A Timely Tune

Note (actually twenty-eight measures of notes): This post is apolitical and consists of blatant self-promotion of a short, original musical composition about the coronavirus lockdown.

I am a frustrated fifty-four year member of the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS). I direct one chorus on Mondays and sing in a second chorus on Thursdays. Well, I used to until the COVID-19 virus shut them both down in March. 

Because I dabble in composing original music and had nothing better to do, I finished a song I started writing forty years ago. It was supposed to be a show opener for "Denino’s Home-Grown Harmony,” the quartet I sang in with my three sons in the 1970s and 80s. The melody and half of the lyrics were in my head when the quartet broke up.

Thanks to boredom caused by the forced lockdown of the global pandemic, I located the unfinished song in a seldom-visited corner of my memory,  dusted it off, and and completed it using my trusty iMac.

The theme of the story told in the lyrics is new, but the question asked at the beginning and the answer at the end are forty years old. Some might even say the answer is timeless. 😎

Click the song title below to hear the virtual singer module of Harmony Assistant, the music composition software I used sing...

COVID Caprice

(A lockdown lament becomes a pandemic paean.)

What can you do when you want to sing,
but COVID ls lurking around?
You need a barbershop chord to ring,
but alone you can’t make that sound.
Sing in the shower, and what do you get?
Soap in your eyes and a sound that’s all wet!
So, what can you do when you miss your quartet
and you find yourself all alone? 

Can’t see your father, your mother, your sister, or your brother ‘cause you’re stuck at home all alone with your honey. 

I tell ya, “You can make music.
Two can make music, beautiful music at home!”

Enjoy!

George

"They" and "Our"

Donald J. Trump is using these two dog-whistle words to call out to his brainwashed base for acts of violence that will help him become a dictator in fact as opposed to the dictator by presidential decree and executive order he has been since his inauguration.

If you don't recognize that reality fter nearly four years of his divisive rhetoric, government chaos, and attacks on those who have tried to defend the rule of law, you are part of the problem.

Down In The Polls, Trump Pitches Fear: 'They Want To Destroy Our Suburbs'
July 22, 2020 5:00 AM ET
Tamara Keith

President Trump is making a play for suburban voters by trying to convince them that if Democrat Joe Biden wins, then crime will be rampant.

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

 To read and/or listen to the Tamara Keith's NPR article, click here, or on the title above.

~ ~ ~

Trump is pitching fear to his base, but the real threat to America comes from Trump himself.

This rewrite of the Pledge of Allegiance cuts to the chase to make clear where Trump, his supporters, and his enablers in the GOP will take us if he is reelected in November.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Divided States of America, and to the Theocracy for which it stands, one Plantation under Trump, inconsolable, with fascism and bondage for all.

Trump's March to Autocracy - Left, Right, Left, Wrong

Trump attacks the "Radical Left" from the "Radical Right" and essentially says, "Go to Hell!" to the majority of Americans who are asking their government to live up to its claim of equality for all. 

Data can be "distributed" (spread out) in different ways.

It can be spread out more on the left		Or more on the right

Or it can be all jumbled up

But there are many cases where the data tends to be around a central value with no bias left or right, and it gets close to a "Normal Distribution" like this:

To Donald Trump, the distribution of American opinions on any issue is anything but normal. He discounts the entire middle, sees only the fringe elements on the left and right, and panders to those on the extreme right with dog-whistle politics and emotional rhetoric devoid of substance.

POLITICS

In Fourth Of July Remarks, Trump Attacks 'Radical Left'

July 4, 2020 9:53 PM ET

EMMA BOWMAN

President Trump speaks during the Fourth of July "Salute to America" event on the South Lawn of the White House, on Saturday.

Patrick Semansky/AP

In a Fourth of July speech aimed at commemorating the military on Saturday, President Trump hit on familiar divisive themes, condemning the "radical left" and the media he accused of "slander."

During the second annual "Salute To America" event held on the South Lawn, the president drew a comparison between historic American wartime victories and stopping the "radical left."

"American heroes defeated the Nazis, dethroned the fascists, toppled the communists, saved American values, upheld American principles, and chased down the terrorists to the very ends of the Earth," the president told attendees. "We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters and people who in many instances have absolutely no clue what they are doing."

Trump also went after protesters who've rallied to take down statues and monuments that honor Confederate leaders and others known to have supported or profited off of slavery and racism.

"We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children, or trample on our freedoms," he said.

Trump said media outlets "slander" him and "falsely and consistently label their opponents as racists."

The president also returned to his call for the creation of the National Garden of American Heroes, for which he signed an executive order on Friday.

He said his administration has already selected "30 legends," men and women that include: John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Daniel Boone, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Billy Graham, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, Dolley Madison, James Madison, Christa McAuliffe, Audie Murphy, George S. Patton, Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, Betsy Ross, Antonin Scalia, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, and Orville and Wilbur Wright.

The celebration comes as the U.S. sees a surge in coronavirus infections. Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser advised the public to follow CDC-recommended hygiene measures to prevent the spread of the virus, including wearing face coverings and avoiding large gatherings.

While the Department of Interior said that more than 300,000 cloth masks would be available for visitors attending the National Mall festivities, Trump faced a largely maskless crowd on the South Lawn.