Turning to his hostess, E. P. Peshkovaia, he declared his love for the "Appassionata" Sonata in the words cited above. However, though Soviet sources remained forever silent on the point, this is not all that he had to say. Gorky quotes Lenin further:
"But I cannot listen to music too often, it affects one's nerves, makes one want to say kind, stupid things and stroke the heads of those who, living in such a foul hell, can create such beauty. Nowadays if one strokes someone's head, he'll get his hand bitten off! Better to beat the person unmercifully over the head, although ideally we oppose the use of force in human relations. Hm, hm, our task is infernally hard!"
-from Lenin and Beethoven: Beyond the "Appassionata" Affair
By Frederick W. Skinner, 2003, The Beethoven Journal
Lenin was obviously nuts. If you weren't anti-communist before reading that, you should be now.
Beautiful music should fuel this revolution, not derail it. Sometimes I go too far, in my thoughts. It is times like that when I listen to the theme from "To Kill a Mockingbird," and it calms me down very much.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Was the 2012 Election Won by Vote Fraud?
At 10:18 pm on Tuesday, November 8, 2016 I accurately predicted the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections, more than four hours ahead of the media.
Now, I am beginning to think that the difference between Mitt Romney and Donald Trump goes beyond the surface level details. I'm beginning to think that Trump won because he in essence threatened a civil war over vote fraud.
It took me a titanic 23 minutes of online research to discover fairly hard evidence that Democrats have committed vote fraud. And another three minutes to find out that Republicans have too.
Is Democratic vote fraud more systematic and pointed at winning Presidential elections? Do groups of paid impersonators drive around from precinct to precinct on Election Day, voting as dead people?
I don't know. But the thought is unsettling.
Now, I am beginning to think that the difference between Mitt Romney and Donald Trump goes beyond the surface level details. I'm beginning to think that Trump won because he in essence threatened a civil war over vote fraud.
It took me a titanic 23 minutes of online research to discover fairly hard evidence that Democrats have committed vote fraud. And another three minutes to find out that Republicans have too.
Is Democratic vote fraud more systematic and pointed at winning Presidential elections? Do groups of paid impersonators drive around from precinct to precinct on Election Day, voting as dead people?
I don't know. But the thought is unsettling.
Nero and Vespasian
Both candidates were terrible. They are like Roman emperors - one will burn our cities down through narcissistic negligence, the other will feed us to lions and dogs for sport.
I am glad Trump won, but American political culture should change. This should never have been the choice.
I am glad Trump won, but American political culture should change. This should never have been the choice.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Calling it - for Trump
10:19 PM, Tuesday, November 8th. I am going to bed. It is my prediction that Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States.
He won surprising numbers of votes in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, Wisconsin, and, let me say, Michigan.
I am slightly surprised by his apparent loss in Pennsylvania. Apparently I didn't know PA as well as I thought I did.
New Hampshire, Nevada, and a single Congressional district in Maine remain too close to call. I will assume that Hillary Clinton wins all of them, bringing her Electoral College vote total to 265.
I predict that Donald Trump will win 273 Electoral College votes and the Presidency of the United States.
He won surprising numbers of votes in Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, Wisconsin, and, let me say, Michigan.
I am slightly surprised by his apparent loss in Pennsylvania. Apparently I didn't know PA as well as I thought I did.
New Hampshire, Nevada, and a single Congressional district in Maine remain too close to call. I will assume that Hillary Clinton wins all of them, bringing her Electoral College vote total to 265.
I predict that Donald Trump will win 273 Electoral College votes and the Presidency of the United States.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Whatever Happens, There is No Certain Rest
I've read so many conservative blog posts about individual responsibility that the words are beginning to lose meaning to me. Sometimes I imagine there are large groups of people gathering a patchwork of fraudulent social security disability, food stamps, whatever is left of regular unemployment, small time drug sales (the small time drug sales should be legal, and untaxed for anyone making below $51,000 a year earned wages), and under the table work, and calling it life.
It's become such a dead horse to say that many people have lost a sense of individual responsibility that I feel tired of thinking it and saying it.
I can well imagine the challenges of being in Detroit, Baltimore, Boston, Miami, or Los Angeles, and competing with a huge pool of workers for the same minimum or low wage jobs. Say from $7.40 to $10.50 an hour, mostly part time jobs with minimal benefits or paid time off.
