Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy Appalachia Waltz, composed by Mark O'Connor (1962-present), with a hat tip to my good friend Midnight Rider of Infidel Bloggers Alliance:

About this piece, from the blurb at YouTube:

On O'Connor's 'Appalachia Waltz'

"What Bach did was, he took all these dances from all the known world around him and put them in suite form. Old dances, new dances, courtly dances, peasant dances. And what Mark did was, he took this piece that is somewhat based on the Norwegian fiddling style, with the drone and that, wrote it in Santa Fe, and called it `Appalachia Waltz.' It's just so moving. It's traditional. It is new. It comes from many different places, but it's authentic. So after a long Bach evening, rather than play more Bach, this is the perfect thing." -Yo-Yo Ma

APPALACHIA WALTZ

"I composed "Appalachia Waltz" in 1993, while sitting in a cabin in the Santa Fe desert! I was writing a portion of my second concerto there and was working on the "Trail Of Tears" movement (named after the forced migration of the Cherokee from Tennessee) hoping to identify with some of the Native American culture in New Mexico. It had been long gone from Tennessee culture for 150 years. Then, all of the sudden, this piece appeared in my head with all of the doublestops and drones, all at once! In 15 minutes it was written. It seemed much too intimate for my concerto though, so I tucked it away and introduced it to Yo-Yo Ma a couple of years later. It turned out to be the impetus (and title inspiration) for the two projects we recorded.

"It is one of my most loved pieces and I like to think it is for this reason; If it's played for folk musicians, they most often think it's classical music. When played for classical musicians, they most often think of it as folk music. Appalachia Waltz seems to exist in the middle of places. Each listener is embracing it on quite personal and maybe very different terms. When Yo-Yo performs it unaccompanied as an encore to his Bach Suite recitals, there are those who think it is old and German! When I play it unaccompanied in Southern California, it reminds people of their grandparents back in the mountains of North Carolina. Neither is true but this occurrence is one of the most important bridges I have attempted to cross; "Appalachia Waltz" has become one of my most important compositions, because it helped me create and cross yet another bridge...between audience and performer.

"It's a bridge of trust. As a performer, my hope always is that the audience has trust enough to meet me in the music. Audience...performer...music... we are all elements in an equation. When those elements are "right," there's no feeling like it!" -Mark O'Connor

October 1st, 2001 (in the days after 9/11)

"Robert J. Harth, the executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall, began the evening with an eloquent tribute to the victims, families and rescuers. Then Mr. Ma appeared, to perform two works for solo cello, starting with ''Appalachia Waltz'' by his colleague, the violinist and composer Mark O'Connor. In Mr. Ma's beautifully subdued performance, this tender work, steeped in Appalachian folk music, had an ancient modal resonance, almost like medieval music. Then Mr. Ma played Bach's Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor. If you are looking for something to depend on at this time of loss and confusion, Yo-Yo Ma playing the Bach cello suites will do just fine."-Anthony Tommasini for the New York Times

Have a good weekend.

Trump v. Corona Hysteria

Silverfiddle Rant!

‘Precautions are always blamed. When they are successful, they are said to have been unnecessary.’ - Benjamin Jowett

Always Trumper Roger Kimball has written the best summary to date of how rabid partisans have hijacked the non-partisan Corona Virus outbreak and are now driving it like a flaming crazy train aiming to damage the president.

Democrats have firmly positioned themselves to gain politically if this turns deadly, and that's not a good look.

This is a serious issue, the President took action in January, and the screamers called him a reactionary racist.  Meanwhile, the nation's non-partisan, pre-planned actions are being carried out by the CDC.  The same plans and same CDC that existed when Obama was president, but Democrats and their partisans in the press are determined to fan the flames of panic and damage the president.

Here are my favorite excerpts from Kimball's entertaining and concise statement of facts:

"...the White House press corps resembles a flock of bad-tempered schoolchildren, lazy and slightly dim, but from fancy families so firm in their sense of entitlement and outrage."

The press gaggle, desperate to find something to blame the president for, kept repeating the same questions, fighting to frame ‘gotcha’ remarks, and appearing exactly like they are: snotty, ill-prepared hacks whose goal is not to report and inform, but play smarmy partisan games. The president, just back from a trip to India, looked tired but commanding. The press looked small, sweaty, petulant.

The public saw a president who, in his concern for the welfare of the American people, communicated sober competence and steady confidence. They also saw a press swept away by extraordinary delusions and partisan madness."

What say you?

Related Links:

COVID-19 - Navigating the Uncharted
Related:Five Reasons You Don't Need to Panic About the COVID-19 Coronavirus
The Four-Stage Impacts of the Coronavirus

Thank You, President Trump!

A few weeks ago, around 8:45 A.M., I announced to Mr. AOW: "I'm headed upstairs to work on our tax return."

