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Weekend News Digest

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 07 November 2009 04:00:05 PM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Weekend News Digest is an Open ThreadNow with U.S. News. 33 Story Final.From Yahoo News Top Stories1 G20 wants 'ambitious' Copenhagen talks, but gives no figuresby Katherine Haddon, AFP16 mins agoST ANDREWS, Scotland (AFP) - G20 countries committed[...]

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Sunday Classics preview: A man, a river, and
music that makes us all Czech

post from DownWithTyranny! on 07 November 2009 04:00:00 PM. © DownWithTyranny!

by Ken

Tomorrow we're going to be dealing with the whole of Smetana's Má Vlast (My Country). We're going to hear its six movements played by the Czech Philharmonic, divvied up among three conductors. For technical reasons, those conductors won't include Karel An?erl (1908-1973), the orchestra's principal conductor from 1950 to 1968. The technical reasons are that while I just bought the CD transfer in Supraphon's An?erl Gold Edition, I don't know what I did with it. Oh, it's here somewhere. I just don't know where.

So I thought tonight we'd do a quick celebration of the maestro, who was 42 when he became principal conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. We talked last night about his countryman Rafael Kubelik, who left the country after the democratic government was seized by the coaltion government's Communist members. Kubelik's self-imposed exile lasted 42 years, until the fall of the Communist government. Happily, despite severely impaired health, he lived to make an emotional return in 1990.

Not so for Karel An?erl. When the Soviet Union crushed the Prague Spring political liberalization of Alexander Dub?ek in August 1968, An?erl already had commitments to conduct the Toronto Symphony. Although he returned for concerts during the 1969 Prague Spring festival, he accepted an invitation to become music director of the Toronto Symphony.

Here he is rehearsing Smetana's Vltava (The Moldau) with the Toronto Symphony:

And here's the performance that resulted:

Slipped out of tomorrow's post, here is a program note on Vltava by W. A. Chislett:

Smetana appended an unusually detailed programme to the score of Vltava, and follows it very closely. The sources of the river are two small springs, one warm and swift (suggested by the flutes) and the other icy cold and slow (suggested by the clarinets). They are united into a small stream, and here the strings and oboe join in and give us for the first time the rich Vltava theme, which is said to derive from a folksong. The stream dancdes and chatters in the sunlight, passes through dark forests where a hunt is in progress, and as it widens in the plains there are wedding festivities on its banks. By moonlight the water nymphs disport themselves in the river and then the turbulent rapids of St. John are reached. After passing through the gorge of St. John, the Vltava is a wide and mighty river, rolling majestically towards Prague, and its lapping of the great Vy?ehrad rock is suggested by a reference to the main theme of the earlier work. The river finally fades into the distance.

Note: VAI has a 6:10 non-imbeddable promotional clip from its video issue of the Moldau rehearsal and performance.

SUNDAY CLASSICS POSTS

Here is the current list.
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Have You Heard the One About Torture

post from Firedoglake on 07 November 2009 03:59:17 PM. © Firedoglake

I didn?t think it needed saying, but obviously it does: Having to sit through a half-day?s worth of partisan wrangling, where you have access to water, food, staff, and the warm glow of TV cameras is not worse than (or even akin to) years of indefinite[...]

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Stupak Amendment Fight (Sixth Update)

post from Open Left - Front Page on 07 November 2009 03:47:54 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

As you have probably heard by now, Bart Stupak's amendment to prevent any insurance plan in the[...]

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Stupak Amendment Fight (11th Update)

post from Open Left - Front Page on 07 November 2009 03:47:54 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

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Hoyer: 'You will have coverage that you can
depend upon'

post from Everyday Citizen on 07 November 2009 03:20:55 PM. © Everyday Citizen

U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) signaled yesterday that it is his expectation[...]

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And even more bank closings

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 07 November 2009 03:19:00 PM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

Silly bankers. They should have sold out to one of the big players on Wall Street. They would still be in action and flush with cash.

Regulators on Friday shut banks in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and California, bringing the number of bank failures this year to 120 amid the struggling economy and a cascade of defaults on loans.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over United Commercial Bank in San Francisco, with $11.2 billion in assets and $7.5 billion in deposits. East West Bancorp Inc., parent company of East West Bank based in Pasadena, Calif., is buying all of the deposits and most of the failed bank's assets.

