Publictakeover's Weblog

Rigoletto Funky

Rounding up opera recordings to put on iTunes and my iPod; going through the New York Public Library collection of opera cds, and I got a hold of a Rigoletto with Renato Bruson, Edita Gruberova and Neil Shicoff. Robert Lloyd is Sparafucile. Recorded somewhere in Roma in 1984.

When I put in the second disk to copy to iTunes, iTunes can’t recognize it, and it names every track on the disk, “+”. So now I have to go in and retype all the information for the 21 tracks on Disk Two!

For Example

Track 1 is entitled, “Ella mi fu rapita!” and it’s 2:38 long. Luciano Pavarotti-Ella mi fu rapita, Parmi veder le lagrime on Savevid.com

Carried Along in the Flood

It’s very hard to get a foothold in a whirlpool. That’s the point Poe made in “A Descent Into The Maelstrom.” Everything’s being carried along together, so there’s nothing to hang on to.

Ah… but with closer scrutiny it looks like–maybe–round objects are getting sucked down more slowly than other objects.

I’ll cling for dear life to this barrel!

Growing up includes the realization of certain death. Then there’s a lot to think about: religion, reincarnation, resurrection, afterlife, and whether these things direct our behavior here on earth.

“You die, and then it’s all over,” is a popular view. In fact, the Jehovah’s Witnesses espouse the view that nothing in the human lives on after death; the lights go out, period. There’s an unconscious death. But they do believe in a resurrection.

‘Gang’ plan

As debt debate begins, Obama praises ‘Gang’ plan – Yahoo! News.

What gets me most about this is the refusal on the part of lawmakers and media pundits to remove themselves from the process and the reporting of the process.

If they can’t get the job done, get out.

House Conservatives’ Slash, Crush and Topple Act | OurFuture.org

House Conservatives’ Slash, Crush and Topple Act | OurFuture.org.

It’s The Shock Doctrine come home to the good ol’ USA.

Ignorance Index III: The Revenue Problem | OurFuture.org

Ignorance Index III: The Revenue Problem | OurFuture.org.

S’en Van’

Away we go.

The Republicans will now allow Obama to raise the debt limit, incrementally. They attempt to confound the public with confusion between unemployment and the wrecked economy on the one hand, and the Federal deficit on the other hand.

They don’t want us to realize that all the money in the country belongs to the sovereign people. We make the rules here, not our bosses.

Keep everybody distracted. When the economy really tanks we can bring the troops home and stave off revolution while stripping out what little wealth we haven’t absconded with already.

Feudalism is Fun! Let’s go down The Road to Serfdom!

For Obama not to bring up–publicly and often–what Joe Stiglitz points out here:

Unaffordable tax cuts and wars, a major recession, and soaring health care costs—fueled in part by the commitment of George W. Bush’s administration to giving drug companies free rein in setting prices, even with government money at stake—quickly transformed a huge surplus into record peacetime deficits.

But, instead, it sounds like the “cave man” is getting ready for a monumental new collapse:

“I’m prepared to take on significant heat from my party to get something done. I expect the other side to do the same.”

It’s amazing to see how completely the “opposing parties” have merged. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end for this phony, plutocratic system, and the collapse will be the first step toward restoring meaningful democracy.

Meanwhile there are plenty of places to start to find real solutions, it’s just a matter of not digging ourselves into the same hole, over and over again.

It’s Not Their Money

There’s so little about each of us that is uniquely our possession–if any such thing is possible in the first place–that we have to make it up.

The Fed provides the money by U.S. law, and we use it by government protection, and uniform guarantees of security, value and infrastructure. We also implicitly acknowledge equality of opportunity, not to mention of law.

“I worked for my money, why should I let anybody else have it?” The system that enables you to get rich with use of resources, legal protections, banking and finance infrastructure, roads, airports, shipping, etc…. requires a higher return based on the degree by which one profits from the system.

If you want to blow up the pie, there won’t be a slice for anybody.