Mr. AOW replied in a downcast voice: "I won't be seeing you till tonight.  And you'll be in a terrible mood."

That pattern — work on taxes for hours on end (data entry into Quicken, into customized categories for both my business and our medical expenses), followed by becoming the grouch of the year — has held for over a decade.

That is, until the tax reform law that President Trump sponsored took full effect.

At 11:45 A.M., I joyfully danced down the stairs.  Mr. AOW was in shock — pleasant shock. I was ecstatic.  I love that provision for the increased standard deduction.

Thank you, President Trump!

Another reason to thank President Trump... Public charge': Trump enforces rule linking immigrant welfare use to green card chances. Excerpt below the fold (emphases mine).

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy Salut d'Amour by Edward Elgar (1857-1934):

Read about the above piece HERE. Excerpt:

...The dedication was in French: "à Carice". "Carice" was a combination of his wife's names Caroline Alice, and was the name to be given to their daughter born two years later....

Read the rest HERE.

Have a good weekend.

The Iran Nuclear Deal Fiction

Silverfiddle Rant!

Provocations by Iran continue, even after the rocket attack against one of our bases in Iraq.  A rocket attack by Iranian proxies against our embassy in Baghdad on 16 February didn't garner much attention.

Nobody screams about Logan Act violations as John Kerry and US senators meet with officials representing Iran's totalitarian mullahs.

It's not over between the US and Iran, so before the next flareup, a review is in order, and it comes courtesy of Hans Rühle, German Ministry of Defense, 1982-1988.  The Iran Nuclear Deal was a grand stupidity, or a western act of self-deception, or who knows what...

It could not get more absurd than this: the Obama Administration, together with its allies, concluded an agreement with Iran that centered on the long-term prevention of the production of weapons-grade uranium in Natanz, even though they knew that weapons-grade uranium was not produced there, but in secret facilities of the Revolutionary Guards.

Rühle cites CIA director Michael Hayden's book, "Playing to the edge." Hayden recounts his response when newly-elected President Obama asked him how much nuclear material the Iranians had stored at Natanz:

"There isn’t an electron or a neutron at Natanz that’s ever going to end up in a nuclear weapon. They’ll spin that uranium at some secret military facility beyond the eyes of the IAEA.”[3] Hayden, whose book was published around the time of the conclusion of the JCPOA, argued that U.S. intelligence had always assumed that enrichment for weapons-grade uranium was carried out in secret facilities. Consequently, he demanded that IAEA inspectors should be given unrestricted access anytime, anywhere, especially to the facilities operated by the Revolutionary Guards.

The agreement with Iran was flawed from the beginning, and the Obama gang knew it:

Iran demanded that the parties agree that for the purposes of the JCPOA the two known enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow were the only ones actively operated by Iran, i.e. that Iran did not operate any further uranium enrichment plants. However, U.S. intelligence had known for quite some time that Iran was operating about a dozen secret facilities, with one or more of them enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

What say you?

Link:  The Great Deception

FEATURED QUESTION: The Path To Destruction

In my homeschool World Literature class this year, we are reading George Orwell's 1984, the other outside-the-textbook readings being Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

I am reading 1984 again, of course. Until now, I hadn't opened the novel itself for over half a century! Naturally, my insights and interpretations are much different now, and I find myself occasionally gasping and frequently nodding my head.

Anyway, here is one of the famous quotations from Orwell's dystopian novel.

For discussion, this FEATURED QUESTION, in two parts: (1) How is the above Orwell quotation true and engulfing us in Orwellian Times? (2) How is the above Orwell quotation not true and therefore not engulfing us in Orwellian Times?

Truth?

(For politics, please scroll down)

From Powerline Blog:

Jubilee is not a therapy dog, but is a dog with alarmed eyes:

Jubilee's story

On a personal note, I can laugh at these graphics: problems here on the household front have lessened. Not the least of those problems was plumbing problems, which seem finally to have been resolved after months of worries and troubles. On the other hand, The Big Clean Out here continues ad infinitum. I will, of course, have to call a junk man before this Big Clean Out can be finished. **sigh**

The New Way Forward Act

From Infidel Bloggers Alliance comes this important information.  You must make time to watch this and follow up with a few Google searches as well:

Have you heard of the New Way Forward Act?

You should probably watch this: pic.twitter.com/whtEYTeyNV

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) February 7, 2020

Detailed reading: It Is Time for a New Way Forward. Worth your time.

About St. Valentine... (Weekend Blog Post)

(For politics, please scroll down)

From The Gory Origins of Valentine’s Day: The holiday began as a feast to celebrate the decapitation of a third-century Christian martyr, or perhaps two. So how did it become all about love?...

Americans United

Silverfiddle Rant!

We are a divided nation, so I enjoy finding those rare examples of overwhelming agreement, even when the points of agreement are a dismal commentary on our nation or our government.

