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Post by Chesapeake on May 2, 2019 14:29:02 GMT -5
I'm reading Ambrose Bierce's memoir of the Civil War, during which he served as a platoon leader and general staff officer, respectively, at Shiloh and the battle of Chickamauga, among other engagements. Bierce was doing Hemingway before that guy was born. His writing is by turns artful, muscular, and evocative, and he brings to life aspects of that war that I've read about in history books and on self-guided tours of battlefields, but in a way that allows me to imagine on a deep personal level that I was there. Unspeakable horrors are spoken of, and the everyday lives of foot soldiers are poignantly portrayed. I'm learning new lessons about an often overlooked element of fiction writing and point-of-view nonfiction, narrative tone, that I already find creeping into the novel I'm now working on.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 30, 2019 15:37:02 GMT -5
Happy birthday Dan!
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 29, 2019 16:29:06 GMT -5
He's a number of years younger than I am. Double-shit.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 29, 2019 15:41:19 GMT -5
Don't know the gent, but in his Facebook posting Steve says he's a Pulitzer finalist.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 28, 2019 23:54:42 GMT -5
Steve YarbroughThis vid is a Mississippi Public Broadcasting interview done last summer with a native son of Indianola, MS., Steve Yarbrough, who as a youngster growing up in Delta country (also the birthplace of B.B. King) had dreams of becoming a guitar player in a country band. Finally concluding his playing wasn't good enough, he turned to writing, and that has worked out nicely. He has won prizes for his string of novels, and also teaches writing at Emerson College. The interview is mostly about writing, but he talks a bit about the musical side of his nature, which persists, beginning at about 22:15. I've seen some of his self-made, low-tech vid clips on Facebook, where we are FB friends, and I suspect that if he'd kept at it, he might have become one of today's stars. I'll try to find some of those FB clips to pass along, especially one where he shares his thoughts about the intersection of writing and music. In the meantime, I thought some of you might be interested in his story.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 28, 2019 17:31:51 GMT -5
Happy birthday!
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 21:46:27 GMT -5
I don't know about them, but I'm auditioning for a sot on Fox. Better get drinking. She's a very nice lady, for a sot.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 20:53:57 GMT -5
Think of all the stuff you guys could be getting done during the time you are composing your eloquent rebuttals that will have absolutely no effect on your antagonist’s position. 😃 I don't know about them, but I'm auditioning for a sot on Fox.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 13:29:53 GMT -5
The die-hard Trump base has swallowed the Trump line that his opposition is all about a desire on the part of left-wing America to overturn the 2016 election. That theme turns up ad infinitum on this forum. There are a lot of liberals who would like to do just that, no question. But what you guys don't seem to get is that anti-Trumpism cuts across ideological lines, people who have come to well thought-out, non-ideological conclusions about him. This eye-popping list of Republicans who opposed Trump's election has only grown since 2016.
They're all politicians with no actual skin in any game, correct?
If that's the case, why should anybody give a damn about them?The list of Republicans and conservatives who opposed Trump's 2016 candidacy includes: -Two former Republican presidents (both Bushes), -six former GOP presidential primary candidates, -numerous former federal cabinet-level officials, -current and former governors, -current and former U.S. senators, -former and current U.S. representatives, -former officials of the Departments of State and Defense, -27 former national security officials, -other former federal government officials, -current and former state officials, -state legislators, -municipal officials, -other public figures including academics, and journalists including Glenn Beck, Brent Bozell III, Bill Krystol, David Frum, Charles Krauthammer, Ana Navarro, P.J. O’Rourke, Daniel Pipes, John Podhoretz, Charlie Sykes, and George Will, -and various groups including GOP clubs at Harvard, Penn State, Kenyon, the University of the South, Cornell, and New Mexico College. Yup, just a bunch of D.C. wonks whose opinions don’t really add up to much.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 12:41:16 GMT -5
Re despotism v. totalitarianism: I see the distinction, but I'd be hard-pressed to make the call. As many others have pointed out, Trump is used to one-man rule of his companies (six of which, by the way, he ran into bankruptcy). As far as I know, he's never had to deal with a board of directors empowered to question his thinking or decisions, much less 535 members of Congress, unruly minor potentates themselves also used to having their own way. I think he's still rooted in the system of governance he knew in Trumpland, which would explain why he reacts badly when poleaxed by evidence that D.C. doesn't work that way.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 12:31:54 GMT -5
The die-hard Trump base has swallowed the Trump line that his opposition is all about a desire on the part of left-wing America to overturn the 2016 election. That theme turns up ad infinitum on this forum. There are a lot of liberals who would like to do just that, no question. But what you guys don't seem to get is that anti-Trumpism cuts across ideological lines, people who have come to well thought-out, non-ideological conclusions about him. This eye-popping list of Republicans who opposed Trump's election has only grown since 2016.
