May 2015 archive

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

May 24 is the 144th day of the year (145th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 221 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1775, John Hancock is elected president of the Second Continental Congress.

ohn Hancock is best known for his large signature on the Declaration of Independence, which he jested the British could read without spectacles. He was serving as president of Congress upon the declaration’s adoption on July 4, 1776, and, as such, was the first member of the Congress to sign the historic document.

John Hancock graduated from Harvard University in 1754 at age 17 and, with the help of a large inherited fortune, established himself as Boston’s leading merchant. The British customs raid on one of Hancock’s ships, the sloop Liberty, in 1768 incited riots so severe that the British army fled the city of Boston to its barracks in Boston Harbor. Boston merchants promptly agreed to a non-importation agreement to protest the British action. Two years later, it was a scuffle between Patriot protestors and British soldiers on Hancock’s wharf that set the stage for the Boston Massacre.

Hancock’s involvement with Samuel Adams and his radical group, the Sons of Liberty, won the wealthy merchant the dubious distinction of being one of only two Patriots-the other being Sam Adams-that the Redcoats marching to Lexington in April 1775 to confiscate Patriot arms were ordered to arrest. When British General Thomas Gage offered amnesty to the colonists holding Boston under siege, he excluded the same two men from his offer.

President of Congress

With the war underway, Hancock made his way to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia with the other Massachusetts delegates. On May 24, 1775, he was unanimously elected President of the Continental Congress, succeeding Peyton Randolph after Henry Middleton declined the nomination. Hancock was a good choice for president for several reasons. He was experienced, having often presided over legislative bodies and town meetings in Massachusetts. His wealth and social standing inspired the confidence of moderate delegates, while his association with Boston radicals made him acceptable to other radicals. His position was somewhat ambiguous, because the role of the president was not fully defined, and it was not clear if Randolph had resigned or was on a leave of absence. Like other presidents of Congress, Hancock’s authority was limited to that of a presiding officer. He also had to handle a great deal of official correspondence, and he found it necessary to hire clerks at his own expense to help with the paperwork.

Signing the Declaration

Hancock was president of Congress when the Declaration of Independence was adopted and signed. He is primarily remembered by Americans for his large, flamboyant signature on the Declaration, so much so that “John Hancock” became, in the United States, an informal synonym for signature. According to legend, Hancock signed his name largely and clearly so that King George could read it without his spectacles, but this fanciful story did not appear until many years later.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” is Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a potential 2016 GOP presidential candidate.

The roundtable guests are:  Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MI); Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol; ABC News contributor Donna Brazile; and New York Daily News columnist S.E. Cupp.

NB: “This Week” may be preempted in some markets because of the Indianapolis 500.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr Schieffer’s guests are: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA); David Rohde, Reuters; and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, former Washington Post bureau chief in Baghdad.

His panel guests are; author Peter Arnett; photographer David Hume Kennerly; author Laura Palmer; and journalist Bill Plante.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: We have been spared Chuck & Company today for the English Premier Soccer League. Thank you, England.

State of the Union with Jake Tapper: The CNN “SOTU” web site is even worse than NBC’s “MTP.”

Since it’s a holiday weekend, go do what you enjoy most. Have a happy and safe holiday.

You may ask me, ‘ek, why do you cover sports?’  There are two reasons.  The Meta one is that as a general interest topic it drives readership and the live blogging commentary creates activity.  Since the action unfolds in a semi-predictable fashion it’s not that that difficult to, with practice, establish a rhythm that does not strain my execrable typing skills (yes, despite years of training by the best teachers I can barely manage three fingers on a good day).  The volume of the commentary demonstrates that despite a lack of peeder type automatic Ajax updating, long, timely, and complicated discussions can be held using pacified’s Java recreation of Scoop (Soapblox).

The second is class warfare, this is why I’m drawn to those that are notoriously obscure and corrupt, like Formula One.

Monaco is the tightest, slowest track on the schedule, kept alive by tradition and the crass display of wealth and privilege.  It is no accident that Monaco is the site of the mid-season meeting of the Formula One executive committee.  You may have money, but do you have Monaco money?

We may look back on this year as the begining of the end.

First of all the positive outcome- they are bringing back refueling.  Why is refueling important?  It’s not just the amount of time a car spends in the pits, fuel is weight and lighter cars are faster and easier on tires.  You have to add this factor into your over all race strategy and complicated is good.  It creates opportunities for overtaking that don’t involve bumping tires in a corner (very dangerous) and instead take place while cars are stopped (somewhat more dangerous for the pit crew, but they do it in IndyCar and Turn Left so how difficult can it be?).

