"Who are the top 10 greatest classical composers?"

"That question has prompted over a thousand commenters in the New York Times to give their opinions..."

Jaltcoh has his response, with argument and YouTube clips to justify his choices. (He's beginning a countdown, so the linked post only has #10 and #9.)

Debussy started the ignition of the 20th century, but Stravinsky drove down most of its roads.

And then what happened to this metaphorical 20th century music-car?  Who drove it into the ditch? Who's standing by the side of the road drinking on a Slurpee or something? (Sorry... I'm more of a connoisseur of metaphor than music.)

"Just remember, amid all these new calls for civility, no one on the left thought this ad was over the top — even though it advocated murdering global warming skeptics."

Bryan Preston (via Instapundit).

I remember a lot of criticism of that ad though, and I'm skeptical of the assertion that "no one on the left thought this ad was over the top." Anyone who liked the ad, I assume, would say that because it's so exaggerated, everyone understands that it's a joke. If that's true, then it's wrong to assert that it "advocated murdering" anybody. But I think some people on the left did criticize it:

[The ad] elicited a furious reaction from some environmentalists. Bill McKibben of 350.org felt moved to write on the popular Climate Progress blog that the film was "noxious":

The climate skeptics can crow. It's the kind of stupidity that hurts our side, reinforcing in people's minds a series of preconceived notions, not the least of which is that we're out-of-control and out of touch — not to mention off the wall, and also with completely misplaced sense of humor.

Under a blogpost titled 'That 10:10 video... not in my name', Rob Hopkins of the Transition Town movement for more sustainble communities, wrote:

I have to say I am shocked, and appalled by this, and I'm on their side!...
More at the link.

Nevertheless, it's still fair to say that there are a lot of extreme and uncivil graphic depictions and statements that come from the left. The existence of that ad shows that it was believed — by people with the resources to make a very high-quality short film — that they could reach the general public with communication like that. I don't think a right-wing group with a serious intention to reach ordinary people would concoct such a thing.

Maybe I'm wrong about that. I don't like to see the power of violence exploited to sell political messages, but it is an easy way to get people's attention. That ad became viral — and I'm carrying the virus now — because it was so extreme. At some point, extremism backfires, but it's natural for the manufacturers of advertising to push it as far as they can.

What are the other ways to get our attention? Sex? It's hard to get that just right in a political setting. You'll irritate too many women before you do anything interesting. So, you can see why they go for violence. It's a psychological button just waiting to be pushed, and they've got to push something.

Try making ads that sell candidates or policies using the "civility" theme. I mean... try convincing your political opponents that they ought to try to sell their candidates and policies using the "civility" theme.

"You and I have each befriended each other on Facebook. And you will note that I am not using 'friend' as a verb."

Defining geezerhood, it's George Johnson:



Speaking of Facebook, "'The Social Network' Dominates Golden Globes." So the big movie of the year, the one that they were celebrating last night on television, as about something on the internet. Sorry. I didn't go out to the movie, and I didn't watch the TV awards show, because I was spending time on the internet — and I kind of think that was true of an awful lot of people.

"It's okay to tread on me now. I have health insurance."

You remember my challenge to redesign the Gadsden flag to reflect the new civility. That one is from Chip Cannon.

I've got more to come, and I'm still accepting entries. The idea is that the old threatening snake is inappropriate and must be toned down, lest unstable individuals take it the wrong way. You can go off the civility message, however. Just use the Gadsden flag and be interesting or amusing or something.

At the Ski Trail Café..

... we can glide along all night.

"Today, we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation’s promise through civility, courage, compassion and character."

"America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness... We must live up to the calling we share. Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment."

Who said that? Did he get what he asked for?

ADDED: I got to that quote through a New Republic article written at the time of the Obama inauguration that had the teaser-title "Screw Civility: Why Bush-Bashing Should Be Obama's Eeelection Strategy." The link goes to my blogging about it (which riffs on the misspelling "eeelection"). Anyway, check out the advice the lofty news journal gave to Obama:

Obama should save the civility shtick for Republicans he'll have to work with. As for the guy retiring to Texas, the new administration should ensure he remains the useful foil he was during the 2008 campaign. That starts with letting nothing--not public amnesia, not nostalgia, and certainly not a statesmanlike gesture from the White House--lift him from the PR cellar. When the new crew opens up the books on Bush's government, they ought to let every embarrassing detail out....