The late legendary pollster Pat Caddell created such an opportunity, and his creation, The Smith Project, lives on. John Della Volpe explains:

"...in 2013 he established the Smith Project and poll. Inspired by Jimmy Stewart’s 1939 portrayal of a newly appointed U.S. senator hellbent on fighting corruption in Frank Capra’s “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” the Smith poll regularly poses scores of questions to Americans about the state of discourse, division, and isolation in our country. 

Here are the two takeaways from the article:

72% of those in our recent poll said they would vote to replace every single member of Congress, including their own, if there was a place on the ballot where they could do so. This is the highest number ever record in the Smith survey.

84% of Americans agree with the statement, "The country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists and other powerful money interest groups for their own gain at the expense of the American people."

I agree. What say you?

Ancient Wisdom & Forest Fires

Silverfiddle Rant!

Yahoo schools us on ancient aborigine traditions for preventing wildfires:

Long before European colonizers settled in Australia, Indigenous groups have been setting their own lands ablaze as a fire management technique. They use carefully controlled low flames and the power of the wind to clear grasses and kindling, the materials that fuel more unpredictable blazes during fire season.

Many Indigenous people see their techniques as part of a solution for devastating blazes like the ones that have ravaged the country in recent months.

 They even throw in some strawman condescension from a noble aborigine...

"Western knowledge of fire is that they're afraid of it," Kylee Clubb, a fire practitioner from Queensland, told Business Insider Today. "Whereas traditional burning and Aboriginal knowledge is that we work with it."

We “European colonizers” call the technique a “controlled burn.” We do it during the wetter parts of the year to keep it from getting out of control. Back in Mark Twain’s time, not only did they do controlled burns out west near settlements, they did not even attempt to fight forest fires. They were nature’s way of clearing dry underbrush and killing weak trees.

If attributing common sense forestry practices to Indigenous Peoples is all it takes to get city-dwelling progressive enviro-nuts to embrace controlled burns and fire breaks, I don’t mind a little “Stupid white man ignores the traditions of the ancient noble Indigeni” to get it moving. We all need to do our share...

Musical Intelude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy:

According to this YouTube blurb:

The largest pipe organ ever built, based on number of pipes, is the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ in Atlantic City, New Jersey, built by the Midmer-Losh Organ Company between 1929 and 1932. The organ contains seven manuals, 449 ranks, 337 registers, and 33,114 pipes. It weighs approximately 150 tons....

More information HERE and worth your time.  What a treasure!

Pathetic (With February 6 Addendum)

Demagoguery:

SUPERCUT!

Trump's inevitable acquittal is not going over well pic.twitter.com/Ut7LnKkTYp

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 31, 2020

"Metric tons of our viewers"? Sheesh.

ADDENDUM (hat tip to Franco Aragosta):

Read and watch: Nadler Nearly Runs Over Schiff Trying to Get to the Podium for Last Impeachment Question.

Impeachment Wrap-up

Silverfiddle Rant!

Well folks, it's all over but the pussyhat screaming.  The Democrat impeachment scheme has collapsed.  Time to move on.  The "Crime" was in plain sight and agreed upon by all, including the suspect.

President Trump asked Ukraine to investigate Burisma and the Bidens' role in its known corruption.  "...for purposes of foreign influence in the 2020 election" was always a tacked-on, ridiculously unprovable assertion.

(Many believe this was actually about the 2016 election)

Democrat strategerists robed their partisan attacks in the gravity of decades-old impeachment tropes that just don't resonate anymore.  They larded their hyperbolic attacks with adjectives, adverbs and histrionic outrage in an attempt to drive voters to demand President Trump's ouster.  They failed. Bigly.  And this bodes ill for Democrats in Election 2020.  The President's approval ratings have risen, and its pretty much a tie ballgame on impeachment, trending against impeachment and removal.

Senator Lamar Alexander provided some timely candor:

“There is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense,” Alexander said in a statement, arguing that while Trump had taken “actions that are inappropriate,” they did not merit his removal from office." 

 Senator Murkowski of Alaska summed it up nicely:

"The House chose to send articles of impeachment that are rushed and flawed. I carefully considered the need for additional witnesses and documents, to cure the shortcomings of its process, but ultimately decided that I will vote against considering motions to subpoena.

"Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don't believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.

[…]

"We are sadly at a low point of division in this country.

Finally, Jeremy Lott offers reasons why America yawned at this partisan circus...

The idea that the president is being impeached because of a temporary delay of U.S. aid to the government of Ukraine is literally too distant an issue to rile up many people.

Furthermore, to the extent that Americans are following the details of these foreign dealings and think Trump did something improper here, there’s little to suggest they see it as far outside of normal Washington corruption. The charge is that he tried to game the system to get a foreign government to look into … another American politician’s alleged corrupt gaming of the system in a foreign country.

What say you?

