Monday: Hili dialogue

November 27, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a dreary Monday: November 27, 2023, and National Bavarian Cream Pie Day, a pie I’ve never had, but one I should try, as it’s made with custard and whipped cream. Here’s one example (and there’s a recipe):

It’s also Pie in the Face Day, National Craft Jerky Day, Turtle Adoption Day, Lancashire Day in the United Kingdom, and National Electric Guitar Day.

The Rolling Stone has a list of the 250 Greates Guitarists of all Time, and #1 is Jimi Hendrix. That’s fine, but after that things get wonky: #2 is Chuck Berry, for crying out loud, and Clapton gets only the #35 position when he should be #2.  Here’s Hendrix doing “Purple Haze,” but Rolling Stone is pontificating that Chuck Berry is right behind him, and way ahead of Eric Clapton. That list is STUPID.

And here’s number #35. which should be #2. Chuck Berry couldn’t touch this. Although I love the Beatles, I still vote for “Layla” as the best rock song of all time—except for the slow part.  Check out the solo beginning at 2:20 and see if Chuck Berry could even come close to Clapton’s musicality and technical skill. (Yes, there’s a cigarette stuck in the guitar head.) You can stop listening at 3:30 when the slow part begins, although this slow part is better than the one in nearly ever rendition. Oh go ahead, listen to the end, and tell me if he’s not #2 on the list.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the November 27 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz (all war-related today)

*Hamas released 17 more hostages, including one American, which of course President Biden will cheer about (honest, I don’t know why the nationality of released people who were abducted is of great import). Why didn’t Israel agree to let 750 Palestinian terrorists go in return for all the hostages? After all, the net gain to Palestine would be the same—almost. What Hamas is doing here is clear: they’re buying time, regrouping and hoping that world sentiment will build to the point that the U.S. and Israel will have to give up pursuing terrorists, and lose the war. This much is obvious, but I’m so thick that I just realized it. Anyway, from the NYT, we hear of a release yesterday evening of 17 hostages, including an American.

Hamas released 17 more hostages on Sunday, including one American — Avigail Idan, who turned 4 on Friday — and said it would seek to extend a temporary cease-fire with Israel after the current four-day pause is over.

Under the deal reached last week, the cease-fire began on Friday and is slated to continue into Monday. It is the longest break in fighting in Gaza since Oct. 7, when gunmen from Hamas and other militant groups launched a deadly attack on southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials.

Israel has said that it is prepared to grant another day’s pause for every 10 hostages Hamas releases beyond the 50 outlined in the agreement, but the Palestinian group, which controls Gaza, had not previously responded to the offer publicly.

The statement by Hamas came hours after the Israeli prime minister’s office said 14 Israelis, including nine children, and three foreigners had been released on the third day of the agreement, under which both sides agreed to exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Avigail, the 4-year-old, a dual Israeli and U.S. citizen, and the others released on Sunday were among roughly 240 people taken to Gaza as hostages by Hamas and its allies on Oct. 7, according to Israeli officials.

“Thank God she’s home,” President Biden said of Avigail. Members of her family previously told The New York Times that her parents, Roy Idan and Smadar Idan, had been fatally shot at the Kfar Aza kibbutz. Her siblings — Michael, 9, and Amelia, 6 — survived the violence.

And here’s Hamas playing Netanyahu and Biden like a violin:

Hamas said it would seek to extend a temporary cease-fire with Israel after the current four-day pause is over, a move that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel suggested he would consider if it led to more hostages being released.

Under the deal, the cease-fire began on Friday and is slated to continue into Monday. It is the longest break in fighting in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, when gunmen from Hamas and other militant groups launched a deadly attack on southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 240 others hostage, according to Israeli officials.

Israel has said that it is prepared to grant another day’s pause for every 10 hostages Hamas releases beyond the 50 outlined in the agreement. Hamas, which controls Gaza, had not previously responded to the offer publicly.

In a positive indication of Israel’s continued openness to the idea of extending the truce, Mr. Netanyahu issued a video statement soon after the Hamas statement in which he noted that there was already an outline for the possibility of freeing an additional 10 hostages for each additional day of truce. Mr. Netanyahu said he spoke to President Biden on Sunday, and that he reiterated that the goal, regardless of the length of the truce, was to destroy Hamas.

