start to ask themselves if they can trust one of our most dedicated public servants. It’s madness. They’re like a bunch of monkeys hurling feces around and blaming her for the stink.

In 1977, the young lawyer Hillary co-founded the non-profit Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Two years later she became the First Lady of Arkansas. You know the rest of the story—a lifetime of public service. That’s an entire lifetime of looking out for children’s welfare, of advocating for women’s rights, and of fighting for social justice and national security. That people can nit-pick at her occasional imperfections, as if none of her achievements meant anything, insults our intelligence. And I defy you whiners and bullies—name a single act in Trump’s life when he did anything for anyone but himself—when he even considered the public welfare over his personal gain. The idea that this moron could have people willing to elect him president makes my head want to explode.

Lastly, our mealy-mouthed national disgrace, the presumptive GOP nominee, has suggested that Hillary is somehow complicit in her husband’s scandal. Try this—go to any of the millions of Americans whose spouses have cheated on them—tell them that it’s their fault—tell’em that they’re to blame—go ahead and try that—but don’t forget to duck.

I don’t know which sickens me more—their baseless attacks on a great American like Hillary, or their joyful embrace of the sickest, most vile and divisive piece of offal that has ever gotten national exposure. If you are a Trump supporter, I hate to be the one to tell you this—but you are gullible, confused, uninformed, and a cheerleader for your own destruction—wake the fuck up.

Diminishing Returns (2016Jun27)

Posted by XperDunn on June 27, 2016

Monday, June 27, 2016 11:20 AM

Diminishing returns—that’s what I’m dealing with here. My hands shake, my vision is blurry, my head is all kinds of discombobulated. I’m weak. I’m short of breath. I get kinda squirrely whenever I have to talk to people in person—I just get into a loop, second-guessing myself and them—basically, I’ve just lost the ability to deal. I used to be a shut-in because I didn’t have the strength to walk around—now, I think I hide indoors because I know that regularly interacting with people will expose my insanity and get me committed.

Smoking is a problem—I shouldn’t smoke, of course. But I don’t have that much else to amuse myself with—being damn-near dead—so it’s hard for me to rationalize quitting to save my life. What life, without a smoke to pass the time?

Loved ones—sure, I have those. But they have actual lives—they’re busy, they’re engrossed in their own stuff—and any leaning on them takes away from that. I think one person stuck in a frustrating place is sufficient—I can’t see dragging them into this. The paradox of age and infirmity—I’m supposed to be all that more grateful for my continued existence, even as it loses more and more of the features that constitute an actual life. When people congratulate someone on reaching their ninetieth birthday, all I can think is ‘That poor bastard—what must his day be like?’

Not that I’m promoting euthanasia—I’m not paging Dr. Kevorkian. It’s just that younger, healthier people think of old age as ‘extra additional years’, as if their seniority will be as full and engaging as their thirties or forties. But it’s really a matter of diminishing returns—to a certain extent, we fade before we die. And fading isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Yes, I’m still breathing and I’m still watching TV and eating my breakfast every morning—but I’m used to more than that, or I was—I want more than that.

Pain? Yes, certainly. I mean, it’s not like someone amputated one of my limbs or anything—but there’s definitely pain. The headaches are the worst because it makes it hard to think of something else—which is my go-to remedy for other pains. But let’s face it, with the back spasms, the stiff neck, the random nerve pains and restless leg—thinking about something else only gets me so far for so long. The gas pains from my messed-up guts are usually the sharpest—sometimes the cry coming out of my mouth is the first notice I have, it’s so sudden. I usually try to morph it into a sentence, as in “AAH-ow ya doin’ this afternoon?”—just so I don’t scare people into worrying about me.

My close acquaintance with my old friend, pain, makes me a big fan of OTC pain relief—my favorites are aspirin and ibuprofen. But those things only work for a short time—and the next day, I have nerve-endings that are even tenderer from the after-effects. I reach the point where it’s impossible to up the dosage any higher, and the pain is that much worse—it’s a dead-end solution with a high price-tag. Stronger drugs are out of the question—the same cycle, with far greater costs and risks.

My life is so sedentary I spend most of my time watching TV—and it embarrasses me. TV is such a festival of stupid. So I turn it off and start reading. A few hours later, the pain behind my eyes reminds me why I don’t read like I used to—it’s amazing how much physical effort it takes to read. I used to think it was the most relaxing thing in the world—how healthy I must have been!

Here are three poems I stole off a few poetry sites:

Cacoethes Scribendi

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

If all the trees in all the woods were men;

And each and every blade of grass a pen;

If every leaf on every shrub and tree

Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea

Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes

Had nothing else to do but act as scribes,

And for ten thousand ages, day and night,

The human race should write, and write, and write,

Till all the pens and paper were used up,

And the huge inkstand was an empty cup,

Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink

Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink.

The Birthnight

Walter de la Mare

Dearest, it was a night

That in its darkness rocked Orion’s stars;

A sighing wind ran faintly white

Along the willows, and the cedar boughs

Laid their wide hands in stealthy peace across

The starry silence of their antique moss:

No sound save rushing air

Cold, yet all sweet with Spring,

And in thy mother’s arms, couched weeping there,

Thou, lovely thing.

Moonrise

Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1844 – 1889

I awoke in the Midsummer not to call night, in the white and the walk of the morning:

The moon, dwindled and thinned to the fringe of a finger-nail held to the candle,

Or paring of paradisaïcal fruit, lovely in waning but lustreless,

Stepped from the stool, drew back from the barrow, of dark Maenefa the mountain;

A cusp still clasped him, a fluke yet fanged him, entangled him, not quit utterly.

This was the prized, the desirable sight, unsought, presented so easily,

Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber.

Why poems? I don’t know—it just came up. Poems are nice—when they’re short enough. I used to read epic poetry—whole books of the stuff—I don’t have that kind of concentration anymore. I own many different English translations of the Iliad and the Oddysey—I prefer the ones that don’t go too ‘prose’ and don’t go too ‘lyric poetry’—it’s difficult to retain just enough of the poetry of it that you don’t lose the pace of the storytelling—a subtle balancing act, which is why there are so many versions. I wonder what it must be like in the original Ancient Greek?

I always wish I’d learned more languages. Languages are the most liberal-arts thing there is—it’s hard to see how they can be of practical use, yet those who learn them have a great mental advantage over the monolinguist. I studied French in high school and college—I never became fluent because I never used it. But even in an English-speaking environment, I’ve run across some Latin roots and French phrases that are gobbledy-gook to other people—so it wasn’t a complete waste. It’s still the easiest way to be the smartest person in the room—knowing a language that no one else does, when that language pops up. And wouldn’t it be nice to watch a foreign film and not have to read the captions?

I got a new TV recently—I switched to LCD because my old Plasma screen acted as both television and space heater—very convenient in winter, but a real pain in the ass come summertime. My old buddy, Flippy, came by today to take the old monster off my hands—I hope he’s going to use it in a well-ventilated area. It was a huge, expensive TV, so I’m happy that it didn’t end up in the junk pile.

The new TV is disappointing—I bought a 32′ diagonal Sony LCD because I figured if I moved it closer to the bed (the big one was all the way across the room) it would have the same apparent size as the big one. But Sony tricked me—the screen is 32″, but the picture is much smaller, unless I go full zoom, which fills the screen but makes the picture grainier. Consumerism is such a bait-and-switch con game. Plus, the TV was surprisingly inexpensive, until I realized that I now need a sound system for it (the old, big one had it built-in) and the sound systems price out at about the same price as the new TV! So now, instead of being happy with my purchase, I’m watching a tinier screen with tinnier sound. Argggh!

One good thing about the new TV is that it’s Wi-Fi enabled. That means I can switch to Netflix or Hulu—I can even watch myself on my YouTube channel videos—that’s pretty cool.

Okay, here’s one of my favorite Bach pieces:

and since it’s a really nice composition, and I don’t play it that well, here’s the link for Glenn Gould, playing the same piece, but properly–and beautifully:

Enjoy.

Think Fast—Too Slow! (2016Jun25)

Posted by XperDunn on June 25, 2016

Saturday, June 25, 2016 5:40 PM

Think Fast—Too Slow! (2016Jun25)

Politics is so complicated! We’re seeing two kinds of Trump spokesperson making the news-talk rounds. The first type of Trump- spokesperson, as you’d expect, is the flaming yahoo, wielding a sword of misinformation and a shield of denial—a true-believer whose gonna win that argument because God told them so (or whatever voice is in their heads). The second type of Trump- spokesperson is the slick old PR veteran who debates with their wits, their ethics (if any) firmly under lock-down.

I’d like to see one of each get accidentally booked for the same panel—It’d be a hoot to see them get confused and start contradicting each other. Contradiction is a mainstay of any campaign—but when I look closely I seem to see a difference in those who defend their stance based on well-thought-out arguments discovered in the course of looking for real answers—and those who have ‘picked’ a side and are just trying to win the argument. Now, winning the argument is the bottom line—and there are many arguments won by the simple expedient of out-shouting the opposition—so we see both sides trying to win however they can.

The difference is in what you don’t hear. The side that’s thought through their position will grudgingly admit to things that can’t be denied. The side that’s all about winning will never admit to anything, no matter how obviously true it might be. That seems to be the easiest way to tell where someone is coming from. If you’ll admit to something damaging and then try to move on, you’ve got your eyes on some future prize—if you never give an inch, even when it’s ridiculous not to, you’re just trying to win—and, of course, you’re relying on the voters being too slow to see through you.

It Was Easy (2016Jun23)

Posted by XperDunn on June 24, 2016

Thursday, June 23, 2016 4:33 PM

We had it easy—our biggest worry, back in the day, was the commies shooting off their ICBMs and making a crater of the globe (with the help of our retaliatory strikes, of course). But it was called MAD for two reasons—the obvious acronym, Mutually-Assured Destruction—but also because it was literally madness even to contemplate—and everyone knew it. We could worry about a madman getting hold of a bomb and starting something that would quickly get out of hand—but that was a long shot, mentioned mostly in novels of the ‘thriller’ variety. And no one seriously expected our governments to find any rational use for their nuclear arsenals—MAD, remember? Purely defensive, or so we would have it—don’t start none, won’t be none.

We didn’t worry about the environment—most of the pollution, and all of the data, would come later. Rachel Carson had made an iron-clad research project out of proving that the American Bald Eagle and other birds were endangered by the use of DDT as a pesticide, which caused egg-shell thinning and premature hatching. But we all took “Silent Spring” as a special case, a one-off complication. We were still fine with lead paint and asbestos insulation. Even the ecologically-minded were unaware of the build-up of consequences our civilization was beginning to have on our environment, and on ourselves.

We didn’t worry about energy—gas was pennies to the gallon—‘cruising’, the act of driving one’s car around just for fun, was a popular tradition among American teens—we wouldn’t have our first gas shortage until 1976. And even as we worried over OPECs surprising stranglehold on oil production, our concern was mainly over reliable supply-lines and the economic implications of foreign-oil dependence. Catalytic converters were invented only to reduce smog in crowded, car-choked cities—we were still decades away from any concerns over carbon-footprints and greenhouse gasses.

We didn’t worry about recycling—the first recycling drives were reliant on the need to do something with all the garbage—we were busy picking up trash along the highways or vacant lots and it all had to go somewhere. Lots of it was bottles and cans—and so a push began to make them all deposit-return containers—to compensate the collectors. Recycling as a concept, as a way to mitigate against runaway consumption, came later.

We were focused on trying to “Make America Beautiful”. At the time, it was considered more important to raise the fines and enforce the laws against littering—doing something with all that trash that used to line the highways came much later. I can still remember a time when, on family trips, the end of a fast-food meal was the act of jettisoning all the trash out the car window, at speed. Nor did we have to undo our seatbelts to do it—nobody wore those things. Of course, without them, or a speed limit, Americans on the highways were dropping like flies. Today’s highway fatalities, while still the number four killer, are nothing compared to our old stats—today’s roads are baby-proofed in comparison.

We had worries—sure. But we trusted our leaders. We thought the world too big to be vulnerable to our industry. We thought that faraway people who hated the USA only affected our travel plans, not our national security. Everyone watched the same TV shows—everyone listened to the same radio stations—we were connected as a culture. And we still felt that oppressing women and minorities and the disabled was just the way of the world—and being gay was still the ‘love that dare not speak its name’. It wasn’t right—but boy, was it simpler. The fine judgments of the politically correct were still decades away—on the other hand, we didn’t laugh at its complexity yet, either. We were still busy trying to laugh it off, deride it back into invisibility.

Part of our difficulty with the present is that our many problems, and our social progress, contribute equally to the growing complexity of life. Complexity is a big problem. You give everyone a computer network that they can carry in their pocket and what do they do with it? Well, some of us plan trips to Mars, sure—but most of us use it to meet for drinks or play games. You offer greater complexity to the human race and only a few will dive in—the rest will look for the ‘easy’ exit, like Twitter, Snapchat, or Angry Birds.

Complexity is a deceptive indicator—we don’t want our problems to become more complex, but we are okay with the needs of social justice making our interaction more complex. Well, perhaps we’re not ‘okay’ with it, not all of us, certainly—but we accept its inevitability. It stands to reason that making sure we override our assumptions, forcing the equality of persons who may have never enjoyed equal status—is a complex process. The political correctness of our speech is nothing compared to the complexities of legislating equal rights, not to mention enforcing that legislation. And all of this is working against the inertia of generations of handed-down bias and hate.

Certainly it would be easier to get rid of all that hate—then we wouldn’t need to legislate social justice. But some things need to be brought out in the open—people can be childishly secretive, especially when their hearts tell them there’s something not quite right about their behavior. Domestic abuse, child abuse, corporal punishment—these things are still problems that trouble us—but the numbers are way down. Not so long ago, beating your spouse or your children—that was a personal decision you made behind the privacy of your own front door. And if things got bad enough that the authorities became involved, they turned a blind eye to whatever madness the head-of-the-household was indulging in. Now it is recognized as the felony it always should have been—and for the most part is treated that way (though pockets of ignorance persist).

My point is that if such obvious evil has traditionally been hugged to the patriarchs’ bosoms throughout most of history—if denying them that outrageousness is so relatively new—then we can see how much more difficult it is to try to limit prejudice and bias (merely mental violence) in our daily lives. The fact that some people ridicule political correctness just demonstrates how small they see that evil as being. They target the most progressive view possible, which admittedly can often have paradoxes and growing pains from being so new a concept—and deride the least thought-out aspects of it, as if that negated the value of social justice itself. Niggling whiners—they cherry-pick the weakest faults of the new, yet have beams in their eyes when it comes to the monstrous faults of the familiar, old ways.

Evil has time on its side—and tradition. Human civilization grows like a goat-path, retaining every kink and twist of its caveman days—the push for social justice is an attempt to straighten some of those pathways. And not only because it is right—though it is justice we seek—but also because society is more efficient when it affords choice and opportunity to every individual, when the weak are not oppressed by the powerful.

Human nature is on the side of evil—we are naturally greedy, selfish, and demanding creatures. The history of legislation is the history of people trying to outmaneuver the rules—so of course it becomes very complicated. Everyone has got an excuse why they should be exempt from the sacrifices implicit in fairness. Even those who benefit from new legislation will sometimes seek ways to get more than their fair share of opportunity. We are none of us saints—even the downtrodden have urges. Make a rule, any rule—and you’ll find you need to make five more, to modify the first—then ten more, to modify the other five.

In truth, legislation only enables the bare bones of justice—it is only when our culture has absorbed the spirit of the law and begun to live in that spirit, that the rules work properly—and, ironically, that’s when the rules become extraneous, their job completed. Take seat belts—people began using them to avoid getting a ticket—now they do it for safety, and teach their children to use them, too.

Even seat belts have their complexity. At the advent of seat-belt legislation, many complained that wearing the original lap-belt was as likely to cause harm as prevent it. The head rest and the shoulder strap were added, which made seat belts effective safety measures under virtually any conditions. It wasn’t until after these improvements that seat belt legislation could be enforced (because the cops could see the shoulder strap)—but it also made wearing seat belts the sensible thing to do.

Yes, everything was easier in the old days—but not better. We often yearn for simpler times—but they were simpler because they were dumber—we were dumber. Nobody used to use a keyboard—except stenos, secretaries, bookkeepers, and keyboard players—we wrote things down with a pencil—and if we needed two copies, we wrote it down twice. Nobody knew how to connect up wires on appliances—if appliances needed wires, they came with—or an expert installed them. Now toddlers hook up their own video game consoles. People used to disappear from our lives forever—just by moving far away. If you really wanted to, you could write them a letter (with your pencil), glue a stamp on it—and a bunch of people would pass it back and forth until it ended up in a mailbox. Imagine. You can still do that, you know—I wonder if anyone does?

We didn’t worry about climate change—oh, it was happening—we just didn’t have a bunch of satellites collecting sensor readings on the atmosphere over years of time—or recording time-lapse proof of the shrinking of the polar ice and the glaciers. All of that information is very new—which is why backward-looking folks can pretend it isn’t real. Old folks call it new-fangled—but new-fangled information is still data—it won’t go away—we can never go back. Yet it’s hard to blame them for trying—I’d like to go cruising again, myself.

Be Leaders (2016Jun22)

Posted by XperDunn on June 23, 2016

Wednesday, June 22, 2016 9:27 PM

I was criticizing a Brexit supporter online today, telling him that it made more sense to remain in the Union and work for change from within, rather than turning away and making the problems bigger through greater fragmentation. I suggested that they ‘be leaders’.

It wasn’t until after I made the comment and logged off that I began to think about what I meant. At first I figured I was just projecting—isn’t that how we Americans feel, that we need to lead by example? Sure, we’ve lost sight of that, or at least our government has—preferring to lead by intimidation, diplomacy, and military intervention—but our ideal is that we lead the world forward by exemplifying how much better things can be if we all get on the civilization bus.

But in considering that, I realized that there’s a more ‘boots on the ground’ aspect to leadership. We see it in the extraordinary stranglehold the NRA has on gun control legislation—and even on CDC studies of gun violence. This tiny group of followers show up for every meeting, every hearing, every vote—while the other 97% of us quietly bemoan the problem as we stare at our TV screens.

But the gun control problem is just the worst-case example of how small groups of activists can jam up our legislative machinery. The other lobbyists do equally people-unfriendly things—giving breaks to corporations, cutting off compensation for those wronged by corporations, strangling important agencies of safety regulation, turning a blind eye to Wall Street excesses, closing women’s health care centers—the list is long and daunting. Rust never sleeps.

And yet for most of us, the issue of politics boils down to ‘getting out the vote’. I think it’s clear now—voting is the first baby step. Voting only has real power when it is the end of our involvement, not the sole locus of our contact with it. When Bernie Sanders told his followers recently to run for office, he was saying something similar—just being a voter isn’t enough. There are dark forces out there—and they are doing much more than just voting every four years—they’re working all the time.

Leadership is involvement—involvement is leadership. The old analog process of town hall meetings may be passé. The NRA and other corporate lobbyists may have deep war chests. But if the Tunisians or the Egyptians, with nothing but the internet and some cell phones, can overthrow their governments, then we can certainly have some influence over our government, too. The only difference is the level of involvement. And if you think we are any less faced with demagoguery as an alternative, you haven’t been paying attention.

Bach and Dr. Seuss (2016Jun20)

Posted by XperDunn on June 21, 2016

Monday, June 20, 2016 1:09 PM

Dr. Seuss on Gun Control

We are born and we live—we love and we give

We believe what we wish and we think sometimes too

Sometimes we are faithful and sometimes, untrue

When we are not peaceful we’re provocative

People are silly—just watch them and see

People get ugly—you know they can be

People like laughing—it’s such a relief

But then we like fighting—and that causes grief

People are silly—if I wasn’t one

I’d say let them all walk around with a gun

I wouldn’t even mind taking a bullet from one

If I didn’t have a wife, a daughter, and a son.

(please note: this poem is in the style of Dr. Seuss, not actually by him.)

It’s a lazy day. Happy summer. I recorded one of Bach’s French Suites. Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother posting it, but I want to forget about the troll that bugged me a few days ago, so I’m posting more classical music videos. This one is no better than that one, because I don’t play all that good—but I hereby declare that to be okay. Anyone that doesn’t like it—doesn’t have to watch it.

I also managed an improv. The set-to with the troll took my mind off my biggest problem, which has nothing to do with my playing bad classical music. I’ve always played classical music badly. I usually tell myself that it’s background research—I only play the classical for practice—to get ideas and improve my technique—for when I improvise. Because I’ve been pleased with my growth in that area—some of my improvs are quite listenable.

I know this because I burn CDs and listen to them while lying around or reading. I started doing that way back when I was still using a Sony cassette recorder and never posted anything. The idea was to hear myself in playback and see what I sounded like to another person. I learned a lot—enough so that, at some point, I actually began to enjoy listening to my own CDs. They still couldn’t stack up against store-bought music, but they were good enough that, when factoring in that I had made them myself, it was nice to listen to.

But lately I don’t know. I’ve always sounded kinda the same, but I was always trying new things. I think lately the problem is that I’ve accumulated a bunch of ‘tricks’ that I like, and I use them too much—it’s getting repetitive. So I’ve recorded some improvs lately that I didn’t think were good enough to share online because they’re just too much like stuff I’ve already posted. I don’t know, maybe it’s just getting old. I have been improvising for like thirty five years by now—maybe I’ve just reached my peak and I don’t have it in me to do any better.

Anyhow, for today’s recordings’ titles, I recycled my drawings from the last post—I’m not making many new drawings, so I have to make the most of what’s left in my old archives.

Journal Entry (2016Jun19)

Posted by XperDunn on June 19, 2016

Thursday, June 16, 2016 4:43 PM

This rush to the gun stores—I don’t get it—how often are these peoples’ homes being invaded? Just how primitive is life outside of Westchester? Westchester has people who feel the need for self-defense, too—where is this fear coming from?

There’s a dichotomy to civilization—we create communities that are stable, where you don’t have to have a gunfight to survive, where you can walk down the street with a high degree of certainty that you won’t be attacked. People like me take that at face value—and reason that introducing firearms into the environment only increases the danger. But then we start to imagine that people might sneak around and break in and rob us, rape us, or kill us. We start to think that our lives are at risk. But I find it hard to maintain that paranoia against the lack of anything like that ever happening in my neighborhood. That stuff doesn’t happen where I live—or if it happens, it’s less frequent than a bolt of lightning.

