-- SEX POLITICS RELIGION ARTS -- SERIOUS AND HUMOROUS --
It is just a place to come with an open mind,
though ours are not always-Please tell us if they're not!
Senator Patrick Leahy has decided he is going to subpoena Karl Rove to testify under oath. Well, it’s about time. But according to Whitehouse Spokesperson Tony Snow, he has already offered himself up in such a way that “he would tell the truth” only under the condition that he not be sworn, documented and that he be free to hide one of his hands behind his back at all times with his fingers crossed.
Frankly, it will be nice to get Rove’s lies on official record, but if anyone thinks this is going to result in the unearthing of truth from his thin little lips, they have no idea who they are dealing with. Karl Rove is and has been the biggest “spinmeister” to have ever entered the District of Columbia; and that’s a high honor.
It has been the food from which he thrives. Lie ‘til you die, and even then have a lie placed on the tombstone and hire Tony Snow and Scooter Libby to write the obituary. He has been lying so long he has no idea what the truth is.
As he has been leading Bush’s political career since his days in Texas, it is his modus operandi. It has become his mantra that if you tell a lie often enough, people will eventually believe it. And when lies aren’t enough, break the law and tell secrets that end careers and put lives in danger, while endangering the well built apparatus by which the US had previously tracked nuclear proliferation to the Middle East. Who cares? It’s just another spy, just another country with nukes. Who cares if it is a felony punishable by death? And according to him, it’s not a secret if you are the second or third person to have told it. According to him, everybody already knew it, right?
In his days in Texas, he not only was a master of lies, but he completely automated the rumor mill. He perfected the art. Basically, it was his favorite way to win. Just think of the very thing that would make an opponent unpopular, and whisper it to everyone you know. It didn’t matter that Ann Richards wasn’t a lesbian. She rode a motorcycle. She had to be, according to Rove and his team. And Texans love homosexuals, right?
If anyone thinks Rove is worried about being forced to testify, they are clearly deluded. He couldn’t care less. If you think Gonzales said, “I don’t know”, “I can’t recall, or “I wasn’t in the loop,” were enough to make you roll our eyes, just wait. Rove will have your eyes sticking that way. You will become so familiar with eye-rolling that you will likely give yourself a frontal lobotomy from the friction.
Meanwhile, Bush, Cheney and Snow will simply complain that there has become a proliferation of politics where there once was none.
"Our aim, like the United States is, step-by-step, to move control to the Iraqi authorities," Brown said, joining Bush at a news conference at this mountaintop presidential retreat at CAMP DAVID, Md.
All of this boils down to men who come running to "take control" when those they consider "children" fall down and scrape their knees. Sometimes, the best thing is for dad to stay at work and let the children grow up. Instead of this "step-by-step" approach, sometimes you just have to throw the kids in the deep end and stand prepared should they begin to drown, but let's not assume they will.
This statement by British Prime Minister Brown echoes a hundreds of years old patriarchal view by the US and England, as if they are still legitimately delegated the position of policemen for the world. We hear things like this and just nod our arrogant Anglo heads in the assumption that "someone's gotta do it... if not us who?" The answer is clear to all but us; the world community is made up of sovereign nations who don't need a daddy. The only time we need to intercede is when one nation breaks the sovereignty of another, and sometimes when our assistance is requested to quell internal strife. Even then, we must sometimes say, "No".
Iraq is perfectly willing to let us do their job for them, to take the heat as it were, literally 115F degrees, while they take vacations. Bush and Brown are perfectly willing to do it as it feeds their corporate masters of the military industrial complex. It's all about business for them, and we have to get it through our heads that this exercise of imperialism for business sake is an unacceptable justification for the loss of life. Yes, people die anyway, everywhere, but it is not always our job to augment their deaths with those of our soldiers.
There is no pride in dying for corporate profits when it has nothing to do with the defense of our nation. In fact, these same men, if posted properly within the US, could clearly enhance our defense against potential foreign action.
How many times must it be said that there are limited resources and anyone you put outside our country is no longer available to directly defend our nation? Meanwhile, their occupation feeds a resentment that actually decreases the quality of our security by creating an impetus for insurgencies.
It is time for we children to tell our daddies that we no longer believe they should run the family. They have put us in greater danger and have destroyed our reputation as keepers of the flame.
This week, I am going to get to the point as it seems few are willing to among those either seeking or sitting in office in the executive branch.
1-Bush: Almost 100 Al Quaedas 2-Gonzales: Waiting for the "privilege" of being fired 3-Hillary and Obama: Friends or Foes 4-Mike Gravel - Who's buying our government?
1-Bush: Almost 100 Al Quaedas - How many times can you lie in one speech? And how many times can you harp on the same lie? There is no doubt that someone in the Bush political machine is still determined that Americans are going to believe the lie repeated often enough is going to be believed.In fact, total score Al Quaeda and bin Laden 118 times in 29 minutes.
It seems that Bush may have mentioned Al Quaeda as many times as there are members of the group operating within Iraq, all in a single speech. But more disturbing was the notion that he was consistently attaching Iraq to 9/11. Just when we thought this had been conceded when long ago, Bush finally admitted the Iraq war had "nothing to do with 9/11," he begins a a new phase. So, it seems his reasoning is that, though there were no Al Quaeda in Iraq at the time of the 9/11 incident; now that there are because he invited them, I guess; we must stay and fight them there to prevent them from coming here.
The problem with this is, if there are Al Quaeda there now because we have fed their recruitment efforts by continuing to fight in Iraq well after our welcome was exhausted, what makes him think that by staying there, we will decrease their numbers? And why does he continue to ignore the real experts within the Islamic circles who say the Sunni and Shia (i.e. Saudi Arabia and Iran) hate Al Quaeda even more than the US does?
According to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone and Vali Nasr, author of Shia Revival, as soon as the US leaves, both sides are more than willing to eliminate Al Quaeda by any means, as they hate them even more than the US does. According to both authors (neither of which can get a date with Bush), the only reason they tolerate Al Quaeda presence now, is that they provide additional insurgence.
Bush would have us believe all the violence is a result inner turmoil, but Iraq's hate of Al Quaeda could very well bring them together after we leave. Yes, there would be a bloodbath, but one that leads toward a stable Iraq.
2-Gonzales: Waiting for the "privilege" of being fired - Is Gonzales aware of some complex legal standard of truth that has somehow evaded the entirety of the legal community throughout history? Does he actually have a law degree? And if so, how does that reflect on the Harvard class of 1982? He seems to forget one of the basics of law practice, that once it has been established that a witness is lying, we can't believe anything else he says. He passed that point long ago. It is clear he has it in his mind that he is untouchable as long as his boss, an even bigger liar, stands behind him with various executive privileges. Doesn't Gonzalez realize the Dems are simply letting him and Bush coast as they hold a spot for an apparent Democratic heir?
Meanwhile, Press Secretary Tony Snow accused the Democrats of "possibly committing treason". full transcript via CNN
Frankly, if it weren't for the very important work the AG's office needs to do to protect our nation, the Dems would love for him to stay and continue to soil the GOP reputation. I suspect the GOP wants him, Bush, Cheney and the whole embarrassing bunch, to voluntarily disappear, so they could have enough time to reestablish legitimacy.
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3-Hillary and Obama: Friends or Foes - It is very confusing to see the two of them walk arm in arm to cast their symbolic votes on the Senate floor, often at the last minute; then to see them trying to find real differences while running for the Dem Nomination in such a way that they can still get the general voter to accept them. The posturing is entertaining but confusing.
This week, when asked in the CNN/You Tube Debate, "Would you meet diplomatically with these countries' leaders?" They took opposite positions, and later spun their positions to accommodate each other. Hillary has, in the past, suggested she would deal with those who oppose us in the international front, though she has never suggested she would do so in a summit of heads of state.
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It was clear from Obama's answer that he would directly meet with them just as Reagan had done when he was in the Cold War. But the next day, he claimed he would not necessarily meet with them in such a way as to legitimize them; clearly back peddling and straddling the issue.
Also the next day, Hillary simply spun this situation as one that highlighted Obama's "inexperience and naivete", to which Obama called her "Bush and Cheney Lite" in her refusal to deal with despots. Overall, it seemed to work to her advantage as she could very well claim she would maintain an open dialog with these nations while she wouldn't necessarily meet with them personally. The name-calling didn't reflect well on Obama either, as it just didn't fit. She has clearly separated herself from Bush despite her original support of the Iraq War, as did most, based on Bush's lies.
4-Mike Gravel - Who's buying our government? You had best not ignore Mike Gravel. As usual, he's angry. In this case his focus is on who's been bought among Dem contenders. He says if you really want to know who a candidate is going to represent, just follow the money:
A wig store was robbed yesterday. The Police are combing the area for clues....
The Police Show In Philadelphia
On Thursday July 19th , I joined 45, 000 other gleeful music fans at the Phillies' home field in South Philadelphia to welcome Andy Summers, Stewart Copeland and Gordon Sumner back to our neck of the woods. (Despite the predictions, it didn't rain.) What makes the Police a distinctive band worthy of our consideration? Let’s start with Sting’s songwriting. It’s good. It’s damn good. From a song craft perspective, a song like “Wrapped Around Your Finger” could be a template for designing an artful pop tune.
Sting Was On Top Of His Game
His lyrics are also often quite compelling. ( although as we all know he does have a penchant for the syllables “EEYOO”). I think he is at his best when probing the dingy acherontic corners of the human psyche using bright, irresistible melodies as a flashlight. (As in Synchronicity 2 or Every Breath You Take). There is also that innate ability to tap our collective consciousness. Don’t each of us have a “Message In A Bottle”? Sting is a marvelous vocalist and tight bassist. I am hoping He will record some new material after the tour with Andy and Stewart as they really make his music take on a unique stylistic shape and property. The whole of The Police, like most charismatic influential bands, is greater than the sum of it's parts.
