Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

We will not go back.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

T R E 4 5 O N

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

“Alexa, change the president.”

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Freedom Revolution

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Some treats for Betty and Adam:

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War for Ukraine Day 885: The Butcher’s Bill from Last Night’s/This Morning’s Russian Attacks

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Painting by NEIVANMADE. The background is black. There is a white cross in a broken window frame. In front of it is a hispital bed with an IV stand falling across it. Wires from a broken monitor on the right are strewn on the floor with a yellow basketball on the right and teddy bear on the left. In the foreground are fragments of a Russian cruise missile, which are red, and have the "Z" war symbol. In the top of the painting in grey is written "Children's Hospital." Below that in red "Is Just Another Target for Russia" is written.

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Quick housekeeping note: Rosie is still doing excellent. She has another week off and then her next treatment is a week from Monday. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

As of 7:45 PM EDT/2;45 PM local time in Ukraine, air raid alerts are spreading across Ukraine. At 7:30 they were up over southern and eastern Ukraine. Now they’re also up over central Ukraine. I’ll keep an eye on it, but remember, if we get an all Ukraine alert, then it means Russian missiles and drones are inbound.

Sister Golden Bear asked this last night (after I’d gone to sleep):

Question regarding the French rail sabotage, do the Russian have a history of emulating the MO of other groups/security services/intelligence agencies for kinetic actions like these to throw suspicion elsewhere? Given their ratfucking activity in the States via sock puppet groups, to me it seems quite possible that it was done by the Russians, who attempted to make it look like leftist/environmentalist militants—both to divert attention and to create schisms. But obviously that’s pure speculation on my part.

I don’t know off the top of my head. However, there are three things to keep in mind while we wait for more information. The first is that the MO of the previous attacks by what the French refer to as leftist extremist groups is well known. So even if the Russians did not have a history of doing so, it shouldn’t be hard to replicate. The second is that the Russians do work through local proxies. They have teams of illegals – those are not for cover espionage positions – in every EU member state, as well as Britain, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, Moldova, Japan, South Korea, Israel, almost all of the African states, almost every state in Central and South America and the Caribbean. So plenty of folks to organize locals and pay them. Third, as I’ve documented here a number of times over the past six months, the Russians have a well organized, ongoing sabotage and assassination program running in the EU member states. Which is why many immediately made the linkage back to Russia. I honestly have no idea who is responsible for these attacks, but the reason everyone thought Russia is because Russia’s past behavior makes it a prime suspect. Even if, this time, it has nothing to do with these attacks.

Here’s some of the butcher’s bill from Russia’s attacks on Ukraine overnight/this morning.

Sumy Oblast:

Today is Ukrainian Medical Workers Day.

Today, Ukraine celebrates Medical Worker’s Day.

We are grateful to Ukrainian doctors, combat medics, and nurses for every life saved by their hands.

In this difficult time of war, their work is extremely important. The professionalism and dedication of 🇺🇦 medics allow our soldiers to return to their families and continue to defend our country.

President Zelenskyy and First Lady Zelenska both addressed the inaugural annual Conference on Military Medicine and Mental Health. Here is President Zelenskyy’s address. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

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Saturday Early Evening Open Thread

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Here’s a small flock of Roseate Spoonbills (with bonus egret) flying near Cedar Key:

Pink birds flying over water

I took that photo in October while searching for flamingos who were blown off course by Hurricane Idalia.

***

We were watching the Olympics earlier and are now listening to the Rays game on the porch. It’s surprisingly pleasant weather thanks to the cloud cover and frequent rain.

Speaking of weather, since Memorial Day, I’ve been wondering why the orange fart cloud is persisting in Florida. He always decamps to Jersey or somewhere. Spending a summer in Florida is as unpleasant as wintering in Buffalo.

My theory is he’s afraid of the law — he’s getting sentenced in September, if I recall correctly. Maybe he hopes DeSantis and the FL GOP would refuse to extradite him, which the spineless pricks probably would.

Anyhoo, open thread.

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Artists In Our Midst – John Manchester – Transformation

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If you would like your talent featured in Authors in Our Midst or Artists in Our Midst, just send me an email message and we’ll make it happen. Don’t be shy! I have no more Artists or Authors posts in the queue, so please get in touch if you would like to be featured.

Let’s give a warm welcome to John Manchester!  aka Luminous Muse

I’m pleased to announce the release of my new album Transformation!

YouTube Channel

 

Available:

Apple Music

Amazon  

Spotify 

My last post here about my previous album Delight inspired a Balloon Juice collaboration, between me and ema of the lovely YouTube Channel Secret Strolls. Ema edited video of the NYBG Orchid Show to my music here; I married her video of Central Park to my piece “Winter’s End” here.