There are places where violence is common. That’s different—I can’t speak to that, because I have no idea what it’s like. But I am among the vast majority of people living in developed countries where violence is rare and quickly attended to. And for people like me, owning a gun is just asking for trouble—it’s unlikely to be needed, and far too likely to cause problems simply by being there.

It’s not a dichotomy so much as a distancing of ourselves—the world is still a place of terrible struggle, with war and poverty stalking the earth. Our protected pockets of civility exist by virtue of military defense preventing encroachment by the barbarous hordes—and civilian police who are (mostly) restrained against oppression of their charges. In other words, we understand that our peace is built on fighting happening elsewhere—and that, therefore, violence is still useful and necessary—just not where we live.

But having created these areas of ease and civility, shouldn’t we use them as such? We are in no danger of becoming the Eloi to the Morlocks of violence—when we have these mass shootings, we also often see formerly peaceful residents become, in an instant, people who risk their lives, and sometimes give their lives, to defend those around them. What we have not yet seen is anyone who is carrying and has the presence of mind to return fire. So what does that tell you about guns and self-defense?

I’m in no hurry for my chance to find out if I have a hero inside me—but I will face that when and if. What I won’t do is spend a lifetime preparing for my worst imaginings, pumping myself up for a battle that isn’t being fought.

It’s totally logical, you know. In a race, looking back, looking around for your rivals—that’s the worst thing you can do. You want to drive forward completely focused on the goal. Equally, in life you want to focus on the goals ahead—any time you spend being petty towards others is a waste of effort and it can even make you lose your stride. If you face the world openly, gladly, and without malice, you create less friction in your passage—you might even get others to wish you well and support you. That’s how I see it—and even if I have built this rationale on a personality that is naturally disposed that way, that doesn’t negate its efficacy.

I’m uncomfortable around people—but even I know that being generally positive about things is the easy way to get along with others. There are times when I’m forced to disagree or contradict—and I’m all too eager to do that—but I have learned that, even then, the minimum amount of conflict is to be sought. I have to restrain my killer instinct, or I run the risk of making a worse wrong of being ‘right’. Arguing can do that to people—and I am one of the worst offenders in that regard.

It’s fairly simple to turn that around—to make the point that wrong must be attacked with vigor and stomped into the ground, even when it’s hard on people—but I still maintain that it is the wrong that needs stomping, not the person. When Senators Tim Scott and Lindsay Graham spoke before the Senate today, they both cited the stunning character of last year’s church-shooting victims’ family survivors, when they forgave the man who killed their relatives in open court.

And when you examine our prison problem, you see its roots in our stubborn insistence that prison continue, as in darker, more ignorant times, to be punishment and not rehabilitation. I am not the only one who gets carried away with a sense of vindication—but there are people of such strength of character that they can rise above their passion. I’d rather those people had the so-many-millions of twitter-followers that lesser beings accumulate—but then, they probably have better things to do than tweet.

Friday, June 17, 2016 11:42 AM

So there I am, just doodling along, enjoying my peaceful life—and then this stranger posts a derisive comment on my YouTube post, laughing at how badly I play Mendelssohn on the piano. Now, I know I’m not going to win any prizes for my piano playing—but I don’t need to be laughed at by strangers-what the hell?

They say life is a competition—and I suppose that’s true. But in many ways and in many cases, life is a competition because we make it one. And we prefer to compete with people we know we can beat—come on now—is that really competition, or is that just bullying? I play the piano—I’m not naturally gifted—I play because I enjoy the challenge. Finding someone worse, and laughing at them is not a challenge—it’s easy—and it’s sad. Pitiful, really.

I felt bullied, so I reported his comment as bullying. I’m glad that YouTube has that function—though I’m a little concerned that the guy’s YouTube channel might get wiped. Then again, I didn’t ask for his ridicule—and if his life’s work gets erased just because he picked on me, well, maybe he’ll think twice next time. We live and we learn. Who’s laughing now?

I get so upset at random, unnecessary cruelty that it gets me crazy—I can’t stop obsessing over the question of why someone would just add random ugliness to the universe. I guess it makes him feel better about himself—better than if he gave compliments to the pianists that are better than him. I really don’t know—it mystifies me. And, of course, I’d like to kick him in the face—cowards from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean can insult strangers all too easily, safe in the knowledge that they can’t be found and confronted. I’d love to surprise him on his doorstep—I may not play piano well, but I bet I can kick his ass.

Still, that would be as unnecessary as his rudeness—because twisted trolls like that are punished by their own existence. He may have sent a tiny parcel of hate my way, but he’s soaking in it. Happiness, for him, is a long ways off—and not getting any nearer anytime soon.

Saturday, June 18, 2016 8:56 AM

I’m An Asshole (2016Jun18)

I can be such an asshole. I’ve tried to train myself to be a nice guy, but it’s a very thin façade. As soon as someone is an asshole to me, I turn right back into one myself and give back as bad as I get. And I wanted so much to believe I am a nice guy. Sure, you think I’m a nice guy—but you’ve never been mean to me. Whenever someone is mean to me, I spend hours, days, obsessing over how I can be even meaner right back. That’s not nice—but it is me. I’m like a colony of fire ants—ordinarily, I’m just a lump in the dirt—but if you kick a hole in it, all these vicious little insects start crawling around looking for something to bite.

Poor impulse control? An overdeveloped sense of vengeance? Plain old spitefulness? Or perhaps all three. I’m frustrated by the enormous gulf between who I want to be and who I really am. Sure, if everyone just leaves me alone—or if everyone says only nice things to me—I can keep it together. But that doesn’t really count—it’s how you respond under pressure that’s the true test of character. The worst part of it is deciding that my tormentor is a miserable excuse for a human being, then realizing I’ve been goaded into being just as bad, or worse. I start by hating them and end up hating myself.

Let’s see if I can’t shift some of the blame—maybe that’ll make me feel better. What is the return on insulting strangers? Why should someone I don’t know decide, ‘hey, let’s ruin this guy’s day by crapping all over his posts’? Shouldn’t I show up on their doorstep, introduce myself, and kick their asses? How else are they ever going to learn? Sometimes I reason that the troll is surely bullying lots of people—and he’s picked the wrong guy this time. I tell myself that they need to be responded to, if only for the other victims who are too hurt to respond, too insecure to reject the facile judgments of some online brat. That makes sense, doesn’t it?

But then I start to question my motives—am I just latching onto an excuse to vent my own anger? Is this guy some broken, twisted nightmare who will only get worse from all the scorn I send his way? Still, when challenged, I feel obligated to fight back.

There’s a big paradox to this—and it extends beyond this particular scenario. Whenever someone is a miserable person, there’s a pretty good chance they’ve been made miserable by people or circumstances. Their personalities have been deformed by abuse of some kind—do I really want to add some more bad vibes? But then, having been molded into monsters, can I really just ignore the abuse they direct toward myself or others?

It’s like crime. To a certain extent, one could make the argument that all crime is insanity—a person who does anti-social stuff has been made to think it’s acceptable to commit crimes—by want, by abuse, by desperation. By the standards of a law-abiding citizen like myself, they’ve lost control of themselves—and that’s insanity. By the same token, all prisons should function primarily as mental hospitals—the inmates are only there because their minds have failed to register the need to meet society’s minimum standards of behavior.

But most people are as bad as I am—we think, ‘well, they did something bad—they should be punished—we’ll worry about their state of mind later’. That’s sloppy thinking—and even sloppier ethics. And where does it get us? Overcrowded prisons whose only rehabilitation programs are sodomy and gang initiation. Yeah, that’ll work.

Sunday, June 19, 2016 10:56 AM

Father’s Day (2016Jun19)

What a great day. The sun is shining. I got presents from my wife and kids. I had a pretty good morning session at the piano (sorry, no recording). I’ve been playing from a songbook “Happiness is… Italian Songs”, a gift from my good friend Randy. Today I discovered it included ‘Cosi Cosa’, which you Marx Bros. fans might remember from the shipboard-feast scene in “A Night At The Opera”. A few of these songs also have grace notes and whatnot that make me feel like I’m channeling Chico at the piano—I’m really a sucker for Italian popular songs.

It may be simply a welcome contrast to a lifetime of Irish songs, my heritage on my father’s side—both he and his own father were prone to sing in a fine Irish tenor—‘Danny Boy’, ‘Irish Eyes Are Smiling’, etc. My dad would sometimes get an entire bar or restaurant full of people to sing along, after a nice meal and a few drinks. As a boy it embarrassed me, but as I got older I realized there was a certain magic to it. And his dad actually sang for loose change in bars sometimes, during the Depression when there was no other work to be found. My grandmother would describe how my infant father slept under one of the tables as his father entertained.

It is impossible to be a father without feeling the obligation to be the strong man, the defender, the provider—and those instincts struggle mightily under the onus of disability. My wife and kids have cared for me through many years of illness—and I’m very grateful—but it’s hard to maintain any self-respect as a complete dependent. I don’t recommend it. But what a great family I have!

A note on the artwork: The eight drawings used in this post are scans of old drawings from back in my still-healthy-enough-to-draw-a-straight-line days. I had lost too much fine motor control to do fine art, but I could still do cartoons, flyers, and illustrations. Some of these are from the bittersweet final years of still hanging on to my job–so I’m nostalgic about them for two reasons.

Confusion About Violence (2016Jun16)

Posted by XperDunn on June 16, 2016

Thursday, June 16, 2016 10:00 AM

Some motherfucker has commented on my YouTube post of one of Mendelssohn’s ‘Songs Without Words’ saying, “What a laugh! lol.” So I went to his YouTube channel to see what he was about—he had a post of the same piece, which he played very well, liked a trained pianist. My recording was definitely inferior—I don’t play very well—but I still didn’t understand why he felt the need to deride me—who made him the Internet Music Police, anyway?

Maybe he didn’t mean to be mean—I jump to conclusions about that, because he wouldn’t be the first troll on my YouTube channel and I’m kinda sensitive about my piano-playing. Maybe he’s just trying to make friends and he’s even more socially inept than I am—but that would be giving him a truckload of benefit of the doubt. A friendly comment would have made a point of laughing with me rather than at me.

But that leaves the question of ‘why would anyone bother?’ Who surfs YouTube looking for videos to make fun of—and how would a person’s life become so vacuous that being unpleasant to strangers would become a pastime? He may very well have been trying to upset me—but all such comments only confuse me—don’t people have anything better to do?

I’ve made many comments on other people’s YouTube posts—but I never bother unless I want them to know how much I enjoyed their music, or thank them, or encourage them to keep playing and posting. Here on WordPress I find myself sometimes trading barbs with someone who offends my sensibilities—but on YouTube? If I don’t like a YouTube post, I just stop listening—I don’t go out of my way to tell someone I don’t like their music. That’s like telling someone you don’t like their religion—or their face. It’s just rude.

I don’t like violence—I don’t understand how it keeps being such a big part of our lives. It never produces anything but more violence. Maybe I’m just lucky enough to live a life where violence doesn’t come up—but even in situations where violence is commonplace, I still don’t see it doing anyone any good.

And trolling seems to me much more an advertisement of loneliness than any kind of criticism I would take seriously.

Truth, Eventually (2016Jun15)

Posted by XperDunn on June 15, 2016

Tuesday, June 14, 2016 4:40 PM

What a beautiful day—but I wasted it staying indoors the whole day. I’m not feeling too well. Sometimes I feel just miserable—I always have trouble dealing with that. It doesn’t take much to put me off my game.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016 10:50 AM

Another beautiful day. I try to avoid the news—tragedy, massacre, terrorism, gun violence, anti-gay-hate-crimes, and demagoguery—the only good to come of it is the straight talk coming out of the White House. President Obama has some unpolitic things to say about gun lovers, the GOP, and their off-the-leash candidate—but all common-sense comments, long overdue for a public figure to say them publicly. It always does my heart good to see someone on TV who isn’t spouting absolute garbage.

I can’t help noticing that the talking heads have distorted ‘fairness’ to the point where insanity and ignorance have equal weight to mature reason. For example, I’ve heard Hillary Clinton’s statements described as ‘attacks’ on Trump. But if Trump is evil and idiotic, and someone says so, are they really attacking him, or are they simply describing him accurately? Is honesty an attack? I didn’t think so, but the media have taken ‘objectivity’ to the point where they don’t ‘judge’ a person’s words, even dishonest hate-speech and demagoguery, as being anything other than the ‘other side’ of an argument. In effect, they’ve institutionalized evil.

This mania for ratings and promotion of conflicts has made the news media a force for bad in the world. Journalism used to be thought of as an exposer of truth—but today’s TV journalism actual manages to confuse the truth by making it merely one ‘point of view’. That makes me angry—and every day I am less inclined to check in with the news, knowing that their distortions will only upset me. I increasingly find that my own take on what’s happening never sees air time nowadays until at least a month later, after the heat has left the story and all the yahoos have moved on to the next issue.

Only then will they say something like ‘but Obamacare is working’ or ‘but the Iran nuclear deal is holding’. They never say such things while there are still clicks to be had discussing the fear-mongering doubts and hollow arguments of the naysayers. They are literally milking the stupidity of every issue, avoiding any sensible remarks until the smoke clears—and while I used to think that conservatives were the main thing slowing us down and holding us back, I now see the media as a contender for first place in that competition.

Laughing At Logic (2016Jun12)

Posted by XperDunn on June 12, 2016

Saturday, June 11, 2016 11:05 AM

Just because you may be ignorant and misinformed doesn’t mean that you don’t have the courage of your convictions—which is sad. It is unfortunate that the burning fervor we feel towards our beliefs has no connection to their veracity. Who knows how much of what I wholeheartedly support and staunchly defend is utter bullshit? Wouldn’t it be nice if we only felt right about something when it actually was right? I wish truth had the ring of truth to it.

By the same token, it would be nice if the people who were right about one thing were right about everything—or even if people who lie could be counted on to always lie. Any kind of standard would be good—but we are people, not machines—and proud of the fact that we have no standard—to each his or her own, as we like to say. Which means: “I have my truth, you have yours—and even if they are opposites, they are both still valid.”

The fact that such a statement is bullshit on its face doesn’t keep us from enshrining that belief as ‘freedom of speech’. In America, you have the right to be stupid, or pretend to be stupid (i.e. lie) in public statements—and even if you’re proven wrong, you don’t have to shut up. If you are right and I am wrong, I still get to spend a lifetime, if I wish, spreading my wrong to as many people as I can convince—that’s the American way.

This is particularly troubling when we remember that psychological experiment proving that those rooting for one side see every play in a game differently than observers rooting for the other side. Wrong ideas can spread but, worse, wrong thinking can color our interpretation of events—our every perception of what is happening. Here in ‘free-speech’ land, it has become a war of perceptions—and mass media becomes a powerful weapon in that struggle.

Logic is omitted from this equation—just as it is excluded from democracy itself—when the majority rules, the minority never get what they want. Satisfying the majority is referred to as the ‘greatest good for the greatest number’—but it also assumes that some people are not going to get their way—and that’s okay. It’s not a good system—but it’s the best we can do. The fact that American democracy isn’t entirely democratic—that our votes are only counted after the elite have picked the candidates we have to choose from—complicates the question even further—but even pure democracy, as an ideal, is a guarantee that people in the minority will not get what they want.

But don’t get me wrong—if there are faults inherent in free speech or democracy, that doesn’t mean we have it as bad as people who live in Libya, Syria, China, Mexico, Colombia, or Bangladesh. Those people live amid chaos and violence that make my squawks about American ideals pretty nit-picky. Sometimes, when I take a walk, I decide to sing and dance a little bit while I walk—and there are countries where that will get you jailed, shot, or stoned to death. So, yeah, democracy is okay by me. I think Churchill said something about democracy being a terrible form of government—but it’s better than all the others.

Free speech and democracy are wildly imperfect—but we defend them with our lives because they allow for a very important fact—nobody can be counted on to be right all the time. We need to be able to criticize our society and its leaders—to speak freely, even if that means we have to give the same privilege to an asshole. No law or law-maker is perfect, so we need to ask for everybody’s opinion and go with the one which (or whom) most people approve of—and that’s where democracy comes in. We allow for the minority being disappointed because we figure the odds are better that the solution most people desire is the correct one.

However, because of free speech, we allow for a misinformed electorate—which creates the possibility of the majority being misled. And that’s where this year’s election gets dicey. With significant portions of the electorate convinced that they are being lied to by their leaders, their media, and even their textbooks—one has to wonder what’s left to them as sources of information. And so now America has to deal with the phenomenon of people who ‘know’ what they want to know, and deny any knowledge that they don’t want to accept. That’s not the way I was raised, but freedom of speech says it’s all okay.

It’s all very complicated. It can make a person feel old, sometimes.

Book Review: “Soledad : Dark Republic Book I” by D. L. Young (2016Jun11)

Posted by XperDunn on June 11, 2016

Saturday, June 11, 2016 2:22 PM

A near-future Texan dystopia is the setting for this tale of a young soothsaying-witch who travels the badlands in search of her lost family. Rich in detail, from the ways of the isolated bands and freelancers to the characters who accompany her in her search for the truth, this story posits a very believable, if highly unpleasant, future history for the lone star state.

D. L. Young grabs you right away and holds on pretty tight for the duration of this slim novel—but, if it seems too short, note that the title suggests more to come. I read it in one sitting and found the time flew by. And I commend the ending of this book—it leaves one thinking—and for me, that’s the best ending a book can have. It seems excellent fodder for Hollywood so I suggest you read it now, before they make the movie. Good story-telling, good writing—what’s to complain about?

No story can be grand without a grand evil—and Mr. Young has come up with a doozy or two—though I won’t spoil it for you. While modern technology makes any near-future story a case of speculating on where existing tech will be in twenty or so years—and that can be both awe-inspiring and terrifying—I miss the old days, when a Sci-Fi story had a big idea behind it. To be fair, Sci-Fi is well-traveled territory—and big ideas aren’t just lying around like they used to be. Plus, there’s a lot more of it being published (or e-published) these days. While that ensures that the number of so-so Sci-Fi books will expand, we may still hope that the ‘good reads’ will increase, as well. This book is certainly a good read, and its writer a good find.

I’ve read a lot of science fiction—I mean a lot. At sixty, I can fairly say that I’ve obsessed over Sci-Fi for fifty years, for most of that time averaging a book a day—and a good 90% of them being Sci-Fi anthologies or novels. I’m about as familiar with story-telling as a person can be, short of actually being a fiction writer. Inevitably, nowadays, most fiction I read resonates with the echoes of the many stories where a similar idea, plot-point, character-type, etc. was used.

I never read many Westerns—but I made a point of reading “The Virginian” by Owen Wister, because I had read that it was the first book to use Western tropes such as ‘dueling at high noon’, or the ‘pretty schoolmarm’, and other such clichés that we now find re-worked in an appalling genre whose readers (and movie goers) apparently favor iconic sensationalism over originality. But not all Western writers are completely beholden to Mr. Wister. The genre has accumulated many more tropes and clichés from more original contributors. And we must accept the fact that a genre so limited in space, time, and culture can only offer so many scenarios suitable for dramatic storytelling.

I’ve always considered Science Fiction to be quite different in that respect—there are no constraints of time, space, culture—or much anything else—and that is partly the point of Sci-Fi, to begin with. Yet, like Westerns, once the mass market gets involved, there arises an audience for re-workings of the most popular and sensational set pieces—war in space, robot uprisings, alien invasions, time travel, etc. The most insipid aspect of mass market Sci-Fi is its drooling cousin, the comic-book super-hero genre—the only redeeming feature of which is that it makes me less annoyed at the conflation of Sci-Fi and Fantasy—at least Fantasy shares some of the infinite, boundless vision of Sci-Fi, even if it pollutes it with fairy dust.

All of this is a roundabout way of reaching my point—that Sci-Fi, though all about ideas, is now amenable to some mining of the past. It is still nigh onto plagiarism to write an entire ‘collage’ consisting only of the popular ideas of others—but an original work can be excused for borrowing parts and pieces. The annals of Sci-Fi contain some of the most brilliant brain-work of the last century—many of our actual technologies were invented by Science Fiction writers—so if we’re going to start pointing fingers, we’ll have to confess that we all live in somewhat of a ‘plagiarism’. Further, there are aspects of outer space survival, orbital mechanics, etc., that have left the arena of speculation—so repetition in that respect is merely an eye for realistic detail.

‘Inventing worlds’ itself was originated by Frank Herbert, just as inventing societies, cultures and languages was pioneered by Ursula Le Guin (in Sci-Fi—Tolkien, of course, did it earlier with Fantasy). But such breakthroughs are in the nature of opening a door that no one else had hitherto seen—and it is only natural that writers should jump on the band-wagon of greater possibilities—subsequent writers don’t copy them so much as learn from them. And in this respect, Sci-Fi lit has a proud heritage of conceptual plagiarism—much like literature as a whole.

So, while “Soledad” has a few bells and whistles that will seem familiar—and a discernible patina of Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Water Knife”—it is still an original story told in a unique voice. As an old salt in the sea of Sci-Fi, I’ve learned to excuse the familiar elements of the modern Sci-Fi-writer’s toolkit and embrace the newness it is used in service of. Especially when the writing is good.

Make The Medicine Go Down (2016Jun10)

Posted by XperDunn on June 10, 2016

Friday, June 10, 2016 11:05 AM

This presidential election is something like a game of musical chairs—it’s been going on since early last year, and now it’s down to two players and one chair. It’s the endgame—in five months it will finally be over. And if, as should happen, Hillary is elected, we can even relax a little about the next election, because it will be about re-election—it won’t be the West-Side-Story-rumble that took up all of our attention for these last two years.

There are a lot of people who aren’t happy about the present end-game. Unhappy GOP folk are still scrambling for an alternative to their nominee, and disappointed Bernie supporters are grumbling about third party candidates. But people have been complaining about the Primary process itself, as well. And I suggest to all you good people that the time is past. Save your alternatives for after November, when they aren’t afterthoughts to an already hard-fought struggle.

Jon Oliver of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” had a recent episode focusing on the not-so-democratic aspects of our State Primaries—and he makes the point that people always debate the objectionable aspects of Primaries during the primaries, when it’s too late to change the rules—and that we all forget about it when the election is over. We never worry about primary rules in an off-year, when changes could actually be made. That’s people for you.

