Said troll arrived just as Meade and I were leaving to go to the theater, another drive out to Spring Green to the American Players Theater, this time to re-see "Travesties," that Tom Stoppard play that has Vladimir Lenin and James Joyce as characters and uses elements of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest." We saw the Wilde play on Friday, dodging lightning. And that made the second viewing of "Travesties" more different from the first than most re-seeings. Re-seeings are always different though, in good ways. Anything I like enough to see a second time I prefer to see with the experience of having seen it before. The surprises are gone, and undistracted by predicting and looking for surprises, you notice everything that's been planted along the way to make the coming surprises surprising. It's at least different. Do you agree that it's better?
Anyway, I left moderation off and you didn't take the bait. Good work! That's all you need to do. Sometimes I put moderation on and exclude the trolls, and sometimes I post-moderate. If you like the free flow that comes from post-moderation — which is never for viewpoint, only to exclude a couple well-known trolls, outright spam, no-content ejaculations, and off-topic material at the beginning of the thread — then help me the way you did last night. Sometimes I put moderation on to block some of those things I prefer to post-moderate when I'm not going to be around to moderate, which I might have done last night, but then you wouldn't have had all that conversation about Ted Cruz calling Obama a "kitty cat."
Here's what Lenin's wife says about her husband in "Travesties":
Ilyich wrote very little about art and literature, generally, but he enjoyed it. We sometimes went to concerts and the theatre, even the music hall – he laughed a lot at the clowns – and he was moved to tears when he saw La Dame aux Camélias in London in 1907.... Ilyich admired Tolstoy, especially War and Peace, but, as he put it in an article in 1908 on Tolstoy’s eightieth birthday… "On the one hand we have the great artist; on the other hand we have the landlord obsessed with Christ. On the one hand the strong and sincere protester against social injustice, and on the other hand the jaded hysterical sniveller known as the Russian intellectual beating his breast in public and wailing, I am a bad wicked man, but I am practising moral self-perfection. I don’t eat meat, I now eat rice cutlets. Tolstoy reflected the stored-up hatred and the readiness for a new future – and at the same time the immature dreaming and political flabbiness which was one of the main causes for the failure of the 1905 revolution."... However, he respected Tolstoy’s traditional values. The new art seemed somehow alien and incomprehensible to him. Clara Zetkin, in her memoirs, remembers him bursting out... "We are good revolutionaries but we seem to be somehow obliged to keep up with modern art. Well, as for me I’m a barbarian."Okay, you barbarians and kitty cats. Surprise me and don't surprise me.
पोस्ट्स
११६ टिप्पण्या:
To totally confuse the matter, here's a cat fighting off a Russian bear.
But notice the bear gets the bag of garbage in the end.
I don't go to plays very often. I did see "All my sons" a few years ago. I like opera but the Orange County opera company did not survive 2008 and the LA Opera is too far, Lots of real estate developers in Newport Beach.
I do reread favorite novels and even some nonfiction.
Missed the troll.
I see such comments as epiphnomena, Althouse, which shore is a purdy, fancy word.
That is why Greek plays and Shakespeare plays are so good. We know what is going to happen and can focus on the actors nuances and timing. I remember being surprised that Hamlet done right is really a very funny, dark comedy, although most list it as a Tragedy.
traditionalguy said...
That is why Greek plays and Shakespeare plays are so good
Uh, weren't all those plays written by DWEM's?
And we all know we aren't supposed to give much weight to those guys.
Except for Marx.
He's totally swell.
Talk about one over-represented DWEM!
The outsider trolls are easy to spot, and ignore, by their over the top partisan stuff. They are boring; and being boring violates the first commandment of Althousiana.
Unlike Obama, we take border enforcement duties seriously.
Michael K said...
I like opera but the Orange County opera company did not survive 2008
Yet another victim of the Bush presidency.
Re: "no-content ejaculations"
Vasectomy?
EDH,
Unfortunately, our kitty cat Obama is seen here, fighting off questions from reporters and taking criticism from his inner circle of advisers.
In the Twenties the Communists opposed "modern art" i.e Picasso, Kandinsky which we think of as "revolutionary." They required of art a kind of "realism" which featured smiling peasants and hydro electric dams, a realism that makes Norman Rockwell look revolutionary. As far as I know no one has ever really explained why 20th century revolutionary leaders disliked 20th century revolutionary art while 20th century revolutionary artists liked 20th century revolutions.
However that all may be, I like to think of Lenin in Hell being forced to watch Hello Kitty while Hitler in an adjacent cell is screening Mickey Mouse.
Wildswan,
Marianne Moore once said something to the effect of making sure your imaginary gardens have real toads in them.
As a worker, when I pass by those posters, I feel rekindled, as it is my struggle, our struggle, I see represented there.
I know soon me, you, and Robert Cook will control the means of production, so it's all worth it.
The first viewing (or reading) is to discover the linear mystery. Subsequent visits allow the interwoven mysteries to be untangled.
A corollary to this is:
The first viewing is to see if Scarlett Johansson is nude.
If she IS nude, then the second viewing is to watch her being nude again.
@wildswan
Yes, that made me think go Tom Wolfe, "The Painted Word":
"Left politicians said, in effect: You artists claim to be dedicated to an antibourgeois life. Well, the hour has now come to stop merely posing and to take action, to turn your art into a weapon. Translation: propaganda paintings. The influence of Left politics was so strong within the art world during the 1930s that Social Realism became not a style of the period but the style of the period. Even the most dedicated Modernists were intimidated. Years later Barnett Newman wrote that the “shouting dogmatists, Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, and Trotskyite” created “an intellectual prison that locked one in tight.” I detect considerable amnesia today on that point. All best forgotten! Artists whose names exist as little more than footnotes today— William Gropper, Ben Shahn, Jack Levine— were giants as long as the martial music of the mimeograph machines rolled on in a thousand Protest Committee rooms. For any prominent critic of the time to have written off Ben Shahn as a commercial illustrator, as Barbara Rose did recently, would have touched off a brawl. Today no one cares, for Social Realism evaporated with the political atmosphere that generated it. By 1946 the scene had cleared for the art of our day— an art more truly Literary than anything ever roared against against in the wildest angers of the Fauvists and Cubists."
ARM, does local theater really deserve money that could be going toward food stamps? Discuss.
"Anything I like enough to see a second time I prefer to see with the experience of having seen it before."