The title Transformation means several things to me. There’s personal transformation, something I’ve chased for over fifty years, through the hell realms of a spiritual cult and recently, more happily, through Vipassana meditation. 

Transformation also refers to the good old alchemy of the blues, in which through music, fear, sorrow, and anger can flower into trust, joy and even love. 

The third meaning of my title Transformation is in the sense of Musical Development. Wikipedia says-“In music, development is a process by which a musical idea is transformed and restated in the course of a composition.”

By the time I got to college in the fall of 1968, I’d been playing guitar for six years, had performed as a folkie and played in several bands. Rock was in its heyday, a new mind-blowing album coming out every month. The closest I’d come to classical music was in the Christmas carol sings I accompanied on piano. (As I couldn’t read music, I pretended to follow the music as I pounded out chords.) A survey course,  Music 101, exposed me to Bach’s B Minor Mass, Beethoven’s 9th and Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. Though my career path might have been simpler without that input, they were sounds I’ve never be able to unhear. My musical north star of the Beatles, Jerry Garcia, and Joni Mitchell began to compete with another, much older compass. 

Bach turned me onto counterpoint. I found precious few examples in pop music but as I started writing songs I felt an instinctive need for counterpoint, putting notes other than the roots of chords in the bass so that the melody and bass  formed contrapuntal lines. And though guitar was the instrument i was good at, I started writing on piano where two hands can more easily do two different things at the same time. 

Beethoven introduced me to musical development, of which he was the undisputed master. In 1969, when I heard the Grateful Dead perform the medley that begins    I had another touchstone moment. Though improvised, this music took the same kind of exhilarating journey as a Beethoven symphony. Joni Mitchell’s “Down to You” from Court and Spark in 1974 was the best example in pop music of a theme that underwent serious transformation. And not just of the musical sort. As Joni and a piano evolve into a choir and lush orchestra you can hear  her feelings changing, sadness expanding into beauty.

As pop music made more and more money, it lost its sophistication and musical ambition. Things like development were left by the wayside.

There are many motivations for making music. You can seek fame and fortune, or good times that just keep rolling. (And good luck to you!) You can want your deepest feelings to be heard. Like me, you can make music to put food on your family’s table. Those are external, social things. 

It’s the inner experience in the moment of creation that keeps me making music now. And that experience is truly transformative. I find frequent access to the state of flow, absorbed in the music to the exclusion of troubles, and pain, and even thought. I’ve always had trouble accessing my feelings – not only what I’m feeling but sometimes even the fact that I’m feeling at all. I don’t know how it happens, but somehow when I write a piece, after making ten thousand choices of notes, sounds, and articulations,  I play the finished work and I FEEL all this stuff I wasn’t aware of as I worked. And dark or light, those feelings are alive.

But on the purely musical level, there’s something else. Perhaps the purest motivation for creating music is so you can listen to the piece that you want to hear. My ideal piece has got all the folk and rock DNA that I came up with. It’s also got counterpoint and development. I don’t hear anyone else doing these things, even in the classical realm. While the contemporary classical stuff I hear has gotten past the worst of mid-century atonality, it’s still infected with the lesser sins of minimalism. It sounds timid to me, frightened of complex thought or feeling. 

If I want to hear the piece I want to hear, I have to make it myself. 

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Programming Note

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I’m going to be traveling for a couple of weeks, so posting from me will be scarce.

Overall, I think Democrats are in a much better place than they were a few weeks ago.  I’m especially seeing this in the normies around me.  A lot of the more politically engaged in my family and friend group were reluctant to replace Biden.  But the less politically engaged were absolutely not excited about the election.  They were going to vote, but they would be voting against Trump.

That’s changed, markedly.  My wife, for example, saw Kamala on TV last night and excitedly asked “has she picked her VP?” She normally doesn’t give a shit about stuff like that. This davenport intercourse thing has other family members laughing.  People are excited, and they’re happy that Trump et. al. are showing their asses while the press is finally paying a little attention.

Harris’ press operation is absolutely lighting Trump up and you love to see it.

Finally, JD has such a “incel who finally got laid” vibe. His fixation on people having children is creepy, and his comments about women who don’t are straight out of the 1950’s tradwife playbook. And every day he writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”:

Edit: And here’s today’s installment. Someone who wants to out themselves as still having a NYT subscription might want to provide a gift link in the comments, but I think we can all guess what he said to his trans classmate.
Programming Note

Here’s the Daily Mail (hey, no paywall) summary of what his classmate leaked. Basically, it’s JD saying how much he hates Trump, etc, More evidence he’s an opportunistic chameleon.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Torch Has Been (Is Being) Passed…

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Stark Grey Dawn Open Thread: Don’t You Think Trump Looks… Tired?

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Is our media… turning?

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