The Breakfast Club (Papa Haydn)

In about 1759 or so, a new musical format started taking the world (and by ‘world’ I of course mean the elite upper class courtiers of certain western European Kingdoms and Principalities) by storm called the Symphony.

These pieces were typically quite short by comparison with Operas and Sacred works and scored for Concert Orchestra or Band while excluding vocalists which made a lot of sense in that they were normally abstract and non-representational (at least during the Classic period) and used as introductory, inter-act or movement, and departure music for more ambitious compositions.

Just like Sonnets there were competing formats the oldest being the Italian and distinguished by 3 movements, typically a Presto, an Andante, and another Presto in a different key or time signature.

Later many Symphonies were composed using the ‘German’ or 4 movement style consisting of an Allegro, an Adagio, a Minuet or Scherzo, and a Rondo.  More particularly 4 movement Symphonies can be characterized as Austrian since their most popular and prolific composers were Joseph Haydn (107) and Wolfgang Mozart (47).

And that is one of the reasons they called him ‘Papa’ (Mozart died a little too young).  It’s often thought Haydn ‘invented’ the Symphony, but among others with claims there are some who composed much earlier including Tomaso Albinoni and Antonio Vivaldi.  His day gig was Kapellmeister of Esterházy and during his long term of service there he helped out a lot of musicians who were basically otherwise unemployable.  He was incredibly fecund with all manner of musical amusements (hey, when it’s deadline time you take whatever crap you got, put a -30- under it, tear it out of the typewriter and hand it to the copy boy) and was actually constantly spoofing himself with things like the Surprise Symphony and the endless ‘false’ endings which became ‘Classical’ Clichés simply because lesser lights didn’t appreciate the irony (5 minutes in the dryer, I’m telling you).

It’s not that hard to see why I identify.

The downside is that the next major musical movement, Romanticism, came to be defined in opposition to his contributions which were not nearly as sterile and stylised as his detractors claimed.  Heck, one thing he did invent was Sturm und Drang.

Oh, and he had his head stolen.

That happened about a week after the funeral and nobody noticed for 11 years.  When they did the conspirators hid it in a mattress and parked one of their wives on top claiming she was menstruating.

Ick (one of many ways of pronouncing ek) said the searchers.

Anyway the thieves came up with another skull, continued to hide the real one, and it was 145 years before Yorick was reunited.

I came across this YouTube that represents about 5% of Haydn’s total Symphonies by Opus (as opposed to duration since it covers his first 5 which are very short).

Obligatories, News, and Blogs below.

Obligatories

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

I would never make fun of LaEscapee or blame PhilJD.  And I am highly organized.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

–Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)

This Day in History

News

US job growth slows to its lowest level this year

by Dominic Rushe and Phillip Inman, The Guardian

Friday 5 September 2014 17.57 EDT

The labour department’s figures came as a surprise. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a gain of about 225,000. They correctly anticipated that the unemployment rate would fall to 6.1%, down from 6.2% and close to a six-year low. The US had added an average of 212,000 jobs each month over the prior 12 months.

August’s growth also did little to impact those worst hit by the recession. The unemployment rate for African Americans remained unchanged at 11.4%, more than twice the rate for white people, and Hispanic unemployment stayed flat at 7.5%. Teenage unemployment remained at 19.6%.

The labour-force participation rate – which measures the percentage of the US population who are either working or looking for work – fell to 62.8% in August from July’s 62.9%.

The August rate matches the lowest level since the late 1970s and suggests many people may have given up looking for work. The dip is the likely explanation for the marginal fall in the unemployment rate.

US military contractors on plane forced to make abrupt landing in Iran

by Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian

Friday 5 September 2014 17.03 EDT

A charter plane carrying US military contractors from Afghanistan to Dubai made an abrupt and unexpected landing in Iran on Friday, in an incident that US officials attributed to a “bureaucratic” issue.

…

“The Fly Dubai non-US Government charter plane that was re-routed to Bandar Abbas, Iran, because of a bureaucratic issue today involving the plane’s flight plan has departed Iran and landed in Dubai,” she said.