Remember, a long truce can easily morph into a cease-fire, regardless of what Bibi says.  And a permanent cease-fire means that Israel has not only lost the war, but is in serious danger of losing its country.

*The Washington Post has a news analysis piece by Steve Hendrix and Hazem Balousha called “Netanyahu and Hamas depended on each other. Both may be on the way out.” Well it’s clear that Bibi is; he’s toast the moment the war is over, no matter how it ends. (The authors note, “Polls show 75 percent of Israelis calling for him to resign now or be replaced when the fighting stops.”) But how are Hendrix and Balousha so sure that Hamas is toast, too?

The bulk of the piece is about how Netanyahu “used” Hamas as an excuse to avoid negotiating for a two-state solution, saying that “there was nobody to negotiate with” so long as the terrorist group is in power.  Well, he’s on the way out but I’m curious how the authors discern that Hamas, is, too. Here’s what they say:

In Gaza, where elections haven’t occurred since 2006, gauging support for Hamas is more difficult. Before the war, fear of Hamas retribution kept criticism of the regime largely to whispers. Now, the massive disruptions of bombardment and displacement make polling almost impossible. Some recent surveys show continuing support for Hamas, as anger at Israel grows during the ongoing military assault.

But more Gazans are willing to criticize Hamas on social media and in interviews with The Washington Post.

“I’m not afraid to say it: We don’t want Hamas and not just because of the war, but for years,” said Ahmad, 44, a pharmacist from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. The Post is not using his full name to protect him from possible reprisals. “The lack of competent governance has left us in poverty and misery, exacerbated by this devastating war. Israel’s actions spare no one, regardless of being affiliated with Hamas or not.”

Motaz, 39, said Hamas’s attack on Israel left him in “horror,” and left his family exposed to Israeli attacks that destroyed his grocery store in Khan Younis last month.

He doesn’t believe Hamas can survive. But he doesn’t see what difference any change of leadership in Gaza would make to its devastated citizens.

“Even if Hamas remains in power, what will remain for us here?” Motaz asked. “There are no homes to live in, and no work to sustain us. I lost my only source of livelihood.”

That’s not a very strong case for an impending end to Hamas, is it?

*Most of the released hostages are still in hospitals, and are forbidden to talk about where they were held, or give details of how they were held. Nevertheless, the NYT also gives some information about the “hows” taken from the accounts of the relatives of hostages who have spoken to the media.

Relatives who have spoken or met with some of the released hostages said all seemed to have spent their weeks in captivity totally cut off from the outside world, and to have returned thinner than before.

“They were eating, but not regularly and not all of the time,” said Merav Mor Raviv, a cousin of Keren Munder, 54, who was released on Friday along with her son, Ohad Munder-Zichri, 9, and her mother, Ruth Munder, 78. “They ate a lot of rice and bread,” Ms. Raviv said, adding that Keren told her that both she and her mother had lost about 6 to 8 kilograms, or 13 to 18 pounds.

Ms. Raviv related that the Munders had slept in a reception room on improvised benches they fashioned by pushing three chairs together, and that when they wanted to go to the bathroom they would have to knock on a door and wait — sometimes for up to two hours.

Adva Adar’s grandmother, Yaffa Adar, 85, was among the hostages released on Friday. She noted that her grandmother had lost weight and was aware that she had been held for nearly 50 days because she had kept count.

. . .The uncle of two hostages who were among those freed late Saturday — Noam Or, 17, and his sister Alma, 13 — told the BBC on Sunday that they, too, were unaware until their release that their mother, Yonat Or, had been killed in the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.

“They have some difficult stories to tell of the way they were captured and treated,” Ahal Besorai said of his nephew and niece. He said he had spoken with them on a video call at the hospital where they are staying.

I’m wondering whether the last tranche of hostages will be those who were ill, and would far poorly under this regime, or whether some hostages have died or been killed without Hamas letting anybody know. But I do share the joy of the relatives and friends of the hostages that have been released so far.

*The Associated Press reports on the rise of antisemitism in Europe and how it’s worrying the continent’s Jews.