The bad news.

Formula One is hemmoraging interest and audience.  Sure Bernie can screw hundreds of Millions from despotic dictatorships for the right to have the Circus visit, but in Europe viewership and attendance is crashing.  No German Grand Prix this year and soon enough no Billion dollar TV contract from Sky and BBC.

Bernie’s solution?  ‘Customer Cars’.  What this means is that there will only be 4 teams on the track- Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, and McLaren.  If you’re a field filler (not one of the 10 works cars) you’ll pay through the nose for second rate cast offs to fund the development program of the favored four.

Hey, if I wanted to watch Turn Left racing I could.  You know  why I don’t?  It’s BORING!

You want to know what would make a difference?  Subsidized on track testing, looser engine rules, more equitable bonus payouts (teams that use ‘Customer Cars’ are not eligible for any Constructor’s bonuses at all).  Bernie thinks that somehow this all adds up to a new personality-centric, driver oriented system that eliminates paying for seats (hey, how about this radical idea- just ban it) and creates fan interest.

Just.  Like.  Turn Left.

I don’t root for Hamilton (this week Hamilton got the superstar contract, $50 Million a year for 3 years) except to the extent that I think he’s talented and exciting and it irks me to see a robotic asshole like Vettel (or Schumacher) fly off in clean air never to be seen again and have all the commentators proclaim what a great driver he is though his only talents are Qualifying and staying out of trouble in superior machinery.  I have much more respect for Alonso who can make a brick seem racy.

Bernie has picked the the wrong metaphor here.  Scuderia fans are Scuderia fans regardless of results just as in U.S. team sports it hardly matters who’s on the Mets or Green Bay or the Lady Huskies (Men’s Basketball is crap.  Pro Basketball is crap squared).  Drivers are mercenaries, they come and go.  Teams are the soul of the sport and we’re witnessing that soul being ripped out.

And not without consequence, Bernie’s business model can not work.  As interest drains from the sport so will the money until even the tyrants he gets along with so well have no use for this senile old dinosaur.

Oh, racing.  Tight and slow.  No place to pass.  Softs and Super Softs with just the one stop to get legal unless you care to get exotic to relieve the tedium.

The good news is no Chuck Todd.  Coverage on NBC starting at 7:30 am then Premier League Soccer (Another team driven sport, the richest in the world.  Are you listening Bernie?  Of course not.).

 Church in Ireland needs ‘reality check’ after gay marriage vote

   

BBC

One of Ireland’s most senior Catholic clerics has called for the Church to take a “reality check” following the country’s overwhelming vote in favour of same-sex marriage.

The first gay marriages are now likely to take place in the early autumn.

Diarmuid Martin, the archbishop of Dublin, said the Church in Ireland needed to reconnect with young people.

The referendum found 62% were in favour of changing the constitution to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry.

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.

Breakfast Tune:  Love Minus Zero / No Limit (clawhammer banjo) Marc Nerenberg

Today in History

Highlights of this day in history: Samuel Morse opens America’s first telegraph line; Four men sentenced for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Britain’s Queen Victoria born; The Brooklyn Bridge opens; Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan born. (May 24)

Breakfast News & Blogs Below

Back in 1964 musician, songwriter, pacifist, and activist Buffy Saint-Marie wrote the song “Universal Soldier,” one of the best known songs of the anti-war movement of the 60’s. Last week she spent an hour with Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman and Juan González to talk about her music and her activism.

In a Democracy Now! special, an hour of conversation and music with Cree Indian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie. In the turbulent 1960s, she was just out of college but already famous for her beautiful voice and moving lyrics in songs like “Universal Soldier” and “Now that the Buffalo’s Gone.” Over the years, Buffy Sainte-Marie has worked with the American Indian Movement, but also with Sesame Street, and even Hollywood, winning an Academy Award for the song “Up Where We Belong” in 1982. She’s won international recognition for her music, has a PhD in fine arts, and began a foundation for American Indian Education that she remains closely involved with. We speak with the folk icon about her life, her music, censorship, and her singing and speaking out about the struggles of Native American peoples for the past four decades. She also performs live in the firehouse studio.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Joseph E. StiglitzL How Trade Agreements Amount to a Secret Corporate Takeover

The United States and the world are engaged in a great debate about new trade agreements. Such pacts used to be called “free-trade agreements”; in fact, they were managed trade agreements, tailored to corporate interests, largely in the US and the European Union. Today, such deals are more often referred to as “partnerships,”as in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But they are not partnerships of equals: the US effectively dictates the terms. Fortunately, America’s “partners” are becoming increasingly resistant.

