'70, Girls, 70' enjoys Fri & Sat opening weekend!

Landmark Musicals' production of 70, Girls, 70 opened Friday, 26 June... and we got a standing ovation!
Tonight's show was somewhat cleaner - fewer flubs (the joys of live theater)... but the audience was less responsive...
BUT: we got another standing O!

Assuming we make it through Sunday matinee, a success!

More "culture" opportunities for folks in ABQ

Opera Unlimited is presenting Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance, Friday & Saturday, July 10 & 11, 7 p.m., Highland High School Performing Arts Center.

This production features a cast of eighty-three (83) children - from elementary to high school age.
[NO! - I'm NOT in the show!!!]

Tickets are FREE!!!

Support the arts. Get acquainted with G&S!
Encourage young performers!
GO SEE THE SHOW!!!

[Historical note: Pirates was in fact performed by children in the 1880s, under the direction of Mr. Richard Barker - then the stage-manager of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which produced most of the original G&S shows.]

If a) you're in ABQ area, and b) you're bored

Landmark Musicals is producing Kander and Ebb's 70, Girls, 70, 26 Jun - 12 Jul.
Fri/Sat 7:30 p.m.
Sun 2 p.m.

For reservations, call (505) 798-9036.

[yes: I'm in the show]

"Preach on..."

A loyal reader comments:

Preach on, Brother Russ, preach on.

Yes,... well, it would be more fulfilling if I had the following of a televangelist!

relief!

... so, i've not been posting.
it's been a relief.

i subscribe to the NYT... mostly for the crossword puzzle...
BUT: i do occasionally make it thru section A and the op-ed page.
Today my response - stated to my wife: "I don't know why I read this. It just depresses me!"

Hey - I'm not alone!

Previous post noted that:

Who's to blame?... for

child-labor laws?
the Pure Food & Drug Act?
the 40-hr, 5-day work-week?
women's suffrage?
the Civil Rights Movement?

Pinko, commie, muckraking liberals and progressives! - that's who... including socialist, God-hating labor unions!!!

David Neiwert over at Crooks & Liars takes Glenn Beck to task, using similar examples. Here's a sample:

The United States has always been an essentially capitalist economic system. However, we have experienced periods in our history where this system has seriously malfunctioned, and we've made adjustments accordingly that have largely worked well making things better.

One of those dysfunctional periods came at about the turn of the last century, when McKinley was president, corrupt robber barons ran Congress, and the latter-day version of "strict constructionists" ruled the courts. "Laissez faire" capitalism ruled, and America was functionally an oligarchy.

Squeezed out were the working people: the average workweek was 80 hours, there were no weekends, no vacation, only a few holidays, and the barest minimum of pay. Benefits and health care were unheard of. Child labor was the rule.

What happened between then and now? "Progressives" began agitating for better working conditions, and began organizing as labor unions. After a long period of violent repression, these reforms gradually became government policy -- especially in the 1930s under FDR. Americans began getting 40-hour work weeks with weekends off, paid vacations and benefits.

... But go read the whole thing!

Thought for the day (serious... sorry)

In the time of your life, live—so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding place and let it be free and unashamed.
[William Saroyan, In the Time of your Life]

This is one of my favorite quotations from highschool.

just in case you hadn't noticed: light posting!

Begging the indulgence of loyal readers: I'll be on a very light posting schedule for the next week or so.

As noted previously, rehearsals are getting somewhat more demanding, so I'm devoting time to my lines.

Also: most of what I want to say is being said by others.
(Though there HAVE been a few "You-read-it-here-first!" items... which, sadly, I've neither the time nor the inclination to post about... but trust me: if you want to see what will be hot topics on progressive blogs & in nyt op-eds: read Private Buffoon... well, maybe starting next week sometime.)