They're all politicians with no actual skin in any game, correct? If that's the case, why should anybody give a damn about them? Have a look at the list, then get back to me.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 12:19:10 GMT -5
The last refuge of your side, when it runs out of other arguments, is to point a finger at what the wascally Democrats have done. I'm not talking about what they've done. Sorry, I thought you were. I'm talking about their openly Socialist and centralizing intentions. That would be the left wing of the Democratic party, correct? Anyway, I still don't see how that has anything to do with Trump, except for the fact that he, along with the mainstream of conservative America, oppose socialist/centralizing policies. There are plenty of other Republicans who would gladly take up that banner. I do expect more challenges to Trump for the nomination.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 11:53:42 GMT -5
On the Trumpian end of that scale lies wannabe totalitarianism This is the one that gets me most. Really. Almost everything that folks have screamed about Trump acting regally about have been simply un-doing (to the extent possible) the imperial acts of his predecessor. And Obama's imperial acts were cheered, not called "wannabe totalitarianism" -- even though the left -- not the right, and not Trump -- actually has us on the totalitarian trajectory. It is the left who wants all power in the central government. It is the left that wants socialism. It is the left that wants to undo the Constitution. And yet somehow you come to the conclusion that because Trump's personality is abrasive, he wants to be a totalitarian dictator. So this is the one that gets me. The last refuge of your side, when it runs out of other arguments, is to point a finger at what the wascally Democrats have done. It is true that hypocrisy lives and breeds in Washington, but, really, what do Obama's evil deeds have to do with Trump? By the way, I don't believe Obama ever expressed admiration for the likes of Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-il, Xi Jinping, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Philippines's Rodrigo Duterteor or any of the other strong-man leaders Trump has embraced. While showing nothing but disdain for leaders of the major Western democracies. Maybe you guys would like to see strong-man government here in America. Certainly would simplify things, wouldn't it?
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 11:33:12 GMT -5
The die-hard Trump base has swallowed the Trump line that his opposition is all about a desire on the part of left-wing America to overturn the 2016 election. That theme turns up ad infinitum on this forum. There are a lot of liberals who would like to do just that, no question. But what you guys don't seem to get is that anti-Trumpism cuts across ideological lines, people who have come to well thought-out, non-ideological conclusions about him. This eye-popping list of Republicans who opposed Trump's election has only grown since 2016.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 11:10:16 GMT -5
How can you obstruct justice for a crime that never happened? The Trump campaign did not conspire with the Russians. I say conspire because collusion isn't a crime anyway. Being accused of a crime that isn't a crime but even if you call it a crime it never happened, wouldn't you fight it? Nothing happened. Get over it. Trump isn't the monster your media made him out to be because he beat Hillary. That's the real end of the story. I give you that Mueller turned up no collusion. And I am thankful for that. Maybe Mueller isn't such a conniving left-wing rat, willing to bend the truth to prove a case, after all. But I believe it's an established legal fact that there doesn't need to be an underlying crime to prove obstruction. Mueller, who knows more about the law than I do, cites ten instances of obstruction, six of which according to him meet the legal requirements for criminal charges. I am not happy about any of this. The vast left-wing conspiracy hasn't bitten me in the neck and turned me into one of them just yet. I agree with a lot of Trump's positions.. Just wish he weren't such an egregiously flawed champion on so many counts. [Edit:] And so do a lot of other people including an entire army of conservative leaders and thinkers.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 26, 2019 10:37:06 GMT -5
