In Tenure Veritas: Libations From The Ivory Tower

 Pay attention to what matters.  The Georgia law matters, not merely because of Georgia itself, but because it is a test case and a template.  Democracy matters because it is a precondition.  That said, there are a lot of misconceptions about what is happening.  Short version:  yes, there are racially discriminatory elements, yes, that violates federal law and the Constitution, but some of the accusations overstep the evidence.  The big problem, and this is a problem with the Constitution, is that trying to manipulate election law for partisan purposes?  That does not violate federal statue or the Constitution.  Should it?  Yeah, but it doesn't.  So, we have a lot to address here, including a messy case.  Cooper v. Harris . First, the basic fact.  Parties care about winning elections.  When manipulating the process, that's the goal.  What is the GOP trying to do in Georgia?  Win.  Period.  Elections are zero-sum contests between D's and R's.  Third parties don't mat

 For all the griping I do about books that bother me, one might wonder why I bother.  Yet, the gripes give a distorted perspective, as one might reasonably infer.  I do, obviously, enjoy a good book, and I would not bother were it not for all the good books out there.  It just isn't always as fun to post about them, since I have no rant that needs to be ranted.  Observations, perhaps, but a rant that is bubbling to the surface is something else entirely.  Yet a good book is a glorious thing.  The best kind?  Books that challenge.  The worst thing you can do for your brain is expose yourself only to those who reinforce your predispositions and pre-existing beliefs.  For today, I shall blather about a novel that challenges me.  Intelligently.  That's why I love it. Ben Winters.  I have mentioned him before, in passing.  The "Last Policeman" trilogy was an interesting series about a cop who still believed in solving cases even though an asteroid was on a collision course

 The world is a strange place.  In other news, water is wet.  Expect a post on Golden State , by Ben Winters, in which the post-truth dystopia is turned upside-down by a state that prohibits lying, and people greet each other with bland truths.  Fascinating book.  Also, I am easily sidetracked.  Where was I?  Oh, yes.  The world is a strange place.  Economically speaking, and otherwise, but today, I refer to the economy.  COVID has not only killed a lot of people, and caused long-term health problems for many others, it has wreaked economic havoc on millions.  For those of us capable of working remotely, how are we doin'?  Um... actually, I'm a numbers guy, and if you look at the numbers, you can paint a positive picture.  Those with stable employment and an investment portfolio have continued to get paychecks, watched their investment portfolios grow, and still seen remarkably little inflation, meaning we have maintained the purchasing power of the dollars we're still gett

 I have no order here.  What the hell.  Let's go back to the roots of jazz with Satchmo today.  Louis Armstrong.  For whatever incomprehensible reason, "St. James Infirmary" is on my mind, and nobody did it better than Satchmo.  This also gives me an opportunity to ramble about the essence of jazz.  I did this last week with Grant Green, but let's get even more fundamental.  Long before Louis sang, "What A Wonderful World," he was basically inventing jazz, along with King Oliver, and Jelly Roll Morton can piss off.  So here's what's going on.  At this point, jazz was barely distinguishable from blues.  King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and a few others in New Orleans are just playing around with structure in subtle ways, starting with compositions that are blues songs.  "St. James Infirmary" is a blues song, and it can be played in any number of styles.  But listen to what Louis does with it.  Listen for the hesitation, and in particular, note

 So I guess I need to say this again.  The Democrats do not  have the votes to eliminate the filibuster.  The Senate is 50-50-Harris.  They will lose Joe Manchin's vote, if they attempt to use the nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster.  That gives the GOP 51 votes against the nuclear option.  The filibuster stays.  Learn to count, people.  Also, Manchin wouldn't vote for a lot of the policies the Democrats have in mind for a post-filibuster Senate anyway.  Reality.  It's a thing.