Just for fun

Some time ago I performed a simple analysis of the "Friedman Unit" based on Tom Friedman's writings. The analysis was prompted by the observation than a Friedman Unit was somewhat indeterminate - ranging anywhere from 1 month to a year (based on Tom Friedman's assertion at any given time about how long we'd have to wait to see real progress in Iraq).
The result is presented above.
The phallic shape of the histogram is amusing!

More FUs on the way!

[Thanks to One Fly over at Outta The Cornfield for alerting me to this!]

Gates seeks to reassure allies over US role in Afghanistan
by Dan De Luce Dan De Luce, AFP
Thu Jun 11, 2009
BRUSSELS (AFP) – US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday said he was out to reassure NATO allies over concerns about a possible "Americanization" of the war effort in Afghanistan.
...
Gates said other alliance members shared Washington's view that the international coalition needed to demonstrate progress in the war within 12 to 18 months.

"12 to 18 months"... that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 Friedman Units.

Yes - "progress" is, by definition, always in the future...
BUT: when that elusive future is always 2-3 FUs away, it seems, well... nonsensical!

My latest letter to President Obama

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:
Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner has been ineffectual. Upon assuming office, his sole responsibility was to craft a clear strategy to address the financial crisis left by W. He has yet to deliver this, and instead has implemented only ad hoc tactics or programs with no apparent relationship to any overall strategy. What are the strategic objectives? Where are we now? How do we get from where we are to where we want to be? Secretary Geithner has not answered any of these very basic questions. (He’s been off giving interviews and pointlessly responding to GOP talking-points!)

I have a modest proposal.
Appoint a “blue-ribbon” panel of seven (7) ordinary American citizens to craft an economic strategy for the nation.
Basic requirements:

I. Minimal citizenship standards, as measured by voting in past 4 national elections (2002 Congressional midterms, 2004 Presidential, 2006 Congressional midterms, 2008 Presidential).
The purpose of this requirement is to ensure that panel members care enough about the issues and their country to have participated in our participatory democracy.

II. Education/experience

a. Highschool graduate + 15 years work experience

b. College graduate + 10 years work experience

c. Graduate/professional degree + 10 years work experience

The purpose of this requirement is to ensure that panel members have some minimal experience living in the real world, and some minimal educational attainment.
Work experience should be measured by consecutive years filing personal tax returns. [Note: currently unemployed applicants ARE eligible, provided only that they have in the past worked for a living!]

III. Disqualifications

a. Convicted felons to be excluded.

b. Anyone who has worked in the financial sector at any level to be excluded (from bank tellers up to Wall Street CEOs).
The purpose of this exclusion is to ensure that the panel provides a counterbalance to the heavily finance-oriented perspective of your current economic advisory team.

c. Anyone who has worked (in a paid position) for a lobbying firm, a political candidate, or a current or former member of Congress to be excluded – to avoid clear conflicts of interest.

d. No more than two (2) panelists to have either undergraduate or graduate degrees in economics, finance, or business.
Again – the point is to limit the influence of presumed “experts” – and to draw instead from the life-experience and common-sense of non-experts.

IV. Demonstration of basic economic/quantitative competence
Panelists ought to be able to pass with a 10/10 score a 10-question quiz which includes basics such as, “What is GDP?”, “What is 7% of $143?”.
[I’d be happy to craft a first draft of the quiz for you!... and, in fact, anyone who can answer the two sample questions above is probably qualified!]

That’s it.
I am confident that such a panel could craft a comprehensive, effective economic strategy within six (6) weeks… a task Secretary Geithner has been unable to accomplish in six months!

Think of it this way: you’ll be creating seven new jobs!

Sincerely,

We'll probably never know...

... if Ahmadinejad really did win the Iranian presidential election by a landslide.
He might have.
Or - the result could be based solely on fraud.

As stated: we'll likely never know.

The current Iranian regime might want to consider, however, that it was widespread public disenchantment with the Shah & his thuggish security forces that brought them to power.
Yes - it is possible for popular revolutions to succeed against well-armed police states, even in the modern era.

Headlines I really don't want to see...

