According to the Jerusalem Post, Mitt Romney is planning to visit Israel in late July:
Delegates are set to fly in from the US for the event on July 29, which a Republican source said would be “a small meeting, but a big fund-raiser” as the Tisha Be’av fast ends. Immediately after the fund-raising meeting, Romney will host a conference in Jerusalem, where he will lay out his Middle East policy.
Yesterday Romney actively courted black voters, a block that traditionally votes heavily, heavily Democratic. Now he’s doing the same for Jews. He’s not automatically conceding these ordinarily-Democratic special interest groups to Obama.
Recently I was talking to an elderly Jewish man I’ve known for many years, who’s never voted for any national candidate who was not a Democrat. He’s still planning to cast his vote for Obama this year. But for what it’s worth, he reports being none too happy about it, largely because of Obama’s policy on Israel. The fact that this previously-enthusiastic Obama supporter and lifelong Democratic voter was even for a moment seriously considering voting for a Republican is an indication of how deep the dissatisfaction appears to go.
Drew M. at Ace’s points out a few things about the press coverage of Romney’s NAACP speech. At this point the anti-Romney slant of the coverage fails to surprise me in the least, but that doesn’t make it any less reprehensible:
Of course the media will not be focusing on that or the applause for charter schools, his invocations of faith or anything else. No, they will focus exclusively on his being booed for saying he’d repeal ObamaCare and that he will do better for blacks than Obama has.
While that sort of hackery is to be expected, a couple of outlets are going well over the line.
After focusing on the booing, ABC drops in this little nugget.
Romney, a white Mormon whose father ran for president when blacks weren’t even allowed to join the priesthood, told Obama’s most reliable supporters that they have been let down by the country’s first black president.
Aside from Romney applause lines, what will the media ignore? Obama doesn’t have the guts to go to a hostile crowd like this and give a speech. In fact, Obama won’t even be addressing the NAACP convention. You’d think sending Job Biden in his place would be enough to turn them against him but it’s probably not.
During his first State of the State address in January 1963, [Governor George] Romney declared that “Michigan’s most urgent human rights problem is racial discrimination””in housing, public accommodations, education, administration of justice, and employment.” Romney helped create the state’s first civil rights commission.
When Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Detroit in June 1963 and led the 120,000-strong Great March on Detroit, [Governor George] Romney designated the occasion Freedom March Day in Michigan, and sent state senator Stanley Thayer to march with King as his emissary, but did not attend himself because it was on Sunday. Romney did participate in a much smaller march protesting housing discrimination the following Saturday in Grosse Pointe, after King had left. Romney’s advocacy of civil rights brought him criticism from some in his own church; in January 1964, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles member Delbert L. Stapley wrote him that a proposed civil rights bill was “vicious legislation” and telling him that “the Lord had placed the curse upon the Negro” and men should not seek its removal. Romney refused to change his position and increased his efforts towards civil rights. Regarding the church policy itself, Romney was among those liberal Mormons who hoped the church leadership would revise the theological interpretation that underlay it, but Romney did not believe in publicly criticizing the church…
When George Romney ran for his second term as governor of Michigan, he received 30% of the black vote, unheard of for a Republican.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons his son Mitt believes that it’s at least possible to gain the support of some black voters this time. At any rate, it’s a story I doubt you’ll be hearing from the MSM.
[ADDENDUM: Much more, here and here, including a video.]
“Swan Lake” is—among other things—the story of a woman named Odette who’s got a lot of reasons to be afraid. After all, she’s under an evil magician’s spell that turns her into a swan by day, able to resume her human form only at night.
But then she meets a man under rather strange circumstances, tells him her sad story, gradually learns to trust him, and finally falls in love. Later on, her prince betrays her without meaning to. The evil magician tricks him into it, and the consequences are dire.
But let’s not worry about that right now; we’ve got some video clips to watch.