Last month’s slayings of about 1,200 people in Israel by armed Palestinian militants represented the biggest killing of Jews since the Holocaust. The fallout from it, and from Israel’s intense military response that health officials in Hamas-controlled Gaza say has killed at least 13,300 Palestinians, has extended to Europe. In doing so, it has shaken a continent all too familiar with deadly anti-Jewish hatred for centuries.

The past century is of particular note, of course. Concern about rising antisemitism in Europe is fueled in part by what happened to Jews before and during World War II, and that makes it particularly fearsome for those who may be only one or two generations removed from people who were the victims of riots against Jews and Nazi brutality.

What most chills many Jews interviewed is what they see as the lack of empathy for the Israelis killed during the early morning massacre and for the relatives of the hostages — about 30 of whom are children — suspended in an agonizing limbo.

“What really upsets me,” said Holocaust survivor Herbert Traube said at a Paris event commemorating the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 government-backed pogroms against Jews in Germany and Austria, “is to see that there isn’t a massive popular reaction against this.”

Well, Herr Traube, it’s the same in the U.S.  Sympathy for the Jews and Israel all but disappeared two or three days after the attacks, and even before Israel started defending itself by going after Hamas.  Why? You tell me!

The list of examples of anti-Jewish sentiment since the Oct. 7 attacks is long and documented by governments and watchdog groups across Europe.

—Little more than a month after the attack in Israel, the French Interior Ministry said 1,247 antisemitic incidents had been reported since Oct. 7, nearly three times the total for all of 2022.

—Denmark’s main Jewish association said cases were up 24 times from the average of the last nine months.

—The Community Security Trust, which tracks antisemitic incidents in Britain, reported more than 1,000 such events — the most ever recorded for a 28-day period.

That all comes despite widespread denunciations of anti-Jewish hatred — and support for Israel — from leaders in Europe since the attack.

Some of Europe’s Jews say they see it on the streets and the news. Jewish schoolchildren face bullying on their way to class, or — in one instance — have been asked to explain Israel’s actions, according to Britain’s Community Security Trust. There’s been talk of blending in better: covering skullcaps in public and perhaps hiding mezuzahs, the traditional symbol on doorposts of Jewish homes.

. . .“Some of us are in a state of panic,” said Anna Segal, 37, the manager of the Kahal Adass Jisroel in Berlin, a community of 450 members.

Some community members are changing how they live, Segal said. Students no longer wear uniforms. Kindergarten classes don’t leave the building for field trips or the playground next door. Some members no longer call taxis, or they hesitate to order deliveries to their homes. Hebrew-speaking in public is fading. Some wonder if they should move to Israel.

“I hear more and more from people from the Jewish community who say they feel safer and more comfortable in Israel now than in Germany, despite the war and all the rockets,” Segal said. “Because they don’t have to hide there.”

Things have to be dire if you’d rather move to Israel than live in Berlin!

*Yesterday reader Stephen sent in a UK news report with photos he took. I reproduce it all with permission:

There was a large rally in London today against anti-semitism. There have been several pro-Palestine rallies in London, I think 7 in all, every Saturday, starting on Oct 14, and they have attracted large numbers, up to 300,000 people. These have surprised me, and I have been further surprised that there haven’t been large pro-Israel / pro-Jewish rallies. There was a relatively small rally a week ago organised by Christian Action Against Anti-semitism. The rally today was organised by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism in collaboration with a number of groups including the organisers of the October Declaration, British Friends of Israel.   This was clearly going to be the main rally to attract British Jews and supporters. The theme was specifically anti-semitism as you can see from the posters many marchers held up, but of course the context was the Oct 7 massacre. I attach a couple of pictures. The first shows the start of the rally, outside the Courts of Justice on the Strand, and the second gives a picture at the  end, looking up Whitehall from Parliament Square. The obelisk in the distance in the middle of the road is the Cenotaph, Britain’s memorial to those killed in the two world wars. The rally was certainly peaceful.At the end of the rally there were some speeches and both main political parties were represented by senior members. I saw Peter Tatchell (veteran LGBT activist) there, which was a surprise as he was prominent in at least one of the pro-Palestine rallies. He is a complex character so I wouldn’t want to try and summarise his position but he was holding a placard saying he is against all forms of violence. Talking of placards, they were light on humour naturally, but I enjoyed ‘More hummus, less Hamas’.The organisers stated that the count at the rally was 105,000, and from what I  saw I don’t think this can be far wrong (from my experiece of football matches with 70,000 supporters). From what I could tell from observing the crowd approximately half were Jewish and the rest were supporters. There are about 4 million Muslims in Britain, and about 250,000 Jews, so proportionally this was a very significant event, and highly newsworthy following the pro-Palestine rallies. I did eventually find an article on the BBC website about it by specifically searching, but it doesn’t appear on the main UK news page.

