SCOTUS/IMMUNITY

 All those who have done anything to enable, and have resisted doing anything to stop, this wicked, perverse, mentally ill maniac, and this includes many, many democrats, liberals, etc. will have to answer for their actions or inactions. I actually have no understanding as to what mess of pottage any of the enablers, including the entire legal system, top to bottom, has gained. I do know that the gains made by the rich during the period of the right's ascendancy have gone to just as many who self-identify as "liberal", "left", whatever. This might provide the key as to why any efforts to improve the economic situation of the non-rich during this period of "conservative" ascendancy (I'd say the post Clinton/Gingrich era), have been essentially ghosted by the well-off/well-placed "liberals". The moth like attraction to wedge issues, that never should have been politicized (sexuality, religion), carefully supplied by right-wing wonks, and the careful indifference to bread and butter issues relating to the non-rich (housing, healthcare, education, economic insecurity) was always perplexing, as was the willingness to allow the political, legislative, and judicial processes to be steamrollered by the right, until I realized the benefits of that status quo (i.e. accelerating income inequality) go to the well-off/well-placed of all political persuasions. Predators do not respond to guilt trips, and both Obama and RBG bear great responsibility for what has happened that will likely affect generations of human beings, and the entire biosphere of this miraculous planet.

Liberals, Take Your Lumps

 In response to a dear friend's discussion triggered by the response of spineless and flip-flopping republicans to various things Trump-related:

Your account is compelling, toothy, vivid and dead on. But the GOP world appears to be utterly chaotic and evil by design. I guess the question is how did elitist do nothing liberalism that started in the '90s enable and facilitate this phenomenon. The nihilistic version of the "right" was really hatched by Newt Gingrich. He never had any use for integrity which he viewed as chumpness. Winning was the thing. But I don't think we would have had a Newt without a Clinton. And the more I look at the American politics of my lifetime (the first presidential election I remember was Nixon/McGovern), the decline has hinged on a group of well off white liberals who became attached to the same material privileges their rich conservative counterparts derived from the decline of the middle class and the demonization of people of color. They became understandably obsessed with politics that shielded them from scrutiny, i.e. orthodoxies regarding terminology, microagressions, and eliminating scrutiny of libertinism. It became clear to many that presidencies and supermajorities wouldn't facilitate any of the actual policies that would restore the middle class, properly house and educate the poor, or sustantively right the wrongs of racism. The liberal elites had no intention as it turned out to change the course. They and their clients just wanted to slow the decline down a bit. I have to say, against all indications and instincts, Biden has proven to be the first president since Johnson to be willing to, and know how to do anything for non-rich people. And he didn't have any supermajorities like Clinton and Obama.

Espionage

 With Trump, whatever you think he might have done, it's always worse.  He's clearly hoarded secret documents to sell or to ward off Kompromat.  It's the most despicable, disgusting thing imaginable.  But it's been clear for years that Trump is a sadist and revels in wickedness and heartlessness.  He's always looking for new ways to transgress and win stress-tests of whatever systems America and humanity count on.

The Trump mob and the republicans in general have moved the goalposts many times and have done many scary and despicable things.  But this flirting with demonizing the FBI and their action is maybe the most dangerous and scary of all.  Without an intelligence system, we are susceptible to unthinkable levels of mischief from Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia etc.  If you are a republican, please stop.  Please think about this reckless act of self-destruction.

OT

From a FaceBook discussion:

As arguably the oldest book in the world, I don't think it cares much what we think, nor should it. If we assume that every sentence of a miraculously preserved record sent through eons of time and space to be immediately edifying in the way that motivational/inspirational quotes are, I think we are expecting the wrong things and missing out on the amazing things. Genesis, and the OT in general, if they have an overall theme, seem to be about how the chosen people, and, ultimately the Messiah (God), have a very checkered genealogy. We are all both divine and dirty. I mean, we're made out of dust and spirit.

George Crumb

 Trigger warnings: Crumb critique mixed in with admiration; use of an anachronistic word that is not recommended for current use, but that is felt to be essential to the understanding of historical states of mind:

