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Saturday, September 30, 2017

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy Claude Debussy's Trois Nocturnes, consisting of three movements: "Nuages" ("Clouds") @ 0:00, "Fêtes" ("Festivals") @ 7:28, and "Sirènes" ("Sirens") @ 13:44, at the last two of which a change in image will occur:


About the above piece: Debussy's Trois Nocturnes was inspired by a series of impressionist paintings, also entitled "Nocturnes", by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, of Whistler's Mother fame. The version above is that of noted pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting the Cleveland Orchestra:

More information about the above piece:

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Bonfire of the Sanities

Posted by Silverfiddle

The Left is on a Savonarola Roll...

The left excels at propaganda and the rhetoric and symbolism that powers it. Those on the right should study and learn from the masters. At VH1's Hip Hop Honors, Pharrell delivered a very effective message, and he did it in his characteristic nice way

Let's break it down and analyze it:
“They keep talking about a wall. But the enemy is this divisive mentality. It’s on this side of the wall… The white nationalists are walking towards your future. What you gonna do?
First, he used the undefined “they” allowing the listener to fill it in for herself. This gives the message the broadest appeal possible.

Next, he uses the word “enemy.” Who in this country has ever called Mexico or Mexicans “the enemy?” This is a wickedly effective double-rapier strawman. Pharrell avers--with no evidence whatsoever--that “they” call Mexicans the enemy, but this is just the setup.

Next, he flips over the term “enemy” and applies it to those with a “divisive mentality,” which by implication means anyone who believes in enforcing the nation’s borders and following UN-approved immigration controls.

The conclusion: 

 Anyone wanting immigration control or, ¡Dios mío!, a wall, is a “white nationalist.”

See how he just called half the nation racist without sounding like he called them racist? Brilliant.

Here’s his next sentence. Note the echoes of Martin Niemöller...
“Don’t think just because they’re coming at the African-Americans, and they’re coming at the Jewish community and they’re coming at the Hispanics that it can’t be you.”
In these dark days of dangerous white nationalists “coming at” “the African-Americans,” “the Jewish Community” and “the Hispanics,” these entertainers exercise some very American, help-your-neighbor benevolence.

Learn something, conservatives and Republicans! Not just words. Action:
Williams is set to headline a concert for Charlottesville with Dave Matthews Band, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande and The Roots...”
While tickets are free [...] Beneficiaries of the fund include victims of the events in Charlottesville on August 11 and 12, their families, first responders and organizations devoted to the promotion of healing, unity and justice locally and nationwide.
The sharp eyes in the audience will notice Ariana Grande’s name. Imagine if she, Pharrell and other leftwing entertainers--after Islamic terrorists murdered teenage girls and their parents at that concert in England, or slaughtered all those people in the Florida nightclub--had talked about Muslims being the “real enemy,” “walking towards your future,” and “coming at” the LGBTQ community, girls who like pop music, and those not sufficiently Muslim…

This is why the left owns the commanding heights, while conservatives are mired in the bogs, shouting themselves hoarse to no avail.

A Ray of Hope

Despite Barack Obama being elected twice by healthy margins (victories powered by white people, btw--43% in 2008, 40% in 2012), elections over the past decade make it clear half the nation is disgusted with this crap and vote Republican (the only other game in town, such as it is) either out of strong conviction, or as a nose-holding reaction to the Democrat Party, which is the home of brown supremacist La Raza, Islamic supremacist CAIR, black supremacist Black Lives Matter, fascist antifa and the entire squirming scrum of hatred stirring, race-baiting Maoist vandals.

SPLC estimates there are 5,000-8,000 kkk members, and 917 total hate groups (including 193 black separatist groups) in the US.

Q: Why does the Leftwing Infotainment Media Complex fixate on the 0.0001% of the population who are openly racist?

A: The societal vandals want clear lines of demarcation, and clearly-defined enemies. They hope to provoke angry "whitelashes" to further fan the flames. Like all provocateurs, when they don't get the desired response, they will egg on their loonies to greater and greater acts of incitement.

