Gundula Janowitz, after all

Of all of the great Contessas I've heard, none can compare to the dignity and sweetness of soprano Gundula Janowitz. Here, in a fine performance from 1980 at the lush and gorgeous Opera Garnier in Paris, is her "Porgi Amor," from the Marriage of Figaro. Sadly, her even more spectacular "Dove Sono", from the same performance, lacks an embed for posting. It is worth viewing as well.

Clinton and East Jerusalem

Jeffrey Goldberg has an apt post about Hillary Clinton's scolding of Netanyahu over East Jerusalem settlement building:

So Hillary has picked the right fight, and the Obama Administration has picked the right person to pick the fight: A former senator from New York who is married to one of Israel's favorite ex-presidents. I might be over-optimistic here, but maybe this scolding will help Bibi focus on what's important: Keeping Israel in America's good graces so that the two countries can together figure out a way to neutralize the Iranian threat.

She is right to use her husband's popularity in Israel as leverage in the wake of the needless, belligerent act on Israel's part. I am nearly always a supporter of Israel, as it is the only legitimate democratic and open society in the Middle and Near East - with the exception of another steadfast ally, Turkey. That is not to say that Israel has any right to occupy the West Bank for any other reason than for security purposes. Yet, as is widely known, the occupation seems to be as much about illegal expansion of territory as it is about security. But the Palestinian leadership in under Abu Mazen has shown signs recently of opening to direct peace talks with Tel Aviv. Hopefully, this is more than an admonishment of Israeli hubris. Maybe peace talks can happen because of this assertion of will by the Clinton. Netanyahu has spoken before about his dialogues with President Obama and the personal comity they engendered between the two men. Let's hope the construction in East Jerusalem is a test of American fortitude and not Netanyahu's caving to the Israeli version of our Christianist right.

Passage

D.H. Lawrence's War

Rereading D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love, I am struck by how forcefully anti-philosophical it is. I find this refreshing of course, since too much philosophy can make the mind go limp by abstracting itself and its surroundings too much. Lawrence is a creature of exquisite and daring passion, and his critique of modern British society as largely artificial and spiritually bereft may very well have been accurate. His solution is not just a frontal assault on industrialism and over-refinement; it is a war on bourgeois culture itself. Lawrence, through the character of Rupert Birkin, makes the case for a sensualism that defies what many would likely deem to be decadent. What makes Lawrence so radical, in part, is his exaltation of sensualism as a response to the decadence of self-satisfied, impotent intellectualism, as well as bourgeois, Romantic naivete. What makes Lawrence's work profoundly anti-philosophical is its assault on such concepts as "knowledge" and the "self." Rather than wading into the murky waters of definition of these abstractions, he dismisses them in favor of self-abandonment. Through this, he casts knowledge and the self in vital rather than abstract terms by allowing their ebb and flow without detaining them for interrogation.

A Sober Point on Iraq

Real Clear Politics picks up a sober and acute response to Jonah Goldberg's ex post facto defense of the Iraq war. Of course any reasonable comment on the Iraq invasion must consider the seeming inevitability of Iraq coming undone with or without American military action. Saddam Hussein held that artificial - see British colonialism - country together by force, and I see no reason to believe either one of his sons would have been chillingly competent enough to hold the respective ethnic regions together once he inevitably passed. In all likelihood, Iran would have exerted its presence in the Shia south of the country and the Kurds would have continued their campaign for an independent Kurdistan in the north of the country, with conflict over oil-rich Kirkuk ongoing with the Sunni heartland. The point is well taken though: if the United States is going to claim credit for a nascent democracy in Iraq, it must take responsibility for the tens of thousands who have lost their lives because of the decision to invade. We really cannot have one without the other. The moral ambiguity is crushing.

Hillbilly Storm

A curious take on the grotesque carnival of Sarah Palin. Has she officially stopped differentiating between being a celebrity and being a politician? Is she crafting a new kind of hybrid form of public official as yet unknown? Or is she plainly an incurious degenerate looking to line her pockets with fistfuls of mammon her phony religion likely embraces? If you chose all of the above, good on you. Wasilla always sounded more like a skin disease than a place to be from, and I am itching incessantly just thinking about it.

There's Still Public Support for Health Care Reform

Gallup indicates the American public still trusts the Obama administration to do the right thing on health care reform. I think the Congress does need to get this done so the numbers do not erode further from where they were last summer.