By on

Bobby Darin’s Mack the Knife was my parent’s favorite song. I have heard this from both of them at one time or another. Although my mother was more emphatic about it, it didn’t take much thinking on my father’s part to agree.

This makes me laugh every time I hear Mack the Knife. The song is about a paid killer dispatching his victim’s body into the river. No two hearts beating as one or you light up my life or any such romantic nonsense for my Mom and Dad. No, my parents hearts went all squishing when hearing about a murder victim bleeding to death in an alley.

So, if you are ever wondering why I turned out this way, this might be your first clue. This should tell you a lot about my upbringing.

By on

I tried to write about music and I have published a few (Sunset pigs, Peggy Lee and Marie) but I sometimes think I sound like a really bad Rolling Stone album review. “Great guitar playing.” Like I know anything about guitar playing. Seriously. I haven’t a clue about the difference between good and mediocre guitar playing.

All I really wanted to do was pass on music that I liked and a very brief explanation on what I liked. It might just be a line or two but then this is a blog and it is meant to be brief and to the point. And you can also see why it takes me so long to publish anything. I have a tendency to overthink.

This means I am giving up on deep thoughtful reviews and just going to muse hence the title Musical Musings. Snazsy name, right. about music. So get ready, I am about to unload about music.

By on 2 Comments

Elon Musk clarified something that has been bothering me for some time. I was always wonder how Hitler could kill so many people. I mean he was just one man. It seemed highly unlikely, at least to me, that Hitler could dispatch six million Jews all by himself. But, then, Elon Musk comes along to explain that actually Hitler didn’t kill anyone, it was civil servants that did the actual killing.

WTF. Really, like this somehow absolves him. I do have to give him some credit for looping in the true evil here — civil servants. Not Hitler, but civil servants. Hitler is a misunderstood genius much like Elon Musk while civil servants, if left to their own devices, are likely to commit genocide.

This is why when people try to explain that Musk is a genius, I flinch. A smart man would see the problem here. People keep calling me a Nazi. Every time I start talking about Nazis I get unflattering headlines. Maybe I should stop making any comments about Nazis and, in this way, I will stop getting so much bad press.

That he fails to understand this problem and continues to step in it belies his genius status.

By on

Whenever I think of Donald Trump, I remember that Americans actually admire swindlers. How do you explain vacation time shares? Or must try diets? Or Alex Jones vitamins? Amway? Telephone Sales? Trump University? Swindlers, grifters and telesales people, whatever you want to call them prevade the American landscape.

The problem for Americans is the victims of the grifter. They are an annoying lot. Whining about being taken advantage of when they simply should have just been smarter. Or more suspicious. Or more assertive. Or something better than they were in order to stop themselves from being taken advantage of. Americans may pretend to take a dim view of the grifter but really they are more upset with the mark.

Think about a story where someone takes advantage of someone. Invariably you will hear: how could someone be so stupid as to fall for a story like that. The grifter is just doing what grifters do but the victim, now there is where the trouble is. They let their guard down. How could they do something so stupid?

There is an admiration for the grifter for coming up with such an ingenious grift. But the mark. There is no sympathy for the mark.

Think of the society we have created. We tolerate grifter behavior, even say it is the grifter’s right to grift. They can phone us, email us, text us and even, if they are old fashioned enough, knock on our doors. If you don’t want what they are selling, all you have to do is say no. Some of us are so good as to be actually polite to these assholes trying to sell us things we don’t need or want.

The poor grifter is just trying to earn a living. Yeah, right, off of the gullible. More troubling is that grifting is a rich person’s crime. Time shares. Crypto coins. Life Insurance and any number of suspicious business practices are initiated by the rich to take even more money from the poor and the gullible.

This is where our real estate developer president comes in. He is a known grifter. He was convicted of being a grifter in regards to Trump university. He provided his students with a college degree that was meaningless. He also has a history of stiffing trades people right at the point when a non-payment becomes a misdemeanor instead of a felony. Misdemeanors are handled in small claims courts and are rarely worth the money you have to spend to get the money owed. Ka-ching. This practice by the rich has become so pervasive that trade’s people are now marking their prices up in order to recoup what they are rightfully owed. The lesson here is you have to grift in order to deal with grifters.

