Last Sunday Barack Obama selected Elena Kagan, the current Solicitor General of the United States, as his nominee for next Supreme Court Justice. If she is approved by the Senate, the relatively young (50-year old) Kagan will have a say for many years to come in critical constitutional decisions that will affect the country’s future. This appointment matters, to put it mildly:

As he presses an ambitious agenda expanding the reach of government, Mr. Obama has come to worry that a conservative Supreme Court could become an obstacle down the road, aides said. It is conceivable that the Roberts court could eventually hear challenges to aspects of Mr. Obama’s health care program or to other policies like restrictions on carbon emissions and counterterrorism practices.

So who, exactly, is this woman, who may well be ruling for years to come on constitutional issues, including those pertaining to the limits of government? What is her legacy as a judge? How has she interpreted the law in particular cases? Well, unfortunately, there’s no record whatsoever to look at, because Elena Kagan has never been a judge at any point in her life. Yes, you read that right: although she was once a law clerk, Kagan has never been a judge. Barack Obama, the man of redacted provenance who attained the presidency in a relative flash, has chosen as Supreme Court Justice a woman who has left no paper trail through which her views on case law can be determined.
Fortunately, her college thesis, recently obtained by RedState, may fill in some of the blanks. In her opening acknowledgements Kagan writes “I would like to thank my brother Marc, whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.”
Family involvement in radical causes may not always be a harbinger of sound judgement in a Supreme Court Justice, particularly when the influence is acknowledged warmly. Indeed, her brother’s sensibility appears contiguous with her own; Kagan practically laments socialism’s inability to get a foothold in America: “Why,” she asks, “in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation’s established parties?”
One might argue that Kagan was not actually lamenting a dearth of socialist influence in America, but was merely examining, from an analytical distance, the historic difficulty socialists have had in gaining power in the US, but one might first want to mull over the conclusion of her thesis:

The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one’s fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.

It’s hard, frankly, bordering on impossible, to believe that someone who is opposed at a heartfelt level to a certain political philosophy – whether it be Communism or Capitalism – would ever describe the non-viability of his opponents’ philosophy in the manifest, corporeal realm as being sad in any sense, or that he would ever entreaty his opponents to keep their chin up, or tell them that they “cannot afford to become their own worst enemies,” or suggest helpfully that “in unity lies (your) only hope.”
No, at the time she wrote them, hers were hopeful words. “Hope,” “change America,” the “sad story” of socialism’s decline in America – these stated views make Kagan a perfect choice for Obama, but a harmful choice for America.

Ethnic group, fighting for the right to use the school curriculum to target another ethnic group, is targeted, cries foul:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill targeting a school district’s ethnic studies program, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.

The Governor’s bill, which is intended to apply the brakes to a public school curriculum that has up until now taught Latinos that they are oppressed by whitey, will “(prohibit) classes that advocate ethnic solidarity (and) promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group,” although it “will not prohibit classes that teach…the history of a particular ethnic group, as long as the course is open to all students and doesn’t promote ethnic solidarity or resentment.” As Gov. Brewer’s spokesman, the rather aptly-named Paul Senseman, explains:

“The governor believes … public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people.”

Well, that sounds good, but what if one’s cultural heritage, at this late stage, consists of a big ball of resentment toward, and hatred against, a targeted group – whitey, in this case?

Six UN human rights experts (said) all people have the right to learn about their own cultural and linguistic heritage…

And so we grow.
The UN has yet to clarify whether the right of “all people” to teach their cultural and linguistic heritage extends to, say, the Confederate Redneck Peoples of the deep South.

“Cut Scotland loose – then we’ll have a fair voting system.”

‘Wow,’ said a wide-eyed young Liberal Democrat voter babe, staring over my shoulder on Friday at a coloured election map of Britain. ‘England is, like, totally blue.’ How true. Huge swathes of England are Conservative. And, she noticed in the next instant, Scotland is, like, totally red and yellowish gold. Only one single constituency north of the border is blue.

As Alex Salmond of the Scottish National party said in the wee hours of Friday, it is ‘overwhelmingly clear’ that Scotland does not want a Tory government: ‘I don’t believe they’ve got a mandate to run Scotland from fourth place.’ Again, how obviously true. Yet, equally obviously, the Tories have got a genuine mandate to run England.

Sadly, the Tories don’t have a mandate to run England, because voters in a secessionist region outside of England threw a spanner in the works of a neighbouring country they don’t even want to be a part of.
Sounds kinda familiar.

Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) SDA Late Nite Radio.
The recent resurgence of interest in period instruments in the classical music world is at least partially driven by an awareness that the composers of the day had the sound of those instruments, and not the modern ones, in mind when they wrote their music. The instruments of the Baroque and Renaissance eras were differently shaped and constructed than modern ones, and the strings were made of gut rather than the metal and metal composites. Gut strings have an intrinsically different sound, but they also have a different effect on the instrument, by virtue of the fact that they require less tension to bring them to pitch, and therefore exert less pressure onto the soundboard via the bridge. The result is a quieter, subjectively warmer sound.
Tonight, to give you a taste of the sound of period instruments, we feature Barcelona’s Jordi Savall, a highly-respected interpreter of ancient music, and the leading exponent of the Renaissance era precursor of modern violins and cellos, the Viola Da Gamba:

The most common sizes of viols are the treble, which is about the size of a violin, the bass, which is about the size of a cello, and the tenor which is between the two. There are also larger and smaller viols. Some have a shape which resembles a violin, others have plainer corners or a much fancier outline. They are always held on the knees or between the legs and are usually played with a bow (which is held underhand). Most viols have C-shaped soundholes and a flat back. Strings are usually made of gut, like the frets which are tied around the neck and are partly responsible for viols’ sound quality. The rich, clear sound of viols means they blend well with each other and with other instruments or voices. Most viols have six strings, but some have more and others fewer.

Here is Jordi Savall (playing the treble viol) and Hesperion XXI performing Baroque era composer Samuel Scheidt’s Le Nuove Musiche.
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Progressives …

The overabundance of support agencies for poor and homeless people concentrated in Riversdale needs to be addressed in what the city councillor for the area is calling “solution by dilution.”
“The simple fact is that the status quo is not working,” Coun. Pat Lorje said in an interview. “We need to think about alternative models.”
Many of the city’s social supports for homeless people are concentrated in the area, trapping people in negative lifestyles, Lorje said. The result is the creation of a society unto itself, from which it is harder to pull people out because they are exposed to more intense levels of the forces that cause, and keep, people homeless and addicted to drugs and alcohol, Lorje said.

The courageous generation: