The Breakfast Club (Eighty Years War)

Oh, those clever Italians, always sneaking up on the poor French in the Mountain passes of the Alps and Pyrenees.

Perhaps you are thinking about professional bicycle racing?  Well, you’re absolutely right but even though I’m willing to torture a metaphor (and there’s an auto-da-fé, which technically means “confession of faith” but in practice means burning at the stake- a peculiar type of barbeque popular in Spain from about 1477 to 1812, in this Opera) I wasn’t quite able to work in the cobbles of Brittany where Le Tour was really won this year and not by crashes and injuries but by slick riding and good strategy (what do you mean you benched Wiggo?) and tactics.

ek, you’ve totally lost me.

See, that’s the thing isn’t it?  Nobody ever expects… the comfy chair!

And you’d better get one because in addition to being composed by an Italian to a French libretto about a Spanish Prince based on a German play today’s Opera is also about 4 hours long.

I’m talking of course about Don Carlos, composed by “Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien (Don Carlos, Infante of Spain) by Friedrich Schiller. In addition, it has been noted by David Kimball that the Fontainebleau scene and auto da fé “were the most substantial of several incidents borrowed from a contemporary play on Philip II by Eugène Cormon“.”

(T)he opera’s story is based on conflicts in the life of Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1545-1568), after his betrothed Elisabeth of Valois was married instead to his father Philip II of Spain as part of the peace treaty ending the Italian War of 1551-1559 between the Houses of Habsburg and Valois. It was commissioned and produced by the Théâtre Impérial de l’Opéra (Paris Opera).

Like most Operas it’s tragic.  Elisabeth is betrothed to be State Married to Carlos (oh fortunate Hapsburgs) who she meets in the woods on her journey to Spain and quite likes.  When she gets there she is claimed by Carlos’ father, Phillip II, so she marries him instead.  Devastated, Carlos seeks refuge in a monastary and resolves to leave for battle in Flanders (Belgium, another Hapsburg territory).  He smuggles a letter to Elisabeth and meets her and asks her to petition Phillip to send him there.  Carlos’ friend Posa likewise entreats the King who finds his idealism unrealistic, warns Posa the Inquisition is watching him, and asks Posa if he wants another favor.

Eboli, one of Elisabeth’s Ladies in Waiting, has the delusion that Carlos is smtten with her.  When she finds out otherwise she threatens to expose Carlos and Elisabeth.  Posa tries to kill her (actually a very good idea but it would be a much shorter Opera) but is stopped by Carlos.  In the mean time a special barbeque is being prepared for Phillip’s coronation and 6 Flemish envoys are invited.  Unrealistic idealism.  Carlos steps in but Posa persuades him to back down.  Phillip dubs Posa Duke, “the woodpile is fired and, as the flames start to rise, a heavenly voice can be heard promising peace to the condemned souls.”

Afterwards they had S’mores.

Phillip is depressed by the day’s developments and asks the Grand Inquisitor if he should kill his own son. “(T)he Inquisitor replies that the King will be in good company: God sacrificed His own son.  Phillip demures.  Next, in a move that makes sense only in an Opera, the Grand Inquisitor demands Phillip kill Posa (who, you know, like saved him in the last Act- WAKE UP YOU UNCULTURED PHILISTINES!) reminding Phillip “the Inquisition can take down any king; he has created and destroyed other rulers before.”  Phillip next discovers a picture of Carlos in Elisabeth’s possesion and accuses her of adultery.  Eboli ultimately admits to Elisabeth she planted the evidence and is exiled to a convent.  Posa visits Carlos in prison to tell him that he, Posa, has the Black Spot (Opera!) when a shadowy figure shoots him (What about Opera are we not understanding?).

Of course he lingers for a final Aria.

Posa pleads once again for Flanders (suffering under those heretical Calvinist Terrorists or Freedom Fighters, depending on which history books you believe) and expires just before Phillip enters the scene.  Phillip offers Carlos a pardon which Carlos rejects.  There’s a minor riot in support of Carlos which is put down by fear of the Grand Inquisitor.

Finale

Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!

Elisabeth is very depressed.  She sings another Aria about just how depressed she is, followed by a duet with Carlos about how depressed they both are.  Phillip and the Grand Inquisitor enter, Phillip pod person compliant.

Carlos is convicted in a summary trial and prepares to defend himself against the Grand Inquisitor’s guards when an old monk who is apparently Charles V, Phillip’s supposedly dead father, proclaims “the turbulence of the world persists even in the Church; once again, we cannot rest except in Heaven.” and drags Carlos into his tomb sealing it behind them.

