Fall League Baseball

Early October through mid-November is time for Arizona Fall League baseball.  Six teams, each roster filled by top minor league prospects from five major league organizations.  Tickets are $7 and it's open seating with usually at most a few hundred attendees.

Good, fast paced play.  Yesterday we watched the Peoria Javelinas defeat the Salt River Rafters by a score of 6-5 in ten innings.  The Rafters went ahead in the 6th on a monstrous 3-run homer to right field by Rockies prospect Michael Toglia.  Going into the bottom of the ninth, the Rafters had a 4-2 lead but with two outs and a runner on first, back to back doubles tied the game.  The Rafters scored in the top of the 10th to take the lead again, but the Javelinas came back to tie the game and then, again with two outs, and the bases loaded, a line drive over the center fielder's head won the game for Peoria.

And the whole game took only 2:40. 

Trick Or Treat

Evenings in late October here are beautiful.  Last night we had our neighborhood block party and tonight is Halloween.  Had about 45 kids show up along with one Amazon delivery driver who I let pick a couple of his favorite candies.  The photo was as I was waiting for the first arrivals.  All seemed to be enjoying themselves.  Hope you are too.

To Kingdom Come

From The Band's first album, Music From Big Pink (1968).  Hard to beat their first two albums, Big Pink and The Band, as an opening career salvo.

Forefather pointed to kingdom come
Sadly told his only son
Just be careful what you do
It all comes back on you.

Tarred and feathered, yea!
Thistled and thorned,
One or the other
He kindly warned.

 

Professor Longhair

Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd, known as Professor Longhair (1918-80) was a New Orleans legend, pioneering a new style of piano playing and influencing musicians like Allen Toussaint and Dr John.  I remember seeing him on TV at some point in the 1970s.  Here he is performing Tipitina.

 

You can also listen and watch Toussaint and Dr John explaining his influence on them, as well as watching him performing during the last part of the Dr John video.  Good stuff.

The Pastoral City

 Came across this remarkable 1850 photo of Rome.

It looks like it is taken from inside the Colosseum, probably on its second level, and it pictures the area to the west of the structure. The stone sticking up in the lower right center is the remnant of the Meta Sudans, which was bulldozed at Mussolini's order.  Directly center is the Arch of Constantine (constructed in the early 4th century).  The modern road has been rerouted so it passes around, not through, the Arch.  Further down that road on the right is part of the aqueduct that carried water to the Palatine Hill.  The elevated ground in the distance behind the aqueduct is the Aventine Hill and the valley in between is where the Circus Maximus was located.  

The upper center-right of the photo is dominated by the Palatine Hill, home of the Imperial Palace.  During the time of the empire it was almost completely covered by palace buildings.  In 1850 the highest point has a monastery on it though you can see remnants of the palace as the hill slopes down to the aqueduct.  If you could see 90 degrees to your right the Sacred Way leading to the Forum would appear.

The other thing to note is how much of the hill was devoted to agriculture and pasture.  After the 6th century Gothic Wars, this area and much of the rest of the former imperial city ceased to be a place of dense urban habitation.  From Belisarius Enters Rome:

Large tracts of the ancient city, including the Forums, the hills (including the Palatine on which the Imperial Palace was sited), and the area around the Colosseum, were mostly abandoned except for the farms and vineyards that had sprung up among the ruins and for the churches and monasteries scattered among the ruins, most prominently the Lateran in the far southeast of the walled city, which until the 15th century was the seat of the Papacy; an area known as the disabitato. 

This is what the area between the amphitheater and the Lateran looked like in 1870.   Today it a busy and congested part of the city.

The disabitato existed into the 19th century with the expansion of the city into the Rome we know today only after the reunification of Italy in 1870.  The remaining densely populated part of the city was located on the Tiber in what was called the Campus Martius at the time of the Republic and Empire and on the other side of the river in the area near what became the Vatican in the Middle Ages.

