Heavenly!

by Mike Schilling · October 31, 2016

Tags: Beethoven classical music timeless beauty

Mike Schilling

Mike has been a software engineer far longer than he would like to admit. He has strong opinions on baseball, software, science fiction, comedy, contract bridge, and European history, any of which he's willing to share with almost no prompting whatsoever.

Doctor Jay says:
October 31, 2016 at 4:14 pm
Its so easy to think of Beethoven the Mighty, the Stern and the Anguished, struggling mightily with the world with every bar appassionato, and so odd to encounter Beethoven the Cheerful, who’s just playin’
That’s what this is.Report
Reply
Will H. says:
October 31, 2016 at 4:17 pm
I find the instrumentation interesting.
Pleasant. A bit campy at times, but this is easily forgiven, as those passages tend to not linger over-long.Report
Reply

Ten Second News

Renown Architect Cesar Pelli, Dead at 92

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Renown Architect Cesar Pelli, Dead at 92

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[caption id="attachment_316965" align="aligncenter" width="750"] picture by kingofhiking of Flickr [/caption]

We have not had an architecture post in some time. This occasion certainly calls for it:

César Pelli, the acclaimed architect who designed some of the world's most distinct buildings, including the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, the Torre de Cristal in Madrid and the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, died on Friday at age 92.
The governor of Pelli's home province of Tucuman, Argentina, Juan Manzur, confirmed the architect's death on Twitter.
"With much regret we received the sad news of the death of the great Architect César Pelli," Manzur tweeted. "I want to extend my condolences to all his family, his friends and his team."
Pelli studied architecture at the Universidad Nacional de Tucuman and graduated in 1949. Pelli moved with his wife, Spanish landscape architect Diana Balmori, to the United States in 1952, on a scholarship to attend the University of Illinois. He became a U.S. citizen in 1964.
Upon obtaining his degree from Illinois, Pelli began working with Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. Together, they designed the famous TWA terminal at New York's Idlewild airport, now known as John F. Kennedy airport.
In the 1960s, working for the firms DMJM and Gruen Associates California, Pelli began exploring his signature modernist style, crafting sleek, glass and steel skyscrapers. His bright-blue, glass-enclosed Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles, completed in 1975, is one of Pelli's most iconic designs.
Pelli was asked to serve as dean of the Yale School of Architecture in 1977. That same year, he opened his own firm, César Pelli & Associates, in New Haven, Conn., and received the coveted opportunity to design the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
His MoMA renovation received mixed reviews, with some critics saying it lacked the ambition and innovation present in Pelli's other work. After its 1984 completion, architecture critic Paul Goldberger wrote in The New York Times that the building "is not as avant-garde by today's standards as the 1939 structure was in its time. In fact, it is not avant-garde at all, any more than most of the modern art within the museum."
Despite the criticism, that design opened the door for Pelli and his firm to take on more high-profile projects shaping the skylines of cities around the globe. The Unicredit Tower in Milan, the One Canada Square in London and the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco are all Pelli designs.
In 1991, Pelli was named one of the 10 most influential living American architects by the American Institute of Architects. In 1995, he won the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects.
Considered one of Pelli's crowning achievements, the Malaysian Petronas Towers were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004. The glittering 88-floor, glass-facade structures were designed to evoke motifs from Islamic art.

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Joe Biden vs The Field

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Joe Biden vs The Field

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[caption id="attachment_316781" align="aligncenter" width="750"] Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

Morning Consult released their latest batch of polling, and after weeks of discussion over Senator Kamala Harris' debate performance, Elizabeth Warren's move to 3rd or 4th depending on poll, and Joe Biden having an unsteady few week, the numbers reveal....not much has changed.

Our latest Democratic primary tracking data is live:
Biden: 32% (+1)
Sanders: 19%
Warren: 14% (+1)
Harris: 13% (-1)
Buttigieg: 5% (-1)
O'Rourke: 3%
Booker: 2%
Yang: 2%https://t.co/19xcvc2eMC
— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) July 16, 2019

Bernie Sanders has found his floor, sitting at 20%ish since the beginning of May. Harris had a slight uptick post debate, but has fallen back, and it looks like her and Warren are divying up the exact votes the other needs to make a run at Biden. There are three tiers of presidential hopefuls right now: the three Senators fighting for second place, the rest of the mess bumping around much lower, and Joe Biden all alone with a healthy lead. Heading into next round of debates, it's important to remember what looks amazing in the moment, like Kamala Harris' attack on Biden, might not reflect soon after in the polls.

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Biden Sings Same Song, Second Verse

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Biden Sings Same Song, Second Verse

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[caption id="attachment_316702" align="aligncenter" width="750"] Photo by Pete Souza Public domain [/caption]

Meanwhile, in non President Trump vs "The Squad" news, current Democratic primary frontrunner Joe Biden was unveiling his healthcare proposal, and the tagline he laid on the folks at an AARP gathering sounds strangely familiar.

