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Mole

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Everything posted by Mole

  1. What did you sign up through? It looks like they recently (maybe this week?) added a state signup form on the website. Georgia messaging on this hasn’t been exactly clear.
  2. The one remaining full-Q acquaintance that I have is suggesting that everything will go down over this month and presumably Trump will be back by April. There’s progress though since it seems to be less of his identity now. I don’t expect any proclamations of “I was an idiot,” just a slow return to Q-light mild insanity.
  3. I can only speak for myself, but my esteem for Bath and Bodyworks only went up from this interaction.
  4. It looks like the “wait and see” group waited and liked what they saw.
  5. To the extent that they exist: Fatherless homes is both a cause and symptom of the problem. Drug use is both a cause and symptom of the problem. Lack of interest in education is both a cause and symptom of the problem. Pointing to symptoms of larger problems as the root cause (if “they” would just stop using drugs, etc) is nothing more than a prelude to pretending that there isn’t a problem. Likewise, pretending that these individual issues aren’t problems isn’t particularly helpful either. These bad things hurt individuals and communities but they aren’t always entirely irrational. Fatherless homes, drug addiction, and lack of interest in education might seem perfectly rational given the right circumstances. That doesn’t mean that they are good or should be encouraged, but the reason they might seem rational might point towards some sort of solution.
  6. As someone who uses surly on my phone in dark mode, I literally can’t see this to read it. This is a perfect encapsulation of the dark mode rich text issue.
  7. Since these discussions always devolve into bastardized versions of the Moynihan Report, maybe some here should read it. Particularly those who are bringing up the fatherless issue should read it. It provides some context through early 1960s eyes. We usually hear the issue of fatherless black families, education, and related subjects as sort of a “them” problem. These are the problems with the Black community, so “they” need to fix it. “It isn’t my problem” supported by graphs. It can be eye opening to read a similar story from the 60s without it serving as a prelude to ignoring the problem. Moynihan’s report is at times quite prescient and we largely ignored it. After reading it, blaming the woes of the Black family on 1960s era legislation seems simply absurd. Its a bit of a long read, but if you’re committed to discussing the issue within this framework, you should at least bother to see the origins and how distorted the framework has become. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-moynihan-report-an-annotated-edition/404632/
  8. I like this one:
  9. I think this points to the disconnect. It’s easy and somewhat appropriate to come down on the parent and kid for their indifference, but their indifference isn’t irrational. If there’s no clear and apparent benefit to an education, why bother? We all say we value education, but if I didn’t see a clear path to how that education would help me, I probably wouldn’t really value it.
  10. It’s great marketing by the Dr. Seuss team.
  11. I’m open for collaboration but I just had my theremin adjusted to play best at A432 to help keep my chakras aligned.
  12. Pfizer contains more 5G but Moderna has better mind control properties. The J&J is like 90% queso so it’s better in terms of the 5G exposure, but it’s really bad for your cholesterol.
  13. I’m more comfortable with a 16 year old voting than a 16 year old driving.
  14. There goes my Stephen Foster medley.
  15. This last election, in order to request an absentee ballot in Georgia, I had submit my DL number and other identifying information. Then they mailed the ballot to my mailing address of record. I’m not sure how that could be an opportunity for fraud on any notable scale.
  16. So assuming most would be graduating, would they just stay to play sports? Start work on a second high school diploma? I guess in the age of dual enrollment there are ways to manage this, but the educational ramifications seem weird. Admittedly I only read the tweet and haven’t looked into it further because who cares/Kentucky.
  17. To quote Charles Ives, the great American composer: "...beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to, do not bother us, and for that reason, we are inclined to call them beautiful...when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep". I admire CPAC and their willingness to challenge our lazy ears in terms of both tonality and temperament. It’s very forward looking stuff.
  18. I’ll preface this with I really don’t care what they play after the game, but regardless of what anyone thinks about the song and it’s history, context, and meaning — that it’s plainly racist, maybe racist, or obviously not racist — those emails and what they represent have to be very discouraging to black students and black student athletes. As someone who is pretty insulted from that garbage in my day-to-day life, it’s discouraging even if it isn’t surprising. There’s real merit to the idea that the song’s history and origins are unclear but it now functions as a unifying force (or at least did) and has shed whatever racist meaning and history it might have once had, but a bunch of old racists sending plainly racist emails about the song kind of hurts that case. Like I get the case for the song not being racist, but these emails are telling me that the racists seem to think otherwise. That doesn’t completely sink the chances of keeping the Eyes, but it sure doesn’t help.
  19. I’d add that there’s an immediacy and intimacy to the great small groups that is magical and worthy of all the romanticizing that they get. Kind of Blue was famously minimally prepared to encourage that kind of immediacy. Watching players compose in real time is magical, even if they’re developing previously developed ideas. But it’s not so much the notes they play but the character they bring to those notes. Students transcribe Miles solos all the time; they copy his sound and approach, but they don’t sound like him because of the character he brought to his playing. People become obsessed with the notes, but it’s the interpretation and style of those notes that move you, just like reading off parts.
  20. Comparing the work of Gil Evans or any other performance of a composition to a reciting the pledge is asinine. If we’re using spoken dialogue analogies, a more apt comparison is watching a performance of Hamlet. The words may always be the same, but the impact, context, and emotional content can vary wildly. The printed page, be it music or text, can only convey so much information. Quality musicians reading from parts are absolutely engaging in the same kind of “conversation” as in improvised music; it’s more of a difference in degree of freedom. When reading music, you have to turn notes into musical ideas within the context of an ensemble all doing the same, like a conversation. Call it a conversation of interpretations. When improvising, you’re generally still confined by the chord changes and whatever substitutions you can imply, but there’s certainly more freedom. It’s still an interpretive conversation, just will fewer constraints. Then there’s the reality that improvisations are often built on preconceived ideas and plans, not unlike a composition. If you listen to enough solos by the same players over the same tune, you’ll hear the same patterns come up and sometimes even whole solos almost entirely get reused. Check out these two performances of Straight, No Chaser by Clark Terry and Bob Brookmeyer. These are two different performances with roughly the same solo by Clark Terry. Then of check this one out with Clark Terry and Wes Montgomery from around the same time period. It’s a little bit different, but it sure does sound familiar, and not just the opening lick. And just because his feel is so good, here’s Monk playing it the same tune.
  21. The statue is serious and isn't satire. Here's an interview with the artist who made the statue:
  22. Interrupting this new-Nazi discussion to do some arts advocacy. Arnold Schoenberg (whose music was labeled “degenerate” by the OG Nazis) wrote an opera entitled Moses und Aron on the Bible story. There are quite a few complete performances of it available on YouTube. One of these performances has a pretty explicit Golden Calf scene. This scene could be easily found with hours of study of the work and watching a few performances. And thus concludes your arts advocacy. Happy hunting!
  23. That golden Trump has to be satirical, right?
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