105,000 is the estimate for the French antisemitism rally I went to in Paris, so it’s about the same. Still, it’s only one-third the size of the pro-Palestinian rallies, which to me is a bit disheartening. But 105,000 is better than 50,000!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, a victim of misogyny, is told to smile. She won’t. Doesn’t she look grumpy today?

Hili: Oh no, not you again.
A: Smile.
Hili: I have no intention to.
In Polish:
Hili: O nie, znowu ty.
Ja: Uśmiechnij się.
Hili: Nie mam zamiaru.

*******************

From Barry:

From Merilee; I don’t know who did it, but reader’s help would be appreciated.

From Not Another Science Cat Page:

If you’re pro-Israel and like to look at Twitter or videos about Israel, the Elder of Ziyon publishes a collection of links, tweets, and videos every day except Monday. His site is here, and you can see yesterday’s collection of links here. There are far too many for me to post, much less to look at, but the “IDF All Women Tank Crew” below comes from the Elder.

Masih working out!  Just a few sentences from the long Twitter caption in Farsi (translated):

On the International Day against Violence Against Women, I recorded this video to say a few words from my heart to you:

Some people take the video of me exercising, singing and dancing hand in hand and try to humiliate me with the most ridiculous sentences, that you don’t like exercising and singing.

What a strange similarity between an anti-woman government that banned dancing, sports and singing for women and a group that does not consider these most basic activities to be beautiful for women. They want to humiliate to say that this is not your place. As they did not consider the club to be a place for women for many years. As they did not consider politics to be the domain of women and their brains are still left in the Stone Age.

We normal women who don’t claim to be professional athletes and singers and dance coaches, why shouldn’t we sometimes dance, exercise and sing like ordinary people? In your mind, if only a few should have this right, that is your problem. Our work does not harm anyone, but it is you who, like the foot soldiers of an ISIS government, seek to intimidate and humiliate millions of women.

She’s pretty strong!

From Malcolm (sound up). This must be one bad-ass cat!

I have a feeling that the Washington Post is going under, and it’s not just because it’s so woke that it equates Israelis hostages with convicted Palestinian terrorists (see below). The paper is just lame in every way possible these days.

From Jez; I have no idea if this is real. Readers?  (I’ve heard several times that the UN organization UNRWA actually employs members of Hamas.)

From Barry: an albino gator gets a good scrubbing. As Barry says, “I didn’t know they smiled!”

Caught in the act (I despise people who pretend they’re someone else on Twitter); see here. It looks as if “Maree Campbell” no longer is on “X”.

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a girl who died at about 14 in the camp.

Two, count them TWO tweets from Dr. Cobb today! He calls this first one “the future”:

And the second he calls “kot.” Cat on a plane!

45 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Rick Beato put out a video criticizing the Rolling Stone list: https://youtu.be/YkjFAcJChXc?si=qDgv6IwXcQwOluUk

    IMHO, live Hendrix is more interesting than studio – I love Live at Monterey so much I prefer it in general. I found myself skipping the studio stuff – except cuts like Castles Made of Sand, etc.

    Hendrix as no. 1 for electric guitar is perfect as far as I’m concerned.

      1. Yeah, a great point – Benson made his own sound – as did Hendrix, Clapton.

        Segovia broadens the scope of this.

        So I think focus on electric as primary instrument makes it easier to think about – on that view, IMHO – Hendrix, Benson, are doing generally the same thing as Segovia, to a point though.

        But great to think about – especially to go and listen.

        Apples and oranges.

