Watching “Petrouchka”

The New Neo Posted on by

Michel Fokine’s ballet “Petrouchka,” created in 1911, is one I’ve seen many times. But perhaps I’ll never see it again, because I have a feeling it’s pretty much banned now. I’m virtually certain that one of its puppet characters, the Moor, would be considered irredeemably racist today.

The music is my favorite Stravinsky composition by far. The Fokine choreography is surpassingly strange, and the stage is full of people much of the time, with every character doing something different and creating the impression of a village fair come to life. The costumes are wonderful, with less of an ensemble quality and more like the individual costumes worn by the actors in a play. It’s a ballet, but only three characters wear pointe shoes, and two are street entertainers and one is a puppet. There are three puppets, but they periodically escape from the confines of puppitude and take on a life of their own.

I’ve always been very sensitive to staging, and this ballet is one of the most intricate in terms of staging. Probably the most intricate. That makes it extremely hard to film and hard to produce in the first place. There are certain magical moments I would always look forward to that were absolutely thrilling on the stage and – as with most filmed dance – lose quite a bit in any video.

One was the moment that the three puppets – the pretty but vapid Ballerina, the sad and introspective Petrouchka, and the bold and confident Moor – move off the stage with its restrictions (the dancers are on armatures to create the effect of puppets) and out into the crowd, staying in character. The Moor, with his forceful wide-open movements, represents the extroverted person of action, whereas poor Petrouchka is the introverted depressive. The Ballerina puppet is attractive, empty, and fickle.

Another wonderful moment is when the coachmen thump their arms on their upper torsos to keep warm as dusk begins, and then when the snow starts to fall as the coachmen and nursemaids twirl and twirl. That snowfall might just be my favorite moment in the staged ballet. Another is when the magician in charge of the puppets picks up the fallen Petrouchka (the dancer having sneaked offstage surreptitiously while the crowd surrounds him). The transformation from dancer-pretending-to-be-puppet into actual puppet always surprises the audience, which lets out a collective gasp of wonder. But in the video the magical quality is of course nowhere near as strong.

And then we have the final moment when the ghost of Petrouchka on the roof – the real dancer – flops forward and seems to turn into a puppet again before our very eyes.

Here is a filmed stage production that features Nureyev.

And here is a Russian film that opens up the action somewhat and sometimes shows more than what would happen on a stage, although for most of the time it’s faithful to the stage productions:

Can Republicans win another presidential election?

The New Neo Posted on by

Mark and Mollie Hemingway say no, not unless something is done to “unrig” future elections. And this “rigging” that needs to be undone is not what is conventionally thought of as fraud:

America’s propaganda press traffics in disinformation. Its Big Tech oligarchs censor news and information helpful to conservatives, while elevating biased news and information that helps the Left. And its election systems have been overrun by privately funded groups that run Democratic “get out the vote” campaigns to traffic ballots into ballot boxes…

Instead of election day, we now have an “election season”—during which, over a period of months, we flood homes across the country with tens of millions of mail-in ballots, regardless of whether secretaries of state or local registrars have any idea if those ballots are being sent to the correct addresses. This in a country where 11% of residents move every year. We then wait for sophisticated partisan turnout operations funded by activist billionaires and run by ideological statisticians to round up those ballots in entirely selective ways.

I think this is undeniably true. It is indeed a complicated, multiply-determined situation, but ballot harvesting – a relatively recent development – is key:

The more likely explanation for these results [the failure of the “red tsunami” to materialize in 2022] is that Democratic ballot harvesting operations have reached such heights of sophistication that they can parachute into decisive battlegrounds and scare up enough votes among ignorant and unmotivated citizens to overcome the natural enthusiasm of informed and self-motivated voters

Even attempts at reform may have been taken over by the left and used for their own purposes:

A related issue is the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which was created to allow states to share voter registration data. In theory, this multistate cooperative allowed states to clean up their voter rolls and potentially reduce fraud by weeding out duplicate registrations. In practice, however, ERIC was once again another seemingly benign group run by Democratic activists. A number of Republican states have stopped participating in ERIC, after the organization was unable to satisfactorily answer questions about how they were securing the voter data of more than 30 states, and whether that data was being purloined for Democratic ballot harvesting.