Relentless percussionist Copeland
Next there is the informed rhythmic sensibility of percussionist Stewart Copeland. Blending Jazz, Rock, and copious amounts of Ska with classically conversant battery. By the end of the first phrase of percussion, you know it’s him. His style is that distinctive. Stewart guests on Peter Gabriel’s “Red Rain“. Listen to the 2 bars of hi hat at the start of the song. You know immediately it is Mr. Copeland’s hi hat. Stewart Copeland largely rejected his pop music past when the Police ceased touring in 1984 to pursue a career as a composer, authoring a prolific series of film scores, operas, and ballets. He and singer Stanard Ridgeway (Wall of Voodoo) earned a Golden Globe nomination for his score to Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish (do you recall the excellent song “Don‘t Box Me In?). In 1985 he released The Rhythmatist, inspired by his musical pilgrimage to Africa.
His abilities as film scorer produced an ever-increasing number of projects including a pair of Oliver Stone features, Wall Street and Talk Radio, in addition to acclaimed projects like Ken Loach's Raining Stones, Four Days in September and West Beirut as well as many more mainstream Hollywood productions. Copeland's other work includes a stint with the pop-fusion trio Animal Logic as well as authoring the San Francisco Ballet's King Lear, the Cleveland Opera's Holy Blood and Crescent Moon, and Ballet Oklahoma's Prey. Born July 16, 1952 in Alexandria, Egypt, Copeland was the son of a CIA agent. He spent his formative years in the Middle East but attended college in California before settling in England in 1975 where he began playing drums with the progressive rock band Curved Air before forming the Police. Stewart was featured at the Modern Drummer Festival in 2006.
Andy Summers Stretches Out His playing is in his own words : "the best it has ever been"
Last but assuredly not least, The formidable guitar talents of Andy Summers. Andy pioneered a style that incorporated heavily chorused sound , syncopation and the use of delay as a rhythmic component. ( An inestimable influence on the Edge’s U2 approach and myriads of others).
His work with the Police is highly stylized with unorthodox chord voicing and the use of quartal harmony that would be more at home in McCoy Tyner’s jazz piano styling than a major Rock- Pop-Ska band. He began his recording career in the 1960s as the guitarist for Zoot Money's Big Roll Band playing regularly at the Flamingo, a Soho London club renowned for its wild all-nighters. Andy provided guitar for Dantalian's Chariot, Soft Machine, Eric Burdon and the New Animals, and spent much of the 1970s doing prolific session work for Neil Sedaka, Joan Armatrading, Kevin Ayers, Kevin Coyne, Tim Rose, and Jon Lord.
He was considered for Mick Taylor's replacement as lead guitarist for The Rolling Stones. (Ron Wood was chosen instead). Summers's guitar playing defined much of the Police sound. Summers' own songs for the Police, such as "Omegaman" and "Mother", Though not “hits“ were some of my favorites. (His instrumental "Behind My Camel" won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental in 1980). Summers' style is illustrious in its depth of sound. He was an early adopter of Roland guitar synthesizer technology. Yet in recent years, has favored a less effected sound. Andy’s diverse musical credits include many film scores: 1984 - 'Wild Life' 1985 - 'Band Of The Hand' 1986 - '2010' 1987 - 'Down & Out In Beverly Hills' 1988 - 'End of the Line' 1989 - 'Weekend At Bernie's' 1990 - 'Deceived' 1991 - 'Motorama' 1992 - 'Another You' 1993 - 'Mississippi Masala'
Andy’s recordings outside the Police are an absolute delight with bits of ambient and improvisatory work in the mix. These efforts resonate with the spirit of invention- embracing jazz, classical and world music. He reveals himself as an artist capable of transcending conventions, even the ones he himself created. Any self respecting guitarist must have a few of if not all of them in their collection. I recommend them all. ‘I Advance Masked’ and ‘Bewitched’ are 2 of my favorites. Both recordings are collaborations with Robert Fripp. Here is the Discography.
ANDY SUMMERS SOLO ALBUMS 'I Advance Masked' (w/ Robert Fripp) 'Bewitched' (w/ Robert Fripp) 'XYZ' 'Mysterious Barricades' 'The Golden Wire' 'Charming Snakes' 'World Gone Strange' 'Invisible Threads' (w/John Etheridge) 'Synathestesia' 'The Last Dance Of Mr X' 'Retrospective - Best Of' 'Strings Of Desire' (w/Victor Biglione) 'Green Chimneys' ‘Peggy’s Blue Skylight’ “Earth & Sky” “The X Tracks”
‘Splendid Brazil’ (w/Victor Biglione) Soon to be released ‘First You Build A Cloud’ (w Classical Guitarist Benjamin Verdery) Soon to be released
Peggy’s Blue Skylight is entirely populated by Charles Mingus tunes. While Green Chimneys is a collection of Theolonius Monk compositions. From the liner notes:
I was sixteen when I first heard Monk's music. It knocked me out, got under my skin. It was jazz but it was something else, African - magical- cubist - primitive - Monk's world. At the time I was listening hard to "Monk at the Town Hall" A friend loaned me his copy, I loved it and spent many hours hunched over a Dansette trying to get my teenage fingers around those tunes. Monk came to England, I had to see him play. It was six hours on a cold train to London. I wasn't disappointed, he played solo piano, sandwiched between Dizzy Gillespie and Roy Eldridge. Monk took the music to another place altogether. His playing hit me in the gut - it was the essence, the distillation of jazz and the American life. A black and white movie. I couldn't talk about it then, only sense it - feel it. I have always loved Monk and his music, he created his own universe, one that has not only stood the test of time, but also been a wonderful inspiration. Thanks Monk!
Andy appears on these recordings as well.
1971 - 'Love Is' (Eric Burdon & the Animals) 1983 - 'Eric Burdon And The Animals' 2004 – ‘Absolute Animals 1964-1968’ Compilation 1975 – Eberhard Schoener ‘Video Magic’ 1976 – Eberhard Schoener ‘Flashback’’ 1976 - David Bedford 'The Odyssey' 1976 - Tim Rose 'Tim Rose' 1976 – Jon Lord ‘Sarabande’ 1987 - Sting '...Nothing Like The Sun' 1989 - Michael Schrieve 'Stiletto' 1991 – Toni Childs ‘House Of Hope’ 1992 – Paolo Rustichelli ‘Capri’ 1995 – The Pan African Orchestra’ Opus 1 (Producer) 1996 - Various Artists 'Twang!' 1998 - Various Artists 'Outlandos D'America' 1998 – Gregg Bissonette ‘Gregg Bissonette’ 2000 – Various Artists’ As Long As You’re Living Yours: The Music Of Keith Jarrett 2001 – Manuel Barrueco – ‘Nylon & Steel’
John Etheridge, Vinnie Colaiuta, Robert Fripp, Herbie Hancock, Brian Auger, Eliane Elias, Tony Levin, Ginger Baker, Deborah Harry, Q-Tip, and Sting, among others appear on Andy‘s albums.
A mysterious hole has appeared in the Changing room. The Police are looking into it.
The Band Played 3 Encores
By now it’s apparent that I appreciate and respect the talents of the members of this band. So it was a thrill to see them work together once again. They did not disappoint. The show opened with the support band “Fiction Plane” who I heard for the first time and thought were very impressive. Fiction Plane lead singer Joe Sumner ( Yes, Sting’s son) sounds quite a bit like his dad. They performed songs from their new CD "Left Side of the Brain". I particularly enjoyed “ Everybody Lies” and “Two Sisters“. They were followed by the Scottish trio the Fratellis who were also an engaging opening act. It seems few in the open-air stadium had heard Costello Music, but songs like "Henrietta" and "Whistle for the Choir" were received quite well. Kudos to whoever it was that chose these bands to support the Police. Their music was really quite enjoyable and relative to the main act.
The concert began with a recording of Bob Marley singing “Get Up Stand Up” which incited the entire stadium to rise from their seats before a single note had actually been played . Then without a hemidemisemiquaver of delay the Stewart Copeland sounded a Gong and Andy Summers launched “Message In A Bottle”. The sound was clean and uncluttered if perhaps a tad bass heavy but with firm roots in Ska and Reggae this was perhaps not inappropriate. I have read numerous reviews of various shows on the tour and reviewers seem to be obliged to comment on the liberties taken with arrangements of the songs. I am obliged to comment on their comments. If what the musicians were attempting to do was recreate their recordings from 28 years ago and failed, you’d have a point (but the hat covers it up). Instead what we have is a band that have grown as musicians willing to take a fresh look at their catalog and interpret the music in the moment. I’m no fan of excessive meaningless doodling around I assure you, but I really enjoyed the expanded takes on these songs that both proved they were far more than mere nostalgia and gave everyone a chance to shine.
We have been discussing music history in the last couple articles and the observation could be made that most major movements in art and music are reactions to prevailing conventions. Generally speaking, there was an unwritten law that since 1980 that only heretics would play solos in rock or pop music. This was a reaction to the endless noodling that pervaded rock music in the 1970s’s. The Police were very much a part of this movement away from solos and extemporization. Since then, improvisatory rock has all but disappeared and so have the players who are capable of lending any legitimacy to playing such music. Avoiding solos is no longer a reaction but has become a convention itself to be reacted to. I for one, always enjoy the shimmering, spiky, somewhat obtuse guitar work of Andy Summers and was thrilled to hear more of it. The band showed no sign of weakness in Philadelphia. They were energized, in a practiced, sharply professional fashion.
A nonstop, roughly 2 hour explosion of uplifting music, including 3 encores ensued. The standouts for me were the expanded “Walking In Your Footsteps”, The new arrangement of “Wrapped Around Your Finger” (both of which featured Copeland’s remarkable use of sundry percussion and tympani) , Andy’s heroic jazz tinged spiked solo in "So Lonely," "Can't Stand Losing You," "Walking on the Moon," "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," “Synchronicity ll” … well to be honest I thoroughly enjoyed the entire evening. Songs were stretched and compressed, broken apart and put back together, without sacrificing the simple, melodic effectiveness of the original incarnation.
Criticisms? Only minor ones. A few spots where the melodies were out of Sting’s mature range he made no effort to sing the parts, letting the “only too happy to oblige” audience sing the parts instead which was actually fun. In his defense, the uppermost notes of his voice were the only thing lacking and as we grow older most people lose that extreme high register of their voice. ( Sting is 56, Stewart is 55, and Andy is 65 -though to see him leap off the drum riser you would not know it!)