At the time the photo was taken the population of the entire city was probably around 150,000 to 175,000 compared to about a million in 150 AD.  It was not until the 1930s that Rome's population exceeded that of the Second Century AD.

The photographer was Ludovico Tuminello (1824-1907).

Putting Theory Into Practice

My recent post on Louis Armstrong reminded me of this . . .

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our disposition and not upon our circumstances.” — Martha Washington

“That’s me and I don’t want to be nobody else.  They know I’m there in the cause of happiness.” — Louis Armstrong

Candy

 I don't watch college football but came across this disquisition on Halloween candy and European v American candy by Mississippi State coach Mike Leach.  Much better than the usual postgame coach comments.  Apparently, he is quite a character.  (Courtesy of Super 70s Sports, the most entertaining account on Twitter.)

Imagine being the coach who just lost 45-6 to this guy. I’m just proud to be an American right now … pic.twitter.com/eE9wrgN4nl

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) October 24, 2021

And while we are in the subject of candy let's go back to the 80s for a little Cameo.

And how about Paul McCartney's collaboration with Elvis Costello?

All That Sphinx Jazz

 Louis Armstrong (a frequent THC subject) and his wife, Lucille, in Egypt (1961).

While we're here might as well listen to some Louis (with Duke Ellington).  Couldn't resist adding this version of the same tune, this time from Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald (is there a better singer than Ella?).

UPDATE:  Armstrong's Egyptian visit was part of an African tour arranged by the State Department and he made many other tours during the 50s and 60s sponsored by the US government.   In September 1957, Armstrong leveraged his reputation and State's desire to use him as a representative of America, to threaten not to do further tours unless action was taken to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, a tale I wrote about here and here.

Modified Limited Hangout

 In an October 20 letter to Congress, the National Institutes of Health grudgingly admitted it funded gain of function experiments at the Wuhan lab but claimed it had nothing to do with Covid-19; a fine example of a Modified Limited Hangout (admitting some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case).

Bottom line is Anthony Fauci and segments of the virology community thought the best way to prevent a pandemic was to find novel coronaviruses in bat caves, bring them hundred of miles to a lab in a city of 11 million people, and enhance them to increase their infectiousness and virulence to humans.  And then they covered it up when it backfired.

When the Obama administration banned gain of function research in 2014 it unfortunately turned over the task of establishing the development of detailed guidelines, monitoring, and reviewing projects to Anthony Fauci.  Bureaucratically this was understandable, since NIAID was the natural spot for the task, but it enabled Fauci, who wanted to continue the research (and still does!), to write guidelines and implement them in such as way as to not impede the projects he wanted to proceed.(1)

Fauci is the 21st century version of J Edgar Hoover, a career bureaucrat (he’s headed NIAID since 1984, held senior positions there since 1974 and started working at the agency in 1968 – and his wife is head of the Bioethics Dept of the National Institutes of Health of which NIAID is a part).  He’s accumulated enormous power and prestige, has very little oversight, loves publicity, manages the media well, and has a cult following that will turn on anyone who attacks him.

Josh Rogin, who wrote Chaos Under Heaven, a very good account of China policy in the Trump administration (about which I plan to write more) which concludes with the Covid pandemic, reported that when he tried to talk to researchers about Fauci they would not go on the record with criticisms because he controlled so much of their funding.

The problems with this research and the response of Fauci and the virology community are multiple.

Should it be occurring at all, given the risk?

If the research should be done, why is the U.S. government funding a lab in the middle of a metropolitan area in China to do it?  Particularly with the lack of transparency and outright deception by both the lab and the China government.  And co-located with Chinese military labs conducting biological research!

Why is the EcoHealth Alliance still receiving U.S. funding (and not just from NIH, it also gets DoD grants), when it has deceived the public and now the U.S. government also admits being deceived by EcoHealth?

Why has NIH refused to release to Congress the details on its funding of projects at the Wuhan lab?