Not to be picky or I just don't get it, but you lost me there. How do you know something is worth seeing the second time if you never saw it the first time?
As for the troll bait, it likes bull fighting. Morse often than not the toreador wins but not always. Another problem with trolls is that like socialist realist art while mostly crap sometimes the crap is sort of good.
The real problem isn't the trolls as such, it's the almost irresistible urge to engage them which results in the thread-jacks. Perhaps the commentators ought to try to moderate themselves in response to the trolls. I know it will hard for me but one can try.
From William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich":
"To Hitler, who considered himself a genuine artist despite his early failures as one in Vienna, all modern art was degenerate and senseless. In Mein Kampf he had delivered a long tirade on the subject, and one of his first acts after coming to power was to “cleanse” Germany of its “decadent” art and to attempt to substitute a new “Germanic” art. Some 6,500 modern paintings— not only the works of Germans such as Kokoschka and Grosz but those of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso and many others— were removed from German museums.
"What was to replace them was shown in the summer of 1937 when Hitler formally opened the “House of German Art” in Munich in a drab, pseudoclassic building which he had helped design and which he described as “unparalleled and inimitable” in its architecture. In this first exhibition of Nazi art were crammed some nine hundred works, selected from fifteen thousand submitted, of the worst junk this writer has ever seen in any country. Hitler himself made the final selection...
"In his speech— it was delivered on July 18, 1937— he laid down the Nazi line for “German art”:
"Works of art that cannot be understood but need a swollen set of instructions to prove their right to exist and find their way to neurotics who are receptive to such stupid or insolent nonsense will no longer openly reach the German nation. Let no one have illusions! National Socialism has set out to purge the German Reich and our people of all those influences threatening its existence and character… With the opening of this exhibition has come the end of artistic lunacy and with it the artistic pollution of our people….
"And yet some Germans at least, especially in the art center of Germany which Munich was, preferred to be artistically polluted. In another part of the city in a ramshackle gallery that had to be reached through a narrow stairway was an exhibition of “degenerate art” which Dr. Goebbels had organized to show the people what Hitler was rescuing them from. It contained a splendid selection of modern paintings— Kokoschka, Chagall and expressionist and impressionist works. The day I visited it, after panting through the sprawling House of German Art, it was crammed, with a long line forming down the creaking stairs and out into the street. In fact, the crowds besieging it became so great that Dr. Goebbels, incensed and embarrassed, soon closed it."
I wonder if it isn't a symptom of getting old, but I only seem to want to watch and read things I've already watched and read before. I just finished reading all twenty of Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin series for the fourth time.
When it comes to film, it's mostly comedies that bear watching again. I've probably seen Blazing Saddles and Dr. Strangelove fifteen times apiece. At some point the thrill you get from surprises is replaced by the old-friend feeling you get from the anticipated.
I am trying to watch more new stuff. I just started watching Sherlock after resisting it for a long time. I figured nothing that popular could be any good, but it's actually not bad.
I'm proud of being an early adopter of Breaking Bad, but you know what? I've spent an awful lot of time rewatching the show.
Re: "Perhaps the commentators ought to try to moderate themselves in response to the trolls. I know it will hard for me but one can try."
I pretend they are in a giant imaginary blender; I then flip the switch and GRR-GRR-GRR-GRR-SwOOSH!
One day I will have a giant blender for real.
Mark said...
does local theater
LOCAL THEATER!!! This was high art. The Orange County Opera Company, no less!!! I fully expect Michael K himself to arrive at any minute in high dungeon to defend the artistic qualities of this august company. I defer to his artistic judgements.
And, I would guess they folded due to lack of ticket sales during the Great Bush Recession.
" wildswan said...
In the Twenties the Communists opposed "modern art" i.e Picasso, Kandinsky which we think of as "revolutionary." They required of art a kind of "realism" which featured smiling peasants and hydro electric dams, a realism that makes Norman Rockwell look revolutionary. As far as I know no one has ever really explained why 20th century revolutionary leaders disliked 20th century revolutionary art while 20th century revolutionary artists liked 20th century revolutions."
Perhaps the revolutionary leaders saw what passes as modern art as being too abstract and therefore useless as political tools, while the artists saw the government as a source of a steady paycheck.
betamax3000 said...
Re: "Perhaps the commentators ought to try to moderate themselves in response to the trolls. I know it will hard for me but one can try."
I pretend they are in a giant imaginary blender; I then flip the switch and GRR-GRR-GRR-GRR-SwOOSH!"
Not bad, not bad at all. Add a large measure of dark rum and Coco Lopez along with ice and it becomes rather pleasant.
Sadly, I engaged the aforementioned troll once. Life is full of lessons. That was one.
Political art has changed a lot.
The Social realism of the Soviets fell apart the moment the lies and broken promises of communism became apparent. But in the best days of the old socialist/communist movements, even in art, there was a sincerity.
Consider Millet.
Leftism these days is no longer an honest ideology though. It is a sort of class warfare against the very people the old socialists sought to help. The class switch happened sometime in the 40's-50's.
It became something of an icon of the rentier/bureaucratic/academic class.
Sometimes I listen to the Beatles' White Album to appreciate the music; I then re-listen to hear it in context of Charles Manson's Revolutionary Theories. If Helter Skelter DOES finally come down I will be ready.
Don't feed the trolls; don't talk about the trolls.
And now I see you've removed the comment. So your discussing nothing. Seinfeld redux.
Drago, I visited Mrax's grave in London back in the 80's.
I may not have left it in the condition I found it, if you follow my stream (of thought)...
Another to look for as far as socialist realism is concerned is Ilya Repin.
"Volga Boatmen" is a dramatic illustration of life at the bottom.
There really isn't anything like that today. And if there were it wouldnt be "art".
Ann, if you liked "The Painted Word," may I suggest Clive James's "Cultural Amnesia"?
What if it's True, Man?" Guy says:
I know Charlie Manson was OUT THERE, man, but sometimes you gotta be far out to know what's gonna happen on the inside, you dig? I mean, maybe the Beatles didn't really know what they were saying, but the Universe did? Like, man, they were speaking in tongues for the Revolution -- real End Times shit! The Piggies they ate too much, and you know what comes after 'ate': Number Nine, man, Number Nine! What if it's True, Man?
