It's been a good week, spent with 50 young music students, faculty and parent volunteers.
No time to detail it all, as the final rehearsal is underway, but here is a quick Facebook page set up to document the week.
Best moment for me was watching choral conductor Tim Sharp mold 50 non-singing kids into a respectable-sounding choir in less than two days.
Real green shoots here.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Hats Off To Mish
Mish Shedlock proves his worth once again.
If my obscure corner of the avalanche of opinion serves to direct a few more people to his page, then I've performed a public service.
He documents unemployment numbers that the 'official' reports don't mention.
The truth is ugly, but we need the truth told in order to make our way out of this mess.
His final paragraph bears quoting here:
Look at the average age of baggers in grocery stores or greeters at Walmart. These people are not working because they want to; they are working because they have to. Demand for jobs is at an all time high while the number of available jobs and the pay scales of those jobs have both collapsed. The employment situation is not only an unmitigated disaster, things are about to get even worse with pending state cutbacks.
What I've noticed here, anecdotally: I make deposits at two banks at least once a week. Often, mine seems to be the only customer car in the parking lot. The employees, who by the way are lovely folks, seem to be looking for things to do.
My little town was hit hard in the wake of 9/11, and began to climb back out. A major fire subsequently hit the downtown business block, and the lot now stands vacant, as the insurer has gone to the wall to avoid paying any claim on the loss. The local radio station ceased broadcasting last fall. The local paper seems to be shrinking in both size and scope of coverage. The district congressman sends in op-eds to tell us that voting for massive spending will cure the massive federal deficit.
So, we're in for a long ride. Let's work on the culture in the meantime.
And, let's listen to Mish.
If my obscure corner of the avalanche of opinion serves to direct a few more people to his page, then I've performed a public service.
He documents unemployment numbers that the 'official' reports don't mention.
The truth is ugly, but we need the truth told in order to make our way out of this mess.
His final paragraph bears quoting here:
Look at the average age of baggers in grocery stores or greeters at Walmart. These people are not working because they want to; they are working because they have to. Demand for jobs is at an all time high while the number of available jobs and the pay scales of those jobs have both collapsed. The employment situation is not only an unmitigated disaster, things are about to get even worse with pending state cutbacks.
What I've noticed here, anecdotally: I make deposits at two banks at least once a week. Often, mine seems to be the only customer car in the parking lot. The employees, who by the way are lovely folks, seem to be looking for things to do.
My little town was hit hard in the wake of 9/11, and began to climb back out. A major fire subsequently hit the downtown business block, and the lot now stands vacant, as the insurer has gone to the wall to avoid paying any claim on the loss. The local radio station ceased broadcasting last fall. The local paper seems to be shrinking in both size and scope of coverage. The district congressman sends in op-eds to tell us that voting for massive spending will cure the massive federal deficit.
So, we're in for a long ride. Let's work on the culture in the meantime.
And, let's listen to Mish.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Where Words Fail, Pictures Illuminate
Calculated Risk, in my humble opinion, is the best of the blogs documenting events in the economy. Accurate, insightful, no axe to grind, no hysteria, and to the point.
Today's notice about the GM bankruptcy is typical of the spare and factual style found at CR.
But, from a more colorful corner, the UK Libertarian Party, comes the perfect image to portray the 'New GM', aka 'Guv'mint Motors'.
Now, all we lack is a name for this creature.
Your suggestions welcomed below.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
It Doesn't Take Billions to Transform Lives--Kenyan Boys Choir
Another green shoot: The Kenyan Boys Choir
Now, if this can be done in backwaters like Kenya, or South Africa (I had the joy of hearing the Drakenburg Boy's Choir perform!), or in the Fens of Ely, England...
What might happen here?
The answers to our cultural and economic quandries do not reside with the politicians and bankers.
They reside with us.
Now, if this can be done in backwaters like Kenya, or South Africa (I had the joy of hearing the Drakenburg Boy's Choir perform!), or in the Fens of Ely, England...
What might happen here?
The answers to our cultural and economic quandries do not reside with the politicians and bankers.
They reside with us.
Another Pair of Obits: Steve McNair and Karl Malden
Sometimes, I think Providence schedules earthly departures in pairs, just to make a point. Remember how the funerals of Mother Teresa and Princess Di occurred back-to-back? I'm to the point that I almost expect these dual departures.
This first one makes no sense.
Dead at 36, with a lifetime of achievement behind him, at least as many years ahead of him, financially secure, and a local hero in two states, just for good measure.
