THE TAOS TATLER.

Note the “finishes” specification.

D’ye suppose our Chinese friends meant dull? Or perhaps matte? The Free Dictionary provides a clue.

[French, curdled milk, matte, from feminine of obsolete mat, compact, from Old French, dull, from Latin mattus, stupefied; see mat2.]

Twitter’s chairman to Musk: See you in court.

As a young attorney friend said to your Tatler years ago: “Billable hours are sweeter than flowers.”

Quarterly returns of these partnerships should prove most impressive and provide years and years of nice steady income.

Waaaa! Twump shthowe our shwogan!

The excellent blogger at For What It’s Worth reports wailing and gnashing of the teeth at National Public Radio over the loss of the classic feminist marching cry, “My body, My Choice.” Apparently it was appropriated (a leftie euphemism for “stealing,” but only when they’re doing it) by protestors opposed to mandatory vaccination, most of whom happen to be Trump supporters.

The delicious irony of this is when the COVID vaccines were first introduced in 2020, when Trump was still president, the left was generally opposed to taking them–because Trump, of course. Later, when Sleepy Joe assumed office, the left changed its mind about vaccines when realizing they could be politicized by making them mandatory. As the saying goes, attributed to many, “liberals don’t care what you do as long as it’s compulsory.”

Meanwhile, “My Body, My Choice,” lying fallow at the time, was taken up by opponents of mandatory vaccination, an action apparently only discovered, and to their dismay, by militant feminists during the current brouhaha over the Supreme Court’s cashiering of Roe v. Wade.

So now, if you please, it’s “Reproductive Justice,” which does the job we suppose, but doesn’t quite trip off the tongue like “My Body My Choice,” does it? Too bad, infanticidists, you should have copyrighted it.

He promises a comeback, a promise we may be sure will be kept.

Despite a crushing defeat recently over Roe v. Wade, Satan accepts the loss gracefully and credits his team for a fantastic effort. He singles out for special praise team members Nancy Pelosi, Planned Parenthood and Moloch.

With thanks to GWR.

At least she has an Ivy League diploma (sort of–from Brown), which she is happy to tell you about when asked or not asked.

The woman smiling at you above is Ms Tiara Mack and she is running for Rhode Island State Senate, District 10. As a representative in the Rhode Island House, she has sponsored a sex education bill which

 “shall be appropriate for students of all races, genders, sexual orientations, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and shall affirmatively recognize pleasure based sexual relations, different sexual orientations and be inclusive of same-sex relationships in discussions and examples. In addition, comprehensive course instruction shall include gender, gender expression, gender identity, and the harm of negative gender stereotypes.”

So far the bill has gone nowhere, but give it time; Rhode Island is as looney left as neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut. Pay attention therefore to Ms Mack (in verbal media, if you prefer) for she is going places, certainly at least to Rhode Island’s Senate, as she is running unopposed.

The Not-So-Great Litany: Lord have mercy, indeed (e.g., using a foot wedge in golf?).

Here is our Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition after slipping into something more comfortable.

Just when one thinks the Biden Administration has hit rock bottom (if you’ll pardon the expression) with its hires, they let gravity do its thing and sink even lower.

Ever protecting us from misinformation.

For once, Democrats and Republicans stand together.

Music for America by an American.

On this Independence Day it is a good thing to celebrate with music as well as fireworks. Since compositions by American greats  like Sousa and Gershwin are well represented (perhaps overly so) on this day, your Tatler will instead post a couple of links to compositions by another American great, Charles Ives.

Ives’s compositions were all but ignored most his career. His “daytime job” was  insurance, in which he was a pioneer. Among other innovations he was the inventor of what we now call “estate planning.” Ives made scads of money in this line, but it wasn’t until the end of his life he began to receive recognition for his music, most significantly from Leonard Bernstein, who programed one of his symphonies for a New York Philharmonic concert.

Link one is to the third movement of Ives’s Holliday Symphony: The Fourth of July. This is truly difficult music, to listen to and to play (note that two conductors are used in this performance). Nevertheless, the work is also tremendous good fun, chock full of quotes of American tunes, mostly patriotic ones. For example, listen for the tuba early into the piece playing Columbia the Gem of the Ocean (a favorite of Ives), softly and slow. Listeners will may glean from this piece understanding why turn-of-the-last-century audiences had a bit of difficulty with Ives’s music.

Link two isn’t difficult at all in the listening, just fun. It is however, like the last piece, difficult to play:Variations on ‘America‘ (My Country ’tis of Thee) for organ, composed when Ives was but 17 years old and already a virtuoso on that instrument. Watch the organist’s feet (appropriately adorned) flying about the pedalboard toward the end.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.