Monthly Archives: July 2022
Verdi’s Priests
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 31st July 2022Giuseppe Verdi as was typical of 19th century liberal intellectuals was distinctively and typically anti clerical. Accordingly, the priests in his operas are not usually sympathetically portrayed. Here are a few depicted in different ways. Verdi’s first success, Nabucco, was about the Babylonian Captivity of the Hebrews. It starts in the Temple of Solomon. The…
› Read the full entry
Y Chromosome Loss and Heart Disease
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th July 2022Below is a release from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It summarizes a study published in the AAAS’s journal Science. It deals with the previous observation that loss the the Y chromosome in white blood cells with an increase in cardiovascular disease and death. Whether this loss of the male sex chromosome…
› Read the full entry
I Don’t Want A Bone, I Want The Bone
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th July 2022Anyone who’s had two dogs understands the title. If you give each of them a bone, they’ll each want the one the other has. They also don’t want to relinquish the one they already have. The resultant conflict, the closest a dog can come to envy, will send them into a muddle of canine angst….
› Read the full entry
Unsettled – Book review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th July 2022Steven E Koonin has written a book Unsettled: What climate science tells us, what it doesn’t, and why it matters. The volume is not very long consisting of mostly data (yes data!) and endnotes. It is a sober analysis of a subject that has been a field of landmines maiming the facts that underpin an…
› Read the full entry
The Tales of Hoffmann – The Septet
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 3rd July 2022The renowned septet from Offenbach’s final work is of uncertain origin. It was not in the original score and its source remains a riddle. The opera was written for the Opéra-Comique and was to have spoken dialogues. It was incomplete at the composer’s death in 1860. Ernest Guiraud completed the piece and added the recitatives….
› Read the full entry