Mueller was given the task of finding a crime with which to remove Trump from office. [Wrong.] That was his task in a nutshell. Everyone knows it. [Wrong.] It was the way everyone spoke of it. [Wrong.] "It's Mueller Time!" t-shirts were sold and worn. [ No accounting for taste.]After three years and the best investigators and lawyers Washington could muster, Mueller couldn't find a crime. [Wrong.] He failed. Abjectly. He failed. He found no crime. [How about six counts of obstruction of justice, which Mueller said met all three legal tests for criminality, but with which he couldn't charge Trump because (supposedly) you can't indict a sitting president ?] Dishonorable lout that he is, [Really? Are we talking about the same man who is a decorated war hero, famously distinguished lawyer, former U.S. Attorney, longest serving FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover, and investigator-in-chief of the 911 attacks? That dishonorable lout?] though, instead of admitting to the failure, his report said that Mueller et al couldn't find a crime but that doesn't mean there wasn't a crime. What? Yup. Just because I (Mueller) couldn't find a crime with the best investigators Washington has to offer, doesn't mean there wasn't a crime. So, now that congress is again in the hands of Democrats, maybe you guys can take the baton from here. After all, the goal has remained constant -- removing this Trumpian cancer from our Washington establishment. [The vast left-wing conspiracy, yes?] We failed to entrap his campaign. We failed to play the electoral college game. We failed with our October surprise. We failed to demonstrate collusion. We failed to find a crime. [Wrong.] But we will not fail. We cannot fail. Washington hangs in the balance. [I'll give you that last bit, about the balance. On the Trumpian end of that scale lies wannabe totalitarianism, ignorance of history and the law, corruption, incompetence, moral degradation, narcissism, serial mendacity, and magical thinking.]
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 25, 2019 17:06:25 GMT -5
Of course, I should have called this thread "A flash from the post-Bill Monroe golden past of country music." Don't want to offend anybody.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 25, 2019 13:23:33 GMT -5
It looks like a D-45 old Hank is playing. I'm saying D-45 and not D-41 because by that time in his career, old Hank probably could have afforded the slightly blingier of the two. EDIT: Might be a custom. It looks like his name on the fretboard.
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 25, 2019 12:25:12 GMT -5
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Post by Chesapeake on Apr 24, 2019 17:01:06 GMT -5
I actually have a theory about this. It has to do with speakers rather than performers, but I suspect the theory applies to both.
I've spoken a fair number of times over my career before groups of people about this thing or that, usually something having to do with government and politics. I'm usually able to hold peoples' attention. A big exception was when, for three semesters, I taught an upper-level undergraduate and post-graduate-level course at the University of Maryland about the executive branch. I got the gig because I was covering Watergate for Congressional Quarterly at the time, and I was also on the faculty of a CQ series of lectures about the the basics of American government.
Those who attended that series were mostly young congressional staffers and lobbyists who paid good money to get in, and they paid rapt attention because, I suppose, I was telling them things they needed to know to make a living. The college group was different. The first time I got up to talk, I noticed almost immediately that some peoples' eyes were glossing over, especially the ones under the age of about 30. It was like an invisible wall had popped up. I tried livening things up a bit by walking around, waving my arms occasionally (think Bernie Sanders), and otherwise trying to break through the wall.
Snarky explanations aside, like maybe I'm just naturally boring, I think I figured it out. Younger people, I believe, sometimes don't quite get the concept of a live performance as something to relate to personally, and to actually take an active part in, as opposed to watching a set piece performed at a distance, for example on television.
When I was little, TV was still new, and it would hold people's attention, partly just for the novelty of it. Now, many generations of kids have grown up with TV playing in the background for a good part of their waking hours. The people in the little flat screen don't care if people watching are paying attention or not, and the people watching know it. Those little critters inside the black box are collections of pixels, and their feelings can't be hurt if their audiences talk among themselves and otherwise give no indication that they're much more than passive bystanders.
Having said all that, I guess there are those, speakers and musicians, whose performances are so utterly riveting that not paying attention isn't an option. I know that some musicians have the sound techies crank up the volume in the control room just to keep side discussions to a minimum. I'm also guessing there are those performers who simply have the good luck of performing for people who, first of all, have good manners, and second, actually came to be a part of the unique, never-ever-to-happen-again event that a live performance is. God bless 'em.
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