Those who follow me on Twitter know that I went to the beach to give a talk this week. On the trip down (4.5 hours) and back I listened to my trusty IPod Nano. While at the beach I took a first listen to Wilco (The Album).

These were the key observations from all that listening.

Wilco (The Album) – for sale this coming Tuesday – if you are a Wilco fan you have probably found the First Listen stream on NPR All Songs Considered. If you are like me, you are smiling. Jeff Tweedy is a genius. This might not be their best CD, but I think it will be highly ranked.

Veckatimest – Grizzly Bear – I had heard of this group, but had not really listened to them. My son, he of great musical taste, told me that I had to check it out. Wow! The songs grab you with their beauty and complexity. They are inventive, musical and have gorgeous voices. Read this review – Veckatimest. I will warn you that this music is complex and not related to top 40 pop.

The Seldom Seen Kid – Elbow – I had this CD on heavy rotation about 6 months ago but had forgotten it. On Wednesday night I was watching a music station and saw them perform One Day Like This. I really enjoyed the performance, and while driving remembered to listen to the CD again. I found myself singing along on at least 4 of the songs. Here is a good review – The Seldom Seen Kid

That Lonesome Song – Jamey Johnson – I rarely listen to Country – and this is country. Jamey Johnson has a classic country voice and tells stories that you know – but you still smile the way he tells the story. Only a country singer could write:

I tell you
The high cost of livin’
Ain’t nothing like the cost of livin’ high

These were the top 4. I am also listening to Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective – have not listened enough to be certain – but certainly beautiful thus far. I listened to Sophie Milman – Take Love Easy – great young female jazz singer.

Listening to Wilco while writing this post – they are really good.

No, you have not stumbled onto the wrong blog.  Last night we had dinner with 2 other couples.  On the drive to the restaurant we were discussing the financial collapse.  One friend, a successful businessman, recommended this article.  I had heard of Liar’s Poker, and actually had heard of this article.  Having just read it, I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand.

The End of Wall Street

Then came Meredith Whitney with news. Whitney was an obscure analyst of financial firms for Oppenheimer Securities who, on October 31, 2007, ceased to be obscure. On that day, she predicted that Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust. It’s never entirely clear on any given day what causes what in the stock market, but it was pretty obvious that on October 31, Meredith Whitney caused the market in financial stocks to crash. By the end of the trading day, a woman whom basically no one had ever heard of had shaved $369 billion off the value of financial firms in the market. Four days later, Citigroup’s C.E.O., Chuck Prince, resigned. In January, Citigroup slashed its dividend.

From that moment, Whitney became E.F. Hutton: When she spoke, people listened. Her message was clear. If you want to know what these Wall Street firms are really worth, take a hard look at the crappy assets they bought with huge sums of ­borrowed money, and imagine what they’d fetch in a fire sale. The vast assemblages of highly paid people inside the firms were essentially worth nothing. For better than a year now, Whitney has responded to the claims by bankers and brokers that they had put their problems behind them with this write-down or that capital raise with a claim of her own: You’re wrong. You’re still not facing up to how badly you have mismanaged your business.

Fascinating and scary reading. 

I am going way outside my comfort zone in this rant.  If I make a fool of myself, please tell me.

Like many Americans I am fascinated with the Obama/Clinton competition.  I have temporarily switched from Mike and Mike in the morning to Morning Joe.  In watching this ongoing contest, I have my own theory.  I suspect that my theory is just as accurate as all the talking heads on TV and radio.  Afterall, I have no qualification for understanding politics, which makes my opinion so worthless.

When I see the Barack Obama campaign I see a campaign which primarily focuses on leadership.  He sells himself as an inspirational leader.  He displays charisma, and captivates with oratory.  Many voters want to follow him, because they trust that he will lead them.

When I watch Hillary Clinton I see a technocrat.  She proclaims that she has solutions.  She can fix our problems.  She implies that she knows what is best for us, even if we disagree.

Watch their body language.  He stands tall, and has an easy smile.  He displays passion but always with grace.

Warning – I know that this may read as sexist!

When I watch Hillary (without the sound) she reminds me of a middle school teacher who is trying to intimidate the class into behaving properly.  She points at us.  She shakes her head, suggesting that we really do not understand as much as she does.

The Clinton campaign wants to feature her legislative achievements.  She apparently knows how to get things done.

She and her campaign are missing the point.  I suspect they will never understand, because they are micromanagers.  They want to manage health care, the economy, education, …

Men have a negative reaction to her campaign.  She has a serious gender gap problem, because she stimulates adolescent memories of female teachers (I am really stretching here, but my gut suggests that I am in the right ballpark.)

As I consider academic medicine and especially ward attending rounds, which candidate would likely run better rounds.  We know (from our own research) that residents resent micromanagement.  They want leadership; they value management; but they resent being told what to do.  They work best when the leader helps them find the right path, not when they are made to follow a path.

I do know a lot about attending rounds, and I know little about politics.  My observations have coalesced over the past week.  I find this struggle fascinating, so like most observers I strive to understand.

My experience with learners is that they do not want solutions, they want direction.  They prefer to work towards their solutions.  Maybe this observation fits the primary race.

I live in a suburb of Birmingham. When I moved to Alabama, I remember the looks that I received from friends and colleagues. I often joke (but as most jokes understand the underlying truth) that prejudice against Alabama is the only politically correct prejudice in the US.

This article makes me very happy. My experience in Alabama over the past 14 years has been very positive. This article should make everyone smile.

‘Mockingbird’ School Drama Bridges Gaps

A high school play based on Harper Lee’s classic ”To Kill a Mockingbird” brought together black and white high school students to tell the classic story of racial injustice — and even drew out the novel’s reclusive author.