 I'm going to step back this morning, and take a contrarian position against my own arguments.  Hey, look!  A navel!  If you gaze too long into the navel, the navel gazes back.  At that point, you become, "a professor."  Anyway, I have repeatedly taken the position that climate change is not only the most important issue, but so  much more important than any other issue that any other issue is really of questionable importance at best, all things considered.  OK, yeah, COVID, but once we're through this pandemic, it's climate change, climate change, and climate change, with some side-helpings of water sanitation and malaria.  Translation:  stop bothering me with shit that doesn't matter.  The only shit that matters is that which kills because people don't have clean water.  Oh, did that joke bother you?  Yeah, well people seriously die from this, so fuck off.  Focus on what matters. Consider, then, "cancel culture," the challenges it poses to fre

 Climate change is the issue of our time.  I have no interest in debating this point.  Offer me a "hard science fiction" novel centering on the politics of addressing it, and you don't have to twist my arm.  And of course, there will be a blog post.  Which... nobody will read.  What else am I going to do with my Saturday morning?  Are cartoons still a thing? Anyway, I'm going to preface this post by noting that when I start a book, I finish the book.  It's a thing I do.  A quirk.  No matter how much I detest the book, I finish the book.  I get frustrated, annoyed, irritated, I rant, I harangue anyone within lecturin'-range, which is a limited number of people in the COVID era, but I finish the book.  Amid these diatribes, I am interrupted with the observation, "you know, you don't have  to finish the book."  And, I don't , but I do .  You know?  Like, I'm not a student.  I'm the professor .  I only read what I want to read, and yes, I

 Looking at what I have posted so far in the revamped series, I think I want to take a step even further back today.  Last week, I put up a performance by Lenny Breau, and commentary on him, but in the context of previous discussions of Tigran Hamasyan and Pierre Dørge, perhaps today I'll write about something even more fundamental to jazz.  Obviously, there is no order or coherence to this series.  Today, let's have an examination of Grant Green. Jazz can be complex to the point of mystifying.  Today, the opposite.  Few jazz musicians who arose after the bebop revolution were more closely tied to the rudiments of blues than Grant Green, and few more aptly demonstrated the principle espoused by Miles Davis that what matters are the notes you don't play.  So let's examine his classic, "Idle Moments." Listen to a few elements.  This is a classic in simplicity.  In contrast to Hamasyan, the time is remarkably consistent.  In contrast to the elaborate picking of B

 As the Senate considers the filibuster and its implications for policymaking, I have just a few bullet point-style comments. 1)  The Democrats don't have the votes to "reform" the filibuster in any way.  The Senate is 50-50-Harris.  By using the "nuclear option," the majority party can cheat and re-write the rules with 51 votes, even though the rules actually  say that you need a 2/3 supermajority to change the rules, but Joe Manchin won't vote for any rule change.  So this is all sturm und drang . 2)  That makes McConnell's "scorched earth" threats doubly-bizarre.  McConnell's middle name is "Scorched Earth" anyway (terrible parents!), as we learned in 2007 when control of the Senate flipped from R to D, and McConnell escalated filibustering to the norm.  If you want to know when the filibuster went from an occasional tactic on the rise to the default, that was the precise moment.  You can track it with cloture motions .  McConn

 April 22, 2017.  It has been nearly four years, and the date will likely go unremarked by history.  We have so many dates, and history, it is said, is just one damned thing after another.  Names and dates.  The last thing we need is one more day/week/month to commemorate a thing anyway.  Yet for the moment, I find myself thinking about April 22, 2017, although to be honest, I did have to check the date.  My memory is far from elephantine.  Yet I do remember the march.  And the signs.  Oh, the glorious signs.  You can go do a Google image search, if you like, but I shall simply quote from a few of my favorite (things), as I look forward to summertime.*      "I can't believe I'm marching for facts."      "So bad, even introverts are here."      "The good thing about science is that it is true whether or not you believe in it." That last one was a quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson.  Proper attribution, like science, is important.  One may note that it i