BOSTON POPS-COLE PORTER NIGHT

Boston Pops, conductor Keith Lockhart has done a wonderful job making the Pops enjoyable to a wider audience.  Tonight, devoted to Cole Porter, Michael Scarola, stage director, he used eight voices: four women, four men, and two dancers.

Writing down the people who performed, unless you've seen them before,  tells you little.  This really was a 'You had to be there' evening.  While I do not recall many Pops concerts where a piano was heard throughout but not as a solo instrument, Christopher O'Reilly was significant in his filling in to make the orchestra believable in Cole Porter interpretations.  He has traveled a long way from his days with Russell Sherman at the N. E, Conservatory of Music.  Kelli O'Hara was sensational, stunning in her vocal range and the versatility she produced responding to demands placed on her  Jason Daniely, her co-star, a Broadway actor, singer, concert performer and recording artist, was good though his parts did not produce the projection and charisma that Kelli gave out.

The other singers were: tenor, Matthew Anderson, soprano, Danya Katok, mezzo-soprano, Laura Mercado-Wright, baritone,  David McFerrin. The stars and singers' CV's are awesome. The two dancers were Caley Crawford and Eric Johnson, both still students at the Boston Conservatory.    So much for the people who were so entertaining, such consummate performers, and who gave the audience far more than most of us bargained for.

Not surprisingly, there was a gum chewing lady next to my friend who was displeased because she claimed there were not enough' visuals'.  She had been to Pops twice last year, she informed us, and it was much better because they had 'visuals'.  Fortunately the person between us spared my telling her she should have gone to the movies if she wanted 'visuals'.  The producer, however, came through when I Love Paris  was sung and they dropped down screens with shots of Paris. I so badly wanted to tell her this was a musical concert not a movie.  It was beyond me to think that she needed 'visuals' to understand the extraordinary lyrics and signature music of Porter. I left her to her gum chewing.

Before the performance started, we were treated to the lecture about locating the exits and filing out calmly  in case of emergency.  I couldn't resist leaning over to the stranger next to me and telling her he forgot to mention that, if necessary, the cushion under her seat could be used as a flotation device. Since we were in the first balcony, she looked at me like any New Englander would, to see if I showed any other psychotic signs, the seemed to take me seriously just before she broke up laughing, telling me how funny that was.  Like a Boy Scout, to see someone laugh heartily, I considered that my good deed for the day,

With much pleasure, I noted there are still lots of Pops evening left this summer..



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

LABOR UNIONS IN POLITICS

John Huetteman wrote:  "Unions have to influence American politics, whether directly or indirectly, since politicians are influential decision makers on such issues that directly affect the workplace and those that fill them. As the appointed body of a group of individuals, empowered to act to the best interests of those individuals, its members, the Union by and through its membership must actively participate in any and all issues of American government and politics that could potentially affect American workers, the conditions in which we work, our compensation, benefits and every other aspect of a great majority of our adult lives since we will pass most of it working!

                                        But it doesn't stop any longer on American soil. SEIU (Service Employees International Union) is branching out to different countries as American corporations venture out during these times of globalization. Now, more than ever, unions must be influential in global politics due to the constant threat of outsourcing American jobs and the implications of it on foreign workers."

Labor unions extract a great deal of money from workers.  Some good is done with that, no doubt, but if the labor unions have millions to spend on losing campaigns, it sounds that the way they handle the monies is a bit skewed.  It has been my experience for many years that many labor unions are not altruistic.  Their leaders, like many of our politicians, are in there to hold onto their own jobs.  Some unions tend to put up with workers who steal their corporations blind but workers never get fired.  Some leaders have been known just to cream money off the top for their own use...their own land of milk and honey. Pay-offs are not visible, only suspected as are threats and, in essence, blackmail.  We have read about all of these things happening but it is not to say that labor unions have not represented the under-represented factory worker, helped lobby to raise minimum wage over the years, and many other significantly positive to the workers aid.

For some of those reasons, it confuses me that, because of their recent losses in Arkansas, unions are threatening  to vote against Obama or all democrats next election.  If they send their vote to Libertarians, the numbers will not add up to a win.  If they vote for a Republican it will be interesting to see what they get for their vote since Republicans have not been the staunchest supporters of unions.  Republicans back corporations, not working people on the lowest rung  (represented by unions).