Phew

Did I mention 4 hours?

It’s most frequently staged in an abridged Italian version and I admit my failure in finding a complete original on YouTube.  This performance is a French/Italian Mashup.  Verdi only re-wrote it like 16 times for performance on various stages in a variety of lengths (all long) and it was one of his most popular pieces ever.  No, I don’t know why, but you certainly get the full Opera experience.

Obligatories, News, Blogs, and Bonus Video Below.

Also your comments, if you understand any of this you’re doing much better than I am.

Obligatories

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

I would never make fun of LaEscapee or blame PhilJD.  And I am highly organized.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

–Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)

This Day in History

News

Central American leaders meet Barack Obama to criticise US border policy

Chris McGreal, The Guardian

Friday 25 July 2014 20.17 EDT

Three Central American leaders met President Obama on Friday to tell him that billions of dollars poured into attempting to prevent migrant children crossing the US border would be better spent addressing the root causes of the crisis in their countries.

The presidents of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador urged the US administration to do more to combat the armed gangs and drug cartels responsible for the violence driving emigration that has seen more than 57,000 unaccompanied children from their countries arrive at the Texas border in recent months. The three leaders – Juan Orlando Hernández of Honduras, Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala and Salvador Sánchez Cerén of El Salvador – urged the Obama administration to do more to address the destabilisation caused by cartels shipping narcotics to the American market, and to invest in more rapid economic development to relieve widespread poverty.

But in comments after the meeting, Obama stuck to Washington’s emphasis on a campaign to discourage what the White House called “irregular migration” with publicity campaigns and the pursuit of people smugglers.

U.S. Considering Refugee Status for Hondurans

By FRANCES ROBLES and MICHAEL D. SHEAR. The New York Times

JULY 24, 2014

Hoping to stem the recent surge of migrants at the Southwest border, the Obama administration is considering whether to allow hundreds of minors and young adults from Honduras into the United States without making the dangerous trek through Mexico, according to a draft of the proposal.

If approved, the plan would direct the government to screen thousands of children and youths in Honduras to see if they can enter the United States as refugees or on emergency humanitarian grounds. It would be the first American refugee effort in a nation reachable by land to the United States, the White House said, putting the violence in Honduras on the level of humanitarian emergencies in Haiti and Vietnam, where such programs have been conducted in the past amid war and major crises.

Critics of the plan were quick to pounce, saying it appeared to redefine the legal definition of a refugee and would only increase the flow of migration to the United States. Administration officials said they believed the plan could be enacted through executive action, without congressional approval, as long as it did not increase the total number of refugees coming into the country.

Most Migrant Children Entering U.S. Are Now With Relatives, Data Show

By JENNIFER MEDINA, The New York Times

JULY 25, 2014

The vast majority of unaccompanied migrant children arriving in the United States from Central America this year have been released to relatives in states with large established Central American populations, according to federal data released Thursday night.

A total of 30,340 children have been released to sponsors – primarily parents and other relatives – from the start of the year through July 7, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has overseen the care of the children after they are turned over by Customs and Border Protection. More children have been released in Texas than in any other state, with sponsors there receiving 4,280 children, followed by New York with 3,347. Florida has received 3,181 children and California 3,150. Maryland and Virginia have each also received more than 2,200 children.

The numbers do not include those children who are still being cared for in shelters, which have prompted the most outrage from governors and other local officials across the country. Many children who are placed in shelters for some period of time – anywhere between a few days and a few months – have later been released to family members.

Rate of unaccompanied girls crossing into US outpaces boys

by Marisa Taylor, Al Jazeera

July 25, 2014 6:44PM ET

With more and more Central American children attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months, the number of unaccompanied girls caught at the boundary has been increasing faster than the number of boys, according to new government data released Friday.  Researchers said the situation could spring from increasing violence against girls and women in their own countries, possibly linked to gang activity.

In the past year, 13,008 unaccompanied Central American girls under the age of 18 have been caught trying to cross – a 77 percent jump from 7,339 the year before last – according to data from the Department of Homeland Security analyzed by the Pew Research Center.

And while the recent surge in child migrants has come mainly from three countries – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – girls from Honduras made up 5,300 of the 13,008 girls caught at the U.S.-Mexico border.  That’s compared to 911 girls from Mexico, 3,792 from El Salvador and 2,699 from Guatemala.

Experts decry ‘failed experiment’ with new death penalty drug combinations

Ed Pilkington, Amanda Holpuch, and Tom Dart, The Guardian

Leading experts on the use of medical drugs in capital punishment have accused death penalty states of conducting a “failed experiment” with new drug combinations following a recent run of drawn-out executions in which prisoners have shown signs of distress on the gurney.