The article is good at description, but vague on remedies. For example:

Similarly, conservative think tanks and advocacy groups need to get beyond policy papers and fundraising and use their resources to get aligned citizens to demand integrity and accountability of so many of our foundering institutions. The Right is generally uncomfortable with pressure campaigns; but they would do well to remember that these institutions have already largely been captured because the Left had no compunctions about them. If anything, we need to cultivate our own organizational powers specifically to counter the Left’s unchecked desire to make threats. If leftist shock troops want to burn city centers to the ground, intimidate conservative lawmakers at their homes, or shut down legislative bodies with protests, this behavior must be countered immediately with the force and legal consequences necessary to stop them from pursuing these reprehensible tactics again.

I see a number of problems that won’t be solved that way. The first is that, because Democrats tend to control the big cities even in purple states (and some red states), and efforts such as ballot harvesting are easier in urban areas, Democrats have an advantage in that arena. The same is true for lawyers dedicated to election issues; they are far more numerous on the left. And the left has a potent weapon in accusations in court of “racism” and/or “voter suppression” against any efforts to secure the election process.

What’s more, I think a great many voters who otherwise would be on the right have become turned off from the GOP and ascribe to the “uniparty” theory. Many of them don’t want to vote, or if they do, they don’t want to vote for anyone who fails to meet their strict standards. I don’t see how they can be won back by the GOP, certainly not without losing many others. Trump got the support of some disaffected voters on the right, but at this point he turns off many of the more moderate people on the right as well as many in the middle. And someone like DeSantis might end up alienating many of the Trump voters; we’ve certainly seen evidence of that in online discussions, anyway.

Of course, there is also the Gramscian march of the left through the institutions, which means not only that the press, the schools, and the entertainment business push the leftist line, but at this point it often includes large corporations and even the military.

And yet…and yet…I still think it’s possible for the right to win a presidential election, although highly unlikely. Maybe that’s just because I hate the idea of giving up. But I agree with the Hemingways that a dedication to “unrigging” is of the utmost importance.

I think the answer to Evangeline Lilly’s question about masculinity and femininity is crystal clear

The New Neo Posted on by

I can’t say I’ve ever heard of Evangeline Lilly before, but here’s the discussion:

Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly is best known for her roles in the television series Lost and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the Wasp. She is also a writer and a philanthropist…

Evangeline recently posted a thought-provoking message on Instagram about femininity and masculinity. The post questioned why society applauds masculinity in women but villainizes it in men, and why femininity is celebrated in men but debased in women. She didn’t reference any particular incident, but it’s no secret that we live in a culture that rewards men for wearing girly dresses while encouraging women to act like men and prioritize being a boss babe at the office rather than starting a family.

“Why are we only applauding masculinity in women and villainizing it in men? And why are we only applauding femininity in men and debasing it in women? Why can’t we just allow for all of it?” Evangeline writes in the caption of her photo.

Let me take a wild wild stab at the answer.

First of all, who is this “we,” kemosabe? It’s the left that Lilly is talking about, whether she knows it or not. She might be forgiven for not realizing this, though, because the left so dominates the “dialogue” (which is more or less a monologue) in so many venues.

And why might the left be doing what Lilly describes? The goal is to break down the old values that have to do with family and society, and celebrate those who cross what the left sees as those barriers. A masculine man and a feminine woman are too traditional, too (for want of a better term) conservative. A masculine woman and a feminine man supposedly break those stereotypes. Plus, celebrating them is a method of virtue-signalling for those who do it.

This sort of thing is why I usually don’t report on the ups and downs in Ukraine

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s because the fog of war is unusually thick in Ukraine.

One thing I have noticed almost from the start is that the only constant is the war itself. So I tend to especially discount any reports that say it’s about to be over.

Other than that, though, we have this sort of thing, which is typical:

Russia’s main mercenary group announced plans on Friday to pull out of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, but Ukraine said the group’s fighters were reinforcing positions to try to seize it before Russia marks victory in World War Two day next week.

He said, he said.

If you want to know more about Bakhmut, there’s this by Stephen Green:

Russian forces — all three varieties [one of which is mercenary groups like the one mentioned in the above quote] — have been trying to take the town of Bakhmut since last summer. In the process, the town is almost entirely rubble and virtually all of its 70,000 or so residents fled long ago. Bakhmut is of no real operational importance. It’s only being fought over so hard because Russia’s leadership decided to peg their prestige to taking it, and Ukraine’s decided it was worth making a stand to take Russia down a notch.

As I was reading Green’s piece, I started thinking of WWI trench warfare. And then, towards the end of the article, he makes a similar comparison.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s so much news today that a roundup is in order:

(1) Turley on Blinken and Hunter Biden. Turley believes Blinken may indeed have committed crimes as well as impeachable offenses.

I predict nothing will come of this.

(2) Ted Cruz on the possibility of Hunter Biden being indicted:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he thinks the Biden administration’s Department of Justice is very close to indicting Hunter Biden, but that it likely will only be used to justify its pursuit of former President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer (R-KY) issued a subpoena to the FBI, ordering that a bureau form alleging a “criminal scheme” involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and an unnamed “foreign national” be turned over after a whistleblower told Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that it alleges a “bribery scheme.”…

“And I got to say, the evidence, not only against Hunter Biden, but the evidence against Joe Biden being complicit and profiting from this corruption, is growing and growing and growing,” the senator added. “Look, I think the Biden Department of Justice is going to end up indicting Hunter, but if they indict him just for the gun crime or just for a tax crime, they’re going to try to explain it as ‘he is a troubled soul. He’s got substance abuse issues, but look how fair we are, and now we can go target Donald Trump, which is what the Biden Department of Justice wants to do. That will be the tell.”

The DOJ is also likely to tie in some sort of prosecution of Trump with today’s conviction of the Proud Boys for seditious conspiracy, as I indicated in my earlier post today.

(3) The story behind the latest allegations against Clarence Thomas. Excerpt:

Harlan Crow’s tuition payments made directly to these schools on behalf of Justice Thomas’s great nephew did not constitute a reportable gift. Justice Thomas was not required to disclose the tuition payments made directly to Randolph Macon and the Georgia school on behalf of his great nephew because the definition of a “dependent child” under the Ethics in Government Act (5 U.S.C. 13101 (2)) does not include a “great nephew.” It is limited to a “son, daughter, stepson or stepdaughter.” Justice Thomas never asked Harlan Crow to pay for his great nephew’s tuition. And neither Harlan Crow, nor his company, had any business before the Supreme Court.

(4) Kim Gardner has resigned:

[St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Noble]….held that there was sufficient evidence to find that Gardner and Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Desilets had acted with “intentional disregard for the judicial process” and announced that he would be appointing a special prosecutor to pursue a case of “indirect criminal contempt” against them both.

(5) If you’re looking for a good summary article about the trans youth contagion movement, here’s one from City-Journal.

Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy

The New Neo Posted on by

This guilty verdict was a forgone conclusion, considering that the trial was held in DC and the judge refused to move it:

A jury on Thursday convicted Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, and three allies of a seditious conspiracy to derail the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, a historic verdict following the most significant trial to emerge from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Jurors also convicted the four men — Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl — of conspiring to obstruct Congress’ proceedings on Jan. 6 and destroying government property. The jury acquitted a fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, of seditious conspiracy but convicted him of obstructing Congress’ Jan. 6 proceedings as well as several other felony charges.

Historic, all right. “Historic” because they were convicted under a law that isn’t often used and that is ripe for abuse. This article about seditious conspiracy is over a year old and it’s in the leftist Guardian (and concerns the Oath Keepers, another January 6th group). But it explains a few of the problems with such charges:

The charges are significant because they allege that the January 6 attack went beyond disorderly conduct and assaults on law enforcement, instead constituting an organized and violent attempt to stop the democratic transfer of power.

But because sedition charges so rarely go to trial, there isn’t a great deal of precedent for how such trials proceed, experts say. And US prosecutors have a checkered history in securing sedition convictions. “It’s been used in ways that have been absurd and has been used in ways that were slam dunks,” said Joshua Braver, an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin.

By the way, we’re not talking about charges of sedition but rather seditious conspiracy, which is even easier to abuse. When I was in law school, there were three criminal law principles that troubled me immensely, and they were felony murder, conspiracy, and entrapment – and the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys cases involve the political misuse of those last two (conspiracy, because the bar is so low for the prosecution proving it, and it often just amounts to thoughtcrime; and entrapment, because the bar is so high for defendants’ successfully using it as a defense). I wrote at some length about all of this, in connection with the previous Oath Keepers trial, and I suggest you read it for more background on seditious conspiracy and its uses by the government.