I only noticed this a couple times. His powerful vocal performance generally was top notch and his formidable skills as an entertainer were on full display. His bass playing was full, rubbery, and spot on. Sting joked about the band's ancient origins, saying that its debut album, Outlandos d'Amour, came out in 1878. He also recalled playing the renown Philadelphia South Street club "Grendel's Lair" to an audience of 3. (A place that I too played around the same time. I'm pretty sure more than 3 people showed up, maybe 23, but 50 was a full house!) I would have liked to have heard “Mother,” and “Miss Gredenko” but I could have heard every tune they ever recorded. I suppose the show , and the article, must end sometime.
Check the remaining dates of the tour here. Should you go? I don't see how you could be disappointed.
United States and Canada Tour Date City Venue May 27, 2007 Vancouver, BC, Canada General Motors Place May 28, 2007 Vancouver. BC, Canada General Motors Place May 30, 2007 Vancouver, BC, Canada General Motors Place June 2, 2007 Edmonton, Alberta, Canada[10] Commonwealth Stadium[11] June 6, 2007 Seattle, WA, United States KeyArena June 7, 2007 Seattle, WA, United States KeyArena June 9, 2007 Denver, CO, United States Pepsi Center June 10, 2007 Denver, CO, United Staes Pepsi Center June 13, 2007 Oakland, CA, United States[12] McAfee Coliseum June 15, 2007 Las Vegas, NV, United States MGM Grand Garden Arena June 16, 2007 Manchester TN, United States Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival June 18, 2007 Phoenix, AZ, United States US Airways Center June 20, 2007 Los Angeles, CA, United States Staples Center June 21, 2007 Anaheim, CA, United States Honda Center June 23, 2007 Los Angeles, CA, United States[12] Dodger Stadium June 26, 2007 Dallas, TX, United States American Airlines Center June 27, 2007 Dallas, TX, United States American Airlines Center June 29, 2007 Houston, TX, United States Toyota Center June 30, 2007 New Orleans, LA, United States New Orleans Arena July 2, 2007 St. Louis, MO, United States Scottrade Center July 3, 2007 St. Paul, MN, United States Xcel Energy Center July 5, 2007 Chicago, IL, United States Wrigley Field July 6, 2007 Chicago, IL, United States Wrigley Field July 7, 2007 East Rutherford, NJ, United States Giants Stadium (Live Earth concert) July 10, 2007 Miami Gardens, FL, United States Dolphin Stadium July 11, 2007 Tampa, FL, United States St. Pete Times Forum July 14, 2007 Louisville, KY, United States Churchill Downs July 16, 2007 Cleveland, OH, United States Quicken Loans Arena July 17, 2007 Auburn Hills, MI, United States Palace of Auburn Hills July 19, 2007 Philadelphia, PA, United States Citizens Bank Park July 20, 2007 Hershey, PA, United States Hersheypark Stadium July 22, 2007 Toronto, ON, Canada Air Canada Centre July 23, 2007 Toronto, ON, Canada Air Canada Centre July 25, 2007 Montreal, QC, Canada Bell Centre July 26, 2007 Montreal, QC, Canada Bell Centre July 28, 2007 Boston, MA, United States Fenway Park July 29, 2007 Boston, MA, United States Fenway Park July 31, 2007 East Hartford, CT, United States Rentschler Field August 1, 2007 New York City, NY, United States Madison Square Garden August 3, 2007 New York City, NY, United States Madison Square Garden August 4, 2007 Baltimore, MD, United States Pimlico Race Course August 5, 2007 East Rutherford, NJ, United States[12] Giants Stadium August 29, 2007 Stockholm, Sweden Globe Arena August 30, 2007 Stockholm, Sweden Globe Arena September 1, 2007 Aarhus, Denmark Vestereng September 4, 2007 Birmingham, England National Indoor Arena September 5, 2007 Birmingham, England National Indoor Arena September 8, 2007 Twickenham, England Twickenham Stadium September 9, 2007 Twickenham, England Twickenham Stadium September 11, 2007 Hamburg, Germany HSH Nordbank Arena September 13, 2007 Amsterdam, Netherlands Amsterdam ArenA September 14, 2007 Amsterdam, Netherlands Amsterdam ArenA September 16, 2007 Geneva, Switzerland Stade de Genève September 19, 2007 Vienna, Austria Stadthalle September 22, 2007 Munich, Germany Olympiastadion September 25, 2007 Lisbon, Portugal Estádio Nacional September 27, 2007 Barcelona, Spain Estadi OlÃmpic LluÃs Companys September 29, 2007 Paris, France Stade de France September 30, 2007 Paris, France Stade de France October 02, 2007 Turin, Italy Stadio Delle Alpi October 06, 2007 Dublin, Ireland Croke Park October 08, 2007 Antwerp, Belgium Sportpaleis October 09, 2007 Antwerp, Belgium Sportpaleis October 10, 2007 Mannheim, Germany SAP Arena October 13, 2007 Dusseldorf, Germany LTU Arena October 15, 2007 Manchester, England MEN Arena October 16, 2007 Manchester, England MEN Arena October 19, 2007 Cardiff, Wales Millennium Stadium
More North American Dates
October 31, 2007 New York City, NY, United States Madison Square Garden November 3, 2007 Atlantic City, NJ, United States Boardwalk Hall November 8, 2007 Toronto, ON, Canada Air Canada Centre November 11, 2007 Boston, MA, United States TD Banknorth Garden November 17, 2007 Atlanta, GA, United States Philips Arena November 24, 2007 Mexico City, Mexico Foro Sol
South American Dates
Date City Venue December 1, 2007 Buenos Aires, Argentina River Plate Stadium December 2, 2007 Buenos Aires, Argentina River Plate Stadium December 8?, 2007 Santiago, Chile Estadio Nacional
New Zealand, Australia dates
Date City Venue January 17, 2008 Wellington, New Zealand Westpac Stadium January 19, 2008 Auckland, New Zealand Western Springs January 22, 2008 Brisbane, Australia Suncorp Stadium January 24, 2008 Sydney, Australia Telstra Stadium January 26, 2008 Melbourne, Australia Melbourne Cricket Ground January 28, 2008 Adelaide, Australia AAMI Stadium February 1, 2008 Perth, Australia Members Equity Stadium
Every Breath You Take
This beautifully crafted pop song was written in 1 Hour according to Sting.
As a reward for reading the entire article I give you the:
THINGS NOT TO SAY TO THE POLICE * I can't reach my license unless you hold my beer. * Sorry, Officer. I didn't realize my radar detector wasn't plugged in. * Aren't you that guy from the Village People? * Hey, you must have been doin' at least 120 mph to keep up with me. Good job! * I thought you had to be in relatively good physical condition to be a cop. * I almost decided to be a cop, but I decided to finish high school instead. * You're not gonna check the trunk, are you? * Didn't I see you get your ass kicked on COPS? * Is it true that people become cops because they're too dumb to work at McDonald's? * I was just trying to keep up with traffic. Yes, I know there are no other cars around-that's how far ahead of me they are. * No, I don't know how fast I was going. The little needle stops at 110 mph. * Want to race to the station, Sparky? * On the way to the station let's get a six pack. * You'll never get those cuffs on me you clown! * Come on write the damn ticket, the bars close in 20 minutes! * Hey, wasn't your daughter a porn star? * How long is this going to take? Your wife is expecting me. * I know I was weaving, but I can't find the Bat Cave entrance!
But the number one thing that you shouldn’t say to the police is….
* Back off, Barney, I've got a piece.
Duly Consider and Considerable Sounds are TM of this publication and are subject to liabilities thereof
Last Week, At a concert, our local orchestra decided to play Beethoven's 9th symphony.
However, this was an outdoor concert and it was quite hot, the players were working up quite a sweat, until some fans were brought in.
Unfortunately, the wind from these ventilators was causing the sheet music to blow all over the place, so they had to tie them down to the music stands.
The din from the fans was so bad that the bassists decided it didn't matter if they downed a few drinks and got royally drunk.
Two of the bassists got so drunk that they passed out.
One of the violinists, in disgust, decided to go home but he slipped and fell.
It was the bottom of the 9th, the bassists were loaded, the score was tied with two men out, and the fans were roaring wild when one of the players slid home.
"Every great inspiration is but an experiment" -Charles Ives
If the Impressionists poked holes in the fabric of tonality (see previous post) then the Serialists stabbed it with Bowie knives. Welcome to the 20th Century!
Meet Charles Ives, (October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954), American composer, co-founder of the successful insurance firm Ives & Myrick, and an enigma to ponder. He was arguably the first true "20th century" composer. Fellow composer Arnold Schoenberg was not normally given to praising his contemporaries but said "There is a great Man living in this country – a composer. He has solved the problem of how to preserve one's self and to learn. He responds to negligence by contempt. He is not forced to accept praise or blame. His name is Ives."
Charles Ives's "Unanswered Question" of 1906 was the first piece of the 20th Century using spatial separation as a major element of the composition. He specified three groups of instruments to be placed around the concert hall. A solo trumpet, keeps asking the eternal question from center stage; increasingly irate and jabbering winds respond from the back of the hall; and the third, a soothing background of soft strings located back-stage represent the constant harmony of the universe.
This piece influenced many maverick composers, especially 90 year-old Henry Brant, who has composed over 100 spatial works and won the Pulitzer prize in 2002 for "Ice Field" based on this concept. Duly Consider this: Jan Swafford, American composer and author who teaches composition, theory, and musicology at the Boston Conservatory has asserted that "at heart, Ives is a religious composer". I can agree with him in a sense. But the Ives religion does not exist in any conventional sense, there is a vague spiritual consciousness perhaps. I believe he was mostly inspired by the transcendental writings of Emerson and Thoreau. He even built his own version of Thoreau's shelter in Walden Woods from which he could compose away from civilization.
Charles Ives built this composer's "shanty" on top of Pine Mountain in Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1903.
Was he inspired to conceive his "Universe" Symphony as he gazed over the distant ridges under stars?
Outside of early works like "The Celestial Country,” Ives' compositions raise far more questions than they answer. There is no unified rational view of the world in the music of Ives. His compositions are not easily grasped. Rather than simplifying our experience, Ives’ music portrays the world as fragmentary, disjointed, and ultimately incomplete. To view the musical world of Charles Ives, neither the telescope nor the microscope is helpful, but a kaleidoscope would serve one well. His music reveals an underlying complexity in a reality that is chaotic and disconnected. We typically ignore this dissonant reality by sticking to the well-worn paths, whether they are well-worn musical conventions or well-worn ways of thinking. Like the disembodied voice in the film "Field of Dreams", Ives challenges us to "Go the distance".