Related: Top 8 Reasons Trump Already Won Impeachment

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy Adagietto Symphony 5 - Karajan* by Gustav Mahler (1860–1911):

The above is the 4th movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 5 and is said to be his love letter to his wife Alma.

More Obama Administration Corruption Uncovered

Silverfiddle Rant!

Just in case anyone missed this...

The Justice Department has concluded that it should have ended its surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser earlier than it did because it lacked "insufficient predication" to continue eavesdropping, according to an order made public Thursday by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The court has demanded explanations from the Justice Department by next week about the four applications, and information about how the secrecy of the material was being protected, as well as explanations about the "related investigations" and litigation referenced by the department.

Obama ain't the king no more, so corruption like Fast and Furious, giving lawbreaker Hillary a sweetheart deal, and using the IRS to attack political enemies can no longer be swept under the rug.  We've only seen the tip of Obama trash pile they furiously tried to bury as they scurried for the exits.

Humor Break

Hat tip to Powerline Blog:

I love Politizoid's take on this impeachment pageant:

More Politizoid HERE.

And one more video, for good measure:

The Cat Of Cats!

Our magnificent Honey Bunny, aka "Pooter" (1978-1997). A red point Applehead Siamese, she was the cat of cats! Not an ounce overweight, she weighed 17 pounds and was, in the words of our vet, "robust and the biggest female I've ever seen." She even stalked deer!  Totally bonded with us, Honey Bunny enjoyed road trips and spending the night in a motel or at my father's house.

Sitting on the well cover outside our then front door.

Up To Our Knees

posted by Warren

stock photo

AOW is somewhat indisposed with one of the perennial joys of home ownership: a sewer blockage.

I have offered such sage knowledge, as is in my possession, but the time has come for expert action and equipment to alleviate the problem.

 As any home owner knows, it is not enough to merely clear the blockage. Sooner or later, the root causes (pun intended),  must be ameliorated or the problem returns.

Alas! Mr. and Mrs. AOW live only 7 or so miles away and uphill of our nation's largest open cesspit, Washington D.C., and that augean task may not be possible in a single lifetime.


Open thread.
As usual, I will delete any comment that pisses me off.

The MSM Narrative

Posted by Warren 

Even before Monday's gun-rights rally in Virginia, NBC News reporter Ben Collins called it a "white nationalist" gathering,  even as he warned against spreading "made-up stuff" on Twitter. Later on, Collins deleted his original tweet, and changed it to: "Hi everybody! I’m deleting a tweet so I can be super clear about tomorrow’s rally in Virginia." He then proceeded to rationalize  his obvious discrimination against the 2nd Amendment in general and those who support it in particular.

Here are a few videos and pictures of those "white nationalists":

Bernie Sanders's America?

Please, please, make time to watch these two videos:

As Pastorius of Infidel Bloggers Alliance points out:

Listen to this guy's words, and think about how they dovetail with the words of Greta Thunberg:

"Action must be powerful and wide-ranging. After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fuelled it. We need to dismantle them all."

How many more Kyle Jureks do we have in America today?

And Now For Something Completely Different...

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy this brief eclectic video (Thanks, Warren!)

Here's another of Daily Dose of Internet, this video a longer video:


Much more HERE.  Millions of views of each video!

Did You Watch The Engrossment Ceremony?

I did, cringed, and came to some of the same conclusions as Greg Gutfeld ("like spackling a turd with gold paint"):

"Unwarranted Gullibility"

Oh, that sea of Iranians protesting the killing of Qasem Soleimani, ruthless and evil general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard!

[photo credit]

But is Soleimani as beloved as he appears in the photos and videos?

According to Masih Alinejad, who wrote the commentary piece Don’t believe Iranian propaganda about the mourning for Soleimani, which appeared in the Washington Post on January 6, 2020:

...Some Iranians have compared the funeral services for Soleimani to those held for the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, killed by Allied agents during World War II....

[...]

...Some [social media voices] complain of the pressure to attend services for [Soleimani].

There are many Iranian voices who think Soleimani was a war criminal, but Western journalists rarely reach out to them. Ironically, the Western media is more skeptical of such state-organized events in other countries, such as Russia or North Korea, but seems to leave its critical sense at the border when it comes to the Islamic Republic. While it’s true that Western correspondents face daunting conditions when it comes to reporting the truth from Iran, that shouldn’t excuse the many times they’ve shown unwarranted gullibility toward the official version of events....

Smoke and mirrors — favoring such evil as Soelimani furthered by Western media. Ugh.

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy the peace of "The Watermill," composed by Ronald Binge (1910-1979):

You "Progressives", Can Be So Very Proud.

 Posted by Warren.

Looks like, the three ring circus formerly known as "The United States House of Representatives", is all set to pass a new War Powers Resolution that would, supposedly, limit President Trump's military actions toward Iran.

