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Mole

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Everything posted by Mole

  1. He needs to write a productivity/organization book like David Allen’s Getting Things Done. How do you keep track of all of that? His organizational skills must be out of this world.
  2. As has been widely stated: 1. This is dumb. 2. Getting worked up about it is also dumb. Local issues are local. People are free to do dumb things in their communities especially when those things are mostly harmless. 3. For a supposed liberal echo chamber, this board widely seems to think this is dumb. 4. Culture war gonna culture war. Outrage over dumb things needs constant new material, so I guess SF is doing their part. Wonderful. 5. This isn’t erasing history. My middle school was named after the road it was on, which was presumably named after somebody mildly important to my community. I have no idea who my middle school was named after but I know who Lincoln was.
  3. Far and away my favorite Asimov book and one of a small handful that aren't a really compelling idea and total beating to read.
  4. Although the writer is objectively wrong about Ornette Coleman. Here’s some great music from my favorite current jazz trumpet player. I don’t know if this music gets made without Ornette Coleman’s contribution to jazz. You hear so much of Coleman in some of the best jazz from the past few decades.
  5. Honestly, that GQ list isn’t that bad as far as lists go. It has my favorite big band albums (Electric Bath and Atomic Basie) and puts Clifford Brown appropriately high. It’s also not 100% stuck in the distant past, although it still largely is.
  6. I think we both come from similar perspectives about where we should ultimately place our hope, but it’s so disheartening, although not completely unexpected, to see so much of the suffering going on around us coming from people acting from that same hope. When cruelty and selfishness get spiritualized as righteousness and it’s your friends and people you love turning to it, that’s a bitter pill to swallow. It breaks my heart. Largely though, things are so much better today than they were a few weeks ago. Some have doubled down, but I’ve seen the spell lifting somewhat.
  7. Mole

    Composition Thread

    If that's a Bb part, that long note would be a top line F for horn in F, which isn't that big of a deal. It's a big breath, but doable. The peak of the ascent towards the end reminds me of something that I can't put my finger on. It has shades of Barber Adagio for Strings with the tension/resolutions, but there's something else that it reminds me of that I can't place and it's really bugging me. Other than the guitar/fake violin, what are you working in for the audio?
  8. Mole

