segunda-feira, 13 de janeiro de 2025

Reflexão - Tiago Marcos

 

(sublinhados meus)

Email Aberto a Marcelo

Um bocadinho menos de graxa a Paddy Cosgrove e mais pulso no que se passa no dia a dia dos Portugueses era o mínimo que poderia ter feito.

Escrevo-lhe hoje, Presidente Marcelo, com o intuito de lhe dar uma pequena perspectiva do seu legado como Presidente da República Portuguesa. Visto ser um email, tentarei ser breve. Senti o impulso de o escrever depois de um passeio que dei pela Baixa de Lisboa na tarde da véspera de Natal. Passava pela Rua Garrett, quando notei um presépio. Fechado a grade, ladeado de cadeados, sem iluminação. Na véspera de Natal um país de matriz Cristã, nem consegue ter um presépio iluminado numa zona proeminente. Continuando a descida, vejo que a rua Augusta foi convertida numa feira ambulante onde nada vendido tem qualquer conexão com Portugal. Que turismo teremos, quando Lisboa se tornar exatamente o mesmo que qualquer outra cidade Europeia? O turismo advém da particularidade de um local, não da sua multiculturalidade.

Passei na minha adolescência tempos felizes entre a Baixa de Lisboa e Almada. Paragem rápida pela Igreja de S. Nicolau (a Igreja mais bonita de Lisboa), fumava um pau de canela (tinha 16 anos) entre amigos e conversas embaraçosas de adolescente. Apanhava depois o barco para Cacilhas. Sem medos. Quanto tiver filhas e filhos quero que tenham a oportunidade de desfrutar da Lisboa, Almada e Caparica em que cresci. Por muito que goste de Inverness, prefiro que cresçam com sol e caldo verde do que com haggis e ventos do mar do Norte. Que aproveitem as tardes para passear por Lisboa, em segurança, sem medo de gangues, drogas e violência. Possam apanhar o cacilheiro em paz e sossego, e entrar numa Almada viva e entusiasmante. Não serem números nalguma folha de cálculo do Governo, prontas a ser exportadas para o mundo. Custa ver as ruas de Almada, a minha primeira morada, maltratadas e ao abandono. Ver a Igreja onde fui baptizado cada vez mais vazia. E continuamos a falar de acolher, enquanto tudo degenera a olhos vistos.  Quando se acabarem os garibaldis do Condestável, e as bicas do café Páscoa, o que sobra?

Nos últimos anos esteve mais preocupado em promover reparações a países que já são independentes há meio século. Deveríamos também investigar o trajecto do ouro e a prata que os cartagineses exploraram na península Ibérica? Fazemos contas com o Norte de África? Escolher o ponto de partida das reparações revela o mesmo  carácter arbitrário que parece ser aplicado aos que querem o aborto como bandeira do progresso. Como se não bastassem as recentes crises  económicas, a pandemia e instabilidade laboral, quer também agora impor a mim e aos meus a responsabilidade sobre eventos acontecidos quando ainda não tínhamos sido concebidos? Sob a sua alçada, tentaram pela calada retirar os direitos de cidadãos Portugueses a residir no estrangeiro de aceder ao serviço nacional de saúde. Nos consulados Portugueses (Reino Unido), o Confucionismo e a total ausência de simpatia para com os Portugueses demonstram por quem os seus sinos dobram. Vi, preocupado, o rol de más decisões que fez, como a estranha reabilitação de António Costa. Então António Costa não serve para Portugal, mas serve para a Europa, com o seu inglês macarrónico e uma condecoração por si atribuída? Condecora quem não deve, não quer saber dos que dia a dia vão sobrevivendo, dos que se esfolaram a trabalhar, entre cursos superiores e quatro empregos part-time, para depois serem humilhados por uma classe política que os não quer cá.

Os conflitos culturais que são cada vez mais visíveis no Reino Unido, e nos quais Keir Starmer, primeiro- ministro Britânico, continua a não estar particularmente interessado (embora já fossem descortinados há uma década por Douglas Murray, mas ninguém quis ouvir) estão finalmente a ser expostos. Também em Portugal a diário temos agora situações tão bicudas que nem a palavra sensações consegue mascarar a natureza da insegurança vivida. Não é normal indivíduos acenderem fogueiras ao pé do Cais do Sodré no meio de um dia de calor. Não é normal que na estação de serviço do Fundão a casa de banho das mulheres seja tomada por homens de idade militar e que tenha que ser eu e a minha mãe a desbloquear o caminho para que as senhoras que estavam à espera a possam utilizar. Não é normal que na Avenida da Igreja, senhoras de idade confidenciem que já quase não vão à Missa, pois têm medo de sair à rua. E continua a falar de multiculturalismo, de inclusividade. Portugal pode ter muitos unicórnios, mas o mundo não é um. Um bocadinho menos de graxa a Paddy Cosgrove e mais pulso no que se passa no dia a dia dos Portugueses era o mínimo que poderia ter feito.

