🥸 One very cool thing about chatGPT data analysis is that it’s correcting its own errors as it goes. Sort of.
I should be winding down but put on this masterpiece. Michael and I were listening to Eurythmics, then This Mortal Coil, then Julee Cruise, and it just kind of led to this.
MoveToAmend.org | Also, has the Democratic establishment sealed our fate?
Sunday, December 17, 2023
I left this comment on a Substack comment. The original poster basically said elections aren’t going to save us. Direct action, general strikes, civil disobedience, and applying real pressure on politicians will. I think he’s right, but I’m skeptical about our ability to successfully pull off any of those things. A site he mentioned, MoveToAmend.org is worth checking out. From me: The Democratic establishment is consistent in several areas. Chief among them: striving and aiming for the middle instead of aiming for the top (and then still missing when they take the shot); propping up and prioritizing mediocrity over progress; refusing to scout for new talent (really, Dems?
No, Tom Jones, No! (Feat. “Motherless Child” with Portishead)
Saturday, December 16, 2023
Why am I listening to Tom Jones in earnest? Why do I feel like I have a soft spot for him somehow some way? Why do I respect how much of a great vocalist he is? (Even when he misses the mark commercially, his voice on its own is consistently and completely solid - he hits each note right smack dab in the middle - never even a hair sharp or flat, just right in the middle - and has a set of lungs on him that can carry that voice for measures at a time.
Nothing quite says “Keep the Christ in Christmas” like a plastic, inflatable, life-sized nativity scene in your front yard.
Stay classy, babyJesus ⛪️🎄👶🏻🙄
MAGA REPUBLICANS ARE REPUBLICANS
Friday, December 15, 2023
I don’t understand why we’re saying “MAGA Republicans” like they’re distinct and separate from the rest of the Republican Party. We’ve seen over and over again that the GOP are all singing from the same hymnal. A few members may be off-key, but they’re all in the same weird church, sitting on the same oppressive wooden pews, and absolutely all on the same page, singing the same measure, spitting out the same words, whether directly and literally or whether through policy implementation, law making, and minority rule.
Maestro: The Music of Leonard Bernstein
Friday, December 15, 2023
Browsing Apple Music for another reason, I stumbled onto a playlist of new music selections from film and television. I stopped scrolling when I saw Maestro: The Music of Leonard Bernstein. The song featured in the playlist is the second movement of The Chichester Psalms, which is the most dramatic of the three movements in the piece. I loved singing it in high school and later as an adult in the Columbus Gay Men’s Chorus with the Columbus Children’s Choir.
Wednesday, December 13, 2023 →
🫠 Hey does anyone else remember that one time in the year 2000 on December 13th when that one president-elect named Al Gore conceded after that one Conservative Supreme Court did that one thing where they inexplicably reversed a state court decision to recount Florida's votes and instead handed the presidency to George W. Bush? Remember that? That time when a stolen presidential election was legitimate and should’ve caused a people’s uprising the likes of which this country hadn’t seen since the American Revolution, but didn’t? Like, people just kind of complained about it. And then the climate crisis accelerated and the infrastructure crumbled and the economy crumbled and the wars were long and needless and the deficit raged and one political party eventually spouted its divisive rhetoric often enough that it unleashed a pro-business monster who did more harm to this country in four years than the entirety of all of his predecessors?
Huh. Yeah, that was a wacky time for sure.
🎵 What timing. The HCR piece is about the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and how it came to be. https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/december-10-2023
And just Sunday I discovered a beautiful work by Max Richter in which he set the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to music. It’s called “Voices”.
It’s quite stirring, full of hope and disappointment at the same time. Hope, because of its aspiration, disappointment because so many of its promises remain unfulfilled or have been broken altogether. https://album.link/us/i/1565963340
Both are worth your time to read and listen to.
🎵 Now Playing: Le Pain Perdu by Cibo Matto from the album Viva! La Woman on Music
Michael (Boy Michael) made a tiny townfor Christmas! God knows they’re squinters.
#arresteddevelopment #tinytown #GOBBluth #godzilla
I haven’t officially started listening to holiday music yet, but a few of my favorites have been finding their way into my speakers. Here’s one.
🥰 I started my Cultivating Gratitude class last week by asking people to share a childhood memory/possession they’re grateful for. I talked about my Ernie doll and the Ernie poster Mom made for me. Well today one of the participants gave this to me. It made me smile for five solid minutes!
First of all, did you know Katey Sagal is a vocalist? probably not, so I win this round. Did you know she covered this Stevie Wonder song (which I only this morning learned is a Stevie Wonder song) on her 2004 album, Room? Probably not, so I win this round, too.
I cried when I realized what she was singing about, who she was singing for. She follows it up with a reinterpretation of You Don’t Own Me that I can only describe as a defiant dirge.
It’s actually a helluva album.
I had NO idea this was an Aretha Franklin song first. I just assumed it belonged to En Vogue. FYI it does NOT belong to En Vogue
Sometimes I want to start a podcast with my friend Andy where we listen to one Tori Amos song and talk about it. We’d listen in sequential order of commercial release but then from time to time we’d choose a b-side from an era of our liking and call it a very special episode.
Ohioans passed an AMENDMENT TO THE STATE CONSTITUTION (all caps because that’s a big deal) and Republicans literally ignore it and do what they want anyway. When is someone going to put them in their place?! Not “hold them accountable.” They wouldn’t know accountability from Nancy Regan’s asshole. But someone to really put them in their place, rip the rug out from under them, knock them on their asses, emphatically tell them NO, and that enough is enough, and to shut the hell up, and to go sit in the corner while the rest of us grown ups go and try to repair all the shit they’ve burned down to the ground. (Show me a Joe Biden who’ll do that and I’ll canvass for the motherfucker 24/7.) But instead the Dems will keep shooting for the middle, reaching across the aisle to a fascist regime, wonder why that didn’t work, and then fall back asleep while the GOP change the rules to stay in power unchecked. Again. 🤬
Ohio Republicans propose nixing home grow, increasing taxes in sweeping changes to legal marijuana
I’m a recovering HR professional who believed layoffs, while terrible, were sometimes inevitable and necessary. But nope. The only thing they do is make human livelihood expendable so that people with money get more money. Fuck off Spotify. Spotify is laying off 1,500 people, or 17% of its workforce
Got a 9-page IT policy on the “use of artificial intelligence in state solutions.” I think it’s basically saying stop using AI unless you’ve been explicitly granted permission and here are the 50 layers of disincentivizing red tape that will hinder you from ever being explicitly granted permission.