Culture Break: Modest Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain

We all know what tonight is, so I thought I'd do an extra Culture Break in honor of the holiday. This one's Mussorgsky via Disney, in two parts:

Antidote

I don't do enough kittens and puppies here. I will probably continue to not do enough kittens and puppies, but at least I have the option.

So this is an antidote to a totally crappy day yesterday:

With thanks to commenter Doug105 at Joe.My.God.

Culture Break: Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique, 5th Movement

This popped up on my playlist this morning. It's been a while since I've listened to it.

Not a lot more to be said, is there?

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Words fail me:

[Frank] Luntz graced the soundstage of Ingraham Angle Monday night to declare that (not making this up) the baseball fans at Game 5 of the World Series should be "held accountable" for booing Donald Trump.

FRANK LUNTZ: The fact is, they should hold those fans accountable. Don't boo the president! You may disagree with him, you may say that he's not what you wanted, but you don't boo him, you show respect for him. And I'll tell you something, I think this event is going to have an impact...

LAURA INGRAHAM: It's huge! It's going to be a campaign commercial.

I guess Luntz thinks Kim Jong-Trump needs backup.

And a campaign commercial? For whom?

The City In a Forest

So yesterday, as I was about to come in the front gate, there was a rabbit sitting on the sidewalk, for the second evening in a row. I stopped, we chatted (well, I chatted; the rabbit was chewing on something), and then I decided I had to come in, since it was a little chilly.

The rabbit decided it was time to go somewhere else.

It really is like living in the woods, sometimes.

In the Holiday Spirit

From NASA -- taken a few years ago, but timely:

And for those who want the details:

NASA is getting in the celebration of Halloween.

The U.S. space agency shared a 2014 photo that showed what appears to be a jack-o’-lantern face on the sun. The image was seen in ultraviolet light by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite.

NASA explained the image this way:

“The active regions in this image appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy. They are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona. This image blends together two sets of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths…typically colorized in gold and yellow, to create a particularly Halloween-like appearance.”

With thanks to commenter Talisman at Joe.My.God.

Take Me Out To the Ball Game!

So the acting president decided to attend the World Series game in Washington. Apparently he was late -- perhaps he didn't want to witness the first pitch (no, he wasn't asked) thrown out by an immigrant:

Love this ❤️ https://t.co/hDV1kpeEIt

— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) October 28, 2019

As you'll note from his tweet, Andres has fed well over a million people struck by disasters, most notably in the Bahamas after the recent hurricane.

At any rate, the president's reception was not, I suspect, what he was expecting:

A stadium of Americans in matching red baseball caps, all watching Trump -- all booing and screaming "Lock Him Up!"

The Trump rally was just inverted. https://t.co/3cDvfcpfWK

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) October 28, 2019

Both tweets courtesy of commenter DoILookAmused2u? Résistance☨ at Joe.My.God. (There are a number of comments on this episode, with videos.)

This Week at Green Man Review

Halloween is almost upon us, so that's the theme of this week's issue:

Our Halloween Edition

There -- that's nice and succinct. Don't be fooled -- lots of stuff this week. Hop on over and get in the holiday mood.

Wham! One For Our Side

It looks like the Senate hasn't managed to fill enough judgeships with Trump cultists.

The Chief Judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Friday afternoon ordered the Department of Justice to hand over the unredacted Mueller report and underlying materials requested by the House Judiciary Committee months ago. The 75-page ruling by Judge Beryl Howell (photo) is a being called a “stunning rebuke” to the DOJ that is leaving some experts surprised and even somewhat shocked.

The ruling also destroys the fallacious argument made by President Trump and Republicans that the House impeachment inquiry is not an actual impeachment. Judge Howell says it absolutely is. Republicans, including administration officials, have refused to respond to requests by the House for documents, and even subpoenas commanding testimony, claiming because the full House did not vote on holding the impeachment inquiry it is, as some on the right claim falsely, a “witch hunt” that can be ignored.

They are wrong.

Judge Howell has successfully accomplished several things. She delivers effective explanations deriding the DOJ’s arguments, she effectively certifies the House’s impeachment inquiry, and she shows just how amateur – or inept – the Barr DOJ has become.