Some of the country’s most prominent authorities on the science of lethal injections have begun publicly to question the use of the sedative midazolam. In particular, doubts are growing about its use in combination with the painkiller hydromorphone.

A concoction of the two drugs was used in this week’s execution in Arizona of a convicted double-murderer, Joseph Wood, which took nearly two hours to complete. It was also used in the earlier judicial killing in Ohio of Dennis McGuire, convicted of rape and murder, who gasped for air over the course of 26 minutes.

Kansas court overturns brothers’ death sentences

Associated Press

7/25/14

The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday overturned the death sentences of two brothers convicted of killing four friends who were robbed and forced to engage in sex acts before being shot to death and left in a snow-covered Wichita field.

The court also struck down three of the four capital murder convictions each against Jonathan and Reginald Carr, citing procedural problems at the brothers’ joint trial for its decisions. It upheld one capital murder conviction for each of them.

Prosecutors said the brothers broke into a Wichita home in December 2000 and forced the five people there to have sex with each other and later to withdraw money from ATMs. Two women were raped repeatedly before all five were taken to a soccer field and shot while they were kneeling. Four of them – 29-year-old Aaron Sander, 27-year-old Brad Heyka, 26-year-old Jason Befort and 25-year-old Heather Muller – died.

Same-sex marriage: Florida ruling adds to list of defeats for state ban

Reuters

Friday 25 July 2014 23.11 EDT

A state judge struck down Florida’s gay marriage ban on Friday in the latest in a string of legal gay-rights victories that have nonetheless been put on hold for resolution by higher courts.

Circuit court judge Sarah Zabel in Miami-Dade county said Florida’s ban violated the constitutional rights to due process and equal protection, and offended “basic human decency”.

Florida’s attorney general quickly appealed against the ruling. But Zabel said the slew of recent verdicts showed it was “increasingly obvious” it was impermissible to deny couples the right to marry solely on the basis of their sexual orientation, and that doing so served no governmental purpose.

First case of ebola reported in Africa’s most populous city Lagos

Monica Mark, The Guardian

Friday 25 July 2014 12.48 EDT

The death marks a new and alarming cross-border development in a disease that has spiralled into the world’s biggest epidemic, spread across three west African countries. At least 660 people have died in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since ebola was first diagnosed in February.

The pathogen is passed through contact with bodily fluids of infected patients, and has no known cure, although chances of survival improve dramatically with early detection and treatment.

But weak health systems and frequent cross-border travel have hampered efforts to contain the virus in a region which has never before experienced an outbreak.

Cellphone unlocking set to become legal again

By PETER SVENSSON, Associated Press

7/25/14

The law passed Friday by the House of Representatives makes it legal to unlock phones for personal use, at least until the Librarian’s next round of rulemaking, next year. The measure was passed earlier by the Senate.

Unlocking typically involves entering codes on the phone. In more difficult cases, the phone needs to be hooked up to a computer to have new software installed.

Carriers have, in some instances, sued people who made a business out of unlocking phones and reselling them, but individuals unlocking for personal use have never been pursued.

Washington fire destroys 300 homes, sheriff says

Al Jazeera

July 25, 2014 5:21PM ET

A sheriff in Washington State said Friday that a massive wildfire has burned 300 homes, double the number previously estimated.

…

Rogers said he and his deputies have driven 750 miles of roadway through the devastated area, and “every road lost something.” He said that the blackened area looks like a moonscape, and that he has seen hundreds of dead livestock.

…

Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday extended a burn ban for dry eastern Washington for one more week. The ban had been set to end Friday. He also said that the state would waive permit requirements for anyone in the affected areas who wants to use extra-large generators because they remain without power.

Florida court allows ban on doctors asking patients about gun ownership

Al Jazeera

July 25, 2014 8:47PM ET

The move overturns a lower court’s decision in the so-called “Docs vs. Glocks” case.

Florida’s Republican-led legislature passed the law after a north Florida couple complained that a doctor asked them if they had guns, and refused to see them after they declined to answer. A federal judge ruled the law unconstitutional in 2012, and the state swiftly appealed.

A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 vote, vacated the federal judge’s ruling and described the law as a “legitimate regulation” of professional conduct that simply codifies good medical care.