Obama Bows on Settling Detainees
Administration Gives Up on Bringing Cleared Inmates to U.S., Officials Say

No - it's not the content that upsets me, it's the verbs!

"Obama Bows... "
"Administration Gives Up... "

The guy won what in recent memory amounts to a landslide - and brought both Houses of Congress with him!
Why is he "bowing" and "giving up"???

More "words"

Conservative commentators are quick to note that "Nazi" derives from "National Socialist" (longer version, National Socialist German Workers’ Party).
That "Socialist" in the name makes 'em assert - immediately, reflexively - that Hitler represented a leftist ideology!

In this worldview, a paradox immediately appears:

1. Words in and of themselves define reality.
2. Words mean what their user says they mean.

If you begin from the premise that all things bad derive from the Left, it's really quite easy to conclude that all things bad are Leftist - and find magical Words to support the conclusion.

During the previous administration, I noted that W and his minions were adherents of a Kabbalistic "magical thinking" worldview: simply invoking the right incantation was sufficient to change - in their minds, at least - reality.
One of them went so far as to say this explicitly:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
[unnamed White House aide, quoted by Ron Suskind, NYT Magazine, 17 Oct 2004]

It can be difficult to engage these folks in honest debate.

My advice?
Don't try!
Resort to ridicule as the best rhetorical weapon at your disposal!!!

Secret decoder ring

How to understand conservative commentary regarding the Holocaust Museum shooting?
Recognize that for conservatives, "bad" and "left" are interchangeable!

Atrios noted this first:

Everyone Bad Is A Lefty
We've spent several years having fundamentalist anti-women anti-gay Muslim extremists being somehow aligned with liberals, and now anti-government anti-Semitic white supremacists are as well.

Yep - if you're a conservative commentator, anything bad must derive from the Left!

No - I don't understand it either... but then, I didn't understand Jonah Goldberg's title: Liberal Fascism.
A willingness to assign personal meanings to words is ... well, psychotic!

... though "meaning" has confounded very smart folks from Plato to Wittgenstein, and Lewis Carroll probably had a point:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
[Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 6]

I note that Tom Tancredo believes Sotomayor is too liberal... because she is associated with La Raza, which he takes to be the Latino version of the KKK!
The KKK: that bastion of commie, pinko, fellow-traveling Leftists!

[semi-pointless aside: I am currently working with a director who can't tell 'right' from 'left' - as in "stage right" & "stage left"... it makes rehearsals challenging. I provided her with a job-aid: a simple diagram from the "house/audience" perspective showing Stage Right, Center, Stage Left, Up Right, & Up Left.
Even if YOU can't tell right from left, if you intend to convey your intentions to others it's important to use the terms consistently and in a way that will be understood by others!]

You may have noticed...

... I'm on "light posting" schedule.
Rehearsals are picking up in frequency & intensity - I'm actually expected to know my lines!

Windows 'Vista'

When I first got my new PC with Windows Vista, one of my loyal readers asked me how I liked it - Windows Vista.

At the time I had no comment, having had very little experience with the product.
I am now prepared to opine: I've gotten used to it, but only by making it look & feel as much like older Windows operating systems as I can... and I've learned to NEVER accept automatic upgrades!

Maybe someday I'll be sufficiently tech-literate to go with a UNIX-based, open-source platform.

What a surprise!

To loyal readers, no surprise: I crafted post below into letter to Tim Kaine, chair of the DNC.

Yes - I write letters.
(You can too!)

Just out of curiosity...

... What's wrong with socialism?

Pure, unbridled capitalism brought us:
- 8-year-olds losing fingers, hands, & arms in industrial looms
- the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
- 80-hour work-weeks
- the Great Depression

Me? I'm rather in favor of the government protecting me from pure capitalist greed!

Token Tuesday post

"Old News" headlines, June/July 2009:

President Washington Applauds Balloon Pilot

Americans Search Arctic For Lost British Explorer

Rome Invades Britain

New Bridge Sways In Wind

Professional Baseball Clubs Form "American League"