Twitter, or course, is all over this, and most of the commenters include quotes from the decision. Some of them are really on the nose. Here's one example, from Marcy Wheeler:

Howell goes all School House Rock on DOJ, which apparently needs a basic lesson in American history. pic.twitter.com/gP8KrzEF8U

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) October 25, 2019

It's worth reading the whole post for some of the comments on Twitter.

Barr, of course, will appeal to Trump's tame Supreme Court. It that fails, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the regime declares that it is not bound by court decisions. That's where we're headed.

Here We Go Again

I normally don't bother to comment on Monica Cole and her "One Million Moms". If you're not familiar with them, it's another one of those hate groups -- an arm of American Family Association -- that calls for boycotts of anything and disturbs their delicate "Christian" values. This time, they've come out in favor of bullying:

Kellogg’s has supported the homosexual community for a long time, and now it is obvious they are going after our children. As part of an effort to say “we’re all in this together,” Kellogg’s has combined several of its popular cereals into one package to support an LGBTQ “anti-bullying” campaign called Spirit Day.

Kellogg’s calls it All Together Cereal, an exclusive, limited-time offer in which the cereal brand’s famous mascots are promoting their individual cereals packaged together in a purple box with rainbow colors. Purple is the designated color for Spirit Day, which is described by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) as “the most visible anti-LGBTQ bullying campaign and united show of support for LGBTQ youth.”

[. . . ]

TAKE ACTION: Kellogg’s needs to hear from you. Supporting the homosexual agenda verses [sic] remaining neutral in the cultural war is just bad business. If Christians cannot find corporate neutrality with Kellogg’s, then they will vote with their pocketbook and support companies that are neutral. Sign our petition now!

If course, "remaining neutral" in "Christian"-speak means taking their side in favor of the status quo.

And do note, as I indicated in the beginning, they're coming out against an anti-bullying effort.

Such lovely people.

He's Kidding, Right?

This entire regime is made up of bald-faced liars. Secretary of State (and he's not even "acting") Mike Pompeo is one of the most accomplished:

Pompeo rejected a question about whether the president’s treatment of the Kurds had undercut U.S. credibility.

“The whole predicate of your question is insane,” Pompeo said. “The word of the United States is much more respected today than it was just two and a half years ago.”

There's two underlying themes here -- number one, always a major consideration: "It's all Obama's fault."

The second stems from Trump's continual whining about how other countries are being unfair:

“We make clear the things that we will do,” Pompeo continued. “We also make clear the things that we’re not prepared to do. I think it’s important for people to understand that other countries have to step up too. Other countries must share the burden for not just the security of the world, but security for their own countries.”

He sounds there as historically illiterate as his boss. I guess next we'll be demanding that the UN start paying rent for its building in New York.

Via Joe.My.God. It's worth noting that a large portion of the JMG audience is overseas, and they're not very much in agreement with Pompeo's fantasy. In fact, commenter Clive Johnson did some research. Here's just one of his findings:

One country. Mexico's not alone -- he thoughtfully provided a link to Pew Research's article.

Let's face it -- when you start suddenly pulling out of major international agreements, threatening your allies, and sucking up to dictators, not to mention cutting loose the group that has been instrumental in neutralizing a major terrorist threat, who's going to believe anything you say?

Words Fail Me

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) thinks the Kurds are ingrates for objection to our withdrawal from northern Syria:

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul joined ABC News' "Powerhouse Politics" podcast, saying the Kurds are acting like 'ingrates' in disrespecting U.S. troops.

With President Donald Trump facing an eruption of dissatisfaction inside his own party over his military policy regarding Syria, Paul has emerged as a fierce defender of the idea that the U.S. has the right to wind down on “endless wars.”

With images of Kurdish forces seen hurling potatoes at American troops leaving northern Syria, Paul said the Kurds should be more grateful for the opportunities and resources the U.S. troops provided for them.

"We saved the Kurds from being beheaded and massacred by ISIS," Paul told the hosts, ABC News Political Director Rick Klein and Senior Congressional Correspondent Mary Bruce, on Wednesday. "They were able to win with our armament, with our Air Force, and they should be thanking us and throwing rose petals. And so, no, I'm offended by them throwing refuse at our troops. And it shows them to be ingrates."

So now they can be massacred by the Turks.

This whole thing literally makes me sick. I supposed it's the sort of thing to be expected from Trump -- after all, they're Kurds, not Slovenians -- but it's still wrong on every count I can come up with.

