Friday  29 Jan 2021           comment?

Major storms hit California this week. Forecasts early in the week said my area could see up to a foot of snow. I got less than an inch and it melted quickly.

In all fairness, it's hard to anticipate how much precip this area will get. Some storms have life left in them after coming over the mountains, some don't, and it's hard to predict how things will go.

Thursday  28 Jan 2021           comment?

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) is distancing herself from some of her social media content, saying "Over the years, I've had teams of people manage my pages. Many posts have been liked. Many posts have been shared. Some did not represent my views."

She used passive voice, as did Mitch McConnell last week: "The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people." Greg Sargent of the Washington Post noted this:

It's often said that use of the passive voice is a dead giveaway, and it's true here, as well. McConnell's claim that "the mob was fed lies" elides the role that many members of the Senate and House GOP — and McConnell himself — played in this feeding.

I wondered whether he'd used passive voice ("It's often said") in his own sentence for fun to see how many readers were paying attention. I asked, and Mr. Sargent wrote back saying it was unintentional but he wished he had intended it.

My favorite example of a politician's use of passive voice is Ronald Reagan's "mistakes were made" remark about the Iran‑Contra affair, which Matt Groening immediately parodied in his syndicated cartoon Life in Hell:

Monday  11 Jan 2021           comment?

The problem is not just that a mob stormed the Capitol, it's that as many Republican voters approve as disapprove, according to a recent poll.

I am reminded of how, after Tr--p told a room full of police officers back in 2017 that they didn't need to treat detainees professionally, the crowd cheered.

The USA went to war against Iraq in 2003 with about half the country thinking Iraq was involved with the 9/11 attacks. Now a large part of the country thinks an election was stolen.

I've had other things to blog about over the past week but I felt I first had to say something about current events. There's enough going on to warrant posting about politics every day but for a bunch of reasons I'm largely leaving that to other people. Although I may not comment about every dismal bit of news, we are still well and truly fucked.

Tuesday  05 Jan 2021           comment?

Robert Fripp, known for (among other things) playing guitar in King Crimson, hasn't been touring recently because, well, nobody is. He and his wife have been making the most of a tough time by (among other things) posting short covers of various popular rock and roll songs to YouTube.

Although Fripp has played to rock and roll audiences over the years, his music often did not hew to rock and roll conventions. He used scales and rhythms from jazz and twentieth century classical music.

He is well-read, articulate, and composed; one journalist called him the Mr. Spock of rock. The more familiar you are with him and his music, the more entertainment value there is in seeing him play Nirvana and Led Zeppelin songs at 74 years old, wearing a vest and tie, looking more like a banker than a rock musician.

He tunes his guitar to CGDAEG rather than EADGBE, so his chord voicings may vary from those in the original versions. He plays both the guitar and bass parts in the quieter verses of his cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Kurt Cobain cited King Crimson's 1974 album Red as a major influence.