It would seem that the Democrats have "serious, urgent concerns about the administration's decision to engage in hostilities against Iran and about its lack of strategy moving forward." Unlike 'Silly Billy Clinton' who bombed the crap out of an aspirin factory and killed a nightwatchman and President 'I Won' who destabilized Libia and in a separate instance killed an American Citizen.

 According to The Council on Foreign Relations
"The 542 drone strikes that Obama authorized killed an estimated 3,797 people, including 324 civilians. As Obama reportedly told senior aides in 2011; "Turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was gonna be a strong suit of mine."

Of course, Democrats are always quick to make meaningless and toothless resolutions. Make no mistake about this resolution, it's figuratively and literally,  toothless as is the present Speaker of the House, whine box Nancy. -aka, wine box Nancy-

 Note that this will be a "concurrent" resolution – a legislative maneuver that is  not submitted to the president and does not have the force of law. (How friggin brave can you get. /sarc) 

Iran Declared War on Us

Silverfiddle Rant!

Iran declared war on us in 1979 when it broke into our Tehran embassy and took Americans hostage.

Barack Obama's "deal" with Iran was a colossal stupidity eclipsed in our nation's history only by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice humanitarian disaster.

Iran was on the ropes economically and the Iranian people hated the regime.  The nation was ripe for some destabilization and a "Persian Spring..."  and then Obama and Kerry staggered into the Persian Bazaar looking for magic beans in exchange for a regime lifeline to the tune of billions of dollars.

Yes, it was Iran's money, but the cash infusion breathed new life into Iran's global terror network, and Obama-Kerry demanded no concessions from Iran on halting their global terror enterprise.  On top of all this, Obama shut down a US operation against Hezbollah's global drug trafficking and money laundering network.

Here is a concise summary making the case Iran has been at war with us for four decades. Please read this short article and tell us what you think.

Nuke Deal or Not, Iran Has Already Declared War on Us

What say you?

Oh, Those Sad Faces At MSNBC!

From Powerline Blog:

Why are their faces so sad? Because they hadn't yet been given the repeat-these-words-like-parrots directions for the spin on the targeted killing of Qassem Soleimani?

Related reading and worth your time: Qassem Soleimani: Inside the twisted, terrible reign of Iran’s top general by Kenneth A. Timmerman. Excerpt:

...Soleimani was, in many ways, the irreplaceable man. Known as a charismatic leader — indeed, the only charismatic leader in Iran’s military today — he has no parallel among contemporary Iranian commanders.

Wherever Iran has sent its expeditionary Quds Force to war — in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen — there you would find Soleimani.

[...]

He also set up a far-flung financial empire, reportedly taking a percentage of the float on all foreign currency exchange from Iraqi banks, netting close to $1 billion per month in black money to finance his terror empire.

[...]

His many brushes with death and his outrageous terror rap sheet, which is longer than bin Laden’s, led Soleimani and his supporters to consider him invincible. His demise at the hands of US forces on Thursday not only shows that is not the case but that the aura of invincibility of the regime itself is over....

Read the rest HERE.

So, what is your take on the repercussions of the killing of Qassem Soleimani?

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy one of my favorite symphonic pieces: Symphony No. 9 in E Minor (aka the "New World" Symphony) by Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)....


Index to this symphony's four movements:

1. Adagio - Allegro molto
2. Largo 11:55
3. Scherzo: Molto vivace - Poco sostenuto 24:57
4. Allegro con fuoco 32:35

About the above piece:

...[Dvořák] composed the Symphony No. 9 in 1893, and while American music inspired him, he did not use any American melodies in the work. He wrote in the American style of pentatonic scale use and did it so well that for a long time many put the cart before the horse, especially in regards to the melody from the 2nd movement. A song named Goin' Home takes its melody from the symphony, not the other way around. The words were not set to the melody until many years after the symphony had been written.

The premiere of the work was the greatest success of Dvořák's career, as each movement was applauded so much that he had to take a bow after each. He had created interest in the work months before its premiere when he was quoted in New York newspapers as saying that an American school of composition should be built around Negro and Native American melodies....

Read the rest HERE.

Open Thread

So, what's on your mind?

Here is your chance to opine within the parameters listed below.

A political cartoon to get this thread started (from Powerline Blog, December 28, 2019):

And a non-political cartoon — because man cannot live by politics alone (from Powerline Blog, December 28, 2019):

Please note! We welcome civil dialogue at Always on Watch. Comments that include any of the following are subject to deletion:

1. Any use of profanity or abusive language
2. Off topic comments and spam
3. Use of personal invective

Comments consisting of blog gossip will be deleted as soon as a blog administrator becomes aware of such comments.

Happy New Year!

May 2020 be kind to us all: health, happiness, and prosperity!

