jakelafort

BTW, I hope that no one draws from any of my posts the idea that I harbor a hatred of Jews. I grew up with Jews as classmates and friends. They were friends of the family as well. And nobody makes a better corned beef on rye than a Jewish delicatessen! I can’t say I’ve had a lot of Muslims in my life, though the ones I’ve run into have been…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
I would say, this is little different than blanket calling members of an entire religion “people of death”, something that still utterly turns my stomach, when I think about it.

How about referring to Islam as “the Religion of Peace”? You know…when you mean the exact opposite. (No, I’m not saying you do that, but I know someone who does.)

I see I never finished the last sentence in the top post. I think my cat was bothering me for her lunch and that line was below the composition window. So, I should have either deleted the last line of finished it this way rather than going ahead and saving it:

Anyway, Harvard’s president is responding to criticism with the age old tactic of…[Read more]

I would say any answer than “no” is ghastly. Calling for a genocide against a people (outside of some ill thought absurdity, bad humour or thought experiment) is inciting violence, hate speech and extremely dangerous. I am aghast at her answer. It is at the very least, in the grey zone of anti-semitism, if not symbolic of a lax attitude towards…[Read more]

Unless the Democrats put up someone more electable than Biden, and if Trump isn’t sent to prison before the election, we seem to be doomed to be like the Germans under Hitler. Speak up and go to prison or your grave, emigrate, or be good little compliant Nazis.

The next song works well, as reacted to by Anna, a favorite of mine now. I love the first, beautiful style of the singer, but not the second style. Anna’s reaction to it smoothed out the experience for me, and I got to learn something in spite of my dislike of it. The instrumentalists are also highly skilled and make the song great, too. This is…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Here, one of the masters, Rick Beato, analyzes what he says is the most complex pop song of all time.

When I heard that song many years ago, I had no idea there were so many chords, as I assumed they were the same bunch of chords repeated throughout. Rick put up another video about this song maybe a year or two ago, in teacher mode,…[Read more]

All the Times Israel Has Rejected Peace With Palestinians

Talk of a Trump Dictatorship Charges the American Political Debate. (Today’s NYT)

Am I sounding lika Chicken Little-style conspiracy theorist here? If I am, you might consider who else is sounding the alarm. One of them is Trump himself, in his own words:

It’s starting to look, from the polls, that unless Trump is kept off the ballot in several states, especially battleground states, he WILL be elected President in 2024.

In the past, he has threatened to form a third party if not nominated. Well, he’s going to be nominated by effectively turning the GOP itself into a third party which bears little…[Read more]

Prince Eric and Princess Ivanka.

Oh my God! What a fabulous room! Are all these your guitars?

@ Robert

More useful to success than IQ is at least a healthy dash of psychopathy, the tendency to use, exploit, and betray others to reach one’s goals.

I did a supervised IQ test in 1990 and did another one in 2020 with the same organization. I scored one extra point the second time but took about 10 minutes longer to complete it.

@Robert – In my head I have Black Francis and Trent Reznor in the same space. Not all the time but I think their creativity and vocal techniques overlap. You don’t get them unless you spend the time listening closely to them. You also have to be a very good musician and understand more than just the rudiments of music to play music like that. It…[Read more]