Joey Alexander

Joey Alexander, 11 years old in this clip, is an unbelievable jazz piano phenom. 

Grew up in Bali. The one in the South Pacific, or is it the Indian Ocean?

Listening to his dad's Count Basie, Charlie Parker, and Thelonius Monk, he started playing piano at age 6.

Oh, the humanity!

Check out Joey's YouTube channel. Wow.

Mark Morford

Mark Morford paints the election in rather stark terms. 

Supporting Trump is not your “opinion.” It’s just death

This is not a matter of opinion. It is not a matter of which party’s sociopolitical agenda you “believe” to be fair and true, and which you think is unsustainable and damaging – a bit of education reform here, America’s role in the U.N. there, your well-informed take on taxation and global economics, health care for the poor and the impact of environmental conservation.

If you’re voting for Trump, you care as much for those notions as a fish cares about lasagna – which is to say: absolute zero, and aggressively so.

Nuanced policy? The function of the social contract in human civilization? A deep curiosity about science, art, foreign cultures, economics, the vast complexities world? These matter not at all to rabid Trump fans, as evidenced by the fact the man himself has forwarded what amounts to a laughable garbage pail of genuinely workable ideas – favoring, instead, a battery of spittle-flecked sucker punches that have only one thing in common: they all openly despise you.

Could this be much clearer? For Trump, it’s all about hate, contraction, corrosion. Women, Jews, blacks, Muslims, Latinos, the environment, liberals, the poor, children, schools, health care and women’s rights, community and compassion, integrity and shared humanity? Here is a stubby, orange middle finger for all of you.

As the nation careens to the end of the ghastliest, most insufferable election season in your lifetime – all made so by the existence of one leering, bloviated beast of a rich white male – one final truth must be nailed, one and for all, into the coffin of Trump’s acidic campaign.

You are, very simply, choosing between a voice that champions life, fundamental humanity and intelligence, and a voice that hisses only violence and death. Put another way: The choice between a thoughtful conversation and a thug’s knife in your kidney is no choice at all.It is thus: On Tuesday, you are not making a genuine choice. Your vote is not between two sets of equally valid, but wildly differing visions for the future of the American experiment. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are not opposing ends of the same spectrum. This is no “lesser of two evils.”

There is no “disagreeing” with this point. It is not your “opinion” that it’s tolerable, even OK to sexually assault women, label foreigners rapists and drug dealers, default on your debts, mock the disabled, scam all your business partners, donate nothing to charity and skim millions from your own charitable foundation as you threaten to build a 2,000-mile wall, murder the spouses of terrorists and spit on the Constitution. That’s not an opinion. That’s moral, social and spiritual sickness. That’s poison.

Maybe you deny this? Maybe you say you don’t agree with many of Trump’s more offensive actions, but you choose to overlook them anyway because, despite his myriad “flaws,” Trump is a plain-spoken “outsider” who will bring “fresh perspective” to the beltway?

You are lying to yourself, and you almost certainly know it. It’s like saying the Fukushima nuclear disaster brought “new ideas” to the ocean, or advanced colorectal cancer will bring “fresh perspective” to your small intestine. You are not choosing between two carefully composed, equally workable sides. You are choosing only destruction and death.

Maybe you just don’t like Hillary? Fine. Join the exceedingly well-trained, intellectually lazy army. Of course you are free to disagree with Hillary’s policies, votes, mistakes, dumb misuse of an email server. You might even believe, as many do, that, just like every other politician who’s been as visible and vilified as she’s been for 30 years, her positions and bedfellows make for a lousy option to lead the nation.

Whatever. To detest Hillary is, however lazy, a valid opinion. To agree with Trump is to willingly swallow some flesh-eating bacteria.

Here’s a clearer example: Just recently, Mark Zuckerberg was compelled to defend billionaire and noted libertarian imbecile Peter Thiel, the bizarre, intellectually inept Silicon Valley thug who recently took down Gawker for his own personal vendetta, and who thinks Trump is a swell guy, to the tune of donating millions to his campaign.