Found dead in a murder/suicide, where he was the party murdered, and the girlfriend appears to be the suicide--usually the roles are reversed between the parties.
The grisly, sordid, Jerry-Springer-stuff will all be published, humiliating his wife and children (yes, he left behind the wife and kids by getting shot by the 20-year-old girlfriend).
And to quote Jerry Springer, as he says at the end of each televised melee:
'So, what have we learned here?'
Not really certain yet...
But, perhaps a comparative obit from the same week might provide food for thought--another kid from hard-scrabble America, who played football, and ended well.
Karl Malden, requiescat in pace.
This first one makes no sense.
Dead at 36, with a lifetime of achievement behind him, at least as many years ahead of him, financially secure, and a local hero in two states, just for good measure.
Found dead in a murder/suicide, where he was the party murdered, and the girlfriend appears to be the suicide--usually the roles are reversed between the parties.
The grisly, sordid, Jerry-Springer-stuff will all be published, humiliating his wife and children (yes, he left behind the wife and kids by getting shot by the 20-year-old girlfriend).
And to quote Jerry Springer, as he says at the end of each televised melee:
'So, what have we learned here?'
Not really certain yet...
But, perhaps a comparative obit from the same week might provide food for thought--another kid from hard-scrabble America, who played football, and ended well.
Karl Malden, requiescat in pace.
Friday, July 3, 2009
A Life That Mattered
Traveling in England last week, away from TV and computer, I wandered into the local newsstand to be greeted by the trumpeting headlines of Michael Jackson's demise.
Everywhere I turned, it was all Michael, all the time. And, as I suspected, it turns out that in the wake of a chaotic life, a multi-million/three children trail of chaos and debt has been left behind for others to clean up.
This man, father of three, who owned half the Beatles song catalogue, didn't get around to making a freaking will!
I flashed back to 1977, waking to the news of Elvis's summons to Eternity. Watching that melodrama unfold, especially from my native Nashville, none of the Jackson saga is surprising. Same stupidity, different year.
Why does this culture idolize people, however gifted, who create raging chaos at every turn? Does artistic achievement give anyone license to be the proverbial bull in the china shop? Haydn, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Bing Crosby, Eddy Arnold, Bob Hope, Dolly Parton, Stravinksy, Yo Yo Ma, Van Cliburn--the list goes on and on. They have created an enormous body of enduring work, and have also lived ordered lives. Far from perfect, to be certain, but on the whole, sanity prevailed.
Why do Elvis and Michael get a pass? Why won't anyone state the obvious?
Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be celebrities!
Artists, yes. Celebrities, no.
Here, on the other hand, is a life that mattered.
This kid died within a few days of The King of Pop. Look at what he accomplished in the short time allotted to him.
You be the judge.
Everywhere I turned, it was all Michael, all the time. And, as I suspected, it turns out that in the wake of a chaotic life, a multi-million/three children trail of chaos and debt has been left behind for others to clean up.
This man, father of three, who owned half the Beatles song catalogue, didn't get around to making a freaking will!
I flashed back to 1977, waking to the news of Elvis's summons to Eternity. Watching that melodrama unfold, especially from my native Nashville, none of the Jackson saga is surprising. Same stupidity, different year.
Why does this culture idolize people, however gifted, who create raging chaos at every turn? Does artistic achievement give anyone license to be the proverbial bull in the china shop? Haydn, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, Bing Crosby, Eddy Arnold, Bob Hope, Dolly Parton, Stravinksy, Yo Yo Ma, Van Cliburn--the list goes on and on. They have created an enormous body of enduring work, and have also lived ordered lives. Far from perfect, to be certain, but on the whole, sanity prevailed.
Why do Elvis and Michael get a pass? Why won't anyone state the obvious?
Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be celebrities!
Artists, yes. Celebrities, no.
Here, on the other hand, is a life that mattered.
This kid died within a few days of The King of Pop. Look at what he accomplished in the short time allotted to him.
You be the judge.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Real Green Shoots
Thanks go to Tim Sharp, Executive Director of American Choral Directors Association, for sharing this with his world:
CBS, for all its failings, does not spend major money and time on stories they don't believe have much audience. There are too many people pitching too many stories to them on a daily basis, and limited airtime.
Here and there, we see green shoots in the culture. If we water, fertilize, and keep pulling the weeds, who knows what might happen?
What if, instead of installing that MongoSantaMaria! flatscreen home theatre system with the Wii game installed, MomAndDad decide to enroll the kids in the local university's community choral program? How about a year of music lessons instead of three days in The Land of The Mouse? Or a year of language or math tutoring? Or a year of the local community theatre?
