Vote NO on Ohio Issue 1

August 8^th will mark Ohio’s most important election in recent memory.  There are no federal or state candidates on the ballot.  Instead, there is only one item: Issue 1, a proposed Constitutional Amendment which would do the following:

• Raise the bar for getting an amendment on the ballot from 5% of voters in the last general election in 44 Ohio counties to 5% in all 88 counties. 
• Eliminate the 10-day time period to correct petition signatures deemed faulty from the Secretary of State’s office.  In other words, signatures deemed faulty by the Secretary of State (a partisan, elected office) will be thrown out with no opportunity for redress – forcing petitioners to begin the entire process again.
• If an issue gets on the ballot, the threshold to pass will be raised from 50% plus 1 to 60%.

In simplest terms, Issue 1, if passed, would make future Conditional amendments a virtual impossibility. 

The hypocrisy of those pushing this amendment is stunning.  Extremist Republicans were content with majority rule when it came to passing a Constitutional amendment outlawing marriage equality – which was later overturned by the U. S. Supreme Court.  They’re also fine with a simple majority to pass this amendment.  But with the prospect of an amendment protecting women’s reproductive rights looming, Ohio’s right wingers, funded by out of state interests, want to raise the bar.  It’s understandable why the pro-Issue 1 cadre is wary of an amendment protecting choice: most Ohioans are pro-Choice, as is the majority of Americans.  Issue 1’s backers are resorting to the usual odious scaremongering: they are claiming Issue 1’s opponents are trying to “destroy the family unit”, and they're airing ads claiming Issue 1’s defeat will lead to forced gender reassignment of children and “post-birth” abortions – whatever those are.  This is a classic case of the uber-religious trying to drum up hysteria to impose their values on everybody, regardless of one's religious choice. 

The pro-Issue 1 people have the gall to suggest that Issue 1 is really about protecting Democracy, while touting an amendment that violates the sacred democratic principle of “one person, one vote.”  Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who pushed to get this amendment on the ballot, has been caught in his own lie. 

The pro-Issue 1 campaign has become so odious that numerous Ohio Republicans, including former Cuyahoga County commissioner Lee Weingart, former governors Bob Taft and John Kasich, and two former Ohio attorneys general have come out against it.  In addition, a broad coalition of groups from across the political spectrum oppose Issue 1.

This issue will not be decided, however, by card carrying Republicans or Democrats.  It will be decided by unaffiliated voters, which constitutes the largest voting bloc in Ohio.  It is up to them to show up and vote NO on Issue 1. 

Rachmaninoff at Blossom with Kochanovsky and Lugansky

 

Daniel and I didn't follow our normal summer concert routine yesterday.  Instead of a leisurely pre-concert dinner at Mexibachi Grill near Blossom Music Center, we joined his family in Lorain for a lovely birthday party before racing to Cuyahoga Falls for last night’s concert.  It's fun to mix things up.  Several weeks ago, as I booked tickets for the concert, I fretted over which seats to get – forgetting the giant video screens that now make such considerations superfluous.  As the concert proceeded, Daniel and I found ourselves looking at the screens more than the stage. 

The Cleveland Orchestra was never considered to be a “Rachmaninoff” orchestra, in contrast to the Philadelphia Orchestra which the composer considered to be the world’s finest.  But Sergei Rachmaninoff had worked with the Cleveland’s first two conductors, Nikolai Sokoloff and Artur Rodziński – and when the former was preparing to make the first-ever recording of Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony, the composer collaborated with Sokoloff over cuts to the music to fit the work onto the allotted number of 78rpm discs.  Despite dated sonics, the 1928 recording holds up very well.

Fortunately, recording technology and the music world have evolved so that Rachmaninoff’s works are generally performed intact these days.  The opening work on the program, his Third Concerto, was performed complete – as it should be.  Soloist Nikolai Lugansky, making his Cleveland Orchestra debut, delivered a cohesive, well-nigh technically flawless performance – “like butter,” as some would say.  Conceptually, his approach to the work was very much like the composer’s own recording, but a tad more relaxed and, as mentioned, without any disfiguring cuts.  As with the composer and his chosen successor, Vladimir Horowitz, Lugansky chose the faster, quicksilver cadenza.   Conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky, also making his Cleveland Orchestra debut, was with the soloist for every step of the journey – urging the orchestra toward more extroverted playing than is usually heard from them.  At the work’s conclusion, they received an immediate ovation and were recalled several times, with Lugansky furnishing an encore: Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C minor, Op. 23, No. 7.

The Symphony No. 1, which followed intermission, was not as successful.  The heart of the problem lay with the work itself – it’s easily the weakest of the composer’s three Symphonies.  Indeed, the merciless laceration the work received following its premiere in 1897 – with critic César Cui denouncing it as suited to a “conservatory in Hell” and likening it to “the Ten Plagues of Egypt” – sent the composer into a depression so severe that he suffered from a three-year writer’s block which could only be resolved by hypnotherapy.  The work lay forgotten, its score believed to be lost until surfacing in 1945, two years after the composer’s death.  Listening with modern ears and having heard the work numerous times in recordings, it’s obvious it owes much to Tchaikovsky and Borodin in orchestration.  The Dies Irae theme, which is referenced in numerous of Rachmaninoff’s work, is heard constantly throughout – transformed from minor to major – to the point of over-repetition.   Kochanovsky and the orchestra delivered a polished rendition of the work, but audience members were seen leaving the pavilion as it proceeded. 

Yours truly before the concert.

Further thoughts on Independence Day

 

I dislike the modern, intellectually lazy practice of referring to Independence Day as “the fourth of July.”  I suspect it may have originated with people having trouble spelling the word “Independence.”  Whatever the root cause, it weakens the significance of the day and ignores the fact that our nation’s birthday was nearly July 2, not July 4, 1776.  This is precisely why John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail, stated:

“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”

Years ago, I wrote a blog post about Independence Day.  It was confined to the history of the holiday and how, over the years, it had been militarized – when in fact our nation’s founders were not only trying to overthrow a brutal occupying military force, but that after they were victorious the founders were loath to even have a standing military (the reason for the groups like the Minutemen and our Constitution’s Second Amendment, which has been twisted by specious court rulings). 

Independence Day is therefore celebrated as the decision by a group of Caucasian males, many of whom owned other human beings, to break ties with the nation that ruled over them.  As imperfect as individual Founders were, let us celebrate our nation’s rejection of unhealthy encumbrances while also advocating for the independence of all human beings. 

Independence from what? 

From outmoded and oppressive cultural traditions like arranged marriages, honor killings, and the presumption that one’s children will grow up to be heterosexual. 

From the expectation that your child’s religious beliefs will be the same as yours. 

From endless cycles of generational wealth and generational poverty. 

From debt to higher educational institutions for obtaining something which is better seen as an investment in our nation as a whole – because an educated populace, able to compete for the best jobs, benefits us all. 

From having to make the agonizing choice between receiving necessary health care and putting food on the table.

From a sanitized version of our history that leaves us blameless for the mistakes of our predecessors, including the treatment of Native Americans, slavery and its aftermath, the internment of Japanese-Americans, and many other wrongs. 

From the mindless worship of historical figures who, though they should be remembered, should not be celebrated.

From the sins of our parents.  Just as our nation does not recognize inherited nobility, nor should children be held responsible for the personal or financial shortcomings of their parents.

These things signify true Independence.