The war in Iraq will not be won just by shedding the blood of terrorists, but by overcoming the mindset that produces them, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency said Friday in Pittsburgh.
Speaking at Duquesne University’s commencement, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, a North Side native and Duquesne graduate, said the war on terror “won’t be won strictly by killing and capturing terrorists.”
“Operations like that are necessary, and we will continue to do them aggressively, effectively, and within the law. But as necessary and appropriate as they are, they are not sufficient to achieve the peace and security we want for our country and the world.
“Over the long term, peace and security rest on winning the ideological side of this war — the War of Ideas. We must defeat the world view responsible for producing terrorists who hate America and the principle that we and our partners share.”
Is it safe to assume that Duquesne didn’t give Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan an honorary doctorate?
Posted by rightwingprof on May 5, 2007 at 3:43 pm under Education. Comments Off.
If George Bush put a microchip in your garbage under the Patriot Act, there’d be mass demonstrations across the land. But do it in the guise of saving the planet and everyone’s fine with it. Meanwhile, to encourage recycling, garbage collection has been halved from weekly to fortnightly. As a result, flies swarm and rats gambol. One of the biggest causes of improved health and life expectancy over the last 150 years has been what we now regard as simple hygiene: clean bathroom facilities and waste disposal. Between Miss Crow and Her Majesty’s Government, we seem determined to reverse that.
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Posted by rightwingprof on May 5, 2007 at 3:36 pm under Wackjobs. Comments Off.
I’m not seeing anything about this on any of the Pennsylvania blogs, or the gun blogs. Not on Cam Edwards, or Bitch Girls, or even the NRA–and Wyatt hasn’t even mentioned it!
The Philadelphia City Council bozos passed gun control legislationin direct violation of the state constitution, with full knowledge that it was in direct violation of the state constitution:
City Council unanimously passed eight long-delayed gun control bills yesterday, deliberately picking a fight with lawmakers in Harrisburg who have consistently refused to give Philadelphia the right to enact its own gun laws.
But wait, because it gets better. These bozos are filing a lawsuit against the state because the state constitution wont allow them to violate any liberty they want. I guess they don’t understand why the state constitution exists.
And all apologies to Wyatt, but I think as long as I’m in Pennsylvania, I’ll stay here and not contemplate moving to Philly.
Posted by rightwingprof on May 5, 2007 at 1:08 pm under Guns, 2A. 6 Comments.
Like Wagner, Strauss is rarely done well–no, strike that. It’s easier to find a cast to sing Wagner than Richard Strauss, and the problem is the tenor. Strauss lovers usually have to content themselves with good sopranos and mezzos, and perhaps a good baritone, and resign themselves to a painfully bad tenor. Whereas there are tenors who sing Wagner well (at least for a couple of years, until the roles kill their voices), there are very few tenors who will even attempt Strauss. Some heldentenors, like Ben Heppner, will not sing Strauss because they want to go on singing Wagner.
Range is the lowest note to the highest note. Tessitura is where most of a role lies within that range. And Strauss’s tenor tessituras are murderously high. There are many tenors who can hit the notes, but very, very few who can sing nearly the whole role way, way up high. So when a tenor sings Strauss well, it’s something not to be only savored, but memorialized. And I have such a performance. Videos, so click the more tag to go on.
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera with an opera, kind of, a drama and a comedy in one. The first act takes place in a nobleman’s home. The majordomo (the nobleman) is throwing a party and has hired both a composer and musicians to sing the compser’s opera and a comedy troop (headed by Zerbinetta) to entertain his guests. He decides, however, that he’s more interested in seeing fireworks, so he tells both the composer and Zerbinetta that they will perform together, and not separately.
The second act is the opera, into which the comedy troop intrudes. Ariadne, who helped Theseus kill her father’s minotaur, has been abandoned by him on the island of Naxos (hence, the name). Ariadne is very high strung and overly dramatic, and wants to die, and is accompanied by Naiad, Dryad, and Echo, as sort of a Greek chorus. Zerbinetta and the comedy troop keep trying to cheer her up, but she ignores them. The finale is when the God Bacchus appears on the island and falls in love with Ariadne, and she believes him to be the God of Death who will take her to the underworld. They have a long, and very beautiful, duet, and the curtain falls.