One little tidbit from this story I find revealing:

Withdrawing US forces from Northern Syria is a catastrophic mistake that puts our gains against ISIS at risk and threatens US security.

This decision ignores lesson of 9/11. Terrorists thousands of miles away can and will use their safe-havens to launch attacks against America.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) October 7, 2019

It's all lip-service to our "security". No mention of giving the green light to genocide. Oh, but wait -- I forgot: that's one of those "Christian values" we keep hearing about.

The Rule of Law

Remember when we had that? I don't think I'm being partisan when I say that we can thank the Republican party for the loss of a fine old tradition. Given that the party as it is now composed (and has been for decades), of plutocrats and theocrats, both of which are sworn enemies of democracy, it's only to be expected that Republican members of the House would engage in behavior like this:

Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) shared audio of a phone call he made from inside a secure room at the Capitol where Democrats were attempting to interview a witness as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

The interview was delayed for hours after a group of conservative Republican lawmakers, including Mooney, stormed into the room to protest what they say has been an unfair impeachment process.

The protest took place inside what's known as a SCIF — an acronym for sensitive compartmented information facility. Such rooms are used when secure, nationally sensitive information is to be shared or discussed.

BREAKING--> My report from inside the SCIF hearing room where we are exposing Adam Schiff's secret so-called impeachment inquiry. pic.twitter.com/fPcPJ94R9y

— Rep. Alex Mooney (@RepAlexMooney) October 23, 2019

The article does note that the call was made on a secure landline, because all their cell phones were confiscated, but there is still the fact that he's broadcasting a recording of it, and there are pictures of him recording himself on video on the way in.

It's "secret" because classified information is being presented to the committees engaged in the investigation. Duh.

It's also worth noting that this idiot is parroting Glorious Leader's attacks on Schiff, or at least being sure to target Schiff.

I'm not sure if this little frat boy stunt is a violation of the law, but it certainly violates security protocols -- first, breaking into a secure room which they were not authorized to be in, and then making an unauthorized phone call from inside. What's more important is that it happened at all: guess which party has no respect for the rules that make this a civilized country. It's so outrageous that it got a reaction from none other than Lindsey Graham -- who then promptly back-pedaled. And I'm sure Susan Collins (R-ME -- and somehow that seems a fitting designation) is concerned.

What really depresses me, though, is the near certainty that there will be no consequences. If the Democratic leadership is expecting these idiots to pay at the ballot box, they've really got their heads up their asses -- their constituents love this sort of thing. If Pelosi or Schiff don't do something, no one else will.

For more backstory on this see here -- and here's an interesting tidbit.

Via Joe.My.God.

I'm Back

No Internet for several days -- had to wait for a new router to get installed.

Aside from that -- well, more later if I find something interesting to report on.

Culture Break: Terry Riley: Lisbon Concert

This got reviewed a couple of places. This particular review originally appeared at Epinions:

Perhaps one of the most awesome things that can happen to a fan of “new music” is the chance to hear Terry Riley in concert. There is nothing like it. And, for those who cannot travel around the world to where he might be performing, the Lisbon Concert recording brings you a taste of what an experience that is. (Yes, I've heard Riley live. It was amazing.)

The Lisbon Concert was recorded in 1995 at the Teatro Sào Luís in Lisbon at the final concert in the composer’s sixtieth-birthday tour of Europe. The recording quality is excellent. It is an amazing, shimmering fabric of virtuosity that draws on Riley’s compositions spanning several decades. Although the piano was tuned in equal temperament, as opposed to Riley’s preferred just intonation tuning, he draws from it colors and shadings that are ineffably Riley.

A few general observations before I mention some of the specifics: take it as a given that Riley is a virtuoso on the piano. It has always been his favored instrument, and he certainly can put it through its paces. This album does indeed shimmer – it shimmers, it ripples, and then Riley throws in a sweetly reflective passage or a phrase of high drama. He moves effortlessly between jazz and repetitive Minimalism, while throwing in elements that are almost, but not quite, Latin, Chinese, or movie soundtrack, that might hark back to the richness of Mozart or the earthy romanticism of Vaughan Williams, and yet are truly and only Terry Riley. Throughout, there are echoes of things that have gone before, and foreshadowings of things yet to come. The whole is seamless.

