I put together my blogs on the United States and posted them. But I am afraid. What if Mitt Romney has not lied? What if he has changed his mind and, if elected, will do away with Health-Care Reforms he previously endorsed and which have been deemed “constitutional” by the Supreme Court. In the past, insurance companies have considered a disease such as cancer a pre-existing condition and denied people who had paid their premiums the financial help they desperately needed.
President Obama needs money to run his campaign. He needs donations. But he has the better credentials and an impressive record, particularly in view of sabotage attempts on the part of hardline Republicans: the Tea Party.
“Sprezzatura,” I can’t believe it! This is Wikipedia on Raphael’s paintings:
“They give a highly idealised depiction of the forms represented, and the compositions, though very carefully conceived in drawings, achieve “sprezzatura”, a term invented by his friend Castiglione, who defined it as “a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless …” (Wikipedia)
A few weeks before the 2008 Presidential election, President George W Bush was told that the economy was about to collapse and that Americans and their financial partners in what has become a global economy were sinking faster and deeper than the Titanic.
It was a huge expense: “The TARP program originally authorized expenditures of $700 billion. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act reduced the amount authorized to $475 billion.” (Wikipedia) But had it not been for TARP, Americans and yours truly here in Canada would be going to soup kitchens and the family pooch would suffer.
I would suppose that approving TARP did not help Mr Paulson’s career. But had Democrats and Republicans not acted jointly and responsibly, people like you and me would have suffered and it may have been for a very long time
In short, TARP saved the United States and its trading partners. Yet when President Obama was elected into office, he did not say a word against his predecessor. The previous administration’s wars had nearly ruined the US economy and, by extension, our global economy.A Glimpse at the Obama Years: Statesmanship.
And now, thanks to the Supreme Court, the Health-Care reform program Mitt Romney brought to Massachusetts and which President Obama more or less adopted has been deemed “constitutional.” Mr Romney, please tell the truth. If you say you will do away with health-care reforms, it will seriously endanger your credibility. As a matter of fact, it has already. In today’s Beast (June 29-2012), I read that Mitt Romney, “[t]he presumptive Republican nominee was quick to promise a repeal of the health-care act if elected president, but he proposed no alternative—throwing out only the usual Medi-scare, deficit-bomb, and ‘government takeover’ bromides.” (John Avlon)
At this stage in life, I know that, in the pursuit of power, candidates will attack one another. But, I have heard Mr Romney discredit President Obama’s health-care reforms when these are the reforms he brought to the people of Massachusetts.
* * *
The US made a very smart decision on November 4, 2008, when it elected into office a man of integrity, a superior mind, an educated intellect, a person eminently qualified for the position, a Nobel-prize laureate and the President-elect who asked Senator Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State. He trusts her and she has been magnificent.
So back to the economy and other matters of state, allow me to say that given the obstructionism and scapegoating he has had to face for the last three years, Barack Obama’s record as the duly-elected President of the United States of America is very impressive.
The music is by Vangelis (film: 1492 Conquest of Paradise).
President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, November 10, 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I will tell you about Camille Claudel in a later blog. She was Rodin’s lover and Paul Claudel’s, a famous poet and diplomat, sister. She was kept in a mental azylum for about thirty years. Doctors wrote to the family to explain that she could go home, but they kept her locked away. Claudel was a Catholic poet. She was beautiful and extremely talented. She was also forced to have an abortion.
“Sprezzatura,” I can’t believe it! This is Wikipedia on Raphael’s paintings:
“They give a highly idealised depiction of the forms represented, and the compositions, though very carefully conceived in drawings, achieve “sprezzatura”, a term invented by his friend Castiglione, who defined it as “a certain nonchalance which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless …” (Wikipedia)
A few weeks before the 2008 Presidential election, President George W Bush was told that the economy was about to collapse and that Americans and their financial partners in what has become a global economy were sinking faster and deeper than the Titanic.
Much to his credit, Henry Paulson (R), the 74th United States Secretary of the Treasury, went to President Bush and explained that a crisis was imminent and that unless something were done immediately, we would be entering a recession that might well dwarf the Great Depression (1929-1939). At this point, Henry Paulson (R) talked to Senator Christopher “Chris” Dobb (D) who drafted the necessary legislation.
It was a huge expense: “The TARP program originally authorized expenditures of $700 billion. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act reduced the amount authorized to $475 billion.” (Wikipedia) But had it not been for TARP, Americans and yours truly here in Canada would be going to soup kitchens and the family pooch would suffer.
I would suppose that approving TARP did not help Mr Paulson’s career. But had Democrats and Republicans not acted jointly and responsibly, people like you and me would have suffered and it may have been for a very long time
In short, TARP saved the United States and its trading partners. Yet when President Obama was elected into office, he did not say a word against his predecessor. The previous administration’s wars had nearly ruined the US economy and, by extension, our global economy.