And I feel the same way about third-party candidates—let’s put as much journalism, examination, and debate into these magical alternatives as we put into the two major parties’ candidates. Third-party is not a rip-cord we just pull when we’re dissatisfied with the two major players—whoever that person is, he or she is a cipher, a complete unknown—and voting for one is more a repudiation of our choices than an actual choice. Libertarians and Independents can have some pretty out-there stands on important issues—you don’t want to find out what they are, after you’ve elected the person.

My point is this—we’ve spent more time attending to this election than any previous presidential race—it’s been kind of ridiculous, really. So, to pull an ‘other’ option out of our asses at the eleventh hour makes about as much sense as voting for Trump, which is to say—none at all.

I get it—I do. With all the bad-mouthing of Hillary Clinton, it’s nearly impossible to continue to give her the benefit of the doubt—even if you believe, as I do, that it’s just the supreme example of ‘if you repeat a lie often enough’. But I say, “Grow up and take your medicine, America—Hillary is what you need to grow big and strong—I don’t care if you gag on the spoon.”

Did that sound condescending? Let me explain. I’m a sixty-year-old, educated man with a serious interest in our democratic government. On the one hand, for over a year, I’ve listened to people support a man who makes my skin crawl. On the other, for three decades, I’ve listened to those same people tell lie upon lie about the only credible candidate. I know that the one-percent are the only people who actually drive legislation—the desires of the 99% have meant nothing to legislators for a long time. We are being manipulated by the wealthy, by the media, and by tiny but vocal fringe groups (like the Tea Party). I can see through all the bullshit—and I’m tired of trying to reason others out of their delusions.

Other people seem to take it less seriously—or they are more serious, but in that ingenuous, starry-eyed way of the inexperienced teen. Other people seem to need some kind of emotional release from their politics—for them, partisan-ship is the whole point, and cold reason be damned. And I’ve had it. You all want to play games? Go ahead—but don’t complain if I act like the mother of all wet blankets. Hold your nose and say ‘Ah’—here comes the castor oil.

While They Still Know Everything (2016Jun09)

Posted by XperDunn on June 9, 2016

Thursday, June 09, 2016 1:02 PM

Okay, here it comes. I’ve gotten so caught up in the last week or so of politics that I’m letting myself be baited by Facebook posts and comments, until I’ve turned into an angry, dismissive apologist for Hillary Clinton. But with so much stupidity flying around, when I get into combat mode I find myself in a target-rich environment.

Bernie made a great contribution to the national discourse—but in so doing, he also energized young people to switch from debating Klingon parts of speech to debating the many conspiracy theories and smear campaigns against Hillary. No matter what they’re told, they have an endless array of mud-slinging trivia to answer with—her supporters, like myself, are overwhelmed with the tidal wave of shit that’s been generated by the haters for longer than most of Bernie’s camp have been alive.

And of course, being young, they are all omniscient—it’s exhausting. They are too young to know or remember that the initial insults hurled at Hillary were largely anti-feminist-based, back when you could still go in that politically-incorrect direction.

Hillary originated in a time when the GOP still stood for anti-feminism, anti-integration, anti-social services—before they learned to gloss over that nonsense—and she was their boogey-woman-in-chief, the sole target of all their viciousness. That all these super-liberal kids are taking up the GOP banner and marching with it is intensely tragic to me.

Biography comes into it, now, as well—I wish people would ask themselves what that long career—First Lady in Arkansas, First Lady in the White House, NY Senator, Presidential hopeful, Secretary of State, and now again Presidential campaigner—would look like if they had lived through it. Would they do everything perfectly? Would they never change their position on a single issue? And that’s not even factoring in the insistent, burning hate being thrown her way every goddamned day. Secretary Clinton doesn’t claim to be perfect—she doesn’t claim to be superwoman—she’s a politician who has done a variety of incredibly tough jobs. As they say, any jackass can kick down a barn—it’s takes a carpenter to build one.

In closing, let me share an idea my son told me—as a response to the GOP’s refusal to hear Obama’s Supreme Court nominee—let them know that when Hillary takes office, she’s going to appoint Obama—that’ll learn’em. My son is a genius.

Hint: 1600 (2016Jun07)

Posted by XperDunn on June 7, 2016

Tuesday, June 07, 2016 6:48 PM

The New York Times ran an article about the endless, daunting, slogging journey that Hillary Clinton has traveled to become the nominee—not just years, but decades, of being the woman with a target on her back—for partisans, for media, for troglodyte he-men women-haters everywhere—for over a quarter-of-a-century now of public service. Yet the New York Times says, “even now, we’re not really sure what she believes in”. I call bullshit. We know—it’s just too simple and straightforward for the media to digest—Secretary Clinton believes in service—she wants to do good, with practical programs and political solutions that help people, especially people in need.

That such blanket sincerity doesn’t fit the narrative they’ve shaped for her—and the fact that ‘good intent’ as a political platform has no zippy label just yet—make it impossible for the media to suss out ‘what she believes’—because she doesn’t believe in a sound-bite or a slogan. The Times points to her difficulty settling on a slogan—without ever questioning whether that’s a bad thing or maybe a good thing. They call her a Democratic Party insider—but that really only means she’s been mixing it up on the political playing-field for a long time—all the dire partisanship is directed towards her. It’s not going both ways—Hillary’s focus has always been on doing the job, not defeating the ‘other side’.

And as far as political platforms go, I like the sound of ‘getting things done, being serious, and not playing to the gallery’. That’s my kind of party—particularly if we’re talking about a champion to face the hydra-headed monster that is the Oval Office.

Let’s turn to the other side now—Trump has claimed his racist ranting was ‘misunderstood’. Well, I’m sorry—but he’s disqualified either way—either he’s a monster—or he’s incapable of coherent speech. My money’s on a little of both, but it doesn’t matter. Ask yourself if you feel as qualified for the Presidency as Trump is—if you, a regular Joe or Joe-ette, would be no worse than he as leader of the free world. I certainly qualify—and that concerns me. Yes, you can grow up to be anything—but you can’t decide to play concert violin on a Friday and book Carnegie Hall by Monday—that’s a fantasy. And we all know how you really get there.

If Armageddon came, and all the politicians and officials were swept away, then, yes, I suppose Trump would be as good a choice as anyone. But we have a whole country full of hard-working states-persons and experienced leaders—one of the best is running against him. I suggest a test for Mr. Trump—someone ask him for the mailing address of the White House—see if he can come up with that poser.

But No Cigar (2016Jun07)

Posted by XperDunn on June 7, 2016

Tuesday, June 07, 2016 12:10 PM

Poor Bernie! He’s done a great job of dragging the Democrats back to the socialist agenda that made FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s War On Poverty. If the Democrats aren’t all about social justice and social services, then they don’t really stand for anything. The centrist agenda that helped Hillary’s husband get elected may have been politically expedient, but it also hollowed out the core of what we’ve come to expect from the Democratic Party.

But Bernie’s done it—he’s forced Hillary to publicly advocate for a war on income inequality—leaving her with baggage she will find difficult to misplace, once elected. Still, I think it’s a mistake to assume that she’s done so unwillingly—anyone familiar with her early work, co-founding Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, and other initiatives, will recognize that she is happy for the opening that Sanders’ campaign afforded her. It wasn’t Hillary who spent the last two decades backing away from social programs and banking regulations—it was her entire party, going for the easy vote.

Had Hillary attempted to run on her present platform, without Sanders’ competition as a foil, she would have been branded a wild extremist. So, well done, Bernie. Though, to be fair, it is these last decades of centrist, business-friendly politics that have created a situation where people are ready for socialism’s resurgence, whether from Bernie or Hillary.

Now, the big problem is simply this: Bernie is a human being—and not just that, he’s an old man. He’s spent the last two years being cheered by throngs of adoring young people, championing justice for the little guy, fighting the good fight. It’s going to be very hard for him to just turn around and go home. He was so close. But be of good cheer, Bern-feelers—Hillary hasn’t promised as much, but I believe she will deliver on more of her promises than Bernie ever could. In the end, that will give you more of what you’re looking for, just not everything. The rest we can talk about in four years.

The Wizard (2016Jun06)

Posted by XperDunn on June 6, 2016

Monday, June 06, 2016 6:13 PM

Walt Disney created the animated film “The Sword In The Stone”, based on part one of T. H. White’s classic, “The Once and Future King”—it is a well-known story of how young Arthur grew and learned from his tutor, Merlin. Aside from all the magic and wonder of the story, my young, book-worm self was jealous of the young king’s schooling. Not that I wished to study nature by being turned into a fish or a bird for an afternoon—though that was certainly cool—no, I wanted an old scholar to inundate me with arcane and disparate knowledge. I wanted to delve into gigantic, dusty tomes and perform burbling, sulfurous experiments with curlicued distillation-piping and whatnot. I wanted to learn the proverbial ‘everything’.

There’s a reason why pre-digital civilization impressed on youth the value of a ‘liberal arts’ education. Metaphors, analogues, and cross-references form a large part of our intellectual development—learning about one thing teaches us about much more than that one thing. The reasoning went that a greatest possible multiplicity of things learned allowed the greatest possible number of avenues for reasoning and problem-solving. In modern terms, it created the most complex network within the brain.

Science of old, starting from way back, when it was still alchemy and ‘sorcery’, had an image problem—outright scientific study was a good way to get burnt at the stake or run out of town. Secrecy led to obscurity—and early scientists went to great lengths to complicate their elucidations, making them seem more impressive—and excluding those without the drive to wade through all the double-talk. You can still observe this behavior today, in the insider-speak of tech-geeks.

In addition, science could only cut across the Old World’s many cultural boundaries by using a lingua franca—or two, really—Latin and Ancient Greek. That is why the nomenclature for many scientific terms is derived from these dead languages—they were only ‘dead’ in the technical sense. The pope could issue a papal bull in Latin and send copies to every church in Western Europe and beyond.

Both the church and the early philosophers used these languages to provide a standard that crossed boundaries of local language—and originally, a Classical education was a literal term—students learned the classics, which meant learning the classic languages they were written in. You’ll tend to see a lot more Latin in the arts, and a lot more Greek in mathematics and the sciences—there are reasons for that which I won’t get into here.

Digital enhancement of education techniques, job-market prep, and economic competition are all factors that tend to reduce the educational experience to a monaural playback, trimmed to its ‘essentials’. And that, of course, is when the educational system is functional to begin with. But education is the perfect example of something being more than the sum of its parts—and the more parts to an education, the greater the total sum.

Merlin wasn’t trying to teach Arthur to become a wizard—but he was trying his best to give the boy a wizard’s perspective—a knowledge of, if nothing else, the breadth of knowledge. He did this because he knew that a king could never be wise without some perspective. And if the history of technology has taught us anything, it is the importance of perspective—burning oil can be very useful, but burning too much oil is a problem; growing a lot of food can protect us from famine, but eating too much food can make us unhealthy.

And now, as global warming re-shapes our coastlines and submerges islands, as low-earth orbit becomes a navigational hazard due to decades of space launches, and as YouTube makes it possible for terrorists to indoctrinate teens a half a world away, we need breadth of perspective like never before. STEM is a great initiative, but as our science progresses, we are more than ever dependent on our ability to extrapolate and explore the consequences of each new and changing aspect. Engineering new gadgets is just the starter pistol—what happens when the whole world gets a new ability, a new insight? Sometimes you get Angry Birds, sometimes you get ISIL online—sometimes both.

Narrowing our field of view to the mere engineering and manufacture of new tech, without the humanities, without history, without the insight of creative expression—that’s a recipe for disaster. Yes, keep STEM—it’s a great idea—but don’t stop there. The more advanced we get, the less we can afford the luxury of shortsightedness. People always want more tech, or more money, or more guns—but the smart people always want the same thing—we want more ‘More’ in our vision—because we know that that’s where all that other good stuff came from in the first place—and much more.

Balance is an unappreciated virtue—as an example, consider: we have made so much progress in digital programming that we are possibly on the cusp of creating a machine that can out-think us. Cool, right? But those with a broader perspective have pointed out that a machine that’s smarter than us just might be a risky proposition. Well, I don’t expect humanity will be overwhelmed with common sense overnight—so I guess we’re about to find out. Are you ready to meet the Wizard?

Spoiler? (2016Jun05)

Posted by XperDunn on June 5, 2016

Sunday, June 05, 2016 12:31 PM

Back when Trump first entered the Presidential contest, there was speculation that he was a Democrat-spoiler—a troublemaker who only got into the Republican primary to help guarantee Hillary’s lock on the coming election—and perhaps raise his Q-rating in anticipation of his next reality show.

Having out-stupided all his GOP rivals and made a shambles of the GOP platform (such as it is) he is now making racist pronouncements regarding the judge presiding over his rip-off-‘university’ lawsuit—on a daily basis. His campaign has never troubled itself with the ‘boots on the ground’ machinery that the ‘real’ politicians use to get out their constituency. And he seems to go out of his way to do and say things which make the GOP leadership either squirm mightily—or have to repudiate outright.

I think it’s time to revisit the spoiler theory. Trump is in this race alright—he’s campaigning for Hillary, as far as I can tell. For a while there, it looked like the most ignorant portion of the GOP base would make of his parody a serious campaign, whether he wanted to become president or not. But Trump has always been resourceful, and he has found a solution—be blatantly racist. No one in America can get away with being publicly, pointedly racist—and Trump thus guarantees that anyone extreme enough to maintain their support for him will only expose their own small-minded-ness.

It is possible that he’s still serious—that his current race-baiting is in response to the positive image briefly generated by violence from those anti-Trump protestors in California—maybe he’s trying to spur them on to greater excesses, allowing him to play the victim. But it’s not working out that way. His anti-Americanism isn’t making people angry—it’s leaving them breathless with amazement at the depths of his bigotry. We all look at each other and ask, ‘Is this really happening?’ Even his top aides are shrugging their shoulders at his insanity, speechless.

Trump is a showman. But his latest performances have been tight-rope walks along the edge of civility. I figure his next move is probably going to be a statement against Religion—which would both devastate ‘his’ party and drive the country as a whole to new fits of outrage and disbelief. And just imagine how mortifying it will be for all of us atheists to find ourselves on Trump’s side of an issue! It’s enough to send me back to church.

At this point, if Trump were to be elected, I wouldn’t move to Canada—I’d move to North Korea and help them design those nuclear missiles that can reach the US mainland. If the country I’ve grown up loving and respecting is that much of a lie, it’s time to wipe it from the face of the earth. One way or the other, Trump is definitely a spoiler.

People Physics (2016Jun04)

Posted by XperDunn on June 4, 2016

Saturday, June 04, 2016 2:48 PM

People ape physics in many ways. They follow the Uncertainty Principle—if you observe them, you change them—as reality TV has amply proved. If you confine people too tightly, their excess friction will eventually cause an explosive reaction giving off heat as waste energy. And, of course, when people go up—they must come down—no individual unit can exceed its mortality. (I suppose death is the Gravity in that equation.) And people abhor a vacuum.

It’s true, we’re worse than Mother Nature. There is no room in any house that doesn’t fill up with stuff. There is no parcel of land in the middle of a city that accidentally went unused. People search the obituaries to find vacant apartments—and usually find the deceased’s relations have beaten them to it. There is no space on a long line where the person before it and the person behind have simply agreed to let there be a little gap there—it doesn’t happen.

Finances are the supreme example—every time I got a raise, my outlay matched it and then some. I didn’t do anything—I didn’t say to myself, ‘it’s time to add some expenses’. I simply found myself using all the money I had. I’d done the same with the smaller salaries—logic insists that I could have had money left over—but, no.

The rich people in San Francisco have packed themselves together so tightly that there’s no living space left for the help—their service workers have to commute from far off—and their already meager wages lose a big chunk to transportation costs. I wouldn’t stand for it. I’d organize the service workers in San Francisco and get them all jobs somewhere they can still find a place to live—let those rich bastards do their own chores until they get a clue, and agree to wages plus commuting costs.

I loved seeing the news yesterday about the Chicago Police releasing a bunch of videos of police behavior where a civilian was either killed or hospitalized. The lady who’d worked towards this ongoing program (there will be regular releases from now on), Sharon Fairley, chief administrator of the Independent Police Review Authority, called it an historic step forward for transparency in the city’s police force. What I loved was that there was this one prominent hold-out cracker who pooh-poohed the whole thing as ‘dangerous’ or some such BS—and the talking head asked the lady to respond—and she said, “Well, he’s wrong.” There should be a lot more of that in the news. Sometimes—a lot of times—some stupid politician is just wrong—end of sentence. An orange one comes to mind.

People as a group can be very geometrical—you tempt them this way, you shove them that way, you can pretty much call the shot—you know where they’re headed afterwards. And smart politicians look at it that way—not as a template for manipulation, as a demagogue would do, but as a blueprint for social progress. I always liked it when President Obama points out that doing something the same way for fifty years and getting no results was crazy. A lot of society’s ills come from just that tendency—to keep doing what we’re doing, even when someone is telling us it’s not working.

It’s hard to tell, especially in legislation, whether something is a healthy letting go of a wrong-headed assumption, or a half-baked imposition invented by lounge-liberals or beer jocks. There are so many laws that need to be undone (the patriot act is an example) and so many things not enshrined into law that we must nevertheless defend to the death (like separation of church and state). I have great respect for a good politician—leading people, in any capacity, is about as easy as herding cats. But designing legislation—making a piece of paper create a better life for his or her constituents—that’s an art form. I just got a chill—that exactly what Hitler said! Am I Hitler?! Oh, I hope not. Wouldn’t it suck to realize you’re really Hitler? Jeez.

Actually, it makes sense—Hitler was not a good painter, so he decided to go into politics as a modern ‘art form’—and he was even worse at that, despite some initial rave reviews. But he was right—politics is art. The trouble with that is there are so few great artists.

Book Review: “The Sound of Time: A Novel” by Julian Barnes (2016Jun03)

Posted by XperDunn on June 4, 2016

Friday, June 03, 2016 11:37 PM

Friday’s here—and just as I often don’t get fully awake before noon, I feel like I’m just getting warmed up whenever the end of the week rolls around. Old and in poor health is no way to suck the marrow from life. But I find I have company, or rather, competition.

That is to say that I’ve just finished reading Julian Barnes’ excellent historical novel, “The Noise of Time: A Novel”, touching on the life of Dmitri Shostakovich—a Russian composer of the Soviet era, and a favorite of mine since my early teens. I clearly remember mentioning the name to my mother one day, mispronouncing it, and being surprised that she corrected my pronunciation of his name—firstly because I realized he was famous enough for my mother to know his name, and secondly because I had been enamored of his music for months, while saying his name wrong (I had been thinking of him as Shos-TOCK-ovich!)

The Russians take pride in their deep sadness—as an American, I’ll never get that, but I get it, kind of. Masochism, irony, and melancholy are tools I have used myself in defense against a dysfunctional reality. But my life, and my troubles, are of an American smallness, in comparison to Barnes’ description of the living hell Shostakovich found himself in. He was a sensitive composer trapped in Stalin’s Russia, forced to publicly denounce his own works, and the works of his hero, Stravinsky—and other close friends and respected musicians; in danger for years from ideologues and politicians trying to ferret out disloyalty, even in thoughts and feelings, especially among artists—and even more especially in composers who had achieved global fame.

The book reminded me of the stories I heard about Soviet Russians living in terror of anonymous squads who came and took them in the night, often never to be seen again—and about the ideological tyranny that deposed aesthetics as the yardstick against which their art was ‘measured’—and sometimes condemned, along with the artist’s life.

Stalin’s rule, up to 1953, was so bloody that upon his death and the ascension of Khrushchev, it was said that ‘the Soviet had become vegetarian’. Although it may be more proper to say that the Soviet ceased to be cannibalistic, since Stalin’s machine had been devouring his own people. And Shostakovich was apparently a pretty nervous fellow—at the height of the pseudo-ideological criticisms of his music, he spent every night, for weeks, waiting at the elevator to be taken away by the KGB so that they wouldn’t have to burst into his apartment and drag him away in front of his wife and child. Barnes writes that Dmitri was just one of many people who observed this nighttime ritual during the terror known as Stalin’s Cult of Personality. Shostakovich’s life was one horror show after another—and it didn’t help that he was fairly well-off, compared to the average Soviet Russian—that just gave him more to lose.

As a boy, my favorite of his works was the last movement of his fifth symphony—but as I matured, I learned to prefer the rest of the symphony. According to Barnes’ story, Shostakovich was forced to add the final ‘triumphal’ movement to the symphony because the foregoing movements were so unremittingly ‘pessimistic’—and so he composed the final movement ironically. To my callow ears, and to the politburo, it sounded glorious (which saved Shostakovich’s life, and career)—but as my tastes matured I came to find the last movement somehow brash and ugly, and prefer the music that comes before—and now I know why, I suppose. Much is made in the book of the fact that when confronted with brainless tyranny, the only safe rebellion is in irony—but that irony over time gets lost in itself.

This book is no happy story, but it is something perhaps better—a fascinating story about strange and awful truths, and the horrendous lies that hide them, for a time at least. I have long since given up hope of finding in great artists’ lives any kind of reflection or explanation of the exaltation of their creations—but this book actually matches up the bleakness heard in most of his music with the day-to-day life of its composer. I read it in one sitting—something I’m only pushed into nowadays by irresistibly good writing and an enthralling story.

Barnes quotes Shakespeare at one point, mentioning that his Sonnet LXVI resonated with the artists of Soviet Russia, particularly the line, “And art made tongue-tied by authority”. I had to go look at the whole poem and I am struck, not for the first time, by how apropos Shakespeare always is, no matter how modern we think we have become:

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

As to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

And gilded honour shamefully misplac’d,

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,

And strength by limping sway disabled

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly—doctor-like—controlling skill,

And simple truth miscall’d simplicity,

And captive good attending captain ill:

Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,

Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

(Shakespeare, William (2011-03-24). Shakespeare’s Sonnets (p. 132). . Kindle Edition.)

I love that line about “And folly—doctor-like—controlling skill,”—geniuses so often appear to fools as people who need to be ‘cured’, or at the very least, ‘corrected’. The poem as a whole is fitting for a Shostakovich biographical novel—he too was often tempted by thoughts of suicide, harried by the ubiquitous surplus of malevolent injustice crowding every aspect of his life.