      1. Thanks – I should have wrote that Beato yes, criticized, but made important points – like George Benson.

        Benson is the knockdown argument, as I see it.

        Good thing about this is going and listening!

    3. The only charitable argument I can think of about Chuck Barry being at #2 is that he had considerable influence in that form of music. That being because he was an early pioneer of it.

    4. This is one of the reasons the first thing I do every morning is read Why Evolution is True.

      I watched that Rick Beato video you linked, and now I’m loving listening to Guthrie Govan on Spotify. He’s one of the guitarists Beato promoted as belonging on the Rolling Stone list, and Govan is amazing. I would never have heard of him had you not posted that video.

      Thank you, Thyroid.

    5. Thanks for the link to Beato’s video, one, perhaps the best, among many on YouTube criticizing Rolling Stone’s list.
      Pace Jerry, I listened to the video of Clapton, and he’s right where he should be on the list.
      It appears to me that the placement on the list has as much to do with influence as with ability. As Jerry and others have pointed out, Knopfler should be in the top twenty, definitely higher than Clapton wherever he may be. IMAO, Clapton’s technique is overrated–he uses standard blues fingering in his improvs–whereas Knopfler’s is more skillful and surprising when improvising.

    6. The question is, how do you measure “greatness as a guitarist”? Virtuosity? Popularity with the wider audience? Influence on other musicians? Innovativeness? IMO, it should be a combination score, with some minimum level required for virtuosity – if someone can’t PLAY impressively, they’re not a great guitarist. No matter what the criteria are, the Rolling Stones list is wildly inconsistent. It has a bunch of “who?”s from obscure indie bands, but leaves out some of the most widely acknowledged guitar heroes in the history of rock. Like, John Petrucci has been the metal virtuoso every metal guitarist looks up to for almost 30 years now, and he’s nowhere to be found on the list. Yngwie Malmsteen held that spot in the 80s, and he’s not there either.
      I’ve decided not to get worked up about Rolling Stones lists anymore when they put Bob Dylan in the Top 20 of “best singers” next to Freddie Mercury. They’re clickbait at worst and a starting point for a serious discussion at best.

    7. And Eric Clapton was quietly let go from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers because they found someone better: Peter Green.

  2. On this day:
    1095 – Pope Urban II declares the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont.

    1542 – Palace plot of Renyin year: A group of Ming dynasty palace women fail to murder the Jiajing Emperor, and are executed by slow-slicing [also known as death by a thousand cuts].

    1809 – The Berners Street hoax is perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City of Westminster, London.

    1835 – James Pratt and John Smith are hanged in London; they are the last two to be executed for sodomy in England.

    1839 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded.

    1895 – At the Swedish–Norwegian Club in Paris, Alfred Nobel signs his last will and testament, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after he dies.

    1896 – Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss is first performed.

    1924 – In New York City, the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held.

    1944 – World War II: RAF Fauld explosion: An explosion at a Royal Air Force ammunition dump in Staffordshire kills seventy people.

    1945 – CARE (then the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) is founded to send CARE Packages of food relief to Europe after World War II.

    1954 – Alger Hiss is released from prison after serving 44 months for perjury.

    1965 – Vietnam War: The Pentagon tells U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned operations are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam has to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000.

    1968 – Penny Ann Early becomes the first woman to play in a major professional men’s basketball league, for the Kentucky Colonels in an ABA game against the Los Angeles Stars.

    1971 – The Soviet space program’s Mars 2 orbiter releases a descent module. It malfunctions and crashes, but it is the first man-made object to reach the surface of Mars.

    1975 – The Provisional IRA assassinates Ross McWhirter, after a press conference in which McWhirter had announced a reward for the capture of those responsible for multiple bombings and shootings across England.

    1978 – In San Francisco, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White.

    1978 – The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is founded in the Turkish village of Fis.

    1999 – The centre-left Labour Party takes control of the New Zealand government with leader Helen Clark becoming the first elected female Prime Minister in New Zealand’s history.

    2001 – A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.

    2020 – Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, is assassinated near Tehran.

    2020 – Days after the announcement of its discovery, the Utah monolith is removed by recreationists.

    Births:
    1701 – Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer, physicist, and mathematician (d. 1744).