“Contrary to press reports, no Iranian jets were scrambled in this situation. We appreciate the efforts of all parties to help the passengers get safely to their destination.”

US Central Command, responsible for US military operations in the region, deferred comment to the State Department.

Ukraine ceasefire holds so far as Poroshenko orders halt at dusk

by Shaun Walker, The Guardian

Friday 5 September 2014 13.53 EDT

But there was scepticism over whether the more radical elements on either side would obey the ceasefire, and concern in Kiev and western capitals that the truce would effectively “freeze” the conflict and give Moscow de facto control over the disputed chunk of eastern Ukraine that has been ruined by war this summer.

Barack Obama expressed doubts at the Nato summit that the truce would result in anything more substantial. “Obviously we are hopeful, but based on past experience also sceptical that the separatists will follow through and the Russians will stop violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. So it has to be tested,” he said.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon described the deal as a “positive step”. But David Cameron told the Nato summit that a fresh round of sanctions against Russia, imposed for its heavy military involvement in eastern Ukraine, would still go ahead. “We need to look carefully at whether it is a ceasefire or whether it also includes a commitment, as I understand it might, to make real progress on a proper peace plan. We should be clear that the sanctions which we agreed last Saturday in Brussels will go ahead,” he added.

“But, of course, if a ceasefire and a proper peace plan are put in place, then it’ll be right to look and see how those sanctions could potentially be removed if proper milestones are reached.”

…

The Minsk agreement, agreed by former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma with leaders from the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “republics”, in the presence of officials from Russia and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), came two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin produced a seven-point peace plan, which he apparently jotted down on a flight to Mongolia, and involves Ukrainian forces moving artillery away from populated areas and the start of political negotiations.

…

Earlier on Friday, there was fighting on the ground near Mariupol, as rebel forces allegedly backed by Russian army soldiers advanced down the coast from Novoazovsk, a city near the Russian border that was seized last week. There had been heavy artillery fire overnight, though it was unclear whether the rebels wanted to push on to Mariupol before the peace talks started or were merely putting further pressure on Kiev to sign up to the peace plan. Ukrainian forces who had been at the frontline said they were convinced they were fighting against regular Russian soldiers rather than rebels.

Oklahoma executions on hold after release of report on botched injection

Associated Press

Friday 5 September 2014 09.58 EDT

The report blamed Lockett’s flawed lethal injection on poor placement of intravenous lines. The medical team could not find suitable veins in Lockett’s arms, legs, neck and feet, leading them to insert it in his groin, the report said.

Out of modesty, no one monitored the intravenous line, a job that is the normal duty of the Oklahoma state penitentiary warden, Anita Trammel, who decided to cover Lockett’s body – and the IV – with a sheet. When it became apparent the execution was not progressing normally, the execution team pulled back the sheet and noticed a swelling larger than a golf ball near the injection site.

…

Thompson said no single person was to blame for the problems in the execution and no charges are being considered, leading critics to charge that the report does not address accountability.

Obama Recruits 9 Allies to Help in the Battle Against ISIS

By HELENE COOPER, The New York Times

SEPT. 5, 2014

Mr. Obama spoke after aides had unveiled what Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called the “core coalition” to fight the ISIS militants, the outcome of a hastily organized meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit talks. Diplomats and defense officials from the United States, Britain, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark huddled to devise a two-pronged strategy: strengthening allies on the ground in Iraq and Syria, while bombing Sunni militants from the air.

…

But he and other officials made clear that at the moment, any ground combat troops would come from either Iraqi security forces and Kurdish pesh merga fighters in Iraq, or the moderate Syrian rebels opposed to President Assad in Syria. “Obviously I think that’s a red line for everybody here: no boots on the ground,” Mr. Kerry said.

For Mr. Obama, assembling a coalition to fight ISIS is particularly important to a president whose initial arrival on the global stage was centered around his opposition to the war in Iraq. He is loath to be viewed as going it alone now that he has been dragged back into a combat role in the same country.

