Too often in the last decades, Lewis was forced to spend his energies not on moving the nation forward, but in the struggle to keep it from sliding back. He fought back attempts to derail and defund the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in Congress, only to see courts and the Trump White House undercut his efforts.
Laura Clawson of Kos included a few tweeted comments from people expressing their condolences.
Stephen Webber tweeted a photo of Lewis and added:
I hear there are some pedestals in need of a statue.A few others replied saying there is a certain bridge that needs a new name.
Something to do while you can’t go anywhere – watch the new documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble. I’ve seen it mentioned, though I haven’t watched it yet.
About once a week I’ve been pulling COVID-19 case and death data off the Michigan.gov website. I wrote a little program to pull in the data and graph it. Michigan’s data goes back to March 1. In mid March the number of cases surged upwards, reaching over 1500 cases a day a couple times at the beginning of April. About two weeks later the number of deaths per day peaked at 160 a day. Both then declined. About the last week of June the number of cases per day jumped from 225 to 450-625 and has remained up there since. Even though it has been almost four weeks since the number of cases rose the number of deaths is still on a downward trend. Either the jump is yet to come or treatment has improved so fewer people are dying.
Yesterday I finished reading book 7 in the Harry Potter series of J.K Rowling. This book is 759 pages. I Googled to find the whole series is over 4,000 pages.
By page 200 of this novel Voldemort (the bad guy) and his followers have taken over the Ministry of Magic. And Harry and his friends are on the run. They have to be suspicious of everyone because they don’t know who has switched allegiances and they must be careful of impostors. As I read this part I was thinking about how the situation was like life under an authoritarian tyrant. Like we seem to be developing here in America.
I now have read the entire set and very much enjoyed the world that Rowling created.
The opera for last night and today was The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart. This story is a sequel to The Barber of Seville by Rossini. Both operas are based on stories from the same author. Mozart chose the second story and later Rossini chose the first.
In the earlier story Count Almaviva woos Rosina with the help of Figaro against the disapproval of her guardian. In this one Figaro is a servant in the household of the Count and Countess. He would like to be married to Susanna, who is a maid in the same house. However, the Count also has eyes for Susanna, as do one or two other people. And another woman is trying to force Figaro to marry her. There is also Cherubino, a teenage boy (sung by a soprano in a trouser role) who will fall in love with whomever he can get his hands on. Comedy ensues with a twist in the story in nearly every scene. The Count’s philandering ways are exposed and there is a happy ending.
In this Metropolitan Opera production the set was on the big turntable with the appropriate room of the house – great hall, garden, the Countess’s bedroom, and Figaro’s bedroom (the opera starts with him measuring the room to see if a marriage bed will fit). During the overture the turntable showed the various rooms showing a pantomime of the upcoming action – Figaro pacing off his room or Susanna in the great room showing fellow maids her bridal veil. Pretty cool.
Another cool thing about this opera is that the various characters frequently blend into ensembles, each telling their part of the story while contributing to the music as a whole.
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