And it's not so much that those jobs don't pay well or that the benefits aren't great. I mean, people can accept that. It's that those kind of jobs are so rarely a window into a more prosperous economic sphere, that for the worker it can compound the sense of isolation that started with earning barely or not enough to live on.
To say nothing of if you have kids.
I feel, very, very strongly, that for all his failings, Donald Trump is the better candidate for what we now call 'the working poor.' I don't think Donald Trump really knows it, and I can't credit him with anything like real compassion. But by circumstances and being washing-machine wrung through a Republican primary process, he has been bonked closer to positions of what we call economic liberty.
I'm tired of wishing and hoping for a better life for people at the fringes. I know - and I've repeated this to myself until the thought is just as threadbare as all these others - that people have to work hard, that even in the best circumstances we can create, there may still be injustice, and that in this life there is no certain rest.
Neither candidate can change the existential state of human nature. And truly, neither really acknowledges a higher power beyond themselves, the one Power that really can.
And that might be the most sad of all.
It's become such a dead horse to say that many people have lost a sense of individual responsibility that I feel tired of thinking it and saying it.
I can well imagine the challenges of being in Detroit, Baltimore, Boston, Miami, or Los Angeles, and competing with a huge pool of workers for the same minimum or low wage jobs. Say from $7.40 to $10.50 an hour, mostly part time jobs with minimal benefits or paid time off.
And it's not so much that those jobs don't pay well or that the benefits aren't great. I mean, people can accept that. It's that those kind of jobs are so rarely a window into a more prosperous economic sphere, that for the worker it can compound the sense of isolation that started with earning barely or not enough to live on.
To say nothing of if you have kids.
I feel, very, very strongly, that for all his failings, Donald Trump is the better candidate for what we now call 'the working poor.' I don't think Donald Trump really knows it, and I can't credit him with anything like real compassion. But by circumstances and being washing-machine wrung through a Republican primary process, he has been bonked closer to positions of what we call economic liberty.
I'm tired of wishing and hoping for a better life for people at the fringes. I know - and I've repeated this to myself until the thought is just as threadbare as all these others - that people have to work hard, that even in the best circumstances we can create, there may still be injustice, and that in this life there is no certain rest.
Neither candidate can change the existential state of human nature. And truly, neither really acknowledges a higher power beyond themselves, the one Power that really can.
And that might be the most sad of all.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
The poetry was not very good in the years of his happiness
“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love — they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
And there you have it.
And there you have it.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Basic, researchable truths are now "hate speech"
Dear Mom,
I remember the first day that you packed me off for Kindergarten, you said, "remember son, if sixteen years from now, fundamentalist Muslims attack the World Trade Center, and a Jewish lady criticizes them for following their religion, what she says will be considered and is, in fact, hate speech." Wait, wait.... I don't remember that. That's because you never said that.
From the Wikipedia article on freedom activist Pamela Geller:
She is a supporter of the English Defence League (EDL) saying: "I share the EDL's goals ... We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west."[30] In June 2013, Geller was scheduled to speak at an EDL rally,[7] but was barred from entering Britain by a Home Office ruling that describes her as having established "anti-Muslim hate groups".[14] Cited as evidence for the ban were statements categorizing al-Qaeda as "a manifestation of devout Islam" and stating that jihad requires Jews as an enemy.[31] Geller called the decision "a striking blow against freedom ... The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead." Hope not Hate, which led a campaign to ban her, applauded the decision stating "there is a line in the sand between freedom of speech and the right to use hate speech.".[14]
With love from your son,
Ben
I remember the first day that you packed me off for Kindergarten, you said, "remember son, if sixteen years from now, fundamentalist Muslims attack the World Trade Center, and a Jewish lady criticizes them for following their religion, what she says will be considered and is, in fact, hate speech." Wait, wait.... I don't remember that. That's because you never said that.
From the Wikipedia article on freedom activist Pamela Geller:
She is a supporter of the English Defence League (EDL) saying: "I share the EDL's goals ... We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west."[30] In June 2013, Geller was scheduled to speak at an EDL rally,[7] but was barred from entering Britain by a Home Office ruling that describes her as having established "anti-Muslim hate groups".[14] Cited as evidence for the ban were statements categorizing al-Qaeda as "a manifestation of devout Islam" and stating that jihad requires Jews as an enemy.[31] Geller called the decision "a striking blow against freedom ... The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead." Hope not Hate, which led a campaign to ban her, applauded the decision stating "there is a line in the sand between freedom of speech and the right to use hate speech.".[14]
With love from your son,
Ben
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