What if MomAndDad decide to sign themselves up for the local university choral program?
What if?
What would the culture look like if this became normative?
Then, and only then--what would the economy begin to look like?
Real green shoots.
CBS, for all its failings, does not spend major money and time on stories they don't believe have much audience. There are too many people pitching too many stories to them on a daily basis, and limited airtime.
Here and there, we see green shoots in the culture. If we water, fertilize, and keep pulling the weeds, who knows what might happen?
What if, instead of installing that MongoSantaMaria! flatscreen home theatre system with the Wii game installed, MomAndDad decide to enroll the kids in the local university's community choral program? How about a year of music lessons instead of three days in The Land of The Mouse? Or a year of language or math tutoring? Or a year of the local community theatre?
What if MomAndDad decide to sign themselves up for the local university choral program?
What if?
What would the culture look like if this became normative?
Then, and only then--what would the economy begin to look like?
Real green shoots.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
John Ruskin's Appeal To Our Better Angels
We occasionally run across pithy quotes from John Ruskin(1819-1900), the Victorian essayist. The final paragraph below may be familiar to a number of readers. Like so many Victorians (such as Dickens and MacDonald) the language sounds flowery and archaic to our post-Hemingway, media-saturated world. It's worth the effort to dig through and learn the rhythm of Ruskin's verbal craft.
The words preceding that famous quote deserve consideration: What would our culture look like if these words guided our behavior?
'The idea of self-denial for the sake of posterity, of practicing present economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of planting forests that our descendents may live under their shade, of raising cities for future nations to inhabit, never, I suppose, efficiently takes place among publicly recognized motives of exertion. Yet these are not the less our duties; nor is our part fitly sustained upon the earth, unless the range of our intended and deliberate usefulness include not only the companions but the successors of our pilgrimage.
God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was within our power to bequeath.
Men cannot benefit those that are with them as they can those who come after them; and of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.
Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that above all other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to his Maker; and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we may not measure by this test.
Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendents will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, 'See! This our fathers did for us.'
From The Seven Lamps of Architecture: The Lamp of Memory
The words preceding that famous quote deserve consideration: What would our culture look like if these words guided our behavior?
'The idea of self-denial for the sake of posterity, of practicing present economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of planting forests that our descendents may live under their shade, of raising cities for future nations to inhabit, never, I suppose, efficiently takes place among publicly recognized motives of exertion. Yet these are not the less our duties; nor is our part fitly sustained upon the earth, unless the range of our intended and deliberate usefulness include not only the companions but the successors of our pilgrimage.
God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it was within our power to bequeath.
Men cannot benefit those that are with them as they can those who come after them; and of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.
Every human action gains in honor, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that above all other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to his Maker; and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we may not measure by this test.
Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendents will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when these stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, 'See! This our fathers did for us.'
From The Seven Lamps of Architecture: The Lamp of Memory
Monday, June 15, 2009
Monday Morning Morality Moment
Always good to begin the week with a strong cup of coffee laced with a dose of sober reality.
It's the account of one Harry Markopolos, the financial analyst from Boston who uncovered the Madoff Ponzi scheme a decade before Bernie turned himself in to the FBI.
Culture creates economy...
It's the account of one Harry Markopolos, the financial analyst from Boston who uncovered the Madoff Ponzi scheme a decade before Bernie turned himself in to the FBI.
Culture creates economy...
If You Live Long Enough, And Remain Patient....
... you get to see the thugs that took over Iran confronted in the streets by a young populace that is fed up with rule by the mullahs.
For those of us who agonized through 1979's hostage crisis, this is really, really sweet.
The BBC points us to Tehran 24, updating news from the streets.
Maybe, with a million mobile devices uploading images to the rest of the world, the goons that run Iran won't be able to crush this uprising as the Chinese government did in Tiennamen Square in 1989. Those brave reformers only had fax machines, a few phones, and film to smuggle out. The true story there may never be known.
Here's wishing the young people of Tehran well.
For those of us who agonized through 1979's hostage crisis, this is really, really sweet.
The BBC points us to Tehran 24, updating news from the streets.
Maybe, with a million mobile devices uploading images to the rest of the world, the goons that run Iran won't be able to crush this uprising as the Chinese government did in Tiennamen Square in 1989. Those brave reformers only had fax machines, a few phones, and film to smuggle out. The true story there may never be known.
Here's wishing the young people of Tehran well.
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