I’ll confess that as a student I kind of detested Crumb's music as sissy, precious, and corny.  I loved rhythm and his music seemed to be all fermatas.  I felt like notation was a sort of necessary evil and should be as efficient as possible, his scores were self-indulgent and drew attention away from the music’s deficiencies.  (I had other issues I won’t go into.)  Of course, my attitude softened (as I did) with time and I began to admire many things about him and his music.  I particularly came to admire the fact that he did all of his highly original work while working as a music professor (at first, I  believe, in group piano classes).  But I also came to enjoy the way he played with the concepts of movements of various lengths (including very short) within a larger composition, something I did a lot of, possibly influenced by him.  I also came to admire his exquisite sense of tonal envelope, of decay, especially regarding the piano.  I think there were three post Debussy 20th century classical composers who seemed to understand the piano, and he was one of them.  Principally, he understood and utilized the incredible phenomena of extended decay and sympathetic resonance that make the piano a miraculous invention.  I have since come to enjoy the humor and audacity in his titles, narratives, literary/etc. references.  And, in the era of computer notation, his scores are, of course, works of art in themselves.  I sat directly behind him at an 8 hour Crumb marathon at Symphony Space in ’89 or ’90.  I wasn’t totally over my issues with his music, but the Space was a block from my apartment and it was, like, $7 or something.  The music got a little samey, and the corniness a little more evident after a few hours, but I watched Crumb the whole time and was touched by his humility, graciousness, etc.  Just a very nice, modest, thoughtful person who was really enjoying the music and the people, complimenting the performers, talking with and taking interest in whoever approached him.  Onward and upward, GC!

Time to Repent

 It has to be said.  I'm sick and tired of living with the crazy.

If you are anti-vax, in addition to being a complete idiot, you are accessory to murder.

If you are republican, you are a traitor and hate democracy.

If you are libertarian, you are a racist.

If you are a Christian Conservative, you are an apostate, a heretic, and hate Jesus and love Satan.

Notation--Is It The Devil's Work?

Shared by Doug Theriault:

A quote from an old interview by Victor Shonfield in 1972 with virtuoso musician and composer David Tudor:

“There is a paragraph in Busoni which speaks of notation as an evil separating musicians from music, and I feel everyone should know that this is true.  I had been completely indoctrinated with the idea of faithfulness to notation in the early days and if you think of notation as being complete and you see what Busoni meant it can’t possibly be complete. Notation is an invention of the devil and when I became free of it to pieces like John Cages Fontana mix and music walk and later bussoti’s piano piece for David Tudor number 3., it really did it a lot for me.” 

My response:

I love notation. I learned to read notes before I learned to read letters. It's a native language so the question is completely moot to me. But as with any other technology, it can be used for good or evil. The locus of people thinking notation = music is pretty limited, or maybe non-existent, i.e. a straw man. My whole work as an artist is in the liminal spaces between composition/improvisation and notation/aural transmission. I don't like locating the efficacy of notation in terms of class/race, despite its origins. It never works out well. Saying any kind of literacy or technology doesn't "suit" any group of people is satanic.

Mockingbird Court Scene

 An exchange between musicologist, Michael Lee and myself today (2/14/21).  Forgive my prose which is a bit rambling (and maybe not grammatical?):

ML: I heard someone talking on the television this morning. He claimed that watching 43 Republican jurors/senators vote to acquit Trump was like the black folks in "To Kill a Mockingbird" watching powerlessly from the gallery as the all-white jury did the inevitable and convicted Tom Robinson no matter how big a wipe out the actual trial was. I get tearful every time the black minister awakens Scout: "Stand up Miss Jean Louise. Your daddy's passing." While this wasn't entirely a story about race, it was entirely a story about race. Trump's supporters were overwhelmingly white supremacists, neo-nazis, and crackers. They are the Ewells of the story, white trash to a one. But they don't win. The Ewells got shamed in public, just as the rioters are in jail or heading there. But the well-off racist jury wins in both the story and life. Shameful times in America never come or go, they just hang on and on.

CA: I don't know if there is net gain from this episode, but if there is some redemption of value, it might be the clarifying of what racism is, means, does etc.  I didn't grow up here so I my American history education was scant.  But it seems to me that racism is not organic, but is a strategy (conscious or systemic, maybe both) of the ruling (mostly white male) class to keep their minority rule status.  Every ruling class has to come up with some kind of mythology to keep themselves there.  The pigs have to come up with some way to get the dogs to do their bidding.  Racism has been a very easy and obvious mythology to accomplish this.  Particularly since the civil war, non-rich whites have to be prevented from finding common cause with blacks.  Thus, racism, the Klan etc.  Keep 'em busy hating other working people that look different from them and they won't notice you robbing them blind.  I'm not sure to what extent this is common knowledge among smart white people? but they sometimes don't act like it.  The demonizing of "Trump's base" as the principal cause of all of our ills (and they are, to be sure, a really unsavory, hard to love bunch) and the adherence to salvation (justification and sanctification) for smart (and mostly well off) white people from their race and class privilege through a linguistic and performative orthodoxy that they uniquely have access to, makes one wonder.  It starts to look like the intellectual class (unwittingly or not?) provides a sideshow to draw attention from the baleful and unnecessary curtailments of the first right mentioned in the Declaration among the non-rich.