“Arica,” which opens the album, has an understated beginning that recalls, in mood if not actual sound, some of Debussy’s preludes. (In fact, while I am typing this, my trusty CD player has finished with Riley and moved on to Debussy, with never a blip – except that the Debussy is leaner and not quite so richly textured.) Riley builds to cascades of notes over a quiet, reflective base, that somehow moves into a high-brow honky-tonk. It fades into “Negro Hall,” which opens with another quiet passage that could be an extension of the opening of “Arica” (one knows this because one went back and forth between the beginnings of these two pieces several times, with no jar, no discontinuity, in spite of all that went on in between), then immediately takes on a jazzy air, a sort of boogy-woogie style. “15/16” has a Latin feel to it, but not quite, while “Havana Man” – well, if Schumann had done jazz, you might be getting close. And that’s an indication of the way the whole concert moves back and forth, almost reprising earlier pieces, but never quite, while building new contexts as it goes along, moving from style to style but never quite leaving the central theme. There is a unity of vision in control of this music that is quite formidable.

One wants to build analogies with Wagner, the Baroque, even Beethoven and perhaps Rachmaninoff, but why push the envelope that far? The experience is of a master at play, and it’s something. This is not drop-dead music – “high drama” for Riley has an order of subtley to it that’s hard to explain – but this is music that leaves you with a very quiet “wow!” and makes you want to go out and start piano lessons.

(New Albion Records, 2009)

In Memoriam

Damn. Elijah Cummings has passed.

Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a son of sharecroppers who rose to become one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress and a central figure in the impeachment investigation of President Trump, died on Thursday in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was 68.

His death was confirmed by a spokeswoman, Trudy Perkins, in a statement that said he died of “complications concerning longstanding health challenges.” No other details were given. Mr. Cummings had been ailing in recent years and used a motorized wheelchair.

This is a disaster.

Another One of Those Days

Except it's getting worse.

So Trump held a meeting with Congressional leadership, ostensibly on the situation he's created in Syria. It didn't go well:

The President started the meeting with a lengthy bombastic monologue, according to a senior Democratic aide. He bragged about the "nasty" letter he sent to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the Turkish leader's decision to invade northern Syria, the aide said. . . .

"He was insulting, particularly to the speaker," Schumer told reporters later on Wednesday. "She kept her cool completely. But he called her a third-rate politician. He said that there are communists involved and you guys might like that. I mean, this was not a dialogue. It was sort of a diatribe — a nasty diatribe not focused on the facts, particularly the fact of how to curtail ISIS, a terrorist organization that aims to hurt the United States in our homeland."

Hoyer echoed those remarks, saying that the meeting "deteriorated into a diatribe" and that they were "deeply offended" by the way Trump treated Pelosi. He said that after serving in Congress over the course of six presidential administrations, he has "never" seen a president "treat so disrespectfully a co-equal branch of the government."

Via Joe.My.God., who found this:

NEW: White House Press Secretary tells me: "The President was measured, factual and decisive, while Speaker Pelosi’s decision to walk out was baffling, but not surprising...While democratic leadership chose to storm out ... everyone else in the meeting chose to stay in the room." pic.twitter.com/eoxZaZ6Nzz

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) October 16, 2019

This is the White House Press Office, whose job in this administration has been to lie to the American people. That's what they get paid for.

That's not all. Digby has a run-down of the insanity coming from Trump. Here's a sample:

Trump darkly insinuates that Obama was involved in the "corruption" of the 2016 election pic.twitter.com/JkW72kRJO8

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 16, 2019

He is completely delusional. The impeachment inquiry is really getting under his skin.

And she follows up with a litany of his foreign policy disasters.

And this is the most powerful man in the world -- for as long as it lasts.

Today's Must-Read: Words Have Consequences

And when the speaker is the focus of a cult -- well. . . .

From Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo, who connects the dots:

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in 2003 convicted three former media executives from Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) for their role in broadcasting lists of people to be killed in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Kennedy Ndahiro, editor of The New Times, wrote in The Atlantic in April this year:

Twenty-five years ago this month, all hell broke loose in my country, which is tucked away in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Hordes of members of the Hutu ethnic majority, armed with machetes, spears, nail-studded clubs, and other rudimentary weapons, moved house to house in villages, hunting for Tutsis, the second largest of Rwanda’s three ethnic groups. The radio station RTLM, allied with leaders of the government, had been inciting Hutus against the Tutsi minority, repeatedly describing the latter as inyenzi, or “cockroaches,” and as inzoka, or “snakes.” The station, unfortunately, had many listeners.