That’s my take on the book—-lacking a segue, here’s two improvs from earlier today–hope you like them:

It’s About Us (2016Jun03)

Posted by XperDunn on June 3, 2016

Friday, June 03, 2016 11:41 AM

I love Hillary Clinton! She made a speech yesterday that clearly explained why Trump is not a candidate, but a threat. She said that even if she wasn’t running herself, she would be doing everything she could to make sure he was never President of the United States. Best of all, she condemned him with his own words—the wild public statements that he makes in passing, to jazz up his base, become evidence—when held up to the light—that he shouldn’t even have a driver’s license, never mind a public office. And as she described the nightmare of a President Trump, in the situation room, during a national crisis—a chill ran down my spine—what a friggin nightmare!

The media couldn’t even wait until she was done speaking before they started to leaven her statements with chyrons about Paul Ryan finally bowing to the inevitable, saying he would vote for Trump, because he would make GOP dreams into law. To me, that only confirms what Hillary was saying—it’d be a nightmare. It doesn’t seem to occur to the GOP that the reason they can’t satisfy their base is because their base wants to fundamentally change America into a nation of fear and anger and weakness.

There is no contest—when our choices are between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. As far as I’m concerned, the GOP has failed to produce a viable candidate—they’re stuck with Trump, their booby-prize for courting ignorance for so many years, but no one sees his potential presidency as good, or safe, or helpful. Even his supporters don’t expect him to keep America going—they hope he’ll turn the whole thing upside-down. If I didn’t live here, I’d say let’em have their way—see how they like it. But, as Hillary said, America is still full of reasonable, well-meaning people who are proud to be Americans and want to see America continue to lead the world toward freedom.

A democracy tries to do the greatest good for the greatest number. An election is a chance to get what we want. But it is also a litmus test of the electorate. If Hillary Clinton doesn’t win this election in a landslide, I’ll be personally disappointed—but I’ll also know something about the majority of American voters. I’ll know that we have become too ignorant to look out for our own self-interest, suckers for any used-car-salesman who happens to talk a good game. This election isn’t about the candidates—it’s about us.

Word Dump (2016Jun02)

Posted by XperDunn on June 2, 2016

Wednesday, June 01, 2016 2:20 PM

Fresh Rant (2016Jun01)

I receive spam from charities and from political parties—asking for my financial help—I don’t even let them make me feel guilty anymore, I just resent being reminded how I could use a little financial help of my own. Since when did politics require millions of people to donate their hard-earned money to run TV ads? And don’t talk to me about crowd-funding—you know what we used to call crowd-funding? An extended family—that’s crowd-funding for people you know and love.

I’m not interested in helping other people—I’m interested in helping the people around me, the people close to me. Contrary to Tea-Party opinion, I prefer to pay taxes and let the government sort out people’s problems—it has its faults but it’s bound to do a better job than I can do on my own.

I understand that most charitable services are run by religious organizations—because the church used to be the gathering point for a community, where its larger issues were discussed and dealt with. The decline of religion as a binding force of the community has hurt efforts to deal with the homeless and underserved—being without a religion doesn’t keep me from mourning the coherency of that community-model—but it’s evaporated now and greater government involvement, supported by taxes, makes much more sense in today’s agnostic climate.

I also don’t like TV ads for fancy cars—of the millions of people watching TV, the vast majority of us can’t afford to go out and buy a Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes, Cadillac—not even a Lincoln. It pisses me off—especially knowing that, even if I could somehow buy one of those fancy cars, it would quickly be joy-ridden, tire-slashed, paint-keyed, and generally dinged until it looked just as crappy as the rest of the cars on my block. Plus, I could never afford the insurance rate, or the maintenance—which are as pricey as the car.

But I’d rather watch ads for fancy cars than listen to side-effects warnings for a drug for a disease I don’t have. My doctor will tell me when I need a drug, and which one, thank you—take your drug ads and shove’em. Still, when you consider buying a car, even a little, ‘cheap’ one, puts the normal person in hock for several years—what purpose is served by making that same hard-working, and now indebted, person feel bad about a major purchase? Ads for fifty and sixty thousand dollar cars washing over the TV screen every night—why not have ads for becoming a business owner, or president? Those are just as far out of my reach—and would annoy me only slightly less.

Income inequality has gotten completely out of hand—it makes me glad I’m old—if I were a younger man, I’d join the throng of protestors outraged that the same system that keeps them in groceries is the system that keeps them in their place—nowhere but working for the Man and getting paid less than a living wage for it. I’d run around organizing protests, campaigning for Bernie—and I’d be too young to realize how futile all of that is—the ones with the gold make the rules.

Then the futility of the whole thing would dawn on me and, being a young man, my mind would turn to ways of making mischief for the people I saw as oppressors. That would be so sixties-retro, like the second coming of the SLA or something. And like them I’d eventually end up in jail or on the run—though it isn’t nearly as easy, now, to disappear from the grid like those sixties fugitives who popped back up in the eighties and nineties, too old to live like that anymore.

But the truth is the ones with the gold only make the rules when the electorate is too numb to their own self-interest to let them—and we have done a lot of that over the last three decades. Political movements like Bernie’s would have to start on the backlog of injustice all those lobbyists have been shoving through both the Congress and all fifty state legislatures for decades. It would take us a while to get back to the income equality—in taxes—we enjoyed in the mid-twentieth century, before we could even start in on making things better—we have to roll back some of the ‘worse’ first.

The main trouble is that you can’t give to one person without somehow taking from another—and rich bastards sound just like normal people when they whine about having to make a sacrifice—usually, even whinier. They try to frighten us by pointing out that, when we get rich, we’ll have the same ‘oppression’ hanging over our heads—yeah, that’s my big concern.

And the media adds to the problem by representing ‘two sides’ of the issue—but it’s not really two sides, when one side is a handful of rich fucks and the other side is hundreds of millions of people. That is particularly true when the rich fucks own the media, as they do today.

But that is a condition as much as an issue—certainly nothing that can be solved with a clever blog-post. About the only thing optimistic about the media situation is that it leaves so much unexplored material that a ‘counter-media’ can start to get sponsorship (as opposed to ownership) for journalism that covers the many things being avoided and overlooked by the establishment media. We hear so much about meta-data and ‘drilling down’—but we still see news that is endlessly busying itself with minutiae and wow-factor and click-bait.

If Edward R. Murrow had our modern resources for research and analysis, he’d be giving us very different stuff. He liked to follow things to their future consequences—his attacks on McCarthy were driven by a deep concern for this country’s future and the future of its people’s rights and freedoms. If he were confronted with the kind of accelerated change we’re experiencing right now, I’m sure he would be reporting on certain days’ events only as they relate to what will happen in five, ten or twenty years’ time.

Modern people are flooded with information—and everyone with experience in that will tell you—when data comes at you like a fire-hose, you don’t get lost in the minutiae—you look for patterns and trends. You can’t understand our culture through a single person or a single period of time. When reporters ask a bystander how they feel about what just happened across the street—it gives me a pain. Reporters with access to global resources and instant data should be virtuosos of pattern-analysis, artisans of the long-term take-away on any given issue—and lots of reporting on how issues interlock with each other—just as the peoples of the world are now beginning to interlock their fates across the globe.

Maybe it was my age, at the time, but when I was younger a talking head was always bright, sharp, educated, and informed—the TV was the smartest ‘person’ in the room. Now we get Harvey Levin and TMZ. Jeez, what a tool. I mean journalist.

There’s one good thing about the media becoming a mindless monster—they’re finally starting to chow down on the Donald. Yes, Donald—the media is your friend—until it isn’t. Even innocent people are helpless in the face of their onslaught—did you really think a scumbag like yourself could just play it like a harp, and emerge unscathed? Keep dreaming, Mr. wanna-be-president.

Trump’s attempt to ‘fool all the people all the time’ is a perfect example of how democracy requires an informed electorate. The left wing of the presidential campaign is focused on income-inequality—and for good reason—but we should take this election season as a warning. We need to improve our educational system, and do it right quick. No one as ignorant as Donald Trump should have ever gotten this far—and he never would have, if he wasn’t reaching a deep reservoir of shamefully ignorant Americans.

Plus, our country’s failure to finance higher education for everyone is part and parcel of the march towards permanent income inequality—we’ll never level the playing field without offering equal access to information and knowledge.

Wednesday, June 01, 2016 6:08 PM

Proud

I’m proud.

I’m proud to be me.

I’m proud of my family.

I’m proud of my principles.

I’m proud of my understanding.

I’m proud of my neighborhood.

I’m proud of my country.

I’m not sure if I’m right to be proud

But that doesn’t stop me.

Give me my dignity or you’re looking for a fight.

Doesn’t matter if I’m dignified.

What—do I gotta put on a show for you?

Just take it for granted that I’m as good as you are.

Even if I’m wearing sweatpants—they don’t signify.

I am as good as you are.

Pretending I’m not just puts you down—not me.

I used to enjoy wearing a good suit

But I never made the mistake of thinking

It made me better than someone else.

I used to be a manager—telling people what to do—

But I never made the mistake of thinking

I was better than them.

I made mistakes alright, just not that one.

That’s a doozy.

Jeez—dat ain’t even a poem—I don’t know what you call that crap.

Sometimes I just write to hear myself type, I think.

Thursday, June 02, 2016 10:38 AM

I wasn’t going to post any of the above—it all seemed kinda whiney and introspective—but some of the points I tried to make were being echoed by President Obama during his PBS Town Hall with Gwen Ifill last night—so I am emboldened to the point of posting.

Seriously (2016May31)

Posted by XperDunn on June 1, 2016

Tuesday, May 31, 2016 11:34 PM

I take myself seriously—probably too much so. But it’s all of a piece—there are people that wouldn’t be able to take themselves seriously as a writer or musician, or artist, without some validation or recognition or encouragement. But I do it without any of that good stuff—the taking it seriously makes me take myself seriously, even when there’s no apparent evidence that I should.

See, I don’t worry about whether I’m good or not—I was lucky, as a kid, to be gifted with a pencil and paper—lots of people told me I was good at drawing. But some people weren’t impressed. I noticed that. I wondered ‘how can I please a lot of people, yet fail to please everybody?’ I would come to discuss other peoples’ drawing—and find that I liked some that other people didn’t like, and lots of popular artists didn’t appeal to me.

So I see the whole question of “Am I any good?” as a slippery one. Then I had the bad luck to fall in love with playing the piano—without any ability to play the piano. I was objectively bad. I played anyway, because I wanted to play—and I thought, ‘who knows, maybe I’ll get better.’ Well, I didn’t. I got better than I was, but I never got ‘good’. I felt safer with piano—I knew I could spend the rest of my life practicing and still have plenty of work to do. I enjoyed being challenged by something I was bad at more than being good at something I was talented at.

Then I got sick—and now my hands shake—so I can’t draw good anymore. I don’t really miss it. I miss people asking me to make custom-drawn birthday cards and flyers and stuff like that—I loved being useful—but I don’t miss trying to think up something to do on a blank piece of paper. After a while that became a lot of pressure. One of the things that made me a big draughtsman was I loved attracting an audience—people used to love to watch me draw—for a while, I’d be quite a showman about it—playing to the audience. That made sitting in a room, drawing pictures, to show people only after they were completed, seem unsatisfying.

These days, I see some performance artists do a big painting for an audience, maybe dancing around while they throw paint at the canvas—and I think ‘good for you—you found a way to make it work for you.’ I should have realized, back then, that I enjoyed drawing for spectators—I wouldn’t have gotten so tired of drawing. I stopped doing the ‘performance-drawing’ because I noticed I let the quality of the artwork go, just to score points with the crowd—it’s too bad I couldn’t just have accepted that as a fair trade-off. (If I take myself too seriously now, it’s nothing to how too-serious I was as a kid.) But, spilt milk under the bridge, etc.

Anyhow, the point is, I’ve been doing stuff throughout my life without any serious concern about whether I was good or not. I’ve come to recognize that as a blessing. There are so many people who don’t draw, who don’t play an instrument—because they’re worried about being good at it. To me that’s not the point, at all. It’s the doing, not the judging. If you do something—and you get some good from doing it—you’re done. Whether other people approve or not. I always hear disapproval as encouragement to try harder.

I’m never worried about what other people will think—I’m only concerned with doing my best. And because I’m all about the trying, I take it very seriously. Which turns into taking myself seriously. It’s all of a piece. But I’m sure it makes me insufferable, most of the time. Sorry about that.

Memorial Day (2016May30)

Posted by XperDunn on May 30, 2016

Monday, May 30, 2016 11:50 AM

Last night PBS aired the Memorial Day Concert from Washington DC—and all weekend long there have been war movies on TV—I just watched one of my favorites on TCM—“Sergeant York” (1941). An uncredited portion of the soundtrack contains “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder” (by James Milton Black, 1892) sung in church at the beginning of the picture. Afterwards at the piano, I guess I mixed it up in my mind with (“Give Me That”) “Old-Time Religion”, another traditional gospel song from 1873.

My dad is in this picture somewhere–he served in Korea after boot camp, and made it home safe.

Anyhow, I decided to improvise on that, since the soundtrack of the movie had those themes woven into the music. I began by trying to pick out the tune, but if you can get past that, I think it turned out alright in the end. I’m remembering the fallen today—have a safe and happy Memorial Day, everybody.

The Weather—and Joseph Henry (2016May27)

Posted by XperDunn on May 27, 2016

Friday, May 27, 2016 9:21 AM

Yesterday was very warm—up in the eighties—and last night everyone turned on their air conditioning to go to bed (at least that’s how I figure it) and the power went out. Whatever the actual cause, though, we did have candles and cell phones from 9:30 PM until just before midnight. Once I got over being upset about it, I had a lovely time lying in the dark with the cross-breeze coming through the window—quiet, until the neighbors revved up their generators (I keep meaning to get us one).

There’s so little quiet in modern life—I miss it. That’s one of the great things about parks and trails and such—they don’t just preserve the wildlife, they preserve the quiet, too. Here on the Eastern Seaboard it’s become impossible to find total silence. My older brother moved to upstate New York for some years, back in the eighties—way out in the woods, far from any town—and a good ways from his nearest neighbors. But all he heard all summer long was chain-saws—and he was building a house himself, which was hardly silent. Even completely undeveloped places still have planes flying overhead or highways heard in the distance.

What is sometimes referred to as the Bos-Wash Megalopolis may not be the center of civilization, but it’s certainly in the top three concentrations of civilized development—and silence is not the only thing it has lost. It’s lost its darkness as well—New Yorkers who travel to the high desert out west, or down south to the Caribbean, will find themselves dazzled by the star-crowded sky enjoyed when the ambient city street-light isn’t washing out all but the brightest heavenly bodies.

Our water disappeared too—well, the clean water. It’s hard to imagine all the factory waste and sewage needed to make the Ohio River flammable—and even the mighty Hudson, despite Herculean efforts to clean it up, is hardly a crystal stream. Even the Great Lakes (and they don’t call them ‘great’ for nothing)—can you imagine how much crap we had to dump to pollute all five? It strains the imagination.

Diversity is another victim of civilization—this part of New York State once boasted bears, wolves, wildcats—and carrier pigeons so numerous as to block out the sun when a flock flew overhead. Not that I’d want to meet a bear or a pack of wolves in my front yard—but that’s what’s supposed to be here—that and so much more.

On the occasion of Joseph Henry’s death, he was memorialized at Princeton, where he had held a professorship prior to heading up the Smithsonian Institution in DC. I provide a link to the full article, but I wanted to show you some of my favorite quotes from this eulogy for my favorite historical figure:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Dk4tAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA139&num=19&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Volume 21

‘Memorial Discourse by Rev. Samuel B. Dod–delivered in the College Chapel, Princeton’

‘As a student of science he was ardent and enthusiastic in his love for the chosen pursuit of his life. He did not dally with it as a pastime, nor prosecute it with the greed of gain, nor pursue it with the ambition of making himself famous among men.’

‘He was characterized by great reverence in the pursuit of truth. Singularly modest as to his own powers and attainments, he never suffered the advancement of his own opinions to warp his judgment or govern his investigations; he held the progress of truth dearer than the success of a theory. And nothing moved his gentle nature to greater indignation than the pretensions of the charlatan or bigot in science.’

‘He says, when put on trial for his character as a man of science and a man of honor, “My life has been principally devoted to science and my investigations in different branches of physics have given me some reputation in the line of original discovery. I have sought however no patent for inventions and solicited no remuneration for my labors, but have freely given their results to the world; expecting only in return to enjoy the consciousness of having added by my investigations to the sum of human knowledge. The only reward I ever expected was the consciousness of advancing science, the pleasure of discovering new truths, and the scientfic reputation to which these labors would entitle me.” And verily I say unto you, he hath his reward.’

‘As an investigator, Professor Henry was characterized by great patience and thoroughness in his work of observation, and by broad, well-considered, and far-reaching generalizations. He distrusted the so-called “brilliant generalizations” with which those favor us who love speculation rather than study. He never took anything for granted, never despised the details of his work, but carefully established, step by step, those data on which he based his conclusions. In 1849 he says, “Since my removal to Princeton I have made several thousand original investigations on electricity, magnetism, and electro-magnetism, bearing on practical applications of electricity, brief minutes of which fill several hundred folio pages. They have cost me years of labor and much expense.”‘

A letter from Joseph Henry is appended by the Rev. Dod to this memorial discourse, in which Henry describes the outline of his work inventing the telegraph many years before Morse. Robert Morse, using tech developed for him by an associate of Henry’s, filed a patent for his ‘invention’, the telegraph—without having ever studied electricity. This is, to me, doubly devilish due to the prior instance, in which Michael Faraday and Henry discovered the principle of electro-magnetic induction almost simultaneously, with Henry, if anything, getting there first, but never given any share of credit.

Henry describes his legal fracas with Morse, explaining that he never wished to profit from his invention, and thus never applied for a patent, preferring to maintain the dignity of science. As he writes, “In this perhaps I was too fastidious.”—talk about an understatement. To end the discussion, he says, “To Mr. Morse however great credit is due for his alphabet, and for his great perseverance in bringing the telegraph into practical use.” To which we modern readers of this note may insert the implied ‘asshole’.

It is interesting to note in the story of early industrial-era science the concomitant birth of legal scrambles for credit which evolved into today’s battles over ownership of intellectual property. The Constitution mentions intellectual property in Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power … To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

Then there was the Patent Act of 1790, followed by the Patent Act of 1793 (between which only 55 patents were granted). But by the Patent Act of 1836, 10,000 patents had been granted. The Patent Act of 1836 was remarkable in creating the first Patent Office. It is no accident that all this legal and legislative activity coincided with the development of steam power and electro-magnetic technology. New inventions have always been looked back upon fondly for their elevation of the human condition—but there wasn’t a one of them that wasn’t also an immediate cash cow—and thus a bone of contention as well.

That Henry failed to perceive this is an example of the old dichotomy—a man with exceptional scientific insight rarely displays the same insight into human nature. There can be little doubt that Henry was a good man—but he was at a loss in dealing with lesser men.

It always seemed to me that the human brain confronts each of its child owners at some point, asking them if they want to observe what’s really happen in the universe, or if they want to observe the ritualized dance of what society perceives as happening—you can’t have both. But maybe that’s just me.

Higglety-Pigglety (2016May25)

Posted by XperDunn on May 26, 2016

Wednesday, May 25, 2016 12:21 PM

Pete’s late—looks like no jam today. And I just got my microphone working! Oh, well. Oh, wait—maybe he comes at one, instead of noon? I can’t remember—maybe he does. Damn this swiss-cheese brain of mine.

Well, Jessy is expecting—which is great. Spencer is working on historical fiction for gamers (I’m not really sure—something like that) and he asked me for some medieval music examples recently, for research—he’s started up gardening and mowing, now that spring has sprung—which is also great. And Claire—well, as usual, Claire is unbelievable—life-drawing classes almost every day, a watercolor painting-tutorial day at the Botanical Gardens recently, and a drawing class in Katonah once a week. (She’s really becoming a phenomenally able graphic-artist). And that’s all beside the daily (at least) trips to the gym—and her ongoing work on her resume for her dream-job. Plus, she takes care of me, Spencer, and the house (with her other hand—ha ha).

So, let’s see—Claire was a prize pianist and music student in her youth, raised two toddlers as a young adult, got her Bachelor’s in computers and worked for an online-encyclopedia company during her programmer phase, then took care of her dying husband so well that the bastard never died, then went for her Master’s in occupational therapy, got in shape with pilates, yoga, and the gym, started drawing lessons—and is about to get a new job in her new OT career, at the same time as becoming a new grandmother. Lazy—that’s Claire—she’ll be sixty in a couple of years—and what will she have to show for it? Some people.

I used to have a life—boy, those were the days—but that was so long ago I can hardly remember what it was like. Okay, it’s one-twenty now—even if Pete was coming at one, he’s late now—looks like no jam today. Guess it’s time to go watch TV. Damn. Well, there were new movies on the menu yesterday—I hope one of them is worth watching.

Son of a bitch—Pete’s here!

Wednesday, May 25, 2016 6:20 PM

Okay, Pete came—we had a great session—then he had to go home—and I had a cheeseburger—now I’m just editing the video—and writing a blog about the political news of today.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016 8:41 PM

Okay, the best thing in the new movie listings is Zoolander II—hardly inspiring, although I’ll probably watch it. Ben Stiller really makes me laugh—when he isn’t making me puke—I think his masterpiece, “There’s Something About Mary”, redefined the boundaries of good taste in a comedy film—and it’s something of a genre these days. I can take that stuff, up to a point, but my gross-out limit is a very low bar.

I’ve gotten my rough cuts of the jam session edited—three improvs and a medley of eight Burton Lane tunes. The first improv sounded to Pete like calypso music, but I thought it sounded more like I was having a fit, so I call it ‘Calypsis’.

The other two improvs came out real nice—me in my best voice, I felt. You decide. One, “Either Way”, is three minutes, the other, “Twilight of the Gourds”, is a minute and a half—but still, all told we got about 32 minutes of video for the day—not too shabby.

Let’s talk about our Burton Lane songbook-covers video—first and foremost, none of this is Pete’s fault—he just puts up with my eccentricities. And, yes, this is some pretty sloppy piano-playing. But there are some moments of interest—and we did have fun joking around. If it were just me, I’d probably have second thoughts about posting this—but with Pete there, it’s still pretty entertaining, most of it. So, listen, don’t listen—either way, you’re right.

Thursday, May 26, 2016 11:38 AM

Afterword:

Last night I had my choice—sleepless, or sleep with nightmares. I finally got a few hours of shut-eye, but now that I’m up, my back is killing me. Which all goes to show that I had more excitement and fun yesterday than this old carcass is prepared to deal with. That’s a bad thing, kinda—but it’s also a pretty good thing, if you think about it. It’s not like I don’t get occasional nightmares and backaches—without having any excuse at all—and a good day is a good day, regardless of tomorrow.