HAVE-A-LAUGH ADDENDUM (Thanks, Warren!):

When you let your friend pour your drink for you and it’s 95% Alcohol, 5% mixer pic.twitter.com/xXXgcZ71qu

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) December 27, 2019

2019 In Review

From 12 Stories The Media Got Horribly Wrong In 2019: As the year comes to a close, here are a dozen of the top stories the media majorly messed up (The Federalist)....

January: Covington Catholic

February: Jussie Smollett

March: The Mueller Report

April: White House Correspondents Dinner

May: Media Defends Joe Biden’s Manhandling Of Young Girls

June: Media Standing Up For Antifa

July: 50th Anniversary Of Moon Landing Celebrates Inequality

August: Chris Cuomo Goes Berserk After Being Called ‘Fredo’

September: Media Makes A Puppet Of Greta Thunberg

October: Washington Post Pens Glowing Obituary For ISIS Leader

November: ABC Buried The Jeffrey Epstein Story

December: DOJ IG Blows Up Steele Dossier Upheld By The Media

More details and video HERE.

And the beat goes on — no doubt becoming worse as we enter Election Year 2020.

Of course, there are other stories fitting the category of "Stories the Media Got Horribly Wrong." Do you wish to add to the list? Please do so in the comments section for this blog post.

Advent Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

For the fourth Sunday in Advent, enjoy this a capella arrangement of "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming," a Sixteenth Century German carol emphasizing prophecies about our Lord's Incarnation:


Lyrics:

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
As men of old have sung.
It came, a flow’ret bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright,
She bore to men a Savior,
When half spent was the night.

This Flow’r, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere.
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.

Peach Mints

Silverfiddle Rant!

What do you think?

A Beautiful, Perfect Letter

Silverfiddle Rant!

President Trump's letter to Speaker Pelosi was a work of rhetorical beauty.  It cogently and comprehensively hit all the notes in the Democrats' discordant three-year Opera of the Grotesque.

The letter is a thing of beauty, professionally stated but still in the President's own voice.  Clearly, this was not fired off, tweet-like while sitting on the toilet.  Some professional staff work went into it.

This on the heels of IG Horowitz's stinging rebuke of FBI procedures, and Comey's admission that he was wrong and "there was real sloppiness." It vindicated Rep Nunes and shows Adam Schiff to be a liar. Mr. Horowitz confirmed significant FISA abuse and concluded the salacious and unverified dossier played a “central and essential role” in the bureau’s decision to seek a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Now comes Senate Leader McConnell rightly telling Democrats the Senate impeachment trial will not be turned into an ad hoc fishing expedition.  The Senate will try the case as the Democrats bring it to them.

The Democrat ship is sinking... and it's on fire... in shark-infested waters. My Prediction: Democrats will do what they always do when caught with their pants down:  They will scream louder into their media megaphone.

Please go read the letter and tell us what you think.

Where I've Been — And Still Am (Continued)

(For politics, please scroll down)

When I say that I have "too much stuff," I mean it! Blogging continues to be too much effort at this time.  Thanks to my food friend Silverfiddle for taking up the slack here during my absence.

In the process of The Big Clean Out in preparation for our move to Indiana (move date not yet determined), former blogger The Merry Widow and I found the ultimate family heirloom in the cellar crawlspace of this old house, which has been in my family since 1947:

Yes, I know to whom this treasure belonged: my great-grandfather, who died in Tennessee in the 1930's or 1940's after being bedridden for some ten years after a stroke.  Apparently, this bedpan was important enough for my great aunt to bring to Washington, D.C., when she moved here in the 1950's!  I can't throw it away now.

Advent Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

For this Third Sunday of Advent 2019, please enjoy "O Come All Ye Faithful" as performed by Celtic Woman:


This information from YouTube provides important insights about the above interpretation:

...The dresses worn have the colors of the Threefold Flame, of Blue, Yellow and Pink, representing Power, Wisdom, and Love, as well as the color of the current Cycle for the Earth, which is Violet and represents Redemption. The Violinist (Máiréad Nesbitt) comes out in the Purity of White.

They have done a wonderful job bringing forth the beauty, and Divine Culture into the outer world, and as the prayer goes in Christian circles, we ask "Thy Kingdom Come." This is how His Kingdom does come, we bring it here with our choices and actions....

Read the rest HERE.

Progressive Pendulum Apogee?

Silverfiddle Rant!

Mattress Girl regains her sanity:

My view of our nation's future has turned dark and cynical, but I am always on the lookout for rays of hope, and they are out there, among millennials and post-millennials, of all people.  (Children really are, to quote that vapid leftwing tautology, the future.)

When the media's gaze is upon you, it’s difficult to change your mind.

This week, New York magazine’s The Cut published an article titled, “Did Emma Sulkowicz Get Redpilled?” The story chronicles the political awakening of 27-year-old Sulkowicz, who became famous in 2014 for dragging her mattress around Columbia University’s campus to protest the university’s handling of her alleged sexual assault.

