Sunday Serendipity

Saturday was a beautiful day for a walk in the country, Beethoven captured it so well in his 6th symphony called Pastoral.

From wiki:

Beethoven was a lover of nature who spent a great deal of his time on walks in the country. He frequently left Vienna to work in rural locations. The composer said that the Sixth Symphony is “more the expression of feeling than painting”

Enjoy, Jack

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37 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  3. ms petri’s Opinion | Bird species are being renamed to drop racist links. Here are my suggestions! – Washington Post was a bit of silly fun yesterday.  here’s the intro with an excerpt of her take on cardinals (not that univ of louisville mascot kind btw)

    Birds. They’re getting renamed, and I say, wonderful! Finally, bird names for birds! As long as we are renaming dozens of birds to make them more readily identifiable and ensure no one has to give shout-outs to enslavers or the man responsible for the Trail of Tears when, say, trying to point out an oriole, I have some thoughts to share! Should you listen to me about bird naming? Absolutely not. “I only know two tunes,” Ulysses S. Grant reportedly said. “One of them is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the other isn’t.” That is how I am about birds. If you’re not a pigeon, duck, sparrow or Canada goose, I don’t know what you are. But that has not stopped me from forming opinions. Here, in no particular order, are all my thoughts about bird names and suggestions for improving them:
    […]
    Pyrrhuloxia: This is an actual name for a bird, a type of cardinal. To that, I say, “No, it isn’t.” This sequence of letters is what happens when your cat jumps onto the keyboard. This is not the kind of thing anyone should be expected to say out loud, least of all when pointing out a bird. By the time you have successfully pronounced this word, that bird is gone. This could be a prescription drug with an annoying commercial, but what it isn’t is a bird.

  4. Ooh, just what i needed, “Advice for Time Traveling to Medieval Europe”
     

    Farewell, 21st century! 👋 🕰️ 🚀

  5. with all the news coverage of israeli hostages by hamas, here’s a story from today’s Wapo that also needs attention:

    Russia held these Ukrainian teens captive. Now they could testify against Putin. – The Washington Post

    The Russian missing child poster went up in Crimea soon after Rostyslav Lavrov escaped last month.
    “HELP FIND,” it read. “17 years old, born 2006 … Height 160 cm, thin build, dark hair, blue eyes.”
    “Anyone who knows anything about the whereabouts of the teenager is asked to report this.”
    The attached photo — which Lavrov said was taken several months ago when Russian authorities holding him against his will tried to issue him a Russian ID card — showed the Ukrainian teen sullen in a white shirt and tie.
    He is one of three Ukrainian teenagers who fled Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea this summer and shared their experiences with The Washington Post in lengthy interviews in Kyiv and Kherson. They each described systematic efforts by Russian officials to keep them in Russian-controlled territory.
    Ukraine says there are thousands of Ukrainian children like Lavrov who were forced to move to Russia or Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea, since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. What makes Lavrov exceptional is that he got out, carrying with him memories of his experience that could one day be used in court to prove Russia committed war crimes by relocating children.
    On March 17, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, which accused them of war crimes for unlawfully deporting and transferring Ukrainian children. Lvova-Belova herself adopted a Ukrainian teen from the occupied city of Mariupol. The Kremlin has denounced the warrants and said they have no legal validity in Russia.
    Some of the Ukrainian children in Russia are too young to know their own names or citizenship. Others may be too scared to speak up. Some have already been adopted into Russian families — including by Russian government officials — or issued Russian identity documents.
    But accounts from teenagers, who are capable of describing their forced removal and detention by Russian authorities, contradict the Russian narrative that Ukrainian children are finding safety and happiness in Russia. They also pose an immense legal and political threat to Putin, Lvova-Belova and other Russian officials.
    Ukraine intends to use their testimony as evidence that Russia is systematically removing Ukrainian children from their homes and culture, erasing their identities to reshape them as loyal Russian citizens.
    [continues]

  7. Patd, congrats to the Cats. I saw more of their game than Bama’s. They were a different team than the one that played Bama a couple weeks ago. 

  8. lol, the academic who made the time-travel to Europe vid ends it with, “good luck, have a good trip, stay safe”, recommended viewing for fellow nerds 👍 

  9. A first cousin was a History prof at Clemson, his main area of study being midieval Europe/france……he had an extensive collection of music from that time, which wound up with me after he had it all copied—either on CD or somehow on the computer I don’t know. But I have all his vinyl stored in my shop and don’t know what to do with it.  I was going to give it all to Flatus but he seems to have left the room awhile back     Anyway, here’s my midievalist cousin David:
    David was internationally recognized for his research on 14th century Flanders and late medieval Germany. Professor Nicholas is the author or editor of sixteen books, and numerous scholarly articles and book chapters on the subjects. He came to Clemson in 1989 from the University of Nebraska, where he had taught for 22 years. Dr. Nicholas retired from academia in 2006 as a Kathryn and Calhoun Lemon Professor of History at Clemson University. While at Clemson, Dr. Nicholas taught courses in Medieval History, The Era of the Hundred Years War, pre-modern urbanization, the European family, and the History of England to 1688. His love for teaching continued into retirement, where he taught at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Clemson, SC; including classes in classical music. He was an accomplished classical pianist and playing piano was one of his favorite hobbies. [From the Obit]

    David Nicholas for the books; and if any have ideas on final disposition of the music welcome. Library? Yeah, maybe but……..