No seu mais recente discurso voltou com as mesmas platitudes, encheu a boca de abrilismos, do discurso de todos, sem indicar nada de concreto. A verdadeira liberdade vem da escolha. A multiculturalidade, pluralismo e diplomacia são uma arte de saber o que aceitar e o que não aceitar. Não escolher nada e querer tudo é apenas uma fogueira de vaidades, vanidades e banalidades. A coesão e alta confiança que produz sociedades harmoniosas exige a presença de escrutínio nas políticas de acolhimento e imigracão. E isto inclui operações policiais, quando um bairro se torna perigoso para os residentes. Um dos maiores extremismos que temos é o da cobardia. Políticos como o senhor tinham a responsabilidade de proteger as operações policiais que nos mantêm seguros, e não lançar farpas mal disfarçadas em discursos redundantes.

Deveria dar-lhe pausa para reflectir que cientistas têm agora que se desdobrar e escrever sobre a situação social e política Portuguesa. Mas a qualidade de vida ficou tão visivelmente deteriorada, a sua falta de carinho pelos Portugueses que não querem ter de abandonar o país, e a total ausência de pulso pela insegurança e falta de serviços em todo o país (para quando a linha da Beira Alta?) assim o requer. Não tenho amigos na política, não tenho curso em ciência política, não faço parte de nenhum grupo de activismo; e, no entanto, parece que percebo a situação atual bastante melhor que a maioria dos deputados da Assembleia da República, amedrontados pelo açaime da cobardia. Não se torne Portugal um pleonasmo de Emigração. Não vou abandonar o país. Farei o que puder, com as parcas capacidades que tenho, para contribuir para o crescimento de Portugal, mesmo que as políticas dos sucessivos governos  não me queiram  cá. Usarei do verdadeiro internacionalismo, não para sair do país, mas para cumprir o que outros apenas apregoam.

Todas estas suas atitudes têm impacto no próprio conceito da Defesa Nacional. Quem, exatamente, vai defender a zona económica em que Portugal, a par e passo com outras capitais europeias, se tornou? Se não há uma matriz cultural a respeitar, de onde vem o dever para com o país? Mas nada disto lhe interessa. Quer apenas apregoar um multiculturalismo oco, vazio, sem alma. Volte a ler e comentar livros, o seu nicho. Para isso tem algum talento. Recomendo o conto “Sete Andares” de Dino Buzzati, um curto esboço que pode inspirar alguma reflexão sobre o que se passa na Europa. Percorra este verão os caminhos de Santiago e pense no que fez em relação aos Portugueses e ao país. E, por favor, não apague este email.

The spectator - Don’t ambush parents with activism

 (personal underlines)


Don’t ambush parents with activism

As we sat down at the Royal Opera House to watch one of the Royal Ballet’s soloists perform Letter to Tchaikovsky, an announcement began. ‘Tchaikovsky is understood to have been a gay man, who was forced by the conventions of society to marry a woman,’ explained an earnest female voice from off-stage. ‘The music, words and dance describe the pain and guilt he experienced as a closeted queer person… but like many others before and since, the fact that he was queer meant that he had to stay secret about who he really was… It is still illegal to be gay or queer in 69 countries, and queer people continue to face discrimination or violence all over the world, including here in Britain.’

The audience didn’t seem hugely concerned by this news. They were, however, very bothered by who would get to sit on the limited number of beanbags at the front of the auditorium. The performance was part of a family event for small children, and a few parents did look a little perplexed as to why the announcement was necessary. At least we were spared the details of Tchaikovsky’s incestuous relationship with his own nephew, a concept possibly too advanced for even the most enlightened London tot.

Afterwards, I wrote to the Royal Opera House to find out if there had been a ‘content warning’ that I might have missed. The ROH is not typically shy about these: ticket holders for Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor were duly warned about the opera’s graphic depictions of sex and violence.

The reply I received directed me to the QR codes, which – had I spotted and chosen to use them – would have alerted me to the show’s message that ‘Everyone should be free to live openly wherever they are in the world’. ‘We will ensure going forwards that there is a clearer summary of the content themes in each piece, so parents and children can be better informed to choose whether particular events are right for them,’ I was told.

Navigating modern parenthood is tricky, especially when trying not to come across as a reactionary pearl-clutcher. Yes, yes, of course it is wrong that it is still illegal to be gay in so many countries. I imagine every adult member of the audience felt the same. We’re the sort of smug, self-consciously liberal types who choose the Royal Opera House over church on a Sunday morning. But had I known my four-year-old daughter was about to be introduced to queer persecution, I might have suggested we head to the puppet-making stand instead.

Was I being homophobic? I don’t think so. It’s not so much the subject matter that unsettled me as the fact that a political point was being shoehorned into a performance aimed at infants. At some point, my daughter will inevitably learn about the grim realities of the world: how Iran executes gay teenagers, say, or how in Saudi Arabia, gay men face lashings and imprisonment. When she does, I imagine she’ll want to do something about it, even if the obvious truth is she can’t.