I know what your thinking, dear reader: "Well Benjamin, one does not have to be an astute learned student of musicology to understand Ives’ music represents a fragmentary and chaotic reality. That's basically modernism in a nutshell."
And you are right. However, allow me to elaborate further. Unlike modernists who reflect but lament the breakdown of sense and order, Ives relishes every drop of chaos; he does the high dive right into the primordial pool and does a few laps. Then he emerges jubilantly and asks only for a towel. Think of “The Fourth of July.” Think of “Putnam’s Camp.”
Ives in 1945. He even looks like a man who revels in chaos!
I was mistaken, you don't need a kaleidescope to view this world, this world is a kaleidoscope! Ives’s music acknowledges that our perceptions of the universe--and the realities that we construct from those perceptions--are in a constant state of transformation. From Ives’ point of view, creating a work of art and presenting it as complete is disingenuous. Ives spent most of his life attending mainstream Christian churches yet his music is never dogmatic or orthodox. Nor is it tidy.
"The fabric of existence weaves itself whole. You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance. There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of the experience of life and thinking about life and living life" -Charles Ives, A Life With Music
"My music is not really modern, just badly played." -Arnold Schoenberg
The historic encounter around 1911 between the composer Arnold Schöenberg and the painter Vassily Kandinsky occurred when the first wild revolts against traditional art, Dadaism and Futurism, had just manifested themselves. Without actually being a part of these movements, both Schoenberg and Kandinsky had already concluded that the material and the compositional methods they relied on in the past were exhausted and did not satisfy the development of their artistic ideas. Both artists had already submitted their modes of production to a critical analysis which resulted in Schöenberg's Theory of Harmony and Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, both published in 1911. They had already been putting their self-criticism into practice for some time. In Schöenberg's case this led to breaking with tonality; Kandinsky effected the transition to abstract painting.
The Red Look
Did Kandinsky influence the painting of Schöenberg?
After World War I Austrian born Arnold Schöenberg worked at evolving a means of order which would clarify and simplify his musical textures. This resulted in his "method of composition with twelve tones". In this system all twelve pitches of the octave are regarded as equal, and no one note or tonality is given the emphasis it occupied in classical harmony. He regarded it as the equivalent in music of Albert Einstein's discoveries in Physics. Schöenberg announced his theory with wry and ironic wit saying “I have made a discovery which will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years."
In the following years he produced a series of instrumental and orchestral works showing how his method could produce new music which did not copy the past. His crowning achievement was to be an opera - Moses und Aron, of which he wrote over two-thirds but was unable to complete, perhaps for psychological reasons. Most music scholars agree that although it is unfinished, it is his finest work.
The opera represents a response in dramatic form to the growing anti-Jewish movements in the German-speaking world after 1848 and a deeply personal expression of his own "Jewish identity" crisis. This crisis began with a personal encounter with anti-Semitic agitation at Mattsee during the summer of 1921, when he was forced to leave the resort because he was a Jew, although he actually had converted to Protestantism in 1898. It was a traumatic experience to which Schoenberg would often refer. "I have at last learned the lesson that has been forced upon me this year, and I shall never forget it. It is that I am not a German, not a European, indeed perhaps scarcely even a human being (at least, the Europeans prefer the worst of their race to me), but that I am a Jew."
Schöenberg’s music theory teacher, Gustav Mahler also tried to deflect the growing bigotry by converting to Catholicism, some years earlier. He said "I am thrice homeless: as a Bohemian among Austrians, as an Austrian among the Germans, and as a Jew throughout the entire world. I am an intruder everywhere, welcome nowhere.”
The Mattsee experience changed the course of Schoenberg's life and musical creativity. It led him to proclaim in Moses und Aron his strict monotheistic creed; and finally, upon his official return to Judaism in 1933, to embark for more than a decade on a relentless mission to save European Jews from the Nazis. The idea of the opera is the story of the Biblical Exodus set in modern times. It is both a political and personal statement. Ironically, the music ends at the point where Moses cries out his frustration at being unable to express himself. Some suggest that by this time Schoenberg had come to see himself as a kind of prophet as well.
Though remarkably he himself had little formal instruction in music, teaching was a major activity throughout his life. Among his many students the most noted were Alban Berg and Anton von Webern. He taught at the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin from 1925 to 1933, when he fled the Nazis, emigrated to the United States, and taught for a year at the Malkin Conservatory, Boston. He then went to Hollywood and was professor of music at the Univ. of Southern California (1935–36) and the Univ. of California at Los Angeles (1936–44). Schöenberg's music had polarized responses to it: his followers and students saw him as one of the most important figures in music, while many critics hated his work, on the whole.The deteriorating relation between contemporary composers and the public led him to found the Society for Private Musical Performances in Vienna in 1918. His aim was grandiose but not egocentric; he sought to provide a forum in which modern musical compositions could be carefully prepared and rehearsed, and properly performed under conditions protected from the dictates of fashion and pressures of commerce. From its inception through 1921, when it ended because of economic reasons, the Society presented 353 performances to paid members, sometimes at the rate of one per week, and during the first year and a half, Schöenberg did not allow any of his own works to be performed .
Instead, audiences at the Society's concerts heard difficult contemporary compositions by Scriabin, Debussy, Mahler, Webern, Berg, Reger, and other leading figures of early 20th-century music. Vienna saw the birth of serialism, psychoanalysis, and modern art all at once. Schöenberg was a triskadekaphobe. He omitted an 'A' in Aaron's name so as to avoid having 13 letters in the title. We are fortunate the traditional division of the octave had twelve, not 13 tones or perhaps Schöenberg would not have graced us with this amazing music. Perhaps instead writing the theme for "Happy Birthday". Perhaps ironically he left the planet on Friday, July 13 in his 76th year, 7+6=13.
It is worth noting that Schöenberg was not the only composer (or even the first) to experiment with the systematic use of all twelve tones. Both the Russian composer Nikolai Roslavets and Schöenberg's fellow Austrian Josef Matthias Hauer developed their own twelve-tone systems quite independently at around the same time as Schöenberg, and Charles Ives experimented with twelve-tone techniques substantially earlier. However, Schöenberg's system was by far the most influential.
For a great listening and interactive experience (Best with headphones and high speed internet, dial up would be tough) check out The Unmixed Question. You can do your own spatial mix of Charles Ives "The Unanswered Question" with the San Francisco Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting.
The piece was created using binaural 3D positioning software to move the musical parts around in an imaginary hall. Just to add a little chaos, we have added some incidental Ives music you can blend in; a practice he often did, in the Symphony #4 for instance with clashing bands and choruses. Wait for the music to load and press the Start icon. Clicking "Location" will send the part to another placement in the space once the previous part is finished playing. You can also control the relative volumes of each part or fade them out all together.
NOTE: This is a big file. It takes a while to load. Patience pays off. Don't be in a hurry for the sound to change right after the buttons are touched. Just keep your ears open and the changes will follow.
There are 16 parts of all different lengths (four parts possible at once.) Because they are different lengths the phrases will never line up the same way twice. This makes for a slowly evolving piece without an end.
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T he first thing that comes to mind is this generic notion being reported in the mainstream media that the entire government suffers from the same levels of perceptions that they are "doing nothing" or "ignoring the will of the people."
In this most recent Harris Poll, we see that different elements have different perceptions.
At the top but still under 50%, is that of Secretary of State Rice, who would personify the notion that doing nothing and staying quiet may be the consolation that makes one seem to be effective.
N ext, we see that individuals seem to do better than groups. Even Bush as an individual seems to satisfy more voters than the Congress . Despite congress being lower than the President, House Speaker Pelosi does far better than Bush while Senate Leader Reid does worse.
When comparing parties, we see that the Dems are a full 33% more popular than the GOP in congress, at 31-21% respectively. F inally, we look at the trends over just the last month. Confidence in both the President and Congress have continued to fall noticeably over the past month, as if there was no eventual plateau. It makes one ask, "How low can you go?"
Regarding the two most influential issues, 1) the wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and 2) immigration have both the President and Congress drawing the anger of the people as the consensus is that neither cares about what the voters want. It seems that somehow, both parties and both political extremes have joined together to either fail to address the problem or to present solutions the electorate finds unacceptable. The result, nothing; and some would say that is better than passing another comprehensive immigration reform bill that says one thing and does another.
We were discussing the different periods of musical development in western civilization last week and ended with the Romantic Era. This week let’s look at the music of the 20th century. Seems like a straightforward purpose and simple enough task. Yet the compositions of the last century are much harder to pin down and generalize than one might be inclined to believe. In the last 100 years, ideological changes and technical advances have affected not only the way that music is enjoyed but also the way that it is composed. The one generalization we can make is that these composers have all explored new and uncharted territory in terms of tone and structure, often abandoning -- challenging -- or combining the preconceived notions about the nature of music itself, which we discussed a bit in last weeks story.
Although I suggest it was a bloodless revolution, it’s casualties, like elephants shot by big game hunters, remain standing even to this day. This Revolution did not happen overnight . Events in the Romantic period led directly to the Jacobinic musical subversions of the next century. The latter part of the Romantic Period gave us Wagner, Mahler and Scriabin. Together, they pushed the tonal system into the red, pegged the needle, and exploded the gauge. The first responders to this emergency were Debussy, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. I discovered quickly that there is simply too much diversity in this music to do any meaningful journalism within the constraints of a single article. In this week’s musical outing, we’ll be taking a closer look at Debussy and his contemporaries.
The Impressionist Movement
Recently an art thief in Paris nearly got away with stealing several paintings from the Louvre. But, after taking them off the walls and eluding the guards, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas. When asked how he could mastermind such a theft and then make such a blunder, he replied: “I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.”
Debussy (and Ravel) experimented with whole tone scales and became associated with the impressionist movement. (Throughout history, art and music have developed in parallel with each other.) Impressionism in art began in France near the end of the 19th century. impressionist painters did not seek to show reality in the classical sense of a picture-perfect image; instead, they emphasized light and color to give an overall "impression" of their subjects.