Dangerous Anti-Vax BS

This is from a FB comment I made recently:

We're in the middle of one of the worst pandemics humanity has ever experienced. Vaccination and other kinds of innoculations have prevented millions of deaths. Americans sometimes have a difficult time understanding the very concept of public health, which is that we share most resources, especially air, water, the food supply etc. Americans are somewhat steeped in individualism, fundamentalist concepts of individual liberty which are dumb and bad. Vaccinations aren't just or even principally for the individual. They're meant to stop the spread of communicable diseases which, in human history have ravaged and even wiped out entire communities. People on the right keep on talking about herd immunity. This is exactly what vaccines are for. They create herd immunity without sacrificing literally millions of lives. 90% of the the native american population was wiped out by smallpox because there was no immunity in the population. The virus had already gone through Europe several times, so the European survivors were mostly immune. Had there been a smallpox vaccine then, millions of lives could have been saved and "herd immunity" would have resulted. Side effects are a part of everything anybody does in life to improve or accomplish anything, including, like, driving, having children, getting any medical intervention, eating food, etc. Side effects of vaccines have to be weighed against efficacy for the whole community always. We're not talking about dissent here. We're talking about very bad quacks causing some very bad things. There have always been quacks and conspiracy theories floating around, but they've never had this much sway, nor done this much damage. I beg you not to promote anything that prevents people from receiving vaccinations that will save thousands or even millions of lives. 

No Within No

 talk talk talk talk walk walk walk walden denayoh san thrift bedevilment sanded throughout the lefted leprachaun sous-vide syropy slurp sluffle salty bramble fealty flop

faraigment flat fancy flop
filter
and when the drop comes top
we weather the flop flough
bitter beasts
feasting on festering fallow fortune
receive direct proportion
following frightful bilious blanchment
entrancement through leveraged advancement
with every step forward we advance a pattern backward
with every session backward we pattern a paper scamward
with every with any with always standard
reaction attrition
segment artifice will always requite the labeled
larder
the chelsea hotel
a faster typist
never known nor grown
within the context
of font arrest whistle
plastic cog rename
the relatable character within the context of pretext
pretext of context
precon texttext
restex
brief lex ris rye
wry wrestable rin-sed rascal
which far exceeded the rightful
risible ryance
seeble seeking trite troffure beal believe
feloitable brisome bob reliant gracious
or a portion of a phone
a determinist defuncter
demonizing the past participle
prerequisite to the disciple’s staple

we watch
we wither
we wait
for fate
to dither through
fast function
foiled

I went to Paris to discover cultural artifacts.  More like artificts buried deep in the collective subconcious.  Has anyone dug deep enough to really reflect some soluble salient salivary substance to bring licht to liebe

Lying becomes the norm
in ten minutes reading became obsolescent

is there a fact that has not become transcendent
is there fat factual fatality
ordering freak fight
believe bite
a blight upon all society reduced to anxiety through dire satiety
order over olpoon oonson
feast yer eyes me maties
we’re skating on a merry freighter
feeling bound for perdition not attrition
no suspicion of blindsiding wide abiding
brink of bifurcation
no relation
his song screeched
Scranton, Trenton

is there a lasting lead we can lay our fears on
is there a fasting feed we can rate our tears from
doylies left
orange crates bound for distant lands bereft
of cargo made only available for fractured furniture
luggage baggage rites of passage
savage garbage sealing tonnage

a lump of fowl fenestra
block the cough
lock the fondness off of
soul-destroying lopped leverage
drop de-frilting fryling
dealing lup-king jing thing sing
hating all the wrapped up rollers
seal the morels
roll the foilers, fuller croilers
soothe employers, flingers, parlors
of a type to re-lipe nine five three
suffer through long levered Howard respirators
sand remind deliver crying quiver
sealing sliver, dealing thither
this contempt event
spent salivating, waiting for a rent red dress
spent trusses, under busses
rule the flattened fleeting tumble