Facebook decided to keep Thiel on its board of directors, even after Trump gloated about grabbing women’s crotches, lied about his taxes, called for a ban on all Muslims, et al.

Zuckerberg’s reason? Because Facebook champions “diversity,” and Thiel’s opinion of Trump was as valid as any.

This is malevolent nonsense. Note to Mark Zuckerberg: Hate is not diversity. Sexism, racism, Islamophobia, misogyny, endorsing violence – these have no more to do with “opinion” and diversity than saying you believe it’s OK to beat toddlers, poison dogs and read “Mein Kampf” to schoolchildren. You are conflating respectful social functioning with cruel moral decay. To not understand the difference is one of the core illnesses afflicting our country.

Put it this way: To have a valid opinion implies certain moral and factual boundaries, a bit of reason coupled to functional wisdom and (hopefully) actual lived experience. When those boundaries are exploded, when opinion becomes infected with hatred, shot through with misogyny and stabbed with racism and violence, it is no longer an opinion. It turns into sociopathy. It becomes terrorism.

Let me be clear: This is no attempt to change anyone’s mind. I am not appealing to Trump supporters to reconsider their vote – it is far too late for that, and they’re not listening to credible media sources anyway.

Furthermore, this is only a partial appeal to shrill Hillary-haters who might skip voting entirely because, despite her superb (albeit flawed) credentials, achievements, intelligence, feminist badassery and genuine concern for her fellow humans, you have been trained to hate her, no matter what. I’ll let Louis C.K. remind you what you are.

This is merely to add one final reminder, as November 8 screeches into view: If you support Trump, you do not just have an atypical opinion of America. You do not get to say you merely “see things differently” in your tacit support of racism, sexual abuse, unchecked lying, flagrant bigotry. You have forsaken thoughtful opinion entirely, and succumbed to only hopelessness and ruin.

Let us pray for your speedy recovery. President Hillary will approve.

Original.

Holy Fucking Shit

It is discouraging that so many still support Trump after everything they have heard. I hope it is "just" party above all and nothing more sinister.

HOLY SH*T (You've Got To Vote) from Funny Or Die

Miami Herald

This endorsement of Hillary Clinton by the Miami Herald came out a few weeks ago, but it's a good read. It's pretty long but worth your time.

I hope that, in about a week from now, I will be able to release a big sigh of relief that there are NOT more greedy, ignorant racists than reasonable, rational people in the United States. The jury is still out and the media have failed spectacularly yet again.

Here's a few choice snips from the endorsement.

The Miami Herald recommends Hillary Clinton for president of the United States

Let’s make clear what the 2016 presidential election isn’t about:

It is not about choosing between a bad candidate and a worse one. The narrative that Hillary Clinton is the lesser of two evils is patently wrong. Ms. Clinton is a pragmatic, tough-minded woman of accomplishment and political conviction with a demonstrated mastery of policy. She is politically flawed. However, Donald Trump is a damaged human being.

It’s not about an entertaining, shoot-from-the-hip renegade outsider taking on a mainstay of the entrenched political elite. That was Sarah Palin vs. Joe Biden back in 2008. No, Mr. Trump is the elite, one who has managed to talk a good game to fire up frustrated and frightened mostly white Americans with a campaign of hate and xenophobia.

For her part, Ms. Clinton has used her insider status to work aggressively on behalf of the disenfranchised, here and around the world. She has not won every battle, but she fights the good fight, and she fights the right ones in the name of equality and democracy.

It is not about Bill Clinton. He’s not running for president. Been there, done that.

It’s far more important for Americans to understand what election 2016 is about: Most starkly, our values, our national identity and even the enduring power of the Constitution are in question — and at stake. Most simply, Americans will define just who we are.

And Hillary Clinton is by far the best person in this race to lead us to a definition of which we can be proud. She will protect the best interests of this nation, its standing on the world stage and even democracy itself.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article108145747.html#storylink=cpy

snip

The priority of every voter who cares about standards of honesty and decency, not to mention the future and direction of this country, is to reject what Donald Trump represents. America does not need an arrogant, self-absorbed charlatan in the Oval Office. It needs a steady hand in perilous times, a voice of compassion in pursuing policies that help, not hurt, the disenfranchised; a leader capable of narrowing, if not healing, this nation’s divisions.

