On the use and abuse of Manilow songs; continuing horror in Nicaragua; populists uniting in France; Lewandowski deployed to New Hampshire; and more
Barry Manilow as bomb? As weapon? As crowd-disperser? How rude. “New Zealand plays Barry Manilow to repel parliament protesters,” reads a headline from the BBC. The story goes as follows:
Authorities in New Zealand have been playing Barry Manilow’s greatest hits in an attempt to dislodge protesters camped outside the parliament building.
Songs by the US singer are being played on a 15-minute loop, along with the Spanish dance tune, Macarena.
Brutal — toward Barry Manilow and “Macarena,” I mean. I rather like “Macarena.” And “At the Copa. Copacabana. The hottest spot north of Havana.”
Have some more, from the BBC:
The demonstrators, who are angry at Covid-19 vaccine mandates, responded by playing songs such as Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It.
So, it’s Twisted vs. Barry.
More:
The protests began on Tuesday when a convoy of vehicles drove to parliament.
Inspired by large rallies against vaccine mandates in Canada, hundreds of protesters arrived in the capital, Wellington, to rally against Covid restrictions.
They adopted the name “Convoy for Freedom” and blocked streets in the city.
Yeah. One thing about these “freedom convoys,” which are spreading? They impede other people’s freedom: to work, move, etc. I’ve always thought that people should be careful about employing the important word “freedom.”
Anyway, I was put in mind of Noriega and Panama, as you might have been too. At the end of 1989, U.S. forces were trying to smoke him out of the Vatican embassy. One of the things we did was pummel him with rock music: “I Fought the Law” (The Clash), “You Shook Me All Night Long” (AC/DC), “Welcome to the Jungle” (Guns N’ Roses), etc.
Eventually, we got our man.
“Classical music still effective at dispersing loitering teens.” How rude! How insulting! That’s a headline from the Los Angeles Times, in 2011. Says the story,
With all sorts of the funding cuts hitting orchestras during the recent recession, there is still one aspect of classical music that local governments find valuable — the music’s unfailing ability to disperse loitering teenagers from public areas.
Brutal. (And somewhat funny, I admit.)
Here’s another one, out of the United Kingdom, in 2010: “Mozart the Big Stick for U.K. School.” The subheading reads, “Classical music as a tool for punishing youth ignites debate in U.K.” The article begins,
The idea of using Mozart and Ravel as deterrent for the badly behaved has roused the ire of both music lovers and critics of the public education systems.
I can imagine.
Mozart as “big stick.” Manilow as “big stick.” Interesting, what works as a stick for some people, and what doesn’t.
I had a memory of Mark Gerson, who, some years ago, taught at a high school in New Jersey. He started a “Frank Sinatra Detention Club.” He explained in an article for Commentary, in 1995.
Detention consists of writing, “Mr. Gerson, Ol’ Blue Eyes is the best,” or “When I go home, I am going to listen to the Chairman of the Board” 40 times while listening to Sinatra’s recordings, anything from the Capitol years to the Dorsey sessions to the glorious new Duets II. Some dread these detentions because they dislike Sinatra. Others begin in terror but discover that he is not so bad after all. One who received a “Frank” two weeks ago has been humming “Saturday Night Is the Loneliest Night of the Week” ever since.
Good stuff.
• On to something grave: Nicaragua. Hugo Torres has died. Who was he? He was a Sandinista general, a hero of the revolution, who led a guerrilla raid to free Daniel Ortega and other comrades in 1974. These men had been imprisoned by Somoza.
Last summer, General Torres was taken prisoner by Ortega, his old comrade. He died on February 12, in very suspicious circumstances. José de Córdoba in the Wall Street Journal explains.
Before he was arrested last summer, Torres made a video, in case he was indeed arrested — then carted off and imprisoned, or “disappeared.” Torres said:
“Forty-six years ago, I risked my life to get Daniel Ortega and other political-prisoner colleagues out of prison. I am 73. At this stage of my life, I never thought I would be fighting against another dictatorship now more brutal, more unscrupulous, more irrational, and more autocratic than the Somoza dictatorship.”