I tear the testimony
lop the law
quake the ark
bruise the serpent
fake the vestment
bake the manna
eat the altar

sweet ceremony
sealed eternally for awhile
reveal mystery
honesty
allowance for allegiance to seminal
science explained
not entertained
relatable talia
colored by its relatability in the context of processed, preached privation
it went
it were
weren’t you there
I thought I saw you
I say, you are far
you far-flung fantastical fop
fanatical fable
i’m able to table this label
if you’re stable I’ll attach this latch throughout sentient steely sarcophagi
got you there
I swear you were ‘ware of my subtle brutal deception
‘pon reflection, I feel defection is an option
the fiction that frequents this frond of insurrection
reminds the kinds of depletion are simulation
and realization breeds simplification
dimplement facilitators
not debilitators
fine find raspor
lined crimed sasparillo
an euphemism for factor raptor
a seulement real font
funder of disaster-blaster
flask of foreign matter
for that master
enrailment, details sent into the stratosphere
near heaven
believe I can achieve a modicum of method
I’ve been on record as a recluse
I’ve built recently from refuse
a shelter for suffus-ed colors
dipped in transcendent brother others
smothered pleasant odors folders
fragrant filters
flowers udders

another butter to discover
another southern sweet-laced cover
leather binder
sealed reminder
crafted from remaindered finder

fluff matters
fluff delivers
fluff gave us fuller litters
still deliver waiters, waters
all that watches sitters, squatters
file away the frantic fodder
squeal a saving prophetic letter
arbor, otter
singing harbor
totter, tailer
twiller, trawler

I watch, release
the sealing grease
the singing phrase
released to cease

a surfeit of relaying laies
sung santorially, phrased
to craze and amaze
sing us now a skillful phrase
that all might space and waste our days
in short order we’ll be older
live in order, not a hoarder
sketch a border to deliver

Dispect file forect
dissect file forget
forgissimo diss’em or
faractissimore store floor
out the door
toward normal normative
store gore war

wouldn’t wanton grapes berate
reptilissimo fictissimo dictus
fictus licked loose
sluice sauce fentile the boss
direct hot hoss phantom
bite think light ledger
the height of pleasure censure
the rent retirement syllabent
retrieved some filter feel relief

sprientific: remember: roz’ rebels
they were trebles
they sang with admirable syllables
thankful that vibratory feldspar
abundant though they are
provided ample evidence of divine
providence, profitable for semblance
dissemble factual evidence
forever striving simi-biddance
souris, sourable
sur le table
mistaken frightened flake tendentious
tedium a need which feels fine

Cavaliers comprenez ou gendarmes
je annoncait.
Fabriques attelages non dut peu
car echangent etendards jugements.
Je indus voyez
de fumee cette.
Son est rang sur veut avis.

so quitting, never exiting
is a strategy, not a prodigy
a faculty, not a faulty property
a tendency, not a filigree
labels not fables
erasable linen, not a far-cry from building
substantive fragility, forgotten
in the midst of similitudes
fragile, frequent industry
vicissitudes, vaunted for their symbol sentence
code of reliance
rule of remembrance
fool of forgotten forgiveness
enter ritual remembrance
instead of single fantibulance

I was sent spent rods of rejection and retention
it was within five fathoms of
fictitious schoolmart
viral vobjects
unifarcity, larceny
lobistry, lantern lacking
solemn silosophy bardgosophy
hologram, hard loss, if he
feels faithful lake, like life
hike the heft
left luncher
sift smile dice cruncher
torrendous sieve site-dumper
compure, lissure, fissure fixture
simpering silo trool the fooble
fleet flight-lance phantom

organized by size
alphanumericalshapecolorsignificance
stoop waffling
fill-coughing, flocked, flocking
an order of magnitude notregognized
revising, yanny laurel
panning for sorrel
silt and floral fashion
flashing deploral, storeable norse-while
boasting breedless sky-rile

The key-concept is
a number filed in forgotten
retention mavens
store this frequent stave-favors

All things are distilled for
Razor-sharp entities
Distributed and disturbed
by the requisite reality of
Wrong-headed rifle-reason

Reflect if you will the
plight of the benighted
broom-bomb
greeting the conscious
sentient interpretation of
cat on sail on fail on
flee on be on three on
three five seven to one four eight

greatness met with
barriers behind the
wheel of weather-limbed
life-lob lungberry

throughout reference remembrance
to outside lawn-logged reference
to regulance to regulation
station pluration
tool of the traditional mediated
state of past trait to whit
without reason or rationalization
this nation, frozen as it was
was new to the notion of treason
a season of salvation, relation to
never coming back to the coiled
swift front-mob through fight
and flight-sound, light loud
loopy lesson, is never round
or found to be impounded

soon the oxygenated six strong
weather-beating, through three
things seen eating this season of seating
leave it to reason
sanitation leaves lava-bound
luncheon to munch on multiple
noodle-bound relation, belation
suspension, direction, repression
election sustain a wide-grain
disapproval through thousand thin
think-weight, believe-rate
sustain late

green file is on trial
don’t place trust in confabulated fealty
the real thing is three thin fibers
aligned on laproscpic
lointain, dans l’espace
et dans le futur


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Imagine A World Where Simple Goodness Matters Afresh

Guest blogger extraordinaire, Michael Lee (OU Musicologist) shares the following:

This morning, I woke early to deal with my dog's sense of time and entitlement. Then I made a grave mistake. I turned on the news. Within 20 minutes, the pending collapse of democracy in America revealed itself with brazen precision. What a scary time. Which is worse: the envigoration of massive racial injustice, a deadly pandemic confronted by no plan, the president promising the end of democracy, or a climate crisis threatening life on earth?