It is not hard to see why. These agreements go well beyond trade, governing investment and intellectual property as well, imposing fundamental changes to countries’ legal, judicial, and regulatory frameworks, without input or accountability through democratic institutions.

Perhaps the most invidious – and most dishonest – part of such agreements concerns investor protection. Of course, investors have to be protected against the risk that rogue governments will seize their property. But that is not what these provisions are about. There have been very few expropriations in recent decades, and investors who want to protect themselves can buy insurance from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, a World Bank affiliate (the US and other governments provide similar insurance). Nonetheless, the US is demanding such provisions in the TPP, even though many of its “partners” have property protections and judicial systems that are as good as its own.

New York Times Editorial Board: Banks as Felons, or Criminality Lite

As of this week, Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland are felons, having pleaded guilty on Wednesday to criminal charges of conspiring to rig the value of the world’s currencies. According to the Justice Department, the lengthy and lucrative conspiracy enabled the banks to pad their profits without regard to fairness, the law or the public good.

Besides the criminal label, however, nothing much has changed for the banks. And that means nothing much has changed for the public. There is no meaningful accountability in the plea deals and, by extension, no meaningful deterrence from future wrongdoing. In a memo to employees this week, the chief executive of Citi, Michael Corbat, called the criminal behavior “an embarrassment” – not the word most people would use to describe a felony but an apt one in light of the fact that the plea deals are essentially a spanking, nothing more.

People who are not really familiar with Art Music (and even some who are) have a tendency to think that modern orchestral instrumentation sprang fully formed from the head of Zeus like Athena.  The truth is that composers often look for novel sounds and instruments and players instruments that are easier to play.

Consider the valved Brass instruments I’m most familiar with.  Until the late 18th, early 19th century there was no such thing.  Instead you were limited to major harmonics controlled by your embouchure (basically the tightness of your lips and facial muscles).  Sure you could flatten or sharp it a little, but if you wanted to play in a different key, you had to use a different instrument.

Even an unvalved French Horn (the oldest of the modern brass instruments) was invented as recently as 1725.

During the Baroque and Classical periods instrumentation changed quite a bit, so much so that there is now an Early Music movement dedicated to Renaissance and Medieval instruments and performance styles.  Concert strings switched from fretted to unfretted (which makes certain obvious and non-obvious changes to the harmonics that are too difficult to get into here).  Flat backs were replaced by shaped ones that sound louder.  Lutes are replaced by guitars.

The Woodwind instruments (flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon) owe their modern shape to Theobald Boehm who in 1847 introduced a simplified (Hah!  Too many for me.) fingering system that used a complicated set of levers and pads to control the airflow, and thus the harmonics.

You may be somewhat aware of the development of the Pianoforte (means Soft/Loud) from the earlier Harpsichord by replacing a plucked string system with a percussive hammer action.  Well, that happened in 1700, 400 years ago but not, you know, in the dim dark mists of some pre-historic time.  New York City had over 7,000 inhabitants and was to publish it’s very first newspaper in a mere 25 years (same time as the French Horn).

The Saxophone, the newest of what is generally considered a “classic” orchestra instrument was patented in 1840 by Adolphe Sax.  The Tuba in 1835.

So what occasions this discussion of the history of musical instruments?  The 81st birthday of Robert Moog.

There is an unfortunate prejudice against electronic instruments in Art Music.  Because they are programmable (with the right kind of controls) they are derided as mere recordings and, because they can replace many imperfect musicians with one that always does what you tell it to (which may not be what you want), are rightly viewed as an employment threat.

In their earliest forms though a considerable amount of skill and practice was required, just as with any instrument.  One of the first electronic instruments was the Theremin.  It was patented by Léon Theremin in 1928.  You don’t physically touch the instrument, it senses the capacitance between your hands and the sensors to control pitch and volume.  While it did gain some novelty attraction in Art Music world it is best known for lending its 87 year old “futuristic” sound to movie sound tracks and TV theme songs.

Recognize that?  It’s the Dr. Who theme commonly credited to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop that was really composed by Ron Grainer and performed by Delia Derbyshire.

Robert Moog built one himself and later put together a fairly popular (among electronics geeks) kit.

A really popular electronic instrument is the Hammond electric organ from 1935.  It was intended as a low cost, lighter, semi-portable alternative to a traditional pipe organ and quickly saturated the ecclesiastical market.  The sound is produced “by creating an electric current from rotating a metal tonewheel near an electromagnetic pickup.”  While it has many buttons and sliders that can produce different sounds none of them actually sound like an organ and the greatest similarity is the stop switches and keyboard controls.