It’s that sense of agency that seems important to try to preserve for children. We should avoid burdening them with serious problems they feel powerless to fix. Yet, as we bombard them from increasingly young ages with the world’s ills, from racism and slavery to genocide and human rights abuses, is it any wonder that childhood anxiety is soaring? Greta Thunberg’s rallying cry for children to solve climate change is, for all its sincerity, as much a fairy tale as anything you might find by Hans Christian Andersen. In trying to raise activist warriors, we’ve produced anxious worriers.

So I have become that neurotic mother, firing off letters about content warnings, desperately trying to shield my child from the harshness of the world. I don’t agree with content warnings in general, so why am I writing to the ROH asking about theirs? Get a grip, Lara. Don’t be that person.

But then a week later, at a friend’s house, my daughter picks a book from the Little People, Big Dreams series for me to read to her. It is about Princess Diana – a story that will, I suppose, teach her that not all princesses live happily ever after. We begin to read. ‘Whenever she felt alone, [Diana] sought relief by eating all the cakes she could find in the royal kitchen. But that sweet feeling of comfort didn’t last long. Once it was gone, she would try to get rid of all the food she had eaten by making herself sick… Even though her life seemed to be taken from the pages of a fairy tale, she soon realised that the prince’s heart belonged to someone else. Over time that sadness grew into an eating disorder called b…u…l…i…’

I slam the book shut. I can’t do it. I don’t want my daughter to know that word, not yet, not for as long as I can possibly prevent her from learning it. I feel angry at the publishers for thinking an eating disorder is an appropriate detail to include in a book aimed at young girls. Could they not have brushed over it? I note the book avoids talking about Diana’s death but three pages are devoted to her eating disorder. I suggest we choose something else instead. Roald Dahl? Let’s find Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the unedited version, with fat Augustus Gloop, the little brute.

I immediately revise my position on content warnings, suddenly feeling hardline on the matter. The Princess Diana book should have had a very clear content warning on the front cover and yes, maybe Letter to Tchaikovsky should have had one too. I don’t want to feel ambushed by activism.

When I later check the ROH website, I see that the next Family Sunday performance of Letter to Tchaikovsky now comes with a more detailed description. ‘Tchaikovsky composed some of the world’s most loved fairytale ballets. In his life, however, he found it challenging to find his “happy ever after” because of his love for another man.’ I may have triggered a content warning, and I am not sure how I feel about it. All I can conclude is that I do not feel cut out for the confusing dance that is modern parenthood – but I suspect I am not the only one.

The Spectator -Marc Guehi has exposed the flaw in football’s Rainbow Laces campaign

 (personal underlines)


Marc Guehi has exposed the flaw in football’s Rainbow Laces campaign

Marc Guehi of Crystal Palace wrote 'Jesus loves you' on his rainbow armband (Getty images)

Is the Football Association’s Rainbow Laces campaign about inclusivity or not? The FA doesn’t seem to be able to make up its mind.

When Crystal Palace captain Marc Guehi wrote ‘I love Jesus’ on his rainbow-coloured armband during his side’s draw against Newcastle United on Saturday, he was ‘reminded’ by the FA that religious messaging on kit is banned. Last night, Guehi called the FA’s bluff by writing another message – ‘Jesus loves you’ – on his armband in Crystal Palace’s game against Ipswich.

His messages seem to be a sensible way of taking part in a campaign showing support for inclusion in sport, while expressing his own Christian faith. If the point of this initiative is about making people feel included, is there a more welcoming message than telling people that Jesus loves them? You might think that Jesus isn’t real, but even if you do there’s nothing offensive about Guehi’s scrawled words.

Perhaps Guehi would have been better off adopting the approach of the Ipswich captain Sam Morsy, a Muslim who refused to wear the rainbow armband altogether. The FA is understood to deem that a matter for Morsy and his club and does not view his decision as a breach of its regulations. But it isn’t clear if that same soft approach will apply to Guehi, who could face a ban if he is deemed to have broken the rules.

By the letter of the law, Guehi could well find himself in trouble: Rule A4 of the FA’s kit and advertising regulations prohibit the ‘appearance on, or incorporation in, any item of clothing, football boots or other equipment of any religious message’. 

Guehi’s message is undoubtedly religious. But if the Palace captain is breaking the rules, is the FA also guilty of double standards? The rules also state that: ‘Players must not reveal undergarments that show political…slogans, statements or images’. The Rainbow Laces campaign is backed by Stonewall, an organisation that has led the charge on transgender rights. Is that campaign not a political one? Stonewall’s approach has certainly alienated many lesbian and gay people – as well as plenty of women – who do not share its views on gender issues. Back in 2021, a number of organisations even abandoned Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme following an argument about trans rights. The FA, though, has stuck with Stonewall. This unseemly row might lead them to reflect on whether that is a partnership that should continue – and whether it might be sensible to make this year’s Rainbow Laces campaign the last.

domingo, 12 de janeiro de 2025

The Spectator - The future of churchgoing in the West: why Protestants should worry and Catholics should panic

 

(personal underlines)

The future of churchgoing in the West: why Protestants should worry and Catholics should panic

King Charles III is the first British monarch to inherit a post-Christian kingdom. Less than half of his subjects identify themselves as Christian, and only about one in 20 adults in the UK go to church on Sundays. Since 1980 church attendance has more than halved – and that’s broadly the situation in most of Western Europe. 