Claude Monet‘s “Impression: Sunrise"—The movement was named after this painting
In much the same way, musical impressionism aims to create descriptive impressions, not necessarily to draw clear pictures. The music is not designed to explicitly describe anything, but rather to create a mood or atmosphere. This is done through almost every aspect of music: melody, harmony, timbre, rhythm, and form. Melodies tend to be brief and repeated in different contexts to reflect different moods, notes are often drawn from scale systems other than the traditional major and minor. These would include pentatonic, whole-tone, or other somewhat exotic scales including chromaticism.
Asian music inspired Debussy more than the western traditions of the time. The use (or misuse, as critics of the time were known to say) of harmony was a key ingredient in the impressionist‘s bouillabaisse. For nearly the entire history of Western music, chords had been used to build and relieve tension using dissonance and consonance. Mozart’s Sonata in A is a good example of traditional harmony. You can definitively hear the chord structure leading the music forward until it reaches resolution on the final note. Now listen to "L'îsle Joyeuse" ("The Island of Joy") by Claude Debussy. This is actually a musical interpretation of Jean-Antoine Watteauthe’s painting "The Embarkation for Cythera".
"The Embarkation for Cythera" by Jean-Antoine Watteau
Both the painting and the piece tell the story of a journey to the mythical island of Cythera the birthplace of Venus, an ideal place of love and beauty. (I wonder if Travelzoo or Expedia can get me there at a discount?) The opening trills suggest the excitement and anticipation of the travelers; a middle section depicts them floating over the water; their arrival is heralded by jubilant trumpeting; and their ecstatic joy in realizing their destination provides a climactic finish. (OK, time for a cigarette, how was it for you?) The chords in this piece sometimes serve no harmonic purpose in the traditional theoretical sense. But rather they convey the joyful mood and color of the piece. Sometimes the melody isn't very clear, but it is implied... we only get an impression of it.
Note: My art historian friends tell me today, the painting is believed to actually depict the departure from the island, and symbolizes the brevity of love. But that‘s not how Debussy saw it and since I can‘t email the only true authority on the subject…Watteau himself for an explanation, I leave the exegesis of the painting to you dear reader, to interpret for yourself.
"I am trying to do 'something different' -- in a way reality -- what the imbeciles call 'impressionism' is a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by art critics." -Claude Debussy
The Great Watchmaker
Igor Stravinsky referred to Ravel as the "great Watchmaker". Ravel would labor over the intricacies of of small parts of his music before placing them in the larger finished work a bit like a watchmaker. Maurice Ravel was another acclaimed composer of this period. I’m sure we are all familiar with his “Bolero”. The worlds longest crescendo.
He wrote, "I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively very little . . . and at that, I did it with a great deal of difficulty. I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I have torn all of it out of me by pieces. . . and now I cannot do any more, and it does not give me any pleasure."
Ravel wrote Bolero, while on holiday in his hometown of Ciboure France. Each year, his whole family would return to visit Ciboure for their annual vacation, and he had continued to visit even after his parents died. Bolero is built on two musical themes which are repeated eighteen times during the work. It is not an attempt at Spanish dance music (Although his mother was Basque), nor is it a bolero, or a folk dance at all. It is a slower tempo than a bolero dance. The piece is a combination of a polonaise, chaconne, and sarabande. Throughout the piece the rhythm of the snare drum beats relentlessly. People seem to either love or hate this piece. Many think it is repetitive and boring while others find it hypnotizing and fascinating. It is, in any event, the world's longest musical crescendo.
In fact, on Sept 1, 1997, a British study published in the French 'Psychiatric Bulletin' claims Ravel may have been in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease because of its repetitive melody. Dr. Eva Cybulska, who authored the study, suggests this possibility due to the fact that most people with this affliction suffer from an obsession with repeating words and gestures. For a really beautiful vocal rendition of Bolero, Check out Angelique Kidjo's "Djin Djin" Cd, reviewed a few weeks ago here.
Ravel was an interesting fellow, a confirmed atheist, and a great defender of liberal politics. Among Ravel's completed works, there is a notable complete absence of religious forms or references. His habitual inspiration came from nature, from fairy tales and folk songs, and from classical and oriental legends. Politically, he was totally opposed to all social inequality.
When Jean-Jacques Liabeuf was condemned to death for shooting two policemen in 1910, Ravel was among the most vocal to secure a reprieve. He was against the death penalty under all circumstances. He also said that Liabeuf had been the victim of a trumped-up charge simply because he was an anarchist. The blind fury which had led him to avenge his honor by shooting his accusers was understandable. After Liabeuf's execution, Ravel was so upset that he shut himself up in his home, refusing to see anyone for many days.
Ravel always spent Christmas Eve with the Clemenceau family, Paul and Georges.
In 1927 Ravel began to show signs of dementia, and suffered from muscle problems and aphasia. After a car crash in 1932, his symptoms worsened and he eventually lost all abilities to communicate. In 1937 he underwent an unsuccessful brain surgery to remove a brain tumor and died 9 days later, in Paris, at the age of sixty-two. Impressionist composers such as Debussy, Ravel, and Satie took the first major steps into the 20th century.
Impressionism poked a hole in the fabric of tonality
From time to time I like to recommend recordings that I believe are outstanding. Virtuoso guitarist Steve Hackett (one of my personal favorites!) and his brother John(on flute), has recently recorded an entire CD of Eric Satie’s beautiful impressionist music.
"I have come into the world very young into an era very old."
Here are a few anecdotes about Satie's eccentricities:
In his one-room apartment Satie had two pianos. He placed one on top of the other, and had their pedals interconnected. Strange??? Actually, this was his technique to create a sort of early reverb technique. One piano being played, the other creating a harmonic resonance chamber for the other. If you hold the right pedal of a piano down, then sing into it, the strings will vibrate to the tones you are singing.
His room must have been pretty crowded, for it also contained his collection of over 100 umbrellas.
Satie would buy a dozen identical gray velvet suits at a time. He wore one till it no longer looked nice, then he threw it away and put on a new one. When he left the planet, 6 identical gray velvet suits remained… along with his 100 + umbrellas. When Satie was criticized for writing music without form, he immediately composed "Trois Morceaux en forme de poire" (Three Pear-shaped Pieces. They are piano duets… in the form of a pear…. now that‘s humorous).
Satie's delightful eccentricity is apparent in “Vexations” a composition of 180 notes in length, directed to be repeated 840 times. It was recorded in 1963 in New York. It took a relay team of 10 pianists over eighteen hours to perform. For all you trivia fans, it is the longest single piece ever written.
It was the great avant garde composer John Cage who first suggested that Satie’s music was well suited to modern dance. Satie is now regarded as one of the best composers to use for contemporary choreography.
Note: You might recognize this simple and elegant tune as it has been used in variation and even lyricized by various artists.
"Smoke, my friend. Otherwise someone else will smoke in your place."
- Erik Satie
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I'm just trying to be happy like anybody else. So I try to replace the bad with goodness. The hard part is knowing which one is which
A brief introduction: I am one whose identity is not tied up in one's name, but in her soul; not in her position, but in her relationship with others; not by what she owns, but by what she let's go.
In this article, I would just like to address a philosophy of she not being a part of him but with them either in pleasure or pain. Simone De Beauvoir once said in her book, Second Sex:
"For him she is sex - absolute sex, no less. She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute - she is the Other."
In this section, Duly Consider will seek to find the voice of women, unfiltered by men, so that men may truly know us and that we may know ourselves within our own context. We are so often defined and judged by men and though it is not the intention of this author to separate women from men but to allow women to define themselves. If you are a woman, please discover that which is you. If you are a man and you care to know women, welcome and taste from our lips. If you are a woman who loves women, express your unique voice here. It is a safe place for open minds and expressive souls.
To begin, let me offer a method by which women may submit ideas for articles or pieces you have already written that speak to this request above. If you want to be read or only to have a place where your words go out for scrutiny without judgment, this is the place. As we have many voices, no two shall be the same, but all shall be from the heart first, then the head as we do not pretend that the thought came first before the beating, throbbing of blood through our veins. We are self-aware and independent, and only with these sentiments can we truly allow men to know us as we won ourselves and we will let men own only what is truly theirs.
Men who wish to reflect on women may find many places where they can be lord. As I have been assured by Duly Consider that men's voices are common on this site. It is with this idea that we wish to let men know who we really are and what we really want, but also what we give.
Herstory, politics, love, psychology, art, philosophy and even the sciences are things into which we will delve. It is not ours to endorse ideas here but to encourage them. Welcome all who want to know women. To those who don't, we ask you to allow for the possibility that someday you will see us for who we are, not for who you think we are or want us to be.
Editor's Note: She DC and Duly Consider are TM and will we treated as such if there are attempts at infringement. She DC is in no way intended to suggest a certain way to be a woman as such presumption would be counterproductive to our goal of open minds and sufficient basis for ideas. All contributions will be read and those published will meet the high standards we have tried to build throughout the site.
It is sad that political moderates see nations around the world allowing their 'tails to wag their dogs', but it is absolutely true that we see a vocal minority alive and well for 1000's of years, whose hate and vitriol is most often ignored until they commit massive genocide. Then they are noticed and briefly stifled but never extinguished. Somehow, in these cases, patience is seen as a virtue by the remaining logical and responsible majority.
But, patience and tolerance are the worst things we can exercise in the presence of such extreme potential damage to our world, politically, economically, morally and in regard to the ultimate preservation and protection of life and liberty.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790), Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
We have, in recent years in America, seen the rise of a new fascism in the form of a rabid and rapid growth of power among a group that has gone so far as to call itself the "Moral Majority" when they are neither moral nor a majority at least in the populace. They may very well have the majority of power at the moment. Of course, throughout history, those in the middle have always kept quiet until entirely too much damage has been done. Such forces fed racism and slavery in early America; then later led the further impoverishment of poor whites and blacks through their exercise of voter suppression efforts, sharecropping and now the building of a military industrial complex that threatens to destabilize the entire world.
All of this throughout history, in its various phases, has depended on an inner fear fed by an institutional prejudice against those different than ourselves.