President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, November 10, 2008. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
And now, thanks to the Supreme Court, the Health-Care reform program Mitt Romney brought to Massachusetts and which President Obama more or less adopted has been deemed “constitutional.” Mr Romney, please tell the truth. If you say you will do away with health-care reforms, it will seriously endanger your credibility. As a matter of fact, it has already. In today’s Beast (June 29-2012), I read that Mitt Romney, “[t]he presumptive Republican nominee was quick to promise a repeal of the health-care act if elected president, but he proposed no alternative—throwing out only the usual Medi-scare, deficit-bomb, and ‘government takeover’ bromides.” (John Avlon)
At this stage in life, I know that, in the pursuit of power, candidates will attack one another. But, I have heard Mr Romney discredit President Obama’s health-care reforms when these are the reforms he brought to the people of Massachusetts.
* * *
The US made a very smart decision on November 4, 2008, when it elected into office a man of integrity, a superior mind, an educated intellect, a person eminently qualified for the position, a Nobel-prize laureate and the President-elect who asked Senator Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State. He trusts her and she has been magnificent.
So back to the economy and other matters of state, allow me to say that given the obstructionism and scapegoating he has had to face for the last three years, Barack Obama’s record as the duly-elected President of the United States of America is very impressive.
The music is by Vangelis (film: 1492 Conquest of Paradise).
Let’s listen to Die Forelle(The Trout) and Ständchen, interpreted by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, in 1951, as well as an instrumental version of the “Serenade.”
(Claude A. Simard is featured with permission from La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff , Montreal)
Today, I will start and perhaps finish writing about our last Regionalist Novel in Quebec: Ringuet’s Trente Arpents. If you are interested in French-Canadian literature and use my posts as further information on both Canadian literature and history may wish to keep the list below. There are other romans de la terre or roman du terroir, or novels of the land, but the works listed below are fine representatives of this school and some are classics. The theme underlying these novels is survival, as in Margaret Atwood’s Survival.
Classification: The Canadien runs out of Land
I do not want to put these novels into little boxes, but a moderate degree of classification is necessary. Maria Chapdelaine,by Louis-Hémon, a Frenchman, tells the entire story. However, it does not convey the despair of those French-Canadians who had to leave Canada because they the thirty acres allotted their ancestors in the seventeenth century had shrunk. The exodus was a tragic and quasi-genocidal episode. Quebec could not afford to lose close to a million inhabitants.
1. La Terre paternelle tells that it is better to stay on the land. So does Charles Guérin, were it not that Charles Guérin,Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau‘s novel, also brings up the thorny matter of the lack of professions available to French-Canadians living in Quebec.
2. Un Homme et son péché (Les Belles histoires des pays d’en haut)is about a séraphin, a miser. But it features real-life characters who advocate colonisation: faire de la terre (making land). « Notre culture sera paysanne… » supports that ideology.
Poetical
1. InMenaud, maître-draveur, there is no explicit ideology, but Englishmen will be renting the mountain so they can harvest its riches. Menaud feels dépossédé. A French-Canadian will be pocketing the rental money: le Délié. That novel is a masterpiece. It is poetic, evocative and a “green” novel. Do not abuse nature.
2.Le Survenant (and its sequel: Marie-Didace),Germaine Guèvremont’s novel is also very poetical. It has a bucolic and, at times, a spell-binding quality. The land is rich and it still feeds French-Canadians. The Outlander is both liked and feared.
Patrie Littéraire (after Lord Durham’s Report)
La Terre paternelle and Charles Guérin are Patrie littéraire novels. They were written in the wake of Lord Durham’s report to the effect that French-Canadians had no history and no literature.
Radio and Television serials
Un Homme et son péché* (Radio and TV) and Le Survenant* (TV) were serialized and extremely popular.
The “Bad” Englishman and the Vendu (sold)
The “bad” Englishman is Wagnaër in Charles Guérin and the “vendu,” le Délié inMenaud, maître-draveur.
I was busy writing on Germaine Guèvremont. I liked Guèvremont’s Survenant more reading it this time than I did when I taught it. I now see new dimensions: bucolic. No telephone posts. No wires. It was another world.
After the great ice storm, the 1990s, the worst in recorded history, Hydro-Québec chose the expensive option. Given climatic changes, they prepared for the worst. However, we now have a lot of very thick wires.
One can no longer embed the video featuring Rubens pictures. However, one can click on the link I have put at the bottom of this page. Just click on Peter Paul Rubens.
It is such a beautiful presentation. A gift from God to us mortals.
The music is Vivaldi’s music, his Concerto for Two Flutes, Op. 47, No. 2, Largo. Vivaldi was a priest who had red hair: he was the Red Priest. The largo. Usually the second movement of a concerto is a slow tempo. Here we have a largo, which is a slow tempo. The third or last movement has a faster tempo. The musicians who are performing Vivaldi’s music are the Arcangelos Chamber Ensemble and the video was assembled to help people concentrate.
Concentrate. For some, maybe. But not quite if you go into a spell of ecstasy because the music is heavenly. Music is very powerful and can therefore be therapeutic, etc. I concentrate, but on the music and the pictures.
The fusion of art and music in the privacy of one’s home is one of the internet’s finest features.
As a former university teacher, I enjoy preparing informative blogs. It takes time and effort, especially when you have problems operating machines. I used to leave the doors to my house unlocked for fear I would not be able to get back in. Keys do not always work very well. So think of me using a computer.
The effort. Do not worry. What about those persons who cannot afford to attend a university or those persons, sometimes older persons, who want to remember.