    1809 – Fanny Kemble, English actress, playwright, and poet (d. 1893).

    1820 – Rachel Brooks Gleason, fourth woman to earn a medical degree in the United States (d. 1905).

    1857 – Charles Scott Sherrington, English physiologist, bacteriologist, and pathologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1952).

    1874 – Chaim Weizmann, Belarusian-Israeli chemist and politician, 1st President of Israel (d. 1952).

    1894 – Konosuke Matsushita, Japanese businessman, founded Panasonic (d. 1989).

    1894 – Katherine Milhous, American author and illustrator (d. 1977).

    1920 – Buster Merryfield, English actor (d. 1999).

    1921 – Dora Dougherty Strother, American pilot and academic (d. 2013).

    1925 – Ernie Wise, English actor, comedian, singer, and screenwriter (d. 1999).

    1940 – Bruce Lee, American-Chinese actor, martial artist, and screenwriter (d. 1973).

    1942 – Jimi Hendrix, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 1970).

    1951 – Kathryn Bigelow, American director, producer, and screenwriter.

    1953 – Steve Bannon, American media executive and political figure. [Did he do his jail time yet?]

    1954 – Arthur Smith, English comedian, actor, and screenwriter.

    1955 – Bill Nye, American engineer, educator, and television host.

    1956 – John McCarthy, English journalist and author. [He was the United Kingdom’s longest-held hostage in Lebanon, where he was a prisoner for more than five years.]

    1960 – Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukrainian economist and politician, 10th Prime Minister of Ukraine.

    1961 – Samantha Bond, English actress.

    1964 – Robin Givens, American actress.

    1978 – Mike Skinner, English rapper and producer. [Best known for the music project the Streets.]

    1982 – Tommy Robinson, English activist, co-founded the English Defence League. [He was arrested yesterday at the anti-Semitism rally in London after being told to stay away.]

    Dum licet, in rebus jucundis vive beatus;
    Vive memor quam sis aevi brevis.
    Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may;
    With life so short ’twere wrong to lose a day.
    8 BC – Horace, Roman soldier and poet (b. 65 BC).

    1811 – Andrew Meikle, Scottish engineer, designed the threshing machine (b. 1719).

    1822 – Old Billy, English barge horse, oldest recorded horse (b. 1760).

    1852 – Ada Lovelace, English mathematician and computer scientist (b. 1815).

    1895 – Alexandre Dumas, fils, French novelist and playwright (b. 1824).

    1901 – Clement Studebaker, American businessman, co-founded Studebaker (b. 1831).

    1921 – Mary Grant Roberts, Australian zoo owner (b. 1841).

    1934 – Baby Face Nelson, American criminal (b. 1908).

    1953 – Eugene O’Neill, American playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1888).

    1969 – May Gibbs, English Australian children’s author, illustrator, and cartoonist, (b. 1877).

    1988 – John Carradine, American actor (b. 1906). [With 351 film and television credits, he is one of the most prolific English-speaking film and television actors of all time.]

    1998 – Gloria Fuertes, Spanish poet and author of children’s literature (b. 1917).

    2000 – Malcolm Bradbury, English author and academic (b. 1932).

    2007 – Robert Cade, American physician and academic, co-invented Gatorade (b. 1927).

    2011 – Ken Russell, English actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1927).

    2014 – P. D. James, English author (b. 1920).

    1. “1839 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded.”

      Approximately.

  3. … I still vote for “Layla” as the best rock song of all time …

    Layla is a great tune. But what made the original studio version of the song on the Derek and the Dominos album so great was the harmonic interplay between Clapton and Duane Allman. Here, let the great producer and engineer Tom Dowd break it down for you (starting at 2:20):

    1. I also greatly prefer this version. The Albert Hall version seemed over-produced.

      Though the slow part was better in the Albert Hall version.

    1. Appealing, but the electricians would have, well, kittens.
      That’s why most freight/ industrial ships (I don’t know about passenger ships) don’t have ships cats. Yes, rodent control, but no, damage to electrical cabling.

  6. What most chills many Jews interviewed is what they see as the lack of empathy for the Israelis killed during the early morning massacre and for the relatives of the hostages — about 30 of whom are children — suspended in an agonizing limbo.