And read Alina Chan on twitter, for calm, thorough and knowledgeable analysis of all this.

----------------------------------------------------

(1)  I've been doing additional research and finding a lack of clarity around Fauci's specific role (was it direct or indirect?), and around key definitions.  That he manipulated the process and worked around the end result is clear, but it is less clear to me how he did it.

Desertscape

We returned to Phoenix metro a week ago after a summer in Maine.  After relatively dry Arizona monsoons the past couple of years, this summer saw a "deluge" with much of the metro area seeing between 5 and 10 inches of rain over a three month period (if you live on the East Coast or in South Asia you can stop laughing now).

What we saw upon our return was a lesson in ecology and the adaptation of plants to their climate.  Trees, bushes and plants grew by leaps and bounds.  We've never seen this much green.  The mesquite tree in our backyard now has sprouts and leaves extending over a third of our pool, which has never happened before.  Another plant in our front patio has doubled in size and everything green looks healthier and fuller.  In the desert plants learn how to make maximum use of any small amount of moisture or they do not survive.

Given our drought conditions it is a blessing to have a good monsoon.  Let's hope for a lot of snow and rain this winter, particularly up on the Mogollon Rim, to recharge the reservoirs.

Of course with nature there is always a balance.  The robust monsoon led to a significant increase in the mosquito population, which is usually low compared to the Midwest and East, and to an outbreak of West Nile virus.

 

Why They Do It

The New York City Council voted to remove the statute of Thomas Jefferson from its chambers where it has been since 1915 when it was moved after having been in City Hall since 1834.

Annette Gordon-Reed, a black historian and progressive, wrote that while she understood why some people wanted it removed, the action;

"represents a lumping together of the Confederates and a member of the founding generation in a way which I think minimizes the crimes and the problems with the Confederacy"

I am an admirer of Professor Gordon-Reed and her book on Jefferson and Sally Hemings, about which I've written, but she is missing the point of the action.  Removing Jefferson's statute is part of the ongoing insurrection designed to eliminate America's history and memory and replace it with a new story.  Delegitimizing the American founding and its principles is the top priority for the insurrectionists.  It's why the goal of the 1619 Project is to replace 1776 as America's founding.  Lumping Jefferson in with the Confederacy is a positive in the worldview of the New Racists.

People of good faith like Gordon-Reed need to "wake up" and understand not just what is happening, but why.

There is an additional twist to the story of the Jefferson statute.  It was commissioned and donated to the city by Uriah Levy, the first Jewish commodore in the U.S. Navy.  Levy faced significant anti-semitism during his career and was an admirer of Jefferson's because of the Virginian's advocacy for religious liberty.  It is Levy who was responsible for the initial preservation and restoration of Monticello, which had fallen into disrepair after Jefferson's bankruptcy and death in 1826.   Even if they were aware of Levy's story, the New Racists would not change their view since Jews are seen as white and part of the conspiracy to manipulate the language and societal structures to oppress everyone else to their benefit. New Racist Randi Weingarten, president of the largest teachers' union, said it clearly when she denounced the "privileged Jewish ownership class" for allegedly pulling up the ladder of success after achieving power.

Make Me Smile

Children play in the park, they don't know
I'm alone in the dark, even though
Time and time again I see your face smiling inside

I'm so happy
That you love me
Life is lovely
When you're near me

Tell me you will stay
Make me smile

 

Living life is just a game so they say
All the games we used to play fade away
We may now enjoy the dreams we shared so long ago

Oh my darling
Got to have you
Feel the magic
When I hold you

My favorite song by Chicago.  From their second album, released in 1970.  Composed by James Pankow, the band's trombonist.  There is so much that is so good about this song, from the lyric and melody, the unusual instrumental openings and closings, to the horn and guitar instrumentals in the middle, but most outstanding are the drumming of Danny Seraphine and guitarist Terry Kath's soulful vocal.  

