If I had my life to live over... I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
Nadine Stair
Classical Music and Controlling Unruly Adolescents?
I remember while I was in Newport, RI, for Navy officer training, my Aunt Grace, a schoolteacher and a former Catholic sister/nun, came to pick me up for a weekend visit. On our way into Fall River, my aunt spotted some young hoodlums standing on the overpass overhead, aiming and throwing snow-packed rocks at the cars passing below. I am tired of progressives trying to rationalize criminal behavior; these kids weren't playing video games--they were playing dice with other people's health, lives and property.
I haven't spotlighted classical music or opera yet in my musical interlude series. My reaction to classical music is like my reaction to beer. I almost never drink. (I did buy a six-pack on the eve of the 1992 election; I remembered how students told me they rated my exams by how many beers it took to forget them. Irving is in a dry county, so I bought it on the way to visiting my sister in Plano. However, not even a couple of beers could keep the nightmare of Bill Clinton's election from seeping into my consciousness. That hangover lasted 8 years.) I mean, the first few sips of beer, after months of not having one, are glorious. But then beer seems to lose its taste. I love listening to the first 20 minutes of classical music, but then I get a little restless.
There was an interesting BBC article a few years back of Canadian and British local governments experimenting with piping classical musical into public areas in the early to late evenings in response to issues of public safety and property damage; reportedly Mozart, Rachmaninov or Rimsky-Korsakov have been very effective. Some of the posted comments about what I call Weapons of Aural Deterrence are interesting:
- I was staying at a hotel in Victoria, British Columbia a couple of years ago when I noticed loud classical music playing outside my room. My inquiries at the front desk revealed that the music discouraged drug dealers and other disruptive types that congregated near a pub behind the hotel. It seemed to work - I encountered no problems during my stay.
- I experienced this in Melbourne for the first time. Apparently the station had previously been plagued by youths who persistently [vandalized] and graffitied the area. There was no damage apparent after the music was played 24/7.
[I'm sure that American progressives/liberals have their own priories: they hope to deter Tea Party rallies with rap, hip hop or any other noise that lacks a hook and a melody.]
Brendan O'Neill of Reason is outraged at the ways that the elite use bright lights, high-pitched noise and classical music from the likes of Vivaldi, Beethoven, and Shostakovich; he worries that intimidating, loitering crowds of bored adolescents with nothing better to do will be conditioned by paternalistic, elitist authorities to loathe great music. (I think the real tyranny is more of peer pressure and acceptance.)
In my generation, the really annoying thing was hearing a great pop classic song reduced to bland elevator music while shopping for a new suit; one has to wonder if Melanie Safka might have have been inspired by that in titling her hit "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma"...
I have a more pragmatic appraisal of the situation than Mr. O'Neill. I certainly believe that adolescents have the right to choose music relevant to them; but at the same time, all people need to respect the rights of others: other people expect to be able to walk on public streets without being harassed; business owners or citizens shouldn't have to worry about random acts of damage. If beautiful music is an effective, more humane means to discourage illegal activities (e.g., drug dealing, public urination, street walking, loitering, or vandalism), I say go for it.
Critchlow: Dems Face Day of Reckoning
This is a well-crafted, spot-od Politico op-ed; I just want to emphasize a few telling points.
The first critical insight is the fact that "Congressional Democrats [and the President] profoundly misread the 2008 election results and have been left with a reputation as a party of grandiose ideas — with little financial sense or ability to govern sensibly." How do we know their purported mandate for progressive change never existed? "Exit polls showed that 22 percent of voters called themselves liberals; 34 percent described themselves as conservatives; the remaining 44 percent were moderates. These numbers were not that different from every presidential election in the past 20 years. The United States remained a center-right country."
Critchlow then correctly notes that the Democrats were able to steamroll the opposition on a raft of partisan legislative accomplishments--and in the process exacerbated partisan differences, making genuine compromise all but impossible, while cynically characterizing the marginalized GOP as nothing but obstructionists, the "Party of 'No'", with no constructive competing agenda (even though before Obama was elected, Gingrich and Paul Ryan, among others, have fleshed out a conservative approach to entitlement reform, health care, and other salient issues).
