Heard an interesting arrangement of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" the other day

[conuly]

Just a few small alterations to the melody and it changed the entire mood. Of course, the one time I really want to hear the store music (I've always liked this one) and they have it turned waaaay down low.

***********************

Translating “Merry Christmas” into Hawaiian offers insight into the language’s modest inventory of consonants.

Why Soviet Russia Created Mayan Playing Cards

Field of dreams: heartbreak and heroics at the World Ploughing Championships

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The curious case of Harriet Moore, alias John Murphy

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The women keeping peace... in the deadliest place

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Don’t Forget The Lego (Content warning: Poop. If you have concerns about their methodology then you're probably missing the point.)

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How Austerity Unravels Social Ties

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The Best Way To Save People From Suicide (Fascinating, though as usual I don't have enough background)

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Inside federal prisons’ dangerous failure to treat inmates with mental-health disorders

The Tragedy of Mental Illness in American Prisons

The Unsatisfying Truth About Hateful Online Rhetoric And Violence

Comments

[wpadmirer]

I stopped with Harriet Moore/John Murphy. Interesting story.

The Mayan cards are cool.

And I love that song about Merry Christmas in Hawaiian.

[conuly]

The Mayan cards are beyond cool.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Y'know, 'It Came Upon A Midnight Clear' and 'Oh Little Town of Bethlehem' are both part of the Interchangeable Song Cycle, that also includes 'The Yellow Rose of Texas', 'House of the Rising Sun', 'Gilligan's Island', 'Ghost Riders In The Sky', and about half the poems of Emily Dickenson, including her all-time greatest hit, 'I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died'.

Just sayin'!

[conuly]

I always knew there must be a reason they called it the common meter.

[kengr]

"Why We Should Value ‘Invisible Labor’" makes some good points, and I'm glad to see that he considered a point *I* have seen since I was a teen, but many folks don't seem to get.

Increasing wages for job (whether it's a increased minimum wage, or a higher wage for "shitty" jobs) *is* likely to cause problems because the employers will have to increase prices for what they sell (sorry, but "they can just reduce their profits" doesn't necessarily work in the real world) and the increases may be more than the market is willing to pay for.

A couple of relevant example of ways to approach this sort of thing can be found in SF.

Bujold's "Ethan of Athos" has a society where those invisible jobs *are* considered work, and paid for. Bujold has this coming about because they *had* to do something to get folks to take the "housewife" type job.

Y'see Athos is a human colony established by male seperatists. More reasonable ones than your typical Mens Rights activists.

As with a lot of Bujold's cultures, it's not perfect, but it works for most folks.

The other example is a couple of old SF stories by E. E "Doc" Smith. "Subspace Survivors" and "Subspace Explorers". Part of the background is a very different relationship between unions and management. seems there was a nasty strike that went on way too long and was causing enough problems for society in general that the goverments stepped in.

They basically set representatives from both sides in a room and informed them that they *were* going to come up with a *fair* solution... or else.

The result is referred to as the Principal of Enlightened Self-Interest.

Best short way to describe it is that labor had to realize that management had a right to make good profits. But management had to accept that labor had a right to a decent share of said profits.

So *both* sides have accountants working hard to keep *both* as high as they can.

So if productivity goes up wages *and* profits go up in proportion. and vice versa if they go down.

I'd like to think that something like that *could* work. but it'd require getting union membership up (and doing something about recent Supreme Court decision) and you'd have to drag management and stock holders into it at gunpoint.

I'm gonna repost this in my journal, and I'l try to drag the relevant passages out of the smith books (they're in the public domain, so I can do that. Bujold's stuff will be in copyright for some decades yet, so I can't do that with her stuff)

[conuly]

IANAL, but wouldn't small snippets of Bujold, in this context, fall under fair use?

[kengr]

I'm not sure how "small" the required segments might be.

[conuly]

I'm not sure how small they have to be, but I see the point.

[kengr]

In keeping with the season:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o43yAJbbIcE

And for the common meter:

https://www.instructables.com/topics/List-Of-Songs-in-Common-Meter-Please-Comment-To-/

[conuly]

Thanks :)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

That's the one. When I was a teenager, I didn't yet know about the Interchangeable Song Cycle, but I hated Emily Dickenson, so I wrote this:

A Yellow Rose For Emily

O Emily, your verses suck -
Your scansion is a crime -
You punctuate with dashes -
You don't know how to rhyme;
How could you write such drivel?
How could you write such shit?
'The Yellow Rose Of Texas'
Is the only tune they fit.

O Emily, your little poem
On Death and buzzing fly
Is read by countless students -
It makes them want to die.
No wonder you were crazy -
The reason's very clear -
'The Yellow Rose of Texas'
Kept ringing in your ear.

O Emily, your fame is great
But though all fame I lack,
Before I'd write such drivel
I'd rather face the rack;
I now avoid your meter
In all my poetree -
'The Yellow Rose of Texas'
Has wrecked this style for me!

By me, c.1974

But of course it's not the only tune they fit, which is the whole point.