That adds up to a rather strange dilemma as I see it.  It does not seem like good diplomacy to start two years ahead of an election to threaten power struggles and what sounds like political blackmail rather than discussions of issues for the people unions profess to represent.  Can it be that union leaders have come to think themselves so powerful they can run the country?

After comparing gubernatorial candidates in South Carolina, Nikki Haley commanded my respect with two exceptions 1) she is a Republican, 2) Sarah Palin endorses her, meaning that Haley allowed Palin to use her...not the other way around.  What Palin knows about governing a state like South Carolina after her two long years serving her state half the time she had promised, cannot be a significant help.  I must then presume, if she was any help to Haley, it was the fringe group of not-to-bright voters she might have brought with her.

Haley has run her campaign as a challenge to politics as usual and began the run-off campaign by declaring "It's us versus the Establishment." (see here)  She will be opposing (most likely she will be the ultimate Republican nominee) Vincent Sheheen, The Democrat who won the nomination yesterday, as well.  His mission: to reunite the fractious South Carolina.  He lists all the reason what has divided them for so long, listing racial prejudice, lack of support to public schools, bad economy, scandal and all the good things that might just get him there, though Haley also has a good following in a state that is usually Republican with as many faults as a party can have.

There are too many who pay no attention to the other states., sadly.  When it comes to this whole country and how it runs, we cannot afford to ignore the opinions, goals, prejudices and resistances to move the country forward.that live around us.

SECOND-HAND SMOKE IS STILL A HEALTH ISSUE

Secondhand Smoke Associated With Psychiatric Distress, Illness   ScienceDaily (June 8, 2010) — Exposure to secondhand smoke appears to be associated with psychological distress and the risk of future psychiatric hospitalization among healthy adults, according to a report posted online that will appear in the August print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.  Read the whole article here,

There has been much written for anyone with an ounce of common sense and survival instinct to heed.  Nevertheless, denial can be enormously effective.  I've never been a smoker but my lungs have been damaged from 2nd hand smoke for the years I worked and spent hours (for ten years) with a boss who smoked cigars and a pipe many hours in my presence and for the next 17 years in a mental hospital where modern buildings had no windows that opened and staff and patients mostly all smoking.  For all those years I had a headache daily.  Not until after those 27 saw me at a home office where I controlled the environment did the headaches stop.  It was then I learned of my sensitivity to second hand smoke. Click here for another article on the ill effects to health of second hand smoking.

For yet another explanation of the health hazards, click here This article even goes into third hand smoking.

 

REMNANT ABOUND OF ROVE-STYLE POLITICKING

South Carolina which does not seem to have distinguished itself for fair politics or truth in accusations, has recently had a Republican accuse another Republican of accusing her of having an extra-marital affair (which, even if it were true does not belong in a campaign), proving his innocence by taking a polygraph test which he passed.  Campaigning is no longer a process by which the voters can get to know the truth about their politicians and seems not to have been such for several decades, meanwhile getting worse with each election.  Here is the rest of the story.  It happens that Nikky Haley is half Indian, having Sikh in her heritage before she converted to Christianity.

South Carolina State Senator, Jake Knotts,  called her and Obama 'ragheads', calling for some good Christians and asking what was wrong with his God.  As I recall, in the Bush-McCain campaign to be the party nominee, that lovely state spread a rumor that McCain had fathered a child with a black woman.  It seems people in South Carolina, at least the voting majority, is stupid enough to believe anything even though the subject may be totally irrelevant to the job sought.

WHEN STORMS KNOCK THE POWER OUT

As news of tornadoes in Michigan and other world disasters were going on, random luck saw this area in a severe thunderstorm.  In the middle of a Sunday afternoon of suffocating heat and humidity for this area,  suddenly all electrical power was lost .The storm swallowed all daylight.  Lit candles can make one feel that learning braille isn't necessary at the moment, but it has little other value.  I can't read by it.

