set of ideas
centered on human rights and
personal freedoms

Adapted from the opinion piece, The World That Awaits the Next President by Bret Stephens in The New York Times, August 6, 2024 where Mr. Stephens asks the next President, whoever it might be …

If necessary, are you willing to use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons or China from subjugating Taiwan — two events that may well take place on your watch? Will you use the threat of an arms embargo to compel Israel or Ukraine to agree to cease-fire deals they do not want? Are you prepared to increase military spending to Cold War levels to contend with great-power competitors and new asymmetric threats, such as from the Houthis?

Above all, do you believe that maintaining our global primacy is worth the price in effort, treasure and sometimes blood?

If the answer to that last question is “no” — an answer that has the virtues of honesty, modesty and frugality — then you can mostly ignore the previous questions. You can also comfort yourself with the fantasy that the world will leave us alone in exchange for us leaving it alone.

The world doesn’t work that way. Unlike, say, New Zealand, we are not a pleasant and remote country under the implicit protection of a benign ally: Nobody will protect us if we do not protect ourselves. We have globe-spanning territorial, maritime and commercial interests that require us to police the global commons against bad actors, from China in the South China Sea to Iran in the Strait of Hormuz to Russia in the cyber domain. We stand for a set of ideas, centered on human rights and personal liberties, that invariably attract the violent attention of despots and fanatics.

It is only an opinion piece but I guess it is an opinion that finds traction with me.

You can comfort yourself with the fantasy that the world will leave us alone in exchange for us leaving it alone.

The world doesn’t work that way.

Unlike, say, New Zealand, we are not a pleasant and remote country under the implicit protection of a benign ally: Nobody will protect us if we do not protect ourselves.

We have globe-spanning territorial, maritime and commercial interests that require us to police the global commons against bad actors, from China in the South China Sea to Iran in the Strait of Hormuz to Russia in the cyber domain.

We stand for a set of ideas, centered on human rights and personal liberties, that invariably attract the violent attention of despots and fanatics.

Once more, We stand for a set of ideas.

Back in January, of 1941, a year that would end with the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt laid down what became known as the Four Freedoms saying that,  “we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.”

And what were those four freedoms?

To quote FDR:

The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want–which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.

And where do these freedoms apply?

Everywhere, anywhere in the world.

No wonder these ideas invariably attract the violent attention of despots and fanatics.

no stronger thing than
song, in sun rain, on crested
waves of melodies

Based on this passage from the poem Dialogue by Countee Cullen:

“There is no stronger thing than song;
In sun and rain and leafy trees
It wafts the timid soul along
On crested waves of melodies

accumulating
digital material
stress, anxiety

Based on the article, I save all my texts and photos. But do I really need them? by Adrian Horton, who writes:

I don’t have this compulsion to save in the physical realm, where I regularly purge outdated, irrelevant items with little thought. But I am sentimental, and identify with what experts call “digital hoarding” – accumulating excess digital material to the point of causing stress and anxiety.

I don’t have this compulsion to save in the physical realm, where I regularly purge outdated, irrelevant items with little thought.

But I AM sentimental, and identify with what experts call “digital hoarding” – accumulating excess digital material to the point of causing stress and anxiety.

I checked my cloud and I can count 11 zip folders of images downloaded over the years from different phones I have owned.

If I un zip them, I have huge folders of images, images that I want to keep … I think.

My solution is to create free gmail addresses to get free 15GB Gdrives to store these files … which take time to upload.

Then I have to remember the email addresses and which files are where and the password and when everything is uploaded do I still dare delete these files from my laptop .. which is dieing anyway.

Doing all of this has me to the point of causing stress and anxiety.

I can vouch for the
few intelligent people …
as for stupid ones

In case y’all are worried, today’s haiku is based on a quote from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and this essay is not about politics.

Yesterday I read about private individuals listening loud to private conversations or music choices in public places.

The writer wrote, “Somewhere along the line this became normal – almost certainly during the pandemic, when we collectively decided that every conscious moment had to be filled with visual and audio content, before we were told to return to society.”

Too many ways to choose along with the compulsive need to listen to everything and not take a chance at missing anything.

Today I read in the New York Times article, Here’s Why You Hate Watching TV Right Now By Priyanka Mattoo who writes, “I try to watch TV, I swear. But every time I sit down to find a new show, I brace myself to run an exhausting digital gantlet. The viewing experience, which used to be relatively straightforward and, dare I say, fun now feels as overwhelming and unpleasant as walking into a dimly lit, warehouse-size dollar store in search of one decent spatula.“

Too many ways to choose along with the compulsive need to watch to everything and not take a chance at missing anything.

