Classical music

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“The head of the Royal Philharmonic is making a serious error by believing that abolishing the term “classical music” will suddenly attract thousands of young people into our concert halls. The leadership of the RPO seem to be suffering from a crisis of confidence in their art form – brought on by our society’s obsession with making everything “accessible” or, rather, watered-down.

“Even during the years of Soviet communism, Russian musicians and orchestras – with the encouragement of the state – maintained the most elitist rituals, even when playing before industrial workers in factories, positively rejoicing in classical music and all of its white-tie-and-tails rituals.?It is very sad that in modern Britain, serious art and culture of all kinds is being dissolved into a supposedly democratised mass of nothingness. That such ideas should come from the RPO – the orchestra of Sir Thomas Beecham – is beyond belief. “(Stuart Millson, classical music editor, The Quarterly Review, East Malling, Kent)

My comments:  Yes, watered down. Just as there is some truly dire popular music there out there, there is also dull and unimaginitive classical music. In my personal opinion serious orchestral music hit the buffers in the railway station when it went atonal and eschewed melody and the ability to tug at the heart. The audiences fled, understandably. But there is a huge amount of truly beautiful music, operatic, orchestral, chamber and solo instrumental music that carries you away to another place, stirs the imaginatination, calms you then excites you, and leaves you happy that life isn’t forever ordinary and humdrum. Put aside the cellphones and Facebook and experience it! It will be an Epicurean moment.

P.S: I go to the gym and am assaulted on a Sunday by the spin cycling class next door. This class is accompanied by the most repetitive and unimaginitive music I have ever heard. The chord sequences are I-V-I- V-I-V for a solid hour. Talented writing it is not. I feel like handing out to the cycling exercisers free tickets to a Chopin recital or a Beethoven symphony – if only they could cycle to them.

The decimation of fertility. No. 3 (last comments)

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Just the other week, hundreds of residents who live near Luke air force base in Arizona were advised not to drink their water, when tests detected high levels of toxic chemicals. Scientists have found these substances in the blood of nearly all the people they tested in the US. No country or region on earth is untouched by PFAS contamination. It is a global problem. PFAS has been found in every corner of the globe. It is virtually present in the bodies of every human. It’s found in fish deep in the sea, and birds flying high in the sky.

And it’s killing us, literally, by harming and attacking the very source of life: our reproductive capacities. The rapid death and decline of sperm must be addressed, and it must be addressed now. There is simply no time to lose.

(Erin Brockovich, the environmental advocate, and Suzanne Boothby, slightly edited for length).

My comment: I apologize for three days of talking about the above subject, but it is barely mentioned in the national news, and is rather important. (under-statement of the year!)

The decimation of fertility. No. 2. ( follow-on from yesterday)

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Research has found that the chemicals discussed yesterday are not just dramatically reducing semen quality, they are also shrinking penis size and volume of the testes. These chemicals are literally confusing our bodies, making them send mixed messages. This is nothing short of a full-scale emergency for humanity.

Given everything we know about PFAS chemicals, why isn’t more being done? There is a paltry patchwork of inadequate legislation responding to this threat. Laws and regulations vary from country to country, region to region, and, in the United States, state to state. The European Union, for example, has restricted several phthalates in toys and sets limits on phthalates considered “reprotoxic” – meaning they harm the human reproductive capacities – in food production.

In the United States, a scientific study found phthalate exposure “widespread” in infants, and that the chemicals were found in the urine of babies who came into contact with baby shampoos, lotions and powders. Still, aggressive regulation is lacking, not least because of lobbying by chemical industry giants.

In the state of Washington, lawmakers managed to pass the Pollution Prevention for Our Future Act, which “directs state agencies to address whole classes of chemical, rather than a chemical by chemical approach, which has historically resulted in companies switching to equally bad or worse substitutes. The first chemical classes to be addressed in products include phthalates, PFAS, PCBs, alkyphenol ethoxylate and bisphenol compounds, and organohalogen flame retardants. The state has taken important steps to address the extent of chemical pollution, but, by and large, the United States, like many other countries, is fighting a losing battle because of weak, inadequate legislation.

Just as an example: you can’t eat the deer meat caught in Oscoda, Michigan. The health department there issued a “do not eat” advisory for deer caught near the former air force base because of staggeringly high PFAS levels in the muscle of one deer. (No one knows how contaminated the rest of the herd is)

The rapid death and decline of sperm must be addressed, and it must be addressed now.

(Erin Brockovich, the environmental advocate, and Suzanne Boothby, slightly edited for length)

The decimation of fertility. No. 1

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The end of humankind? It may be coming sooner than we think, thanks to hormone-disrupting chemicals that are decimating fertility at an alarming rate around the globe. A new book called Countdown, by Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, finds that sperm counts have dropped almost 60% since 1973. Following the trajectory we are on, Swan’s research suggests sperm counts could reach zero by 2045. Zero. Let that sink in. That would mean no babies. No reproduction. No more humans. Forgive me for asking: why isn’t the UN calling an emergency meeting on this right now?

The chemicals to blame for this crisis are found in everything from plastic containers and food wrapping, to waterproof clothes and fragrances, in cleaning products, soaps and shampoos, to electronics and carpeting. Some of them, called PFAS, are known as “forever chemicals”, because they don’t breakdown in the environment or the human body. They just accumulate and accumulate – doing more and more damage, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. Now, it seems, humanity is reaching a breaking point.

“In some parts of the world, the average twentysomething woman today is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35,” Swan writes. In addition to that, Swan finds that, on average, a man today will have half of the sperm his grandfather had. “The current state of reproductive affairs can’t continue much longer without threatening human survival,” writes Swan, adding: “It’s a global existential crisis.” That’s not hyperbole. That’s just science.

(Erin Brockovich, the environmental advocate, and Suzanne Boothby, who contributed research and reporting for this article)

Know- Nothings

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One in 10 Indigenous Americans don’t have access to safe tap water or basic sanitation.
The US government has not done enough to ensure Indigenous American tribes have clean drinking water and sanitation. An estimated one in 10 Indigenous Americans don’t have access to safe tap water or basic sanitation, which causes a range of health conditions. Tribal leaders said this breaks the pledges the government made in return for the cessation of land, which promised they’d get a “liveable reservation and a home conducive to health and prosperity”.

My comment: One politician recently inferred that white people discovered a completely empty continent when they came to North America. Those who know anything at all about American history know perfectly well that this is total nonsense. Many indigenous people were rounded up and moved to unpromising land in the West, but at least they were promised reasonable living conditions, among which was drinkable water. How do so many people today manage to get through schooling knowing so pathetically little about their nation’s history? And the chief culprits yearn to actually rule the United States? They should be ashamed.