Wednesday night’s invitation-only performance was organized to celebrate diversity and arts education in Alabama, the home state of the novel’s author, whose book and the movie made from it won immediate acclaim at a time when Alabama was still rigidly segregated.

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The two public schools near Birmingham are only about 16 miles apart. But Mountain Brook is one of the state’s wealthiest communities, with a median home price of about $300,000, while the same figure in Fairfield is about $68,000.

Mountain Brook High draws from an overwhelmingly white suburb, while Fairfield students are from a mostly black district.

The performance has helped the students transcend not only the 30-minute distance between their communities, but a cultural divide as well. Teens who were strangers this time last year are spending hours on the phone, sending each other multiple text messages per day and chatting on the Internet networking site Facebook.

Just a very happy story – no medicine – just good feelings.

While this is generally a medical blog, today I veer. During a recent visit to my parents house, my mother gave me a copy of a program from a concert celebrating my greatgrandfather’s 70th birthday.

Mostly for myself and my family, I publish the text of that program.

Mordechai Golinkin’s life has been bound with one dominating idea; the vision of an opera in Palestine. It is no exaggeration to state that the story of his life in the past quarter-century is the history of opera in Palestine. He was a pioneer in the full sense of the word, having created something dynamic from a void.

His struggle for an opera in Palestine commenced in fact more than two score years ago, when he first began to dream of establishing a Citadel of Art in the Holy Land. But July 26, 1923, the date of the initial opera premiere in Palestine, marks the first milestone in the history of Palestine opera. The way from there was no path of roses. It was punctuated with moments of sweet satisfaction and bitter disappointment. But through the vicissitudes, Golinkin bore the torch steadfastly toward the goal.
Golinkin’s career from his boyhood in the Russian hamlet of Izlotschistaya in the Province of Cherson was that of a restless Jewish artist. As a cherubic choir boy at the age of ten, synagogue hymns evoked in him a yearning for broader and more comprehensive art. Later, as a mature artist, music showed him the way back to his people. His arrival in Palestine bolstered his faith in the ultimate establishment of his projected Citadel of Art, and he dedicated himself to that idea with steadfast devotion.

His rise in the Russian musical orbit was rapid. After completing his studies in Warsaw under Roguski, the theorist, and Nosokowski, the composer, Golinkin returned to Russia and devoted his talents to opera. Advancement from assistant choir leader in Razan to &e conductorship of the “Marinskaya Opera” in Petrograd was obviously fraught with pitfalls, but Golinkin took it all in his stride. Opportunity knocked at his door one night in Rostov when an adventure-loving conductor went out on a spree a few minutes before curtain time. The distressed managers appealed to the deputy director to fill the breach, and Golinkin stepped to the podium. His success was immediate and sensational, and from then on he marched from achievement to achievement.

Nevertheless; the crowning recognition was withheld from him. He was not granted an invitation to appear in the Czar’s Royal Marinskaya Opera in Petrograd. The obstruction was Golinkin’s faith. In vain, friends of the conductor including the great Chaliapin interceded on his behalf for six years.

After the revolution, however, Golinkin was promptly invited to mount the podium which was the ultimate goal not only for Russian musicians but that of artists from all Europe.

Golinkin’s success confronted him with a dilemma. The bond between the musician and the Zionist movement had already been forged. In 1917, he wrote an essay on “Citadel of Art in Palestine’ and organized a benelt soiree in Petrograd where Schaliapin rendered his unforgettable recital of “Hatikva” in Hebrew. While he won fame and laurels as a brilliant conductor, his soul continued to be stirred by the vision of a great opera company in Palestine. He had under his baton the Petro grad Opera with 120 musicians, the greatest vocalists in the world, thousands of ballerinas and choral singers, while all Palestine had to offer was a dozen pupils of Mr. Hopenko’s “Shulamith” Conservatoire, a few experienced singers working in the fields and roads, but no hall, no facilities, no tradition.

But Golinkin made his choice. In May 1923, he came to Palestine. In September he conducted “I1 Traviate”. His opera developed and he was acclaimed as a pioneer who had come to lay the foundation or art and culture in Palestine. He produced “Aida”, “Hugenots”, “Othello”, “Troubador”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Rusalka”, “Rigoletto”, “Carmen”, “La Juive”, “Samson and Delilah”, “The Barber of Seville” etc.

Golinkin regarded his production of European operas in Palestine as a mere phase. His aim was to introduce an atmosphere and to evolve a tradition in order to conceive an original Hebrew opera. He proceeded with his plans for a great Citadel of Art which would meet not only the requirements for the development of culture, but would also create the answer to artists’ social problems.

Another matter which concerned Golinkin was the social status of artists. IN his Citadel of Art scheme, he provided for social betterment for artists no less than for the advancement of culture. To collect funds for his venture, he toured the United States between 1927 and 1929. Difficult times in Palestine and economic depression hindered the Maestro. There is still no home for opera or symphonic music in Palestine. But Golinkin still believes that the day will come when his dreams are realized.

At seventy, Golinkin is still vigorous and is fired with the same zeal, enthusiasm, and faith which marked his pioneering work in the past two score years. Now that the star of music and art in Palestine has risen, the country’s culture lovers will join in celebrating the occasion, which is indeed not a personal one but of national significance.

My greatgrandfather’s dream lives on – The history of the New Israeli Opera

Thanks for indulging a greatgrandson kvelling

I have decided to revamp the look of my blog. I guess this is a bit like changing ties.

Please note that you have control over the colors used with this new theme. I have switched to a 2 column theme to make the look a bit cleaner.

I hope you like these changes, but please let me know if you see any problems.

As always thanks for reading.