Friday Hodgepodge
Friday, December 20, 2019
Notable Commentary
 |
| My daughter gave this to me as an early Christmas present. |
Editor's Note: Each year, I take time off from blogging and news. I start today, once I am satisfied any loose ends are taken care of. I'll resume posting here and on Twitter on January 6, 2020. I wish my readers a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
***
"[P]atients suffer and die because of physicians trying to adhere to government guidelines." -- Paul Hsieh, in "How Patients Pay the Price for Unintended Consequences of Government Health Care," at Forbes.
"[S]trong anti-meat dietary recommendations are not justified by the best currently available evidence." -- Paul Hsieh, in "I'm a Physician, and I'll Continue Eating Red Meat," at Forbes.
"The council has been a microcosm of the U.N.'s fundamental moral bankruptcy." -- Elan Journo, in "Cheer the US Exit From UN Human Rights Council -- But Demand More," at The Hill.
"The underlying problem is the persistent U.S. failure to understand and confront the ascendant Islamist movement, which Iran has spearheaded since 1979." -- Elan Journo, in "Presidential Candidates -- Including Trump -- Are Wrong on Iraq," at The Daily Caller.
"Like the Pilgrims eating all of their turkeys and leaving none to make more, Ms. Harris and other presidential candidates would kill the golden goose that has laid the golden eggs of economic growth and a flourishing society in the U.S. -- the rule of law and protection of property rights." -- Adam Mossoff, in "Calls for Government Theft of Property Should End Like Kamala Harris' Campaign," at The Washington Times.
"The Supreme Court has a chance to end the double standard that allows state institutions to run roughshod over copyrights, the legal fountainhead of American creativity." -- Adam Mossoff, in "Stop the States' Copyright Plunder," at The Wall Street Journal.
"Since our inception in 2000 we've forecasted, in real time, the two U.S. recessions that have occurred (2001, 2007-09); just as important, our models haven't falsely forecasted any recessions that didn't occur." -- Richard Salsman, in "Unanticipated Recessions" (PDF), at RealClear Markets.
"Epstein is right: Companies should stop fearing the cool media kids scaremongering and start reminding the people who count -- their customers -- of the full value they offer." -- Gus Van Horn, in "The Recycling Crowd Embraces Grade-School Juvenility," at RealClear Markets.
"[I]nstead of patting ourselves on the back that another critique of Rand's missed the mark, I hope we'll instead use this as an opportunity to become better." -- Don Watkins, in "Atlas Neutered: Ari Armstrong's Straw Man Attack on Objectivism," at Medium.
"[T]here is risk built into every choice." -- Don Watkins, in "Survival and Risk," at Medium.
"I believe I have made my point that we don't have capitalism today, or anything even close." -- Keith Weiner, in "An Open Letter to John Taft," at SNB & CHF.
-- CAV
5 comments:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours, Gus! A couple or triad (trinity?) of links to Christmas music for you--the real stuff. First, one of my favorite Christmas motets. I love Franco-Burgundian polyphony (or the Franco-Flemish School), which was the Hot Stuff in northern Europe from the 1400s to the early 1600s. Because of the union of all the Hapsburg lands under Charles V, it was transplanted to Spain, leading to such great works as this, by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611), a composer only underrated by people who don't listen to older music. Heh.
And second, since I always seem to skimp on the finer Protestant composers in my Christmas listening, here's a fine Christmas cantata by Dieterich Buxtehude (1639-1707), "The Newborn Little Child." (The most famous story about Buxtehude is that Johann Sebastian Bach walked over 250 miles in 1705 to hear Buxtehude's music and organ-playing. Ever since my ear broadened enough to love Baroque music, I don't consider that foolish...under the circumstances. Would that we and he had YouTube back in his day!)
And I guess after the last I should add something Orthodox out of ecumenical feeling or something...While as an atheist I have no interest in that, I'm eager to share good music, so here's a fine setting by Dmitry Bortnyansky (1751-1825), to use his Russian name (he was Ukrainian but was vastly influential in Russia, serving as the first non-foreign Director of the Imperial Chapel Choir, though his studying in Italy no doubt stood him in good stead), of the Nativity Kontakion. Bortnyansky wrote 45 sacred concertos, which means choral work of a certain kind without instruments in Russian church music that to lovers like me of Russian choral music with deep Russian bass are just divine; he also wrote much good other music, assuming you like music from that period.
Okay, since leaving it at three pieces would by rather too Trinitarian for me despite the holy spirit of the season and all (heh), here's a lighter fourth selection, a Christmas song I'm fond of in Chamorro (the native language of Guam), sung by a Guamanian singer and her family and friends, "The Spirit of the Night of Jesus." (After over two centuries of Spanish rule in Guam before the Spanish-American War, there are, as you might expect, a lot of Spanish words in the song, including two of the three in the title.)
Very nice artwork. Enjoy the creator of the Art.
Snedcat,
(
Season's greetings again to you and yours. Thanks for the music: I enjoyed the three that showed up in my email. I'll hunt down the other, "Newborn Little Child," later.
John,
Thanks, and I count myself very fortunate: She is as benevolent and creative as her art suggests.
Gus
Hmm, I did something strange; I seem to have your post itself linked to for the Buxtehude. Here's the intended link. Weird...
Also good. Thanks!
Post a Comment