In the traditionally God-fearing United States, in contrast, roughly 20 per cent of people are practising Christians. But there, too, the statistics now point to a steady decline in religious belief; the figures are worrying for American Protestants and catastrophic for American Catholics. 

My guest on this episode of Holy Smoke is Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University who posts twice-weekly reports on the state of US religion on his Graphs About Religion website. He’s also a pastor in one of the least doctrinally conservative Baptist denominations, the American Baptist Church. As you’ll hear, he identifies with the enormous number of Americans – probably a clear majority of the population – who feel alienated by an increasingly sectarian ‘progressive’ atheism and, on the other, by the dogmatic views of many Evangelical and Catholic leaders on the subjects of homosexuality and abortion. 

At every stage in our conversation, Ryan produces statistics that socially conservative Christians would rather not think about. Indeed, we know they haven’t been paying attention to them because the pro-life movement was so obviously unprepared for the current backlash against the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade even among churchgoing Republicans. 

You may not agree with Ryan Burge’s opinions, but it’s hard to envisage a future for Western Christianity unless believers confront the huge body of research on which they’re based. 

Livro - Como ser um conservador (Roger Scruton)

 Definitely a great thinker and writer!










Livros lidos em 2024

  1. "50 anos de observação" de Manuel Homem de Melo
  2. "Salazar" de Yves Léonard
  3. "As mulheres dos nazis" de Anna Maria Sigmund
  4. "Salazar e Kennedy" de José Freire Antunes
  5. "Zoobiquidade" de Barbara Natterson-Horowitz e Kathryn Bowers
  6. "As causas do atraso português" de Nuno Palma
  7. "Impasse"  de Francisco Sá Carneiro
  8. "O novíssimo príncipe" de Adriano Moreira
  9. "Vera Lagoa meteu a pata na poça" de José Vilhena
  10. "Biografia de Luis Cangueiro" de Cremilde Esteves
  11. "Reformar Portugal" de L Valadares Tavares (e outros)
  12. "Memórias de um inspector da PIDE" de Fernando Gouveia
  13. "História de Portugal" (Yves Léonard)
  14. Revista "Crítica XXI"( nº 7)
  15. "O estado Servil" de Hillaire Belloc
  16. "O crepúsculo da idade média em Portugal" de António José Saraiva
  17. "Memórias de Pedro Theotónio Pereira" (Vol I)
  18. "Memórias de Pedro Theotónio Pereira" (Vol II)
  19. "Nixon e Marcelo" de José Freire Antunes
  20. "Salazar" de Jacques Ploncard D'Assac
  21. "A bolha" de Riccardo Marchi
  22. "12 rules for life" de Jordan Peterson (Inglês)
  23. "Como mentir com a Estatística" de Darrel Huff
  24. "A estranha morte da Europa" de Douglas Murray
  25. "O fim da vergonha" de Vicente Valentim
  26. "Estatística para todos" de Frances Clegg
  27. "A direita da Revolução" de Riccardo Marchi
  28. "Para o Infinito" de Martin Rees
  29. "A Ciência e os seus inimigos" de Carlos Fiolhais e David Marçal
  30. "Heavy Metal" (vários) (inglês)
  31. "O primeiro Ranger Português" de Rudolfo Begonha
  32. "História curta da humanidade" Yuval Noah Harari
  33. "Amours" de Jacques Attali (francês)
  34. "Utopias em Dói Menor" de Onésimo Almeida e João Maurício Brás
  35. "Revista Crítica XXI" (nº8)
  36. "O ataque ao Ocidente" de Douglas Murray
  37. "Uma relação exemplar" A. J. Saraiva e Oscar Lopes
  38. "Opinião pública e outros textos" Fernando Pessoa
  39. "O atraso português" de João Maurício Brás
  40. "Abril pelas direitas" (vários)
  41. "Textos sem açaime" de João Maurício Brás
  42. "The life and death of Hitler's spymaster" - Wilhelm Canaris (Inglês)
  43. "Os democratas e os democratas que destruíram a democracia" de João Maurício Brás
  44. "Como ser um conservador" de Roger Scruton
  45. "Les identités meurtrières" de Amin Malouff (francês)
  46. Lamento de uma América em ruínas de J. D. Vance
  47. Onésimo, único e multímodo de João Manuel Brás (2024 e 2025)
  48. Revista Crítica XXI (nº 1) 



The Spectator - Why I’m voting for the AfD

 

(personal underlines)

Why I’m voting for the AfD

On 23 February, I will vote for the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party in the German general election. As someone with an immigrant parent, a postgraduate degree, and who works in the liberal world of film and TV, this is the last thing I’m supposed to admit to in public.

My fellow Germans might understand my not wanting to vote for the Social Democratic party (SPD), the left-wingers who lead our deeply unpopular coalition government. But as an ‘educated’ millennial, surely I ought to vote Green? After all, our shamelessly non-neutral public broadcasters ARD and ZDF acclaim them the ‘party of youth’.