Ukraine, Russia exchange accusations of cross-border attacks

Al Jazeera

July 25, 2014 4:30PM ET

The Ukrainian army said Friday that its soldiers came under artillery fire from the Russian side of the border overnight and were attacked by Russian-backed separatists in several other places in Ukraine’s restive east.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s Security Council also said 13 soldiers had been killed in the last 24 hours, taking the total death toll to 325 since the start of fighting against the rebels, who are seeking independence for the Russian-speaking Donbass region.

…

In response, Russia said that about 40 mortar shells fired by Ukrainian forces had fallen in the province of Rostov near the border with eastern Ukraine, state-run Ria Novosti news agency reported.

Black box found at site of Air Algerie crash

Al Jazeera

July 25, 2014 8:30AM ET

French soldiers on Friday secured one of the black boxes from the Air Algerie plane that went down in restive northern Mali on Thursday killing 116 people, French President Francois Hollande said. While armed fighters are active in the region where the plane went down, officials said the most likely cause of the crash is bad weather.

Investigators at the scene of the crash said the airliner broke apart when it hit the ground, suggesting the plane was unlikely to have been the victim of an attack.

…

Last week, a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down over war-torn eastern Ukraine; the U.S. has blamed the deaths on separatists firing a surface-to-air missile. On Wednesday, a Taiwanese plane crashed during a storm, killing 48 people. International airlines also temporarily canceled flights into Tel Aviv this week, citing security concerns amid instability in Gaza.

Delegates at HIV/AIDS conference mourn colleagues killed on MH17

by Michael Edison Hayden, Al Jazeera

July 25, 2014 5:00AM ET

Days before the start of the 2014 International AIDS Conference here, the Mississippi baby whom scientists celebrated just last year for having been functionally cured of HIV, began showing detectable traces of the disease in her bloodstream.

…

Initial reports suggested more than 100 conference participants had died aboard MH17. However, conference organizers have been able to confirm the names of only six. Five were prominent members of the Dutch delegation: Dr. Joep Lange, a celebrated researcher and a former president of the International AIDS Society; Dr. Lucie van Mens, an advocate for the female condom; Martine de Schutter, an activist and single mother; Jacqueline von Tongeren of the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development and Lange’s partner; and Pim de Kuijer, a parliamentary lobbyist for Stop AIDS Now, who, in a sad irony, had used his vacation time to help oversee fair elections in Ukraine.

The sixth victim was Glenn Thomas, a former BBC journalist who worked for the World Health Organization, was the lone British citizen among the delegates who died en route to Melbourne.

…

on Coenen, one of the leaders of the Dutch AIDS community and a friend and colleague to the five Dutch deceased, volunteered to speak about his experience after the tragedy.

…

Asked whether the losses of his colleagues would set his country back, Coenen nodded solemnly.

“Yes, it will,” he said. “But the global AIDS community as whole has experienced lots of setbacks through the years, and we move on. We always go on, and we will go on until one day we find a cure for this disease.”

Blogs

• NSA Got Into Bed with the Saudis Just Before Our Technical Cooperation Agreement Expanded by emptywheel
• With Afghan Runoff Audit Hopelessly Mired, Clock Running Out on US Hopes for BSA by Jim White, emptywheel
• Mark Cuban: If You Sell Your Company To Save On Taxes, I’m Selling Your Stock by Susie Madrack, Crooks & Liars
• New Hepatitis C Treatment: $84K Per Three-Month Course. Say What? by Susie Madrak, Crooks & Liars
• Senator Wyden Toying With The Idea Of Releasing The Senate’s CIA Torture Report by Mike Masnick, Tech Dirt
• White House Website Includes Unique Non-Cookie Tracker, Conflicts With Privacy Policy, by Electronic Frontier Foundation
• The NSA’s New Partner in Spying: Saudi Arabia’s Brutal State Police  By Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept
• Wikipedia Bans Congress For A Week After ‘Disruptive’ Edits By: DSWright, Firedog Lake
• FDL Exclusive: DOJ Says Smarter Sentencing Act Would Save Taxpayers $24 Billion By: Jane Hamsher, Firedog Lake
• Police’s common sense trouble: How minor offense situations turn deadly by Heather Digby Parton, Salon
• Fed Hubris: Central Bank Ignores That It is on Thin Political Ice by  Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism
• Follow Friday for 25 July, 2014: MidnightOil-Politics by Bruce McF, Voices on the Square
• Andrew Cuomo’s Saturday Night Massacre by: TMC, The Stars Hollow Gazette
• Last Dance for Dave? by: ek hornbeck, DocuDharma
• Party at SHG-80s Night by: triv33, The Stars Hollow Gazette
• Anomaly by: LaEscapee, DocuDharma

Bonus Video