They are noisy, but they are not the majority. The majority of good, hard-working people in this nation of all races, creeds and colors--who don’t hate anybody--have learned that the only way to win this game is to not play.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Jesse Watters: "Liberalism is about guilt"

The scolding finger
And the liberal also says:

"I will control everyone else's life. I'll tell you what to drive, how to eat, how to live and I'll be your savior."

More in the short video HERE.

The Left = control freaks who are also pickpockets.

I, for one, am weary of being scolded and being robbed in the name of the greater good.

Friday, September 22, 2017

Welcome, Autumn 2017

(For politics, please scroll down)

God's paintbrush:

Photo credit

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, the 2017 Autumnal Equinox arrives today at 4:02 P.M. EDT.

Related: best fall recipes from the Old Farmer's Almanac.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Pelosi And "The Dreamers"

At a recent press conference, San Fran Nan was shouted down by the very people for whom she is advocating. The footage below makes me think of a substitute teacher who has lost control of a rowdy middle-school class:


According to The Hill and, in some ways, reminiscent of the flawed 1986 amnesty [which failed by almost any measure]:
...The protesters who interrupted the conference were calling for a “clean” DREAM Act — one that didn’t make concessions to Republicans on border security — and protections for a larger group of immigrants in the U.S. illegally than that bill would confer....
Read the rest at Pelosi shouted down by protesters during DREAM Act conference.

At last, she was chased out of her own press conference:

Monday, September 18, 2017

Recommended Reading

See White males need not apply for this $10,000 social justice journalism grant: Open only to women and journalists of color at The College Fix.

PJ Media offers THIS COMMENTARY on the aforementioned essay:
...Once again, we see what matters most to progressives. They don't care about much else other than what's only skin deep. You can be a horrible person and a crap journalist, but if you're a "woman of color" then you deserve a better shot than an excellent and dedicated white male.
Read the rest of the commentary HERE and the original essay as mentioned in the first link in this blog post HERE.

Can we ever become one indivisible nation?

Related reading...Activist: 'Light-Skinned' Minorities Don't Belong in 'People Of Color' Safe Spaces.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

An Antidote For Politics

(For politics, please scroll down)

Another of my Facebook finds and worth six minutes of your time:

Thursday, September 14, 2017

"We Are In the Midst Of An Information War In This Country"

(hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance)

Contrary to the prevailing narrative about race in, we have this:


If you're pressed for time, here is the shorter version:


One of her recent posts at Facebook:


It is young people like this young woman who give me hope during these times of great divisiveness in America.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

21st Century Germanistan

This Tweet makes me so grateful for the halcyon days of my childhood, when my parents often took me to ride one of the various carousels here in the greater D.C. area, back in the day:


Mind-boggling: the latest polls show Angela Merkel in the lead.

And this: Germany Heading for Four More Years of Pro-EU, Open-Door Migration Policies, which states:
The policy positions of Merkel and Schulz on key issues are virtually identical: Both candidates are committed to strengthening the European Union, maintaining open-door immigration policies, pursuing multiculturalism and quashing dissent from the so-called far right.

Merkel and Schulz both agree that there should be no upper limit on the number of migrants entering Germany.

(hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance for the above video)

Monday, September 11, 2017

9/11: Never Forget

The flight paths of the 9/11 hijacked planes

Adagio For Strings, Op. 11, sound track from a recording conducted by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990):


From the YouTube blurb:
A slideshow tribute to the events of September 11, 2001. Focus is on people, their connection with the towers, past and present, and not simply a play by play of news footage. Communicating the full range of expression from terror to sacrifice, compassion, and sacrifice...as well as the ways in which people responded as friends, neighbors and as Americans. Set to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, which was played at Ground Zero during the memorial service the same week as the tragedy.

Graphic by Stogie:

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Pray For Florida

Hurricane Irma has struck the Keys and is making its way up the west coast of Florida (at the time of this posting, at the rate of approximately 8 mph, NNW):

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy The Lark Ascending (1914), composed by (Ralph) Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra with David Nolan on violin and Vernon Handley conducting (image: The Cornfield, 1826, by John Constable):


[about the above tone poem]

Vaughan Williams inscribed these lines from George Meredith's 1881 poem "The Lark Ascending" on the flyleaf of his published tone poem:

He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.