When Odette meets the prince one night she’s initially trembling with fear, desperate to fly away—forgetting, perhaps, that for now she’s a woman and not a swan, and cannot fly. After all, he just tried to kill her when she was in swan form, and it was only after she materialized as a woman and explained her predicament to him that he put away his bow and tried to reassure her that she and her fellow swan-maidens were safe with him.
And then they dance. What else?
Here’s a passage in their pas de deux; I call it the flying lifts (you’ll see why in a moment). The name of the dancer performing them is Polina Semionova. Although this video is undated, I believe she’s in her mid-to-late twenties here (she’s only 28 now).
Semionova is a tall-looking woman (although she’s probably not all that tall in absolute terms; see this) with a body whose long lean lines look as though she’s been in a taffy pull. She’s thin even for a ballerina, yet possessed of a steely strength. As is the custom nowadays, her extensions (the height of the raised leg, the one on which she is not standing) are towering, and she has a natural elegance, stateliness, and reserve.
When I watch clips of Semionova, I’m torn between admiration of her astounding physical attributes and—well, take a look yourself at Semionova doing the flying lifts, and see what you think (they last about a minute):
For perspective on Semionova’s phenomenal technique, let’s take a trip back in time to one of the greatest Swan Queens of the 1940s and 1950s, Maya Plisetskaya. This video is also undated, but I’m guessing it was made in the 1960s or even 1970s, because Plisetskaya’s technique—alas—had already begun to fade by the time of this performance. Plisetskaya was known for the fluidity of her seemingly boneless arms, the height of her powerful jump, her flexible back, and her charismatic personality. But unfortunately, in this passage where she does the “flying” lifts, you don’t really see too much of that, partly because the tempo is so fast. The effect is of a flurry of movement:
The contrast between Plisetskaya and Semionova clearly shows the advances in ballet technique that have occurred over the years. These two women are like two entirely different creatures. And “creatures” is the right word, because although the Swan Queen Odette is a woman while dancing with Prince Siegfried, she is a swan-woman, exhibiting both of her essences simultaneously. Semionova shows her hybrid nature in the curves her entire body forms in space; she seems other-wordly and not quite human in the physical sense. With Plisetskaya the audience sees the human aspect more.
But despite the fact that the flying lifts are much more effective in Semionova, Plisetskaya is a warmer dancer. My reservations about Semionova that I referred to earlier involve that fact that she remains remote and emotionally aloof, encased in her sorrow like armor, so that while I may admire her immensely, I never deeply care about her.
And then there’s Natalia Makarova, my personal favorite in this role. Here’s a video of the same moment performed by Makarova and made in 1976 at the peak of her career (she was 36 at the time).
Makarova is small and delicate, unlike either Semionova the tall and elongated or Plisetskaya the sturdy mesomorph with the liquid arms. There is no single thing you notice about Makarova when she dances; her technique is absorbed into her artistry and is never virtuosity for its own sake, but one seamless flowing whole of body, mind, heart, and spirit:
Notice, also, that she looks at the Prince several times, lovingly. And that her flying lifts express the idea of escape and longing, simultaneously.
…a strong tendency for MSM articles about the president’s most recent tax proposal to couch the news in strategic rather than substantive terms, labeling it a technique for making the Republicans look bad, fostering class war, and thus gaining votes in an election year, rather than a bona fide attempt to solve our economic problems.
It seems to me that this represents a change in coverage. Previously, these sort of reports were more confined to pundits on the right, because they foster cynicism about the president’s motives.
If it is a change, what does that reflect? Perhaps it’s just an indication of the growing cynicism on the part of those supporters of Obama (mostly still supporters, because they can’t stand the idea of leaving the reservation) who previously believed in him as an inspirational figure, and who now feel that—in the words of Reverend Wright—“he does what politicians do.”