What if it's True, Man?" Guy says:
Charlie Manson, a lot of people say he was crazy, but then how did he have so many happening chicks around him? How much do we REALLY know -- are you saying you can look into his Soul? Are you saying you REALLY understand Charlie? How do we know the Man isn't lying about Charlie the way he lies about everything? Maybe getting caught was all part of Charlie's plan: maybe Helter Skelter's gonna come down and Charlie'll be safe in Prison, just waiting to come out, hop in a dune buggy and Show the World the Way! What if it's True, Man?
What if it's True, Man?" Guy says:
Charlie Manson, how would he know to play the records backward if the Universe didn't tell him? The Universe IS Revolution, man, it is always waitin' to turn shit upside down! One day we're all just going to get out of our cars and go at it with crowbars and wrenches -- we're gonna do it in the Road, man! We're gonna do it in the Road! What if it's True, Man?
What if it's True, Man?" Guy says:
'Happiness is a Warm Gun': what the Hell was Charlie SUPPOSED to think after hearing that? Was he supposed to still want to 'hold your hand'? Hell, no! There might still be some of Charlie's people in the desert right now, collecting rifles and soup cans and just waiting on his Word, then: BAM! -- Bungalow Bill-Time! Real f**kin' Bungalow Bill-Time! What if it's True, Man?
About that troll, I thought he was just the latest convert to ISIS.
All modern art is NOT worthless, by any means. There is much that offers both substance and the chance to learn a new way of looking at the world.
On the other hand, there is a trainload of posturing crap as well, a phenomenon that I suspect is not unique to this era but is perhaps becoming more common in our technologically sophisticated time, since bad "art" becomes easier to produce with the readier availability of materials while good art still has to climb past those first steep steps of inspiration, genius and technical skill before materials ever become an issue.
It has been my experience (your mileage may vary)that the majority of the latter comes from government and foundation-subsidized grant-ho's, playing to the prejudices of bourgeois bureaucrats as though they were dilettante Medicis and Bourbons.
And the troll was so over the top I just blew him off like an asshole driving past my house with the sound system turned to 11.
What if it's True, Man?" Guy says:
The Man gave Charlie Manson a death sentence, then -- dig this -- they REVERSED it! Why would the Man do that unless they KNEW something? Maybe they knew that CHARLIE CAN'T DIE! They wouldn't want to be embarrassed, trying to kill a man that can't die, now would they? Then Charlie had Lennon killed for turning his back on the Revolution: there ain't no time for 'Watchin' the Wheels', man! And -- dig this -- Yoko is waiting for him! Yoko Ono is waiting for Charlie Manson to be Free so that they can rule, together: Manson-Ono Time! What if it's True, Man?
Hitler was also responsible for a migration of Modernist architects from Europe to America. Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and many other Bauhaus alumni settled in the US after the Nazis closed the school for being a bastion of Communist thought.
There's a great picture of the German pavilion facing the Russian pavilion at the 1937 World's Fair. Both buildings capture the prevailing architectural spirit in those countries at that time. The Nazis had adopted the more classical designs reminiscent of the Greek and Roman empires, while Russian architecture was in a progressively proletarian phase.
one of his first acts after coming to power was to “cleanse” Germany of its “decadent” art...
"Decadent" = "Cosmopolitan" = "Jewish". The same level of disdain in Soviet thought, especially once Stalin took control.
"Michael K said...
I like opera but the Orange County opera company did not survive 2008
Yet another victim of the Bush presidency."
Not all trolls have been banned apparently.
Michael K, good to see you've made it out of your 'high dungeon'.
"The outsider trolls are easy to spot, and ignore, by their over the top partisan stuff. They are boring; and being boring violates the first commandment of Althousiana."
I'm pretty sure some Oscar Wilde character says "The only unforgiveable sin is being boring." though I can't seem to find it. It seems to be attribute to Christopher Hitchens mother when googled.
What if it's True, Man?" Guy says:
Manson-Ono Time, man: THAT'S Helter Skelter! They're gonna stand naked on Top of the World and all those who gave them shit are gonna gnash their teeth and burn! Charlie and Yoko don't need no clothes, dig? When you are on Top of the World you can swing your wang in the wind however you damn well please, and you can choose who you gonna' piss on next, THAT's Revolution! You all are going to regret not believing in Charlie, people -- you're on the 'Nine List'. What if it's True, Man?
"I wonder if it isn't a symptom of getting old, but I only seem to want to watch and read things I've already watched and read before."
I agree and find myself enjoying them just as much as I did then.
I do enjoy some new things; a few movies. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was good. I do like some new novels, like Daniel Silva's, but I don't need excitement anymore.
I read a lot of history.
And I do ignore ARM.
"Michael K, good to see you've made it out of your 'high dungeon'."
Yes, but I am trapped in a low dungeon called "Obamaworld."
What if it's True, Man?" Guy says:
Charlie and Yoko, they're gonna write the Song that's gonna Unite the Whole WORLD, man, people in Russia and France and Africa will be singin' it, and you know who's gonna play drums on it? F**kin' Ringo Starr, man! Ringo Starr with a big 'X' carved right on his f**kin' forehead! Charlie knows how to do things RIGHT. What if it's True, Man?
Michael K said...
Not all trolls have been banned apparently.
So let's hear it from the horse's mouth. What event precipitated the demise of the Orange County Opera Company in 2008.
I'll give you a hint, average housing prices in Orange County had declined by 33% from their peak by 2008.
That fool Greenspan argues that no one really gets hurt when a bubble bursts. Yet here we have amongst us, our very own victim, he lost his local Opera Company.
betamax3000 said...
One day I will have a giant blender for real.
Like this?
ARM, what makes you think that the Orange County Opera Company was sunk by declining property values? People pay for support of opera (among other things) mainly out of current income, not net worth. And I think the housing market, in SD as well as most other places, has rebounded considerably since 2008.
Given the track record of government influence on the arts in Nazi Germany and the USSR, I am always somewhat amused by the implicit support given to the National Endowment of the Arts by left/liberal artists in this country. Artists like to pretend that they are independent thinkers. Do they seriously expect government to give them grants without expecting anything in return? Maybe they are simply OK with regurgitating the kind of propaganda the government expects.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
ARM, what makes you think that the Orange County Opera Company was sunk by declining property values? People pay for support of opera (among other things) mainly out of current income, not net worth.
Interesting point that has been dealt with extensively in the excellent book 'House of Debt'. Declines in wealth, not surprisingly, are invariably accompanied by declines in expenditure (consumption). If your house was worth 1.2 million two years ago and is now worth 800 million your retirement looks less secure and you start to save more. No opera tickets or donations for you.
The actual name was Opera Pacific.
Fingers of blame pointed in several directions. The economic downturn was the easiest culprit, but really it was just the last straw. The company had been feeling the pinch for several years - since 9/11 and the tech stock crash, in fact - and some people inside the company were surprised it lasted even this long. Throughout the summer it was touch and go whether or not the company would go through with its 23rd season. But throughout its life span, Opera Pacific was rarely on firm footing. Its financial structure was never that solid from the start.
"So let's hear it from the horse's mouth. What event precipitated the demise of the Orange County Opera Company in 2008. "
This is neither the time nor the place to let you hijack this thread.
Whatever their respective artistic merits, I would feel more comfortable in a society that sees itself reflected in the illustrations of Norman Rockwell rather than those of George Grosz.........Tolstoy raped several hundred, perhaps even more than that, , serf women on his own and adjoining estates. If you're going to bash Tolstoy, that's where to start.
""It's just tragic that there's not more support for opera in Orange County," Jones said on Tuesday, just minutes before leaving the office for the last time. Attendance was not really the problem, though that could have been improved. Jones said that the crucial issue was a lack of donors."
The opera company was always on the edge and, while my former partner donated enough to get his name on the Music Center wall, I was supporting several kids in college and did not have the disposable income. I retired after back surgery in 1993 and, while I love opera, I was not a "donor."
Orange County, while a well off suburb, has a much smaller base of rich people than LA. Obama is always tying up traffic in west LA on the way to rich lefty's homes. Crony capitalism pays much better than medicine.
Tolstoy is an odd case. In many ways he was a prototype of the modern effete leftist faddist. Orwell had their number in "Wigan Pier". On the other hand he had genuine experience with war, mass slaughter, personal danger, and the lower classes. He served at the siege of Sebastopol, which was a massively bloody foretaste of the trench warfare of WWI. I suspect he suffered from PTSD.
And " War and Peace" is what it is. Not the product of a lightweight.
"the opening of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, will be a casualty of this year's crisis on Wall Street. A limited circle of patrons has been unable to swing the $4 million to $5 million in donations needed to fund a typical season's budget"
So we are all in agreement then, the loss of the donation income stream due to the housing bubble and financial crisis killed off the plucky Opera Pacific. Yet another casualty of Bush's presidency.
Well heck as long as ARM is going to war over the evil Boosh causing the demise of the Orange County Opera, I'll throw a few chips on the table.
The San Diego Opera almost went under this last year; until a labor dispute was settled the upcoming Metropolitan Opera 201-2105 season was in doubt--without the settlement there would have been no Met this year. The Los Angeles Opera is struggling.
All of these things happened in the 6th year of the reign of Our Lightworker.
And in another equally glorious non sequitur, my old yellow dog will hit 14 years of age around Halloween this year, and she will most probably die before Obama leaves office.
ARM, as LBJ was wont to say to folks makig silly statements, "Don't P@#s on my leg and tell me t's rain."
The 2008 crash was caused by a lot of things and actions taken by a lot of people in previous administrations going back to Jimmy Carter. The bill ultimately comes due for pumping up a housing bubble financed in significant part by "liar loans" taken out by people who couldn't afford their mortgages.
Skeptical Voter said...
The San Diego Opera almost went under this last year; until a labor dispute was settled the upcoming Metropolitan Opera 201-2105 season was in doubt--without the settlement there would have been no Met this year. The Los Angeles Opera is struggling.
So what you are saying then is that under the glorious Obama regime opera lives on in New York, Los Angeles and San Diego enriching the lives of literally hundreds if not a thousand people. Yet under Bush we lost the innovative and plucky Opera Pacific of Orange County. Doesn't look good for Bush. This discussion has greatly deepened my sense of Michael K's loss and in some small way put me in touch with the millions of people who lost all of their life savings and were forced in bankruptcy by the Great Bush Recession.
Well heck as long as ARM is going to war over the evil Boosh causing the demise of the Orange County Opera,
A year ago at this time the Crimea and Donetsk were still part of the Ukraine and ISIS was still the "Junior Varsity".
If it weren't for Boosh the dead-enders like ARM wouldn't have any excuses at all for their stuttering fustercluck of a President.
Tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin, et al., are hostile to modern art because it presents new ways of looking at the world and varied means of expression. It requires unorthodoxy of thought to create and to appreciate. It excites the imagination. They do not want the imaginations of their subjects to be excited, or for there to be unorthodox means of expression or ways of looking at the world, as this (they fear) will stimulate independence of thought and will impede the indoctrination necessary to achieve a compliant populace. The purpose of Newspeak in 1984 was to erase the possibility of thinking heretical thoughts, and this is what real world tyrants wish, as well: to create a populace too fearful or indoctrinated to think or express (or act on) any heretical thoughts. (Jazz was also forbidden, as it excited not just the imagination but the emotions of its audience.)
"I'm pretty sure some Oscar Wilde character says "The only unforgiveable sin is being boring.""
I doubt it. The word "boredom" doesn't appear in my "Complete Works of Oscar Wilde." There are some "boring"s. I like: "[T]he only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life."
Maybe you're mixing Wilde up with Tennessee Williams and boringness with deliberate cruelty.
The Dodd-Frank (Fannie Mae's bought and paid for Congressional bag men) Recession, but thanks for playing, ARM.
When is President Ladies' Tee, or any of his fanboyz, for that matter, ever going to take ownership for ANYTHING that occurs in his watch?
A year and a half ago, the entire Ukraine was about to dump the EU and join the Russian Federation in an economic union. Now, Petro Poroshenko won the presidency running on a pro-European Union platform. Overall, which is the better situation for the west?
Er, I don't think that's why Hitler, Stalin et am disliked modern art.
That's what some people like to imagine but I doubt it.
I think rather that both were rather old fashioned in their aesthetics and not really plugged in to the intellectual roots of their respective ideologies. For the Russians, I recommend "Natasha's Dance", Orlando Figes.
It traces the roots and development of the arts in Russia, before and after the revolution. "Modern" art was big in Russia, even under the quite-as-bad-as-Stalin lot before him.