    I think it may be time for Israel to channel Emmet Till’s mother, and make images of the victims more widespread.

    1. Hmmm. Maybe, but Emmet Till’s mother insisted that mourners see the horror of his beating in person with an open casket. I fear that seeing photographic two-dimensional images might encourage a normalization to deviance with people who have spent years watching cinema spectacles an create a numbness to this latest horror. I do not know…just raising the possibility.

      1. Yep, maybe, but what happened on Oct 7 seems to be summarized/downplayed as “Oct 7 attack.” Not even “massacre.”

        It would also be helpful if Hamas’ relationship to Iran was given more ink, and that Iran hangs homosexuals from construction cranes and beats women to death or blinds them for not covering their hair.

  7. I am personally ok with the slow part in the recorded version of Layla. It conveys a different kind of complex emotion, and it showcases some high-order modern piano work. If it stood alone in a different song, y’all might like it better.
    But the slow part in the live version here is lesser, I think.

  8. And also note that wapo continues to refer to the fighting as the Israel-Gaza war rather than Israel-Hamas…subtle but telling. I said on this site the other day that I continue to subscribe to wapo almost totally because I live in Virginia and it carries Virginia news and politics in its Metro section. BUT this woke crap is really getting old and I may drop my subscription in favor of going to the RichmondTimes Dispatch, a paper that has always been too right wing for my taste, but is steadily looking better in comparison with the woke Post.

  9. That guitar list suffers, as most of these sorts of lists do, from using too many different metrics on the same list. Guitar playing skill, guitar music composition, popularity and impact on later guitarists.

    Lists that focused on one of those metrics would each vary quite a bit from each other, though there are some greats that would be near the top of any of them.

    Best rock song in history? I wouldn’t know where to start! Well, I guess I have sort of started just such a list. Most songs, even those considered great or favorites of mine, have sections of the song that I don’t like, that don’t stand up to the standard that the rest of the song does. With that in mind, I just started a new playlist of songs that I think are near perfect in that every single part of the song is good, IMO. Only a few so far, but I’ve got a library of thousands of songs to work my way through. This is it so far, YMMV.

    Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town by Pearl Jam

    Dreams by Fleetwood Mac

    Cherub Rock by Smashing Pumpkins

    Burning Down The House by Talking Heads

    Are You Experienced? by Jimi Hendrix

    Angry Johnny by Poe

    2 Wicky (Live at Koningin Elisabethzaal 2012 by Hooverphonic

    #1 Crush by Garbage

    1. Vs. is my favorite PJ album, good song choice…hearts and thoughts they fade. Pretty much agree with all your choices I’m familiar with…I don’t know the last 3 songs/artists, except Garbage (but I don’t think I know that song). I’ll check ’em all out, thanks.

      Since I have Jimi and guitarists in mind, I could pick PJ’s Yellow Ledbetter as a perfect song. The list is truly endless. Noah Kahan’s Stick Season has been haunting me of late; simple, but sorta perfect.

      2. By all means check out that Hooverphonic song. In this case you really should watch the music video. To me it is art both visually and musically.

        And if you haven’t listened to Poe before I can definitely recommend her. Her album Hello is my favorite.

        I’m not familiar with Noah Kahan, but I look forward to listening to him.

    1. If Hamas comes back, terrorists from other Muslim countries around Israel, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, will be more likely to attack it and even take hostages, because they know now that the world will back them. I don’t think Israel will survive as a country if all it does is get back the hostages and doesn’t destroy Hamas.

      1. Agree. And destroying Hamas will necessarily involve more civilian casualties (because of Hamas’s exploitation of them) than many in the world want to see. F*** the world. The world just wants to see Israel lose. They don’t care about Palestinians: they don’t want their hate/death cult in their countries. Hamas is inflating the numbers anyway. How can they possibly know the body count with so many people displaced and fleeing or entombed under rubble? I bet they are just counting as dead all households where no one answers the door when they come around to collect taxes.

        All that matters is keeping the United States on side, and that is your country’s politics not mine. But that’s the job you must do. It’s harder than it ever was in my lifetime. There are just too many people on the wrong side living in our countries now who hate America. From here far away, I think most Americans support Israel and accept that there will be civilian casualties in a grim business. The difficulty is that a lot of the noisy people who can be counted on to vote for President Biden and manipulate public opinion next November don’t.