 

In its early incarnation, Chicago was a real rocking band and I saw them play an exciting show in the summer of 1970.  With Kath's tragic death in January 1978, the band lost its edge and though it had a string of big ballad hits in the 1980s it had lost its appeal for me.   I was reminded of the song by Rick Beato's recent breakdown on his What Makes This Song Great series.

The Link

In an intriguing essay, Wesley Yang, an anti-Woke progressive opposed to what he calls the Successor Regime, postulates a connection between the election of Trump, the Russia collusion story, and the societal upheaval we are now undergoing.

The Russia hysteria served a psychological function for those at a loss as to how the country they led had slipped from their grasp. It allowed them to offload the blame for the serial failures through which they rendered themselves beatable by a carnival barker onto the machinations of a foreign power. It allowed them to indulge fantasies of the president’s imminent replacement. It helped media companies reverse a downward spiral and restore themselves to profitability as they turned all of public life into a mutually profitable kayfabe with the object of their obsession.

But when the campaign of leaks and innuendo failed to dislodge Trump from power, the horizontally integrated pieces of the newly assembled anti-Trump messaging complex needed to pivot. They sought a new basis for maintaining the ongoing state of emergency, and they found an out-of-the-box solution in the form of “anti-racist” doctrines elaborated in obscure corners of academia and the activist industrial complex but increasingly circulated by online publications through the 2010s. The executive editor of The New York Times, Dean Baquet, made this point explicitly in a town hall meeting:

“We built our newsroom to cover one story [Russia collusion], and we did it truly well. Now we have to regroup, and shift resources and emphasis to take on a different story... It is a story that requires deep investigation into people who peddle hatred, but it is also a story that requires imaginative use of all our muscles to write about race and class in a deeper way than we have in years. In the coming weeks, we’ll be assigning some new people to politics who can offer different ways of looking at the world. We’ll also ask reporters to write more deeply about the country, race, and other divisions. I really want your help in navigating this story.”

. . . we see the coalescence of the new sensibility that now pervades the official pronouncements of all American institutions, and we see where it came from. The failure of the campaign seeking to treat Trump as an aberration in an arc of history otherwise headed toward the millennium led to the embrace of an analysis framing him as the latest manifestation of an all-pervading, transhistorical phenomenon at the “foundation of all of the systems in the country.”

Monomania of this sort is of course the end of the journalistic endeavor as such (since journalism seeks to tell us the contingent particulars of what happened rather than reaffirm a daily catechism containing all the answers) and its replacements by a priestly vocation. 

I think Yang is on to something.  The origins of this disaster go back years but Trump's election seemed to destabilize already fragile elements of our society and then George Floyd's death provided the immediate trigger.

 

Accidentally Like A Martyr

From Warren Zevon.

The phone don't ring
And the sun refused to shine
Never thought I'd have to pay so dearly
For what was already mine
For such a long, long time

We made mad love
Shadow love
Random love
And abandoned love
Accidentally like a martyr
The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder

 

 

Tarantino On Dunkirk

I thought Dunkirk a great film, so remarkable I wrote two reviews of it.  This is Quentin Tarantino on it for The Rewatchables, a series from The Ringer, explaining why the movie, directed by Christopher Nolan, is so good.

Sweet And Dandy

Well, yesterday's post on the Maytals sent me down the YouTube hole and I can't resist posting another one of their songs, Sweet and Dandy.  This version is from the 1972 cult hit, The Harder They Come, about the Jamaican street and music scene.  The entire song is not in the video, if you want it all go here.  In the clip, the guy in the yellow cap is Jimmy Cliff (an reggae singer in real life) who is the tragic hero of the film.

Pressure Drop

Good stuff from The Maytals (1970), the Jamaican ska band, later known as Toots & The Maytals after their lead singer, Frederick "Toots" Hibberts who also composed the song, which has been covered often over the years.  In 1968 I attended a house party in Kingston where I heard a lot of this music.