I quickly got into the habit of listening to the Ricochet Podcasts while doing my ironing. On the rare week when you guys are off I walk around in wrinkled shirts. See how indispensable you guys are? 

I was just going to fire off a notice to the Richochet Web Wizard informing him (her?) of the same problem. I also notice that National Review's web site The Corner now takes forever to load. Anyone else notice this? I mean, it's bad enough the Guv'mint has to keep tabs on us but resort to using Commodore 64s from 1981 to do so is beyond lame. Damn you sequestration!

Classical Music is notated European concert music, except a lot of it was composed by non-Europeans (Copland, anyone?), much of it improvised, and it is frequently performed in non-concert settings. And, of course, African-Americans could say jazz is also a form of classical music (much of it is meticulously scored) as would folks from India who can lay claim to an ancient and venerable musical heritage. Let's face it - the phrase Classical Music is pretty inadequate, even though we use it all the time. One is tempted to say it is like obscenity: we know it when we encounter it.

I find the operas of Ralph Vaughan Williams sadly neglected, even apparently in England. A particular favorite of mine is Hugh, the Drover. The plot is pretty hokey and it goes on for about fifteen longer than it should but it is just packed with good tunes. It also features a boxing match and the libretto is in English to boot!

Yay on Gimme Dat Ding by The Pipkins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtwMcYy0uAI

Boo on They're Coming to Take Me Away Haha by Napoleon XIV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnzHtm1jhL4

I wouldn't let it keep you up at nights. The Universe itself is leaking energy. Sometime in the very distant future  "we're all going to end up at room temperature." *

*Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Oh, come folks - y'all are indulging in the same sort of tribalist group hug that we find so tedious in Progressives. Convene a gathering of people who think alike and let the agreeing begin? B-o-o-r-r-ing!

I would invite an unrepentant Marxist like Terry Eagleton, or one highly cultured such as Fredric Jameson. And just for fun I'd give Cornell West an invite, if only because he's such a snappy dresser. And finally I'd ask a Muslim to join the fun - perhaps Tariq Ramadan - though warning in advance that wine will be served. 

How about 'White Chechens'?

But seriously, to print that the suspects were "not Tea Party Whites" indicates the editors of the NYT held open the possibility that they could be. You know, "The Tea Party" (to use the scariest of scare quotes),  those rabid, saliva-drenched folks who actually think the Federal Government should have limits, who tidy the place up after holding one of their hate-filled rallies.

Hey PJS,

Sorry, work that night. Would love to go downtown and meet a fellow Ricochetarian, especially one whose daughter is willing to attend school here in HighTaxCorruptistan. In all seriousness, it's a great town with great schools. Good luck to her, wherever she ends up.

The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is.

                                                       - Tom Stoppard 

A hugely entertaining treatment of the free will/determinism debate is dramatized in Stoppard's play Arcadia. It forms the basis of the plot, as a matter of fact. It is performed frequently so if any of y'all have a chance to go see it then by all means do so - you'd be in for a treat. And the play is almost as much fun to read as it is to view. 

This is the year for the Cubs! I know, because I've talked it over with my Nigerian financial advisors, whom I met on the Internet, and they assure me that . . . 

Getting the State out of the marriage business altogether seems like the only workable option. Let it be a matter for the prospective couple and whatever 'faith-based community' they happen to belong to. If you want a traditional man/woman marriage you can go to a Catholic Church or an Orthodox Synagogue. If you want to marry your same-sex partner you can toddle on down to the Episcopalians. And if you want enter in a state of holy matrimony with your iPad or your parakeet you can visit the Unitarians. Problem solved.

One little corner of the Universe well-looked after. Most entertaining video I've seen in weeks. Bravo.

I too grew up in a World Book Encyclopedia household and spent countless hours leafing through the volumes (and I still remember the peculiar aroma the pages gave off - it was as if I were breathing in knowledge!). The WBE was not hesitant about telling the truth about the political organization of a country: it was either a Democracy (yay!), a Constitutional Monarchy (well, okay), or a Communist Dictatorship (boo!). I still have the double volume dictionary that came with the set and it's my first source of reference, even though the pages are no longer quite as sweet-smelling.

I am shocked and horrified! Am I the only Richochetarian who knows that The Dick Van Dyke Show is simply the greatest sitcom ever? "The only Dick and Betty Carter I know are Phil and Edna Greenbaum."

As is often the case, a comedian was there ahead of everyone else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_9mXpNdgU

Relevant material at 4:58.

Rather than waste my father's money I went to work right after high school at a local supermarket chasing carts and stocking shelves. During this period I read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and became a budding Free Marketer and for a simple reason: many of the people I worked with were second-generation Poles, geographical cousins to the Lithuanians that Sinclair put through his meat grinder (so to speak). But rather than living in bug infested hovels and dying horribly of botched childbirth, they drove late model cars, lived in charming bungalows and vacationed on lakes in Wisconsin. I doubt I would have had the wherewithal to put two and two together had I gone to college.