June 2014
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Salon writer denounces Pope Francis for not being the secular progressive that secular progressives want him to be.
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Roy Buchanan That's the great and tragic Roy Buchanan, once introduced as "the world's greatest unknown guitarist." He never did become very widely known, but he was certainly admired, respected, and influential. I reviewed the double-CD collection Sweet Dreams here a few years ago…well, over seven years ago…and for further information, and an opinion which hasn't…
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I only skimmed it, so maybe I missed the giveaway. But I honestly don’t know for sure, although I lean toward thinking it’s serious. Read it yourself and decide whether the author really believes it’s wrong to decide whether a baby is a boy or a girl. Things are breaking up out there High water everywhere …
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At least for another hour or so, at least in my time zone. So in the great cynic's honor, let's have a few choice items from The Devil's Dictionary. We need look no further than the "M"s for half a dozen nice ones. MAGPIE, n. A bird whose thievish disposition suggested to someone that it might be taught…
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The New York Times has been running an interesting (yes, really) series of interviews on philosophical and religious subjects. It's part of a broader series called "The Stone" (the philosopher's stone? I don't know…) and the interviewer is Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at Notre Dame. The most recent is with Tim Maudlin, another professor…
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Terje Rypdal A Norwegian player whose work is most often something that could be roughly classified as jazz-rock fusion, Rypdal is a long-time ECM artist, going back to the mid-1970s, which really tells you more about him than an attempt to place him in a genre. I'm familiar with maybe four or five of his…
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It's probably abusing the privilege somewhat, but a portion of James Bowman's media column in the April New Criterion is so good that I'm going to quote it at length. It's a devastatingly sharp critique of the fatuous Mr. Obama's assertion that he is always "on the right side of history." …Mr. Kerry, when interviewed on Face…
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And I just read this post by Neo-neocon on the subject, and thought, "I'm going to post a link to that." Then I started thinking it was familiar, and checked, and found, once more, that, as Neo says, it was an earlier post of hers, and that I had linked to it before, only two years…
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Joe Satriani I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Satriani was Steve Vai's teacher. I like Satriani better, to the extent that I know his work. His material just seems more appealing to me, more overall-musical. I reviewed his Flying in a Blue Dream album several years ago, and am still of more or less the…
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I wanted to include this in last night's post about House of Cards but was in a rush and didn't have time to look for it. I love it, both musically and visually but especially musically. It's a great little trip-hop-ish piece, though I wish it were longer. UPDATE: Sorry, this is audio-only, apart from the…
Light On Dark Water 