While We’re Young (2016May25)

Posted by XperDunn on May 25, 2016

Wednesday, May 25, 2016 6:20 PM

I saw a couple of things on the news that I’d like to discuss.

Hillary got spanked today by the State Department—but like the Supreme Court Justice non-hearings and the Benghazi blame-a-thon, the whole e-mail-server debacle could have been handled far more swiftly if competent people had had any hand in it. There was no earthly reason for all this stuff ‘just happening’ to pop up right when her presidential campaign rounds the home stretch. But the GOP has always been more concerned with the timing of their accusations than with their probity. Now, onto whether she actually did anything wrong.

Here we get a display of ingenuousness you won’t see every day—according to the State Department, Hillary did, in fact, do wrong. That she did exactly what her predecessors did is hidden in the back pages—or, as the State Department likes to put it: ‘If she’d asked us, we would have told her no.’ The implication that Hillary Clinton has to ask the State Department to do its job doesn’t seem like a weird idea to them—though it does to me.

Plus this whole business is about new tech. It reminds me of when I was a young programmer—I coded computers for almost two decades, but when I tried to get a new job, I wasn’t qualified because I didn’t have one of those new IT degrees. The fact that there were no such majors, or degree programs, until the nineties didn’t signify for anyone but me, I guess.

To accuse Hillary Clinton, who’s even older, of high crimes because she didn’t use new tech right—well, that’s something only the GOP would think to do. Emails are not mentioned in the Constitution—they didn’t even exist until a decade or so ago. Pretending that there are hard-and-fast rules about them, that only Hillary Clinton is guilty of a faulty ‘tech launch’—that’s pretty effing precious, don’tcha think?

But I’m not too worried about Hillary—her opponent is still laughable. It is only Trump’s supporters who are scary—the man himself is a joke. The idea that there are enough stupid people in this country to elect him is terrifying—but he still makes me laugh. He’s like a first-grader that managed to steal a grown-man suit, and is fooling everyone.

But back to the GOP—words fail, ya know? GOP officials in eleven states are suing President Obama’s administration over the new transgender bathroom-law issue, saying it’s a ‘social experiment’—like that’s a bad thing, by definition. I guess they forget that America was the original social experiment.

I’ve listened closely to their arguments for opposing transgender bathroom rights (wondering how anyone could seriously object without exposing their bigotry) and their main tactic is a subtle bias in the use of the word gender, as if that word still has two, and only two, meanings. Well, that and the usual BS about how they need a century or two to wrap their heads around any new idea. (‘While we’re young, people!’—as my dad used to say.)

Their insistence on repeating things like ‘one gender or the other’, or ‘boys and girls’—it’s just their way of insinuating that all this new gender-identity stuff is airy-fairy foolishness. In today’s political climate, they hesitate to say that, plainly and aloud (as if we don’t know how they feel) but they strain themselves mightily trying to say it without actually saying it. NC Governor McCrory practically injures himself with such contortions—he’d be hilarious if he wasn’t so revoltingly forked-tongued.

President Obama’s election should have put an end to excessively bigoted comments in the media—but it didn’t. The Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage should have done the same—and it didn’t. I don’t just resent the ugliness of such people—I resent that they drag us all backwards. Racism has been ruled on, repeatedly. Gay rights have been ruled on, also repeatedly. It’s fucking over. Get on the bus, or stay home—don’t parade your idiocy around like it’s a political platform. We grown-ups have got shit to do.

TV Day (2016May24)

Posted by XperDunn on May 24, 2016

Tuesday, May 24, 2016 2:42 PM

As a retired citizen, I enjoy the luxury of the occasional TV-day. Today was a pip—partly cloudy with showers—and check out Turner Classic Movies’ line-up for today:

6:15 AM musical Rhapsody in Blue (1945)

Synopsis: Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway.

Rhapsody in Blue is a story that is as enchanting as the music of it’s central character, the legendary George Gershwin. Robert Alda plays the talented composer in this moving… More

D: Irving Rapper. Robert Alda, Joan Leslie, Alexis Smith, Oscar Levant, Charles Coburn, Julie Bishop, Albert Basserman, Morris Carnovsky, Herbert Rudley, Rosemary DeCamp, Paul Whiteman, Hazel Scott. Hollywood biography of George Gershwin is largely pulp fiction, but comes off better than most other composer biopics, capturing Gershwin’s enthusiasm for his work, and some of his inner conflicts. Highlight is virtually complete performance of title work.

8:45 AM drama Song Without End (1960)

Synopsis: Musical genius Franz Liszt betrays his lover to court a married princess.

A music-filled bio drama examining the stormy life and career of renowned Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt, whose scandalous love affair… More

Dir: Charles Vidor Cast: Dirk Bogarde , Capucine , Genevieve Page .

11:00 AM drama Song of Love (1947)

Synopsis: True story of Clara Schumann’s battle to save husband Robert’s health and resist the romantic overtures of Johannes Brahms.

The intertwined lives of the three musical legends form a Song of Love a sumptuously produced and skillfully played biopic set to 11 musical pieces that include Schumann’s Arabeske… More

D: Clarence Brown. Katharine Hepburn, Paul Henreid, Robert Walker, Henry Daniell, Leo G. Carroll, Gigi Perreau, Tala Birell, Henry Stephenson. Classy production but slow-moving story of Clara Schuman (Hepburn), her composer husband (Henreid) and good friend Brahms (Walker).

1:00 PM musical Till The Clouds Roll By (1946)

Synopsis: True story of composer Jerome Kern’s rise to the top on Broadway and in Hollywood.

D: Richard Whorf. Robert Walker, Van Heflin, Lucille Bremer, Dorothy Patrick, many guest stars including Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Tony Martin, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, June Allyson, Angela Lansbury, Cyd Charisse, Virginia O’Brien. Soggy biography of songwriter Jerome Kern uplifted by song numbers featuring some high-powered MGM talent. Highlights include Lansbury’s “How D’Ya Like to Spoon With Me,” Lena’s “Why Was I Born?,” Judy’s “Look for the Silver Lining,” and mini-production of Show Boat.

3:30 PM musical Song to Remember, A (1945) (70th Anniversary)

Synopsis: The famed composer Chopin sacrifices everything, even love, for his native Poland.

Cornel Wilde plays Frederic Chopin in this richly detailed bio-pic which highlights the famous composer’s relationship with the unconventional author George Sand (Merle Oberon)…. More

D: Charles Vidor. Cornel Wilde, Paul Muni, Merle Oberon, Stephen Bekassy, Nina Foch, George Coulouris, Sig Arno. Colorful but superficial biography of Chopin (Wilde) with exaggerated Muni as his mentor, lovely Oberon as George Sand; good music, frail plot.

5:30 PM musical Great Waltz, The (1972)

Synopsis: Musical biography of Johann Strauss, the man known as “The Waltz King.

Dir: Andrew L. Stone Cast: Horst Buchholz , Mary Costa , Rossano Brazzi

Not that I watched all of it—and some of these films are already familiar to me from frequent viewings—it’s just nice to know that I can retire to the TV at any time of the day and watch a nice old classic. TCM has plenty of days when they focus on different themes that I love less—so I enjoy it when they serve up a heaping helping of schmaltz—preferably with lots of music. Katherine Hepburn emoting her way through Clara Schumann’s ‘life’—can you beat that for schmaltz? “Song Of Love” is also notable for perhaps being the film with the most actors spending the most time pretending to play virtuoso piano.

I get diminishing returns from TCM these days—partly from becoming over-familiar with certain classics, and partly from TCM broadening its repertoire to include a lot of movies that have historical, even artistic merit—but are still pale shadows of whichever classic film they are a descendant of. I use to watch any movie TCM put on, if I hadn’t seen it before—but sometimes they get into a theme like ‘noir’, which I can only take so much of. And the ‘silents’, while majestic, some of them, take a certain mood to appreciate—and I’m rarely in that mood at midnight.

TCM is the ultimate example of how one movie can be watched repeatedly, like eating comfort food—it doesn’t entertain so much as soothe the soul. Examples (for me) include: “I Remember Mama”, “Dark Victory”, “Casablanca”, and “Random Harvest”. I could list others all day. Other movies I like to catch at ‘the good part’, but I rarely sit through all of.

As I watch the new movies that appear on my On Demand menu, I’m struck by how a new movie, by and large, doesn’t call for a second viewing. In fact, I often have trouble remembering if I’ve watched some new movies—the experience was that unremarkable, even after paying for the privilege. But a really good movie—that’s something else again—it’s a mystery. A mystery that I’m sure Hollywood would love to solve. I bet it’s something that the crew and lesser players could tell them—it’s probably something to do with the interaction of the players. But then again, a good story is essential—like I say—it’s a mystery.

Monopoly (2016May23)

Posted by XperDunn on May 23, 2016

Monday, May 23, 2016 11:32 AM

What is improvement? If we get too extreme in bodybuilding, we become muscle-bound, unable to move about as easily as someone who doesn’t exercise. We often comment that there is a thin line between genius and madness—and the competition to be the ‘smartest’ puts college students at risk of nervous breakdowns and suicides, as well as brilliant careers. Business executives who perform at their peak can easily succumb to ‘burn-out’ in the same way.

Success and wealth for a parent rarely translates into success for their children—being raised wealthy robs them of the struggles that tempered their parents’ steel. More lottery winners go broke or have life crises than the rare few who survive being made instantly rich.

Extremes are dangerous—even little extremes can be unsettling. If I have a pile of books I’m looking forward to reading, I get confused about which book to read first. I think they call that ‘rich people’s problems’. Not that I’m in the one-percent—but I am, like most Americans, fabulously wealthy compared to any third-world citizen. And the existence of ‘rich people’s problems’ itself is proof that ‘improving’ one’s lot in life can be more accurately described as acquiring different problems.

But I don’t wish to oversimplify—one of ‘rich people’s problems’ is that other people are poor. This makes Charity an exercise in which rich people, with ‘rich people’s problems’, try to help people with poverty problems. Notice how charity never consists of simply handing poor people money. It’s an ‘if you teach a man to fish’ thing—rich people don’t see redistribution as a solution. They want to enable the poor to join them in a competition the rich have already won—it’s like lending money to the loser when you’re winning in Monopoly—you want to keep the game going.

And Monopoly is a good illustration of modern capitalism—most Monopoly games reach that point where all the potential plans have been played out and purchased, where one player has almost everything and the rest are a dice-throw away from bankruptcy. That’s why many Monopoly games don’t reach the finish—the end becomes a foregone conclusion long before. Monopoly, at the start, is full of possibilities—end-game Monopoly is more an on-rushing train. Likewise, American Capitalism started out as a world of possibilities and is now in a straight-jacket of previous purchases. Just as the second amendment made sense for muskets, but became madness for automatic assault weapons—success is a one-time thing.

America has trouble with success—our early financial success was based on the use of slaves—our early wealth of natural resources trained us to become despoilers of nature—our early adoption of public education made us think we were smarter than everybody else—and our invention of the atom bomb made us think we were in charge of the whole world. Every time Americans win we learn a false lesson from it.

Basing everything on money rather than birth seemed like a freeing sort of approach—you could, through personal effort, rise. Your future had potential that went undreamed-of in a class-based society. That image persists, even now, when all the years of effort by others has gelled into a rigged game. Wealth once again comes almost entirely through inheritance—and opportunities for the common man have become as rare as in the time of kings and serfs. Capitalism is no longer the handmaiden of Freedom—and it has become something darker.

A fragile web of distribution keeps food on supermarket shelves, gas in the stove, oil in the heater, water from the tap, sewage down the toilet, and electricity to the phone-chargers. Disruption of the system is dangerous to us all—destroying the establishment would mean a return to primitivism. The infrastructure of capitalism holds us hostage—it makes us need it. And the need to earn a wage holds us prisoner—which makes us need employers. The rich have more power over the rest of us than kings or pharaohs could ever imagine—yet we call this society a free one. Like children of an abusive father, we have no place else to go.

Changing capitalism won’t be easy—we can’t rebel against it—if we attack it we only hurt ourselves. A subtle, drawn-out political process is the only possible escape. Yet see how easily we are diverted and entertained by our politics—that’s not an accident. If people took politics seriously, we’d be talking about change in a pragmatic way, instead of shouting buzzwords at each other—we might enact some changes—and that is the only real threat the one-percent are facing. I wish we knew that as well as they do.

Weekend Fun (2016May22)

Posted by XperDunn on May 22, 2016

Saturday, May 21, 2016 6:58 PM

What a day—what a day.

Ah.

Sunday, May 22, 2016 12:23 PM

Yes, I know—it’s cheap and silly and stupid—but sometimes I just get desperate for a new sound. I thought, ‘maybe I could turn on the dishwasher or some other appliance—maybe a car engine idling—I don’t know—Oh wait—I know, I’ll play that ocean waves CD at a really high volume, so I sound like I’m playing piano on the beach.’ Yeah, right—no way it’ll sound like a cheap stereo playing ocean waves in another room. Hey, we do what we can—we work with the tools we have. And speaking of which—yes, I’m singing show tunes with a voice that sounds more like a torture victim’s than a vocalist’s—but I like the song, so deal with it.

…)

Justice (2016May21)

Posted by XperDunn on May 21, 2016

Saturday, May 21, 2016 11:17 AM

Hillary Clinton was the first First Lady to have an office in the West Wing as well as the Residence. She was the first First Lady to have a married a President who wasn’t threatened by the idea of her becoming involved in his work as head of state. There were other presidents (most notably FDR) who tolerated, or ‘let’ their spouses have a public voice—but Bill was the first to welcome his wife’s involvement beyond charity, and into policy. And he very wisely asked her to handle Health Care Reform, because back then a president needed a lightning rod to touch that issue—but it was her efforts that helped lead to the political environment that eventually allowed Obamacare to win through.

It was also the starting gun for the GOP witch-hunt that Hillary Clinton has endured since the nineties. A recent article pointed out that she is the first political figure whose attackers have spawned a multi-million-dollar industry. Personally, my response was, and continues to be, sympathy. Even if her policies were misguided, which they aren’t, that would still not justify the vitriolic and personal attacks that right-wing politicians have made a lifestyle.

And it became clear that their dislike stemmed not just from opposition to progressive policies, but their opposition to women’s equality—to the GOP, Hillary is the uncrowned queen of Women’s Lib. And it is no coincidence, as some would have it, that America will be one of the last developed countries to elect a female head of state, when and if we finally do that.

Their frustration led them down the road of truth-twisting and fact-denying, which in turn led to their present candidate—a clown with no shot at beating her for the office of president. Their minds are turning in their graves (having stopped breathing, when Bush Jr. was elected) and their heads are ready to explode, seeing their nemesis so close to victory. I say it’s only justice.

Welcome to Paradise (2016May20)

Posted by XperDunn on May 20, 2016

Friday, May 20, 2016 2:00 PM

Hillary Clinton offers us our best chance at maintaining respect abroad and keeping us safe and economically healthy at home. Plain and simple. And that is partly due to her lifelong commitment to progressive but pragmatic government—an area in which Bernie Sanders certainly out-talks her, but doesn’t come close to out-performing her. And no one who cares a fig for social justice would ever consider her GOP opponent. Case closed.

But there is a mountain-range of BS to get yourself lost in. I recommend avoiding the cable news shows—at this point they’re trying so hard to drum up a contest between the most-fit candidate and history’s least-fit presidential candidate, that they stir up the mud between Hillary and Bernie, just to hug the shores of rational thought a little while longer. For any self-respecting journalist to suggest that there is a contest between Hillary and the orange clown is going to take several deep breaths, considering what a deep dive into the ridiculous that represents.

Certainly it is ethically allowable to report on the wave of mouth-breathers whose Orangutanal champion has emboldened them to crawl out of the woodwork in the name of political incorrectness, dog-whistle bigotry, and fear-mongering. But to report on his every smirk as if it stood up to Hillary’s lifetime of experience and service—please.

Politics is boring—if it wasn’t dry as dust, slow as molasses, and frustrating as hell, we’d have less voters and more candidates. Thus it’s understandable that journalists yearn for some point of interest, a scandal or a feud—anything to raise the pall from this deathly boring subject. But to abet a rising tide of demagoguery simply for the sake of ratings—that’s beyond the pale. If it weren’t the Media itself, the media would be all over this stupidity.

If they want human interest, they could easily delve into the depths of humiliation the GOP must be feeling right now—after cultivating idiocy in its base for decades, the chickens have come home to roost with a vengeance. I hear the late-night comics joking about it, but I don’t hear any serious journalists discussing it. Why should that be?

The party with a permanent nose-bleed from getting on its high horse has suddenly decided that rules were made to be broken, that platforms can conform to changing times, that the stupid have spoken—and they’re okay with that. Policies that they used to hate so much they shut down the government can now be easily overlooked, if only their candidate says so. That must be a bitter pill to swallow.

Not to mention the cognitive dissonance in realizing that supporting their nominee could destroy their platform—Trump is no Republican. And that is the miracle of him—who’d have ever imagined that American politics could find something worse than the Republicans? It boggles the mind. I urge everyone to vote for Hillary—if for no other reason than to get that horror-show off the airwaves. Just imagine it—a whole news cycle without Trump in it. Ah, paradise!

Closing In (2016May17)

Posted by XperDunn on May 19, 2016

Tuesday, May 17, 2016 11:03 AM

I was always one of those too-enthusiastic people—teachers’ pet in schools, messing up on jobs by trying too hard when everyone else was happier skating along—you know, an unbearable eager-beaver—easy to trick, easy to tease, and otherwise—undesirable company. I’m the same way about learning and words and stuff—that’s why the first thing strangers and bartenders say to me is usually “So you went to college, huh?” This is funny in a sad way, since I never actually got a degree—in spite of several colleges and universities. When I was younger, still in school, it was “You talk funny.” or just “Speak English.”

So, naturally, I get over-excited about the presidential election—a situation where rational judgement seems so obviously called for, and yet somehow precluded from the process. If the cable news shows keep repeating the word “Trump” a thousand times a day, every day, until November—we just might elect him—not because the man is fit for the office—or polite company, but because of the ubiquitous nature of his ‘brand’.

I’m also tired of the cable news shows manufacturing their own reality for the sake of drama—no one ever mentions Hillary without including the words ‘disliked’ or ‘mistrusted’. But she just won another primary last night—if everyone hates her so much, why is she still the obvious favorite? The idea that this sensible, responsible civil servant might lose out to a nightmare-clown with delusions of grandeur makes me ill. But like I said, I’m too serious most of the time—some people seem to be enjoying the whole circus.

I’d be one of them—it’s not as if the establishment doesn’t deserve a good kick in the teeth—if I weren’t certain that the GOP candidate is a greater threat to us than to the establishment. And Bernie’s no better—making a lot of rash promises without the first clue about the process of reaching those goals. Bernie is a wish-list come to life—he’s pointing out what’s wrong with capitalism—without any admission that we are capitalists, and that changing the system without wrecking the system is not something you can do overnight. I’m starting to wonder if Bernie Sanders isn’t just the second coming of Joe Lieberman—a Jewish Democratic presidential candidate who’s a closet Republican—and he’s just a spoiler for Hillary.

Gandhi once pointed out that throughout history, in all the great struggles, good always emerged victorious in the end. And I can see how that might be—good makes for a stronger team than evil. But I fear that the opposite is also true—that in peacetime, behind closed doors, evil eventually and inevitably creeps in and builds a nest. Without any obvious call for self-sacrifice or any effort to act as a team, people have more opportunity to indulge themselves—and in time, self-indulgence becomes the norm.

America has become so great, or to coin a phrase—‘huge’—that we can utilize a mere one percent of our people to wage global war—leaving the other ninety-nine percent free to quietly grub for money. It’s the worst of both worlds. I’m not a fan of wars or disasters—but it fascinates me that we are at our best in the midst of calamity. It’s such an intense heightening of spirit that if we try to act that way—in the middle of a quiet, peaceful day—we seem crazy.

Just about 300 CDs—that’s a rough estimate of my total collection. I’m closing in on the last few piles to be ripped to the hard drive. After the months of ripping, I’m somewhat disappointed that there’s not more—the process seemed endless. But if you figure an average play-length of 60 minutes per CD, that comes to twelve-and-a-half days of continuous music—nearly two weeks of non-stop 24-7 sound—and roughly $2,400 worth of intellectual property.

Oddly enough, my first impulse—as I approach the completion of the ripping project—is to start thinking of how I’d like to burn new CDs of selected tracks! It’s a detail we rarely consider—to truly enjoy a large music collection, it needs to be ‘DJ-ed’ into interesting play-lists. Store-bought CDs have to be single-themed, whereas a listener prefers to hear a variety of tracks (and some are better than others, too). I like to hear a little classical, a little rock, and a little new age—sometimes I even throw in some of my own piano recordings. Thus, I have nearly as many CDs ‘burned’ as CDs store-bought—but since my home-made CDs are comprised of selected tracks from the store-bought, I didn’t have to rip the home-made ones.

When burning personally-DJ-ed CDs, it’s important to print a jewel-case playlist-insert—after ten or twenty CDs, if you don’t have what you’ve already burned clearly visible, you’ll go crazy—or you’ll end up with a few tracks that show up on several CDs—it’s better to keep track. Also, if you use a short label-name to handwrite on the CD itself, then use that ‘label’ as the title for your printed graphic, you don’t have to do a lot of hand-printing on the CD. Does anyone remember trying to print all the track titles onto that tiny square of cardboard in a cassette-tape case? I like having a printing press in my house—even if it is an HP.

When Asked About Quantum Mechanics (2016May16)

Posted by XperDunn on May 16, 2016

May 16th, 2016

The simple answer is that quantum physics is newer, and therefore more advanced than what we call mechanical physics (or ‘regular’ physics). However, modern quantum mechanics, our present-day method of studying physics (nuclear, chemical, or astronomical) is so complex that its 1^st quarter-century, from 1900-1925, is now referred to as ‘Old Quantum Theory’. In that first, primitive form, Niels Bohr and a bunch of other guys noticed that electrons orbit a nucleus at different levels—never in-between the levels. They called the ‘steps’ from one level to another ‘quanta’ (the plural of ‘quantum’, both from the Latin quantus ‎(“how much”).