In the past, prosecutors were more aware of the dangers, and more reluctant to bring such charges because of the huge potential for dangerous abuse:

Partly because seditious conspiracy allegations carry so much political weight, prosecutors have generally been hesitant to bring such charges in the past.

“Seditious conspiracy charges are rarely used in American jurisprudence,” said Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist and expert on political crime at the University of Baltimore. Prosecutors can be wary of issuing such charges, even in cases that may fall under its broad statute, he added.

Prior to the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys January 6th cases, the most recent such prosecution was against “Islamist extremist Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine co-conspirators with seditious conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged that Abdel-Rahman and his followers plotted to bomb the United Nations, the FBI building and several other landmarks around New York City.”

Prior to that, it was the Puerto Rican extremists who in 1954 shot up the House of Representatives and wounded five members of the House. I wrote about that incident in this previous post, written just a few days after the January 6th protests, and in it I harked back to a previous post I’d written in 2018 about the Puerto Rican shootings. The differences between January 6th and the shooting in 1954 is quite obvious.

Julie Kelly has been the best reporter on all the January 6th cases, and she’s been writing about the Proud Boys case, too. Here’s what she had to say about the jurors (the judge in the case is also named Kelly, in case you’re confused by that):

I refer you to several articles she’s written on the case. The first is this [my emphasis]:

The government devoted an untold amount of resources and manpower to the case. The former president loomed large as prosecutors frequently cited his September 2020 debate remark for Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” as a call to action. (More on Trump’s legal jeopardy related to the outcome of the trial in Friday’s column.)

Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Joseph Biggs, and Dominic Pezzola have been incarcerated under pretrial detention orders since early 2021 on various counts, including conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding. By the time jury selection began in December, the defendants had been in jail for almost two years awaiting trial…

Two cooperating witnesses and multiple FBI agents and police officers took the stand over the course of several weeks to detail the defendants’ alleged plot to strike “the heart of our democracy,” assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe said on Monday. “Their success was only temporary. The Constitution survived.”

The conspiracy, Mulroe explained, can be “unspoken, implicit, a mutual understanding, or a wink and a nod”—a laughably broad definition for an offense akin to treason.

Please read the whole thing; an excerpt isn’t adequate. Also see this article by Ms. Kelly, in which she explains how the Proud Boys case is most likely a prelude to charging Trump in connection with it:

Any convictions in this trial would give Special Counsel Jack Smith, an independent prosecutor in name only, justification to pursue similar charges against Trump as a coconspirator of sorts…

Prosecutors insist the conspiracy began on December 19, 2020—a date that should alarm Team Trump. At 1:42 a.m. on December 19, Trump tweeted this: “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” According to the Justice Department, that prompted Tarrio and Biggs to formulate plans to “radicalize” the group…

[That this could be a prelude to charging Trump] explains why Graves’ prosecutors pulled every dirty trick in the book to ensure convictions. Further, the burden of proof for the conspiracy charges is shockingly low.

That low bar is one of the things that so upset me when I was in law school.

And here is Kelly’s piece from today, after the verdict was announced:

…Joe Biden’s Justice Department seized on the [seditious conspiracy] law’s vague language—the same manner in which top officials weaponized an untested post-Enron evidence tampering felony—to criminalize political dissent. Six members of the Oath Keepers were found guilty of seditious conspiracy at two separate trials and four other defendants, including one member of the Proud Boys, have pleaded guilty to the offense. Both seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding are felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison each.

Most of the government’s evidence consisted of inflammatory text messages posted in group chats, which included the presence of an unknown number of FBI informants. No defendant was accused of bringing weapons to the Capitol or assaulting a police officer. Tarrio, the group’s leader, was in a Baltimore hotel on January 6, having left Washington under court order following his arrest on January 4, 2021 for an unrelated incident.

I also refer you to Ace’s post on the subject.

NOTE: I expected this news; in fact, I would have found it shocking if this DC jury had not found them guilty. Nevertheless, it is another intensely depressing example of how far things have gone, and how successful the left has been.

The Democrats’ war against the conservative justices on SCOTUS

The New Neo Posted on by

The Democrat position is that the left should own SCOTUS.

