RedStateEclectic

Good Morning, Copenhagen

Or is this taking place at some other time of the day? How cold it must have been, only a month ago.

 

Crepuscular Rays

Still weak and wobbly from a cold, I draw strength from Telemann's music.

 

Funny How Time Slips Away

... isn't it.

 

Happy Easter

Lucky playing with his parents.

Happy Easter to our readers and all my co-blogging friends at RedStateEclectic. Enjoy the music.

 

Incidentally, for some paschal contemplation, you might want to read this post from a very good blog.

Maurice André

RIP Maurice André - see also here:

 

Morning Brahms Music

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." - Victor Hugo

Ma liberté

The painting shows a canon in a room, the walls of which show various images: clouds, the torso of a woman, several planks, or a façade with windows. The title of this work by René Magritte was suggested by his friend Paul Nougé. The title is probably borrowed from a quotation from the book Prester John by John Buchnan: 'The clear air of dawn was like wine in my blood. I was not free, but I was on the threshold of freedom'. In fact, the painting is really a promise.

The source.

Georges Moustaki sings of his freedom. And how he lost it. See also Le Métèque.

 

Ma liberté                                          My Freedom

My freedom
I have long kept you
Like a rare pearl
My freedom
It's you who helped me
Shed my anchors
To go anywhere
To go to the end
Of the paths of fortune
To dreamily pick
A rose of the winds
On a moonbeam

My freedom
To your desires
My soul was submissive
My freedom
I gave you everything
The shirt on my back
And how I suffered
To satisfy
Your every demand
I changed countries,
I lost my friends
To win your trust

My freedom
You were able to disarm
All my habits
My freedom
You who made me love
Even solitude
You who made me smile
When I saw the end
Of a beautiful adventure
You who protected me
When I went to hide
To care for my wounds.

My freedom
Yet I left you
A december night
I deserted
The far-off paths
That we wandered together
When, unsuspecting,
My hands and feet bound,
I let myself go
And I betrayed you
For a prison of love
And it's beautiful jail-keeper.

And I betrayed you
For a prison of love
And it's beautiful jail-keeper.

Ma liberté
Longtemps je t'ai gardée
Comme une perle rare
Ma liberté
C'est toi qui m'as aidé
A larguer les amarres
Pour aller n'importe où
Pour aller jusqu'au bout
Des chemins de fortune
Pour cueillir en rêvant
Une rose des vents
Sur un rayon de lune

Ma liberté
Devant tes volontés
Mon âme était soumise
Ma liberté
Je t'avais tout donné
Ma dernière chemise
Et combien j'ai souffert
Pour pouvoir satisfaire
Tes moindres exigences
J'ai changé de pays
J'ai perdu mes amis
Pour gagner ta confiance

Ma liberté
Tu as su désarmer
Toutes mes habitudes
Ma liberté
Toi qui m'as fait aimer
Même la solitude
Toi qui m'as fait sourire
Quand je voyais finir
Une belle aventure
Toi qui m'as protégé
Quand j'allais me cacher
Pour soigner mes blessures

Ma liberté
Pourtant je t'ai quittée
Une nuit de décembre
J'ai déserté
Les chemins écartés
Que nous suivions ensemble
Lorsque sans me méfier
Les pieds et poings liés
Je me suis laissé faire
Et je t'ai trahie pour
Une prison d'amour
Et sa belle geôlière

Et je t'ai trahie pour
Une prison d'amour
Et sa belle geôlière

Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

... well, this is how brown eyes are made blue:

Matt Ridley explains, while we are influenced by our genes, dependence works the other way around,too. Genes are vitally influenced by man and his culture.

Human beings, we tend to think, are at the mercy of their genes. You either have blue eyes or you do not (barring contact lenses); no amount of therapy can change it. But genes are at the mercy of us, too. From minute to minute, they switch on and off (i.e., are actively used as recipes to make proteins) in the brain, the immune system or the skin in response to experience. Sunbathing, for example, triggers the expression of genes for the pigment melanin.

As a recent study confirms, on a much longer time scale, genes are even at the mercy of culture.

Make sure to read the entire article at the source.

 

The Slime

Four more years of Obama in the Oval Office would be better, in my view, than four years of Gingrich there: each man is mad for power; each man’s Promethean opinion of himself is quite the opposite of what a realistic self-opinion would be; each man is a font of economic idiocy; and each man’s principles are such that each would – recalling Mencken’s description of FDR – fatten up a crew of missionaries on the White House lawn for slaughter if he thought that endorsing cannibalism would get him more votes.  Yet the countless nutty and destructive policies that Pres. Gingrich would likely implement would inevitably be described by our crack mainstream press as “laissez faire” – thus creating more public misunderstanding.  (Of course, four more years of Obama in the White House might also be better than four years of Romney there….)

The source.

I tend to think that the stereotypical augury about the lesser evil has hardly more substance to it than the fact that it does help to keep the system going. What is left out of the picture is that there is more than one way for politicians to produce intolerable levels of damage. Both Obama and Gingrich are sure to maintain those levels.

Take a rest from the slime and the slimeballs, Rep. and Dem. Enjoy a nice piece of kinetically supported music:

 

PS

Actually, as a child I did see, smell, and touch this kind of sea foam on our visits to South African sea resorts. It looked just like this:

Image credit.

The Amazing Global Kryner

The amazing Global Kryner performing Stop in their inimitable way:

 

See also Austrians - On a Cold Winter Night.