Democrats ran against Herbert Hoover for decades; Republicans kicked around Jimmy Carter for a dozen years. If Bush's successors play their cards right, Democrats could use his legacy as a thumb on their side of the scale for a generation....

Civility shtick. Mmm hmm. Use it when it's useful. Don't be a chump.

Football update: both 6-seeded teams have beaten 1 seeds and will go on to face 2 seeds.

It seems apt — right? — to regard these 2 erstwhile 6 seeds as the new #1 teams. So, let's predict that the Packers and the Jets will defeat those 2 seeds — the Bears and the Steelers — next week. As for the Super Bowl, let's remember what happened last time the Jets encountered the Packers:

Ugly. Sloppy. And, perhaps, a little rusty.

It all added up to one big dud for the New York Jets.

Mason Crosby kicked three field goals for Green Bay, and that was all the Packers needed as they held the Jets off the scoreboard for a 9-0 victory Sunday....

Embarrassing!

I got some help from Meade writing that, I confess. We were watching the Jets game, and I supported the Jets (in that game) based on my assessment of the costumes, which as you know, are very similar. However, in my view, the red faceguards on the Patriots helmets were garishly decorative (and possibly vision-impairing). After they won, the Jets, to my dismay, pranced off the field with their arms flung out and weaving around like a kid pretending to be an airplane. It was like those kids on the old PBS show "Zoom":



Embarrassing!

"The left wants us to be civil — after being so uncivil for a decade."

Notes Don Surber, whose response is: "Bite me."

When people protested lefties made vulgar remarks about tea-bagging and giggled.

So screw you and your civil discourse.

I don’t want to hear it.

I have been screamed at for 10 years.

It’s my turn now. I am not going to scream back. But I refuse to allow anyone to dictate what I say or how I say it. I refuse to allow the same foul-mouthed, foul-spirited foul people who dumped on me to now try to tell me what I may or may not say.... 

So screw you.

"If I had a potato launcher...I'd make somebody pay..."

"... for some potatoes, so I could safely bombard a paper target."

Golden Globes... are you watching?

I've set the DVR but I don't know if I'll look in.  I haven't seen any of the movies that are up for awards. (I've seen one or 2 of the TV things, but I've never cared about TV awards.)

I'm just not interested in sitting through movies these days. I find them boring and annoying. It's not the way I want to spend my time, and I don't believe the people of Hollywood have anything particularly interesting or useful to say to me. Yes, there is pure pleasure to be had... but in movies? Not so much.

Still, if you're watching, please feel free to hang out here. If something cool happens, I do have it recorded, and I'll go back and check it out.

ADDED: I'm not watching, but I did check out this slide show of the fashions. Angelina Jolie arrived as the Good Witch of Emerald City, Helena Bonham Carter came as an insane person, and most of the rest of them look like adults who, in the 1960s, looked like they belonged in the 50s.

During the last episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," TLC put up this teaser for its special "Kennedys' Home Movies."

Yes, they are both TLC shows, but why did TLC think the people watching a show about Sarah Palin and her family would be susceptible to a show about the Kennedys? (Meade raised this question in the comments to the post earlier today about "Sarah Palin's Alaska.")

Your first thought might be that it doesn't make much sense because liberals love the Kennedys and conservatives love the Palins. But let's assume TLC isn't run by idiots, that they know how to appeal to viewers. If you had to argue that a good chunk of the "Sarah Palin's Alaska" audience would like to watch "Kennedys' Home Movies," what would you argue?

I'd say: Not all American TV-watchers are strongly grounded in one political party or the other. These people are not cemented to abstract ideology. They may feel their way into politics through personalities. Or they may not care that much about politics at all and simply enjoy peering into the family lives of celebrities, and politicians are a special, elite breed of celebrity, like royalty. The Kennedys have been, for many people, America's royalty, and the Palins may be the new royal family that people who like that sort of thing like.

Obviously, there are differences. The Kennedys posed as European-style aristocracy, and the Palins present themselves as working-class Americans. But both are very much big, colorful families with a strong sense of geographical place — Massachusetts/Alaska — and a mesmerizingly beautiful and feminine woman to fascinate us. Both families have a lot of children who we get to see looking robust and active in outdoor settings — especially boats.

There's a romanticism of the family about it all. I'm not saying that's good. It's a point of entry by which political opinion seeps into a certain very common type of American brain. And it happens through television. Pay attention.

***

By the way, what do you think of the crazy culture clash that is Johnny Cash singing the Beatles ("In My Life") over home movies of the Kennedys?