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I want it too, but......

post from field negro on 07 November 2009 03:18:00 PM. © field negro

I see his O ness was doing his best James Brown imitation today as he said "please, please, please" to dumbocratic members of congress while asking them to vote for this historic health care reform bill. Now, I must admit, I am no wonk when it comes to these things. I hate reading voluminous documents, -I am a trial lawyer, not a corporate one- and I sure as hell hate the byzantine way in which folks in Washington legislate. What I do know is that I want this health care reform bill to pass, because I have a fundamental belief in every citizen having the right to have affordable health care. And I really do believe that insurance companies care more about profit margins than they do people. And, unlike what conservatives and their minions would have you believe, I believe that more government is actually a good thing. I elected them, they use my money to do things, and they provide services that I would rather not do without.
Now, having said all of that, someone sent me an e-mail today that has me a little troubled. I am blogging about it because I am hoping that some of you folks -who might have actually read all of the bill- who are smart enough to have the goods on how things really work in Washington, can help me to understand the following:
"Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain ?acceptable health insurance coverage? and who choose not to pay the bill?s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
In response to the JCT letter, Camp said: ?This is the ultimate example of the Democrats? command-and-control style of governing ? buy what we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.?
Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:
?H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.? [page 1] - - - - - - - - - -
?If the government determines that the taxpayer?s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply?? [page 2] - - - - - - - - - -
?Criminal penalties Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual: ? Section 7203 ? misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
? Section 7201 ? felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.? [page 3]
When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties. The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.
?The Senate Finance Committee had the good sense to eliminate the extreme penalty of incarceration. Speaker Pelosi?s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates"
Now I know that the rethugs are getting desperate, and that they are going to spin this thing in a way most unfavorable to Pelosi and company. But if it is a fact that this provision is in Pelosi's bill, and this portion of the bill is not amended in the Senate, it would be very troubling for the kid. "$250,000 in fines and five years in prison is a bit much. I love the government except when they are being draconian on everyday people. Fines? Maybe. Prison? No.
Get at me folks and let me know what you think of this.
I know what I think, but then again I am not as smart as some of you when it comes to this stuff.

*h/t Hugh O.

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Midday open thread

History is being made today in more ways than one:

Rep. Dingell to preside over House for first time since 1965 Medicare vote. Democrats wavering on the health care bill will have their heart-strings tugged by the man overseeing today's planned vote: Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the Dean of the House of Representatives and the longest-serving member in history.

Dingell's late father, also a congressman, introduced the first bill to provide national health insurance in 1933, and his son has continued a tradition started by his father by introducing health care legislation at the beginning of every session of Congress.

Rep. Dingell last led debate on a vote on April 8, 1965, the day the House passed legislation creating Medicare, according to his office.

At long last, someone in the traditional media names the NY-23 race for what it was: In a Solidly Republican District, Disaster for the National Party.

The White House this morning released a statement announcing that the President and First Lady will be traveling to Fort Hood for a memorial service this coming Tuesday.

Will you read this post?

Face it, says Bill Scher, we are a center-left nation.

Lori at Feminsting has a thoughtful essay on what it means when presidencies are viewed as partnerships between two gifted spouses, one of them unpaid and unofficial.

James Fallows on the meaningless of the Fort Hood shootings:

In the saturation coverage right after the events, the "expert" talking heads are compelled to offer theories about the causes and consequences. In the following days and weeks, newspapers and magazine will have their theories too. Looking back, we can see that all such efforts are futile. The shootings never mean anything. Forty years later, what did the Charles Whitman massacre "mean"? A decade later, do we "know" anything about Columbine? There is chaos and evil in life. Some people go crazy. In America, they do so with guns; in many countries, with knives; in Japan, sometimes poison.

We know the emptiness of these events in retrospect, though we suppress that knowledge when the violence erupts as it is doing now. The cable-news platoons tonight are offering all their theories and thought-drops. They've got to fill time. I wish they could stop. As the Vietnam-era saying went, Don't mean nothing.

BlueGal has an excellent take on the anxiety created by the educational crapshoot in this country after she attends a meeting for parents interested in getting their kids in the highly desirable magnet schools in her district.

Newborns cry with an accent, study finds.

John Cole on that old-time liberal media canard:

I seriously do not get this country. The subservience to the Republicans by the media at least made sense when they were in the majority and held the Presidency in 2001. But this is 2009, the Republicans have been routed electorally for the past few years, everything the Republican party believed in failed miserably the last eight years and they have been exposed as total frauds, they released a budget with no numbers on April Fools day, they have been whipping up teabaggers and gun nuts into a froth for months and screaming about death panels because they have no ideas or solutions, and when they finally do release their health care "plan," it totally and completely sucks. It is nothing but fail, fail, fail, from the GOP, they just lost two more seats in the house, they are going through a horrible (yet delicious) civil war, yet according to the media, everything is bad news for Democrats.....

I can’t tell what is a bigger joke- the Republicans, or our failed media experiment. Three decades of screaming liberal media bias is about the only smart long-term thing republicans have done in my lifetime.

Check out how diet affects weight around the world in an interactive graphic.

A 140-million-year-old spider web is found preserved as a fossil on an English beach.

Survey says file sharers are big buyers too.

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Marsha Blackburn Claims Health Care Bill is
"Sacrificing the Future of Our Children and Grandchildren"

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Marsha Blackburn does a good job of turning into a drama queen when it suits her, doesn't she? During the debate on the House floor over the health care bill being voted on today, Blackburn railed on about who's going to pay for this. I want to know when she's ever asked the same question about paying for war funding?