Democrats tell Obama: drop immigration reform to save Senate

by Paul Lewis and Dan Roberts, The Guardian

Friday 5 September 2014 13.35 EDT

Top party officials involved in the Democratic push to retain control of the Senate in the midterm elections have explicitly warned the White House that Democrats risk losing several key states if he proceeds with an immigration reform plan being developed within his administration.

Three senior Democrats involved in the party’s election strategy, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the president was being urged to publicly drop the plan to take unilateral action.

…

White House officials have for months been working on a possible executive order, which is widely expected to slow or halt certain deportations. It would effectively expand a 2012 decision to suspend deportations and grant work permits to some undocumented migrants brought to the US illegally as children.

Behind the scenes, Democrats have launched an intense lobbying campaign to convince the White House of the electoral damage the party could suffer, particularly in four key competitive states: Alaska, Louisiana, North Carolina and Arkansas.

If Democrats lose three of the four states, which are currently on a knife-edge, they could lose control of the Senate.

The Guardian has learned that one compromise being mulled in the White House would involve implementing executive action in phases.

…

Kyle Kondik, an election forecaster at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said Democrats may be exaggerating the potential damage from a presidential action on immigration, after having been spooked by the alarming surge of unaccompanied children arriving at the border earlier in the summer.

He was sceptical a presidential order on immigration would have a decisive influence on the midterms either way, but nonetheless said he expected the president to ultimately shelve the plan. “Obama has clearly got a lot of people saying the time to roll out something as large as this is after the election, not before,” Kondik said.

…

Yet if anything, opposition from the Democrats working to hold the Senate appears to be intensifying.

Yep.  How’s that more Democrats thing working out for you Mr. Moulitsas?

‘BP should have to pay – they’ve done a lot of damage’: Gulf workers hail ruling

Associated Press

Friday 5 September 2014 08.34 EDT

Environmentalists, recreational fishermen and people who make their living on the Gulf of Mexico are hailing a federal judge’s ruling that could mean $18 billion in additional fines for BP over the nation’s worst offshore oil spill.

…

Under the federal Clean Water Act, a polluter can be forced to pay a maximum of $1,100 in civil fines per barrel of spilled oil, or up to $4,300 per barrel if the company is found grossly negligent. Barbier’s finding exposes BP to the much-higher amount.

…

“Everybody talks about how big they are, but it’s staggering,” David Uhlmann, a University of Michigan law professor and former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, said of the price tag for the spill.

Arab-American activists chased and threatened with beheading in Brooklyn

by Jessica Glenza, The Guardian

Friday 5 September 2014 15.51 EDT

A drunken man chased two female Arab-American community organisers in Brooklyn, New York, threatening to behead them and throwing a large metal garbage can at them.

Despite two separate 911 calls, the New York police department took more than 45 minutes to respond. The department sent top hate crime investigators after one of the women, a prominent activist, told her story at an NYPD community relations meeting that happened soon after the incident on Wednesday.

Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, said she initially found the man leaning against the wall near her social services agency.

“I was leaving to a meeting and I went outside and found a man leaning up against our storefront,” said Sarsour. “So, I went back inside and I said to my deputy director, ‘Hey, can you call 911 and just tell them there’s a man in front of our storefront and can they remove him?'”

“I’m literally giving these instructions, next thing you know – boom! He gets up out of nowhere, like a surge of energy, and he starts chasing me and my colleague up the street,” said Sarsour. “He’s like, ‘You’re cutting people’s heads off! I’m going to cut your head off and see how your people feel about it!'”

While running, Sarsour said, she and her colleague again called 911, saying the man they had requested be removed was violent and chasing them down busy 5th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. While chasing them, the man picked up a department of sanitation metal garbage can and threw it at the women. Sarsour said she believed the man may have had a tool in his back pocket.

…

“Anyway, I walked into the meeting late,” said Sarsour, “and I just told my story. And NYPD top brass was horrified – they were like ‘What?'”

