An evening pause: Hat tip Dan Morris, who provides this interesting historical tidbit. “Dmitry Kabalevsky, described as an opportunistic Soviet toady (three Stalin prizes, four Orders of Lenin), today seems widely forgotten.” I leave it to you to decide why, after listening to this selection.
An evening pause: A very typical 80s song, very sad, hopeless, and depressing. Background here.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
An evening pause: Performed live in 1986. I suspect there are a lot of guitar solos that people will label the greatest ever.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
A evening pause: Song by Gershon Kingsley, played on a kantele, a traditional Finnish string instrument, with looper added.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
An evening pause: “But the fighter still remains.”
Hat tip Daniel Morris. I posted this in 2013, and it was time to post it again.
An evening pause: He goes from classical to country to rock, in less than four minutes.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
An evening pause: Performed live in 1957 on Cole’s television show. The music was composed by Kurt Weill, with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
An evening pause: The song is originally by Boston, and the lead singer here is Dino Elefante, originally from the band Kansas. Sekulow is the Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which focuses on defending the issues of free speech that the ACLU abandoned years ago.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
An evening pause: Performed live 2010. The clip starts with the second song. If you want to hear the first, Twilight World, rewind to the beginning.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
An evening pause: The video covers all launches through the beginning of this summer, when SpaceX paused for two months. Watch how the pace steadily picks up. If you watch closely you can also see boosters landing in the background.
I lot of people like to talk. Elon Musk likes to do. I’ll take his approach any day.
The song is Audionautix by Opus One.
Hat tip Martin Kaselis.
An evening pause: Performed live in 2016 by the Frankfort Radio Symphony Orchestra.
This is long for an evening pause, but William’s gentle, mild British tones I think make a great way to start the weekend. Use it to unwind from your daily workweek craziness.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
In the past two days probably a dozen of my readers have sent me a link to this story at the Washington Examiner,
The Anti-SpaceX lobbying campaign casts new light on Elon Musk’s Biden beef.
The story reveals some private emails between a union lobbyist and a vice president at ULA, outlining their mutual effort to discredit Elon Musk and SpaceX because of its long term success in preventing its workforce from unionizing.
Everyone who has sent me this story somehow thinks it reveals a major breaking story.
I think this story is a tempest in a teapot. It reveals nothing newsworthy. All it shows is that a union lobbyist is trying to influence the Biden administration against SpaceX, a decidedly non-union company. Why should these actions surprise anyone? Unions always go after non-union companies, and they often do it by exerting their political clout.
Nor should be we surprised that one of SpaceX’s biggest competitors is partnering with the union in this effort. There is nothing newsworthy about this. Competitors compete, and that competition can sometimes be quite cut throat.
Furthermore, nothing in these emails appears illegal. The lobbyist’s claims against SpaceX are spurious and shallow, but so what? Unions have the right to lobby politicians, and they have the freedom to make whatever arguments they want, even if those arguments are silly or false.
Finally, to think it is a news story that Biden might be receptive to union lobbyists is kind of silly. Biden is a modern Democrat. In almost all matters he is going to genuflect to the unions. I don’t need to read the private emails of a union lobbyist to find this out.
However, the evidence in the past ten months shows that this lobbying effort has so far been incredibly ineffective. While I certainly do not trust the Democrats running the Biden administration, and fully expect them to take actions eventually to squelch private enterprise, this White House’s actions regarding space has so far generally continued the capitalist policies begun during the Trump administration. Note too that these are the same policies first begun at the end of the Bush Jr. administration, and encouraged strongly throughout the Obama administration. It certainly appears that — in space at least — the Democrats are as much for capitalism as the Republicans.
And these emails have apparently done nothing to change that. Thus, there is no news here.
An evening pause: I guarantee you’ve never heard Mozart played exactly like this.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
An evening pause: This is quite wonderful. I am certain Folds did some preliminary planning in advance, but it is clear the orchestra did not have this info and he needed to bring them up to speed fast. Their musical skill, combined with the composer’s own musical knowledge and Folds’ clear musical instructions, makes this come together.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
An evening pause: Performed live in 1963.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