As for the Germans, I think that all was also a function of personality rather than ideology. The Italian fascists were as artistically avant garde as anyone has ever been.
furious_a said...
The Dodd-Frank (Fannie Mae's bought and paid for Congressional bag men) Recession,
This is probably my favorite bullshit winger argument. A junior senator and a representative brought down the US economy and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the President of the United States just stood by and let them wreak this havoc on the economy uninhibited.
For the record:
"Why did lenders suddenly shower less-creditworthy borrowers with trillions of dollars of credit? Mian and Sufi demonstrate this was enabled by the securitization of home mortgages by investment banks that did not seek federal guarantees from Fannie and Freddie—so called private-label securities, made possible by financial deregulation and the glut of cash in world markets in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. That private-label mortgage-backed securities were at the core of the housing meltdown is no longer in doubt"
From Tom Stoppard's "Travesties":
TRISTAN TZARA: As a Dadaist, I am the natural enemy of bourgeois art and the natural ally of the political left, but the odd thing about revolution is that the further left you go politically the more bourgeois they like their art.
HENRY CARR: There’s nothing odd about that. Revolution in art is in no way connected with class revolution. Artists are members of a privileged class. Art is absurdly overrated by artists, which is understandable, but what is strange is that it is absurdly overrated by everyone else.
AReasonableMan said...
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
ARM, what makes you think that the Orange County Opera Company was sunk by declining property values? People pay for support of opera (among other things) mainly out of current income, not net worth.
Interesting point that has been dealt with extensively in the excellent book 'House of Debt'. Declines in wealth, not surprisingly, are invariably accompanied by declines in expenditure (consumption). If your house was worth 1.2 million two years ago and is now worth 800 million your retirement looks less secure and you start to save more. No opera tickets or donations for you.
9/1/14, 1:28 PM "
It would appear that you are not very familiar with the OC. When push came to shove and both couldn't be saved, the Rolls Royce and Bentley dealerships had to be saved. The folks in the OC could always drive to LA for high culture if need be but getting your baby serviced, that needs to be local. LA is just too far for for that. Priorities man, priorities. As for OC property values, they seem to be back to where they were before the slump and then some. By the way did you know that according to economists The Great Bush Recession started in 2007 and ended before inauguration day 2009?
"Admirably, you talked about what I'd invited you to talk about"
Good commenters! Gooooood commenters Want a doggie biscuit?
AReasonableMan said...
Skeptical Voter said...
The San Diego Opera almost went under this last year; until a labor dispute was settled the upcoming Metropolitan Opera 201-2105 season was in doubt--without the settlement there would have been no Met this year. The Los Angeles Opera is struggling.
So what you are saying then is that under the glorious Obama regime opera lives on in New York, Los Angeles and San Diego enriching the lives of literally hundreds if not a thousand people. Yet under Bush we lost the innovative and plucky Opera Pacific of Orange County. Doesn't look good for Bush. This discussion has greatly deepened my sense of Michael K's loss and in some small way put me in touch with the millions of people who lost all of their life savings and were forced in bankruptcy by the Great Bush Recession.
9/1/14, 2:15 PM"
Actually the only thing that has happened is that the Fed has created yet another bubble which has once again propped up the stock market and the high end real estate market and the inevitable bust and market correction will occur during the next republican presidency.
@ Tyrone Slothrop 1:33
Thanks for making the effort to publish the facts on the Pacific Opera argument. The facts are much less fun than conjecture, but they do come in handy.
Even the Met Opera in NYC is in danger of closing due to lack of $. "I blame George W. Bush."
Personal opinion, based on long experience with business in California.
The US economy has been getting progressively burdened by regulation and bureaucracy. At one time, for instance, in a previous life, I was much involved in the machine tool business. That is the true rock of civilization, by the way, nothing modern exists without it. Anyway, in those days we had thriving high tech manufacturing going on in the South Bay and Los Angeles areas. Lots of highly skilled well equipped shops, each in a good way to becoming an American Mittelstand (the German one is still doing just fine). These are now almost all gone, driven out by every sort of pettifoggery you can imagine. So there really isnt much "real" manufacturing or other substantial production that can "come back" to end a recession. What was left then, for economic policy to do, but to create bubbles and keep them inflated?
Anyone could tell where this was going even in 1991.
"This discussion has greatly deepened my sense of Michael K's loss and in some small way put me in touch with the millions of people who lost all of their life savings and were forced in bankruptcy by the Great Bush Recession."
Well, the thread seems to be hijacked by the troll so: The housing bubble was caused by two things. Greenspan left interest rates too low for too long and Bush shares blame for leaving him in office. The same thing occurred in the 1920s and Bejamin Strong had the excuse that he died of tuberculosis in 1928. Greenspan lived too long.
Two, the second cause was The Community Reinvestment Act passed under Jimmy Carter and expanded by Bill Clinton.
they don’t explain the poor quality of these mortgages. For that we have to look to the government’s distortion of the mortgage finance system through the Community Reinvestment Act and the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The CRA was a plan to make poor people into middle class by making them look like middle class homeowners. Everybody knows if you own your home you are middle class.
Fanny and Freddie were also the pension plan for Democrats in government.
In a recent meeting with the Council on Foreign Relations, Barney Frank–the chair of the House Financial Services Committee and a longtime supporter of Fannie and Freddie–admitted that it had been a mistake to force homeownership on people who could not afford it. Renting, he said, would have been preferable. Now he tells us.
The first Democrat functionary to make millions from the bubble was Jim Johnson, who, in spite of no background in finance or banking or housing, became chairman of Fanny Mae.
a United States Democratic Party political figure, and the former CEO of Fannie Mae. He was the campaign manager for Walter Mondale's failed 1984 presidential bid and chaired the vice presidential selection committee for the presidential campaign of John Kerry. He briefly led the vice-presidential selection process for the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama.
About as well qualified as Obama.
Long-term pressure from Frank and his colleagues to expand home ownership connects government housing policies to both the housing bubble and the poor quality of the mortgages on which it is based. In 1992, Congress gave a new affordable housing “mission” to Fannie and Freddie, and authorized the Department of Housing and Urban Development to define its scope through regulations.
Shortly thereafter, Fannie Mae, under Chairman Jim Johnson, made its first “trillion-dollar commitment” to increase financing for affordable housing. What this meant for the quality of the mortgages that Fannie–and later Freddie–would buy has not become clear until now.