Actually, they used ‘quantum’ to refer to the miniscule amount of energy lost or gained when an electron moved from one orbit to another. They realized that quanta are limited—down at that level, energy doesn’t slide smoothly up and down a scale, but jumps from one quantum level to another. And this is just one of the ways in which very-small-scale (or nuclear) physics differ from what we call macroscopic physics (like throwing a baseball or flying a plane).

Another example is indeterminacy—usually referred to as Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. What Heisenberg said was: you can’t see a thing without bouncing something off of it—usually a photon of light. But when things get very, very tiny you can’t bounce something off of it without moving it, or changing it somehow. So he concluded that you can’t look at something without changing the thing you’re looking at. It’s a great principle because it’s true of sub-atomic particles, but it’s also true of people—even of groups of people—if you watch them, they notice you’re watching them—and they change their behavior. But that’s not physics—it’s more like a coincidence.

The biggest obstacle to understanding quantum mechanics is that it’s based on the idea that there are more dimensions than we know of, or are aware of—the usual three dimensions of Space, and the fourth dimension of Time. They theorize that there are many more dimensions—maybe eleven or twelve, nobody really knows yet. The dimensions we know of seem so basic, so much a part of reality, that’s it’s nearly impossible to imagine what a fifth or sixth dimension would do, or where it would go. But mathematics can let theoretical physicists play around with the idea and try to get something out of it that humans can understand, at least partly. Still, you can see why there aren’t a lot of theoretical physicists—it’s kind of a headache.

Also, Multiple Dimensions pose the same problem as Dark Matter or Dark Energy—we only have so much empirical evidence to work with—the rest is all theories—and those theories, being about things we don’t see, or can’t comprehend, make it hard to come up with real-world experiments that could prove the theories.

To prove the existence of the Higgs boson (the ‘God’ particle) CERN had to build the Large Hadron Collider, which straddles the border between Switzerland and France—it is a circular structure 17 miles in circumference. It took ten years to build it. Peter Higgs came up with the theory in 1964—but he didn’t win the Nobel Prize until 2013. There were several other scientists involved, but I don’t want to complicate this more than I have to. The famous Stephen Hawking experienced the same sort of thing—he theorized the Big Bang in his graduate thesis, and described theoretical properties of Black Holes—and had to wait many years before people stopped laughing at him and started respecting him for being right—just like Higgs.

This is not the first time theory came long before experimental confirmation—when Einstein wanted to prove that gravity bent light, he devised an experiment that measured the apparent position of Mercury just before it passed behind the Sun. Because that light would have to pass by a big gravity-well like the Sun, the light gets bent and the apparent position of Mercury would differ from the known position of Mercury. The experiment had to be delayed because World War I U-boats made it impossible to go to the exact place on Earth where the observations had to be made—Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity wasn’t published until after the war, when the experiment could finally be done. And that was before Quantum Physics even came into the picture.

So, if pressed, I would have to say that the main difference between Mechanical Physics and Quantum Physics is that Mechanical Physics is human-oriented—Newton based his Laws of Motion and Universal Gravitation on careful observation—he described what he saw, and pointed out the mathematical relationships of physical phenomena, for instance, that gravity decreased in proportion to the square of the distance between two objects.

Quantum Mechanics, on the other hand, is based on accepting that human limits are not the end of the story—that the universe is a strange place with more to it than we can see, or even imagine. It even opens up the possibility that a human brain may not ever be able to fully understand the universe—which makes Quantum Mechanics a glorious, even quixotic, quest for knowledge.

End Times (2016May14)

Posted by XperDunn on May 14, 2016

Saturday, May 14, 2016 12:29 AM

If the end times come and the orange excrescence is voted president by a majority of Americans, we will have become victims of our own success, just like every empire before the American. When this country started out, we kicked out a king by force of arms—that’s commitment. Then we quelled a few rebellions and fought the War of 1812, after carefully designing a brand-new, unheard-of form of government.

Then we got stuck on some of the finer points and fought a Civil War over them. People attended their local town halls as religiously as they went to church. People sued each other as a hobby—the source of the term ‘litigious’—and not to rip someone off, like they do today—these people sued over the principle of the thing. Yes, it was stupid, in excess—but it was excessive involvement in self-government.

Women’s Liberation tried unsuccessfully to get an Equal Rights Amendment passed in the 1970s—but the real fight, the one women fought until they won, was for the right to vote, back at the turn of the previous century—they knew, as the Civil Rights movement knew later on, that all power, and change, comes from the power to vote.

Today we have even forgotten that it is self-government. Things have run fairly smoothly, if you’re in the mainstream (i.e. white, male, Christian, rich, etc.) and the idea that we all attend town hall on a regular basis is just a bit of quaint whimsy in “Gilmore Girls”—to lend it that old-timey New England flavor. Today’s ‘town halls’ are just a cable-news-show format for politicians. And today’s litigious aren’t political cranks—they’re rich people hiring lawyers to rip off poor people. Lobbyists, political patrons, and commercially-biased journalists have more influence on present politics than the voters do.

As the world, and our country, became more crowded, more hurried, and more complex, our politics devolved into the simplicity of a sporting event, which the voters watch on TV and then vote for their ‘team’—no one expects our government to react decisively on behalf of the people, as Roosevelt did with the New Deal, or as Johnson did with the Civil Rights Act. Today’s politicians are only required to react to the 24-hour-news-cycle’s latest story, knowing that tomorrow’s story will gloss over any cracks in their reasoning.

It reminds me of when I was a young, first-time car owner—I knew that maintaining a car was a thing—but I’d never done anything with my car except get in and drive around—I thought putting the gas in was all the maintenance that mattered. One day, I ran out of oil and my engine block seized up—ever since then, owning a car has been much more hassle and less fun—but I use a car now without destroying it.

We’ve been driving America for quite a while now, arguing over which turns to take—but nobody is worrying about whether the oil needs changing, or if the tires are bald. We’re too busy driving the car to take care of it. And it’s going to end up smoking by the side of the road—I know. America is in danger of falling victim to its own success—we take it all as given, like it can’t ever go away. The truth is that our wonderful lives are the product of a lot of effort that we no longer see—or see the need for.

America invented Public Education because we recognized that people can’t govern themselves if they are ignorant—it has become a world standard, that we are now falling behind on. That’s not a good sign. Education and journalism—real journalism—are two things that helped make America great—losing both of them is going to hurt us more with every passing day. We may not see it right now, but we’re losing important pillars of democracy—and without democracy in the mix, capitalism becomes fascism by paycheck.

I’d say we could use another World War—they always seem to perk us up—but we went and made nuclear bombs and screwed that whole thing up. I guess it’s time for some other country to advance humanity’s cause. That’s the only good news in all this—the American Empire may be headed the way of all empires—but there’s always another empire just around the corner. And let’s face it—if your elected leader is Donald Trump, it’s time to call it a day.

ttfn….

Stupid (2016May11)

Posted by XperDunn on May 12, 2016

Wednesday, May 11, 2016 8:43 PM

Some are illiterate, some are ignorant, some are just willfully wrong-headed based on family tradition or religious zaniness. The stupid are among us, both candidates and voters. In everyday life we have to deal with the stupid—they cause the majority of traffic jams, on the road or on line at the market—anywhere that rules are required to keep things running smoothly, the stupid are there to jam up the works.

We look up to the monumentally stupid because their grandiose idiocy causes flood-victims to languish, lead-poisoning in the water, underpaid workers—even wars that have no end, because their foundations are stupidity—and once they’ve started the violence, their stupid brethren refuse to let anything be dropped and forgotten. Great (but stupid) things are done by greatly stupid people—there are even stupidity hoops you have to jump through to be accepted amongst these morons. Fraternal hazing, unpaid internships, playing along with the head stupid in charge—there are many steps before someone reaches the point where they will be trusted with the reins of stupidity in leadership.

Or you can simply be raised ‘entitled’—that’s got the stupid baked right in, and the confidence to use your stupid to its fullest potential. God, it makes me sick just writing about these stains. Never mind.

What a crock of shit life can be. And it could be so different—god, people suck! You know, people being nice, being generous, open-minded, people caring and helping—that shit isn’t supposed to be the rare nugget in a sea of shit—it’s supposed to be most of society, with just a few poor, broken souls causing some trouble now and then. But we get the opposite—every leader, every rich person, every boss—a total shitbag that deserves an eternity in hell—and 90% of people just walking around—just as bad. Ask’em why—they’ll tell you that you’ve got to “look out for number one”—fucking idiots—as if they would exist if people hadn’t shown them kindness along the way. It’s like misogyny—show me a misogynist who wasn’t raised by a caring mother—then (when you can’t) explain that bullshit to me—I’d love to understand this assholery. People are so fucking stupid.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not dissing the mentally-challenged—those are some of the finest people you’ll ever meet. No—stupid is something altogether different—stupid is being unwilling to pay attention, to absent oneself from responsibility, to make one’s own interests a priority over being a part of society. You can always hear stupid people saying things like, “You’ve got your opinion, I’ve got mine.” Opinions are private things, preferences, if you will—you don’t make the rules, or set public policy, or treat people differently—because of your opinion—you do it because you’ve given the matter some thought and considered the needs of everyone involved. Having an opinion about public policy is no different from the classic ‘because I said so’—acceptable in the extremes of parenting, perhaps, but never when dealing with your fellow grown-ups.

It’s stupid that we have rich people and starving people—and it’s not just stupid for the rich one and the starving one—it’s stupid of all of us to allow that kind of chicanery to be ‘the ways things are’. And don’t tell me it’s always been that way—the longer it’s been that way, the stupider it is to allow it to continue. Ditto war. Ditto bigotry. I could go on, but I’m tired of listing the many ways of stupidity—I’m a goddamned connoisseur of stupid—we have so many flavors.

Sure, there are scientists in laboratories all over the place, making up extremely intelligent new shit—that’s great. But when are we going to stop confining intelligence to the laboratory? When are we going to apply humanity’s vaunted intelligence to our fucking lives? Our Constitution is over two hundred years old and it’s been more than fifty years since the Civil Rights Act—when are we going to do some more good work like that? I know it’s tiring to think about stuff, but how long is this ‘break’ supposed to last?

Stupid.

Nice Day (2016May09)

Posted by XperDunn on May 9, 2016

Monday, May 09, 2016 3:19 PM

Gosh ain’t it great? Is there anything quite so delightful as a face full of sunshine after a week of rainy days? No, I don’t think so. And I don’t usually go outside, you know—bugs and mud and why would you, right? But today, oh yeah—today I went out and stuck my head up, like a flower, drinking in vitamin D like someone had added sugar.

I’ve been practicing some Brahms over the weekend, and earlier this morning—from the first volume, with the sonatas and all those variations, and just a few of the kind of pieces that make up my usual stomping grounds, volume two. I tell you, I spent about an hour just trying to play this one original theme—trying to ignore the forty pages of complex and challenging variations that only virtuosos bother with, that come after the Thema. Brahms isn’t happy unless you have to be Hercules to play the damned chord.

But today I’ve been enjoying Edward MacDowell’s “Sea Pieces”—there is one Song from that piano suite which is often included in Selected Easy Classical Piano books, but the rest of the pieces are quite challenging. I enjoy it after Brahms, because it seems easier after that monster’s sheet music—and I get a break in the middle, where that easy Song is. One of these days, I’ll be able to play most of it without stopping.

I’m feeling good today—things are going well—Claire’s finally over that awful cold that stalked her for over a week—Jessy’s in her last trimester and taking off from her job to take it easy. And I played a recital on Friday. Okay, now I’m gonna stop, because inventorying my memory for good stuff has just reminded me of some not good stuff. But I’ve felt worse, that’s all I’m saying.

I just found this new guy on YouTube, Bryan Schumann–ain’t he great?

The Yearly Recital (2016May07)

Posted by XperDunn on May 9, 2016

Saturday, May 07, 2016 9:00 PM

Sherryl Marshall had her annual recital next door last night—I traditionally kick things off, since I’m shameless enough to do it—and it helps put the others at ease to see me mess things up (which I do) and not have the world come to an end. Everybody gets up and sings a song or three—I did “Masquerade”, “Maybe”, and “Marching Along Together”, all from the 1930s, and all (as Claire pointed out) from the ‘M’ section of my songbook. I’ve played my parents’ old songbook for decades, but still I had to rehearse these three for a few days beforehand, just to be comfortable performing them in front of other people (something I only do this one time each year, excepting Xmas-caroling sing-alongs).

Afterwards, when I got home, I was like an old car that keeps backfiring for a while after you turn off the ignition—spazzing and making involuntary exclamations—like the police were coming for me or something. I’m really not cut out for public performance. But then there is also a feeling of having made it through an ordeal, which is very satisfying. I spent most of today just basking in the fact that it was over with, and that I hadn’t screwed it up too badly.

I don’t get out of the house much. It’s wonderful of Sherryl to include me in these annual recitals—I’m not even one of her students. She says it makes the other students comfortable to see a neighbor there, that it makes it more casual—but I think she’s just being very kind to her shut-in, next-door neighbor. And these annual concerts help to remind me why I don’t try to perform more often on my own—it’s terrifying. I only do it that once each year—I don’t know how Sherryl has the courage to do it for a living. But then, she’s a real musician—a professional—and I imagine that gives a person more confidence when they stand up in front of a crowd.

I wish I could offer you some video from the concert, but I left my camera at home—I didn’t expect my singing to be worth recording. This re-enactment video will show you why—I guess I do better under pressure. Or maybe it was the setting—I don’t know.

Also, I want to wish all you mothers out there a very happy mother’s day!

G’night.

Money and Time (2016May07)

Posted by XperDunn on May 7, 2016

Money

Friday, May 06, 2016 11:33 AM

America was relatively young and full of beans after the second World War—the middle class exploded, salaries climbed to the sky, and poverty reached a record low of 11% in 1974—a figure we haven’t seen since. My whole adult life has been witness to our economic decline—so I can easily understand people wanting to ‘go back’ to better times. But grow up, already—hey, I’d like to be twenty-one again, too—but that ain’t gonna happen. We call it the ‘past’ for a reason.

And America, having reached those historic highs by being America, is never going to recover that prosperity by undoing the social progress that is America’s defining feature. That’s a bill of goods being sold to us by the finger-pointers, who blame various groups for something that is systemic—the changes in global and domestic economy that have brought us to where we are now are not going to be fixed by targeting some ethnic or religious faction—and certainly not by blaming the poor.

Business used to be a social contract that included stockholder profits in the equation—it has been whittled down to where it now concerns itself solely with that one objective—and as always happens when greedy people oversimplify a situation, we are seeing a lot of dysfunction in business—especially in the area of employment. For one thing, nobody has had a raise since 1980. People don’t make money in America anymore—a few people own money, and the rest of us have to scramble for the scraps. You’re not gonna fix that by blaming the Mexicans—or the Chinese. You’re only going to fix that problem by returning to a world where employees matter to their employers.

And if America has let itself become too accepting of child-slave-labor products from overseas, we’re not going to fix that by importing that cold-blooded attitude back here to America. Businesses have been very eager to cancel their interests in North Carolina due to gender-rules in bathrooms—when are we going to stop importing goods from countries that treat their workers like serfs? It doesn’t help that our politicians spend more time and energy on rationalizing our dysfunctions than on finding solutions—but the real problem is that too few people have too much say, and those rich bastards have hearts of stone. The easy answer is just to kill all the rich people. Maybe after they spend a few days ducking bullets, they’d re-acquire some respect for the people that actually create their fortunes.

It’s a puzzle, alright—how can we keep getting new gadgets, new discoveries, new insights—and the result always turns out to be a bigger mess than we’ve ever had to deal with before? How can we have unheard-of productivity and at the same time suffer under unemployment and low wages? What the hell? Someone has rigged the table and we’re all getting taken.

Time

Thursday, May 05, 2016 11:37 AM

Our kids were born in the 1980s. I was born in 1956, my parents in the 1930s, my grandparents were born in the 1910s—we’ve been a very 20^th century family for quite a while. Here we are, 16 years into the next millennium, and I’m about to become grandfather to our first 21^st-century kid. To him or her, my entire century will be a vague notion in a schoolbook; I will be a strange, wrinkled old man; his or her world will be something I never fully understand.

You can see why people are so fascinated by stories of time-travel—time-travel isn’t that much different from a genie granting wishes—you can have whatever you want, but the genie will put a fatal twist on it that you didn’t see coming. Time is such a troublemaker that even if we could jump around in it, we would still have problems with it.

My biggest problem with time is that time only goes quickly by when I’m happy. What’s with that? What evolutionary advantage is there in losing track of time when you’re happy? Maybe it’s our bodies saying to us, “Well, there’s no danger here—don’t pay any attention.” If danger can heighten our awareness, then perhaps happiness does the opposite. Maybe that’s why orgasms are so brief—it’s Mother Nature getting us back in the game, so we don’t get eaten in the afterglow. Happiness is a blank space to our instincts, and they just shut down until we return to the drudgery of survival. And perhaps that’s why an old codger like myself is mistrustful of happiness—we are at our most vulnerable when happiness turns off our alarm system. Perhaps that’s why the Puritans were so dead set against being happy—it has similarities to intoxication.

Then again, I have to wonder why I’m so afraid of being vulnerable—I made it sixty whole years without ever having to use a gun or a knife—or even my fists. It reminds me of how bad my fear of dogs once was, without ever being bitten—there was a mean dog on our street, but it never bit me—it just strained against its chain, making the most angry barks and growls. I think I was frightened by its display of viciousness—it obviously wanted to confront something. Also, I think people treated their dogs worse back then—mean dogs don’t come out of a vacuum—they are a reflection of their owners. I was no less afraid of people—they had more bark to them, back then, as well.

Nowadays, fear grows and grows—and it has less cause than ever. I go through night-terrors and anxiety attacks without any reason—I’d be more comfortable with actual dangers—at least those can be faced down. This vague, unfocused terror is a thing unto itself—it just is—what do you do with that shit?

Lesley Stahl has come out with a new book, “Becoming Grandma”, about the wonders of being a grandmother—she claims there is an actual biochemical change in a person who is granted a grandchild—I hope she’s right. Claire and I are fairly dancing with anticipation. And time bustles on.

Journalist Cowards (2016May06)

Posted by XperDunn on May 7, 2016

Friday, May 06, 2016 8:17 PM

I keep finding new aspects of Trump’s popularity and media-attention that upset me. Today it occurred to me that everyone talks about what Trump said or what Trump did—but no one ever talks about who Trump is or what Trump thinks.

For instance, no one ever asks Trump why he suddenly decided to devote his life to public service—and the reason they don’t ask is because they know without it being said—Trump isn’t devoting himself to public service (although that is the job he’s running for) he’s going after a shiny power-bauble that caught his attention. His ego is actually doing the running for office—he probably has a tiny id somewhere deep inside that’s sweating how big of a hassle being the president is going to be.

The real president today scolded the press saying, “This is not entertainment. This is not a reality-show. This is a contest for the presidency of the United States of America.” I’m even a little upset with his word choice at the end—it may be a ‘contest’, but it is first and foremost a choice—a responsibility that voters have on their shoulders, whether they recognize its seriousness or not.

Trump has never done any work in the field in which he has chosen to ‘start at the top’—far from ever running before, or holding office before, he has never so much as clerked in a public office, courthouse, or civic center. And he never served. Past debates over presidential candidates focused on who would do the job better—with a complete novice like Trump, the answer is clear—regardless of policy, Hillary Clinton would walk into the job knowing the context of her position—for Trump it would be like sitting down to a snazzy new video-game console—he’d have fun figuring out what all the different buttons do—and he’d get the biggest kick out of the stuff that blows stuff up. No matter how popular—why would we want an uninitiated child in the top slot?

Is it because the voters just don’t have the balls, or the emotional investment to take to the streets and rise up against corruption and obstructionism—and they’re going to vote for Trump as a way of destroying the government? It’s kinda like Tea-Party-gone-nuclear, if you think about it—arm-chair rebellion. This simple-minded showman will never get elected—unless the whole country has gone out of its mind. I just don’t know if I can take the media fawning over this jackass, after a year and more of it already, all the way to November.

Isn’t there one decent journalist left in America? Won’t someone please ask this idiot to explain why voters should trust him when he never gives any specific details about what he’ll do, if elected? Won’t someone please ask him why he thinks an ego qualifies him to rule the free world, absent any knowledge or background in either domestic or foreign affairs beyond shady business meetings with god knows who? Paycheck –journalists—that’s what I call you. It’s not about the job—it’s about the paycheck. Now that I think of it—no wonder you guys are behind him—you’re already living in his world. Gutless traitors.

It’s The Little Things (2016May02)

Posted by XperDunn on May 2, 2016

Monday, May 02, 2016 3:02 PM

When it comes to the fine arts, we are always prepared to follow the examples of those how have come before—in spite of also recognizing that past artists are of a greatness few can match. Thus we end up with grade-schoolers trying to emulate Mozart or Da Vinci, which is all well and good, especially if the youngster in question has a spark of talent that needs fanning into flame. But, as I have often put forward before, I believe the arts should not be a fenced-in preserve for the talented.

When we are in kindergarten, or even K-thru-3, we often sing songs together—this is both educational and fun, and little notice is paid to a lack of rhythm or tonal ear by any one child—though there is often material there for a critic, to be sure—and greatness is put to the side. Entire schools would gather for ‘auditorium’, which usually ended with a sing-along.

Later on, as early as high school, ‘choir’ becomes a class subject, weaning out those with little interest or ability. That’s fine—that’s understandable—it is school, after all, and they’re there to learn. But are all those other children meant to spend the rest of their lives without a song? That seems rather unlively to me. So I have been a one-man protest movement for music—aided these last ten years by YouTube, which allows my amateur efforts to reach far beyond the few people that walk past our house and sometimes hear tinkling inside.

Lately, I’ve had a few good improvs—but they’ve only lasted a minute or so. I have had to teach myself to sometimes be satisfied with that—there is a temptation to keep going, to create something of awesome architecture, like the musical greats of the past. But I am not a ‘musical great’—I’m not even a ‘musical so-so’—so if I record a mere minute of something nice, I try to accept that with good grace rather than try for something more traditional. And you would be surprised, as I have often been, by just how slowly the seconds tick by when you’re trying to be creative at the keyboard—a minute of decent improvisation is no small feat, not for me anyhow.

Also, while improvising, the longer one plays the more likely one will fall back on old tropes, familiar filler that one has used before—and one edges away from true improvisation and turns more towards rehearsal of the familiar. This is okay once in a while, but it should be recognized as such, or one’s improvs will come to sound like a familiar refrain. One’s personal musical style will make that problem enough without willingly pursuing the familiar. I’m proud that my daughter has told me that she can always tell it’s me at the piano—but I’d feel much differently if she had said I always sound the same.

