Guy Berger

Unlike grad school, when 10:30 AM was the norm, I am usually up by 6 AM. The minus is my body doesn't let me sleep in on the weekends. Guy

Well, the Rockets beat the Mavericks last night, to push their winning streak to 17 now (5th since Yao went out). If they can beat New Orleans tomorrow night, their streak will tie for 4th best in NBA history. Pretty impressive! I still wonder how the loss of Yao will affect them in the playoffs, versus all the other West team's big men. Will be interesting to see, for sure! Very impressive strea, but I think they will not go far in the playoffs. Guy

Stupidest trade of the year -- Suns acquiring a near-corpse Shaq, or Dallas trading for Jason Kidd? Honestly, if you'd told me at the beginning of the season that: a) 3/4 of the way through the season, the Warriors would win 63% of their games (on pace for a 52 win season) and be 5 games out of 1st place... b) ...but would nevertheless be the 8th seed... c) ...and fighting for that seed with the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns... d) ...all after an 0-6 start I would have called you insane. What a bizarre season.

I agree with Guy. I agree wtih Guy. The UE rate is a joke. It's as ludicrous as the CPI. Well, I wouldn't call either a joke -- I just think that like a lot of statistics, you need to know what you are dealing with. Guy

What's the story on this? Why is inactivity rising in America? (I understand that benefits are nothing to write home about over there - so the incentives to find work are a good deal stronger than over here.) This is an answer based purely on speculation, but usually a decline in the unemployment rate during a period of weakening economic activity is attributed to "discouraged workers" -- ie, workers who give up on finding work because they simply can't find one and drop out of the labor force. (In the US the UE rate is defined as [people actually working] / [people actually working + not working but actively looking for a job].) Between Jan and Feb the labor force participation rate ([people actually working + unemployed but actively looking for a job] / [over-18 civilian non-institutionalized population]) fell by 0.2 percentage points. However, I'm not sure how much can be explained by "discouraged workers" -- I will try to check. I did find this page on the Department of Bureau of Labor Statistics's website -- however, it compares Feb 2007 to Feb 2008 (apparently this data, unlike the unemployment rate, is not seasonally adjusted, making month-to-month comparisons unreliable). It looks like out of the 350K people or so leaving the labor force over the past year, about 50% say they "want a job" but only a very small fraction (about 5% or so) qualify as "discouraged" by BLS standards. Of course, we would ideally want to compare Jan to Feb. Is that a historically high level? I had a feeling that overseas tourism in the US fell off remarkably after the invasion of Iraq. MG 1) We are talking about rates of increase rather than levels. 2) Iraq or no Iraq, as traveling here gets cheaper more and more people will do it.

I like the first album, it is very good. The later albums are hit and miss. Greg Lake's best work was with KC, it restrained his worst tendencies. Guy

I'll do something about the Schoenberg issue real soon. Berg can wait... I have only heard Schoenberg #2 which I like -- but I would guess that many would suggest your priorities should be reversed. Guy

Won't really disagree with the fact that as a whole it's not "great" -- the early symphonies are OK (pleasant "craft", as you say -- but by K 130 or whatever you start moving beyond that), and if those first 40-45 symphonies had been composed by a AW Trazom, we would probably remember the guy as another 2nd-tier 1770s composer of symphonies. In which case you would probably be plugging him... But... I am guessing that at least some people here have not listened to anything before the Haffner, and they would probably be pleasantly surprised. Certainly #29 is a great work regardless of the name attached to it or the period in which it was composed. (#25 is a nice change of pace, but I would put it a cut below the minor key symphonies composed by Haydn during the same period.) Guy

Doesn't really matter. Lots of 19th century quartets written since WW I. All that matters, to me at least, is whether it's good music. Guy

Janacek's are magnificent, especially "Intimate Letters". Also, I remember Berg's two string quartets -- especially "The Lyric Suite" being really good. Fans of Bartok should definitely check them out. On the other hand, I didn't get much out of Webern's work in the medium, though I understand its significance. Was Ravel's (only) quartet written after 1900? Despite an overall preference for Debussy, I think his younger contemporary did a better job in this format. Guy

First, there's no doubt that large parts of our country are woefully uneducated. That said, I think you can't judge the past relative to the present using this test unless you know comparative test scores and have comparable testee populations. Guy

"What have you done / you made a fool of everyone"

I really like his contribution to Weather Report's "The Moors" (studio version) -- Joe Zawinul's story about how he got that performance out of Towner is amusing. Guy

The subtitle is tongue in cheek, of course. The final five symphonies are regularly praised, and for good reason. But there are some really excellent Salzburg symphonies as well -- esp #29. On the other hand I think "Paris", despite having a "name", is not that much better than its neighboring symphonies. Any thoughts?

You know... Buckley's views were flat out wrong. But he was also a man of his time and place, and over time he publicly disowned those views. Not something worthy of any special commendation, but nevertheless to be acknowledged in any discussion of politics. Personally I am a lot more weirded out by the fact that his magazine likes to celebrate its heritage but pretends that those editorials never existed. Guy

This was an article in (I believe) The New Republic by British journalist Johann Hari. Worth reading, a real eye-opener, and itself a nod to a classic Harper's article written by PJ O'Rourke in the 80s. O'Rourke went on a "peace cruise" up the Volga with a bunch of leftists, with hilarious results. I'm surprised this thread hasn't been moved to the politics forum yet. Guy

I'm with Jim here. I'm not a huge fan (probably a generational thing) but he always struck me as a guy who was capable of self-criticism. As far as the Vidal-Buckley debates -- I've seen the famous incident. But I think Buckley was probably right that Vidal was the wrong guy to represent "the other side". Guy

I don't think the statement in bold is true.

...I'm speechless. ... The two suites you mentioned are both wonderful. The Far East Suite is a magnificent work period -- among the best stuff I have heard under Duke's name, from ANY period. Afro-Eurasian Eclipse isn't as consistently brilliant, but it does include some stuff that is just fantastic. Highly recommended. The Latin American Suite I like as well, but it is somewhat monochromatic. Guy

Watch the movie -- Terry Gilliam at his best! Guy

Because aside from their annual residency at the Village Vanguard and the occasional album, the group is no longer a "going concern". Guy

Well... unlike other people here I dig what I've heard from his NPR Americana style. I'd rather listen to Nashville than Have a Little Faith (which I also like). The version of "Live to Tell" is just great.