Maybe all four could be fused into a single story about capitalism as a really big mistake. As we discussed, the Soviets and particularly Stalin did the worst disservice to the human race by discrediting an alternative to capitalism so thoroughly as to make all future alternatives far less viable. Maybe we're living through the moment when Donald Trump will so thoroughly discredit capitalism as to make the search for an alterntive vital again. Whatever is going on, it doesn't look like a happy ending is pending unless our side changes tactics. 

A hopeful friend, Jake Johnson, led me in a subsequent discussion of the above to a conclusion worth sharing. As we now find ourselves as human beings half emptied by the current circumstances, we may need to abandon any effort to address capitalism's remaining guardians (the venal, the timid, and the ignorant) with the reason and facts we so cherish. They have abandoned truth, and reason is entirely relative to them. As tools of persuasion, the facts have passed their expiration date with tens of millions of our friends, neighbors, and family members.  

Armed with this knowledge, we may need to reply with fantasies larger and more compelling than those Trump and the greedy monsters who make him possible are presenting. Here the arts and the artists may be at an advantage. The time to dream a better world is now more than ever. Lie more compellingly, artists who love truth. What is a lie but another name for a dream in this fact-free world? Please, artists, present a world where simple goodness matters afresh, and mean braggarts are pitied rather than followed.

We need a wildly attractive and wholly fabricated evangel of the beauty of everything Trump, his angry mob, and the cravens who enable him hate. Trump is piloting the Republic one of two places: oblivion or change. Let's rouse ourselves from our bad-news-induced torpor and use our imaginations to tilt the scale toward change using the tool our times value: fantasy.

--Mike

Never Watch Fox News Again

I'm sick of the damage this hideous scourge of political pornography, this electronic lobotomy known as Fox News has wrought on the country I love, the only planet I've known, and many of my loved ones. It's become clear that watching it is kind of like a fetish or an addiction that poisons the mind. It's not possible to think critically or empathetically while watching it. I don't think we can solve our problems in any meaningful way while it exists as it presently does. Here's my plea:

 

 I don’t have all the facts its genesis, but it’s becoming more and more clear that Fox News is the great villain that’s led to the mess we’re in.  Great masses of the populace, many that are loved ones of mine and other sane people that I know, have been essentially lobotomized and completely immune to the civic virtues that were the foundation of our society not long ago.  Fox News never should have been allowed to exist.  I know that Reagan eliminated the Fairness Doctrine which would have made Fox News impossible to operate as it does.  I also know that when I first watched a few minutes of it (I can barely stand to watch it even for a few seconds), I immediately recognized the tone as essentially the same as the professional wrestling I watched as a kid, the TV preachers of the ‘80s and the anti-Mormon propaganda I was attacked with constantly on my mission in Central California.  It’s really awful stuff, crappy entertainment, but incredibly toxic if it’s believed.  The truly apocalyptic challenges we face now are directly traceable to people injecting themselves with this electronic excrement and being simply unable to think or decide or distinguish right from wrong or good from evil or to even be able to make the most basic observations of what is around them.  It has seriously challenged the cherished notion of free speech to my mind.  There are certainly abridgements of freedom of expression, such as the fairness doctrine, or those employed in the U.K. to disallow demonization of one's opponents that would seem to make sense.  Many of the evils that seem to be threatening to engulf us presently would make our extreme form of freedom of expression obsolete anyway.

 

If anyone reading this spends any of their precious time on this earth and their precious senses of hearing, and sight and their mind on Fox News, I implore you to turn it off and never tune in again as long as you live and spend your life counteracting the damage it has done.  It is political pornography of the most vile sort, much more damaging to you and to society than conventional pornography.  I know Fox News has taught you to doubt and hate all other media (mainstream media, lamestream media), but you are quite safe listening to and watching pretty much any established media.  The pre-Fox News news landscape in the U.S. was the envy of the world and of history.  Quibbling about mistakes and bias does nothing to the fact that the networks, the major newspapers, CNN and MSNBC, etc. basically adhere to traditional press norms that have protected our information for decades, and made America a bastion of civic involvement and informedness.  (We are, post-Fox News, now viewed as kind of the opposite.)

 

Abolish/Defund: It's a Trap!