Anyway, here are today’s selections—two very short improvs and one that is longer but is really three separate improvs (in different keys) in one video. Then there’s a long one that isn’t quite audience-ready—it’s a sample of the practicing of classical composers that I do to help keep my improvs changing and growing. One of my favorite songs is the old classic by Spanky McFarlane, “Sing Your Own Kind Of Music”—lyrics to live by, I’ve always thought.

Mommy, Where Do Republicans Come From? (2016Apr29)

Posted by XperDunn on April 29, 2016

Friday, April 29, 2016 9:50 AM

Republicans are stupid. Republicans politicians are just smart enough to get paid by the rich and by corporations for advocating stupid legislature, but the Republican voter is unabashedly stupid, voting against his or her best interests, voting against science, voting against common sense. Republicans politicians cultivated stupidity in the party’s ranks for many years—‘teaching the controversy’ on many issues that sensible people considered settled, using ‘dog-whistles’ to attract certain ‘patriotic’-seeming hates, and persistently reassuring white Christian males that they were the apex of humanity (all that ‘equality’ nonsense aside).

So when twelve or so Republican presidential candidates took the field, way back when, they were all different flavors of stupid—you had conventional stupid (a la Bush Dubya, or rather, brother Jeb), religion-crazed stupid (a la Cruz), overtly corrupt stupid (a la Chris Christie), and just plain bat-shit crazy stupid, which appears to be the shoe-in for nomination. The Republicans wanted their voters good and stupid—but then were shocked to find that they supported the stupidest candidate that ever ran for the office. That’s pretty stupid.

Then they all got behind Ted Cruz, whom Boehner recently described as ‘the most miserable son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever worked with’—a man reviled by virtually all of his colleagues—merely because he was the only viable alternative to their front-runner, who they hate even more for his being an outsider, with his own brand of stupid. Any reasonable, intelligent group of people would have thrown up their hands at this point—but not the Republicans. Now that Trump has forced himself upon them, you can be sure that they will back his candidacy with the same wooden-headed stubbornness that they use to deny racism, climate change, or the nature of homosexuality.

The front page of the Times today has a story about how Trump is attacking Clinton with veiled sexism—and that the Democrats are ‘scrambling’ to find a way to counter this attack. I find that obtuse. And I’m upset that Republican stupidity has found legitimacy in the media, purely on the basis of its having become their political platform. I’m sorry, Republicans (and the NY Times) but stupid is stupid—it doesn’t need to be defended against, except when talking to Republicans. Trump’s appeal is confined to people angry enough to want conflict instead of compromise—even with the evidence of how conflict within the legislature paralyzes our government staring them in the face. These voters don’t want things done right, they want things done fast—thinking about whether it’s right or not is just more of that ‘political correctness’ that they blame for all their problems.

In fact, a vote for Trump is a way of quoting that old John Candy flic, “Canadian Bacon”, where a guy at the bar says, “There’s a time for thinking and a time for action—and this is no time for thinking.” In the movie, it’s meant as a joke, a witty one-liner—but for Trump, it’s a campaign slogan that his adherents would unthinkingly agree with.

We have a two-party system, so naturally we think of them as equals—but there is no equivalence between Trump and Clinton. Clinton is a lifelong public servant with knowledge and experience far beyond the average citizen—Trump is an average citizen with a lot of money and a big mouth. And I think I’m being kind with the use of ‘average’—‘below average’ might be more correct.

Americans, by and large, are not fans of big thoughts or deep thinking—that’s nothing new. But we used to elect people to office who were smarter than us, just so they could do the thinking for us. This idea of electing someone just as stupid as the least of us, because he ‘represents’ us, is a new low. Apparently, even once every four years is too often to ask American voters to think.

Most people could have told you a year ago that Trump would be the Republican, and Clinton the Democratic nominee, and that Clinton would crush him in the general. We’ve all known this for some time. But the media persist in scaring us, creating dramatic tension (and ratings) by constantly asking the question, “Will America be stupid enough to vote in Trump?” Everyone knows the answer is a resounding ‘no’. But the media can’t accept that—there’s no excitement in a foregone conclusion—so they take a page from the Republicans, and ‘teach the controversy’.

Movies With Madness (Three Reviews) (2016Apr28)

Posted by XperDunn on April 28, 2016

Thursday, April 28, 2016 4:11 PM

Movie Review: “Nina”

I watched “Nina” on VOD yesterday—a film about Nina Simone, the legendary blues singer (incredibly played (and sung!) by Zoe Saldana) at the end of her career, facing instability, alcoholism, and illness, with the help of a male nurse, Clifton Henderson (as played by David Oyelowo) and marking a triumphant return to the United States with a live free concert in Central Park. Oddly, historical records indicate that she performed at the New Jersey Performing Arts Centre in Newark upon her return to the US—and that it wasn’t ‘free’—but Nina Simone did perform in Central Park several times in her earlier career.

Other reviewers and critics take issue with lighter-skinned Ms. Saldana playing the very much darker High Priestess of Soul—but while I can understand a rejection of ‘blackface’ white performers playing black people—I think it’s going a bit far to complain of one African-American woman playing another. It makes more sense to complain that Zoe Saldana is too young and too thin—but this is a biopic, not a documentary, and her performance is often riveting, even if the historical accuracy of both her depiction and the story-line goes a bit by the boards. As with Jamie Foxx’s “Ray” (2004), “Nina” is as remarkable for the star’s vocal efforts as it is for the purported subject—though I wouldn’t have minded hearing the actual, recorded voice of the late Nina Simone sing a few bars at some point in the movie.

But you can just do what I did—go to YouTube afterwards and check out the real Nina Simone singing all the songs from the movie and more—that’s as much of a treat as the movie—and since the movie got me there, hooray for the movie. But see the movie first or you’ll never get over the very real difference in both appearance and vocals.

Movie Review: “The Lady In The Van” (2016Apr28)

I was eager to see “The Lady In The Van” because Maggie Smith gives good ‘crabby old lady’—and she certainly doesn’t disappoint in this movie that could have been written for her, if it wasn’t based on an actual woman. Still the film is based on the 1999 play—and takes place even earlier, in the seventies—so perhaps the film was only made to showcase Ms. Smith.

She plays a poor and confused woman who lives out of a van, which she parks in various places in the neighborhood until stricter parking regulations (and perhaps complaining residents) make it necessary for her to park in a driveway—that of the playwright, Allen Bennett, who forms a limited friendship with this loner who has reached the age when being a loner becomes problematic. The film is as much about the man as the lady—and both are seen by the Gloucester Crescent inhabitants as odd ducks. As with many stories about fragile, vulnerable people, the common run of humanity is portrayed as coarse and unsympathetic—from the whispering neighbors to the van-rocking toughs.

One striking element is the conflict between the personal care of Alan Bennett and the more ‘public’ care offered by the periodic appearance of a social worker—to be nice by nature is far different from being nice by the rulebook. It is especially telling when dealing with the mentally unstable, where a little patience and understanding can do so much more than the brusque attentions of a civil servant.

A few movies, like “The Lady In The Van”, are remarkable also in showing us Yankees how very different the British can be—it is so easy to assume that they are just ‘differently-American’, when they are really quite another thing altogether. This film, in showing both the similarities of such situations and their differences, informs us just how foreign England can be.

While Alex Jennings’ and Maggie Smith’s performances contain a lot of humorous touches, the overall plot is insurmountably bleak, so I wouldn’t watch it unless you’re in the mood for something good and serious.

Movie Review: Infinitely Polar Bear (2015)

I just watched “Infinitely Polar Bear” (it just showed up on cable this weekend) written and directed by Maya Forbes, starring Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Imogene Wolodarsky, and Ashley Aufderheide. I’m a long-time fan of both principles—I could go on all day about Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana—neither one has been in a movie I didn’t like. Imogene Wolodarsky and Ashley Aufderheide did a great job being directed by Imogene’s mom, Maya.

It was my favorite kind of movie—it was so engrossing that I immediately stopped being aware of watching a movie, got sucked completely into the story, and got that heartbroken/furious-combo feeling when it ended because I wanted it to keep going so badly. Mark Ruffalo plays a bi-polar father who makes you worry for his kids—in spite of his generally appearing to be a better father than most. But the best part of the movie is when it shows the madness of sanity against the relief of his specific bi-polar symptoms—his grandmother is crazy, his neighbors are crazy, the waiter in the restaurant is crazy—but all in ‘sane’ ways that society finds acceptable. At the same time, his madness makes him a better person in many ways—even while it cripples his ability to relate to the sanely-crazy.

It also shows that sometimes the only one hurt by insanity is the person himself—or herself—that being different is its own punishment in a world full of people busily trying to fit in. We tend to have more sympathy for a hero that resists peer-pressure than for a hero who isn’t aware of it—but in both cases, the reactions of others are the others’ problems, not the hero’s. The film shows the girls being educated by their father’s disability—rather uncomfortably, but in the end, to good purpose. I found it all very uplifting—maybe I relate a little too strongly to a crazy father.

Manufacture This (2016Apr27)

Posted by XperDunn on April 27, 2016

Wednesday, April 27, 2016 9:28 AM

A recent NY Times article points out that Manufacturing, the former giant of economic growth, is shrinking in the manpower it requires to meet demand. This means that manufacturing jobs aren’t disappearing to other countries—they are simply disappearing. And the increase in service industry jobs, with their meager pay, is only contributing to the income-inequality gap. The article suggests “health care, education and clean energy” as an alternative growth strategy—but I see this as an avoidance of the central issue.

The algorithm of capitalism is unraveling. It was once a given that creating a manufacturing base in a developing country would lift its citizens into a first-world economy—but a chart in the article shows how the return on manufacturing development, over time, has lost its ability to raise a given nation’s populace in either income or education. Eduardo Porter, the author of the article, uses this data to prove that the presidential campaigners’ promises to return manufacturing to the USA, even if fulfilled, would not create the wished-for boom in either employment or income, any more than it currently does in India or China.

It makes me impatient to see the issue parsed so precisely—to my mind, the overall concepts of capitalism—ownership, employment, demand—are as outdated as the specific case of manufacturing jobs. But I realize that changing an accepted paradigm is like turning a cruise ship—slow and full of inertia. And it doesn’t help that capitalism has become America’s political brand-identity, as well as a way to organize society—which adds a ‘loyalty’ factor to conservative thinking on the matter. But it is past time for America to return to its original brand-identity—that of Yankee ingenuity—because a post-capitalist global economy will certainly require a great deal of innovative thinking.

This is a link to the NY Times article mention above: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/business/economy/the-mirage-of-a-return-to-manufacturing-greatness.html

To invent something that makes a person’s life easier is called convenience. To invent something to make manufacturing and farming easier is called automation. We see them as two different things—this is what makes the decline of jobs a problem, to the point where legislation is passed in California trying to prevent further development of automation tech in agriculture—because it’s taking jobs away from the state. Not that it will do them any good—the Luddites never win—it’s like King Canute commanding the tide to back off.

More importantly, it misses the point—automation should be a good thing. The idea that civilization could produce enough to meet demand without a single employee should be a good thing. The only reason it isn’t is because capitalism is based on presuming that to be an impossibility. Capitalism says, ‘go out, get a job, and earn a salary—that’s how modern people make a living’. But if the living is being made without human participation, we need to find a new way to disburse our production to a globe of unemployed. The answer will sound a lot like socialism—although it will go even further, if faced squarely.

The real trouble is power—the answer to ‘the end of jobs’ will have to involve a lot of reasoning based on fairness, not on demand or need. Business owners, corporate board members, bosses of every kind will lose not just their petty tyranny over employees, but lose their power entirely—that power is based on capitalism and it will disappear along with it. It would be impossible to convince the one percent that they should surrender their power willingly—but ultimately they face a choice just as much as the rest of us. Workers are also customers—unemployed or underpaid workers can’t produce the revenue the one percent’s system is based on. So, while the worker faces the more immediate threat, the end-game involves us all.

We see the one-percenters tentatively embracing Ludditism—in the pushback against renewable energy and in the aforementioned union efforts to stop or slow automation in the workplace. We also see it in their transformation of our once wide-open avenues to higher education into overpriced preserves for the training of young one-percenters—and a source of mortgages paid on knowledge and accreditation by the rest of our children. But holding back technology and education will have no long-term effect on the coming changes—competition is also built into capitalism, so one way or the other, the whole paradigm is going to fail—has to fail, eventually. The only question is will we be enlightened about it, or we will make it into a fist-fight? Three guesses. And here’s a hint: Star Trek was fiction.

Music Monday (2016Apr25)

Posted by XperDunn on April 25, 2016

Monday, April 25, 2016 12:34 PM

Earlier in Western history, composers did not become famous as pop stars do today. Music in general did not get broadcast by any media. You knew the nursery rhymes of your neighborhood, the work songs, the dances, lullabies, love songs—folk music—but it wasn’t ‘folk’ to you, it was all of music, as far as you knew. Musicians had to spread their works on foot, like Johnny Appleseed, and many of them were popularizers of music, as much for their careers as for their love of music.

That is why there is a national flavor to each Old World country’s music—there really wasn’t a great deal of interaction between musicians who lived hundreds of miles away. We see composers, and later on, virtuoso performers, travel farther and reach more people, causing more concert halls and opera houses to be built, as transportation improves—until the invention of the phonograph and the radio begin to act as distributors of music, separate from the musicians themselves.

We think of classical music striving towards a greater freedom of expression, from the confining rigors of Gregorian chant to the wild liberty of the expressionists and the modernists—but that freedom was as much forced on them as fought for. Religious, political, and technological revolutions all caused upheavals in the norm, creating spaces where composers worked without the confinements of a generation earlier. That’s why we call the great composers geniuses instead of revolutionaries—they didn’t battle their way into new music, they discovered it within their imaginations. The tawdry battle between conservative and progressive music critics always lagged behind, creating a sense of resistance to change—but the musicians always simply filled a vacuum and left it to others to sort it out.

I’m always aghast at the contrast between old and current music—all those centuries of seeking the magic formula, the series of sounds that would thrill the audience—finally adding syncopation, blues notes, and latin rhythms to drive the excitement-level ever upwards—until the electric guitar came along, with that electronic buzz that satisfies people in a way that an entire symphony orchestra or big band never could, regardless of the composition of notes. Amplification added something unnatural as well—and suddenly four boys from Liverpool could fill Shea Stadium with adoring listeners.

It’s not that I hold it against rock and roll—I love the Beatles as much as the next member of my generation—it’s just so easy, it seems like cheating. The greenest beginner on an electric guitar can enthrall a roomful of music lovers—meanwhile a hundred musicians have to study for a lifetime to play a Stravinsky ballet suite—and it doesn’t have the drawing power of a Jimi Hendrix solo. People just love the alien sound of electronics—they can’t get enough of it. I think the “Switched-On Bach” album is probably Bach’s biggest sales hit of all time—and it’s because it was all performed on a Moog synthesizer.

It’s not as if electrification was the first music tech—keyboards were invented—bellows-driven organs, steam-driven calliopes, cranked hurdy-gurdies, paper-roll pianos, and spring-driven music boxes. And there’s the subtle plumbing that turned a pan pipe into a modern flute, a bugle into a trumpet—and all the mysterious varnishes and the carpentry of resonance that goes into making a fine string instrument—those Stradivariuses aren’t worth a king’s ransom for nothing. The modern piano-forte—what we call a concert Steinway these days—was such a masterwork of technology that many people link its emergence with the greatness of Beethoven’s piano sonatas—he was the first composer to have access to the modern version of a keyboard. He certainly makes use of its dynamic possibilities—no one could’ve written all those triple fortes and triple pianos for a harpsichord—or, at least, no one could play any dynamics without a hammer-action to control the volume.

Even today, music drives tech innovation—no musician is satisfied with what has come before—they’re always searching for something new—both in the music and in how it is played.

Have a good week.

Back to the Drawing Board (2016Apr21)

Posted by XperDunn on April 21, 2016

Thursday, April 21, 2016 12:14 PM

Most everyone is pretty excited about Harriet Tubman being put on the face of the twenty-dollar bill as of 2020. The news did manage to find this one yahoo, who gave the standard line about how he ‘respected’ Harriet Tubman and all, but there’s such a thing as tradition. Where do they find these people? Yes, racism is an old and venerated tradition in this country—the Confederate flag is tradition—murdering black people in the name of law and order is a fine old tradition. What would we do without tradition? Assholes.

And, speaking of—ain’t it great that Putin is re-starting the Cold War? This jamoke is increasing submarine activity throughout the world’s oceans as (get this) a response to the increasing rivalry. Rivalry? You want to rival the U.S., Vlad? Try stocking your supermarkets. Try putting a car in every garage. Russia has the greatest natural resources on Earth—and it ought to, it’s the biggest chunk of dirt there is—but they persist in starving and blaming the outside world for it. All that money they spend on their military—who the fuck wants to invade Russia? I sure as hell wouldn’t even go there on vacation.

I mean, I love Tchaikovsky, Tolstoy, Rachmaninoff, Chagall—lots of great Russian artists—a fabulous culture. But it is a culture borne of sadness and suffering. I guess we shouldn’t blame them—how many millions did Stalin kill, after Hitler failed to kill them all, after the Revolution failed to starve them all to death? They’ve had a rough century. Yet, instead of bettering themselves at home, they continue to look for some sort of world domination. Let me tell ya something, Russia—the USA has ‘world domination’, and you can have it. While you’re blowing all your cash on submarines, we’re sending most of ours off to try to feed and vaccinate every ungrateful hell-hole the world has to offer. We barely have enough left over to pay for the fighter jets we don’t really need.

This rise in nationalism is a real throw-back—a sign that most of the world is being run by octogenarians who still think like we live in pre-industrial times. Troops don’t take a field of battle anymore. Drones rain down death from a game console in Dubuque. Zika-bearing mosquitos pose a greater existential threat to the Americas than any army could possibly mount. A teenager with an I-Pad could wipe the databases of every bank in the world. Fuck nationalism. And submarines? Nuclear-missile submarines? What the actual fuck, Russia?

Actually, wait a minute—let’s talk about submarines. They are enclosed ecosystems with complex technology—kind of like the world is becoming—and on a submarine, everyone works together—or they all die on the bottom of the ocean. Working together is a very smart thing to do. Maybe that’s why we don’t do it—people don’t like to do the smart thing. Maybe we should declare the Earth a space-submarine and draft everyone into a world navy—a little discipline and cooperation goes a long way. But the worst people always end up in charge of things—its nature’s way of keeping humans animals—oh well, back to the drawing board.

Sunshine Session (2016Apr18)

Posted by XperDunn on April 19, 2016

Monday, April 18, 2016 5:05 PM

Pete and I went for two today—and came up with an extended session which I am pleased to share with you here—three improvs, six cover songs, and a piece by Domenico Scarlatti, no less—it was quite the take and I am now very tired—we don’t usually get so ambitious on these monthly get-togethers.

Now you can say that the covers—and certainly the Scarlatti—are terribly done and I can’t really argue with you. I post these more for the fun we had than for any great contribution to YouTube. But I stand by the improvs—they’re not so bad—and I don’t care what you think. Nothing inspires me more than to have a drummer play along with me—and Pete’s the greatest.

We start, as always, with an improv—today’s first improv was a warm-up, kinda Spanish-ey (I like to steal rhythms from Rodrigo) but not quite the greatest thing ever. That’s the trouble with improvisation—you can’t just ‘start’, you have to work your way into it—and I fear I lose listeners sometimes just because you have to give us a minute before we get anything going. Listeners don’t usually give that kind of slack to a YouTube video—but there’s no way around it, for me.

Here’s the chronology of today’s two part set:

Improv – When The Deep Purple Kush

Domenico Scarlatti‘s Sonata – Longo 23

Improv – Bluesome

Cover: “Crystal Blue Persuasion”

Cover: “All My Loving”

Cover: “Crimson and Clover”

[break]

Improv – Stone Soup

Two (2) 1960 Covers: “Gee Whiz” & “Silence Is Golden”

Cover: “Sugar Sugar”

As you can see, the second round was shorter and less ambitious—but I’m still impressed that we had a second round at all. Only at the beginning of our sessions would I try something crazy like the Scarlatti—but I got that out of the way (and out of my system)—and trust me, you really haven’t played Scarlatti until you’ve had tympani backing you up—even if it is only bongo drums. There are many fine pianists (and harpsichordists) on YouTube, so you can hear the piece played properly (I gave you the Longo number) if you wish to do a search.

The second improv came out that way because Pete said, after the Scarlatti, “Hey, let’s try something more bluesey.” So I improvised using mostly seventh chords, which is my way of sounding bluesey. I’d play like Art Tatum if I could—but again, just search on “Art Tatum” if you want to hear some real blues piano.

I had a great time today—we played some of my favorite piano arrangements of cover songs from the sixties—and there was a third improv that we tried to be spacey with—like an acid trip on the piano—but I don’t know, I was pretty tired out by then. We had a great, sunny day to play in—so for today we bill ourselves as the Buds-Up Sunshine Band (with apologies to K.C., et. al.)

We talked a bit about a podcast—but as we discussed it, I realized that I always pick activities that can’t be rushed or scheduled. If I had to do an improv once a week on schedule—well, I couldn’t do it. It’s just like the poetry or the drawing—I can only do what I’m inspired to do; I can’t just decide it’s time to play an improv. Besides, I have my good days and bad days—getting together with Pete once a month is about as busy as I can manage—and even then, some months are better than others. Fortunately, today was kickass.

Th’th’that’s all, Folks!

Good Morning (2016Apr16)

Posted by XperDunn on April 17, 2016

Friday, April 15, 2016 5:03 PM

Doggerel

“Auugh!”, as Charlie Brown used to say

—Though I prefer the traditional “Grrr!”

“Doh!” sez Homer Simpson—though I like a solid “Damn!”

On Firefly they say “Fracking” when they might as well say “Darn”.

I say “Golly-Gosh” a lot, ‘cause I know it won’t do no harm.

But if I’m really in a huff a give a loud “Harrumph!”

Just so you’ll know I’m pretty close to losing all my shit.

‘Cause when I get to swearing there’s no telling when I’ll quit.