Then I read about the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center’s Symphony of Choice in the article Lincoln Center’s Audiences Deserve Music Worthy of Them By Zachary Woolfe who writes, “The orchestra played snippets of two symphonic movements without announcing the piece or composer, and the audience voted by cellphone. The winning movement was then played in its entirety.”

This continued over three rounds, to form a kind of Frankensymphony, with the finale of Schumann’s Second at the end as an encore. The first round went to, well, Mozart, whose beloved “Haffner” Symphony’s Presto beat out my choice, a sprightly Allegro con spirito from the Symphony in C by Marianna Martines, Mozart’s Viennese contemporary.

Mr. Woolfe closes with “Symphony of Choice gave me a glimmer of hope that audiences want to be challenged, not just pandered to.”

Why am I holding my head in my hands.

Just one more brick in the wall.

Lets start with how to make choices.

I DON’T HAVE TO DO ANY OF THESE THINGS.

I don’t have to program every moment of my life.

And yes there is a lot to watch on TV, millions of hours of programming but as Henry Kissinger said of the 10,000 hours of Nixon tapes, it will take millions of hours to watch.

Mostly, I do not have to go to a concert like the Symphony of Choice.

I have been there.

I have been there and done that FORTY years ago.

This was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I grew up.

A place that suffered a form of a schizoid personality where it wanted to be the biggest small town or the smallest big city but wasn’t sure which way was which.

I was at a performance of the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Catherine Comet.

The first piece on the program was Mozart’s 31st or Paris Symphony written in 1778 at the request of the director of the public concerts series for Paris, known as the Concert Spirituel, one Mr. Joseph Legros.

Before the concert started, I noticed there were two microphones set up in front of the Directors Podium.

The musicians filed in to applause and took their seats and then in came Catherine Comet and the Associate Director John Varineau.

They walked to the front of the orchestra and stood in front of microphones.

Through my family and church connections I had an acquaintance with Varineau, enough to say hello as we both tried to remember how we knew each other.

Maestro Comet took her microphone and addressed the audience.

There had been, said The Maestro, an artistic discussion that week during rehearsal because the Andante or first part of the Paris Symphony existed in two versions.

Back in 1788, after hearing Mr. Mozart’s symphony, this Mr. Legros complained that the first movement had too many ideas in it, it was too much for a Paris audience, it wasn’t what a Paris audience wanted.

So Mr. Mozart re wrote the first movement.

Then Mr. Varineau took his mic.

He said the discussion was that he preferred the original piece while Maestro Comet liked the 2nd one.

Mr. Varineau then said, “This is what Mozart wrote his father … ” and he read from a letter Mozart had written where said of the new version, and the Paris audience, “I too am very pleased with it. But whether other people will like it I do not know … I can vouch for the few intelligent French people who may be there; as for the stupid ones – I see no great harm if they don’t like it. But I hope that even these idiots will find something in it to like; and I’ve taken care not to overlook the premier coup d’archet [A fancy term that simply means all the instruments playing together at the start of a symphony, one of the contemporary fashions of the Concert Spirituel.] … What a fuss these boors make of this! What the devil! – I can’t see any difference – they all begin together – just as they do elsewhere. It’s a joke.”

Then Maestro Comet said that they decided to play BOTH versions and judge the winner by the audience response.

Mr. Varineau took over and directed the GRSO in a performance of the original 1st movement of Mozart’s Paris Symphony.

Then Maestro Comet took over and directed the GRSO in a performance of the 2nd version of the 1st movement of Mozart’s Paris Symphony.

Then they both returned to center stage and took turns asking for audience reaction to the two pieces.

Remember this was after Mr. Varineau read the letter from Mr. Mozart that said things like “I hope that even these idiots will find something in it to like … What a fuss these boors make of this! …. It’s a joke.”

As you have already guessed that audience of Grand Rapidians found something to like in the 2nd version and even though its composer thought it was a joke, those boors weren’t going to make a fuss and they overwhelming applauded the 2nd version.

Maestro Comet and Mr. Varineau looked at each other.

Comet smiled in a I-told-you-so kind of way and Mr. Varineau shrugged in that someone-gonna-do-something-stupid-whatcha-going-do look.

I had applauded for the 1st version and I glanced around the hall and caught the eye of one or two patrons who had caught on to what had just happened and we shrugged as well.

A Symphony of Choice.

A Frankensymphony.

Boy, Howdy!

An absolutely appropriate term for music for today.