Or perhaps, as someone who usually thinks of themselves as a conservative, I should vote for the Christian Democratic Union, the bland centre-right party which is predicted to gain the most votes in the election? The hard truth, though, is that Germany is no longer the safe, prosperous country I remember from my childhood, and it is these ‘normal’ parties who are to blame.

Many of Germany’s problems started when Angela Merkel, the former CDU chancellor, decided in 2015 to open the borders to anyone who claimed to be a Syrian refugee. Millions came, with a compliant media claiming they would be the doctors and engineers of the future who would pay for our pensions. Nearly a decade on, many of those who arrived still don’t have jobs, can’t speak German and rely on benefits. There has been a significant rise in terror attacks and an increase in violent crime linked directly to some of these immigrants.

Now nearly half of all welfare recipients are foreigners. More than €132 billion in welfare has been paid to them since 2010, with costs tripling between 2010 and 2023. By contrast, it is estimated that the sum needed to upgrade schools, roads and our increasingly unreliable public transport system comes to €165 billion. Merkel’s generosity came at the direct expense of German citizens.

The situation has been made worse by the economic vandalism of the SPD and Greens, who shut down our nuclear power plants on ideological grounds and pushed our car industry into the dead end of electric vehicles. As a result, combined with the effects of the war in Ukraine, we have been blessed with soaring energy prices, a higher cost of living and a huge expansion in the numbers of people employed in our notoriously ponderous civil service. Unsurprisingly, every week brings news of more layoffs and bankruptcies.

Everyone is feeling the pinch. Friends complain that they’ve had to move back in with their parents because of rising rents. Others tell me they have stopped buying meat in their weekly shop because of the cost. Many of the people I know bemoan the fact that, despite the expensive health insurance we pay for, there is no longer a hospital with facilities for children nearby. For the first time in our lives, we sense the likelihood that we will not enjoy the kind of lifestyle that our parents have been blessed with.

It’s hardly a surprise that the AfD is second in the polls, but what is particularly striking is the number of young voters shifting away from the Greens. In a recent internal school election in Thuringia, nearly half the students voted for the AfD, citing crime, immigration and a lack of jobs. In state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, the AfD have dominated the youth vote. In Brandenburg, they came first with every age group until it came to the over-sixties. They have been the only party consistently to oppose mass immigration and Germany’s absurdly lax criminal laws. The latter have led to cases such as the one last year when a gang rapist was given a suspended sentence because he was under 20, while a woman who insulted him in a text message was sent to jail for the weekend.

Despite the AfD’s growing popularity, the other parties continue to operate the Brandmauer or ‘firewall’, in which they refuse to cooperate with them at all. This is a policy which doesn’t apply to parties like Die Linke, the direct descendent of the Communist party, which instituted the Stasi to rule East Germany. This blinkered approach makes a mockery of democracy and is harming our political system, as the AfD becomes too big to exclude, with parliamentary rules being rewritten on the fly to keep them out.

The establishment parties argue that the AfD is extremist, but the problem is that many of those issuing the accusations are less than impartial. Stephan Kramer, who runs the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which declared the AfD ‘extremist’, was once an electoral candidate for the SPD. The widely reported claims by the website Correctiv that AfD members were involved in a secret conference in Potsdam to discuss deporting German nationals of foreign origin turned out to be false.

I don’t agree with everything the AfD says or does. Prominent figures such as Björn Höcke argue against the free market and capitalism, in favour of measures which would worsen our economic problems. But it was the other parties who led us into this mess and, without the pressure of the AfD, they would happily continue to do so. Even if the CDU now says that Germany may leave the ECHR and deport criminals who repeatedly offend, such promises are worth little because Germany’s electoral system would mean they had to form a coalition with the SPD or Greens, who would push them left when the majority in the country want a right-wing government.

The AfD is therefore the only choice for those who want to cut taxes, end mass immigration, restore our nuclear power, tackle the welfare state and prune over-regulation. That’s why I join Elon Musk in saying that only the AfD can save Germany.

Time - We Don’t Want New Music Anymore

 

(personal underlines)

Recently my wife and I went to a performance by a band whose debut album came out in 1986. Every couple of years they produce yet another collection of well-crafted, well-played, mid-tempo album of songs about life in all its mysteries and heartbreaks. More than 20 studio albums in these 38 years. (Considerably more than Pink Floyd or Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles, if, like me, you’re prone to thinking like that.)

These days their new music get modest attention, and the venues they play are decidedly smaller. Still, here they were touring behind their latest album, but it was also clear the singer knew what she was up against with that. After the band kicked off with two older tunes, the singer, in a manner so sheepish that it made me feel both pity and anger, announced they were going to play a few new songs tonight. Cue the uneasy smattering of applause. She immediately added, less there be immediate walkouts, that they’d also be playing all the old favorites we expected to hear. It was all I could do to not stand up and shout, “Play your new music!” They’d more than earned that right. But I was sure by the crowd’s stiff reaction that if I voiced such support I’d be beset by the 60-somethings around me in their flowy smocks and spartan sandals. 