…

“The point, what I really want to get across in this story, is I just happened to be a well-known activist in New York City,” Sarsour said. “But what about when it’s ordinary people who don’t know how the system works? Who call 911 in cases of emergency? And also people for whom English is not their first language?”

Secret Network Connects Harvard Money to Payday Loans

By Zeke Faux, Bloomberg News

Sep 4, 2014 1:17 PM ET

Alex Slusky was under pressure to put the money in his private-equity fund to work.

The San Francisco technology financier had raised $1.2 billion in 2007 to buy and turn around struggling software companies. By 2012, investors including Harvard University were upset that about half the money hadn’t been used, according to three people with direct knowledge of the situation.

Three Americans on the Caribbean island of St. Croix presented a solution. They had built a network of payday-lending websites, using corporations set up in Belize and the Virgin Islands that obscured their involvement and circumvented U.S. usury laws, according to four former employees of their company, Cane Bay Partners VI LLLP. The sites Cane Bay runs make millions of dollars a month in small loans to desperate people, charging more than 600 percent interest a year, said the ex-employees, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.

Legal memos released on Bush-era justification for warrantless wiretapping

By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post

September 6 at 12:15 AM

The broad outlines of the argument – that the president has inherent constitutional power to monitor Americans’ communications without a warrant in a time of war – were known, but the sweep of the reasoning becomes even clearer in the memos written by then-Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith, who was head of President George W. Bush’s Office of Legal Counsel.

…

“What these memos show is that nearly three years after President Bush authorized the warrantless wiretapping of Americans’ e-mails and phone calls, government lawyers were still struggling to put the program on sound legal footing,” said Patrick Toomey, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the memos through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

“Their conclusions are deeply disturbing,” he said. “They suggest that the president’s power to monitor the communications of Americans is virtually unlimited – by the Constitution, or by Congress – when it comes to foreign intelligence.”

…

So broad is the president’s Article II power, that he can conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes without congressional approval “even in peacetime,” Goldsmith stated, citing Supreme Court cases and the Federalist papers.

…

“Unfortunately, the sweeping surveillance they sought to justify is not a thing of the past,” Toomey said. “The government’s legal rationales have shifted over time, but some of today’s surveillance programs are even broader and more intrusive than those put in place more than a decade ago by President Bush.”

Blogs

• The Enemy Within by Charlie Pierce, Esquire
• The U.S. Government’s Secret Plans to Spy for American Corporations by Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
• The CIA’s Mop-Up Man: L.A. Times Reporter Cleared Stories With Agency Before Publication by Ken Silverstein, The Intercept
• Media Should Be Challenging Arguments for War, Not Baying for Blood by Dan Froomkin, The Intercept
• James Clapper, Bates-Stamp, and Gutting the FISA Advocate by emtywheel
• ISIS Fearmongering Now Features Undeclared Syrian Toxins Changing Hands by Jim White, emptywheel
• The Article 5 Cyber-Trap by emptywheel
• Politico’s Passive Aggressive Attack On Glenn Greenwald: ‘History. Or Journalism. Or Treason. Or Something’ by Mike Masnick, Techdirt
• Tor Asks For Help In Keeping Net Anonymity As An Option For Anyone, At Any Site by Glyn Moody
• Judge Declines to Dismiss Lawsuit Against Idaho Ag-Gag Law, Agrees Restricts Protected Speech by Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake
• One Line Captures Everything Wrong With Congress by Jon Walker, Firedog Lake
• Federal Reserve Survey Shows Wealth Inequality Worsening by DSWright, Firedog Lake
• Gun nuts’ special privileges: How police treated a dangerous "open carry" zealot by digby, Salon
• Why the GOP is so obsessed with voter fraud by David Sirota, Salon
• The Bankruptcy of Detroit and the Division of America by Robert Reich
• Back to College, the Only Gateway to the Middle Class by Robert Reich
• The BBC Hates Correa So Much that it cannot Restrain Itself By William K. Black, New Economic Perspectives