The promoters of genocide used other metaphors to turn people against their neighbors. Hutus, by reputation, are shorter than Tutsis; radio broadcasters also urged Hutus to “cut down the tall trees.”

That's by way of background. At a pro-Trump conference -- at one of Trump's resorts, natch -- this happened:

A video depicting a macabre scene of a fake President Trump shooting, stabbing and brutally assaulting members of the news media and his political opponents was shown at a conference for his supporters at his Miami resort last week, according to footage obtained by The New York Times. . . .

The video, which includes the logo for Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, comprises a series of internet memes. The most violent clip shows Mr. Trump’s head superimposed on the body of a man opening fire inside the “Church of Fake News” on parishioners who have the faces of his critics or the logos of media organizations superimposed on their bodies. It appears to be an edited scene of a church massacre from the 2014 dark comedy film “Kingsman: The Secret Service.”

There have been a number of incidents in which Trump has been noted as an inspiration by the perpetrators. Sullivan has the details.

I supposed given that record, it's no surprise Trump gave Turkey the OK for genocide in Syria.

This Week at Green Man Review

Yes, this is late. Yesterday was the Chicago Marathon, which had traffic completely balled up for most of the day. Let's just say by the time I got home, I was too wiped out to think.

At any rate, it's another offering of really neat stuff:

Music from Aaron Copland, a Superstar, a Horrible Folk Tale, Tolkien (Again), a Cuddly Leopard, and Do Have an Apple and Cheese Tart

And there's more -- there's always more. And it's all right here.

The Echo Chamber: Variations on a Theme

One of the "Christian" right's favorite themes is how all of our problems come from turning away from God (by which they mean Jehovah, the only true god -- never mind that all of them are true gods, but have more sense than to claim to be the only one: after all, they tend to come in families).

First variation, from Franklin Graham, who blames it all on Hollywood (the "Christians'" favorite Satan avatar) and the gays (also a favorite target):

Here’s a topic that probably won’t be mentioned in the upcoming Democratic debate. An incredible 2.4 million cases of sexually transmitted diseases were diagnosed across the U.S. just last year alone. Hollywood is busy promoting promiscuity to the world — almost every movie, every television show is focused on sex. The saying goes, “sex sells.” Well, the statistics in the CNN article verify that there’s a price to pay, and it is a very heavy price. God made us male and female and gave sex for us to enjoy inside a marriage relationship between a man and a woman — not two men, not two women. The Bible says that anyone who sins sexually, sins against their own body. How true. What’s the protection the world is looking for? It’s simple — follow God’s guidelines. Have only a monogamous relationship with your husband or wife.

Well, that's pretty much standard for the con men passing themselves off as "holy men". But, mix in a little gloating from none other than Tony Perkins:

Personnel is policy. And that’s what makes the difference in this administration. We’re not on the outside looking in. We’re on the inside working out. And we are so grateful for the men and women who are serving in this administration.

I was just at the White House – I had to take a break and go meet with the chief of staff and some others – and look, we have values voters in the White House.

If that doesn't scare you, it should.

And so, in the natural course of this sort of thing, we have our esteemed (ahem) Attorney General, William Barr, who has the answer to all of our ills:

Attorney General William Barr blamed secularism in society for a series of problems such as drug overdoses, violence and poor mental health while speaking at Notre Dame’s law school.

Barr, in a speech largely focused on the role of religion in law, decried what he described as an effort to drive religion away while promoting secularism. “We see the growing ascendancy of secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism,” he said.

“Basically every measure of this social pathology continues to gain ground.” A spokesman for the university told the South Bend Tribune this week that the topic of Barr’s speech would be “religious freedom.”

How totally inappropriate is it for the nation's top law officer to be giving a speech like this at a law school?

If Barr were the only one, we could call it an aberration -- but he's not. Check out the record of well-known "Christian" Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, who's done everything she can to gut public education in favor of private (read "teligious" and for-profit) schools. I'm sure you can come up with other examples, but quite frankly, Trump's Cabinet is like flash cards: by the time you recognize a face, it's been replaced with an "acting" whatever.

So, the bottom line is, the Dominionists, after forty-plus years of taking over the GOP, are now taking over the whole country.

I like the idea of lions.