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Friday, November 18, 2005Maybe we were more sophisticated when we drilled holes in their foreheads...Check this out: A woman spent a year in a work-release program for possession of a controlled substance. The, er, substance, was a)prescribed by her doctor and b)not illegal. The judge, prosecutor and defense attorney all failed to notice that even if the woman was patently guilty of what the police charged, there was no crime! The woman is now on probation for giving half a Clonazapem tablet to a fellow prisoner in her program, which constitutes distribution of a controlled substance. The legal and law enforcement professionals who deprived a mentally-ill woman suffering severe anxiety of liberty and labor without cause for a year... feel really bad about it. I don't know if they're to experience other consequences - the article doesn't say - but I have a feeling that when we get all done, any costs borne for the injury done the woman will be borne by the taxpayers. After all, government messing up the lives of struggling citizens is de rigueur. It's only if something offends the sensibilities of those with power over us that heads roll - our own. The wrong person faced sentencing at the end of this one. 
posted by gbarto at 5:13 PM Thursday, November 17, 2005Just did a Polling Point survey for my very own county of Santa Clara. They're investigating a ballot measure to raise the sales tax a quarter point for worthy causes.Santa Clara has some very fine worthy causes, including a not half bad network of low-cost hospitals and a law enforcement system where it seems like every third car on the road is a state cop, sheriff's deputy or local cop. But... All the measures included three magic words: not limited to... And while the survey did a lot to find out which hot buttons would earn my vote, they did little to address those three words that left me telling them that every ballot wording would draw a "no" from me. It's like they're not even trying. If they want to threaten to take away law enforcement, decent roads and health care unless we vote a tax hike, fine. But if they want to divert funds elsewhere, they should at least have to be sneaky and underhanded enough about it that their opponents in the next election cycle can call them on it and hard. Right-wing, anti-tax Republican that I am, I could still see myself voting a small tax-hike specifically for the county health system, which does a lot for the uninsured - if I thought they would get it. Or the county road system, which is important to our local economy - if I thought they'd spend as much on the roads regular joes use for the godawful morning commute as on driveways for office parks and pothole free drives from the commissioners' homes to the county building. Which, I guess, puts this conservative sucker for the Bay Area lifestyle in a rough spot: What do you do when you agree that "the government should..." but know better than to trust the government to do it? If only there were a way to privatize the public sector, but not quite...
posted by gbarto at 9:47 PM Wednesday, November 16, 2005I see Bob Woodward has suddenly popped up in the Plame Game.You knew he couldn't stay out of it forever. However, people are a little off if they think he's talking to an "Administration official." In fact, his source is nestled deep within the bowels of the CIA... It's the late William J. Casey! Now that's a scoop!
posted by gbarto at 9:39 AM A little music... I just ran across Hilary Hahn's latest, a selection of Mozart sonatas for piano and violin. These are recorded with her longtime recital partner, Natalie Zhu. The album is, of course, a delight. While some of Mozart, notably the Allegro from the F major sonata (first track on the disc) can be a bit too, well, bright, on the whole he is a marvel, and Hahn and Zhu's interpretation bring this out. If the Allegro from the F maj is a bit too lively - hopping bunny syndrome, one might suggest - the Rondeau is just plain fun to listen to. The most moving piece on the album, for those who like their classical music serious, is the E min, written at the time of the death of Mozart's mother. The music is in parts as melancholy as Mozart must have been, yet the piece on the whole marches resolutely forward, even managing a few chipper moments, though these fall away into bittersweet meditations rather quickly. But there is something in the prevailing motif of the first movement that declares, this too shall pass. The second movement meanders along like an aspiring writer wandering Paris streets while wondering if the world will ever recognize his genius, then picks up the pace as soon as the baguette he has been munching is gone. If you go for that sort of metaphor. In any case, it makes for good listening while seeking the deeper meaning of life. Which leaves us with a piece that still resonates 250 years after the beginning of the Mozart era. Those seeking truly coherent and insightful remarks on the album's content are advised to look at Ms. Hahn's liner notes, which are full of fascinating information about Mozart, music and performance and utterly devoid of anthropomorphistic music metaphors - or is it similes?
posted by gbarto at 2:05 AM I see that the Conservative Observer, whose nom de plume used to be Cicero, is now writing as Gaius. Having missed a few days, I'm not sure whether this amounts to a promotion, a change of heart about what kind of leadership to offer, or a lingering suspicion that false friends are preparing a backstabbing. March 15 will tell. Update: I now see it's Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, not Gaius Julius Caesar. Don't remember which one he was. Must needs look 'im up some time.
posted by gbarto at 1:17 AM |
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