Since Trump is know to be such a talented grifter, people might think that here is the man to deal with our corrupt system. Yes he is grifter but, then, so is everyone else. Who better to handle the other grifters than a fellow grifter. The problem, as with all marks, is that people have a tendency to think that they can spot the grift and will save themselves from the grifter. That, is, of course, what all marks think.

By on

Sometimes the choice you have is between two bad options. Neither option is particularly desirable but a choice has to be made nonethless. I am afraid this is the position Chuck Schumer was in when he decided to go forward with the Continuing Budget Resolution. One option is to shut down the government, which is what many Republicans want in the first place, or continuing funding a government which Trump and company are trying to dismantle.

Fighting the funding seems like a losing battle with possibly worse results than just continuing with the present chaos. What exactly Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez expected Schumer to do is unclear. Fighting for a better bill, particularly when large segments of the Republican party would love to shut down government permanently, seems like a losing battle with the stakes being even greater chaos than we are presently experiencing. Primary him if you must but Schumer is making much more sense to me than Ocasio-Cortez.

By on

There is nothing more annoying than a white man whining about how badly white men are treated. So I don’t encourage reading Matt Walsh’s cri de coeur about how people should be thanking white men for all the good that they have brought to the world. But, if you must, the rundown can be found below:

” I am proud to be a white man. I think that if anyone’s writing an article singling out white men, it should be to thank us. After all, as I said recently, this country could not exist without white men.”

“The vast majority of the greatest pioneers, inventors, thinkers, leaders in the history of Western civilization have been white men.”

Isn’t that a mouthful of bullshit? There are so many juicy targets here, I don’t know where to begin. His basic premise is both wrong. All you have to do is google inventions by Blacks, then change Blacks to Asian, then change Asian to women, and you will find significant inventions from members of all these groups. So what exactly does he mean when he writes “Nearly every good thing you have in your life — everything that makes your life safer, more comfortable, more enjoyable — was given to you by a white man.” Walsh has written a tricky sentence here both allowing him to acknowledge that non-white men may have contributed something to civilization while, also, allowing him to repeat his false assertion of “everything.”

Then there is White Men tend to tell stories that make White Men the heroes. So, when he talks, for instance, of the pioneers he is failing to acknowledge that these White Men followed paths that the Native American population already travelled and, in some cases, they were assisted by a Native American guide. This changes the story significantly. Lewis and Clark didn’t just wander into the woods and find Oregon. Non-Whites told them where to go. But Lewis and Clark got to tell their story in a way that it looks very much like White Men found the pathway across the continent when they were traveling paths used for centuries by non-Whites.

Most importantly, since White Men have been the most powerful people these past few centuries, it also stands to reason that they are responsible for every bad thing that has happened too — like industrial pollution, World War I, World War II, Racial Prejudice, and the subordination of Women. When you are in charge you have to take the good with the bad. Walsh wants you to thank white men for the good while ignoring the bad. It is a much more complicated legacy than Walsh would have you believe.

Which makes his whining so irritating. Poor White Men. No one appreciates them. Get out your handkerchiefs.

By on

Donald Trump is trying to position himself as the realist in the ongoing dispute between Putin and Zelenskyy. He wants Zelenskyy to come to terms with his inability to win the war. OK. Fair enough. But Putin is in exactly the same position. Putin can not win it either. So why is he only applying pressure on Zelenskyy? And why is only one side making concessions in this great deal that Trump is working on.

Furthermore, why is Zelenskyy getting the blame for trying to start World War III? Putin invaded the Ukraine. Doesn’t Putin deserve just a little bit of the blame then. If nothing else, for being impatient. What kind of shit sandwich is Trump expecting Zelenskyy to eat?Surrendering more land to Putin is all I am hearing, so and, wait I forgot, wait there is some promise from Putin that he will never never invade again.

What a deal. I am sure that it sounds pretty empty to Zelenskyy whose county has been invaded twice in the last 10 years. I keep thinking I am missing something. If not, it seems like an incredibly bad deal with Zelenskyy conceding land for nothing. And, I can’t believe this one, Trump wants Zelenskyy to thank him for his help.

My mind is blown. What a nakedly apparent betrayal and humiliation of Zelenskyy. And Trump is loving every minute of it. He is taking revenge on the world with no concern for tomorrow. He has absolutely nothing to lose now.