When they got back into office with Clinton, the Democrats pushed the CRA and, when they got Congress again in 2006, really whooped it up.
On a parallel track was the Community Reinvestment Act. New CRA regulations in 1995 required banks to demonstrate that they were making mortgage loans to underserved communities, which inevitably included borrowers whose credit standing did not qualify them for a conventional mortgage loan.
To meet this new requirement, insured banks–like the GSEs–had to reduce the quality of the mortgages they would make or acquire. As the enforcers of CRA, the regulators themselves were co-opted into this process, approving lending practices that they would otherwise have scorned. The erosion of traditional mortgage standards had begun.
Now, the Democrats kept pushing the string.
From 1994 to 2003, Fannie and Freddie’s purchases of mortgages, as a percentage of all mortgage originations, increased from 37% to an all-time high of 57%, effectively cornering the conventional conforming market. With leverage ratios that averaged 75-to-1, and funds raised with implicit government backing, the GSEs were pouring money into the housing market. This in itself would have driven the housing bubble.
The Hastert Congress was also to blame and Hastert has always been a member of the Illinois "Combine" which is bipartisan corruption. And guess who came from there to the White House ?
In 2006, the Democrats got Congress back and guess what happened ?
The GSE’s purchases of all mortgages slowed in 2004, as they worked to overcome their accounting scandals, but in late 2004 they returned to the market with a vengeance. Late that year, their chairmen were telling meetings of mortgage originators that the GSEs were eager to purchase subprime and other nonprime loans.
This set off a frenzy of subprime and Alt-A mortgage origination, in which–as incredible as it seems–Fannie and Freddie were competing with Wall Street and one another for low-quality loans. Even when they were not the purchasers, the GSEs were Wall Street’s biggest customers, often buying the AAA tranches of subprime and Alt-A pools that Wall Street put together. By 2007 they held $227 billion (one in six loans) in these nonprime pools, and approximately $1.6 trillion in low-quality loans altogether.
Even when the GOP had Congress the GSEs were run by Democrat hacks like Franlin Raines who was forced to resign in 2006.
In 2006, the OFHEO announced a suit against Raines in order to recover some or all of the $90 million in payments made to Raines based on the overstated earnings,[5] initially estimated to be $9 billion but have been announced as $6.3 billion.[6]
Civil charges were filed against Raines and two other former executives by the OFHEO in which the OFHEO sought $110 million in penalties and $115 million in returned bonuses from the three accused.[7] On April 18, 2008, the government announced a settlement with Raines together with J. Timothy Howard, Fannie's former chief financial officer, and Leanne G. Spencer, Fannie's former controller dismissing its charges.
That was the Bush administration.
Jamie Gorelick was the next hack, this time at Freddie Mac.
Even though she had no previous training nor experience in finance, Gorelick was appointed Vice Chairman of Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) from 1997 to 2003. She served alongside former Clinton Administration official Franklin Raines.[6] During that period, Fannie Mae developed a $10 billion accounting scandal.[7]
The MBS frenzy was aided by the assumption that the US (taxpayers) an all the risks.
If you want to know more, Nicole Gelinas has a good book on it.
Sorry for the length but I knew ARM would never read the links. Lefties prefer myths and fantasies.
@ ARM
The reason the banks showered the undeserving with credit was that they didn't. They sold the debt to Fannie Mae, etc. Then the investment bankers (read shysters) used Fannie Mae guaranteed paper to create a pyramid scheme incredible proportions.
Michael Lewis' "The Big Short" is a great insight on what was going on.
buwaya puti said...
in a previous life, I was much involved in the machine tool business. That is the true rock of civilization, by the way, nothing modern exists without it. Anyway, in those days we had thriving high tech manufacturing going on in the South Bay and Los Angeles areas. Lots of highly skilled well equipped shops, each in a good way to becoming an American Mittelstand (the German one is still doing just fine). These are now almost all gone, driven out by every sort of pettifoggery you can imagine. So there really isnt much "real" manufacturing or other substantial production that can "come back" to end a recession.
I agree with much of what you write here. But, to try to argue that those freewheelin' fun-loving Germans produce fewer government regulations than Californians stretches credibility. What is the real difference between Germany and the US since the 1980's: much less of their economic output was wasted on the military, they were more protectionist, much less of their economic activity was lost to a staggering growth in the financial industry, there was much less growth in income inequality and they had strong unions. As a consequence they have a manufacturing economy that remains competitive with the Chinese, which we can now only dream about.
There few things more fundamental to an advanced economy than machine tools but nowadays most machinists can't make the kind of money that supports a stable family.
Althouse,
"It's at least different. Do you agree that it's better?"
No. It's different. Some aspects are better, but until you reach the dementia time of life, you can never repeat the experience of seeing/hearing something for the first time. That's precious and irreplaceable.
Michael K.,
And what did you think of the show? Arthur Miller can be mighty tedious... (fwiw I've never seen a production of All My Sons, only read the script.)
@ ARM
You present this quote "That private-label mortgage-backed securities were at the core of the housing meltdown is no longer in doubt"
Apparently you do not understand - or choose to ignore - the term "mortgage-backed securities". The mortgages that the Wall Street boys used to create their securities were were guaranteed by Fannie, Freddie and the FHA ( read the American Taxpayer).
In the past I rebutted your flimsy argument that Barney was a lowly congressman and Chris Dodd was a senate nonentity. You did not pay attention.
In fact, in this regard the Germans make a much better business climate than we do in the US. They have regulations, and strict ones, but they are not arbitrary, they are not punitive, they are not retroactive, and they play ball with business needs as they come up. US regulations are based on whims, in the case of municipalities, or on the result of legal processes that are unpredictable. A manufacturer in Santa Clara cannot tell if he will be sued for some environmental fault that was as per regs at the time. Or will be sued in the future over something over which he will pass inspection today.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
khesanh0802 said...
Apparently you do not understand - or choose to ignore - the term "mortgage-backed securities". The mortgages that the Wall Street boys used to create their securities were were guaranteed by Fannie, Freddie and the FHA ( read the American Taxpayer).
Can someone else explain this to him? I've already done my remedial teaching.