Saturday, April 16, 2016 12:24 PM

Good Morning

Lately I’ve been getting a busy signal from my brain—‘temporarily out of order’, ‘please wait—maintenance in progress’—whatever it is that makes my brain useless for anything except self-preservation. But today I’ve awoken with the feeling of fresh canvas—as if my brain is saying ‘yes, of course you can be creative—what are you waiting for?’

It’s kinda like when my hands are too shaky—I can’t play the piano, no matter how much I want to or how hard I try—but in a larger sense, in that my head is the ‘shaky’ part and if I push it, only garbage comes out. But as I say, today—fresh canvas, clear sailing, blue skies—however one puts it. And I don’t know where to start—should I just relish this feeling of power and potential for a while or should I jump right in and start doing?

Creativity cuts both ways—I can revel in sumptuous daydreams, just privately enjoying my own imagination—or I can attempt to hitch my Pegasus to some earthly activity—a poem, a drawing, an improv—which is a greater adventure, but has its pitfalls. My head is signaling that my creative juices are once again flowing—but I’ve yet to hear from the body, which decides every day on a different amount of gas in the tank.

Some days the body fairly screams for activity—pushing me out the door for a walk around the block, or doing a little spring cleaning on some especially dusty part of my work area. This is rare, though. Most days I’m lucky if I have the wherewithal to do some CD-ripping while I sit here typing. I complain about having to do this but truthfully I’m grateful for a little busy-work that falls within my competency—and I kinda dread the day when I’m done with the ripping. There’s something reassuring about having some simple job to do whenever I feel idle—feeling totally useless is one of the great drawbacks to disability. It can really eat away at your self-image.

Posting a poem, picture, or recording can be very satisfying—it feels like an accomplishment. Getting responses, in the form of likes, shares, or comments, really adds to that feeling—but sometimes the total lack of response can undo all that good feeling. Often, in desperation, I’ll ask Claire to look at my post and give me an opinion—she usually reassures me that I haven’t wasted my time. I have to be careful—I want attention—to a point—but not so much attention that I feel obliged to return that attention to others—I want to be admired without the hassle of admiring someone else’s stuff. I’m self-involved—what can I say?

Most people see a lack of energy as the inability to get sweaty doing hard work—it’s so much more than that. The brain uses energy—a chess player burns more calories than a weight-lifter. And that energy goes into learning, into appreciating what others do, and in doing your own stuff. Without energy, I learn less and am less interested in what others are doing—so when I do my own stuff, it’s claustrophobic—I’m trying to weave new patterns by rearranging old memes. Back in my healthy days, my creativity was a response to the torrent of new input of ideas, images, and concepts found in the world around me—now I’m trying to squeeze creativity out of a vacuum of house-bound, isolated idleness. The law of diminishing returns stands as a specter, always at my elbow.

I wouldn’t dwell on it—but there really is an exclusion that comes with age. I can’t hang out at a college student union or a local bar or any of the places that I remember enjoying—I’ve outgrown them—and even if I don’t accept that, the young people there will let me know in no uncertain terms just how out of place they consider an old geezer at their haunts. In a private setting, good manners usually prevent anyone from rubbing it in—but out in public, the elderly stand out. I think the sight of old people makes the young uncomfortable—we are proof that their fantasy will someday metamorphose into something like us—and with us out of sight, they are protected from that unpleasantness.

People fear death and wonder why—since it comes to everyone. But age is the real boogeyman—just as inevitable, sooner arrived at, and visibly uncomfortable—death is a mysterious and sudden end to everything, but age is a lingering torture of diminishments—activity, freedom, and comfort all shrinking with each year. Sure, it builds character like nobody’s business—but once your character has finished building itself, what then? Like T. S. Eliot says, we acquire a perfect understanding of our lives, just when it has gotten past time for that understanding to do us any good.

One’s children are a temptation—how easy it would be to try to attach myself to their lives, to make a surrogate life for myself by intruding in theirs—there’s no end of excuses I could make—my experience, my knowledge of the world and of people, a lifetime of skill and wisdom. But by doing that, I’ll only delay the time when they begin to think for themselves—by ‘helping’ them forward, I’d really be pushing them somewhere I never got to, for my own reasons—it just wouldn’t do.

No, age is the ultimate hard lesson—there’s nothing you can do but learn it—if you struggle against it, it just makes you look foolish.

Sunday, April 17, 2016 5:32 PM

Scarlatti

I just finished a very difficult piece by Scarlatti—something I’ve practiced for decades and today was the best stab at it I ever took—so when I finished, I stood up and said, “Where’s my thunderous applause? Why don’t I hear thunderous applause? Something’s gone terribly wrong if I’m not hearing thunderous applause—and I’m not hearing thunderous applause—heads will roll.” In this way I comfort myself for doing well in an empty room. And of course I didn’t have the camera on—but that’s a funny story.

I recorded a quick trifle in the front room, and brought the camera into the living room, where the baby grand is, but then decided not to set it up and turn it on. I told myself, “You know, if you turn the camera on, somewhere there’ll be a noise—and you’ll get upset that the recording is ruined—and it’ll be a whole thing—so just leave the camera off.” So I did. And, boy, did I call it—the world’s most annoying dishwasher timer went off about twenty times before it finally quit—but I was able to just keep playing—because no one else was listening and I didn’t give a damn about the timer myself. I love it when I’m right. But that’s when I was comfortable enough to play the Scarlatti, to a marked lack of thunderous applause. You win, you lose, I always say.

Murder on 34th Street

This brings me to “Miracle on 34th Street”—the bane of atheists everywhere. I just caught the last half of it—the modern, Mara Wilson version. I prefer the original, Natalie Wood version—but this 1994 version is even more devastating to atheists. The trouble with “Miracle on 34th Street” is that it addresses the biggest problem for atheists—what about the children?

The central theme is encapsulated in this quote from the film: “If you can’t accept anything on faith, then you’re doomed for a life dominated by doubt.” Or, even worse, this one: “If this court finds that Mr. Kringle is not who he says he is, that there is no Santa, I ask the court to judge which is worse: A lie that draws a smile or a truth that draws a tear.” We can use a ‘get tough’ policy when we are speaking to adults—but what about children?

We parents want to give our children something to believe in—nothing has caused me more doubt and worry than to raise our children without any religion—not because I believe in one of them, but because it is Santa Claus on steroids—something to believe in with a vengeance, as it were. I yearned to offer my children this imaginary comfort—and if I could have offered them the magic without all the poison it contains, I would have. Yet in the final analysis religion’s darkness outweighs the sparkle of fairy dust—I couldn’t indoctrinate my children into one of those shams and still look at myself in a mirror.

I was often tempted to lie to my children while they were growing up—some of the questions they asked made me sick to answer truthfully—because people can get very ugly—and the ugliest of them seem to gravitate towards the money and the power, thus shaping our society far more than the wishes of the vast majority ever enter into it. We live in a world where the unethical is often legal and the ethical is always bad business. To prepare our children to meet that world we have to warn them of some of the worst humanity has to offer—not that I laid it on that thickly, but even the barest outlines of society can be unpleasant to explain to innocents. This is especially true when you live to see a smile on their faces.

So, as pleasant as it might have been to spin them a yarn about angels and doves and pearly gates, I gave them the truth as I saw it. I don’t regret it. There are some nasty people out there who profess a strong faith in god—and if you ask them they’ll tell you all about him—some of them even talk to him. I’d have been damned if I was going to raise my kids to be prey for those types of crazies.

Bushes (2016Apr14)

Posted by XperDunn on April 15, 2016

Thursday, April 14, 2016 8:11 PM

Hope you all got your taxes done—I didn’t. I just couldn’t get off the ground today. Some bad poetry, some bad writing, then some so-so piano. Maybe you did better.

On listening to a CD at my computer

Tinny trumpet echoes over bassoon

Bull fiddles thrust a basso tune at the moon

A symphony orchestra beams from my speakers

As I sit at my desk by myself I hear seekers

One hundred musicians from years ago

Play for me under the monitor’s glow

So I’m not really here—not while the note sounds

With music my transport, no trip’s out of bounds.

Dear Captain:

Be ready to cast off at first light. We mustn’t miss the tide.

The Harbormaster assures me that no pirate ships have been sighted within the Bay or its environs for several weeks. Nevertheless, be sure that we have sufficient gunpowder (and in water-tight barrels) should the need arise.

If you need me, I’m stopping at the Helm and Anchor. I’m looking forward to our voyage with more than a little excitement, as the map shows signs of great opportunity in Northern waters.

So I’m not really here—not while the note sounds

With music my transport, no trip’s out of bounds.

Dear General:

Please come at once. Our situation is more extreme than we realized. Supplies are short and the enemy has us tightly hemmed in—I pray this messenger can get through to you. I tell you our prospects are fading and without your help we will not last a fortnight. Avoid the high pass.

So I’m not really here—not while the note sounds

With music my transport, no trip’s out of bounds.

The MIDI-converter is playing with my head. I just noticed that its only labeled “MIDI” on the B channel, so I switched the piano cables to the B ports and plugged the USB back into the PC—and the darn thing is installing itself. I still don’t think it’s going to work. Piece of junk.

I was right. Still doesn’t record through SONY Music Studio. Piece of junk.

Science Hero (2016Apr13)

Posted by XperDunn on April 13, 2016

Wednesday, April 13, 2016 2:44 PM

The human cost of science, particularly medical science, is often overlooked. When I saw the recent NY Times Science article about a man who had a chip implanted in his brain that allowed him to move his paralyzed hand, my first thought was, ‘How thrilling—we’re actually getting into electronic-brain interface on a very practical level’. The last thing I thought about was the man.

But as I read the article, I found out some things about this guy. First off, he had to recover from a freak accident that left his hands and feet paralyzed—months of rehab were required before he was able to go home—and then only to be cared for by family—still being virtually helpless. That kind of trauma can take someone out of the fight, all by itself—many people’s reaction to such tragedy is to stay in bed until the end of forever.

Then, having learned of this experimental project, he had to volunteer for elective brain surgery—then he had to convince his family to accept it—no easy task. Try telling your mother that you want to get unnecessary brain surgery—right after suffering a paralyzing accident.

Then he describes the enormous effort, hour after hour, of concentrating on trying to move fingers that were no longer connected to his brain—waiting for the scientists to calibrate the software that decrypted his brain signals. As he learned, the signals changed—so re-calibration was required for every session. He likened it to sports training—which, if I remember high school football training, means repeating efforts to the point of exhaustion, day after day. And while he’s training, he’s got a port cable sticking out of the back of his head, plugged into a computer—not exactly comfortable.

Now, after extensive training, he can pour liquid from one container to another—and other feats of dexterity. But when the training’s over, the plug is unplugged and he goes back home, helpless and paralyzed again. And that’s not all—the program is complete now. The scientists are shutting down the program and they’re basically done with him. The experiment was a success, but we are still years from something a person like him could wear and use in daily life.

By the time I finished the article, I was less impressed by the tech—I see it now as a story about an unsung hero of science. See for yourself: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/health/paralysis-limb-reanimation-brain-chip.html

Journal Entry (2016Apr12)

Posted by XperDunn on April 12, 2016

Saturday, April 09, 2016 10:27 PM

In high school I wrote a term paper comparing T. S.Eliot’s “The Waste Land” with Lewis Carroll’s “Alice In Wonderland”—a spurious pairing based on both titles inferring the existence of a ‘land’ of some sort. On first reading I found T. S. Eliot rather opaque—so I was able to make a case that both works involved a lot of nonsense. My teacher was probably so glad that someone bothered to read Eliot that she forbore from destroying my facile interpretation of his poem—I think I got a high grade based solely on the ambition of my reading.

But having been introduced to Mr. Eliot, I was off and running. I read all his poems and most of his plays—then I read most of his essays—then I read critical analysis of Eliot’s life and works, seeking some explication of this rather difficult poet. In the process, I was led to read parts of the Bible, some Shakespeare plays, some poetry by Marvell and Donne, Jessie Weston’s “From Ritual To Romance”, and a good chunk of Fraser’s “The Golden Bough”. At one time I could recite “Burnt Norton” from memory—though at sixty now, and having read all the Four Quartets many times over, I think I understand the poem better now than I did when I could recite it.

Eliot is a strange influence on a young man—he was both after and before his time. He was after his time in the sense that Old World propriety meant more to this native of St. Louis than to the inhabitants of the modern-day London where he spent his adult life. He was before his time in many ways—not least of which being his rejection of religion in his youth and his return to it later in life—not unlike the born-again backlash against secularism that would sweep America a decade after his death.

Eliot being as much a philosopher as a poet, studying his work as an adolescent may have made me old before my time, at least mentally. Looking back on it, I feel that studying Eliot made me old before my time in much the same way that being ill for so long, and even dying momentarily on the table during my eleventh-hour liver transplant, made me dead before my time. In my mind the two are similar in having made me an outsider among my contemporaries and robbing me, in a sense, of the innocence enjoyed by most people—both the carefree-ness of youth and the ignorance of death most adults maintain right up to the end. But there is room for doubt as to whether those things affected me or if I just have that sort of personality.

Because of this feeling I have a tendency to feel irritable whenever my thoughts turn to social ills, politics, or man’s inhumanity to man—I know that most people give these things only cursory attention now and then, rather than becoming obsessed with our immature behavior as a race. Most people cling to the assumption that humans shouldn’t be any better than they ought to be—but my ‘old geezer’ perspective rants and raves at our insistence on such ingenuousness. I look ahead so persistently that I never enjoy the present—it is a maturity shared by few. And that’s the way it should be—it is foolish to take the world’s troubles on one’s shoulders, when there is little to be done about it other than fret.

‘One day at a time’ is considered great wisdom by many—to me, it smacks of the grasshopper—wasting away the present, without a thought for tomorrow’s troubles. But then, I’m no big fan of ‘surrendering to a higher power’ either. So no twelve steps for me—I get along without them, but I’m glad they work for other people.

Monday, April 11, 2016 11:53 AM

Yes, I know that Monday has a bad rep amongst the working—but for those of us who are unable to work, Monday has a sweetness to it that workers could never imagine. After being disabled it took me years to get over the vestigial thrill of the weekend. Every Friday night I would get that conditioned response—relief that the weekend was finally upon us—but what followed were two more days just like all the rest, if not less enjoyable.

Stores close early on the weekends—those that open on Sunday at all—and you can’t call any place of business to work out a billing or customer service problem. The weekend roadways, should I venture out, are crowded and slow. House-bound people tend to watch a lot of TV—and weekend TV sucks. (Okay, I’ll give you “Madame Secretary” and John Oliver on Sunday night, but that’s it.)

All weekend long it’s mostly sports on TV—I could never acquire a taste for televised sporting events—believe me, I’ve tried. Even Turner Classic Movies (TCM) deserts me—Slip Mahoney and the Gang in the morning and silent films at night. The news channels (which I dislike enough on weekdays) run ‘caught on tape’ prison documentaries instead of live reporting—which is very apropos—weekends on TV are a lot like prison. All of this makes perfect sense—the vast majority of people have lives—and those lives are busiest on the weekend—why run top programming for an empty room?

I’ve learned to love Mondays. On Monday the New York Times crossword is as easy as it’s going to get—and Jeopardy is once again on at seven—those may seem like little things, but they loom large when one’s life has few other high-points. Weekend food is usually leftovers and take-out, so the food is better on Monday, too. Everyone else is starting their week and that excitement comes through a little, even if there’s a lot of tail-dragging that goes with it. When weekends involved a lot of partying, I used to have a terrible time on Monday morning—now that I can’t have that sort of fun, enjoying Mondays is my booby-prize, I guess.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016 9:50 AM

There is so much music. I own so many CDs that a strong man couldn’t carry them all in one trip—stacks and stacks of them pile up as I continue re-ripping my collection to my new external hard drive—and all I can think about as I go through them is how much music is missing. My old LP collection was more complete, and I never lose that urge to buy enough CDs to equal that former glory—but that old collection was largely built up during my dad’s tenure as VP of Direct Mail at BBDO, back in the sixties. It included the Deutsche Gramophone recordings of the complete works of Beethoven (about twelve volumes of six records each) and the entire Time-Life classical music series (another pallet-full of records)—an avalanche of recordings he was given as free samples in the course of determining their mail-order ad campaigns. (We used to joke that he should talk Mercedes Benz into doing a Direct Mail campaign.)

I am one of five siblings, but neither my parents nor my siblings showed any interest in classical music back then—all the free records went to me and no one was jealous about it—in fact, I often fought over the living room hi-fi with my siblings—they much preferred Rock and R&B. I liked that music also—but I preferred variety—I wanted to listen to all music. The whole world was mesmerized by rock’n’roll back then—when I actually bought classical records at Fox & Sutherland’s, they were going cheap—sometimes only a dollar or two, where Beatles albums were closer to ten bucks. The whole classical catalog was referred to as ‘loss-leaders’—records that were produced to enhance the reputation of the label, rather than to make a profit.

Having that in my early days, I would get huffy, later on, when some piece of classical music became popular—“Thus Spake Zarathustra” used in the soundtrack to “2001: A Space Odyssey” or “Bolero” used in the movie “10”—people would say, “You’ve got to hear this!” and in my mind I was always thinking, “Yeah, right—like I’ve never heard that before, you philistine.”

When you listen to classical music and read classic literature at thirteen, you get used to being an outsider. But there is a way in which everyone will suddenly become an expert on something that found its way out of obscurity and into the spotlight for a time—and I find myself caught between my delight that others are finally sharing in the joy I get from these obscure sources—and resentment of my private preserve being trampled by the unwashed. But it’s not all my fault—I spent most of my time feeling outside of society and to do that day after day required that I build up some pride in being different—and there’s some unavoidable bitterness when that difference gets erased in a surge of popularity.

To make matters worse, there is so much music that even my obsession has gaps in knowledge. When ‘Classical Music’ appears as a Jeopardy category, I always assume I’ll know all the answers—but oftentimes I don’t—there’s just too much to know. Plus, ‘opera’ is the most popular form of classical music—and I’ve never much cared for opera—I don’t know much about it. Well, that’s not true—but I know less about opera than an opera buff.

It makes me laugh when Music Choice’s ‘Classical Masterpieces’ channel gives out with three factoids about the composer, that cycle on the screen while the piece is played on the audio. It’s ludicrous—they could be scrolling the composer’s complete entry from Grove’s Music Dictionary—or at the very least, the Wiki entry—in the time it takes some symphonies to play. Do they suppose that would make people less likely to watch? How information-phobic are people, anyway? They’d probably tell you that the factoids are meant to pique your interest so you’ll go google the composer yourself—but that’s just lazy.

Then again, I only turn to that channel when I’m reading—still, they could actually build up a viewership of music-geeks, if they put a little effort into it—maybe not—I don’t know. They make me irritable anyway, mis-titling and mis-crediting a surprising number of audio-tracks—so I know there’s nobody home at that company that gives a damn about classical music. I guess it’s still a loss-leader.

Here’s a song cover and an improv from yesterday:

It’s Getting Serious (2016Apr08)

Posted by XperDunn on April 8, 2016

Friday, April 08, 2016 3:32 PM

We’ve reached an awkward point in the political process now—things are narrowing down. People begin speaking of candidates they formerly criticized as the solution to the problem of ‘the lesser of two evils’. Conversely, Bernie Sanders can no longer be unaggressive towards Hillary Clinton, and answered Charlie Rose’s question “Would you support her, if chosen?” by prefacing his ‘yes’ with “I’d consider a Trump or Cruz presidency an unmitigated disaster, so yes, I would support Hillary Clinton is she wins the nomination.” He couldn’t just say ‘yes’, like he would have a few months back—he’s got his gloves off and he’s got to keep them off.

The funniest part of this process is the simple truth that the very best possible next President of the United States would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Oval Office and be locked inside—sentenced, in his or her mind, to the jury duty from hell—and a hell of a way to reward years of selfless public service. Any sensible person can just look at the before and after hair-color of the last few presidents and be able to tell that the job redefines the word ‘difficult’. Only a spark of ambition would drive someone to the madness of seeking the post—and now that we’re getting down to it, that flaw is being brought to the forefront.

It’s attack time—and, hey, does anyone else get the impression that both Bernie and Hillary were more comfortable when it was still ‘gloves on’? I get the sense they are both sane enough to be uncomfortable with the egotistical sniping that the final days of a head-to-head must inevitably become. This is in marked contrast to the GOP—they’ve long since disqualified themselves from the list of respectable candidates. They are far too happy in their playpen, holding dick-measuring contests when they had an opportunity to discuss the issues for months—hell, years now. Their ambitions are front and center, completely overshadowing any sense of service or responsibility to the public—and while you may think it an old-fashioned attitude, in my view it disqualifies them from serious office, be their platforms whatever they may.

We forget sometimes that the election is not wholly a popularity contest—no matter how much we treat it as such, it remains a serious decision with mortal consequences. Sanders’ young supporters flock to him because young people don’t need convincing, they just need inspiring—and it is a good thing that they are being inspired to play a part in their own democracy—I hope it lasts beyond Hillary’s nomination. Because the problems Sanders talks about need more than a populist president to fix—those problems require a quantum-level rise in political engagement from coast-to-coast, over several election cycles, if we’re ever going to have a chance at taming the super-wealthy’s de facto march back to monarchism.

It’s daunting to think of—a quantum-level rise in political engagement, obtaining objective news sources, growing neighborhood bonds while our youth are ever more deeply seduced into the twitter-verse or VR-gaming helmets—the list of impossible things we need to do to fix the future goes on from there. We could just let the powers that be continue doing what they do—it might not be pretty, but who’s to say they won’t avoid destroying us all in the end, right? They know what they’re doing, don’t they? After all, they are in charge—even if they did grow up in an age when phones had busy-signals and cords—even if some of them don’t even understand how the world has changed—even if most of them see change as dangerous. They want the power? Let’em have it. At least, if it all goes to hell, we’ll have someone to blame. Why be so serious all the time?

Friday, April 08, 2016 4:15 PM

The Bird Hearing (2016Apr08)

I went for a walk yesterday—the birds were so noisy, I went back inside and got my camera. I shot three minutes and change of bird cacophony—the video is pretty unwatchable—I was focusing on the sounds—but that didn’t stop me from making two improv videos with the same bird footage. The music is different in each, but the bird songs are the same. I suggest just listening to the audio—the video, in spite of all I did to stabilize it in post, is nauseating.

It’s kind of a shame I got so wrapped up in the birds singing—the music is pretty good on both of these—they would have been nice all by themselves, I think.

Oh, and here’s one more from the day before yesterday:

bu-bye now.

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