For singing till his heaven fills,
'Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.

Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

The Art Of The Deal



This morning, various talking heads, including some politicians, are whining because President Trump cut a deal with the Democrats.

From GOP livid after Trump cuts deal with Democrats, at Politico (dated September 6, 2017):
President Donald Trump's and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's tête-à-tête on Tuesday — after a summer of sniping between the two — lifted Republican hopes that the GOP was finally back in sync ahead of a brutal fall of fiscal deadlines.

Not 24 hours later, the president cut a deal with Democrats on a short-term debt ceiling increase opposed by McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Just Wednesday morning, in fact, Ryan had scoffed at the Democratic offer that Trump accepted minutes later....
Read the rest HERE.

Well, GOPe, in your hurry to go on yet another of your recesses, you didn't fulfill your promise to repeal ObamaCare. And you are dragging their feet on tax reform and, of course, the Wall. Did you really expect President Trump to wring his hands and do nothing?

President Trump calls out the GOPe.

Related? McCain Throws Support Behind Graham-Cassidy Obamacare Repeal Effort.

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Back To The Classroom

(Please scroll down for politics: a discussion of DACA)


The homeschool classes that I teach resume today. This 2017-2018 school term may well be my last year to offer courses to groups of homeschoolers. We shall see.

Monday, September 4, 2017

The Art of the DACA

WRITTEN BY SILVERFIDDLE

President Trump has been teetering for months on the brink of a decision on what to do with President Obama's illegal and unconstitutional DACA, which has millions of illegal immigrants in limbo. Reports say he has pulled the trigger, deciding to end the program, but giving Congress six months to come up with meaningful legislation.

Paul Ryan is concerned, after all his years of go along to get along while Emperor Obama was issuing imperial dicta:
"President (Barack) Obama does not have the authority to do what he did ... we've made that very clear," Ryan said in the radio interview. "Having said all of that, there are people who are in limbo. These are kids who know no other country, who were brought here by their parents and don't know another home. And so I really do believe there that there needs to be a legislative solution."
Hold Them Hostage -- No Immigration Reform, No DACA Reform

President Trump claims to be the greatest deal-maker in the history of humankind, so he should hold those DACA people hostage and threaten to deport them all if congress does not do the following:

* Revamp immigration law to stop chain migration (there is legistation pending that proposes this)

* Implement a nation-wide, nobody-exempt worker verification system similar to verification for gun purchases. We have the technology, we can do it, and we can catch social security number fraudsters and identity thieves while we're at it.

* Same identity verification system for all forms of public assistance. With no way to work and no way to get public assistance, it becomes much less attractive to pay a human trafficker to get you here illegally.

* Impose a five year moratorium on immigration

* Build the damned wall!

The last two are bargaining chips, giving the other side some wins by forcing the President to cede some ground: A wall in some places, other places natural barriers, technology, etc. And instead of a total moratorium, slashing immigration by 50%.

Immigration Reform's Last Stand

President Trump should demand congress do its job and include his demands in the legislation, or he will not sign it. The future of the millions of DACA people (most of them are now adults) is in the hands of congress. Do the wrong thing, Mitch and Paul, and you condemn them. Do the right thing, and you are heroes.

President Trump holds the high cards--he can veto the legislation, and he controls the Justice Department.  President Trump has the Dems over a barrel, and that is a rare position for a Republican. The GOP needs to take full advantage of it.

Democrats and some Republicans want to legalize the DACA people? Full, comprehensive and legally-enforceable immigration reform is the price.


Related: DACA immigrants terrified as President Trump decides their fate

Saturday, September 2, 2017

Musical Interlude

This Labor Day Weekend, enjoy this classic of Retro easy listening composed by Max Steiner (1888-1971), "the father of film music," and conducted by Percy Faith (1908-1976):


The above recording of "Theme from A Summer Place" won the Grammy Award for record of the year in 1961 and was the first movie theme and the first instrumental to win a Record of the Year Grammy.
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