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Once again, Robert Parry at Consortium News departs from the lockstep geopolitical narrative of our ever-more war hungry neo cons and the “mainstream” media that toadies to them. Not content with the catastrophes they sowed in the Middle East, they now drool over a war with Russia.

And if confirmation were needed, Michael Klare in The Nation examines the “new and dangerous strategic outlook in Washington. Whereas previously the strategic focus had been on terrorism and counterinsurgency, it has now shifted to conventional warfare among the major powers.”

I went to Shuffle Along Friday night and I had a ball. Nothing about the show seemed aimed at tourists–Yureka time!  That said, anyone from anywhere could “get” it. I felt a bit like I did as a kid when my ex-vaudevillean grandmother took me to Broadway musicals.

The show deftly uses techniques of old vaudeville and revue to tell the narrative of the original production’s creation and creators. The dancing is fabulous. It was a treat indeed to see numbers drawn from the old steps performed by dancers who are so much more trained than the cuties of many-a-yesteryear ago.

And at the lovely old and intimate Music Box.  I could have sworn I heard a faint echo of Marilyn Miller and Clifton Webb leading “Easter Parade” there in 1933. . .

Williams Rivers Pitt at Truthout terms the refusal of political candidates or the media to discuss our totally out-of-control military budget “a Master’s thesis on how to control a populace by dint of narrowing the conversational parameters.”

That the campaign for Corbyn’s scalp is led by Labor MPs who supported Blair’s stampede over the cliff into Iraq, and, naturally enough, vehemently opposed the Chilcot inquiry? Blairite bounders.

Keep calm and carry on, Leader Corbyn!

In my head, I link the way that Dickens and other epic, serialized nineteenth-century novelists take up a plot line or character and then let it drift offstage for a while, and the way that Tchernichova used to say she’d impress something on a dancer and then rather then hammering home the point insistently, let it percolate into their minds and muscles for a bit.

Can a soprano voice have the aural power of an acetylene torch as well as the euphonious spin of a flock of sea gulls at dawn? (Purple, indeed, but I recall those summers in Cape Cod.)

I’ve decided the answer is Yes, as I listen to Nilsson’s 1965 Salome at the Met, conducted by Bohm.

Even she didn’t sound like this all the time!

to Britain’s striking public (as we define the term in U.S. parlance) school teachers, protesting the usual toxic austerity brew that is foreclosing prospects for another generation of British children. In the austericists’ rifle sights is, of course, arts education (along with rational class size and so much else). The arts are now being deleted from British curriculums there as they have been here.

This is David Cameron’s England, and if there’s one good thing to come out of Brexit, it’s Cameron’s promised resignation, although somehow I doubt he will make good on his promise. What–turn honest all of a sudden?

VAI’s just sent me their new Stars of New York City Ballet DVD compilation. It’s drawn from Bell Telephone Hour telecasts from 1959-66 a reminder of the days hen ballet was integrated into American popular culture. It’s wonderful to see Allegra Kent and NYCB colleagues frolic through enduring landscapes from Broadway & Hollywood–and just as wonderful to see NYCB stars bring their neo-classical chops straight from opera house to television studio.

I wrote the liner notes, so expect more of the above sentiment when you open the DVD.

John Atcheson at CommonDreams describes America’s tragic decline into oligarchy.

“Even as we spend tens of trillions on ‘Defense,’ ostensibly to protect our freedom, we quietly relinquished it; not to an invasion from without, but to a silent coup by the rich and powerful from within.”

CNN seems to enjoy degrading itself on an ever-accelerating basis.

Now it has hired Trump’s s ex-campaign manager as a “commentator.”

Feel the love.