Capitol Hill Blue Forums Hot Topics & Breaking News The RoundTable Round Table for Wednesday, Arpil 8, 2009

Welcome to the Round Table for Wednesday, April 8, 2009


A bit ominous?

Well, today I experience part 2 of Wagner's Der Ring, Die Walküre staged by the Los Angeles Opera.
More information, plots, etc.


Click to listen


Click to listen summary part I


Click for finale


Today in history
* 217 – Roman Emperor Caracalla is assassinated (and succeeded) by his Praetorian Guard prefect, Marcus Opellius Macrinus.
* 1093 – The new Winchester Cathedral is dedicated by Walkelin.
* 1139 – Roger II of Sicily is excommunicated.
* 1149 – Pope Eugene III takes refuge in the castle of Ptolemy II of Tusculum.
* 1271 – In Syria, sultan Baybars conquers the Krak of Chevaliers.
* 1513 – Explorer Juan Ponce de León declares Florida a territory of Spain.
* 1730 – Shearith Israel, the first synagogue in New York City, is dedicated.
* 1767 – Ayutthaya kingdom falls to Burmese invaders.
* 1808 – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Baltimore was promoted to an archdiocese, with the founding of the dioceses of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown (now Louisville) by Pope Pius VII.
* 1820 – The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Melos.
* 1832 – Black Hawk War: Around three-hundred United States 6th Infantry troops leave St. Louis, Missouri to fight the Sauk Native Americans.
* 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Mansfield – Union forces are thwarted by the Confederate army at Mansfield, Louisiana.
* 1866 – Italy and Prussia ally against Austria-Hungary.
* 1886 – William Ewart Gladstone introduces the first Irish Home Rule Bill into the British House of Commons.
* 1893 – The first recorded college basketball game occurs in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.
* 1895 – The Supreme Court of the United States declares income tax to be unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
* 1899 – Martha Place becomes the first woman to be executed in an electric chair.
* 1904 – The French Third Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland sign the Entente cordiale.
* 1904 – British mystic Aleister Crowley transcribes the first chapter of the Book of the Law.
* 1904 – Longacre Square in Midtown Manhattan is renamed Times Square after The New York Times.
* 1908 – Harvard University votes to establish the Harvard Business School.
* 1913 – The 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution, requiring direct election of Senators, becomes law.
* 1916 – In Corona, California, racecar driver Bob Burman crashes, killing three and badly injuring five spectators.
* 1918 – World War I: Actors Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin sell war bonds on the streets of New York City's financial district.
* 1929 – Indian Independence Movement: At the Delhi Central Assembly, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt throw handouts and bombs to court arrest.
* 1935 – The Works Progress Administration is formed when the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 becomes law.
* 1940 – World War II: Great Britain and France announce that they have mined Norwegian territorial waters to prevent their use by German supply ships.
* 1942 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad – Soviet forces open a much-needed railway link to Leningrad.
* 1942 – World War II: The Japanese take Bataan in the Philippines.
* 1943 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an attempt to check inflation, freezes wages and prices, prohibits workers from changing jobs unless the war effort would be aided thereby, and bars rate increases to common carriers and public utilities.
* 1946 – The last meeting of the League of Nations, the precursor of the United Nations, is held.
* 1950 – India and Pakistan sign the Liaquat-Nehru Pact.
* 1952 – U.S. President Harry Truman calls for the seizure of all domestic steel mills to prevent a nationwide strike.
* 1953 – Mau Mau leader Jomo Kenyatta is convicted by Kenya's British rulers.
* 1957 – The Suez Canal in Egypt is reopened.
* 1960 – The U.S. Senate approves the Civil Rights Act of 1960 despite Southern senators' marathon filibuster effort.
* 1968 – BOAC Flight 712 catches fire shortly after take off. As a result of her actions in the accident, Barbara Jane Harrison is awarded a posthumous George Cross, the only GC awarded to a woman in peacetime.
* 1975 – Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.
* 1985 – Bhopal disaster: India files suit against Union Carbide for the disaster which killed an estimated 2,000 and injured another 200,000.
* 1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis resigns amid controversy over racially-charged remarks he had made while on Nightline.
* 1989 – South Africa: The Democratic Party is formed from the merger of four parties.
* 1989 – The two Greek Communist parties, along with smaller left-wing parties, merge to form the Coalition of the Left and Progress in Greece.
* 1990 – New Democracy wins the national election in Greece.
* 1992 – Retired tennis great Arthur Ashe announces that he has AIDS, acquired from blood transfusions during one of his two heart surgeries.
* 1999 – Haryana Gana Parishad, a political party in the Indian state of Haryana, merges with the Indian National Congress.
* 2000 – Nineteen Marines are killed when an V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft crashes near Marana, Arizona.
* 2004 – Darfur conflict: The Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement is signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups.
* 2004 – U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice testifies before the 9/11 Commission.
* 2006 – Shedden massacre: The bodies of eight men, all shot to death, are found in a field in Ontario, Canada. The murders are soon linked to the Bandidos motorcycle gang.
* 2008 – The construction of the world's first building to integrate wind turbines completes, in Bahrain.