The act of performance art, dubbed Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), became a flash point for a national conversation about campus sexual assault. Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York even invited her to the State of the Union address in 2015.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If anything can save post-modern America, it is libertarianism...

And what about her posture has changed? She now listens to Jordan Peterson. She attended Reason writer Robby Soave’s book party for Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump. In the book, Soave writes critically of Sulkowicz.

Her own words:

“As I became more and more feminist,” she said, “I think I got to a point where I was literally just straight up hating men. I just hated men, I wished all men would die.”

Now she wants to listen to their perspective — not just men, but others she has disagreed with.

The most remarkable part of the story, though perhaps not the most surprising, is that Sulkowicz says she didn't even know a conservative until last year.

Progressive Academia has morphed into a post-modern Ministry of Truth, indoctrinating everyone into parroting 2+2=5, but the human mind cannot be chained forever.  Progressive "historical arcs" be damned.  The human spirit will always bend toward freedom and liberty.

US Government Infested with Liars

Silverfiddle Rant!

Washington Post reports:

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. (WaPo via MSN)

It's no surprise our government is infested with bald-faced liars. The most sickening aspect of this story is the complicity of military flag officers. Military people thrive on the mission impossible, I saw it in action every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. A nation needs such people, and when carried out by the enlisted, company grade officers and field grade officers it is a noble endeavor.

It's a different story with flag officers. Generals responsible for the lives of the men and women charged to their care failed to tell the truth and instead went along with the political lies foisted on them by our elected leaders. They said nothing and refused to put their careers on the line to challenge the lies from our government. The generals who exhibited such behavior are moral cowards, a disgrace to the uniform, and criminally negligent. Every damn one of them who participated in this lie--active duty or retired--should have the stars ripped from his or her shoulders and be publicly disgraced. I am sick to my stomach.

General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be immediately fired for his role in this fraud on the American people and the men and women of the US military, living and dead.

Here are some damning quotes. Please go read the whole thing for yourself, and tell us what you think.

“We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan — we didn’t know what we were doing,” Douglas Lute, a three-star Army general who served as the White House’s Afghan war czar during the Bush and Obama administrations, told government interviewers in 2015. He added: “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”

"Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible."

The United States has allocated more than $133 billion to build up Afghanistan — more than it spent, adjusted for inflation, to revive the whole of Western Europe with the Marshall Plan after World War II.

One unidentified contractor told government interviewers he was expected to dole out $3 million daily for projects in a single Afghan district roughly the size of a U.S. county. He once asked a visiting congressman whether the lawmaker could responsibly spend that kind of money back home: “He said hell no. ‘Well, sir, that’s what you just obligated us to spend and I’m doing it for communities that live in mud huts with no windows.’ ”

Year after year, U.S. generals have said in public they are making steady progress on the central plank of their strategy: to train a robust Afghan army and national police force that can defend the country without foreign help.

In the Lessons Learned interviews, however, U.S. military trainers described the Afghan security forces as incompetent, unmotivated and rife with deserters. They also accused Afghan commanders of pocketing salaries — paid by U.S. taxpayers — for tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers.” 

A Kakistocracy... if they can keep it

Silverfiddle Rant!

Through successive Democrat and Republican regimes our nation has fought other nation's wars for them, allowed China to rape us blind economically, failed to stanch the flow of thousands of metric tons of drugs flowing across our borders every year, and failed to get reckless deficit spending under control.


Welcome to the Potemkin Village of Washington Power

What American constitutional government most urgently needs at present is for our Madisonian institutions—the presidency, the Congress, and the courts—to wrest back control of national security policy from an unelected and increasingly rogue national security establishment.

That ominous challenge to constitutionalism was on full display with the recent op-ed piece in the New York Times by retired Admiral William McRaven, in which he brashly warned that unless Trump jumped aboard the Forever War bandwagon, he must be removed, and “the sooner the better.”

[...]

Tufts law professor Michael Glennon points out in a recent essay in Humanitas that the Cold War brought something new and ominous in military-civilian relations.

The national security bureaucracy became so large and omnipotent that the Madisonian branches of government became something like the British House of Lords, symbolically important but in reality without much power.

The executive, legislature, and judiciary became a kind of Potemkin village, with real national security power lodged in, as Glennon describes it, “a largely concealed managerial directorate, consisting of the several hundred leaders of the military, law enforcement and intelligence departments.”

9/11 amped up that bureaucracy on steroids, but it also caused millions of us to realize the "experts" were dime store knockoffs.

Please read the linked article and tell us what you think.

