Author: hanni

Music and art in general are things that really only people can create – they are abstract forms of expression, useless really.  In and of themselves they are not destructive – unless we want to quibble about oil paint poisoning the painter, too much loud music damaging the ears, dance affecting the joints or writing causing blindness. Words and visual arts can incite hate (though I would argue once it is intended by the artist to affect the outcome of something other than thought, it is no longer art – art is about reflection and about communication – it can be beautiful and it can be ugly.  I would argue that we need to separate the art from the artist as well – for instance with Wagner, since his art was not intended to incite, nor did it).  
Music and poetry are special – they are not tangible and cannot be locked away from the world in private collections.   Music is even more unique, more abstract – it cannot be understood visually or verbally, but it plays into our emotion, our memories and it can be seen in our minds.  We can understand it.  We can understand 3 or 4 or 5 different instruments playing entirely different, even opposing or contradicting pieces, yet communicating to create a complete piece of music in harmony, just as we can understand the written word with different lines for each character that come together and form a play.

Music is a very personal thing, and the one thing I can truly enjoy in these times.  It has the ability to carry me out of this plane and into another.  I primarily listen to classical and baroque – the conversations between the instruments have become more and more important to me, some folk here and there – and rarely Rock.  In my youth I listened to much more of it, and I remember a lot of it fondly – Jethro Tull, The Doors, oodles of Eurotrash (Europeans back me up – please! And for the record no – not Boney M or Bucks Fizz).

My husband just introduced my daughter to Hendrix – which has become her number one request when we drive somewhere.  (I can’t stand Hendrix – sorry).   Though I will concede there is art in contradiction without coming together to make sense – to me chaos.

Classical music can be a strange thing, since the composer and the piece are at the mercy of the conductor and to a lesser extent the orchestra (approx 85 people), or in chamber music with the musicians.   I’ve heard performances, with pretty well known conductors that have been mind-bogglingly painful to listen to.   I can’t stand von Karajan, probably considered the greatest conductor in the last half of the 20th century.  He was technically brilliant – unequaled, no argument, but he lacked passion and feeling – he was entirely cold.  Though I would consider Mozart the most brilliant composer ever, I listen to much more Schubert and Bach – primarily because the performances I have are at the very least above average, if not exemplary.  

One of the most flawless recordings I have ever heard is a live/analog recording of Schubert’s Unfinished: Furtwängler with the Berlin, 1953.  I also have a soft spot for Jacqueline du Pré and Glenn Gould and their standards of perfection.  I have an immense aversion to things like: 20 greatest hits of the classical world performed by an orchestral equivalent of Musac.  

I should also mention the Zulu chanting, as seen in the film Zulu (note: not on CD version) was one of the most intense performances that I’ve ever heard.  Hope they never make a remake – I can just imagine a digital army chanting.

What do you guys like, or is music even important to you?  Any recommendations – or favorite pieces?    

Do ballet and physics mix – thoughts?

For those of you unfamiliar with Euro News, No Comment is the section that just plays video footage without commentary.  It can be anything from a sea turtle rescue to war footage.  I have always enjoyed this part of the news greatly, and miss it enormously (since the internet version is harder to see).  

If you have Real Player (free) you can access (in rather poor quality) these clips here.  (They are short clips and don’t take much time.)

In a similar vein, though not dealing with today’s events, I thought I would post this.

So, no comment….

We all know about the Catholics, after all the media has taken an interest (as it should) – and I would maintain that this was done primarily to deflect the attention away from Iraq.  After all stories of child abuse, more often than not sexual, abound among religious organizations, yet why did they just pick the one organization.  My guess is that, foreign rule and anti-Catholic sentiment aside, it is the biggest one and therefore had the ability to occupy the news ad infinitum, which it did.  Yet other instances occur with alarming regularity, which are little more than a fleeting blip in the media universe.

What is most sickening within these moral bastions is that victims are not allowed to discuss abuse within their own organizations, let alone the outside world.  Those that do are punished.

Often it’s schools that provide a safe haven for the perpetrators, especially when the children in question have had troubled lives to begin with.

These cases are among almost all Christian faiths from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, to the Baptists, the Anglicans, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, etc, etc…  I have my computer full of this stuff.

Somehow they manage to get away with this, with their immoral leaders trying to force their regressive culture onto the rest of us – encouraging violence against those that disagree.  Even if a lot of this is in the public domain, it is still hushed by the media.  I would go so far as to say the media is criminally negligent.

It’s time we use their tactics against them.  We need to break them by getting them into the news on a regular basis.  We need to picket their facilities, and draw attention to their crimes until they are entirely discredited.  Until then, let’s just say they’re the ones with the momentum.

Emmanuel Schools are the British version of our very own Christian Colleges.  A little about the founder Sir Peter Vardy:

His use of English and the depth of his knowledge put him in good company.  A Theologian founding a religious school is at least excusable, but a car salesman?  A bit about the schools:

And a bit from today’s Independent, which had me looking up this guy in the first place:

Is that intellectual diversity – Tony?

