Republicans voted for Roy Moore in the primary. Let the man run. Meanwhile, if there’s criminal behavior, let it be investigated. If there’s unethical behavior, let it be discussed in public. In a democracy, this man is the voice of (some of the) people. Resorting to trickery to remove him from Republican consideration, or hide him away from the electoral process, is undemocratic.

He represents a tiny minority of citizens. He (and they) have a right to participate, and we-all have a right to point, condemn, and laugh at their behavior.

Virginia decertified their electronic touch-screen voting machines in September, due to concerns about vote tampering. In November, 15 seats changed hands to Democrats, and the Democratic gubernatorial candidate won in a tight race

Coincidence? (daa dah dah dah daaa?)

The Problems of “Privilege”: Lessons from the French Revolution – Quillette.

Interesting comparison.  Interesting conclusion: this discussion occurs when the privileged class (in this case, white males, in the French Revolutionary precedent, noblemen) has less power than it did.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/29/john-boehner-trump-house-republican-party-retirement-profile-feature-215741

The Trump Administration’s Power Over a Pregnant Girl https://nyti.ms/2zpcI1g

This is a truly disgusting abuse of Federal power.  The apparatus of government has been coopted by lunatic ideologues.  This is the flip side of government mandated eugenics.

Shouldn’t need to be reminded, but there we are.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/the-aclu-should-keep-representing-deplorables/

Two things:

Ian sent me this: https://gizmodo.com/us-homeland-security-will-start-collecting-social-media-1818777094. DHS says they’ve been doing this for a while, just thought they should get it clear on the record.

And, the new guy in the Senate: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/09/the-muted-gop-response-to-roy-moores-anti-muslim-prejudice/541461/. I assumed he’d be completely ineffective, a crazy hand-grenade that wouldn’t be able to do anything in the Senate except go off at a tangent.

Wrong again.

It’s my birthday today.  I wasn’t feeling particularly celebratory: I’m going to NZ in a couple of weeks to visit my parents and try to arrange a rest home for Dad, so I’m wading through pamphlets, websites and forms; Mum said he’s practically catatonic most of the time, and he’s become totally paranoid; I’ve got to put the gutters back up before the rains become constant; people are waiting on me for things at work; and this morning Shelley found out that her Mum has gone into hospice and stopped eating.  She’s been worrying all day and making plans to go to MT.

But we had tickets to see a musician tonight at DjangoFest, Eric Vanderbilt-Mathews, a guy that I’ve known since he was in middle school, one of the best musicians I know, so we roused ourselves and went out.  In the reception area, I kept running into people wishing me a happy birthday, people I wouldn’t have expected to know I had a birthday.  We took our seats, and in a few minutes one of the staff came around with an envelope to “Robert Marsanyi in seat C5”.  I opened it, and it was a birthday card with every scrap of space signed by people in the audience: friends, people I knew, people I didn’t know, masses of people.  I brightened up, and settled in to listen to a truly beautiful set.

Eric put together an unusual quartet: acoustic guitar, piano, bass, winds.  In a lot of situations, the piano and guitar would be fighting, but as the set unfolded it made sense.  The tunes were selected from Django, bop, originals.  The pianist, a monster player with a light touch, played a traditional bop role, interjecting with complex harmonies with the occasional stride, and he also doubled as a secondary melody instrument in the role of a trumpet or second saxophone.  The guitarist played traditional Django-style rhythm and soloed in the same style.  Monk with a rhythm guitar carrying the beat.  Django with bop rhythmic interjections.  A Dolphy tune over the Django guitar, with piano and saxophone both starting their soli from the same phrase.  The bass player held it all together, and Eric floated over the top.

So, in a good mood at the end of the set.  At which point, I hear Eric’s Dad call out over the audience applause “Happy Birthday, Robert!”

Chris Guillebeau writes:

What If All Your Work Disappeared At the End of the Day? : The Art of Non-Conformity.

No comments section, so I thought I’d respond here: what he describes in his blog post is why I was a musician.  The attraction of music and other performance art for me was precisely the ephemeral nature of the work.  You perform it for a group of people, it goes up into the air and disappears, and just leaves some sort of impression that might last anywhere from a few minutes to the rest of someone’s life.  Recorded music, on the other hand, is really a whole different art form, revolving around permanent artifacts that can be revisited, like painting, literature (the analogy might be to conversation) or (especially) photography.

When I wrote music, I started with the distinction between recorded music and performed music.  Quite different ways to work.

2008 or so: Iran, declaring itself the enemy of the US is building a nuclear weapons capability.  The US administration under Obama gathers a coalition of like-minded nations and imposes sanctions, then offers negotiation with the opposing government.  A deal is hammered out over years, with the result that Iran stops building its offensive weaponry.

Candidate Donald Trump and the Republican Party declare that the deal is terrible for the US.  Trump swears to rip it up and start over when he’s president, because he’s famously good at negotiating deals.

2017: North Korea, declaring itself the enemy of the US is building a nuclear weapons capability.  The US administration under President Trump resorts to yelling at the North Koreans and whining that other states (China) haven’t done their utmost.  Tension rises.  No negotiations under way.

What happened to the Great Negotiator?