My vision of the Super Bowl.

The Packers defeated the Eagles and the Falcons, so birds need to watch out. It will be more fun (next week) to see them go after the Bears. "Packers" refers to meat-packing, so I think Bears are more meat than Seahawks. Enough fowl. We want red meat. (So I want the Bears to win today.)

Now, after we the Packers butcher the Bears, it's on to the Super Bowl (which suggests a bird, Superb Owl, but there will be no birds in the Super Bowl). Who will face the Packers: Jets, Patriots, or Steelers. The best image isn't Packers against Jets. Jets are planes. I don't like the imagery. So Patriots or Steelers. Both are human beings. I think Steelers makes for the best imagery, because Packers and Steelers are both working guys. There's a nice parallelism to that, which pleases me.

I also care about what I like to call their "costumes." Certainly, yesterday, the Steelers' costumes were much better than the Ravens costumes. Man, the Ravens looked like they were wearing ladies' leggings. I think you want some color break at the knee, so I was for the Steelers.

I'm all about: How do they look? It's a spectator sport!

(Originally written as a comment, here.)

UPDATE: I'm watching the Seahawks and Bears game right now, and I'm seeing there's a player named Herring on the Seahawks team. That's like having a player named Honey on the Bears team. This reinforces my support for the Bears (this week).

UPDATE 2: The Jets and the Patriots have quite similar costumes. To understand the game, I need to keep trying to remember which team is dark on top and white on bottom and which is the other way around. It's like that "Last Battlefield" episode of "Star Trek" where one guy is white on the left side his face and black on the right side and the other guy is the reverse. To people who aren't intimately connected to the struggle, like Captain Kirk, it just doesn't look different enough to matter. And by the way, that episode of "Star Trek" was bogus as hell unless it's established that these people don't have mirrors. Anyway, I concede that top and bottom are easier to distinguish than right and left, and I also realize the dark color is different for the Jets and the Patriots, but I need more contrast.

"Is marriage responsible for turning the beastly male into a well-behaved husband?"

"Or are the upstanding men the ones who marry in the first place?"

An old mystery. The linked article is about a study that shows there's combined causality: Marriage tends to make men more upstanding citizens and more upstanding male citizens are more likely to find and commit to a mate.

Related mysteries: Should we incentivize marriage and pressure men into marriage in order to make society better for all of us? Must men marry women to get this social improvement or will gay marriage work too? Should women be enthusiastic about performing the function of improving men? Is the restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples a way to enlist unwilling women in the social enterprise of improving men?

CORRECTION: I'd originally written "same-sex" in that last question.

Holy Jeez! What if Sarah Palin is awesome?

HuffPo makes a montage from "Sarah Palin's Alaska" in an effort to make her look like the idiot they just know she is...

... and it totally backfires. She comes across as thoroughly lovable. Remember, as NYT columnist Charles Blow said:

"She’s like the ominous blob in the horror films: the more you shoot at it, the bigger and stronger it becomes."

By the way, has Blow walked back from his violent metaphor yet? Not only did he plant the image of shooting repeatedly at Sarah Palin in the minds of America's psychopaths and assorted young left-wing idealists, he compounded it with the suggestion that she isn't even human, that she is a monster who ought to be destroyed. Come on, Charles! Does the new civility apply to you or not?

"Hoft gets this through Instadouche and, unsurprisingly, Ann Althouse, who has been looking at pictures again, something that never ends well..."

"... as also of course happens when she 'thinks things' and then 'writes them down' and 'alerts the public as to her thoughts.'"

Heh. I got FireDogLake writing in the anti-Althousiana genre.

ADDED: I guess Firedoglake is flouting the "civility" bullshit that's been bandied about lately.

AND: Here's the link to Hoft, where there is a nice juxtaposition of photographs along with my quote about the President's hair color change. (Let's call it his "mood hair.")

I think it's important to talk about the way politicians use their visual image in communicating their message. Clearly, we talk about female politicians' hair all the time. It is different to talk about men's hair, of course, because men aren't supposed to care much about their hair.

It's part of the conventional manly image not to pay attention to hair, and when a man runs afoul of that image, he gives his opponents raw material that... well, that can make a hilarious video. (That video was much funnier before the pricks that own the "Theme from Rawhide" asserted their candyass rights.)

AND: Here's how female politicians are treated when they change their hair:

"With more sharing, the teams could have moved forward, thriving together."

"It was wrong for the Packers to hog the ball for something like 2/3 of the time."