What does it mean to be liberal?   I am only curious because I see so many opinions here and at Kos from people who are liberals, and in many ways they conflict.  I’ll tell you what it means to me.  First I want to tell you a story:

WWII: My family were mostly Marxists, intellectuals, working people, with one or two hard core Stalinists.  One family member ran off with a SS soldier – but that’s another story.   My great uncle, a decorated soldier from WWI, who was severely shell shocked by the experience and was a drifter who stayed with various family members at different times or else in the park, was picked up by the Nazi’s and never heard from again.  My father was conscripted into and later managed to desert from the army.  There was a lot of hunger and a lot of hiding.  At the end of it all the Russians were the first to arrive.  After months of hiding in the basements because of the bombing the soldiers finally came.  My father (17 at the time) was pinned against the wall with a gun to his head, while the rest of the family had to hand over everything they owned.  Then there was looting and rape throughout the city.  When the Americans finally came they were generous and civilized.  (Well, they paid for their sex with food, anyway.)  My father became staunchly pro American after this, even marrying one.  He gave up his Communist roots and became a liberal.

I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s in a carefree age (where I was), and for the life of me I never understood what he meant by feeling a collective guilt for what happened at the time.  I’d sit up with him until late into the night arguing that he was not to blame for the murder, mayhem and misery caused by the Nazi’s – he barely survived himself.  He tried to explain to me that when the society you are in devalues the life of a group of people, in hindsight there is much guilt and shame for the things you didn’t do.  Even though this war doesn’t affect my neighbors, I think I finally get it.  After all I contribute to this war, albeit unwillingly.

So, in a nutshell, to me being liberal means to value people above all else.  

Athenian’s diary the other day struck a nerve with me.  (Her perfect breasts.)  Not the subject of the diary, but that the obvious bad guy in the discussion was overlooked – the pharmaceutical industry.   Bear with me here, since this is my first diary.

I have a very difficult 7yr old.  Actually, a very smart, extremely active child that when engaged is a wonderful person to be around.  With the classroom enrollment approaching 25 kids the teachers however feel unable to manage her.  She gets bored and finds things to do.  So in effect we got the speech in first grade, from the experts (teachers) that perhaps she needed to be put on medication.  Exact words here.  My husband told them to take it themselves, and we walked out.  Afterwards I decided to talk to other parents and find out more, and I counted 4 kids my daughter knows that were put on Ritalin between the ages of 4 and 6, and are still on the drug.  Three of them were put on the drug by their pediatrician, and only one saw a psychologist.

So I decided to look into this drug (and others like it) some more and came up with some rather shocking findings.  One of the first things I found was that is not recommended for kids under 6, since it alters the brain chemistry and the brain does the most growing between 0 and 6 – however it keeps on growing throughout the teenage years.  Secondly it is a class 2 narcotic????   It is in the same class as, and affects the same areas of your brain as cocaine, speed etc, and in the same class as opiates.  In other words, not only is it damaging, it is also addictive.  Here is perhaps a better definition: (Please forgive the unprofessional look).

Julian Whitaker M.D. –  “Ritalin: Legally Sanctioned “Speed”  Ritalin is the number one prescription drug for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This drug has such tremendous potential for abuse that it is classified as a controlled substance by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ritalin is an amphetamine (in street jargon, “speed”) with a lengthy list of side effects, including nervousness, insomnia, nausea, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, dizziness, palpitations, headaches, irregular heart rhythms, and psychic dependence — in short, addiction.  In fact, Ritalin’s appeal to drug users and its potential for abuse are so high that US House Judiciary Chair Henry Hyde (R-IL) recently filed a request with the General Accounting Office (GAO) to conduct an investigation of Ritalin abuse in public schools. In addition, class action lawsuits have been filed in Texas, California and New Jersey charging Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, maker of Ritalin, with conspiracy to create the psychiatric disorder known as ADHD in order to fuel the market for their product.”

Now why, with just this basic information, would you give this to children?   The side effects alone are enough to put me off.   Furthermore, the manufacturer claims that these kids are less likely to abuse drugs in their teenage year – forgive the obvious here – this is while they are still high on legal drugs.  The other side however claims that there is an increase in drug abuse among young adults, when they are less likely to be on the weaker prescription given to them under the supervision of their parents.  A controlled experiment in Canada several years back, and I’m still trying to find the source so I won’t quote percentages here, gave one set of kids a placebo and concluded that there was no change in them.  The other set received Ritalin, and the doctors found that they experienced additional diagnoses and additional medication at an alarming percentile.  That is to say several were furthermore diagnosed with depression and given Prozac, while others were diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and so on.

The US leads the world in drugging children.  Now I have to ask why?  What makes children here “sicker” than in other parts of the world – or are we being sold an easy way to quiet our kids?