For me, all of this only underscored a question I’d been asking for several years, despite feeling sure I know the terrible answer: Do we even want new music anymore?

I’ve asked the question of friends, strangers, and also famous musicians, who could have been offended but weren’t despite the fact that their response revealed some uncomfortable truths. I asked it of people who toiled in the music industry and of people who made a living writing about music.

Once I asked it of a woman at the Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Fl., after watching a Tom Petty-Stevie Nicks tribute act—tribute acts being a sure-fire way to avoid hearing anything new. I explained that I was writing a book exploring this central question, but this time instead of posing it like I had a million times before, I just said, “What I’m writing about and arguing in this book is that we don’t really want to hear new music anymore,” to which she quickly said, “Correct. I would fully agree with you on that.” And then her friend, standing next to her, added, “For a certain age group,” and I said yes, she was right about that—I wasn’t talking about teenagers or people in their early 20s. But pretty much everyone older than that.

Over the years the answers I got were sometimes nuanced, but on the whole people tended to answer with sighs of knowing resignation, even relief. The old hits are today’s hits, too.

In 2024, we’ve arrived at the point in which a remarkably select number of songs within the scope of the history of recorded rock and pop music—a great many of them from the ’80s—are always playing somewhere across this once great musical landscape. On the airwaves they’re hawking everything from Geico insurance (Homeowner: “We do have a Ratt problem,” which cuts away to Ratt playing in the basement), to TurboTax (Spandau Ballet’s “This Much is True”) to Yoplait (Boston’s “More Than a Feeling”) to Fiber One (the Scorpions’ “Rock Like You a Hurricane”). Hey Scorpions, come clean: The impetus behind “Rock You Like a Hurricane” was always about the importance of fiber, right?

Somehow we got so content with the music we know from long ago that we became dangerously well-gorged on it. And at such a state we decided—however consciously or unconsciously—that we just didn’t need any new music.

To be clear, I’m aware that the new music keeps coming. Bad Bunny! Beyonce! More Taylor Swift! And we can listen to that new music in more ways than ever before. Yet digital album sales continue to be down—dropping about 8% compared to 2023’s totals, according to Luminate, an entertainment data company. And while the sale of vinyl albums is up—at an estimated 6%—that’s largely because people want “classic” albums on vinyl. Less Coldplay, more Led Zeppelin.

Sure, you might check out the new album by the Foo Fighters, Adele, Post Malone, or the Weeknd, and for a few weeks it’s what all the music press and bloggers and podcasters are in rapture over. Maybe you try to listen to it intently for a few weeks because you understand you’re supposed to love it—it’s supposed to be the best album they’ve put out. Everyone is saying so. And you either come to believe that, too, or, just as likely, you accept it without actually feeling it. But in a month’s time or less, it’s as if that big album never dropped at all, and you go right back to listening to everything that came well before it, and it never finds a place in your playlist closest to your heart. Because on your playlist and in steady rotation is Journey’s “Greatest Hits” album, released in 1998, which, as of this writing, has spent 828 weeks on the Billboard 200 album chart.

We’ve arrived at this strange juncture with new music and old music due to two powerful forces—one deeply commercial, the other deeply human: repetition and nostalgia. With the arrival of MTV, the Video Age was here, and with it came consequences that still play out today. As MTV became more mainstream, Top 40 radio and MTV fed each other incessantly. If a song was a hit, it had a video in constant rotation. If that video was popular, then the song was on the airwaves nonstop. Sometimes the video was insipid, but that hardly mattered. We were stuck in a new loop of musical periodicity.

Read more: Nostalgia: Our Favorite Cultural Copout

In the years before MTV, had we really settled for all that bowling coverage on ABC and “Baretta”?

Despite all the new music made after the height of MTV, it turned out we still couldn’t get enough of those songs from the era of Video Killing the Radio Star, no matter how lame or shoddy they were. They have survived like the Great Pyramids thanks to the deepest layers of fervent nostalgia for the era that birthed them.

My experience is that pretty much everyone believes that music from this century won’t nearly have the same afterlife because it’s vastly inferior to the music that came 40 or 50 years before it. 

But you also can’t rate what you’ve never listened to.


According to a 2022 Luminate report, boomers are listening to more music from the ’70s than from any other decade, which is no great surprise. Both Millennials and Gen Xers prefer ’90s music. Only Gen-Z prefers the music of this decade. Also this: Only 63% of boomers even like it when their favorite artists release new music. New Blondie? New Doobie Brothers or Kansas? Mostly boomers prefer new knees.

The consequences of this are worrisome: The more we’re apathetic to new music from even the long-established artists we love, the more they’ll just settle for touring for a living and playing the songs they recorded back when Thursday nights meant staying home and watching “Seinfeld.” But even with our endless capacity for endless repetition, the greatest hits eventually stop feeling, well, as great.

