Bill Maher, on Atheism

.. and the first Unbaptism-Ceremony in history.

Nina Conti

Finlally, I found a ventriloquist who doesn't move the mouth! 

Watch out this great performance:

Watch your mouth while blogging!

Currently, I´m taking a course of “international legal English”. That course is providing me with some interesting material for this blog. Like, e.g., the text below.

Please kids, be careful with what you post in your blogs if you don’t want to be terminated!

Derogatory blog posts result in a justified dismissal.

An Alberta arbitration board has recently released a decision concerning the dismissal of an employee as a result of the contents of the employee's online blog site. In this case, an administrative employee in the Alberta Public Service (the "Grievor") was dismissed after the employer became aware of the contents of her personal blog.

The Grievor's blog contained unflattering comments about a number of her co-workers and management, referring to them as "imbeciles," "idiot savants," and “lunatic-in-charge.” After an investigation, the Grievor was interviewed about her blog. Perceiving the Grievor as largely unrepentant, the employer terminated the Grievor's employment.

The employer took the position that the contents of the blog postings and the Grievor's lack of remorse and understanding as to why the blog had been so offensive undermined the employment relationship irreparably, thereby justifying the Grievor's termination. This was especially so, in the employer's view, in a department that handled sensitive cases and whose well-publicized values emphasized respect, fairness, and co-operation.

The Grievor's union, in challenging the dismissal, argued that the employer had overreacted, that the Grievor's attempts at an apology had been derailed by management, and that the Grievor had a previously unblemished record of six years' service. As a remedy, the union sought reinstatement with appropriate compensation. The employer replied that in a relatively small workplace, it would be very unfair to the Grievor's co-workers for the Grievor to be reinstated in her employment.

In a 2-1 decision, the Arbitration Board denied the grievance and upheld the dismissal. The Board concluded that "while the Grievor has a right to create personal blogs and is entitled to her opinions about the people with whom she works, publicly displaying those opinions may have consequences within an employment relationship." The Board was satisfied that the Grievor, in expressing contempt for her managers, ridiculing her co-workers, and denigrating administrative processes, engaged in serious misconduct that irreparably severed the employment relationship, thereby justifying discharge. Employees cannot simply invoke freedom of speech to publicly make derogatory comments online about co-workers or management or to disclose confidential information obtained in the course of employment.

Chopin's Nocturne Op 27, nº 2; by Valentina Lisitsa

Nocturne of Chopin, played by Valentina Lisitsa. I´ve taken the video from her own page at Youtube. 

And this is what she herself has written on that same page, as a comment to the video:

"I went through love-hate "relationship" with this Nocturne. When I was asked by Lanaudiere Fesitval to select 7 Nocturnes for the concert ( I never played any before - to my utter shame ) I had to quickly flip through the sheet music and pick ones I thought I might stand :-) This one was number "last" on my list of things to do. I didn't start learning it until it was almost too late ( those who watched my webcast of practice can confirm :-)). I dreaded the moment when I will get sick and tired of this sweetest thing ever written with its gorgeous but repetitious melody.... Then I had my "eureka" moment . it happened when I started looking at Chopin's metronome markings - in all other Nocturnes they were perfectly in sync with today's consensus - maybe little faster here , slower there... But this one - oh my God ! Lento Sostenuto marked as 50 beats per minute in half-measure (150BPM in eights ). You know how fast is it ???? Check-it out and see if you can keep up with Mr. Chopin LOL ..... i can't , I still play it waaaaaay under tempo .Let's see how many "critics" will leave comments saying it is too fast .....But , no matter what it makes a perfect sense- and suddenly my dread turned into astonishment at Chopin's genius.The whole piece is suddenly transformed from overly long sugary-syrupy chant to an exalted and impassioned speech- you make whatever you want of this speech , maybe it is a declaration of love ? after all - the piece ends with the most beautiful duet of two voices." 

The Beautiful South: "Prettiest Eyes"

Another nice video of one of the bands I was talking about in my last post, The Beautiful South. This one seems to have been filmed in Lisbon, Portugal. It has a wonderful light.

The Housemartins & spin-offs

The Housemartins was one of the bands I used to like most back in the 80's. Here come two videos of their song "We're not deep": first, the "official one" (I guess); and then, a funny video were the members of the band are playing football -quite poorly- with some kids on the street.

They split up very soon, in 1988. After that, the leader of the band, Paul Heaton, created a new group, called The Beautiful South. In this band, Heaton shares the lead vocals with other members, as it can be seen below in this wonderful theme, "Song for whoever":

But I found out recently that The Beautiful South wasn't the only spin-off from The Housemartins, as I thought. Norman Cook (the guy who appears with Heaton at the end of the second video shown above, celebrating a goal), who played the bass with The Housmartins, nowadays known as Fatboy Slim, is doing a very different type of music. Take a look at his song "Right here, right now":

Perlman playing klezmer

Itzhak Perlman playing klezmer music, and talking a bit about it.