  10. a good university library might be interested in that collection

    “ he seems to have left the room”

    that’s one way to put it 🫤

  11. bink, loved the joe pass piece.  bet he could play a mean lute.  speaking of lutes and other things musically medieval

    I am very delighted to introduce to you my second medieval music video. Saltarello is a medieval Italian dance from XIV century. This music and video is purely filmed and edited by miself. Here I play bouzouki , recorder, whistle, jeews harp, djembe, harp, vielle, viola da gamba, hummelchen bagpipe, dudelsack bagpipe, rauschpfeife, tambourin, and self made staff with bells. Clothes I am wearing is an early medieval viking/Rus clothes, and also I am using a rucksack made of birch bark (in Russia it is called Пестерь). I hope you enjoy my video and music. If you like it , please subscribe to my channel and leave a comment. You can also follow me on VK https://vk.com/EgoriyVeshniy

     

  13. At the time I got the records vinyl was dead, nobody wanted vinyl…but now you may be right, maybe Clemson would be interested.  

  16. How Biden Might Recover: The president just revealed his plan to win a second term — make it all about Trump. — By Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic

    free link..
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/11/how-biden-might-recover/676092/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

    Brownstein: “If Biden can’t make big gains, he will secure a second term only if he wins more voters who are unhappy with his performance than any president in modern times. The silver lining for Biden is that in Trump he has a polarizing potential opponent who might allow him to do just that.”

  17. More Bernstein:

    “On virtually every front, Trump has already laid out a much more militantly conservative and overtly authoritarian agenda than he ran on in 2016 or 2020. His proposals include the mass deportation of and internment camps for undocumented immigrants, gutting the civil service, invoking the Insurrection Act to quash public protests, and openly deploying the Justice Department against his political enemies. If Trump is the GOP nominee, Democratic advertising will ensure that voters in the decisive swing states are much more aware of his agenda and often-venomous rhetoric than they are today. (The Biden campaign has started issuing near-daily press releases calling out Trump’s most extreme proposals.)”

  19. It should have been, Sturg. But Biden campaign just spent $30 million on positive ads trying to boost his approval rating without mentioning Trump, and it did not work.

  20. Going to be my easy listening in the easy chair this afternoon. Thanks, Jack. 

    My dad would have been 95 years old today. Memories of listening with him to Beethoven and the rest of his collection of classical albums.

  21. Craig, I hope Democrats is a case of hold your fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Fascists can only give them more ammunition. 

  22. No tears for Auburn in my book. They’re the lousiest winners ever, you don’t want to run into them in the checkout line at the Pig. 
     

  24. Jack, Thank you for a particularly beautiful Sunday serendipity.

    All of the music today is nice.  

    Rachel Maddow’s new book “Prequel” is well worth the read regarding the events that lead to the rise of authoritarian governments and the loss of freedoms.  Hefty warning for what might lay ahead.

     

     

  25. Pat, watched your clip, that was mighty impressive. Reminded me of Auburn’s last-one-second-run in 2013 Iron Bowl. We still aren’t over that. 

  26. “Hefty warning for what might lay ahead.”

     
    Jamie, I was wavering on getting Rachel’s book but you’ve now sold me. 

    I was an “odd child” (even then) with little access to new books. But I did have a closet full of my father’s World Book Encyclopedia 1936. That was my primary reading material and probably why the events leading up to WWII are etched in my brain. We’re there again.

  29. That business of putting an eagle on his hat…….doesn’t that have a lot in common with a Native American 
     
    What IS it about that freakin’ bird 

  30. Sturgeone – a decade or more ago I would offer to be the repository of goodness, a way station for the vinyl so to speak as it would become the joy of someone else after me. That time has passed me by.  The issue is finding a place which would maintain the complete set for what it is.  I would suggest calling one of the colleges and universities with a music arts advance degree and ask the dean for ideas. 

  31. sturge, yeah but ole il duce’s eagle has only one head. puti’s has two heads. then there are those with 3 …. next thing you know those eagles will look like medusa.  loser guy’s symbol = chicken running around headless. 

    wiki:

    The double-headed eagle is an iconographic symbol originating in the Bronze Age. A heraldic charge, it is used with the concept of an empire. Most modern uses of the emblem are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the late Byzantine Empire, originally a dynastic emblem of the Palaiologoi. It was adopted during the Late Medieval to Early Modern period in the Holy Roman Empire, Albania and in Orthodox principalities (Serbia and Russia), representing an augmentation of the (single-headed) eagle or Aquila associated with the Roman Empire. In a few places, among them the Holy Roman Empire and Russia, the motif was further augmented to create the less prominent triple-headed eagle.

    Image result for russia double headed eagle

  33. Qatari PM says efforts to free Ukrainian children in Russia ‘ongoing’ | The Hill

    Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said in an interview on Sunday that the effort to free Ukrainian children from Russia is “ongoing” and that they hope more children will be released before the holidays.
    “Qatar has been mediating in different conflicts that not only exclusive to the region. But even beyond that. And this is something that’s been in the foundation of the country foreign policy. And it’s a core element that we are focusing on,” he said.
    “These efforts are, has been ongoing and still continuing. And we are hoping also for another group to come back to their families before the holidays, hopefully,” Al Thani added.
    Qatar has played a critical role in securing the release of Israeli and foreign hostages from Gaza in recent days and Biden has praised Qatari leaders for their partnership in the process.
    Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization, used similar tactics in its attack against Israel as Russia, which has been publicly denounced for abducting Ukrainian children from their families as it wages war against the democratic country.
    Qatar helped secure the return of Ukrainian children recently and the prime minister said he is in constant communication with Ukrainians and Russians to secure more results.
    “We see that this is a contribution of such a small country to international peace and security. We carried out this role based on the request at the beginning, from the Ukrainian in our constant exchange and communication with them, how we are able to help and we use the channels of communication and the relationship that we have with Russia to secure those four kids,” the prime minister said.  

  36. Blue, thanks much……I have an email off to the Clemson lady, so I’ll see what comes of that…..

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