If the past is any guide, it’s a safe bet that Obamacare will cost far more than estimated. Check this out:
A few years ago, the Senate Joint Economic Committee released a study that looked at initial estimates of programs and their costs in dollars at that time. In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee predicted that the new Medicare program would cost $12 billion in 1990. It was $110 billion. In 1987, Congress estimated that Medicaid’s hospital subsidies were estimated to cost less than $1 billion in 1992. It was $17 billion.
Peter Whybrow, the director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, argues that “the computer is like electronic cocaine,” fueling cycles of mania followed by depressive stretches. The Internet “leads to behavior that people are conscious is not in their best interest and does leave them anxious and does make them act compulsively,” says Nicholas Carr, whose book The Shallows, about the Web’s effect on cognition, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. It “fosters our obsessions, dependence, and stress reactions,” adds Larry Rosen, a California psychologist who has researched the Net’s effect for decades. It “encourages””and even promotes””insanity.”
It’s not just that depressive people and those with OCD are especially drawn to the internet, although that’s true. There’s also evidence that heavy internet use (and it’s not clear how that should be defined) actually causes brain changes. All of this seems particularly true for social media, which have taken over the lives of young people to a startling degree.
As a blogger, I’m online a lot, but most of the time I’m engaged in the more conventional activities of information-gathering and essay writing. I’ve never joined Facebook or Twitter, for example, for the simple reason that I don’t want to spend more time online, I want to spend less, and I know that with Facebook and Twitter I’d be checking and re-checking and updating at the expense of my “real” face time with “real” people. I’ve also resisted purchasing a cell phone account that includes texting, making me one of the few dinosaurs who calls or emails back in response to receiving a text.
The reason I’ve instituted these restraints is that I’ve seen how the internet has taken over my life already. Although I think that on the whole it’s enhanced my life, I’ve always realized it’s done so at the expense of other things that I love, such as reading books. I also noticed early on that I had a tendency, if engaged in reading or writing something online that I found particularly fascinating, to experience time spent interacting with real people—such as a party, for example—as more dull than I used to, and to chomp at the bit to get back to my computer. That seemed like a warning sign and a hint to pull back from the technology rather than to get ever more deeply into it.
[NOTE: I found it very curious that the Newsweek article on which this post is based did not mention online pornography even once. It’s been clear for quite some time that online porn has been the source of major addiction for a significant number of people, and that this technology makes it far easier to get a stream of constant reinforcing hits for those susceptible.]
…otherwise known as letting the so-called “Bush tax cuts” expire for those making over $250,000.
Are these really “rich” people? Was Charles Schumer (he’s a Democrat, but he’s from New York) correct when he said last year that, “in large parts of the country, that kind of income does not get you a big home or lots of vacations or anything else that’s associated with wealth in America”?
And whether they are “rich” or not, will this really help the economy? Mitt Romney certainly doesn’t think so, with a spokesman saying, “Gov. Romney understands that the last thing we need to do in this economy is raise taxes on anyone.”
As usual, Obama’s idea of “cooperation” is to have his opponents do what he says, even though (or especially when) it is against the policies they advocate:
The president, speaking in the East Room of the White House, said he wants to break through the “stalemate” over taxes in Congress.
“We don’t need more top-down economics,” Obama said. “We need policies that grow and strengthen the middle class.”
His advisers are calling it the “tax fairness” argument, capitalizing on the idea that in order to be “fair,” the rich must foot even more of the very considerable bill they already pay. Republicans believe that $250K is not the dividing line that defines “rich; that those “rich” are not only already paying at least their correct share already, or more; and that the increase will have a chilling effect on small business and on the economy in general.
And even Obama himself used to agree with those Republicans; back in 2009 he said that letting any of the tax cuts expire would be “the last thing you want to do” because it would “take more demand out of the economy.”
But it’s different now. Many pundits believe the real purpose here is not to pass the bill, but to propose it, drive home the message that Obama is the champion of the middle class and Republicans are elitist fat cat champions of the rich, observe the GOP fight the bill, have it fail to pass, and then say the reason the economy is still stalling is Republican intransigence. Obama is a master at this, but I sure wouldn’t call it “cooperation.”