Since he is a lost cause it would be helpful for the wise men in the Republican Party to step up. There comes a point when getting reelected seems secondary to the world and to the future. But I guess not. Silence. Mostly just silence. And some of these guys have nothing to lose. Senator Grassley is 91 years old. What is the risk? What a bunch of cowards. Lots and lots of cowards.

By on

I was worried that I was becoming too numb to the daily Trump outrages. I would see them but reacting to them seemed difficult. There is only so much nonsense you can take before tuning it all out. He is going to take over Greenland, then the Panama Canal, then Canada. I repeat CANADA. Then he renames the Gulf of Mexico. I just am unable to be outraged every day.

Then last week occurred. I am glad to report Trump has jolted me back into outrage.

Correct me if I am wrong but is he is making the case for Putin being the injured party for the Russian invasion of the Ukraine? Are we talking about the same Russian invasion? I know it was a couple years ago but my memory is very different than Trump’s. It was all on television for about a month. Now Trump wants me to change my mind without offering any compelling evidence to do so.

Even more shocking, and let me tell you I am pretty damn shocked at this point, is that the whole Republican Party, even formally strong Ukraine supporters, are mad at Zelenskyy for not being sufficiently servile to Donald Trump. They aren’t saying that Zelenskyy is wrong but that he didn’t have the good sense to grovel while his host was spewing nonsense. Bad manners and all that.

Despite the fact that J.D. Vance and Trump started this little slugfest and expected Zelenskyy to sit quietly and take the punches. They made the choice to publicly dress down Zelenskyy in public. Zelenskyy isn’t the type of guy to back down from a fight. Ask Vladimir Putin.

But Trump picked a public fight and he got one. His guest behaved badly. Well, yes, after his host called him ungrateful in front of the television cameras. There is also a certain etiquette on how you treat your guest. Not embarrassing your guest is near the top of that list.

Trump is being calculated and shockingly transparent here. He wants to distance the US from the Ukraine. He has begun the process. So, in a few months, I guess, we will abandon the Ukraine, despite Russian aggression, despite Putin being a dictator who kills his opponents, because Zelenskyy hurt Trump’s feelings.

If you are looking for Hitler comparisons, and I know you are, try this one. Trump is in the Neville Chamberlain role. Putin fills in for Hitler and Zelenskyy is Eduard Benes, the Czechoslovak leader in 1938. Trump will encourage the partition Ukraine to bring peace to Europe while doing nothing of the sort. At least, Chamberlain thought he was bringing peace to Europe. Trump doesn’t give a rat’s ass about peace in Europe.

Well, at least, I got out of my numbness and am back to outrage. That is something.

.6

By on

I baffled at what the end game is for the billionaires club now dismantling the federal government. The present system has served them well. They have wealth, power, and beautiful women. Talk about hitting the jackpot. What more can they want? More importantly, what possible good can come from the chaos they are creating in our system.

They have this mistaken notion that they can control the chaos. But chaos, by its very nature, is uncontrollable. A disorderly dismantling of government is just fun and games right now but the further gutting of a system that has worked remarkably well these past 230 years or so for what? To be replaced by what? Everyone will be free to do whatever they want to do. That is mighty vague.

But what does this mean about public schools which, by the way, the founding fathers supported without reservation. What about Social Security which provides retirement income and people paid for in their payroll taxes. What about the National Parks? What about the FAA? None of which are perfect and all of which have a necessary function. What do the stripped down versions of these look like after Trump and Musk get through with it.

The arrogance of these men is dumbfounding. They sit on billions of dollars all earned in a system that was highly favorable to billionaires making money. Yet this isn’t enough somehow. Call me old fashioned, even call me conservative, but I prefer orderly change which protects the institutions we have while also opening these institutions to gradual change. It is less traumatic and boring but there is a lot less chance that the goose that laid the golden egg will be murdered in the process.

By on

Perhaps the Pope’s doctors were trying to report on his condition in a way not to alarm the public but how can there be anything mild about kidney failure. This seems like a pretty big deal and the mild in the phrasing does little to mitigate my concerns when directly after mild I see kidney failure.

Wouldn’t the Pope is in the early stages of kidney failure be a more accurate phrasing of his condition?