Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Thoughts Of Old Blighty

6 Comments

I agree with Lileks:

As I’ve noted before – this week, I think – the middle portion of Holst’s “Jupiter” has always hit me as the most English Thing Ever – uncomplicated at its heart, outwardly stern, stoic in its cultural patriotism, sweeping up everyone in a broad assertion of national identity that prides itself for the treble virtues of tradition, decency, and resolution. Doesn’t mean that’s the case, of course; music seduces. There’s a reason the Sirens sang instead of sending sailors well-written notes. One of the most moving national anthems I’ve ever heard is for Oceania, from “1984.”

But.

Holst captured something at its peak and its prime, a moment of leonine gravity as true as it was idealized. I’ve waited decades to go there and stand at the place where I start to hum it to myself. Wonder where that’ll be.

Anyway. My daughter has been to a dozen countries because I want her to get the flavor for the Marvelous Elsewhere early on, and also experience the joys of seeing home through new eyes when you return. We have the occasional dinnertime conversation about why America is different, and why America is good, arguments to counter the schoolmates who say the world would be better off if there wasn’t an America. (You can imagine the usual reasons.)

I hope the lessons take.

Sadly, too few want to teach them. And that is also my favorite movement from The Planets. When I was a kid, all I knew it as was the theme to the evening news (Huntley and Brinkley, I think, on NBC), but just the opening of it. Hmmmm…[googling] Yup. I never heard the whole thing until I bought an album of the entire suite, and I loved the middle section.

[Update a few minutes later]

Amazing. I still tear up when I listen to that passage. Just beautiful. You can hear where John Williams got a lot of his influence for the movie scores.

[Afternoon update]

OK, there seems to be some dispute about the Huntley-Brinkley theme, and it does seem to be Beethoven. OK, so which news show from the sixties used the Holst?

Culinary, Health, Popular Culture, Science And Society

Popcorn At The Movies

14 Comments

A history.

But here’s a question for paleo types. Yes, I know it’s a grain, and grains are bad, but it’s probably the least processed grain we eat. How bad is it, relatively?

Hmmmmm… [googling]

There seems to be a consensus that it’s definitely not paleo. But some say there are worse things if you’re going to cheat. I saw this one horror story, but I think that’s more a problem of the crap they put on it in the theater than the corn itself. I always pop it in butter, and put butter on it, but there are a lot of recommendations for coconut oil instead..

There are a lot of warnings (appropriately, I think) about the microwaved variety. I have to say, that I hadn’t realized how many paleos are anti-GMO. I think that’s taking it beyond eating healthy, and turning it into a religion.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Wall Of Silence At The IRS

5 Comments

Can it be broken with a lawsuit?

NOM doesn’t know who committed this crime. But it has discovered that some IRS officials who’d have access to the returns — like a senior manager for tax-exempt organizations — were photographed at an HRC Christmas party just a few months before the returns showed up on HRC’s Web site.

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) head of the House Ways and Means Committee has been quietly conducting an investigation of the illegal disclosure of NOM’s private donor information, with a final report due early next year. And Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) just announced the House Government Oversight Committee will investigate as well.

But there’s no guarantee either probe will get to the bottom of the affair, and NOM — and the American people — deserve answers.

“The fact the IRS is stonewalling so hard suggest the wrongdoing goes high up,” says Eastman. “All we want to know is who committed this crime and see justice done for all federal taxpayers. For the IRS to use disclosure to shield people it wants to shield, instead of protecting taxpayers, is an outrageous and unbelievably dangerous thing; the government can use the IRS to punish any speech it doesn’t like.”

Some things go deeper than right or left; the use of the IRS to punish political enemies ought to be one of them.

As I said, it’s almost like they have a will to power. If this were happening under a Republican president, all of the alphabetic news organizations would be asking every night what it takes to get a president impeached.

[Update a few minutes later]

How federal workers became Barack Obama’s private army:

Seventy-four years later, the civil-service system has been exposed as a failure – at least in this administration. Instead of an independent workforce of professionals who implement federal regulation in an even-handed and competent manner, we have returned to the era of partisan retribution and politically-motivated malevolence.

Time to reform it again.

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