Home » Open thread 8/17/22

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Open thread 8/17/22 — 25 Comments

  1. Serious question — why does it seem like the women who become nationally prominent in politics are bat@#*t and/or delusional? Hillary, Fauxcohantas, AOC, Pelosi, Stacey Abrahms, Liz Cheney, Whitmer, Hochul … even Dr. Jill and Barack’s husband or the bizarre Birx.

    Does the spotlight make them delusional? Or is it the batstuff that helps them become prominent?

    The supposed experts tell us that women have higher emotional IQs. They are more sensitive to social cues. Better at reading the room. So why are the women I listed above so clueless? So lacking in self-awareness? So afflicted with hubris?

    I realize that a whole lot of men in politics have serious issues. No doubt power corrupts and twists the mind. But at least some of the men seem better able to fake it a little. These women are awful. Tone deaf. Arrogant. Lacking self-awareness. Haughty. Insulting. All of them. And a whole lot of just plain stupid.

    Maybe it’s a case of small sample size? Perhaps. But on O fer is kinda hard to argue against. Maybe bias. Mine? It would have to be unconscious because I’ve voted for women like Marsha Blackburn. Supported Beth Harwell for Congress (my brother is a key advisor for her).

    Maybe bias by the news media? But the news media seems determined to advance them (at least the Dems which is most of them).

    I’m not hating. Just trying to understand what we’re seeing.

  2. Stan – just a guess, but I think a strong personal faith (or lack thereof) in a higher being plays a significant role in your observed behaviors. The crazies seem to think that they are at the top of the pyramid. The normies know better.

  3. The Covid Dissenters keep chipping away. I *think* that many are seeing more deeply into the issue. Hopefully some are troubled about how Gov’t, Media, Big Tech social platforms and medical admins coordinated so strongly to suppress important information.
    Maybe the whole issue will go quietly away.
    Perhaps it will be revived after the midterm elections, at least in some geographical areas.
    https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/cdc-admits-they-were-wrong-about
    CDC admits they were wrong about a huge safety problem by silently deleting the erroneous text.

    I’m typing this in. Apologies for errors–
    The mRNA and the spike protein do not last long in the body.
    Our cells break down mRNA and from these vaccines and get rid of it within a few days after vaccination.
    Scientists estimate that the spike protein, like other protein our bodies create, may stay in the body up to a few weeks.

    If you follow the link to the El Gato Malo SubStack, you will read this, amongst other things–
    this is a BIG deal as a large part of the safety claim around these drugs was initially predicated on the ideas that

    they remained localized around the injection site.

    they were rapidly cleared by the body and did not stick around to generate lasting effects.

    this was all in service of the basic claim that systemic effects from mRNA innoculant injection would be minor and transitory.

    point 1 has long been proven to be false and was known (but not disclosed) from animal data that predates EUA and was never even tested in humans pre-approval despite dire need. it was rapidly abandoned.

    point 2 has long been shown to be false as well and it appears that even the CDC is no longer willing to make this attestation.

    get worried.
    this is a very big deal because the spike protein produced by these vaccines is FAR more dangerous in a great many ways than the spike from covid itself and this is even more true today when compared to more moderate variants like omicron.

    the vaccines are highly CG enriched and this is a strong reason to presume that having them linger around for long periods will increase the risk of, accelerate, or outright cause cancer, heart damage, and a number of other extreme ill effects.

  4. As I’m not qualified to assess his technical ability, I never have had reason to doubt his reported abilities. It is Gould’s musical ‘compositions’ that are of disinterest. From nearly the first note, I find them offputting. A classical forerunner of the genre of classical dissonance.

  5. neo:

    I don’t mean to burden you with computersh*t (as one of my teachers, the sorta legendary Russ Walter called it) but Feedly, my RSS aggregator, stopped updating your site into my feed a few days ago.

    I can work around this, of course. But it may be a symptom of other problems. Or something stupid Feedly has done.

    So, FYI.

    As far as I am concerned, you don’t have to do anything. I’ll continue to check on my end and will let you know if I figure something out.

    Here’s my plug for Russ Walter. He was an early guy teaching people about personal computers near the start of the revolution. In his enjoyable class I learned stuff and made a connection which essentially started my PC career and changed my life.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Guide_to_Computers

    Russ is still updating his “Secret Guide.” God bless him.

  6. A classical forerunner of the genre of classical dissonance.

    Geoffrey Britain:

    Hardly. That damage had already been done by Schoenberg et al. before Gould was born.

    I’m not keen on Gould’s own compositions either, but he was a god when it came to interpreting Bach on the piano. Anyone who can do that IMO has already justified his reputation.

    He was also a damn interesting fellow when it came to observations about classical music in general and, I might add, Petula Clark in particular. (He loved Petula. So do I.)

    Did you watch/listen to the YouTube?

  7. I kinda hate YouTube links. “Here it is. Blow 10-20 minutes of your life and maybe you’ll figure something out.”

    Granted, neo is just supplying a prompt for further discussion. I can’t fault her. Though it would be nice to hear a bit more on the whys and wherefores of the recommendation.

