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Showing posts from March, 2010

It All Makes Perfect Sense

It was sunny this past Saturday, the humidity was low, not a cloud in the sky. I did my usual grocery shopping after a morning with extra coffee, a slower pace, some reading and listening to music. After groceries I got in a run. It was breezy but comfortable out. When I got back I had lunch, vacuumed the entire upstairs, and then got out my chainsaws to clear some trees that had fallen in our walking paths since last fall. I planned to mow after that but, in between, I opened up the windows, let the early spring breeze run through the house and drank a couple of beers while sitting in the sunshine on my front porch. Jennifer joined me for awhile. She was busy weeding and mulching. I have been listening to Roger Waters outside of my classical explorations recently. I decided to crank up Amused to Death and blast it out into the brilliant bird-filled afternoon. This is the way life ricochets sometimes. Jennifer had gone on a camping trip with some of our friends to Cumberland Island

"A big f**king deal"

President Obama has won a major political battle (we'll see later who wins the war). He has succeeded where Bill Clinton failed back in 1993. The victory means we will have the largest expansion of social services in the US since 1965, essentially the biggest so far in my lifetime. As VP Joe Biden so eloquently put it: "This is a big f**king deal." As a result, some 32 million Americans (the number was over 40 million during the 2008 election hype) will be joining the ranks of the medically insured. Many, if not most, of these are health insurance companies dreams - young adults who were healthy enough to freely opt not to have insurance. Now they will be forced to pay and that pool of new money, along with $940 billion in federal fiat dollars, will likely make heathcare more profitable in the short-term . Here's a nifty timeline of what should unfold over the next several years of reform . The passage of the health reform bill is all about making sure more people get

Goin' to Nationals!

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For Father's Day last year, my daughter's gift to me was several artistic photos she had taken (see June 21, 2009 post). Later, she entered the one above ("A friend in the pool") into the local PTA Reflections art contest. She also entered the "babyface" pencil sketch featured in my November 17, 2009 post. Well, both of those pieces won their respective art competitions at the county level. Today we moved on to the State level competition held at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta . She took Second Place in the "visual arts" category with the smiling baby rendering. With the pic above, however, she took First Place in the "photography" category for all high schooler's in the State and this photo now moves on to National level competition. Woohoo! My daughter's work accounted for two pieces of art out of almost 300 scattered through various categories considered at the State level. These 300 were culled from over 29,000 entires sta

Great Thirds

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Proof of purchase. Two recordings of Mahler's weighty Great Third. One in the upper left is Benjamin Zander conducting (with accompanying lecture CD, 2004). Next there is the great Bernard Haitink with the Berlin Philharmonic (1990). To its right is a young Michael Tilson Thomas conducting Beethoven's "Eroica" in spirited fashion (1988). Beneath that is the recording of Henryk Gorecki's Third (1992) that was so commercially popular. To its left is Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic (1985) in a solid, emotional performance of the Schumann symphony. Finally there is Lutoslawski conducting himself with the Berlin Philharmonic (1986). I have very few composers in my collection conducting themselves, which makes the Lutoslawski CD a special, well-worn recording. The greatest Third symphony belongs to someone we haven't mentioned so far, which might be rather surprising considering he is probably the greatest composer of all time. Ludwig von Bee

Being Bullish

Last March the markets were crashing. There was a mild panic. No one knew how low it could go because it had already sank further than most predicted. What a difference a year makes. Today we had a Dow Theory Confirmation . The Dow closed at a new high for the rally and above the 10,725 level, above the 50% Principle. Plus the Transports also closed at a new high for this most recent rally. First "commandment" of Dow Theory is that there is no clearer indication of future market trends than when the Dow and the Transports both close at new highs (or new lows) on the same day. This is a strongly positive signal. The consensus is that the promise of continued low interest rates fueled the rally today. This part of a continuing strategy by the Federal Reserve to promote historic levels of liquidity as a means of fighting off recession. Investor money is now coming back into the markets with more confidence. So, is the Great Recession now over? Well, there are still issues wi

Reinventing the Sacred...not really

As you know, I am an avid reader. Reading is my television to the extent that I spend hours every week doing it. I generally read several books simultaneously. For example, I am currently reading Anthony Beevor’s D-Day , a wonderful listener’s guide to Mahler’s symphonies , there’s always some Nietzsche stuff on my reading table. For bedtime I’ve been re-reading a chapter or two most evenings of Leo Tolstoy’s brilliant novel War and Peace . And I just finished a 290-page book called Reinventing the Sacred . Now, I am currently near page 400 of the 1450 page Tolstoy novel and I’ve only been reading it mostly at bedtime since mid-January. But, Reinventing the Sacred took me over four months to finish. Funny how often the length of a book has little to do with how long it takes me to read it. Reinventing the Sacred by Stuart A. Kauffman is one example of many works available today that attempt to somehow reconcile the apparent polarizing worldviews of science and religion. As science g

"I've been mad for f**king years..."

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Dark Side of the Moon is one of the greatest artistic and commercial successes in rock music history. Although it reached the number one position on the Billboard charts for only one week way back in 1973, Pink Floyd's Dark Side surpasses every other musical record in history for its longevity. It spent a total of 741 consecutive weeks (over 14 years) on the Billboard Top 200 before fading. But even that was temporary. For reasons unknown to me, 12 weeks ago Dark Side returned to the Billboard 200 and ranks #172 as of this post. Needless to say this is a rather astonishing occurrence. Wired Magazine proclaimed yesterday that Dark Side is the greatest concept album of all time . It is also currently ranked a very strong #21 on Billboard's "Catalog Albums" Chart , where it has now been listed for 949 weeks - or more than 18 years. So, if you add the two charts together, the album has measured in Billboard's rankings one way or another for over 1,700 weeks...

First Feast 2010

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The forever to be remembered as way beyond decadent chocolate peppermint mousse stacks with the accompanying wine. The flute contains cheap Korbel Brut which is a surprisingly great value in champagne if you ask me. Note the added touch of the overturned giant sized plastic Cool Whip container on the right. Just the right balance, Dillos riding the karmic party wave in Dillostyle. The annual Dillo gathering know as ‘first feast” was delayed this year due to the reclamation effort and remodeling of Mark and Eileen’s home, which received significant flood damage during last year’s torrential downpour in the Atlanta area (see September 21, 2009 post). Better late than ever is a constant Dillo mantra though and the evening did not disappoint. Jennifer and I arrived mid-afternoon to enjoy some pre-dining champagne with our hosts and take in a brief tour of the renovations. The house looks great with most of the wood floor throughout having been replaced, a gorgeous new dining room table, an