Today is the first day when you can vote early via absentee ballot for the presidential primary election in Wisconsin on Tuesday, April 5, when you can also vote to fill a seat on the state Supreme Court.
And tomorrow, Tuesday, brings more presidential primaries for both Republicans and Democrats in the Western states of Arizona and Utah. Plus, there will also be Democratic caucuses in Idaho.
So the following political piece — a pseudo-news report — seems timely and appropriate, especially given the drive by establishment Republicans to rally and choose the ultra-conservative U.S. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas (below) as a way to stop New York City businessman Donald Trump.
But it is a very well done satire — about something that was indeed banned in the Renaissance and Baroque eras by the Roman Catholic Church.
But like so much satire, it is fun that also cuts close to the bone and contains more than a grain of truth about Cruz and about his many “first day on the job” promises if he gets elected president.
Cruz, the son of an evangelical minister, is such a devout and intolerant Christian fundamentalist, it is almost as if he is waging his own jihad, much like the Islamic terrorist state ISIS, on any culture he considers unChristian and heretical to his personal faith and what he considers to be the inerrant and literal truth of the Bible.
Hmm. Does that qualify him as an extremist or radical?
To The Ear, what is really and truly scary is Cruz — not the music.
And it is hard to say who is more threatening as a potential president: Donald Trump or Ted Cruz?
Well, make up your own mind, fellow music-lovers.
Here is the satire from submediant.com. It’s a good read with lots of details, specific composers and food for thought.
ALERT: This Sunday night’s concert of new music for woodwinds and piano composed by UW-Madison professor of saxophone Les Thimmig, with UW-Madison pianist Jessica Johnson, has been CANCELLED.
By Jacob Stockinger
Tonight is the last debate for the Republicans before the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday. It takes place at 7 p.m. CST in Manchester, and will be broadcast on ABC-TV.
This past week also saw both a town hall meeting and a debate between the Democrats – their last before the primary election (below, in a photo by Getty Images).
Here’s a question no one has asked them during the debates: What kind of classical music do you like?
I know, I know. The question has little relevance and little popularity.
But still.
The Ear is happy that the famed New York City radio station WQXR listed such preferences in its blog.
The Ear notes a couple of trends.
No specific pieces were named.
No sonatas or concertos, no symphonies or operas.
All the names of composers were extremely mainstream except for Arcangelo Corelli by Dr. Ben Carson (below), who also named Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi. Others mentioned Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.
Bernie Sanders’ preferred composer echoes his own populist and defiantly anti-establishment, even rabble-rousing, sentiments. Can you guess which composer he favors?
Why is The Ear not surprised that Hillary Clinton remains vague about composers and pieces, but says YES of course she likes classical music and even has it on her iPod.
And former businesswoman Carly Fiorina (below, in a photo by Politifact) surprises one with her youthful plan to be a professional musician, a concert pianist. Does she still play? The Ear wants to ask.
The Ear also wonders:
Does Evangelical Ted Cruz consider classical music frivolous or even sinful?
The Ear has watched three presidential debates so far — two Republican and one Democratic.
But he still has no idea of where the various candidates on both sides stand when it comes to government support of the arts –- including music — and the humanities.
Please tell us, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, what you think?
And you too, Donald Trump and Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum and Chris Christie and Jeb Bush and Rand Paul and John Kasich and ….
Some funny reasoning is going on here. Some of the candidates want to eliminate all subsidies to the arts, which are a form of economic development after all – at a time when a lot of conservatives don’t mind funding big rich corporations in the same name of economic development.
The arts create a lot of jobs and spark a lot of spending and stimulus. Or don’t the culture-challenged charlatans realize that?
Don’t these issues deserve a public airing? Doesn’t the arts consuming public have a right to know where the various candidates stand on these issues? Shouldn’t voters know what they might be getting in those areas?
As The Ear understand its, one flank of the attack has to do with the so called left-leaning liberal or progressive bias and politics of PBS and NPR.
Plus, there is the view that the art that public taxpayer money is helping to create doesn’t defend the so-called family values that the most radically conservative Republicans and Christian fundamentalists and Evangelicals want defended.
The other flank of the attack has to do with the stance that government should be smaller and that therefore should be funding less in general.
Makes you wonder just how the radical “freedom coalition” and Tea Party people in South Carolina, Texas and California feel about having a smaller government when it comes to providing aid for victims of torrential floods and devastating wildfires. And how is that kind of help for those in need different from funding education or health care?
AUSTIN, TX – MAY 25, 2015 Extreme flooding takes place in Austin, Texas May 25, 2015. (Photo by Drew Anthony Smith/Getty Images)
Anyway, wouldn’t it be appropriate for some of the panelists to question the candidates on the issues pertaining to the arts and humanities?
The Ear is reminded of Sir Winston Churchill’s comment during World War II. Some members of the British Parliament asked him if funding for the arts shouldn’t be cut and used instead to fight Hitler and the Nazis. He said no and added, “Then what would we be fighting for?”
Tell the Ear what you think. Leave a COMMENT.
Maybe, just maybe, someone else will read it and pass it along and we will finally get a substantive discussion from the candidates about where they stand on arts and humanities funding by the federal government.
ALERT: Today at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall of the Overture Center is your last chance to see the Madison Opera‘s production of Ludwig van Beethoven‘s only opera “Fidelio.” The production has drawn high praise from local critics. (Below, in a photo by James Gill, are the lead singers tenor Clay Hilley as the imprisoned Florestan and soprano Alexandra LoBianco as his wife Leonore.) For tickets, call the Overture Center box office at (608) 258-4141.
Did you hear about Avery Fisher Hall (below)? They want to rename it!!!!
It needs major work and expensive upgrading.
The stakes only get higher and more expensive, of course. But Big Money is no doubt up to the challenge.
Some you may remember the comments I recently posted about the renaming of the Wisconsin Union Theater as Shannon Hall (below) because of generous donations. A plaque would have sufficed, like at Camp Randall Stadium.
It shouldn’t be too hard for Big Money to follow the more modest and more respectable examples of local philanthropists Jerry Frautschi and Pleasant Rowland, who funded the Overture Center for the Arts without plastering their names all over it.
But no! The rich need to splash their names all over the buildings so that we honor wealth more than public service or history.
Well, now I see that a renovation of famed Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City is seeking some deep pockets by offering naming rights.
Officials will even pay the Fisher family millions of dollars to allow the renaming of the legendary hall where so many great careers have started and been put on display for the public.
The Ear didn’t like that, either. But at least the UW-Madison didn’t pay for the family’s permission, didn’t buy back the honor and then turn around and give it to someone else.
Maybe that is the reality of financing projects in today’s income disparity and wealth gap plus lower taxes on the rich that Trickle-Downers want to lower even more.
But it is nonetheless shameful.
What’s next? Avery Fisher Hall becomes David H. Koch Hall?