The production was at a small repertory company and we had front row seats. It was pretty good. The scandal it was written about was real and one of several during WWII. The P 38 another interest of mine (I'm building model) was handicapped by being built with Allison engines instead of the RR Merlin engines that made the P 51 a great fighter. The P 51 was a dud with Allison engines.
Allison was, of course, built by GM and the GM executive ran the war production board. The reason why the Allison was poorly suited to the European war is discussed here . It's complicated and I won;t repeat it. The Allison was OK in the Pacific where the air battles were in warmer weather and at lower altitude.
There has been speculation that the Allison engine was an example of WWI crony capitalism.
All My Sons is based upon a true story, which Arthur Miller's then mother-in-law pointed out in an Ohio newspaper.[3] The news story described how in 1941–43 the Wright Aeronautical Corporation based in Ohio had conspired with army inspection officers to approve defective aircraft engines destined for military use.
Oh, if you want a recent example of what goes down around here, look up the Sriracha hot sauce case.
That was a well connected corrupt local political mafia using state law and state regulators to squeeze a newly built manufacturing plant.
Wonderful bit of advertising for the California business climate. That same thing or variations of it played out thousands of times over the last thirty years. This case got more attention because of the popularity of Sriracha hot sauce. If that outfit were making precision aluminum castings they would be sunk.
And don't tell me about unions. German ones compare to American ones about like sheepdogs compare to wolves.
I was in one Midwest plant where the union was objecting to automated QC equipment because it would change their work rules, and they would go to the wall over it. The training program to use the equipment (German) was adopted from a German manual developed by a German unions apprentice program.
There few things more fundamental to an advanced economy than machine tools but nowadays most machinists can't make the kind of money that supports a stable family."
@ARM not true. A well trained and skilled machinist can make as much or more than most Ivy League graduates. The problem is that blue-collar skilled work is no longer held in esteem today. In Germany it still is. While anecdote isn't data here is an anecdote that you may find interesting. A couple of years ago I was at a charity fundraiser and got in to a conversation with a senior manager at a very large manufacturing company and his division was being moved to China. I asked him if this was because of wages and benefits and his reply was that it wasn't. It was because they couldn't find enough skilled American young people who were willing to get apprenticed in becoming really skilled machinists and tool and die makers. Jobs that high school graduates who had advanced math skills and could learn to program the machines, jobs that started at $70,000 a year couldn't be filled. The hours were too long and the job wasn't sufficiently classy and the work wasn't in an office. That's where the German's, the Swedes and the Swiss have us beat. How do we solve this problem I don't know but solve it we must.
Ditto re inability to fill these trade positions.
Its the same across a lot of blue collar trades. Electric linemen for instance.
I blame Bush for the demise of the Buggy Whip industry too. (BTW, I blame Clinton for creating the environment that led to the housing bubble. I also blame Space Aliens for the fact that we're still in the "Great Bush Recession" because one dasn't implicate The One in anything negative. Else the IRS may become interested.)
"I was in one Midwest plant where the union was objecting to automated QC equipment because it would change their work rules, and they would go to the wall over it."
The Los Angeles Harbor had a strike a few years ago over work rules. The Longshoreman's union clerks had been making a good living climbing over containers to look at serial numbers. The shipping companies began equipping containers with GPS units that transmitted the number and location to make sorting easy and fats. The union struck over this trying to force the shippers to give up GPS.
I assume you can guess how that worked out. Longshoremen make about $140 k and they put a bunch of independent truck drivers out of business who were off work for weeks. Some traffic moved to other ports and there was considerable discussion of expanding the port at Ensenada in Baja California. Mexico has managed to detail that bonanza with corruption, the old standby of the PRI.
A well trained and skilled machinist can make as much or more than most Ivy League graduates. The problem is that blue-collar skilled work is no longer held in esteem today. In Germany it still is.
Very true. A lot of people who could be doing good work in skilled trade are instead pulling lattes because bright-but-not-exceptionally-bright kids are steered toward some kind of college degree as a matter of course.
My kids are of course super-geniuses. I'm still going to make sure they know how to build a chair, solder a circuit board, weld pipe, grow corn and tomatoes, and play an instrument before they graduate high school. Then they'll have options whatever else may come.
@ARM
Snide does not pass for knowledge.
And you ignored your own quote.
ARM, you may or may not be done teaching, but you seem dead-set against learning anything. Economic bubbles aren't inflated from the top but the bottom. Housing stock across the board became increasingly "valuable" because so much money flooded in when credit for mortgages became so much easier to acquire. (Picture: You have an average house in an average neighborhood. A below-average house in your neighborhood is sold for the current market value of your house. While you did nothing at all to increase the value of your home, it still just gained value. This of course happened to every house in your neighborhood. As buyers competed for housing stock in your neighborhood, through no special economic activity on your part, your net worth increased dramatically. You wisely took out a second mortgage and took money showers with all that found money. At least until the bubble burst and the buyers disappeared. Now that found value is down the drain, you can't find a buyer at close to the previous fair market value of the house, and you're eating cat food and dodging bill collectors.)
There are elements of opera about this, but it really has nothing to do with the Death of an Opera.
ARM, you will go to your grave blaming Booosh for the world's maladies.
Today is Labor Day. Since Labor Day last year, the following has occurred during your hero's watch (paraphrased from an anonymous poster on Instapundit):
The Chinese ADIZ (huge expansion of their air defense zone), the Russian annexation of Crimea, the rise of ISIS, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fall of Mosul, the end of Hungarian liberal democracy, the Central American refugee crisis, the Egyptian-UAE bombing attacks on Libya, the extermination of Iraqi Christians, the Yazidi genocide, the scramble to revise NATO’s eastern-frontier defenses, the Kristallnacht-style pogroms in European cities, the reemergence of mainstream anti-Semitism, the third (or fourth, perhaps) American war in Iraq and racial riots in middle America."
That summary does not include Obamacare, another looming disaster.
I am certain King Putt will have strategery for all of the above by next Labor Day. He tipped his hand today (hint: minimum wage).
ARM is desperate to believe that government is not responsible for the great financial cratering.
"selected from fifteen thousand submitted, of the worst junk this writer has ever seen in any country."
I hate to defend Hitler's artistic vision, but I doubt Shirer was an objective art critic or knew Jack Shit about art. Shirer hated Hitler and Germany before he arrived in Nazi Germany. Why don't you quote his little historical sermon where he states the Germans were genetically programmed warmongers?
personally, I think you should eliminate comments all together.