What Moog did that was different with his synthesizer is that he didn’t try to duplicate anything.  I had an opportunity to work with an early model and it was basically a wave form generator patched through an amplifier.

There are 3 basic types, Sine, Square, and Sawtooth, so named because that’s what they look like on an oscilloscope which is your main output device (other than your speakers).  You can control amplitude and frequency and (in the case of Sawtooth) rate of attack and decline.  Using these fundamental tools it is theoretically possible to reproduce any sound at all.

Theoretically.  Most of my efforts sounded like that annoying hum you get when you haven’t plugged your components together properly, but I am decidedly unmusical and only had a couple of hours to play with it.

Modern practice is to sample the sound you want to duplicate, analyze it to its components, and tweak the output until it sounds the way you like.  Computer generated sound is capable of things human musicians can not duplicate any more than John Henry, on the other hand you still have to imagine it and tell them what to do.  60 Hz AC is perfectly acceptable noise, but it’s hardly a symphony.

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

May 23 is the 143rd day of the year (144th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 222 days remaining until the end of the year.

Click on images to enlarge

On this day in 1873, the Canadian Parliament establishes the North West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

North-West Mounted Police

The RCMP has its beginnings in the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP). The police was established by an act of legislation from the Temporary North-West Council the first territorial government of the Northwest Territories. The Act was approved by the Government of Canada and established on May 23, 1873, by Queen Victoria, on the advice of her Canadian Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, with the intent of bringing law and order to, and asserting sovereignty over, the Northwest Territories. The need was particularly urgent given reports of American whiskey traders, in particular those of Fort Whoop-Up, causing trouble in the region, culminating in the Cypress Hills Massacre. The new force was initially to be called the North West Mounted Rifles, but this proposal was rejected as sounding too militaristic in nature, which Macdonald feared would antagonize both aboriginals and Americans; however, the force was organized along the lines of a cavalry regiment in the British Army, and was to wear red uniforms.

The NWMP was modelled directly on the Royal Irish Constabulary, a civilian paramilitary armed police force with both mounted and foot elements under the authority of what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. First NWMP commissioner, Colonel George Arthur French visited Ireland to learn its methods.

The initial force, commanded by Commissioner French, was assembled at Fort Dufferin, Manitoba. They departed on July 8, 1874, on a march to what is now Alberta.

The group comprised 22 officers, 287 men – called constables and sub-constables – 310 horses, 67 wagons, 114 ox-carts, 18 yoke of oxen, 50 cows and 40 calves. A pictorial account of the journey was recorded in the diary of Henri Julien, an artist from the Canadian Illustrated News, who accompanied the expedition.

Their destination was Fort Whoop-Up, a notorious whiskey trading post located at the junction of the Belly and Oldman Rivers. Upon arrival at Whoop-Up and finding it abandoned the troop continued a few miles west and established headquarters on an island in the Oldman, naming it Fort MacLeod.

Historians have theorized that failure of the 1874 March West would not have completely ended the Canadian federal government’s vision of settling the country’s western plains, but could have delayed it for many years. It could also have encouraged the Canadian Pacific Railway to seek a more northerly route for its transcontinental railway that went through the well-mapped and partially settled valley of the North Saskatchewan River, touching on Prince Albert, Battleford and Edmonton, and through the Yellowhead Pass, as originally proposed by Sandford Fleming. This would have offered no economic justification for the existence of cities like Brandon, Regina, Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Medicine Hat, and Calgary, which could, in turn, have tempted American expansionists to make a play for the flat, empty southern regions of the Canadian prairies.

The NWMP’s early activities included containing the whiskey trade and enforcing agreements with the First Nations peoples; to that end, the commanding officer of the force arranged to be sworn in as a justice of the peace, which allowed for magisterial authority within the Mounties’ jurisdiction. In the early years, the force’s dedication to enforcing the law on behalf of the First Nations peoples impressed the latter enough to encourage good relations between them and the Crown. In the summer of 1876, Sitting Bull and thousands of Sioux fled from the US Army towards what is now southern Saskatchewan, and James Morrow Walsh of the NWMP was charged with maintaining control in the large Sioux settlement at Wood Mountain. Walsh and Sitting Bull became good friends, and the peace at Wood Mountain was maintained. In 1885, the NWMP helped to quell the North-West Rebellion led by Louis Riel. They suffered particularly heavy losses during the Battle of Duck Lake, but saw little other active combat.