Let's get some truth without all the grandstanding

The cold continues. I turned over leading tonight’s rehearsal to someone else. A friend proposed an elixir of honey, apple cider vinegar, and garlic to heal a sore throat. Right now the sore throat part is better, but the coughing is worse. My Sunday movie was Mutt. Feña has started his journey from female to male – top surgery has been done and hormones begun. He’s a mutt because he’s between male and female. Then over 24 hours three people from before his transition are back in his life – his ex-boyfriend from when he was female, his sister needing to escape from an abusive mother, and his father from Chile who hasn’t figured out what being trans means. All of them knew the transition was coming, but the reality is taking some adjustment. I enjoyed it. While in Austin I started the book Every Good Boy Does Fine, A Love Story, in Music Lessons by pianist Jeremy Denk. He’s a classical music soloist good enough I’ve heard of him and heard his recordings on radio. I’ve also read his blog about his view of performing, but last I checked it hadn’t been updated in quite a while. The first part of the title is the mnemonic new music students learn to help them learn the lines on the treble staff – E, G, B, D, F. There are two parts to this book. The first is an autobiography through to the time he graduates with a doctorate in piano performance, with many stops in individual lessons with his teachers from about age 10 to the end of his education. In this lesson I learned this, in that lesson I learned that. A second part of the book is lessons for the reader on melody, harmony, and rhythm. In the melody lessons he discusses why a particular melody in classical music is laid out the way it is and how that affects the music. The point I remember from the harmony lessons is that while melodies are unique to their composition the underlying harmony is universal (at least in Western music). In the rhythm sections he discusses how a shift in emphasis can change a phrase. To me, someone into classical music and composing, this was all fascinating. Through the book Denk says little about his love life. He mentions dating women and kicking men out of his bed at 2 am. Only at the end, when he’s striking out on his own and somewhere around the age of 30, does he mention falling in love, and then seems to name that person (if I read it right) only in the acknowledgments. And that name is male. His website bio and his Wikipedia pages do not mention life partners. Perhaps his life partner is his piano. I’m now working through the appendix, where Denk discusses and recommends recordings of the music he worked on in the various music lessons. I suppose I should have paused my reading to listen to what was being discussed, but I didn’t. So now while listening I wonder what was discussed with the piece. An Associated Press article posted to Daily Kos reported the death of Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. She was suffering from dementia when she died at 93. Some of the highlights of her time on the Court: She was appointed to the court in 1981. In 1989 she refused to allow states to outlaw most abortions. In 1992 she was part of the majority that upheld the core of Roe. And, the black mark on her record, she joined the majority that ended the disputed 2000 election and put GW Bush in the White House. She retired in 2006 – and was replaced by Samuel Alito. Jeff Singer of Kos Elections wrote of O’Connor’s time in elected office. She was a state senator in Arizona starting in 1969. In 1974 she was elected to the Maricopa County Superior Court. She turned down a chance to run for Arizona governor in 1978. In 1979 she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals, which gave her a position to be available for the Supreme Court two years later. A week ago Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Hunter Biden was subpoenaed by the Republicans of the House Oversight Committee. They were trying to dig up dirt on something shady between Hunter and his dad. Hunter said, sure I’ll come testify – if the hearing is public. The committee chair Jame Comer refused. Rep Jamie Raskin called out Comer and crew saying in part:

What an epic humiliation for our colleagues and what a frank confession that they are simply not interested in the facts and have no confidence in their own case or the ability of their own Members to pursue it. After the miserable failure of their impeachment hearing in September, Chairman Comer has now apparently decided to avoid all Committee hearings where the public can actually see for itself the logical, rhetorical and factual contortions they have tied themselves up in.

Hunter of Kos reported that Fox News agreed the testimony should be behind closed doors. Michelle Tafoya said behind closed doors allows lawmakers “to get to the heart of the matter” and “get some truth” and “without all the grandstanding.” Hmm, when do these Republicans avoid grandstanding? What upsets the Republicans is that Hunter wants to tell his side of the story after years of their smears. What is important to Fox News is not the truth but the way Fox News can substitute what they want their viewers to think. In another post I read, but didn’t save, the last time a Democrat testified to these Republicans behind closed doors they released their “summary” quite quickly, which generated many news stories and, days later, released the transcript. Strange that the transcript had little in common with the summary, but it was then old news and few bothered to read it. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community reported that since Roe was overturned the number of abortions nationwide has gone up. The increase is only 0.2%, but it is still up. Yes, in many states the number of abortion has dropped to zero. The people in these states who can’t afford to travel don’t get the abortion they would have before. Yes, there are people who traveled for their abortions, but that doesn’t influence the overall count. What makes the difference is in the states were abortions were kept legal many of the laws restricting access were overturned. Sumner reported that X, formerly Twitter, might soon die. Recently Elon Musk wrote an endorsement of an antisemitic post. More advertisers pulled out. Musk tossed an F-bomb in their direction – yeah, that will convince them to return – and blamed them for his failures. Then he vowed to not rescue the company he bought for $44 billion (now worth less than $19 billion 13 months later).

Elon Musk apologized for one post. But advertisers didn’t leave the site formerly known as Twitter because of one post. They left because Musk gutted the site’s moderation teams, welcomed those who spread hate and lies, repeatedly demonstrated that he was always ready to believe a racist conspiracy theory, and showed he would make a threat at the drop of a hat. ... Musk already admitted that his site is doomed without advertisers. Then he drove a final stake through the idea of any of those advertisers returning. Then he vowed not to keep X alive with more of his own cash. All that’s left is the construction of a post-mortem mythology in which Musk complains that he tried to save free speech with $44 billion and his valuable time but that the horrible wokeism (or cancel culture, or whatever boogeyman the right wing invents next) just wouldn’t let him. Anyway, get ready for the funeral.

Didn’t Musk buy Twitter with a great deal of borrowed money? Is he going to pay them back or stiff them?