For all these reasons, the Miami Herald recommends HILLARY CLINTON for president of the United States.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article108145747.html#storylink=cpy

Read the whole thing here. 

Perpetuum Jazzile

There is something so special about the human voice. And when you combine lots of voices.....

November stargazing

If Trump actually wins the presidency, all bets are off. 

Leonid meteor shower

The stars appear to fall from the sky during the Leonid meteor shower of 1833, as depicted in this contemporary illustration. Tens of thousands of meteors shot across the sky in just a few hours. This year's shower on the night of Nov. 16, however, should be tame, with a few dozen meteors per hour.

Stargazing Summary 

Taurus, the bull, charges across the sky on November nights, standing high overhead around midnight. Look for his V-shaped face, highlighted by the orange star Aldebaran, and his twinkling shoulder, the tiny dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster. Orion charges into the evening sky as well, rising in early evening by month's end. Finally, the Moon stages encounters with four of the five planets that are easily visible to the unaided eye.

Radio Program Highlights

If you want to start hearing the StarDate program in your area, you can request a station to carry our program by emailing the request to stations@stardate.org.

November 1-6: Canyons and gullies. Spacecraft have photographed gullies on Mars and canyons on one of the moons of Saturn. Both were carved by something flowing along the surface — but it wasn't water. Join us for this and much more.

November 7-13: Neighbors. Astronomers are scanning the skies for evidence of cosmic neighbors. They're also thinking about how to talk to the neighbors, and how to visit them quickly. Join us for neighbor civilizations and more.

November 14-20: The Seven Sisters. The Pleiades star cluster, known as the Seven Sisters, climbs high across the sky on November nights, and we'll have details. We'll also tell you why the cluster is doomed, and why it's part of an astronomical coincidence.

November 21-27: Gas station. For an interplanetary spacecraft, Jupiter is a giant gas station, and we'll explain why. We'll also talk about some watery plumes on one of Jupiter's moons. Join us for Jupiter, plus an astronomical link to Harry Potter and more.

November 28-30: Cosmic rays. Particles from far beyond our solar system are constantly pelting Earth. They can affect our planet's climate, and they're a major environmental source of radiation. Join us for cosmic rays and much more.

Program schedule »

Hear StarDate every day on more than 330 radio stations nationwide. Find an affiliate »

This Month in StarDate Magazine

In our current issue, see how an eclipse influenced a presidential election more than a century ago. You can also get up to date on Eta Carinae, a closely studied star that could explode as a supernova.

About SkyTips

SkyTips is a monthly email newsletter for visitors to McDonald Observatory and StarDate Online. Each issue features stargazing highlights, upcoming StarDate radio program descriptions, and other news. Please feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends and family.

SkyTips is a publication of the University of Texas McDonald Observatory Education and Outreach Office, 2609 University Ave. A2100, Austin, TX 78712. Reproduction of SkyTips content is permitted with proper credit given to McDonald Observatory.

And from Earth/Sky

Two of the five bright planets rise to great prominence this month, Venus and Jupiter, and they almost seem to balance two sides of our sky. Venus, the brightest planet, blazes in the west first thing at dusk. Jupiter, second-brightest, lords over the east before dawn. Two other planets, Saturn and Mars, join Venus at nightfall in early November. Although Venus and Mars remain evening objects throughout November, Saturn drops into the glare of sunset later this month. The most elusive bright planet – Mercury – might become visible at dusk toward the end of the month. Day by day, Mercury climbs upward from the setting sun as Saturn sinks sunward. These two worlds – Saturn and Mercury – will meet for a hard-to-see conjunction in the evening sky on November 23. Follow the links below to learn more about planets in November 2016.

Brilliant Venus is the “evening star”

Mars, east of Venus, until mid-to-late evening

Saturn fades into the sunset

Bright Jupiter is prominent before dawn

Mercury in bright evening twilight in late November

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