*** Comments Closed. Please see latest post on government lies on Afghanistan ***

Advent Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

The story that never grows old and offers Mankind eternal Hope — even in the midst of personal and political turmoil!  Beautifully performed by King’s College Choir Cambridge, 2011:


Lyrics:

While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks

Nahum Tate

While shepherds watched their flocks by night
All seated on the ground
The angel of the Lord came down
And glory shone around, and glory shone around

"Fear not," said he, for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled mind
"Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind, to you and all mankind

"To you, in David's town this day
Is born of David's line
The Savior who is Christ the Lord
And this shall be the sign, and this shall be the sign

"The heav'nly Babe you there shall find
To human view displayed
All meanly wrapped in swathing bands
And in a manger laid, and in a manger laid

"All glory be to God on high
And to the earth be peace
Good will hence forth from heav'n to men
Begin and never cease, begin and never cease"

Democracy Dies in Hate Speech Laws

Silverfiddle Rant!

Former Time Editor and CEO of Constitution Center (!) Wants To Cancel First Amendment, Pass Hate Speech Laws

The rest of the world--from Central Europe to the Islamic lands of the Middle East--hate our liberal Free Speech laws. Free Speech is a threat to tyrants and hidden agendists everywhere, and it is a particular threat to multi-cultural societies, since they have more friction points than homogeneous ones.

Social media platforms hate free speech: It is a threat to their revenue models. Now more than ever, they need a global speech code enforced by powerful nations in order to legally shield their profits and eliminate costly and legally-precarious nation-by-nation tailored enforcement. One Automated Speech Code to Rule Them All.

Asshat Richard Stengel, Obamaite and former Time Magazine editor, is the latest "serious person" to make anti-First Amendment arguments. We are in scary territory. Here are some excerpts:

On the Internet, truth is not optimized. On the Web, it's not enough to battle falsehood with truth; the truth doesn't always win.

What planet does this man live on? The Truth is slaughtered daily on the altar of partisan politics. Unfortunately, here in the real world, everything doesn't wrap up nice and neatly like a Leave it to Beaver episode. That is no reason to stamp out free speech.

Government schools that propagandize and indoctrinate, while making our children dumber, are also no reason to attack the First Amendment:

A 2016 Stanford study showed that 82 percent of middle schoolers couldn't distinguish between an ad labeled "sponsored content" and an actual news story.

Here's another pearl of wisdom:

All speech is not equal. And where truth cannot drive out lies, we must add new guardrails.

Something is crooked here, we all perceive it, but we can't put our finger on it. This quote provides some illumination:

Only a quarter of high school students could tell the difference between an actual verified news site and one from a deceptive account designed to look like a real one.

The linked article laments how students unquestioningly lap up information shoveled to them by an official-looking website that is really a "fake." 

What is "an actual verified news site?"  And what Official Verifier bearing the official Seal of Approval decides?

When the Washington Post libeled those schoolboys from Ohio, was that "actual verified news?"

More importantly--in this mortal coil where "truth cannot drive out lies," who decides what it the truth and what are the lies?  

Who was lying, Christine Blasey Ford, or Justice Kavanaugh?

Who was lying, the stolen valor Native American, or the schoolboys?

Restoring Walter Kronkite

This is revanchist Establishmentarians aching to restore the ancien régime of  "Because We Say So." They long to return to the days where they determined what is right and what is wrong.  The Information Totalitarians are working to restore the regime that dictates Truth to the pliant masses who obediently lap it up and regurgitate, while the dissident fringe damns itself by its refusal to say  2+2=5.

We all grew up in an age of appeal to authority--"Four out of five doctors smoke Camels!"--but the "authorities" have beshat themselves and their credibility is shot.  There is no monopoly on truth.

See also: No, the US does not need European-style hate speech laws

Expertendämmerung

Silverfiddle Rant!

The Infotainment Media Complex warns that President Trump doesn't listen to the experts.

I ask, what have the experts done for us lately?

What are our great foreign policy achievenments over the past decade?

Somalia?

Iraq?

Putin taking bites out of Georgia and Ukraine?

How much pro-American goodwill has the State Department experts drummed up over these past decades?

Bruce Thornton sums it up in his essay, Peggy Noonan Reminds Us Why Trump Won:

Indeed, when it comes to foreign affairs, generations of highly credentialed foreign policy mandarins have not compiled a record that would suggest those credentials contribute to success.

The two most consequential failures include misreading the Iranian Revolution as an anticolonial bid for freedom and popular sovereignty, rather than a religious revolution aimed at creating an Islamic theocracy; and failing to foresee and thus prepare for the collapse of the Soviet Union, something that was unthinkable to the big brains of our foreign policy establishment.

Moreover, the great foreign policy success in the postwar period was victory in the Cold War, which was the accomplishment of an ex-actor and foreign policy amateur looked down on by the government agency “professionals.” They contemptuously dismissed Reagan’s common-sense wisdom like “we win, they lose,” “evil empire,” and “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” The latter iconic phrase, by the way, was argued against by the State Department and National Security Council because it was too provocative and naïve.

What say you?