Among today's birthdays:

Some of his projects:






Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself

just to clarify yesterdays cartoon posting, unfortunately i cannot claim credit for it, except as the finder.

Wow. Nice opener Phil! The images from The Valkyrie are stunning and Mid Century Modern architecture is a favorite of mine.
Winter has reared its ugly head again here and I'm not a bit happy about it. Windy, cold, and uncomfortable. Not the sort of weather Florida is famous for.

COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!


FROM THE CHURCH OF INEFFABLE STUPIDITY:

a) God's spelll chekcer.


http://chronicle.com/news/article/6...spaper-is-pulled-after-embarrassing-typo

apostate |əˈpäsˌtāt; -tit| noun. a person who renounces a religious or political belief or principle.

Even Pastor Agnostic could not make this one up.
- - -

b) Another Bloggo donor gets nabbed
Castle Construction, owned by Robert Blum, was an "in" company. It had the right fiends in high places, and was a minority contractor to boot.
Except it wasn't. Castle was just charged with fraudulently taking public money directed to minority and female contractors and not doling out that work.
Castle's biggest client? Mayor Daley's Chicago.
- - -

c) Guns don't kill. Groups of christians in church kill.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30100435

What has happened to our society? Have the Rushes and Seans and Bachmanns and other morons convinced their fan base, the 19%ers who are blithering idiots, that violence is good?
- - -

d) Barack Obama's moronic legal advice

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_Administration_quietly_expands_Bushs_legal_0407.html

No, Mr. Obama. A thousand times, NO!

See it here and weep:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/jewel/jewelmtdobama.pdf

Quick hello from our frigid South. I knew not to plant my annuals until May 1st. This is the reason.....cold....cold....cold.

The grandbaby is running a temperature so I'm babysitting today and FRIDAY! UGH

Gotta run.

Have a great day all.

Kathy

I didn't find it so at all, Phil. I found it quite lovely, those wisps of vapor quickly dissipated as the shadow of the hillside gives way to the heat of the morning sun. It's a common phenomenon in my part of the country, one I find very picturesque.

You had said in your earlier posting about Der Ring that the production you saw was presented in an unusual fashion. I'm guessing the photos you posted were from a more traditional production. How does the current performance differ?

Thanks too for sharing the architecture. That second to last one reminds me of Falling Water.

Our snow event is over, at last. It was the heaviest snowfall of the year. Not much of it left on the ground though, and what there is will quickly evaporate in the intense April sunshine. We'll get up in the fifties today, back to normal for this time of the year. Yesterday's high of 42 was 23 degrees below normal.

Have a great day, everyone!

Steve, yes those pictures show a quite different presentation of Der Ring. You can get a taste of how different here

From yesterday's RT:


One can never sound too gay

Holy Cow, Phil, that production looks amazing!

Wow. I can definitely see where it would not appeal to some. But as the reviewer says, there's a danger inherent in accepting Wagner at face value. Thanks for sharing that.