tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post3169952746528089969..comments2024-03-19T07:48:54.021-06:00Comments on Gus Van Horn: Capitalism Smeared as Slavery -- by Advocate of SlaveryGus Van Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-20431400850320215972019-11-21T10:41:54.516-06:002019-11-21T10:41:54.516-06:00Read "good for what they are" as "W...Read "good for what they are" as "What I had that one time was good, and my wife has liked what she had on a couple of visits."Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-43237688026931665392019-11-21T10:39:53.676-06:002019-11-21T10:39:53.676-06:00Snedcat,
You remind me of something offensive eve...Snedcat,<br /><br />You remind me of something offensive even farther off the original topic.<br /><br />I am taking an unusually long time finding a favorite Mexican restaurant in my new home town, but it is not for lack of trying or lack of options. But... <br /><br />One of the "options" -- and unfortunately the nearest-by -- is one of a chain called Tijuana Flats that bills itself a Tex-Mex. Their offerings are interesting and good for what they are, but the place commits two unforgivable sins of omission on its menu: It lacks BOTH fajitas AND margaritas. (!) I almost always want at least one of those things when I go to a Mexican place, so I will practically never go there again.<br /><br />I will not pretend expertise in Mexican food, but know what I like...<br /><br />GusGus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-76201772374246313622019-11-21T06:10:28.974-06:002019-11-21T06:10:28.974-06:00Yo, Gus, you write: "Also, the different rela...Yo, Gus, you write: "Also, the different relationships these men had with the Nazi regime is worth mention."<br /><br />It all reminds me tangentially of something I witnessed a couple of decades or so ago. I was meeting a friend for coffee before going to dinner (not romantic--I was editing a dictionary she had written and she had indicated not knowing anything about Mexican food, and there was a fine restaurant I frequented run by a family from Nuevo León), and we agreed to meet at a coffee shop near the music school at the university and then discuss lexicographical matters over fajitas.<br /><br />I arrived first and was enjoying a cuppajoe when two unkempt long-haired types started shouting. One of them complained about how he had been forced to sightread something in composition class by "that f*****' Nazi fascist Hindemith." I like Hindemith myself (he was a neoclassical composer of a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POixs_rUkNw&t=12s" rel="nofollow">motoric</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXmNd4YtWrQ" rel="nofollow">somewhat thorny</a> bent), so my ears pricked up. I was aware that he had had to take an oath of loyalty to the Nazis so's not to be disappeared as he looked for a way out of the country (he had a Jewish wife), and Hindemith was too famous for the Nazis simply to disappear him, so they eventually (1935, I think) sent him off to Turkey to teach composition, from where he and his wife moved to the US. I mean, the Nazis disliked him--he had written a comic opera, <i>Neues vom Tage</i> (The News of the Day) that had a soprano singing naked in a bathtub, which the Nazis considered degenerate, and his music in general was little more generate in their eyes--so did some ugly skeleton surface from his closet? Nope, it was because Hindemith was notorious for arguing that there was a biological basis for tonality.<br /><br />So these two advocates of not quite sweetness and light continued arguing against...well, something for a while longer, and my friend and I left them in full swing. She asked me, "What happened? Weren't they about to fight?" I said, "No, they're composers. They were friends arguing about art." Being from Kazakhstan and fully familiar with Russian artists, she just smiled and said, "Ah, I see." (I mentioned it to another friend later, a soprano in the music school, and she said, "Was it that guy with the crappy scraggly blond hair halfway between the ears and the collar who looks too soft-shelled to take seriously? All he ever talks about is how much he hates tonality or else whines about the latest girlfriend to abuse him emotionally and dump him for someone less of a damp squib. We suspect he writes music the way he does so he can make everyone else share the personal grief of his private world.")<br /><br />So yeah, believing tonality is not entirely arbitrary is not just fascism, it's <i>Nazi</i> fascism.Snedcatnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-45818789528929125862019-11-20T16:25:28.415-06:002019-11-20T16:25:28.415-06:00C.,
Thanks for mentioning Bosch and the correctio...C.,<br /><br />Thanks for mentioning Bosch and the correction/reminder regarding Haber's role. Also, the different relationships these men had with the Nazi regime is worth mention.<br /><br />GusGus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-74000446292950664672019-11-20T14:34:17.990-06:002019-11-20T14:34:17.990-06:00Hi Gus,
Just an historical quibble; the Haber-Bos...Hi Gus,<br /><br />Just an historical quibble; the Haber-Bosch process was invented in the 1st decade of the 20th century and therefore was done under the Imperial German State, rather than the Nazi regime. <br /><br />Haber was indeed the father of chemical warfare, but never supported the Nazi regime given that both of his wives were Jewish converts to Christianity. He fled Germany for England because of these Nazi policies and died, while traveling on business, in Basel, Switzerland. Several members of his extended family were murdered in the death camps. <br /><br />Bosch was blacklisted, as you point out, because of his opposition to Nazi policies. <br /><br />Haber's stance on his support of the German war effort is found in his statement; "In peace, a scientist belongs to the world; in war, he belongs to his country."<br /><br />In a way, that's something of a restatement of a classical American aphorism which has been attributed to numerous historical people; "My Country, may she ever be right, but my Country, right or wrong."<br /><br />c andrewAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-53029155591268290412019-11-20T06:25:46.793-06:002019-11-20T06:25:46.793-06:00I was afraid of that...I was afraid of that...Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-30248157718521082692019-11-20T06:16:18.802-06:002019-11-20T06:16:18.802-06:00Yo, Gus, you write, "In the course of some re...Yo, Gus, you write, "In the course of some research, I ran across a mendacious smear piece in the "1619 Project" of the New York Times." All I can say is "Dog bites man." Find one piece that's <i>not</i> and then you might have a non-superfluous sentence. Heh.Snedcatnoreply@blogger.com