http://www.circa75.com/ Circa75 en-us http://www.circa75.com/showArticle.php?article=357 gustav Last night (Feb. 9, 2011) we attended what was perhaps the most interesting program of any concert I've attended in the Boston area: works for toy piano, piano, and violin, performed with competence and gusto, all but one accompanied by tape or live electronics, and all but one by young, living composers 2011-02-09 10:41:42 http://www.circa75.com/showArticle.php?article=356 gustav I feel that the enthusiasm and attendance we saw amongst self-described progressives at the Rally to Restore Sanity and Keep Fear Alive this weekend are some of the most troubling displays ever of corporate monopolization of political discourse in the United States. I see this as evidence that cults of personality and media spectacle have come to replace intelligent discussion and objective evaluation of policy in the modern left, though I hope I'm wrong. 2010-11-05 16:39:02 http://www.circa75.com/showArticle.php?article=355 aaron I've wanted to play around with concrete for a while -- it seems pleasingly plastic, sturdy, and amenable to DIY. I finally found a good opportunity two weekends ago. Here's what I learned. 2010-09-01 10:15:01 http://www.circa75.com/showArticle.php?article=354 aaron A while ago, I embarked on a work project that entailed refactoring a Rails application into a plugin, containing most of the core functionality, and a set of applications that used that plugin. Given how easy Rails makes a lot of test-driven development, I was somewhat surprised to find a lack of discussion or documentation about best practices for pain-free testing of both the core plugin and the applications -- so I figured it out myself. 2010-03-09 17:44:42 http://www.circa75.com/showArticle.php?article=353 gustav A great program and a human performance full of musicianship and drama... 2010-02-02 09:33:48 http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/06/christian-love-family-research-council.html 'According to the [Family Research Council's] official lobbying report for the first quarter of 2010, they paid two of their henchmen $25,000 to lobby Congress against approving a resolution denouncing Uganda's plan to execute homosexuals. The resolution passed in the Senate on April 13th, but remains languishing in the House almost four months after being referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Did the FRC's lobbying kill it? As we learned last week with Malawi, international pressure CAN sway even the most virulently anti-gay government.' (joemygod.blogspot.com) Before the Uganda bill surfaced, I was having an argument with some breeder-privileged fuck on Facebook who told me I was overreacting when I said that the same religious right activist groups and churches who cheated, lied, and stole in order to strip us of marriage equality had, as their ultimate goal, our murder. I think stuff like this pretty definitively proves I was not overreacting. They may not often say they want us dead. They may bitch and moan when we try to expose their actions, or their donor lists. They may say "hate the sin, love the sinner" out of one side of their mouths while they invoke fire and brimstone out of the other. They may want to offshore our murder to the third world, where they hope it will go unnoticed by the American media. But the Family sends missionaries over to Uganda to push them to introduce legislation calling for our round-up and execution, and the imprisonment of anyone who tries to help us there; then, when word gets out, the FRC lobbies to try and stop the US from exerting any diplomatic pressure to oppose the bill. They ultimately want to kill us, plain and simple. 2010-06-15 13:10:01 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100614/ap_on_bi_ge/us_drones_over_america 'Unmanned aircraft have proved their usefulness and reliability in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now the pressure's on to allow them in the skies over the United States... '"There is a tremendous pressure and need to fly unmanned aircraft in (civilian) airspace," Hank Krakowski, FAA's head of air traffic operations, told European aviation officials recently. "We are having constant conversations and discussions, particularly with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, to figure out how we can do this safely with all these different sizes of vehicles."' (news.yahoo.com) What could possibly go wrong? 2010-06-15 13:01:41 http://www.towleroad.com/2010/06/does-elena-kagan-believe-religious-freedom-trumps-discrimination-laws-protecting-gay-americans.html In her role working in the Clinton administration in 1996, Elena Kagan wrote a memo which "urged Clinton to side with religious conservatives in a case dealing with a landlord's objection to renting to an unmarried couple, because it went against his religious beliefs." Kagan has left little to constitute a record -- and I agree with Greenwald that that's a troubling indicator that she's placed her own ambition ahead of any deeply-held principles that she might have left behind in written opinions. That, out of a paucity of opinions generally, she should have left such a pro-religious-right opinion as this is, seems to me a pretty searing indictment of our "fierce advocate's" nominee, and, obviously, has deeply disturbing implications for the chances this Supreme Court might give a DoMA-repeal victory, let alone challenges to hate crimes legislation or ENDA, should that somehow pass. Given Obama's pro-corporate and anti-gay actions generally, she seems like a perfect fit for him. 2010-06-15 13:00:11 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35896_Page2.html '"The President undertook health care because it was the right thing for the country even though it was politically risky," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said. "We don’t share the media’s obsession with poll numbers, particularly months and months from an election."' versus: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/19/cheney-poll-iraq/ 'CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success. 'RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting. 'CHENEY: So? 'RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think? 'CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.' Change we can believe in. (To be clear: Polls indicate that most people opposed to the recent health care legislation are on crack and think it's some sort of socialism, but that a substantial minority (of which I'm a part) opposes it because it's too conservative -- in my case because it's a wealth-transfer from working-class Americans to the insurance industry, without much in the way of meaningful protections, and with right-wing, misogynist restrictions on reproductive rights, plus a big chunk of change for abstinence-only 'education.' Regardless, Obama doesn't seem to be doing a great job of bringing people together on this issue: he's pissed off the right, yet made countless 'concessions' to Republicans that didn't manage to convince Republicans to vote for it, yet alienated and disheartened huge swathes of the Democratic electorate. And his administration's continued spouting of new right-wing talking points gets depressing.) 2010-04-16 11:29:49 http://www.towleroad.com/2010/04/obama-orders-hospitals-to-grant-samesex-couples-visitation-rights-and-medical-power-of-attorney.html This is definitely good news. The cynic in me, though, wonders at the timing, and the scope -- if Obama suddenly has found the courage and ability to issue statements on this, what's preventing him from doing so on DADT, etc.? And could this be to distract gays' attention from his administration's mishandling of DADT -- handling so dire and disingenuous that even the obsequious Barney Frank was moved to call out the administration on it? I also wonder about this bit: "This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person." What the hell does that mean? Still, if this prevents even one repeat of the despicable, mean-spirited, bigoted, and unchristian (yet cloaked in the hypocritical language of Christian 'values') behavior of Miami's evil Jackson Memorial Hospital towards Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond, it'll be fantastic. 2010-04-16 11:13:41