When I was in law school, they did. And that was true for a long time, or at least they often did because of so-called “swing” justices voting with the Democrats.

Now, instead, the Court features a 6-3 conservative majority, so that one swing vote – which certainly sometimes happens – doesn’t mean that the left wins the case. And it’s even more galling to the left that the conservative justices who turned the tide were appointed by the hated and reviled Trump, who (according to them) was an illegitimate president. In addition, McConnell infuriated them by standing firm against Garland’s appointment in the waning days of the Obama administration. That opportunity was lost.

What’s more, if only the highly-revered Ruth Bader Ginsburg had not waited to retire! How could she have been so short-sighted as to allow herself to be replaced by a Trump nominee, when she could have made sure it was Obama who got the chance to name her replacement? If you add up what happened with the death of Scalia and then Ginsburg, the left sees a lost chance for the left to have had that 6-3 majority. And then they would have owned just about the entire US federal government (not the House, but the rest) as well as the federal agencies.

Talk about missed opportunities.

The left has been attacking conservative justices ever since the days of Bork, and then the sexual accusations against Clarence Thomas and more recently Kavanaugh. There have been threats, protest demonstrations at justices’ homes, and assassination attempts – after all, the death of another justice or two during the Biden administration would solve everything for the left. And now they’ve continued the intimidation with accusations of supposed ethics violations for activities that were never considered violations when liberals on the Court indulged in them:

The purpose of the Democrats’ attacks, obviously, is to smear conservative justices in the eyes of the ignorant and ill-informed–i.e., those who rely on the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN for their news.

Most recently, Democrat Dick Durbin asked Chief Justice John Roberts to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, to testify on “ethics” in the Supreme Court. Roberts naturally declined the invitation. All nine Justices signed this letter explaining the separation of powers grounds for Roberts’ response and also expanding on how judicial ethics are regulated (i.e., not by Dick Durbin):

I find it interesting that all nine signed.

The goal is to either make the conservative justices resign prematurely, not wanting the aggravation or the danger – or, failing that, another goal would be to get the conservative justices to temper their conservative views and decisions in order to placate the left and call off the mob. Another is to delegitimize the Court in the public’s eyes.

Whether these tactics will work or not depends on the mettle of the conservative justices. One thing is certain: the left won’t be quitting the fight.

Vermont wants to corner the market on assisted suicide tourism

The New Neo Posted on by

Vermont has long billed itself as the Green Mountain State. Is it now going to be known as the Green Pastures State?:

Vermont removed its residency requirement for assisted suicide on Tuesday, officially opening the door for any American to travel to the state to end their life.

Nine other states allow the practice of assisted suicide, but Vermont is the first to actively change its law to strip the residency requirement. Oregon, which also allows assisted suicide, agreed to stop enforcing its residency requirement as part of a settlement to a lawsuit that alleged the requirement is unconstitutional. Advocates of assisted suicide thought it discriminatory.

Carolyn McDonnell is litigation counsel for Americans United for Life. She wrote a Newsweek op-ed that made some interesting arguments against the practice:

California dropped its reflection period from 15 days to a mere 48 hours, severely limiting a safeguard that ensures a patient takes the time to understand the severity of assisted suicide. Vermont allows telemedical assisted suicides without requiring the prescribing doctor to medically evaluate the patient in person.

Those elements of the California and Vermont laws seem very dangerous to me, in terms of exploitation by those who are either impulsive or faking medical need. Slippery slope, indeed.

McDonnell cites research that has found in increase in suicide in general when laws allowing medically assisted suicide are passed. Also, she mentions cases that indicate that the rights of medical prrofessionals to refuse to assist in suicide may ultimately become compromised.

It is ironic that medically-assisted suicide has become more and more accepted at the same time the pharmaceutical treatment of the dying has advanced, in terms of hospice care and the greater availability of drugs such as morphine. On the other hand, suffering can be very acute and very terrible, and the “solutions” still often fail to alleviate much of the problem. And long before the legalization of physician-assisted suicide – which compromises the “first, do no harm” prescription for doctors in dealing with patients – many suffering and terminal people managed to get the means to either kill themselves or be assisted by a non-medical person in doing so.

But we have seen from Europe’s example that, once the first step is taken towards allowing physicians to help with suicide, the population of people who avail themselves of their services expands to encompass those who are not terminal and may even be suffering from depression only.