In my 40+ years of watching politics pretty closely, I've noticed that
a. the institutional republican party (that counts as members some lovely people) is evil and want to make the rich richer, and they've got lots of ways to do it and are constantly cooking up new ones
b. they can't win elections fairly so they play dirty
c. every presidential election cycle they form an alliance with unwitting young/well off highly educated/privileged urban lefties to promote a cause that sounds really bad and no one really wants that can serve as their main talking point to scare people out of voting for democrats.

In 2016, it was unisex bathrooms.  I am not alone in saying, this was one of the worst things handed to the right on a silver platter.
It's looking like this year it's abolish the police.
If you ask an abolisher/defunder what they mean, it turns out, like "anarchy", that the words are meant to be provocative and the actual intent is more a kind of much-needed probing reform of an undeniably dysfunctional and often dangerous institution, than actual abolishing or defunding.  I know it's fun for you young 'uns to be provocative and I know there's a lot of peer pressure.  But you may not be aware of the hideous consequences of these traps has been over the decades.  Many of us can remember a time when the the middle class was much larger and included people who worked with their hands.  We remember when there was general agreement in polite company nobody should live on the street and that trade unions were forces of good and picket lines shouldn't be crossed.  The right has thousands of cold-blooded analysts figuring out ways to utilize anything they can get their hands on to divide the public and scare people who don't have graduate degrees.  This doesn't mean self-censoring.  It means mass communication that facilitates and encourages dialogue and teaching.  It means being bold with ideas and slogans that are real winners, that are absolutely true and clear and necessary.  Black Lives Matter is, of course, an excellent example.  Medicare for all is another.  These slogans can't help but provoke deep moral thought and shame in those who oppose them.  Abolish the Police can't help but divide and confuse.  It's a shibboleth.  If you know the "principles" behind it, you get it.  But to a majority of people, this sounds scary and menacing.  And if it's something that has to be "youngsplained", that makes matters worse.  I know "Reform the Police", "Demilitarize the Police", "Fund Social Workers", etc. don't sound as cool, but maybe there's something along these lines that will be almost as snappy and true and inspiring as Black Lives Matter or Medicare for All.

The Poetic Book of Mormon (sorry, not chloroform in print)

I have been setting to music parts of the Book of Mormon that appear to be or have been in verse in the original languages.  I am aware that the Book of Mormon has been maligned by many, Mormon and not, for its stilted language and lack of poetic qualities.  Setting texts reveals their poetic qualities in ways that no other activity can.  I have found many of these texts to have delightful and evocative poetic qualities that I hadn’t noticed before, qualities that are quite musical.  The Hebraic parallelisms are, of course, striking.  They are not native to English language writing and have thus been annoying to many English speakers who have been taught to value economy and shun redundancy.  But I have also been noticing turns of phrase which have unique delights of sound and sense in their English manifestation.  There are abundant if subtle alliterations, in particular, as well as similes, synecdoches, etc.  I’ve listed a few here from the “Psalm of Nephi”, 2 Nephi 4, which I am in the midst of setting:

behold, my soul

the great goodness

causing them to quake

my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.

why should my heart weep and my soul linger

droop in sin

robe of thy righteousness

I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh;

rock of my righteousness

my voice shall forever ascend

It's Our Church

"if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man..." (3 Ne. 27:8). It's The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, i.e. Jesus's and the latter-day saints', i.e. it doesn't belong to any particular man, woman, or group thereof, it belongs to Jesus and the entire body of the Church. "We have learned by sad experience...", i.e. those who have particular callings in the church are always going to have the urge to advance themselves as being above everyone else, and many Latter-day Saints are willing to promote or go along with that. I'd like it if mormons got rid of the "they/them" pronouns when referring to The Church. Like, who is being referenced exactly by these pronouns? It's our church. Some of us take turns doing different tasks in the church, and we try to support one another, but that should not turn into a hierarchy. And definitely we should get rid of us/them. There's not supposed to be a clergy/laity binary. That's half of what we were supposed to root out. Everybody's clergy.

The Hearings

The Hearings
Watching the hearings has been an alternately sickening and heartening experience (only heartening in that democrats are finally, at long last, showing some spine and recognizing what's been actually going on for decades, and willing to speak of it).  I can't describe it without using religious language and the language of mental disorders and relationship based abuse.  I have never witnessed people lie so much and with so many layers.  But it all sounds the same.  Whenever a republican lawmaker speaks, it has the familiar sound of an abuser (projection, gaslighting), which is, itself the familiar voice of the Father of Lies.  When people lie there is a certain sickening ring of familiarity.  The special kind of lies that the republicans use are so insidious because they are designed to make communication and even logical thought all but impossible.  This kind of behavior always comes about in massively disproportionate efforts to protect the powerful and well-placed, by the cowardly/lazy in hopes of advancing to unearned positions of power and wealth.  It's all beautifully and succinctly described in the Book of Mormon.  I'm not sure what's going to happen to this country, or, indeed the world, but I sincerely hope the ghastly republican party ceases to exist.  It's sickening combination of cruelty, greed, avarice, priestcraft, and lust and ability to fool and degrade otherwise decent people must qualify it as at least part of the Great and Abominable Church.