"Can someone else explain this to him? I've already done my remedial teaching."
It's not my fault you consistantly get it wrong. I pity your students.
"Why don't you quote his little historical sermon where he states the Germans were genetically programmed warmongers?"
Why don't you?
Paraphrasing is chickenshit.
cubanbob said...
@ARM not true. A well trained and skilled machinist can make as much or more than most Ivy League graduates. The problem is that blue-collar skilled work is no longer held in esteem today. In Germany it still is.
I very much doubt this first statement but if you can come up with numbers to back up your assertion have at it. I completely agree with your second statement. When I was young I stood in awe of the skilled machinists who were part of my community along with a mix of white collar professionals, who all seemed to do boring jobs. Now, there isn't a man who works with his hands to be seen in my local community, which is why I doubt your first statement. People are perplexed that I would want to change my car's battery or build a table. It's sad.
Germany is a tradesperson's paradise. I have immense respect for the economy that they have created.
"I have immense respect for the economy that they have created."
I would have more respect for your opinions if you could acknowledge that your hero has ignored a great way to stimulate the economy and the middle class by proposing apprenticeship programs. Instead, he and Fauxcahontas are still pushing worthless college degrees in feminist studies, etc.
My nephew got out of the Marines where he had enlisted when his college grades were weak. He went back and got his degree, then entered a three year apprenticeship with the elevator repairmen and installers union. When he finished that, he went to work for Otis and ended up in a white collar supervisor job. Recently, he transferred himself back to the field as he makes more money as a union elevator repairman than as a supervisor.
Mercedes mechanics make $100k in California. There are lots of examples, if you would look.
Original Mike said...
ARM is desperate to believe that government is not responsible for the great financial cratering.
Not at all. Greenspan, Bush and the Republican controlled Congress clearly did not do their job. But sleazy financiers played a major role. I can't recommend the book 'House of Debt' too highly. It is not partisan but a simplified technical examination of the factors leading to the Great Recession. Excellent book, no one comes out well, including the great unwashed public, who were dupes for believing that easy credit was an adequate substitute for real wage growth.
I can not answer specifically about recent local machinists salaries as I no longer have much contact with that industry but I have heard of shortages.
On other trades we are most definitely seeing tradesmen challenging post grad income. Electric linemen easily manage over $100k.
The local politicians, all democrats, absolutely despise all possible industry. I feel their hate daily. Every interaction here in CA with local state or feds is antagonistic.
Their rhetoric is consistently poisonous also. All this has an effect.
Here is a discussion by actual machinists about salaries. Not happy reading.
"Why don't you?
Paraphrasing is chickenshit."
That gives me the incentive to reread "Third Reich" which I haven't for a few years. It's in my bookshelf behind me along with his other two books about the Third Republic and "Nightmare Years" his biography. Shire was a lefty but in Roosevelt's time that was pretty common. He hated the Germans but a lot of us did then. My parents had a pincushion with Hitler bending over and the cushion was on his bottom.
If I find that phrase I will post it and the page.
Of course, ARM. It's not government interference in the market. It's the Republicans not interfering enough. Got it.
ARM: " I have immense respect for the economy that they have created."
Sounds about right:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-01/german-gdp-shrinking-signals-fading-euro-area-powerhouse.html
From ARM's link:
My guess is if in the Boston area with responsibility to be an inventor/designer/machinist salary should peg in the approximate $60k to $80 K area + benefits. $30-$40/hr + bennies.
Yup, nobody working at Starbucks would be interested.
"Bush and the republican controlled congress". What congress was that? When George W. Bush took office in January 2001, the Senate was evenly divided between 50 Democrat and 50 republicans. The democrat party began probing for republicans they could entice to switch allegiance, and in May 2001 republican senator Jim Jeffords announced that he was leaving the party and would caucus with democrats. Bush's concerns about the housing bubble and the policies of Fannie and Freddie are well documented, as are the refusal of democrats in congress to address the concerns. There is video evidence available on YouTube showing democrats stonewalling federal investigators, among them is Barney Frank chairman of the House Ways and Means committee vehemently arguing for the status quo. Anyone blaming Bush for the housing collapse is willfully ignorant, stubbornly stupid, or just a dishonest democrat party hack.
Michael K said...
From ARM's link:
My guess is if in the Boston area with responsibility to be an inventor/designer/machinist salary should peg in the approximate $60k to $80 K area + benefits. $30-$40/hr + bennies.
You are a fat old fool pontificating about people with whom you have never had any real contact. Blocking out all the information that doesn't fit your pathetically self-serving world view. Anyone who was not a complete scumbag would see that the vast majority of salaries listed on that site were well below that level and not sufficient to support a middle class life. And, because Boston is so expensive, even $30 per hour would not support a decent lifestyle for a family in that town.
In reality you know nothing about the lives of most working people in our country and you don't give a fuck either. They should be happy with what they get and feel grateful to get it. You don't give a shit that the salaries of working people have stagnated for thirty years, you've got yours and everyone else can go fuck themselves. You are a bottomless pit of depravity. The most contemptible human I have ever had contact with. All the Great Recession means to you is that you lost your sad little opera company. You don't care that a large fraction of the savings of the bottom half of our country were wiped out. Not your problem. You are beneath contempt.
Boston vs. Dallas real estate prices (mostly progressive state vs. mostly moderate state).
Texas median income: 50,740. Massachusetts: 65,339.
2 br, 2 bath Dallas suburb home: $189,000. Ditto (north) Boston: $449,000.
Allowing 25% of gross income to pay for mortgage, Boston: $16,339, Texas: $12,685.
Costs of mortages: Boston, 30-year fixed monthly payment with $60,000 down (13%): 1,857, which is $22,284. Sorry, Charlie, you are $6,000 short.
Texas, same rate and term, with $35,000 down (19%): $598/ month, $7,176 annual, which means you've got 4000+ bucks left to blow on Christmas or whatever.
Life is so much better in flyover country, taxes are lower, generally, and folks are not so insultingly desperate.
"Why don't you? Paraphrasing is chickenshit."
I will. I sold my copy a while a go, so it may take a while. I'll probably just put in on my site, since no will care. But I will be proven right in the eyes of God. Which is all that counts.
Genetics or no, RFTR is diamonds. You have some beef with Shirer, rc? Want to spell it out? What, Hitler had a point?
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