Bacchus is the tenor, and Ariadne, of course, is a soprano. Within living memory two tenors have been able to sing Bacchus: James King, who sang it acceptably but was noticeably strained, and Jess Thomas, who sang it like a god. Conducted by the great Karl Böhm, at the Kleines Festspielhaus in Salzburg, 21 August 1965 (try not to snicker at Thomas’s costume–it was 1965, after all). Count yourself fortunate if you ever hear another tenor sing Bacchus this well. In four parts (youtube has an annoying upload limit). Hildegard Hillebrecht sings Ariadne, and frankly, I’ve heard many sing this better (including Hildegard–she wasn’t having a good night), but the incomparable Reri Grist sings Zerbinetta, who sings in the last part of the finale (I’m going to upload her aria from this performance, because it’s remarkable to hear). If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, start with part three (this is where a tenor’s voice starts giving out, and by the end, it’s raw hamburger–when asked if he would sing Strauss, Placido Domingo, who certainly has the range, said, “Are you crazy? I want to keep my voice!”)
Even at the very end, when Bacchus sings:
Deiner hab’ ich um alles bedurft!
Nun bin ich ein anderer, als ich war,
Durch deine Schmerzen bin ich reich,
Nun reg’ ich die Glieder in göttlicher Lust!
Und eher sterben die ewigen Sterne,
Eh’ denn du stürbest aus meinen Armen
Entertainment Weekly has published their list of the top 25 science fiction shows and movies (hat tip to Darren). Since they count things like Back to the Future as sci-fi (whatever happened to speculative fiction?), I disagree with a lot of their choices, but agree with others:
The Matrix
I wouldn’t have given it number one, but it certainly belongs on the list. It was a highly imaginative movie whose world unfolded to the audience only as they did to Neo, and did a surprisingly good job of sticking to its own internal rules. Both of the sequels, however, belong on the list of the 25 most disappointing, crappy movies.
BSG
This should have been number one. Nuff said there.
Yeah, okay, but this should have been qualified to refer to the first three seasons, and only shows that had nothing to do with the overall premise (they were always the best episodes; the space aliens episodes were always too predictable and comparatively, a yawn). The problem with the show is that after the first three seaons, it became obvious that Chris Carter and the writers had never had any idea where they were taking the show, and it wondered off into stupid dead-ends.
Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan
If any of the Star Trek movies belongs here, this one does. Refreshingly absent of all hand-wringing, Roddenberry nonsense.
ST:TNG
Believe it or not, I think it belongs in the list. I hated every minute of this series and every thing about it, but it belongs here because it did more than any other show or movie to legitimize sci-fi as a viable, profitable genre.
Aliens
I’m mystified by this. Sure, it was one of those rare sequels that was almost as good as the original, but why include this, but not Alien?
Lost
This is science fiction?
Starship Troopers
It was a fun movie if you hadn’t read Heinlein’s novel. If you had (and how could you call yourself a sci-fi fan if you hadn’t), it was a mess. Of course, what do you expect when Verhoeven had not only never read it, but thought Heinlein was an evil fascist, how do you expect a moron like that to show any respect to the original? It wouldn’t go on my list.
Galaxy Quest
Sure, it’s a spoof, but perhaps the best spoof on film to date. Darren is right. This deserved a higher place than it got.
Posted by rightwingprof on May 5, 2007 at 10:07 am under TV/Movies. 4 Comments.
Right Wing Nation » Reporting With Caution: and the results haven’t yet been published. Recall that the Susquehanna poll yesterday had Lt. Col. Bill Russell only four points behind Murtha, after him calling his own constituents racists and all? Imagine them being offended by
Right Wing Nation » Wowza: thunk? I mean, really. This is right up there in the same Twilight Zone episode category as the NRA ad beginning with “Hillary was