More have been killed in the name of religion than any other factor. We could go back further in world history, but let's just begin with the initial foothold of extremism among Christians that led to the holy inquisition, wars and the killing and slavery of millions. Eventually, Protestantism quelled the fervor, ironically in Germany with Martin Luther, and even Henry the 8th of England did his part in the establishment of the Anglican Church, which initially slowed the killing (if you don't count Henry's wives). Queen Elizabeth led a period of balance against the Catholic-led killing of those with whom they disagreed.
However, fighting fire with fire, the English became the new imperialists with their new found power and they began killing and enslaving their foes until the Americas stood up to them and their Spaniard equivalents and declared independence, relatively successfully, or so it seemed. Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Payne and others led a secular movement in recognition that religious states were not the answer to permanently ending the potential for imperialism and hate. They thought they had created a system impervious to such separatism, but they failed to address the seeds that they themselves fertilized, those of slavery.
They didn't see that this would grow into a new religion of bigotry, justified by Christianity still, in an insistence that we were not to be "unequally yoked", thus they ignored their own words that " all men were created equally" and they built America on the backs of a new underclass of slaves and non-landowners.
Of course, they later pretended that they were fighting a civil war in order to liberate slaves, but they only continued it in the form of sharecropping as they had not attacked the real problems of "royal inheritance" and the resultant reestablishment of an oligarchy in the US.
France destroyed its royalty and established a form of socialism that has apparently endured, but we are still waiting for the other foot to fall there, as they never dropped the arrogance of "national pride" which feeds bigotry even today. England didn't destroy their royalty but instead, created a system that put them in a luxurious prison (Buckingham Palace) and creating a toothless House of Lords, hoping that would keep them quiet and content while they pursued a parliamentary form of government augmented by relative socialism. Russia removed their Czar and began a period of seeming egalitarianism, but maintained a firm authoritarian form of government which still allowed the re-growth of abusive wealth, again fed by other forms of bigotry and scapegoating despite their false pretense of "communal" sharing.
Meanwhile, Asia experienced a much more successful and enduring form of communism that maintained hierarchy but redistributed wealth. Their homogeneity and isolation seemed to allow their systems protection while enduring social philosophies of Confucianism, provided transition slowly but surely toward an interesting mix of capitalism and socialism which exists today, despite a close call while Japan enslaved them briefly.
Japan and Germany were led by similar dreams of racial supremacy in which they had agreed to carve up the world into the "best whites" (Protestant Christians) and the "best Asians" (a successful industrialist system led by a figurehead royalty). Japan enslaved Korea and China while the Arian Germans did the same with Western Europe, and appeared invincible until the US regained its strength after its civil war.
Having seemingly dealt with its domestic divisions, the US was ready to provide moral authority over the world and with the assistance of technology and natural resources we firebombed Germany and Japan, dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then proclaimed ourselves policemen of the world with the threat of a newfound nuclear superiority. Though Russia had also eventually developed their own nuclear weapons and had struck a deal to share Europe, they didn't have reliable delivery systems. By the time they did, both sides had built enough weapons to guarantee "Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)" which became the fear necessary to keep neither US nor the Russians from taking over the world.
Those nations who had not the burden of massive military industrial complex were free to acquire wealth through industrialization. Meanwhile, the thing which fed worldwide "progress" became oil. It lubricated and energized. It made the wastelands of Texas and the Middle East the most valuable land in the world. Business alliances were made between the two and both found a new tool to maintain social control, a fear which again fed on religious bigotry.
England had been so weakened by WW2 and their own internal civil war between Catholics and Protestants, that they had to reassert a continued and strengthened alliance with the US. Still, much of the world kept their nose clean and developed stable socialism, i.e, Europe, Japan, China and Korea.
People had not noticed, but a similar rift began to develop between the Shia and Sunni Muslims, analogous to Catholic and Protestant Christians. No one really understood its significance as there was little expertise in Arabic language or culture outside the Middle East. The British, French and US had failed to imperialize them along with back-to-back failures to capture the hearts and minds of India and Indo-China (Vietnam/Cambodia). The Russians tried to add Afghanistan to their fold but found that you could not win a war militarily if you failed to win the hearts and minds, no matter how hard they tried.
Meanwhile, Russia was financially weakened by their failed attempt in Afghanistan, and their military spending in the Cold war against the US and they crumbled into several parts, all wanting what they thought the US had, capitalist luxury and freedom.
What the world didn't realize was, that the US had not dealt with its own inner bigotry before they started trying to evangelize the world with its form of democracy. We still had a serious problem with a racial fascist tendency and only succeeded in changing laws but we failed to change our minds (de jure vs de facto). Our civil rights movement looked good in theory but failed in practice and eventually, a backlash of racism created a new system of private schools (primarily white, some wealthy, some simply racist) and public schools (primarily poor and middle class whites and minorities).
The US, still driven by white Christian bigotry, elected conservative Ronald Reagan and a "thunder on the right" gave the impression that most Americans were in agreement that we were a "Christian Nation". The reappearance of Arian supremacy was inevitable as we had not truly addressed and condemned the racist whites across our nation. The wealthy industrialists saw a fertile collective mind in which racist fear could be fueled by religious ignorance. Christians didn't understand each other, much less the growing Muslim nation. Internally, Christianity was still very conflicted; Catholics vs. Protestants, Race vs Race, and Fundamentalists vs Moderate Scientists.
Fundamentalism became a magnet for political demagogues to feed on the citiizen's fears both in the Mideast and in the US. It was easy to twist the superstitions as industrialists began to attack the only potential savior against ignorance, education. Slowly but surely while pretending to improve education in the US, the "New Conservatives/Neo-cons" began to destroy and dismantle the public school system as this would make it easier to plant seeds of fear. They fed on the differences in our diverse nation and suggested that the very thing that made us great initially, was a threat to the "American way of life". This threat was political dissent.
Somehow it never occurred to people that the very thing upon which our nation was built, was under attack. Protection of the establishment is now the law of the land after easy passage of the Patriot Act after 9/11. It was a convenient excuse to remove the liberties we had previously fought for. The very thing that built our nation, revolution, has become renamed, "terrorism" and anyone who did not support our military solutions became labeled as traitors and those who were willing to kill and let poor people die for oil became the patriots.
Together, oil and the military have marched forward, raping us of freedom, political stability and our last dime if we let them. At this moment, 24% or less of America pretends it is the majority and all of us serve the benefits of a much smaller percentage of super wealthy. As they take away more of our freedoms and education, they dig in further to protect their power while destroying ours.
Many in the middle are confused and reacting with embarrassment to the loud cries by the vocal minority that anyone who opposes them is a traitor. But the real traitors are the Fascist extremists of Christianity, Islam and even Zionism; strange bedfellows indeed, except that, at their core, they don't care about religion at all, other than the religion of "money" and the power that money creates. We have created a new race of superhumans who consider themselves "Gods" and many confuse them for the Gods of their respective religions but they are really the very thing that all their religions are supposed to oppose.
The capital of American military industrialism and oil is Texas, and the message of Protestant Christian Fascism is resounding through puppet Bush as they walk hand in hand with their Saudi Arabian Royal Sunni Muslim Fascist partners who, in turn, use the fear of their people to promote weakness and violence as they partner with the Shia Fundamentalist Fascists and their puppet, Ahmadinejad. They scream that they hate each other while making deals behind closed doors. We and they condone killing women and children and tell the people that the enemy is other nations and their religions.
Israel, a religious nation, joins the US, a religiously controlled oligarchy, and Saudi-Arabia, another religious controlled oligarchy, have joined forces and whether for or against Iran, another group of Islamo-fascists, they carve up the economic world by controlling energy.
Wow, sounds complex, but it is so clear when you break it down. Somehow, the rest of the world, basically devoid of religious bigotry, sees us for who we really are, the greatest threat to the Earth in its history, a combined menace that envisions a world government led by religious extremists.
I offer no solutions but provide a beginning by attempting to unravel the lies that obscure the truth, by logically dissecting the body politic that has developed. The one thing we should agree upon is that this dialectic of equal evils must be stopped before we no longer have the power to stop them, either through diplomacy or revolution. And there are many kinds of revolution.
As logical words can only be properly supported by a more complex logic at the core of the human mind, music best organizes my final thoughts.
You say you want a revolution Well, you know We all want to change the world You tell me that it's evolution Well, you know We all want to change the world But when you talk about destruction Don't you know that you can count me out Don't you know it's gonna be all right all right, all right
You say you got a real solution Well, you know We'd all love to see the plan You ask me for a contribution Well, you know We're doing what we can But when you want money for people with minds that hate All I can tell is brother you have to wait Don't you know it's gonna be all right all right, all right,
ah, ah, ah, ah, ah...
You say you'll change the constitution Well, you know We all want to change your head You tell me it's the institution Well, you know You better free you mind instead But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow Don't you know it's gonna be all right all right, all right all right, all right, all right all right, all right, all right
Editor's Note Post Publication:
The amazing thing is, no matter how careful one is with words, many moderate Christians find an indictment of the extremists (not really Christians at all, unless we ignore Jesus) is viewed as an indictment of religion itself.
Somehow, there is a kneejerk to any logical clarification and separation of extremism from moderation.
Some use words like "rhetoric" to describe only the positions with which they disagree. Meanwhile, they themselves use rhetoric without any logic to simply state conclusions without any facts to support them.
As this article focused on the "Fascism" within parts of organized religion, it was assumed by many that my failure to indict Lenin, Stalin and other despots was somehow an endorsement of them.
Such an assumption would be completely wrong. The definitions of fascism and/or consequent despotism are clear. The blind support, above all the interests, of a Federal govt. and its establishment elements is the purest and most dangerous part of Fascism.
When the people lose their ability to know when they are being enslaved, we are vulnerable to the "final solution" that every fascist state has brought forth.
Inevitably, once the despots have taken hold, they extinguish all signs of resistance. Yes, this has happened many times in history. And sometimes, it has been in the name of an entirely different religion of the worship of man to whcih Nietzsche referred.
Hitler called himself a Christian as a matter of Machiavellian bastardization and cooptation. It was only a tool of manipulation of the otherwise good Christians of Germany.
Even Popes have done such and I am often reminded of Dante's Divine Comedy and the Inferno, in which he suggests that the most severe parts of hell are reserved for Popes and false prophets. Some Popes have been ruthless; some were truly saints.