    In this ‘Tube Gould is explaining his preference for studio recording over concert performance, then Zubin Mehta (a big-time conductor in his heyday) expressing disagreement.

  8. But for [myself] the concert circuit has no charms whatsoever.

    I really thank God that I’m able to sit in the studio with enormous
    concentration of enjoyment, doing things many times if necessary.
    It isn’t always, but doing things many times and taking what is more important a view of the work that I’m recording which lets me in on the composing secrets of the work.

    Really there have been many occasions when I’ve recorded something and have come into this studio at 10 o’clock on a Monday morning and really been in sixteen different minds, not just two different minds, as to how it should go.

    And this sense of option is is really quite a marvelous luxury. It’s a luxury that you cannot permit yourself in the concert hall.

    You simply cannot — you would be dead if you walked on stage not being quite certain — but in fact what happens is that by by one o’clock in the afternoon and having given it three hours of work I may not have come to any definitive conclusions but I will finally have selected one of these options and made it my priority. And out of this created a viable performance. The work has then only begun in fact.

    Because I spend a great many hours sitting in playback booths listening and listening and listening until somehow the priorities assert themselves absolutely and I become convinced.

    If I don’t become convinced we simply schedule another session and come back and do it all over again.

    And this has nothing whatever to do with with finger falls. It has nothing whatever to do with with questions of manual dexterity. What I’m talking about here is a sense of the line of the work, the sense of its architectural projection. I think that a whole new role of the interpreter has has been opened by recording in this way.

    –Glenn Gould

  9. huxley:

    They’re just usually things I find interesting and that I think some people might want to see. Really, though, just a bit of something to start the open thread.
    And I often try to choose short ones. For example, the Gould one is only 3:39.

    I find Gould rather fascinating, but I certainly don’t expect everyone to have much of an interest. You and I seem to agree on Gould, though.

  10. So, Gould vs Mehta is a classic (not classical) confrontation of the studio vs live debate in music.

    I can go both ways. I know enough about Gould to understand why he personally would be a studio guy. But I get the magic which can happen in live performances as well.

    Readers here may not understand how radical Gould’s choice was at the time and how insulted much of the classical music world felt when Gould opted out of live performances after he had achieved sufficient fame that he didn’t have to play live anymore.

    Like the Beatles.

  11. I come here for the comments, not the videos. I hope Neo keeps posting the videos, because it’s fun to see a consistent record (if albeit partial) of someone else’s YouTube stream.

    I watched this one, however, straight through.

    I’d be curious if anyone else has noticed that Gould seems not to appreciate what most folks love about Mozart: his performance of a Mozart sonata (https://youtu.be/OR9HnAhYglM ) will seem to betray an opinion that it’s largely pointless, mindless, sing-songy childishness with no mathematical or *architectural* sophistication. Eventually it may dawn on one that Gould just refuses to infuse music with any emotion, and that Mozart, reduced to the raw data, might just be a bit childish.

    Gould helps us realize how polluted our ears became due to recent performance history: he plays these pieces with the romanticism stripped off.

  12. JimNorCal, indeed….
    “CDC Director Walensky To Reorganize Agency After Admitting Covid Pandemic Response Fell Short”—
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/08/17/cdc-director-walensky-to-reorganize-agency-after-admitting-covid-pandemic-response-fell-short/
    So does this mean that Walensky just fired herself?
    And if so, shall we shed a tear for (with?) the dear old dear?
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2021/03/31/why-was-cdc-director-rochelle-walensky-fighting-back-tears/?sh=1103c7835dcc

  13. Serious question — why does it seem like the women who become nationally prominent in politics are bat@#*t and/or delusional? Hillary, Fauxcohantas, AOC, Pelosi, Stacey Abrahms, Liz Cheney, Whitmer, Hochul … even Dr. Jill and Barack’s husband or the bizarre Birx.

    None of these people strike me as delusional, with the possible exception of Lizard Cheney, who may actually believe her own agitprop. AOC is certainly histrionic, perhaps clinically so. The rest just strike me as dishonest in fairly transparent and familiar ways. It’s atypical these days to encounter professional-managerial types who are straight up, and these people are no exception. Some of those you name have signature features the others do not have. Not sure what the point is of calling Michelle Obama ‘Barack’s husband’.

  14. George Szell, conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, worked with Gould one time and offered the following opinion of him afterwards, “That nut’s a genius”. That line implies a great potential for being fascinating.
    desertowl – He didn’t like Beethoven either. I remember seeing a Youtube video of him playing and commenting on one of Beethoven’s last piano sonatas. He plays a particular passage and comments on how remarkable the passage is. Then states “I doubt the composer knew what he was doing”. Interesting he used the words “the composer” instead of “Beethoven”.

  15. and how insulted much of the classical music world felt when Gould opted out of live

    He trashed their public. I don’t imagine they were too pleased with that.

    Gould helps us realize how polluted our ears became due to recent performance history: he plays these pieces with the romanticism stripped off.

    If that pleases you…

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