On this day in 1623, the Comité pour l’Invention de la Clarinette was formed. There was widespread dissatisfaction with the flute. For example, the fingerings of the notes in different octaves were pretty much the same. This made learning the flute fairly easy. It was, in the words of one Comité member, “Too logical!” And so: the clarinet.
The problem was physics. The flute has holes on both ends and thus, it is based on the octave. But by closing one of the ends, it was possible to make the clarinet based on a 12th — an octave and a 5th. In this way, the upper registers were fingered in totally different ways. It was, in the words of one Comité member, “A perfect mess!”
But the Comité was not finished. They added various keys at random, just making the whole instrument a nightmare of complexity. But still, their work was not finished. They found that by placing buttons very close to each other — buttons that did very different things — they could normally get a 12 year old clarinet student to cry in under three minutes.
In the clarinet community, it is often joked that the instrument was invented by eight people who never met each other. But that’s not actually true. The Comité pour l’Invention de la Clarinette worked very hard to make the clarinet the bane of woodwind players everywhere. But it has been great for the clarinet instructors who have avoided suicide.
I like this strategy from the Teamsters, handing out flyers outside of Chipotle because one of their big tomato contractors refuses to recognize IBT organization of their processing plant. Particularly when dealing with the out of the way parts of the supply chain where there’s no good public way to raise awareness, such as get journalists to pay attention and write a story like this, targeting the big buyers makes a ton of sense. Moreover, if Chipotle claims to be socially responsible, prove it. So often in the corporate world “social responsibility” means “making consumers feel good about their issue of the day,” thus GMO based activism. But actual social responsibility means treating workers with dignity throughout the supply chain. Chipotle needs to step to the plate here and pressure the contractor to recognize the Teamsters.
I’ve gotten rather tired of doing anniversary posts. So tomorrow, I’m going to start doing at least some fake anniversary posts: things that didn’t happen, so far as I know. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do them every day. But it will make it easier when I get a bad day. Not that tomorrow is a bad day! I haven’t looked. Anyway, I’m rerunning last year’s anniversary post, because it deals with a really important event. At least to me. Daffy Duck!
I’ve been having this strange experience after I go to bed. I lie there and think of nothing in particular. But I know that I’m thinking about my life and it’s lack of meaning. That’s especially true regarding work. What is the point of it? Work has always been very important to me — central to my sense of meaning. But I no longer think that way. Work is a means to an end. And that end is…
I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
I would pay my entire month’s salary to have this primary over. I caught one minute — One minute! — of last night’s debate. It was enough. Bernie Sanders was asked if Hillary Clinton was qualified to be president. He said that of course she was. In fact, he admitted something that made him look bad: that he was just reacting to the Clinton campaign. I don’t like to hear that, even though it is true. He then went on to say that he questioned her judgment about the Iraq War. Personally, I don’t think anyone really cares. Certainly, I don’t care because I accept that politicians are, well, politicians.
I just don’t get this. I know I’ve written about this before. I don’t understand why the Clinton campaign isn’t able to see reality. Had she not been so combative it would have been much more difficult for Sanders to be so combative. And what does this get Clinton? It makes her look like she’s in a real battle. When did I call this race? Back in February? Clinton has been far ahead in every poll in 
On this day in 1922, the Senate investigation of the 
I’ve been really down this last week. A lot is going on. Work just gets more and more intense — it’s wonderful in its way, but also terrifying. Also, taxes are due on Friday, and things are, let’s just say, complicated because of my marital situation. My natural response to stress is debilitating anxiety followed by depression. So yesterday, I sat down and watched Umberto D. And since that actually has a vaguely happy ending, I watched another of Vittorio De Sica’s classics, Shoeshine. Although in its way, it is an even more positive film, except for the tragic ending.
I’ve long maintained that the corporate hatred of unions is really not about keeping wages down and maximizing profits. Indeed, when unions were strong, many companies just matched what union workers were getting to avoid unionization. Similarly, Milton Hershey was very good to his employees, but he fought aggressively against unions. It’s all about control. And the best way for a business to maintain control is by having the employees fighting among themselves. Worker solidarity is extremely dangerous. It could even — Gasp! — lead the workers to think that they could be running the company.