• Cast an eye, now, to France — where the leading populists seem to be in agreement. On the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and on the right, Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, say that, if elected president, they would pull France from NATO. Whichever direction they are coming from, populists often have more in common with one another than they do with other political types.
Mélenchon’s party has a classic name: “La France Insoumise,” or “Unsubmissive France,” “Indomitable France,” “Rebellious France.”
• Some U.S. politics? In an Impromptus last month, I wrote of Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, and a Republican. He is forging his own path. Unlike other Republican governors, he has declined to prohibit private enterprises from requiring vaccination in a pandemic. Sununu said, “There are a lot of things I want businesses to do, but that doesn’t mean I pass a law and force them to do it. It’s reactionary.”
Those are fighting words, obviously, in the GOP.
A recent headline reads, “Corey Lewandowski is back in Trumpworld, with an ‘assignment’ to oust New Hampshire’s popular GOP Gov. Chris Sununu.” As the story relates, Lewandowski said, “The president is very unhappy with the chief executive officer of the State of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu. And Sununu is someone who’s never been loyal to him. And the president said it would be really great if somebody would run against Chris Sununu.”
Trump people, such as Lewandowski, often refer to Trump as “the president.” Anyway, we’ll see what happens in the Granite State.
• There are many interesting things in this article about Liz Cheney and Wyoming. Let me highlight two of them. An opponent of Cheney’s says, “She speaks about her conscience, but you weren’t elected to do what you think is right, you were elected to do what the people want you do to.”
This is an old, old question: the “Burkean dilemma.” Does a representative in a legislature do what a majority in his district (or state or what have you) wants him to do? And how do you measure majority desires? How often do you measure them? Or does a representative’s own judgment come into play?
As for the assault on Congress that took place on January 6, 2021, a Wyoming voter says, “People had every right to go in there. Push came to shove and they shoved. It went to an extreme because it had to.” My impression is, this is a very common sentiment among GOP voters. And politicians, of course, having their finger on the pulse, are aware of it.
• Let’s have a little language. I received a flyer that spoke of “your fellow neighbors.” What’s that “fellow” doing there? People also speak of their “fellow countrymen.” I always thought that “countrymen” would do. “Mélenchon, Le Pen, and Zemmour are countrymen.”
A news report began this way: “The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County is receiving negative backlash online after announcing . . .” Is backlash ever positive?
“If Mitch would have fought for the election,” Donald Trump wrote, “we would not be discussing any of the above today.” In my observation, just about every American under 50 makes this basic grammatical error. (Should be “If Mitch had fought . . .”) Oldies such as Trump usually know better. Maybe the influence of the youngsters around him?
• Let’s have a little golf. “I love when people get rowdy,” said Brooks Koepka, the great champion. He was talking about the pampered drunkards at the Phoenix Open. “They’re cheering you when you hit it tight, and they’re booing you when you hit it bad. It almost feels like a real sport. Like football, basketball, things like that. Soccer.”
Oh, Brooks — real sport?! (We can talk about fan behavior, and what sets golf apart from other sports, later.)
• A little music? For a review of a New York Philharmonic concert, conducted by Jakub Hrusa, with Yuja Wang, piano soloist, go here. For a review of a recital by Andreas Ottensamer (clarinet) and Alessio Bax (piano), go here. And for a review of Denis Matsuev, the Russian pianist, in a solo recital, go here.
At the bottom of that last review, I had a footnote:
There were protesters outside Carnegie Hall. Denis Matsuev is something like an official artist of the Russian government. He was a torchbearer at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. He played during the closing ceremony. He signed a letter, supporting Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.
(I always make a strict separation, when it comes to reviewing or other artistic commentary.)
• Cameron Hilditch is one of my favorite writers. National Review Online readers will be familiar with him, from his stint here. A Northern Irishman, he graduated from Magdalen College, Oxford. He now lives in the United States. He has a great store of knowledge and a felicitous pen. He is now on Substack, at The Tory Anarchist. I will be an eager reader.
• Central Park on a snowy Sunday morning is kind of photogenic. Four quick shots?
Thanks for joining me today, my friends. Talk to you later.
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