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday said that under his new health care plan, people who like their insurance coverage won’t be forced to give it up.
Speaking at the AARP presidential forum in Iowa, Biden drew a contrast between his plan, which would give people a Medicare-like public option, and the “Medicare for All” plan championed by more progressive Democratic presidential candidates including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.).
“If you like your health care plan, your employer based plan, you can keep it. If in fact you have private insurance, you can keep it,” Biden said.
Biden’s speech echoed the now-infamous “if you like your doctor, you’re going to be able to keep your doctor” catchphrase former President Barack Obama repeatedly said in 2009 and 2010 when he was trying to sell the public on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.
The GOP seized on those remarks, and spent years throwing them back at Democrats to showcase what they said were ObamaCare’s failures. In 2013, PolitiFact called "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it" the "Lie of the Year."
But the law has provided 20 million people with health insurance, and it’s now more popular than ever.
Biden is running on protecting ObamaCare. He is banking the law’s popularity will convince voters that his plan of shoring up the law with more subsidies and a public option is a better approach than Medicare for All.
“You get your choice, you get full coverage … I think it’s the quickest, most reasonable rational and best way to get to universal coverage,” he said.
In formally announcing his plan on Monday, Biden equated the push for Medicare for All with the GOP attempts to repeal ObamaCare.
“I understand the appeal of Medicare for All, but folks supporting it should be clear that it means getting rid of ObamaCare, and I’m not for that,” Biden said in a video announcing his plan.

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Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta Resigns Amid Epstein Furor

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Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta Resigns Amid Epstein Furor

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[caption id="attachment_316589" align="aligncenter" width="739"] photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

The head many have been calling for since the details of Jeffrey Epstein's plea deal were first reported has finally rolled:

President Donald Trump alerted reporters this morning of Acosta's departure. "This was him, not me," said Trump as Acosta stood beside him.
Trump, who saw Acosta largely as a source of favorable monthly statistics about unemployment and job growth, called Acosta "a great labor secretary not a good one" and "a tremendous talent. He's a Hispanic man, he went to Harvard, a great student." Trump indicated that he was satisfied with Acosta's explanation for the plea deal in Wednesday's news conference, saying, "He explained it."
But Acosta has had a rocky relationship in recent months with other White House officials, including acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, over the perceived slow pace of deregulation at the department. And one person familiar with the situation said that although Trump initially thought Acosta handled the Epstein controversy well, over the last couple of days the president saw the negative press and didn’t like it.
“POTUS is not a fan of bad press, especially when other people make him look bad," this person said.
Acosta, a 50-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer, came newly under fire for the lenient 2008 plea deal after Epstein was re-arrested July 6 in New York City and charged with sex trafficking. Under the earlier plea agreement, Epstein served only 13 months of an 18-month term and was permitted daily furloughs to go to the office. Epstein also was required to register as a sex offender and to pay restitution to his underage victims.
At the White House this morning, Acosta told reporters: "Over the last week I've seen a lot of coverage of the department of labor. And what I have not seen is the incredible job creation that we've seen in this economy. more than 5 million jobs, I haven't seen that.... I do not think it is right and fair for this administration's labor department to have Epstein as the focus, rather than the incredible economy that we have today."

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A horrible story raises age-old questions about regulation, medical care, and people who make money insisting they know better than trained professionals.

At about 9:15 p.m. June 15, Omaha Fire Department paramedics were called to a home where a 25-year-old woman at full term in her pregnancy was in distress following complications during a breech birth.
The woman told police she went into labor at about 9 p.m. June 14. Hock reportedly arrived to help with the birth at 6 p.m. June 15, according to a criminal complaint.
After realizing the baby’s foot had been delivered, the mother told detectives that Hock asked her whether to continue with the birth at home “and stated she had trained in delivering breech babies,” court documents state.
The mother agreed to continue at home but said that after at least 30 minutes, the baby had only been delivered up to the shoulders, the documents state. That’s when Hock advised calling 911.
When police arrived, they found Hock assisting the pregnant woman and asking for medical scissors, court documents state. Paramedics said the baby was partially delivered at that time and that Hock performed a medical procedure during her attempt to deliver the baby.
The baby, delivered by paramedics while en route to a hospital, was limp and unresponsive, according to the criminal complaint. Resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful.
The baby was taken to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit upon arrival at the hospital and placed on life support, the documents state.
The obstetrics doctor in the ER that night reported to police that the baby was deprived of oxygen and suffered swelling in the brain and indicated the infant could die as a result of the injuries.
The doctor told officers Hock had revealed she was at the scene serving as a midwife, a service she advertises through her company’s website, Nebraska Birth Keeper, and “had known for a couple hours that the baby was in breech” position but continued with the birthing process for an hour before 911 was called, the court documents state.
The baby was pronounced dead June 17.
A warrant was issued for Hock’s arrest when it was determined by Nebraska Health and Human Services that she does not hold a medical or certified nurse-midwife license.
The mother told investigators she had signed an agreement for Hock’s midwife services and that she and her husband had paid Hock about $3,000 to $4,000 for those services.

Home births are illegal in Nebraska. This was the second time the Noes had used Ms. Hock in the birthing of a child. That pregnancy as well resulted in a breech birth, and the Noe's opted for the hospital and a C-Section delivery.

The couple paid about $4,000 for Ms. Hock’s services, according to Mr. Dornan, who said Ms. Hock served as a midwife when Ms. Noe gave birth to another child two years earlier.
“They wanted to have a birth in their bedroom,” Mr. Dornan said. “Didn’t want to go to the hospital."
Similar complications arose during the earlier pregnancy with a breech baby, he said, and Ms. Noe opted to have a C-section at the hospital after Ms Hock advised her of the risks. This time, he said, Ms. Hock once again warned Ms. Noe of the risks of a breech birth, but that she had opted to remain at home.
Mr. Dornan said Ms. Hock tried a maneuver to dislodge the baby, but was unsuccessful. She was accompanied by her 9-year-old daughter and a doula, who Mr. Dornan said called 911.
When the emergency responders arrived at the home, Mr. Dornan said, they gave Ms. Hock a pair of scissors to try to help make a wider opening for the baby, which is considered to be a surgical procedure and is mentioned in the criminal complaint against his client.

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