More importantly, the Democrats' ideological agenda, excessive spending, and feckless economic program in the face of the longest recession since WWII have triggered a grass-roots revolt against the Democratic Party that has not been seen since the 1850's.
I'm not sure that Critchlow would approve of my more strident paraphrase of his thesis, but Obama and the Democratic Congress' approach to health care differed from the earlier Clinton failed approach by their crony capitalistic approach to co-opting health care industry sectors. The industry felt they had no real choice since the GOP didn't have the numbers to stop an eventual health care bill. The hypocrisy was palpable: for instance, the Democrats attacked Bush and the Republicans for failing to properly fund the new Medicare prescription drug benefit with new taxes. Did the Democrats then do the right thing (assuming that the deficit arguments weren't disingenuous) by enacting new taxes or offsetting benefit costs by reducing compensatory Medicare expenses? Of course not; in fact, they want all senior citizens to know that they bridged the infamous "doughnut hole" (in which senior citizens were responsible for paying mid-level expenses). In fact, Critchlow observes that the Democrats deliberately underestimated operational costs by two-thirds of their new entitlement while hypocritically refusing to enact any new taxes to pay for any of it, instead dubiously suggesting they could pay for it through unprecedented Medicare/Medicaid cost cuts (the details of which, of course, haven't been fleshed out). Never mind pesky details like Medicare is already trillions of dollars underfunded, and Medicare/Medicaid payments to doctors amount to 80 percent or less of market-priced services, i.e., subsidized by the private sector, rapidly losing market share to the public sector. And while the Democrats pretentiously claim they can manage health costs which in other countries are maybe two-thirds of the health care sector's share of the US economy, in fact projections are that health care costs will rise from 16% to 24% of GDP.
What about fiscal responsibility? "Incredibly, Obama’s deficits after less than two years have already exceeded President George W. Bush’s deficits after eight years. To make matters worse, the Democratic Congress, for the first time in modern budget history, will not have passed out of committee any part of the proposed budget by October, when the fiscal year begins." I don't think the allegation that the Obama deficits have already exceeded the cumulative Bush deficit is correct, but they are on trend to exceed it by 2012. The Democrats can't argue about the second point because it is a matter of public record.
But here's a critical point that Critchlow did not really address: will the Republicans similarly misread the results of the mid-term elections as the validation of a radical conservative agenda? Does the public want the Republicans, flush with victory, turning the table on the Democrats and engaging in partisan investigations and the like? What the Republicans need to focus on is the domestic economy and putting the federal government on a diet and exercise regimen. I think the Christine O'Donnell nomination in Delaware will point out the importance of the 44% of Americans whom consider themselves moderate; the Delaware seat was a sure pickup for the GOP. If O'Donnell's almost certain loss to a weak Democratic progressive candidate is not a wakeup call to the GOP in the need to act like sportsmen after the election, the GOP will find itself in a much different scenario in 2012.
Pat Boone Sings His Composition: "I Am an American"
Rahm Gets A Fishy Parting Gift
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| Photo courtesy of Tracy Woodward/Washington Post "Mr. Emanuel never asks a second favor once he's refused the first, understood?" |
Departing White House Chief of Staff Rahm 'Dead Fish' Emanuel gets a thoughtful parting gift from his fellow White House staffers: the donation of the first dead fish will go to the first unlucky pollster whose numbers on the Chicago
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| Courtesy of Jake Tapper/ABC |
"Christine O'Donnell didn't go to Oxford. It turns out she took a class from something called the Phoenix Institute, which happened to be renting a classroom at Oxford. That’s like saying you're a TV star, but really you're just on CBS during the middle of the damn night." –Craig Ferguson
[Well, as soon as FNC "Ole Miss" alumnus anchor Shep Smith heard O'Donnell went to Oxford, he broke into the chorus of "Forward Rebels".]
"President Obama has listed the songs on his iPod. The Tea Partiers are checking to see if 'Born in the USA' is on the list." –Jimmy Fallon
[No, I think they're convinced it's the Beatles' 'Back in the USSR'.]
Musical Interlude: The "British Invasion" of the 1960's Series
The Beatles, "Michelle" (Sir Paul penned one of my favorite love songs ever. French women, indeed, are lovely, especially Franco-American women like my mom and sisters.)