What does this all mean for new artists? Increasingly they’re going to be on the outside looking in, due to one major and well-documented development  in recent years that will have a profound impact on the music we’ll be hearing in the future—what and how: the massive acquisition of artists’ catalogs. When the pandemic took hold and it was clear no artists were going on tour for who knew how long, some established musicians tried to soothe our anxiety—and themselves—by performing live via their Instagram accounts. They strummed their acoustic guitars in their kitchens and home studios and on their porches, often covering other artists’ songs, perhaps to remember better days. Some made what came to be known as COVID records. (Predictably, on the whole, a lot of themes of isolation set to 4/4.) But other artists hatched plans that I would not consider soothing: They sold their back catalogs to venture capitalists for vast fortunes. And that music is going to show up in ways you can’t even imagine.

So if you think you hear an awful lot of Huey Lewis and the News and the Steve Miller Band now, in 2024, you’re about to find out just how “Stuck With You” Huey and his peers from the ‘70s and ‘80s really are.


There’s always going to be the next Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter. What this century has shown us, though, is how dicey it is for the break-out artists to keep making new music we want to hear in the years that follow. Snow Patrol, anyone? Gnarls Barkley? Daniel Powter?

It may be hard to remember, but we used to want so much from music. Today mostly what we want is for it to remain deeply familiar. The Internet makes this exceptionally easy. Yes, we’ve always been prone to nostalgia in music. Think of groups like Sha Na Na, who performed at Woodstock right before Jimi Hendrix’s mind-bending set and whose entire career was made up of performing ‘50s music; or the Stray Cats, an ‘80s band whose very look and sound paid tribute to the ‘50s rockabilly scene. 

Read More: Leave Chappell Roan Alone

But today nostalgia is so immutable because so much about the Internet exists to remind us of life as it once was. Whether it’s the Facebook post from your childhood friend of a KC & the Sunshine Band album he dug out of his basement, or Joan from book club putting another clip of the Macarena on her Instagram, the Internet can lull us into a perpetual state of looking back and believing that what the culture offered us through the previous decades was more gratifying and more fun, and that life in the past was inherently a better and richer time. And so was the music

On YouTube old music reigns: We can watch whole episodes of “American Bandstand” or full, grainy-footage concerts of Grand Funk Railroad and the Carpenters. On an endless line of music sites you can pour over the latest ranking of a band’s albums who peaked when TV Guide was still at the grocery-store check-out. Or maybe you like Rolling Stone’s incessant polls of greatest guitar players of all time, greatest singers, or greatest drummers. There is certainly room for that reflection on music from the past, but all those lists—and the impulses behind them—ultimately help keep us in Exile on Main Street.

Nothing to get hung about, you say? I think I disagree. 

Adapted from The Endless Refrain: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat to New Music. Used with permission of the publisher, Melville House Publishing. Copyright © 2024 by David Rowell.

Fotos - Katzen

 








Reflexão - Vetvals (my beanie)

Well, at last, I'm gonna change my "beanie".

During the last 35 years, I've used, after the Tuesdays volleyball sessions in Valsassina college, and to protect from the cold weather here in Lisbon :):):), the beanie from the Hartford Whalers, that António and Eunice gave me a long time ago. 


(Dezember 2002, when we dine at Joaquim Bernardo's home - an unsheltered as Jorge Orestes put it :))


 

Times are changing

Ténis Onitsuka

Another unconscious atempt to come to the past, buying some snickers, directly from China, and similar to the Onitsuka tiger we use in the late 70's when playing volleyball. In these days they are martial arts shoes. Beautiful!


Mais uma tentativa de "regresso ao passado", adquirindo uns ténis, semelhantes no formato e aspecto aos Tiger Onitsuka dos anos setenta, e que recordo com tanta saudade. Descobri-os enquanto sapatos de artes marciais. E encomendei-os da China. E vieram, contrariamente ao que encomendei e chegou há mais de um ano. Nessa altura, presentearam-me com um anel soberbamente enfeitado e embrulhado, mas que de ténis nada tinha :):):). 




 











quinta-feira, 9 de janeiro de 2025

Reflexão - Xuxu "The" cat

 Pardon my French: is there "anybody out there"? You know what I mean...



Livros - Lamento de uma América em ruínas (J.D.Vance)

I wonder: a book written by the future president of USA? 

What a life! Most people should read to know the exact meaning of what's a tough life...















Free Press - Heroin Chic Is Back

 (personal underlines)


Heroin Chic Is Back

Awards season officially kicks off today with the Golden Globes, and millions of us will gather—not to watch who will win an irrelevant trophy, but rather to judge who wore it best. But now, in the age of Ozempic, it’s all under scrutiny: the gowns, of course, but also the faces, the bellies, the butts. Hollywood’s addiction to weight-loss drugs means today’s red carpet creatures are thin to the point of emaciation.

Watching the parade of skeletons, it’s clear that “fat empowerment” was always a farce. And the “body positivity” movement, which is meant to celebrate all physiques no matter how big or small, was built on wishful thinking.