Never having for a moment forgotten how necessary the TV and Internet are to me, I immediately wondered what I did in the old days (BC-before computers).  Working on hooking rugs, knitting afghans, embroidering and all that lovely 19th C ladies stuff just didn't cut it any more.  Reading would have worked but the light was not adequate.  I played the piano for a bit then realized I was hungry.  Not knowing how long the power would be out, I hesitated opening the freezer or refrigerator doors.  Fortunately, I made do with gas for power.  This meant no microwave but it allowed me to steam vegetables and have some crackers (which don't require preparation).


Since I had seen This week in the morning and turned away screaming as I was powerless to stuff a sock in Liz Cheney's mouth, I waited for Meet the Press, only to find that Tennis Matches were on instead.  I picked up a book and read until the sky darkened, hopefully Noah had finished preparing the ark,  then the lights went out.  Sitting in the dark and feeling adventurous, I took a nap for a couple of hours hoping the power would be restored by the time I awakened and my adventure fantasies would pass..  No luck.

I hunted out all the candles people have given me for Christmases, lit a bunch, and the house began to smell as sickeningly sweet as those candle shops selling scented candles.A hurricane lamp had been unused for so long, the wick thickened until it was emulating a tar ball.  I could not thread it high enough to light.

There is a shelf full of flashlighst.  One would think I had a fetish if they saw the lot, but they are there because I can say. "Let there be light." as often as I want but without bulbs and batteries and wicks, it is like Aladdin forgetting 'Open Sesame'.  I feel like the person with a leaky roof who, when it is raining plans to call the roofer after the rain is over.  However, after the rain has ceased, it somehow never makes it to the top of that day's priority list.

Eight hours after the failure, power was back as silently as it had left.  The moral to this story is:  As with Boy Scouts, one must be prepared.  Try to remember to do that while the power is on!

WHY AND HOW DO ATHEISTS EXIST?

Having heard that 'God is Good' all my life, I find it difficult that we are here to atone for the sins of our forebears back to Adam and Eve, the fantasy of religion.. Recently I found someone who writes a thought provoking blog on the subject of Atheism.   Greta Christina who, once a Christian, is now a confirmed Atheist along with a much larger majority than dare speak out publicly in this country which still chooses 'In God We Trust' when, in fact, most people trust no one any longer, .

Having read Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Shermer and many others, the attempted line between agnostic and atheist means little to me.  If one chooses to read 'atheist' as an agnostic who does not believe in the Christian God, or any of the Gods currently mentioned in the religions of today's worlds, atheist sounds apt to me.  From a site which chose the 50 most brilliant Atheists of all time, it is fascinating to see the span of minds from ancient Greek philosophers to Nehru, Freud, Carl Sagan, Warren Buffet, Katherine Hepburn, and so many recognizable names.

Today our political society is still so cowed by religious fanatics it is said to be unlikely that a President of the US could be elected as an atheist, if one tried.  Christopher Hitchins, whom I find brilliant but abrasive, believes that all wars are started by religion.  I thoroughly believed this until recently, not looking behind as to the cause, when a minister (with whom I was in a discussion questioning religion and the Bible)  made the most sense to me when he said it was not religion that started wars but power hungry men who used religion to start wars.  I took this a bit further and realized religion is started by power hungry men who then use it to start wars.  Since the 1890s, the off-shoot group from the Mormon Church, Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, crazed, women hating sexists, polygamists who have tortured and brain washed women, now having inbred so much they have a medical problem of vast proportions.

It would seem to me if  our government (Congress or whoever wants to study the problem)made it impossible to start a church legally without careful consideration or by putting  a limitation on all the crack pots who have found they can bleed the public by founding religious temples (as Haggert had until he was forced to resign when his hypocrisy became known,) or no longer making it possible to start a new religion.  Since they can offer no proof of the high power calling, it a religion ought to be forbidden.  The term cult comes from a Latin word that means caring...it, too, seems to have been sliding off course, remembering the Jones fiasco.  People can too easily be brainwashed.  Marketers and leaders of religions carry the same skills...they are con artists.  Their disciples, having been brain washed are less toxic and there are even some honest (actually helping people who cannot feel in control of their lives by themselves)  There are many truly good and selfless people out there, but I believe they would still be out there doing good, church or not..

Google has many resources.  Just Google 'how does religion help people'