Lenin, Pulpot etc. were only espousing a religion in which they were evangelically hailing atheism or self as God. It is interesting we even find "churches" of Atheism all over the world, and on the web.
Their position of the non-existence of God makes them equally religious and zealous. Just as within the inquisitions before, they would eventually kill those with whom they differed.
Pulpot of Cambodia went so far as to kill all people who wore glasses, as he saw that as a sign of intelligence, thus a threat to his regime.
Whatever words we use for these blind expressions of faith, "religion" is what I would call it as it requires one to follow without scrutiny the spiritual commandments of the authors. Mind that I don't proclaim that religion is the problem but the twisting of good intentions with blind faith that threatens us all.
Sadly, I couldn't possibly cover the whole of historical ground in an essay, but to touch on many points in history which satisfy the argument. Arguments can be constructed to support additional positions and I invite the submission of points that our readers may Duly Consider to our email address.
I only hope to remain a servant of truth and an open mind and some may see my truth as lies. They can, I suppose, start their own sites. I hear the Nazi Party of America is looking for good writers. But please don't file your application here.
What if a sentient life form from a planet somewhere in the Large Magellanic Cloud was folding space one day and materialized in your back yard while you were grilling shish kabobs? After checking to make sure you hadn’t accidentally woken up in a Hunter S. Thompson novel, you offer your new friend a kabob and he proceeds to eat the skewer. After a brief befuddled moment of indigestion the conversation turns to music. “What is this thing your people call music?” Take a moment to ponder this. How would you reply? Some common replies I get from my music students are :
1.) “It is pleasing to the ear”. Perhaps most of the time, but not always. When Igor Stravinsky debuted the Rite of Spring in 1914 the audience responded promptly with a riot. The edgy intensity of the rhythms, bestial orchestration and carnal themes created a sensory overload that resulted in an orgy of violence. (Personally I Love the Rite of Spring, but those present at it’s first performance did not find it particularly “pleasing to the ear”). This definition is also quite subjective as London punks perceived the Sex Pistols as a delightful sound while it’s a safe bet Margaret Thatcher’s ears were tortured. Some find a chorus of frogs pleasing, yet is it music?
2.) “It has a melody” Well I suggest melody is a key component to most music but not all . After all, Drum Corps make sounds that we would identify as music right? Many drum corps groups consist of drums only. No melody instruments per se. Many rap artists create works that are monotone, without a perceptible melody. So music can exist without melody.
3. “It has a rhythm” Yes , All musical events unfurl over time. The flowing river of time and rhythm is another key component of music. But windshield wipers have rhythm as well. Most machines make rhythmic sounds, Although I doubt many would say these sounds were in fact music? So all music incorporates rhythm but not all rhythm is music.
4. “It has harmony” Well, solo instruments, and voice do not always have harmonies supporting them. Plainsong or Gregorian Chant is the first music we know of to be transcribed into a notation system. And it is devoid of harmony. Western music (no, not country western) generally has a highly developed harmonic structure compared to other musical traditions. However Chinese classical music often has little harmony, sometimes none at all. Harmony is a component of most music but music exists without harmony.
5. “It has lyrics” Although this is a pretty common answer, obviously music does not always have words.
6. “Music is sound” All music is sound but not all sound is music. Take for instance crickets, frogs , dogs barking, sirens, lawn mowers, etc. Could we use those sounds in a musical context? You bet. Are they intrinsically music? No.
Music Is Sound That Is Organized
What is music then? It is Organized sound. All music is organized in some fashion. The composer chooses sounds or the absence of sound (rests) the way a visual artist chooses colors from the pallet. And just as we can identify different historical periods of visual art, we additionally can identify historical periods in music. Many people think classical music is any music performed by an orchestra. It is not. Classical music is the music from what we refer to as the classical era. A period of 70 years between 1750 and 1820. Let’s have a look at the development of music in western civilization.
Our musical traditions are a result of a variety of influences, including the formal systematization of previously improvised traditions; the growth of notation; the development of tuning systems; the musical interpretation of text; and innovations in form. Also the role of patronage; the assimilation of various cultures into the style and the growth of technology have influenced the outcome of the music of western civilization.
The Early Music
The earliest known music has its origins in the chant tradition of the early Christian era. ( Of course by "known" we are talking about music that has been written down. Music of course has existed since the dim beginnings of mankind.) The monophonic (one sound) music of chant dominated the middle ages. Although it seems likely that other cultures and times may have developed a system of notating music there is no evidence of it yet discovered. Notation is attributed to Gregory the Great in the 5th century. (though some say it was later, perhaps 7th century and originally the chant may have been so named to honor the contemporary Pope Gregory II). Regardless of who invented it, we begin our journey with Gregorian Chant. Charlemagne, once elevated to Holy Roman Emperor, aggressively spread Gregorian chant throughout his empire to consolidate religious and secular power, requiring the clergy to use the new repertory on pain of death. So it was quite popular you see.
In the following century the monophonic chant, already harmonized , was becoming altered, fragmented, and hidden beneath secular tunes. The lyrics of love poems might be sung above sacred texts, or the sacred text might be placed within a familiar secular melody. It was not merely polyphony that offended the medieval ears, but the notion of secular music merging with the sacred. Controversial in the Roman Catholic Church, the music was starkly rejected by Pope John XXII. This is the music of the beginning of the Renaissance, referred to as ars nova (new arts). The new polyphony in music is similar to the introduction of perspective in painting. And is equally revolutionary.
Middle Ages On The Half Shell
Around 500 A.D., western civilization began to emerge from the period known as "The Dark Ages," the time when invading hordes of Vandals, Huns, and Visigoths, and other marauding hoards overran Europe and brought an end to the Roman Empire. For the next ten centuries, the newly emerging Christian Church would dominate Europe, administering justice, instigating "Holy" Crusades against the East, establishing Universities, and generally dictating the destiny of music, art and literature. However secular music was sung all over Europe by the troubadours and trouvères Who traveled the countryside singing the “news“. (Remember- no radios, No TVs, or newspapers.)
The Renaissance Rocked
From 1420 to 1600, the Renaissance (which means "rebirth") was a time of cultural awakening and a flowering of the arts, letters, and sciences throughout Europe. With the rise of humanism, even sacred music began for the first time to break free of the confines of the Church, and composers trained in the Netherlands mastered the art of polyphony in their compositions. These polyphonic traditions reached their culmination in the unsurpassed works of Giovanni da Palestrina.
Of course, secular music thrived during this period, much of which lyrically was quite bawdy. Instrumental and dance music was performed in abundance, if not always written down. It was left for others to collect and notate the wide variety of irrepressible instrumental music of the period. The late Renaissance also saw the birth of the English madrigal. My favorites were composed by John Dowland, William Byrd and Thomas Morley .
If It’s Not Baroque, Don’t fix It
The word Baroque in Italian means bizarre, the Baroque period (1600 to 1750) saw composers beginning to rebel against the styles that were prevalent during the Renaissance. (Does all meaningful art come from rebellion?)
Baroque music like the art and architecture from the same period was heavily ornamented and fancy. This was a time when the many monarchies of Europe competed with each other in pride, pomp and pageantry (or egotism, conceit, and arrogance). Many monarchs employed composers at their courts, where they were little more than servants expected to churn out music for any desired occasions.
One noteworthy composer of the period, Johann Sebastian Bach, was such a servant. In the old days musicians either were servants of the monarchy, the church, or they wandered the countryside singing for their supper so to speak. Yet the best composers of the time were able to break new musical ground despite generally being told what to do by unmusical masters, and in so doing succeeded in creating an entirely new style of music.
It was during the early part of the seventeenth century that the genre of opera was first created by a group of composers in Florence, Italy, and the earliest operatic masterpieces were composed by Claudio Monteverdi. The instrumental concerto was a quite popular form of music, my favorites come from the Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi. Most people are familiar with his popular work “The Four Seasons”. The Harpsichord ruled as pianos were not invented yet. Dances became formalized into instrumental suites and were composed by virtually everyone. But vocal and choral music also reigned during this age, and I believe peaked, in the operas and oratorios of George Frideric Handel.
Classical Gas
As I mentioned earlier, Classical music is the music of this era, 1750 - 1820.
Composers of this period concerned themselves primarily with form. Although the Classical Era lasted for only 70 years, there was a substantial change in the music that was produced. Classical music placed a greater stress on clarity than ornamentation. artists, architects, and musicians moved away from the heavily ornamented styles of the Baroque and the Rococo, and instead embraced a clean, uncluttered style they thought reminiscent of Classical Greece. The newly established aristocracies were replacing monarchs and the church as patrons of the arts, and were demanding an impersonal, but tuneful and elegant music. Dances such as the minuet and the gavotte were all the rage.
At this time the Austrian capital of Vienna became the musical center of Europe, and works of the period are often referred to as being in the Viennese style. Composers came from all over Europe to train in and around Vienna.
Johann Stamitz contributed greatly to the growth of the orchestra and developed the idea of the symphony. The Classical period reached its majestic culmination with the majestic symphonies, sonatas, and string quartets of Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. These 3 along with Franz Schubert would be on the “must have” list of any music fan I believe.
Rock Star? Franz Liszt
Advance Romance
Although Beethoven was a great composer in the classical period he also ended it with his passionate symphonies. He and Shubert to some degree ushered in the new era of Romanticism that stressed emotion rather than reasoning or form. If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn't have to go to an osteopath, then there's something wrong. What rocks harder than the opening of the 5th? I personally enjoy the music of this period a bit more than the previous eras.
During the early nineteenth century, opera composers such as Carl Maria von Weber turned to German folk stories for the stories of their operas, while the Italians looked to the literature of the time and created what is known as Bel canto opera (literally "beautiful singing"). Later in the century, the field of Italian opera was dominated by Giuseppe Verdi, while German opera was virtually monopolized by Richard Wagner. ( Mark Twain once said “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds”.) Wagner disliked singers and would write parts just to piss ‘em off sometimes! He was a bit of an egomaniac, and he married one of Liszt’s daughters.
