A Little Light Music (Open Thread)

I love this video!

Eduard Khil (From Wikipedia):

Khil’s manner of execution of songs is unique and easily recognizable in Russia, characterized by charm, always having a great sounding bright, sonorous voice and the flight of lyrical baritone, with the powerful charge of optimism and humour[5]. On the stage Gil kept very confident, smart, accompanying singing light dance moves and spectacular gestures. By never changing his academic style of singing, Khil enjoyed enviable career longevity.

. . .

In 2009, a 1976 video of Khil singing a non-lexical vocable version of the song I Am Glad, Cause I’m Finally Returning Back Home . . . The name “Trololo” is an onomatopoeia of the distinctive way Khil vocalizes throughout the song.

Meaning and the original text of the song

It may be a bit surprising, but the Trololo song originally had words and was an ordinary song. The song itself was a narrative about a cowboy riding a horse to his farm.

But the Soviet Artistic Council censored almost all of the song text due to its unsoviet nature. Cowboy and farm were especially criticized. The word cowboy brought to mind associations with saloons and showdowns, and the word farm was controversial because all private, incollective forms of agriculture were prohibited in the Soviet Union. The Commission’s verdict was to rewrite the entire song. This created several problems. First, it would take a significant amount of time to rewrite the text and have it approved. There was another problem: other singers were pretending to be the first performers of the song. With no time to spare, Khil suggested singing the song without words, instead vocalizing tro-lo-lo and tra-la-la. This seemed like a good idea as there was nothing controversial or punishable for such a performance.

What Lambert said

Democrats in Congress worry that Obama will cave to GOP

The liberals are watching three big tests over the next month to see whether the president is firmly in their corner: extending Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire Dec. 31, ratifying a new nuclear-arms treaty with Russia and repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military.

Seriously — THIS is what “liberal” Democrats are worried about?  Well, I can’t say it better than Lambert:

Nothing on jobs at all, or foreclosures, or the banks. Quelle surprise. If you didn’t know that the Ds threw the working class under the bus in 2008, now you really know it, eh?

(emphasis mine)

Nearly a year ago Glenn Greenwald wrote a post that changed my relationship to the Democratic Party, “The Democratic Party’s deceitful game“

This is what the Democratic Party does; it’s who they are. They’re willing to feign support for anything their voters want just as long as there’s no chance that they can pass it.

…

The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it. One minute, it’s Jay Rockefeller as the Prime Villain leading the way in protecting Bush surveillance programs and demanding telecom immunity; the next minute, it’s Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer joining hands and “breaking with their party” to ensure Michael Mukasey’s confirmation as Attorney General; then it’s Big Bad Joe Lieberman single-handedly blocking Medicare expansion; then it’s Blanche Lincoln and Jim Webb joining with Lindsey Graham to support the de-funding of civilian trials for Terrorists; and now that they can’t blame Lieberman or Ben Nelson any longer on health care (since they don’t need 60 votes), Jay Rockefeller voluntarily returns to the Villain Role, stepping up to put an end to the pretend-movement among Senate Democrats to enact the public option via reconciliation.

But that was last year. THIS year, I guess it’s asking too much that they even just pretend to be on our side.

Disney – Supporting the Patriarchy since 1936

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On November 24th, 2010 Walt Disney Pictures will be releasing its 50th animated feature film. The latest release, Tangled, is based on the German fairy tale Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm.

Wikipedia:

Once upon a time, a king and queen found that they were expecting a child. Unfortunately, the queen grew very ill during her pregnancy, leaving the life of her unborn child and herself in the balance. Desperate, a servant ventures to steal a magical healing plant from the garden of an evil witch named Gothel who used it to frequently rejeuvenate herself in order to avoid death. This restored the queen to her former health and gives the baby princess, Rapunzel, healing powers. As revenge for having her plant stolen, and still coveting its power, Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel to retake the youth-restoring power for herself. Rapunzel grows up locked in a tower, with only the nasty Mother Gothel for company. The witch constantly puts her down and forbids her from ever leaving the tower. Every year on Rapunzel’s birthday, the kingdom has a festival of lights in remembrance of their lost princess. Rapunzel sees the lights from her window and longs to visit the kingdom. One day, a thief named Flynn Rider breaks into her tower. Rapunzel takes his satchel containing the stolen crown jewels. She promises to return it if he will help her out of the tower and take her to the light festival, and Flynn agrees. They escape along with Rapunzel’s pet chameleon Pascal, and Maximus, a horse who takes it upon himself to capture Flynn and return him to the royal guards. Together with a band of colorful brigands, Rapunzel and Flynn must avoid the guards and a vengeful Mother Gothel to reach the kingdom in time for the festival.

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Every few years Disney cranks out another entertaining blockbuster animated feature that teaches a whole new generation of young girls their proper role in the patriarchy.

True, they have gotten somewhat more enlightened since a very passive Snow White sang “Someday My Prince Will Come,” but Disney heroines are always impossibly beautiful, heterosexual and virginal until they meet a man, then they fall instantly in love and are soon happily married and monogamous ever after.

That’s why they call them fairy tales.

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Sunday News Roundup

Good Morning Conflucians!!

Lets get to some crazy news from yesterday. Gawker obtained a stolen leaked copy of Sarah Palin’s latest book, and proceeded to publish large parts on their website. A very simple case of copyright infringement. There’s case law as summarized here:

Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985)[1], was a United States Supreme Court decision that determined that fair use is not a defense to the appropriation of work by a famous political figure simply because of the public interest in learning of that political figure’s account of an historic event.

In this case, former President Gerald Ford had written a memoir including an account of his decision to pardon Richard Nixon. Ford had licensed his publication rights to Harper & Row, which had contracted for excerpts of the memoir to be printed in TIME. Instead, The Nation magazine published 300 to 400 words of verbatim quotes from the 500-page book without the permission of Ford, Harper & Row, or Time Magazine. Based on this prior publication, Time withdrew from the contract (as it was permitted to by a clause therein), and Harper & Row filed a lawsuit against The Nation for copyright infringement. The Nation asserted as a defense that Ford was a public figure, and his reasons for pardoning Nixon were of vital interest, and that appropriation in such circumstances should qualify as a fair use.

A Federal trial judge ruled in favor of Harper & Row and awarded damages. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, finding that the Nation’s actions in quoting the memoirs were protected by fair use privilege. Harper & Row appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court.

Very straight forward. Something very similar happened here. And as you’d expect, in this lawsuit, a judge ruled in the obvious way and sided with Palin’s publisher:

A federal judge on Saturday ordered Gawker Media to pull leaked pages of Sarah Palin’s forthcoming book “America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag” from its blog.

The injunction prohibits Gawker from “continuing to distribute, publish or otherwise transmit pages from the book” pending a hearing on Nov. 30.

HarperCollins Publishers had sued Gawker after it published images on Nov. 17 from Palin’s book before its release next week.

Pretty straight forward. Absolutely no surprise here. Right? But look at the reactions we get from Gawker (from the same site):