With Ozempic, most Americans who have the money and means now have a choice about whether to be fat or thin, and no one is choosing the belly rolls. Just consider People magazine, which published a piece entitled “Stars Who Love to Celebrate Their Curves” just before the Ozempic craze took off in December 2022. Number one celebrity on the list? Lizzo, who once said “I like being fat” and created a reality show that heralded “big grrrls.” In 2024, Lizzo took a vacation to Bali to lose weight—not through drugs, she says, but through diet and exercise—and emerged significantly lighter.

But even if Lizzo isn’t benefiting from GLP-1 agonists—the class of weight-loss drugs known by the brand names Ozempic, Wegovy, or Mounjaro—many others are. Celebrities who confess to having used it include Chelsea Handler, Sharon Osbourne, Boy George, Elon Musk, Tracy Morgan, and Whoopi Goldberg. Even Oprah Winfrey took it, then resigned as a WeightWatchers board member to work on a TV special about the rise of prescription weight-loss drugs.

One Los Angeles entertainment lawyer told me, “Everyone in L.A. is on it. Every. One.”

But this easy slim-down solution has a dark underbelly. After attending Fashion Week in Paris last September, ’90s supermodel Veronica Webb told me: “Heroin chic is back. All because of Ozempic. There are no more different body types on the runways anymore—it’s all extremely thin. It’s disturbing.”

The body positivity movement started out in the protest culture of the 1960s and reemerged in the 1990s as a backlash to heroin chic. By the height of #MeToo, it became a feminist statement to embrace bigger bodies, and in many ways, it was refreshing to see a more voluptuous figure embraced. (In 2016, Sports Illustrated put the beautiful, curvy Ashley Graham on the cover and turned her into a star.) But, like all activist movements, it got swept away by its own power, hectoring us to adhere to the new orthodoxy, with hashtags like #CelebrateMySize and #HonorMyCurves telling us to fall into line. Even the medical profession, which should know better, has promoted some of these beliefs in the name of “inclusion.” And in December, San Francisco hired Virgie Tovar, author of You Have the Right to Remain Fat, to consult with the city’s Department of Public Health on “weight stigma and weight neutrality.”

But the current iteration of the movement is built on falsehoods, which everyone is aware of but is too afraid to admit. They include:

  • Being obese is healthy! (Never mind the heart disease, diabetes, and shortened life spans that come with a heightened BMI.)

  • Don’t criticize or question celebrities who appear dangerously thin! (Even if your teenage daughter is starving herself to look like that celeb.)

  • How dare you talk about anyone’s body? Just focus on your own! (Never mind that humanity has evolved by judging other people—and that will never change.)

Now let’s be clear here. I am not anti-Ozempic. Obesity and its related issues are the leading cause of death worldwide. GLP-1 is a miracle drug for the many people who can’t shed the weight, no matter how hard they try. And as a perimenopausal woman who can’t lose the 20 pounds that mysteriously appeared on my thighs and stomach over the past year, despite diet and exercise, I am not against using GLP-1 to get back to a “normal” weight.

The problem is, the people taking the drug aren’t just 20 pounds overweight. Women who were once merely svelte now seem to be wasting away. Take, for example, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s bizarre press tour for Wicked. When journalist Tracy Gilchrist rambled on about “holding space,” Grande—whose size 0 corset dress hung loosely on her body—showed support by gently holding Erivo’s forefinger with her delicate hand, probably since that was the only part of her she had the strength to support. Neither Grande nor Erivo have said they are taking Ozempic, but that hasn’t stopped the rumors—or the concern. Even in our body-positive universe, some people are saying the unsayable:

“I’m usually ariana’s biggest defender when it comes to her weight but she’s actually starting to look VERY sickly this cannot be healthy,” one fan of Grande’s commented on X.

“I am actually worried now about ariana grande. She looks wayyy too thin. i hope she is ok. ❤️,” another wrote.

Grande, however, immediately labeled anyone who criticized her as a “dangerous” body shamer. And, weirdly, the media went into full-on gaslighting mode. In an “exclusive,” the Daily Mail revealed “the real reason Ariana Grande looks so different” is because she had dyed her hair from dark to blonde, bleached her eyebrows, and stopped using a self-tanner.

After almost a decade of fat positivity, we are now caught in a weird hinterland, completely confused about what we can and can’t say about people’s bodies, when none of it is baffling at all: When bodies are overweight or underweight, it’s not healthy. So why should we pretend it is? In the past, heroin chic died because the media pointed out it was dangerous. But now, no one will call out the risks of being overly fat—or thin.

Meanwhile, online pharmacies such as Hers, Winona, Noom, and others aimed at women’s “health” have multiplied like cockroaches, promising that we will “lose 15% to 20%” of our body weight and get fast and easy approvals for online prescriptions. All you have to do is fill out a simple questionnaire, lie about your weight, and have a GLP-1 drug prescribed by an online “nurse” for $150.

The way we’re going now, most of the population could soon end up looking like no-ass, fat-free freaksand no one will be brave enough to say how crazy we all look. Meanwhile, don’t be surprised if tonight, the dresses are wearing the women rather than the other way around.