Just Layin' it Out

-Guns are just plain bad.  Of course if you hunt, blah blah blah.  Military weapons should not be owned by civilians.  I can't believe I'm even writing this.  What the hell?!?  They shouldn't exist at all. They're pushbuttons designed to kill lots of human beings.  Just bad bad bad.  Necessary maybe for countries to defend their citizens, but I believe in the swords into ploughshares thing.   I've got friends and relatives with them, but I detest them (i.e. the guns).  Those who have promoted gun ownership will rot in hell, I'm sure of it.
-Toxic masculinity is the great cause of most of America's problems (and those of many other societies).  But toxic masculinity is not organic.  It's promoted by the rich and powerful to manipulate the weak for the sake of increasing and consolidating wealth and power.  It's why there is violence, environmental destruction, crime, rape, income inequality, you name it.  It all traces back to male insecurity and desperate attempts to soothe it by incredibly destructive means.
-Racism is likewise not organic.  Children don't naturally hate other people because of their skin color or facial features.  It's taught and learned and promoted by the rich and powerful to divide the weak and thus make it easier to control, defraud, subjugate and generally rip them off.
-The "left" in this country all but disappeared, starting with Dukakis (who famously shunned the word "liberal") and finishing with Clinton.  The democratic party has not been the left flank of American politics for a long time.  "Liberalism" has come to mean gradualism/incrementalism, which, in the face of the rapid destruction of the social contract by the right, actually has merely meant a somewhat slower degradation of the non-rich.
-Moreover, the democratic party has come under the control of rich people who have been hyper-focused on the loud promotion of personal liberties, but completely tone deaf to the needs of the non-rich, and especially of the poor.  This while simultaneously obsessed with somehow appeasing, or pleasing, or "compromising" with a force of evil that has no interest in facilitating any kind of success for them in the form of "compromise" or anything else.
-"Progressive" has come to be the only way to describe politicians who believe in the principles that guided American social policy from FDR to LBJ, and that facilitated the rapidly improving standard of living and opportunities our parents and grandparents enjoyed.
-Libertarianism is an idiotic, adolescent, evil (and literally Satanic) force that has infected our society at almost all levels.
-The republican part is a secret combination, likely the secret combination described in the end of the Book of Mormon.  One of the main messages of the Book of Mormon is that societies often move from idealism and egalitarianism to where greedy men create secret combinations to horde and to "grind upon the face of the poor", and protect one another.  The current republican party is hardly anything but this.  And it is controlled by the former KGB director and current dictator of Russia.
-The KGB has long used racial division to try to subvert America and thus weaken it.  Trump has simply been a Russian asset for a long time.  This was as clear as day during the presidential campaign and every day since.  Our lack of spine to just point this out and get rid of this bastard is an absolutely breathtaking act of cowardice, especially to those of us who lived through (and thought we had won) the Cold War.
-Back to the democrats. In the presidential sphere, we have seen a parade of corporate lackeys vying for and winning the democratic nomination. Before Sanders, the only exception was Edwards, who was literally the only candidate to even mention the poor.  Sanders was a genuinely transformative candidate.  Scrupulously honest, razor sharp focus on the screaming economic inequities that have been ignored by other dems, fearless, outwardly rough and not tv-ready, yet incredibly popular among swing and conservative voters, as well as intermittent voters.  Incredibly well-informed, courageous and ironically amazing at working with some of the most conservative lawmakers.  The democratic establishment made a terrible, terrible mistake in thumbing the scales for an unelectable technocrat who happened to be a woman, thus enabling the election of an unthinkably bad human specimen who is wholly owned by Russia, and who took the country out of the most important climate change initiative, and the most important peace initiative of the last decade.  These are actions which, in themselves will have baleful effects for decades.
-The "center", the "democratic establishment" has failed miserably, not just in the '16 election, but over the past 25 years since the '94 election.  They have consistently squandered majorities and super-majorities.  They have reneged on promises.  They have continually shown favor toward corporations and the rich with the justification that at least they're not criminal/racist right-wingers, i.e. slightly better than the republicans.
-They have been enablers.  Those who have been in abusive relationships, or even been bullied in the playground know what an enabler is.  They make the bully worse by trying to negotiate or compromise with them, rather than standing up to them or holding them accountable (as Gandhi/MLK did).  The big/strong playmate who you think will protect you from the bully, but who ends up sucking up to him instead.
-The "centrists" will tell us that if we'd been better at supporting they're crappy candidate in '16, we would have won, when in reality, we gave more than they did to help.  We're actually a lot better and scrappier in a fight.  And we have infinitely more at stake.  But we knew that their crappy candidate would likely do very little for us and likely continue to enable and facilitate the continued consolidation of the plutocracy.  It's very hard for us to comprehend the gall of "centrists" to blame us for their hideous and selfish blunder and to actually blame us in advance for their incomprehensible drive to nominate a doomed, greasy, dumb, fumbling, unelectable, usury-loving 80-year old, when there are so many incredibly inspiring, appealing, sincere fighters who could actually bring an end to the spectacular income inequality, climate change, and warmongering.