        The hostages weigh on people’s minds because there is a perception that this wouldn’t have happened had there not been such an intelligence and military failure leading up, plus Netanyahu’s own failings before 7 Oct. Maybe these hostages matter more because of the baggage their abduction implies, plus the unconscionably large number. Future hostages would be less Israel’s government’s “fault” than this group and perhaps easier to accept their loss? Dunno. But it can’t warp what needs to be done now.

        Fwiw, at the two rallies I attended in Toronto getting the hostages back seemed from the outset to be a secondary goal, less important than defeating Hamas. Of course everyone wants them home safe, or their bodies if not, but that’s on Hamas to let them go. It can’t be the sole war aim for Israel that leaves Hamas or someone else ready and eager to do it again.

        This pause for hostages is gruesome and ugly. But it will end and the work will resume.

  11. When David Fricke proposed the “Greatest Guitarists” list in 2003, he ranked Clapton as #4.

    https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-guitarists-david-frickes-picks-146383/eric-clapton-9-164848/

    When Rolling Stone redid the list with a panel of voters in 2011, then Clapton finished #2. (The list starts at page 49 of the archived copy.)

    https://archive.org/details/rolling-stone-1145-2011-12-08-100-greatest-guiarists_202208/page/51/mode/2up

    Clapton’s poor showing on the most recent list is, I suspect, all about COVID vaccines and there now being a negative vibe about him in many left-wing circles. Heck, the writer couldn’t stop himself from opining about it in the Rolling Stone piece: “These days, nobody really considers Clapton god (his COVID comments clearly rule out any chance of being all-knowing), but that doesn’t stop guitarists from worshipping his playing.” —J.D.C

    Clapton could be strung out and living in a haze and he would still be a guitar god to Rolling Stone had he stayed quiet after his shots, but nothing kills reputation in artistic (and academic and media and political) circles like dissenting from any valued behavior or view of your tribe and being embraced by “those people” of the other side. Clapton is now a leper to some on the left, and he might forever more be unclean. His guitar to them will never sound the same.

  12. When David Fricke proposed the “Greatest Guitarists” list in 2003, he ranked Clapton as #4.

    https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-guitarists-david-frickes-picks-146383/eric-clapton-9-164848/

    When Rolling Stone redid the list with a panel of voters in 2011, then Clapton finished #2. (The list starts at page 49 of the archived copy.)

    https://archive.org/details/rolling-stone-1145-2011-12-08-100-greatest-guiarists_202208/page/51/mode/2up

    Clapton’s poor showing on the most recent list is, I suspect, all about COVID vaccines and there now being a negative vibe about him in many left-wing circles. Heck, the writer couldn’t stop himself from opining about it in the Rolling Stone piece: “These days, nobody really considers Clapton god (his COVID comments clearly rule out any chance of being all-knowing), but that doesn’t stop guitarists from worshipping his playing.” —J.D.C

    Clapton could be strung out and living in a haze and he would still be a guitar god to Rolling Stone had he stayed quiet after his shots, but nothing kills reputation in artistic (and academic and media and political) circles like dissenting from any valued behavior or view of your tribe and being embraced by “those people” of the other side. Clapton is now a leper to some on the left, and he might forever more be unclean. His guitar to them will never sound the same.

  14. There would be no Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and many others without Chuck Berry. Not a brilliant virtuoso but it was Chuck who showed a generation of guitarists in the 1950s and ’60s how to play rock & roll. I was there (60+ years playing) and saw it/felt it. Chuck Berry is foundational.

  15. Seriously. You cant be serious in your guitar preferences if you dont even MENTION
    Tommy Emmanuel! Hands down the greatest living guitarist….no contest. The Beethoven of the guitar. Not just a good musician but a GENIUS. If you have never heard his music, you are seriously deprived. I cant believe that none of you know about him. Pathetic. My condolences for your loss.

    2. Why be a dick about people not knowing your enlightened prophetic knowledge? Because of you, I don’t like Emmanuel since you’re a fan. Pathetic? Thanks for your condescension, so very helpful.

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