    Composition Thread

    It sounds good and that horn line is nice. It tops out at a written Bb for the horn? The line would take a good player, but it’s playable and would make a strong player sounds really good. My general philosophy is to err on the side of easier if you want it to be widely playable, but good music is more important. Fun to play is worthwhile too.
  9. What a heartbreaking display of zero humanity or connection to reality all wrapped up in a stew of unwarranted privilege and false persecution. Such a terribly accurate representation of both political conservatives and evangelical Christians. Even if you agree with her position on gun control, a member of congress harassing school shooting victims on the street while complaining about their access to power is beyond comprehension.
  10. Yeah, I don’t own a watch. I can’t really imagine a scenario in my current life where one would be useful. Owning one doesn’t interest me at all, but it’s fun to look into the world of something totally foreign to my mindset. I have more money wrapped up in musical instruments than I’ve ever spent on cars in my lifetime. That’s partially a reflection on lots of instruments but more a reflection on my taste in old, cheap cars and short commutes.
  11. Attempting to overthrow the government and spreading death, suffering, and destruction. By that metric, he may be our greatest president.
  12. Not going to lie, I’m not sure if this is a typo or just another Gordon Shumway related scandal that I missed.
  13. Seems appropriate to this thread:
  14. This argument needs to be spread far and wide, especially to those who think he did nothing wrong. Failing to even consider the case invites a coup attempt every time a sitting president is leaving office because either it works and we have a dictator, or oh well, we can’t do anything about it.
  15. Seriously, the Weather Channel is straight communist propaganda. Don’t tell me it’s going to rain tomorrow. Only God and John Titor know the future.
  16. Large portions of the non-evangelical population (Christians and non-Christians) accurately see the religious right as self-righteous, cruel, selfish, and dishonest people. This should be heartbreaking for a group allegedly trying to win souls for Christ. Instead, it’s worn as a badge of honor under the guise of persecution. I understand leaders cynically using faith to acquire wealth and power, but the rank and file evangelical believer trading the Gospel for this other belief, and thereby poisoning the true message of the Gospel in our culture, is another thing entirely. Donald Trump, the supposed Christian leader and pro-faith president, has done more to advance the cause of atheism in America than all notable atheist thinkers and writers combined. I was also surprised by how much competent leadership matters. Even recent bad presidents have a certain stability of competency. It can often feel like who is president doesn’t matter in our day to day lives, and then you have 400,000 dead and a terrorist attack on the Capitol.
  17. The news should mostly be boring. If it isn’t boring, there’s a good chance it’s entertainment, not news.
  18. Remember that time it was alleged that he said all of those terrible things about military service and the denial was to tell obvious and verifiable lies? At least he hadn’t tried to overthrow the government yet.
  19. The Phil Vischer (of VeggieTales fame) podcast has been pretty cathartic for me. One point that keeps coming up is the model of the black church, since their experience of alienation has been far more salient and is centuries old. My alienation is relatively recent and pretty abstract, except for all of the recent dying. If you believe the Gospels, the church should be full of terrible people, since the sick are the ones who need healing. Church should be a place for terrible people to at least transform into terrible people doing good for the world. That's the stabilizing moral influence that I've always valued. The problem is when the sickness comes from and is spread by the church. I think it's pretty widespread. A week ago, I figured that Rudy was going to be on Fox News this morning explaining how stealing the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives meant that we were now under British rule. I was sure that he would be calling Trump the king of the American Colonies while citing the Magna Carta and some 1920s law written to allow klansmen to seek damages from their victims for minor injuries incurred at lynchings. I was also sure that we would all just shrug our shoulders as law dogs call it an open legal question while we wait for the Archbishop of Canterbury to weigh in on if Trump would be the absolute ruler of the American Colonies or if the Queen would get the right of prima nocta. I guess I'm now surprised how sane a post-Trump world seems to be.
  20. The "Blue Lives Matter" flags came in handy while they were beating cops. The surprising thing for me wasn't really one thing, but the gradual revealing of character that was hidden by the relative ease of life prior to 2020. Church and faith is deeply important to me. Much of my social circle would be considered Christian Right. Prior to 2020, I generally considered the church a morally stabilizing force in this country, at least in the abstract. Many church people might do terrible things, but the faith itself was intertwined with the moral arc towards justice. It's one thing to have a somewhat abstract discussion about gay wedding cakes when there are perfectly good bakers just around the corner raking in the money from the gay wedding market; it's another thing to encourage the spread of death and suffering, and try to talk down to those who would rather not hurt others. If I heard one more comment about fearing God and not death... 2020 saw such spiritualizing of cruelty, selfishness, and indifference to spreading death and suffering by white evangelicals. It's unfathomable to think about any large group acting like this. It totally shocked and shook me. Honestly, I don't know what Christian community looks like for me and my family post-COVID. Spending Sundays at the park feeding the ducks has been far more spiritually fulfilling and done more good for the world than some of the sociopathic Sunday sermons I've heard from people close to me. I don't know how to reconcile these things. This transformation in me has been surprising and it stems from the white church's steadfast association with Trump. As far as specific events, the terrorist attack was nuts, but honestly not too surprising, since they were pretty openly stating their plan for months. I mean the coup started before the election pretty openly and was plainly articulated by Trump sometime after midnight on election night. The massive break from reality that occurred over the past 4 years or so was pretty shocking. People who always seemed kind and thinking just departed into an insane alternate reality. It was a lot to take in.
  21. Is this picture from the opening credits montage of Saved By the Bell during that one season where he played Screech’s cousin?
  22. I'll be happy when the phrase, "it's an open legal question" leaves the popular lexicon.
  23. In a sane world, that inaugural speech would put to bed all the dementia stuff.
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