Political Commentary

Reversing Yalta

The Yalta summit was sixty years ago today. The Germans had been defeated in the Battle of the Bulge a couple weeks before, and the end of the Nazi regime was clearly only weeks or at most months away. Much of the damage of that conference was undone in the late eighties, as the Wall came down. But Arthur Herman says that President Bush should (as he implied in his inaugural address) finish the job.

Social Commentary

We Ain’t Got No Rhythm

In North America, that is:

Hannon and Sandra Trehub of the University of Toronto began their study with knowledge that other studies had shown people in North America struggle to grasp irregular rhythms. Balkan music proves troubling, for example. So the researchers studied 50 college students, mostly from the United States and Canada, and 17 first- or second-generation Bulgarian and Macedonian immigrants. Songs with simple meters were made more complex, and complex songs were simplified.

The North Americans recognized when things got trickier, but couldn’t tell when things got simpler. The immigrants figured both out.

I have an old album by the Irish folk musician Andy Irvine, who spent a lot of time in the Balkans, and plays bouzouki, on which he plays a number of horas. I can’t imagine how in the world folks dance to them.

But I was particularly appalled a few years ago when in an elevator, I heard a version of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” done in 4/4 time (it was originally written, as hinted at by the title, in 5/4–another Brubeck classic, on the same album, is Blue Rondo A La Turk, in 9/8). They had apparently dumbed it down for less sophisticated American ears. I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Social Commentary

We Ain’t Got No Rhythm

In North America, that is:

Hannon and Sandra Trehub of the University of Toronto began their study with knowledge that other studies had shown people in North America struggle to grasp irregular rhythms. Balkan music proves troubling, for example. So the researchers studied 50 college students, mostly from the United States and Canada, and 17 first- or second-generation Bulgarian and Macedonian immigrants. Songs with simple meters were made more complex, and complex songs were simplified.

The North Americans recognized when things got trickier, but couldn’t tell when things got simpler. The immigrants figured both out.

I have an old album by the Irish folk musician Andy Irvine, who spent a lot of time in the Balkans, and plays bouzouki, on which he plays a number of horas. I can’t imagine how in the world folks dance to them.

But I was particularly appalled a few years ago when in an elevator, I heard a version of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” done in 4/4 time (it was originally written, as hinted at by the title, in 5/4–another Brubeck classic, on the same album, is Blue Rondo A La Turk, in 9/8). They had apparently dumbed it down for less sophisticated American ears. I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Social Commentary

We Ain’t Got No Rhythm

In North America, that is:

Hannon and Sandra Trehub of the University of Toronto began their study with knowledge that other studies had shown people in North America struggle to grasp irregular rhythms. Balkan music proves troubling, for example. So the researchers studied 50 college students, mostly from the United States and Canada, and 17 first- or second-generation Bulgarian and Macedonian immigrants. Songs with simple meters were made more complex, and complex songs were simplified.

The North Americans recognized when things got trickier, but couldn’t tell when things got simpler. The immigrants figured both out.

I have an old album by the Irish folk musician Andy Irvine, who spent a lot of time in the Balkans, and plays bouzouki, on which he plays a number of horas. I can’t imagine how in the world folks dance to them.

But I was particularly appalled a few years ago when in an elevator, I heard a version of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” done in 4/4 time (it was originally written, as hinted at by the title, in 5/4–another Brubeck classic, on the same album, is Blue Rondo A La Turk, in 9/8). They had apparently dumbed it down for less sophisticated American ears. I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Space

A Friend On The Hill

I think that the incoming chairman of the House space subcommittee is going to be a worthy successor to Dana Rohrabacher, and very good for the commercial space industry:

We need affordable, reliable and responsive ways to get people and hardware into orbit. NASA took the lead in proving we could get there. Now it is the private sector’s duty to make it efficient and affordable.

The job of Congress is to pass legislation and exercise its oversight functions in such a way that will enable this industry to succeed. We must keep a watchful eye on our government agencies to ensure they are operating and cooperating with the commercial Space industry and not implementing unnecessary or overly burdensome regulations. In the American tradition, government opens frontiers but people settle them. This was true in the west, with medical research and with cyberspace. If we follow that model we will succeed.

Read the whole thing. Rep. Calvert gets it.

Social Commentary

Setting Him Up For The Fall

Sounds like Professor Minehaha is going to get his walking papers–for academic fraud.

It’s too bad. I’d actually like to see him keep his job, and continue to embarrass the University of Colorado. As someone said on Brit Hume’s panel last night, he’s a poster child for everything that’s wrong with academia.

Then again, he may survive. After all, an endorsement like this is hard to beat:

“I’ve read a fair amount of his work, and a lot of it is excellent, penetrating and of high scholarly quality,” said Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an anti-war activist.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!