For an interesting if not surreal look at the romantic era rent or buy Ken Russel’s “Lisztomania” or “The Music Lovers”. Both are really great films! Composers of the Romantic era often had a highly personal harmonic language and melodic style which distinguishes their music from that of the previous traditions. ( Remember that until this time most music was being composed for someone other than the composer, a patron of one sort or another. Now public performances give composers the freedom to do as they wish, and that’s a good thing! Imagine if Van Gogh had only painted pictures of wealthy patrons, how poor the world would be.)
The continued modification and enhancement of existing instruments, plus the invention of new ones, led to the further expansion of the symphony orchestra throughout the century. Taking advantage of these new sounds and new instrumental combinations, the late Romantic composers of the second half of the nineteenth-century created richer and ever larger symphonies, ballets, and concertos. Two of the giants of this period are the Johannes Brahms and the great Russian melodist Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. (“The Music Lovers” is about Tchaikovsky’s life.) Did you know the “Nutcracker” was received so poorly when it first premiered it closed after only 1 performance? Tchaikovsky went to the grave believing it was a terrible failure. Someone revived it in the mid 1900s and it became the most performed ballet of all times. Tchaikovsky was 100 years ahead of his time.
Tchaikovsky was 100 years ahead of his time
And I’m 100 words over my intended article length so I will save my personal favorite era of composition (20th Century) for another article.
Until then your humble narrator leaves you with this question to ponder.
What historical era of music do you enjoy most? Adieu!
Duly Consider and Considerable Sounds are TM of this publication and are subject to liabilities thereof
America is soon to adopt a new acronym to replace USA. The new, easily remembered replacement will be LCD. The "dumbing down of America" is both the cause and the effect of our eventual destruction if we let it.
Sadly, though the citizens did not cause its own dumbing down; the corporatists, in an attempt to separate the intelligencia from the support of the people, has conditioned us to accept the best of the worst, a "lowest common denominator (LCD)" approach, like everything else in modern society. It is the source of the causes of our electing actors and idiots as Presidents, because they are as "ordinary as us", as opposed to celebrating brilliance. All of this is a consciousness that stupid people are more easily led, like rats into the sea following the pied piper.
If a basketball player has skills, we celebrate him; he scores more points; evidence of his superiority. Many never consider that the largest part of this is the superiority of his mind. They wrongly attribute this to his physical prowess, but somehow the tallest, most muscular player is not the highest scorer.
It appears many Americans would rather have a President with whom they could drink a beer and from whom they could hear a good joke, than to have one who knows how to improve their lives. It is not Mr. Bush's fault he is by far the least intelligent President to be elected in recent history. He is a product of the citizens and the devious puppet-masters who surround him. I am sure Mr. Bush is smarter than the average grocery store manager, but couldn't we have had higher expectations of the the requirements to become the "decider" for the world's only military superpower?
Regarding politics and even business, somehow it never occurs to many Americans that intelligence and logical persuasion are characteristics of an executive or lawyer that any of us would want to hire if we fully expect to win our cases, make more money and/or stay out of jail, yet somehow that has a taint when considering our number one legal and business minds in America. We have watched so many movies where emotionality won out over pure logical intelligence and truth, that we think demagoguery is the modern dogma of success. It never occurs to them, companies and the country should be run by the most intelligent, and that intelligence should feed our effective persuasion rather than weaponry and a loud mouth.
Then we wonder why the rest of the world laughs at us in the world frontier of policy and action. We have recently fallen from number one to number seven in a particularly important category:
U.S. falls from first to seventh place in global information technology ranking (Article)
This is a factor that will quickly translate into a poor economy for the USA/LCD. Somehow we have let anti-intellectual businesspersons convince us that there is a paramount value that something being profit driven/capitalistic is automatically going to make it superior. Now, by calling them "anti-intellectual" I am not saying they, themselves, are "stupid"; they just believe that keeping us that way will make them more money.
This may very well be true, in the short run, for those who became successful through inheritance instead of better ideas and hard work. The less intelligent the US is, the more we will celebrate the lazy, stupid sons of their fathers rise to the top as if they are royalty.
For example, it never occurs to many people that insurance companies are driven by profit, therefore the least likely to make decisions based on giving the best product for the lowest price. Their job is to spend the least by any means and to provide the very least. This is why America has the worst yet most expensive medical care among industrial nations. Some people will defend to the death, the right of insurance and pharmaceutical companies to make more money while providing less and less services to consumers.
After all, "profit is the measure of success" right? If I am CEO and I make a higher profit this year, you might assume I am the better businessman than the CEO who has a longterm plan for maximized profits. We have come to believe that making a million dollars overnight is preferable to making a billion over a period of ten years. Some couldn't tell you that 1- million is a thousand times lower than 1-billion. I can easily increase the profit of any company by selling off its most valuable assets all in one year while laying off its most experienced and highly paid middle managers. But this "instant results mentality" is killing America.
This is exactly how this super-corporation called America is being run today. We are allowing our executives to run up debt so they can pay themselves more and appease the impatient stockholders with a better standard of living, even if their actions will inevitably kill the goose that laid the golden egg, and I don't mean the company itself; I mean the consumers that support its growth.
Some may think it is a "conspiracy" but that would require greater intelligence than these overnight successes actually have. No, it is the system itself that has been ignored and abused. Anti-trust laws encourage the long-term health of a system; they are now intended to destroy profits but to guarantee that profits go to companies that make a better mousetrap instead of playing accounting games through mergers and acquisitions.
At he moment, America suffers from the bloat of having been number one for so long that it became a monopoly. Now, it acts like one; stifling innovation and shooting messengers of bad news. It has become the greatest incentivizer of saying "yes" to the boss and "no" to the employees, and refusing change. The worker or the citizen, in this case, has the greatest motive to steal from the supply room, and to blame failure on others. There is no reason for self-improvement, as that would just draw attention and make him a target of petty office politics, as it is much easier to shoot down ideas than to have them or promote them. Destruction is much easier than creation and invention.
In fact, to some, it would make the most sense to let things fall apart so they may more easily steal from the company as it falters. Using Katrina and New Orleans as a perfect example, despite the destruction of the city costing the larger corporation a huge fortune in the long run, it has made many companies a small fortune through the contracts of rebuilding it. So, the incentive was to let the levies fail knowing that reconstruction contracts would be very profitable to a few companies while costing the larger consumer base a huge loss.
It is time America become aware that it has a mental deficit, so that it may first choose to improve itself. You cannot possibly solve a problem until you see it "as a problem". We have to lay down our egos and admit we have become stupid, not looking for blame but realizing the cause of our current failure as a nation. Denial will do no good; it will only make things worse. If we realize there is such a problem, when is it appropriate to solve it? I have always heard, "NOW" was a good time.
Senator Patrick Leahy has decided he is going to subpoena Karl Rove to testify under oath. Well, it’s about time. But according to Whitehouse Spokesperson Tony Snow, he has already offered himself up in such a way that “he would tell the truth” only under the condition that he not be sworn, documented and that he be free to hide one of his hands behind his back at all times with his fingers crossed.
As he has been leading Bush’s political career since his days in Texas, it is his modus operandi. It has become his mantra that if you tell a lie often enough, people will eventually believe it. And when lies aren’t enough, break the law and tell secrets that end careers and put lives in danger, while endangering the well built apparatus by which the US had previously tracked nuclear proliferation to the Middle East. Who cares? It’s just another spy, just another country with nukes. Who cares if it is a felony punishable by death? And according to him, it’s not a secret if you are the second or third person to have told it. According to him, everybody already knew it, right?
that would make an opponent unpopular, and whisper it to everyone you know. It didn’t matter that Ann Richards wasn’t a lesbian. She rode a motorcycle. She had to be, according to Rove and his team. And Texans love homosexuals, right?
Meanwhile, Bush, Cheney and Snow will simply complain that there has become a proliferation of politics where there once was none.
Editor's Note Post Publication:
The amazing thing is, no matter how careful one is with words, many moderate Christians find an indictment of the extremists (not really Christians at all, unless we ignore Jesus) is viewed as an indictment of religion itself.
Somehow, there is a kneejerk to any logical clarification and separation of extremism from moderation.
Some use words like "rhetoric" to describe only the positions with which they disagree. Meanwhile, they themselves use rhetoric without any logic to simply state conclusions without any facts to support them.
As this article focused on the "Fascism" within parts of organized religion, it was assumed by many that my failure to indict Lenin, Stalin and other despots was somehow an endorsement of them.
Such an assumption would be completely wrong. The definitions of fascism and/or consequent despotism are clear. The blind support, above all the interests, of a Federal govt. and its establishment elements is the purest and most dangerous part of Fascism.
When the people lose their ability to know when they are being enslaved, we are vulnerable to the "final solution" that every fascist state has brought forth.
Inevitably, once the despots have taken hold, they extinguish all signs of resistance. Yes, this has happened many times in history. And sometimes, it has been in the name of an entirely different religion of the worship of man to whcih Nietzsche referred.
Hitler called himself a Christian as a matter of Machiavellian bastardization and cooptation. It was only a tool of manipulation of the otherwise good Christians of Germany.
Even Popes have done such and I am often reminded of Dante's Divine Comedy and the Inferno, in which he suggests that the most severe parts of hell are reserved for Popes and false prophets. Some Popes have been ruthless; some were truly saints.
Lenin, Pulpot etc. were only espousing a religion in which they were evangelically hailing atheism or self as God. It is interesting we even find "churches" of Atheism all over the world, and on the web.
Their position of the non-existence of God makes them equally religious and zealous. Just as within the inquisitions before, they would eventually kill those with whom they differed.
Pulpot of Cambodia went so far as to kill all people who wore glasses, as he saw that as a sign of intelligence, thus a threat to his regime.
Whatever words we use for these blind expressions of faith, "religion" is what I would call it as it requires one to follow without scrutiny the spiritual commandments of the authors. Mind that I don't proclaim that religion is the problem but the twisting of good intentions with blind faith that threatens us all.
Sadly, I couldn't possibly cover the whole of historical ground in an essay, but to touch on many points in history which satisfy the argument. Arguments can be constructed to support additional positions and I invite the submission of points that our readers may Duly Consider to our email address.
I only hope to remain a servant of truth and an open mind and some may see my truth as lies. They can, I suppose, start their own sites. I hear the Nazi Party of America is looking for good writers. But please don't file your application here.