[ADDENDUM: And in a move that should surprise absolutely no one, Schumer changes his mind and now agrees with Obama:
“[Schumer] still believes that the millionaire strategy is the best one. But he believes more that party unity at this time is even more important,” a person close to Schumer told POLITICO, who emphasized that any daylight between the White House and Hill Democrats was tactical, not philosophical.
“He’s going to be a team player for the president.”]
This article describes several theories which seek to explain why music is a human universal. All of them focus on group cohesion of some sort, and the fact that music seems to foster it, whether it be in work, play, or interaction or communication with other groups.
While that may all be true, I think there’s a great deal more going on. Music is akin to mathematics, an order that underlies the universe, and I think our brains are wired to key into it because it is part of our very essence.
Author and neurologist Oliver Sacks has written a wonderful book called Musicophilia that studies the brain’s relationship to music on the physical and behavioral level. Here’s a portion of an interview with Sacks that describes the complexity of the matter:
There’s no one musical part of the brain, and in fact there are, sort of, a dozen different parts of the brain which respond to pitch, to rhythm, to timbre, to melodic contour. Even…the cerebellum, is very crucial. And, in fact, you find that visual parts of the brain and motor parts of the brain, and also the parts of the brain concerned with anticipation and expectation, because one doesn’t listen to music passively, one sort of decodes it as one listens, one sees where it’s going, one has expectations.
ALAN YENTOB: Processing music requires the orchestration of many regions in the brain, a neurological feat that science is just beginning to understand. Pitch, volume, timing and so on are each analyzed separately, and then combined together to create a musical experience.
Despite the fact that all cultures value and make music, people have varying degrees of interest in it—from those who dedicate their lives to its study to those who can take it or leave it.
And then there are those who don’t get it at all, according to Sacks:
You can be deaf to music and to different aspects of music. You can be deaf to pitch, you can be deaf to rhythm, or, even if you hear pitch and rhythm normally, you may be deaf to melody””just not catch melody””or deaf to harmony. And all of these things are called amusia.
So each capability is separate, although in most people they are united and appear as part of the whole.
I’ve always had a strong love of music, although I’ve never been good at playing any musical instrument. But even as a child I was powerfully affected by the records I’d play on a scratchy old record player in our basement. I’d dance around the room, improvising the movement, and I learned the words to every song in our collection.
To this day, music is one of the things that can regularly bring me to tears—even music without words, although words help. When I find a new song or other piece of music that I like, I’ll often listen to it over and over, perhaps twenty times in a row, until it becomes an earworm. Then it plays in my head off and on, perhaps for days, while I listen to it some more and it solidifies and becomes part of my memory. Then I can relax for a while.
Here’s one of my favorite pieces of music. I chose a live performance with a video of the musicians because I think that seeing the physicality of the music-making enhances the experience:
This comment from a thread at Hot Air seems spot on to me:
I noted very early on in O’s presidency that it was clear their tactic was to overwhelm us with previously unthinkable acts, that it was going to be impossible to keep up with their machine gun pace. That’s exactly what they’re doing. I can’t think of a single day where they haven’t done something to be furious and fearful about. Sometimes the hits come on an hourly basis. Even if the mainstream media were paying attention, there’s only so much they can report on in-depth (never mind break through to people who aren’t news junkies and hear very little news).
I noticed this even during the 2008 campaign. I remember that before the election I tried to explain my perception of Obama to friends, and why I distrusted him so (the Alice Palmer incident, campaign finance switcheroo, etc.), and all I got were blank stares. I told them I thought they would see later what I was talking about, but I don’t think they have seen. A person has to be paying very close attention and reading on the right and not just the left, and how many people are?
Obama knows that and counts on it, and knew it from the start.
