Category Archives: Media
Peaceful Demonstrations Trashing Cities
Peaceful protests? President Clinton might say, “it depends on the meaning of “peaceful.”
A BBC headline in June reported, “27 police officers injured during largely peaceful anti-racism protests in London.”
And ABC News continued the trend last weekend reporting that “peaceful demonstrations intensified” in Oakland. Rioters set a courthouse on fire and assaulted police officers.
President Obama once said that shovel ready jobs “weren’t as shovel ready as we expected.”
Peaceful protests don’t seem to be as peaceful as we expected.
What do You get for not Playing Your Music
I got this “what do you get for not playing?” idea from a WSJ piece by Gregg Opelka, a musical-theater composer-lyricist.
We’re all Marxists now. Not Karl, Groucho. There’s a famous sketch in “Animal Crackers” (1930) in which Groucho (as Captain Spaulding) quizzes Chico (Signor Emanuel Ravelli) on how much money the band gets paid. “What do you fellas get an hour?” Groucho asks. “For playing we get $10 an hour,” Chico replies.
Groucho presses: “I see. What do you get for not playing?” “For not playing we get $12 an hour. . . . Now for rehearsing, we make special rate. That’s $15 an hour.” Groucho: “That’s for rehearsing? And what do you get for not rehearsing?” Chico: “You couldn’t afford it. You see, if we don’t rehearse, we don’t play. And if we don’t play, that runs into money.”
Then he goes on about his real life friend.
I have a musician friend, Jim. He plays the bass. Jim is a talented man, and his gigging takes many forms—studio recording as well as live performance. As has happened to so many, his entire livelihood dried up overnight in mid-March. After filing for unemployment relief, he was grateful to receive the bulk of his lost weekly income but equally surprised by the unexpected $600-a-week bonus.
Without auditioning for it, Jim has become an unofficial member of Signor Ravelli’s Animal Crackers orchestra. He recently complained, only half ironically, that he doesn’t know how he’ll make ends meet once he can work again.
Gregg Opelka, Wall Street Journal
Twitter Peckers Comments it Finds Offensive
Twitter isn’t the government, but it can be a pain in the ass.
The all knowing head pecker of sensitivity briefly suspended the popular cartoon battleground site Counterpoint. Nick Anderson is taking credit for his cartoon being the cause. The rest of us will have to try harder.
But we must be doing something right. Counterpoint is tweeting again with more subscribers than ever.
Be subversive. Sign up now!