FaceBook and Politics

Gonna take a possibly permanent break from discussing/posting political stuff. Most who know me know how I feel. And I think most can see what's going on, even if the future is hard to predict. I continue to hope and pray for humanity and a country that I believe Providence smiled on at one time, and that brought immeasurable good to the world (and some bad). Our destiny is in the hands of a motley collection of highly compromised cowards who were never the cream of the crop to begin with. Those of us who made it through the cold war have a hard time giving up the idea that we are all stronger and happier because of shared values and resources in the midst of gorgeous diversity; that unwritten norms are often all that prevents us from oblivion; that safety nets, a few rules, and collective infrastructure of all kinds facilitate the glorious entrepreneurial spirit that has brought us unparalleled creativity, beauty, and fun.
I was a late adopter of FaceBook. I couldn't figure out the point of it at first. I soon found it to be the most useful tool imaginable for an indy musician. I built up an artistic practice that depended on FaceBook. In the process I reconnected with people I never thought I'd hear from. I made many new and interesting friends and met my amazing wife. It enabled me to book gigs in places I'd never been and to host musicians for performances that would never have otherwise happened. FaceBook is, of course, a deeply flawed platform and 2016 has soured many on it. There are also some weird generational things, like that Instagram is cool, not FB so much, etc. (a sentiment which my teens (who appear to be reappropriating FB) say is so "millenial" and thus uncool). It's kind of like saying Chrysler is so much cooler than Dodge. Anyway, I'm gonna stay on FB in a restrained way and let others do the political stuff. Thanks y'all for your beautiful spirits and keep groovin'.

To senators re: Putin/Trump in Helsinki

I sent the following to my two senators today, following the disastrous Trump/Putin summit:

"If you continue to support this treasonous traitor of a president and do not pursue impeachment, your are yourself a traitor to your country, a country that won a cold war against this totalitarian state. You will also have to answer to God, humanity, posterity, and history for your complicity. You must give up your insane "loyalty" to a political party that has gone completely off the rails and choose loyalty to country and humanity instead. It's time to do the right thing. God help us if you and your colleagues don't."

Kings: Bad Idea

Last week in Gospel Doctrine class we were talking about the transition from judges to kings in the Old Testament.  There was a lot of humming and hawing about how maybe this was necessary, etc., the judges weren’t that great, etc.  My comment was something along the lines that, taken as a whole, in addition to being a lineage of the Messiah, a secondary overriding theme is how utterly terrible kings and tribes are.  

Yesterday while waiting for stake conference to start I looked through every chapter heading from 1 Samuel to 2 Kings.  It’s just a series of absolute disasters caused by these kings.  And the first three were carefully hand picked, but even they turned out really bad and caused unspeakable suffering.  I know God sanctioned, selected and had these guys anointed, but I imagine it somewhat in the character of providing I.V. drug users with clean needles.  “If you’re going to do this really awful, dumb thing, then at least make sure that…” etc.

Kings and tribes are unmitigated disasters.  And why wouldn’t they be?  If we are children of a perfect and loving god, tribalism, racism, and nationalism have to be viewed as wicked.  Moreover, lifting up one man and his descendants as above the law, better than everyone else, able to boss people around and steal from, enslave, kidnap, and rape them at a whim are likewise wicked.  And yet we have this human tendency to want kings, strongmen, and celebrities.  We are also incredibly susceptible to believing in tribes, races, and nationalities.

I keep coming back the the lyric of the reggae classic from Carlton and the Shoes:

“God made man and He gave them all

An equal share of blessings.

Some men want to take it all and

Keep the rest of the world in

Bondage and oppression.”

The song ends with a hopeful note though:

“But the Father, He’s not sleeping.

He’ll set his people free.

Better days are coming,

Better days for you and for me.”