Musical Plagiarism

Again, an interesting discussion on NPR (this time on All Things Considered). This time, it is a discussion of Yershulayim Shel Zahav (or in English, Jerusalem of Gold)
This song was used in Schindler's List, at the very end of the movie, as the credits are being played. If you still dont' remember it, the audio that you can link to if you listen to the story includes a short clip of it. Anyhow, I think it does sound somewhat similar. At the same time, Hatikvah (or The Hope) (Israel's national anthem), has the same theme as the Moldau by Smetana. But the United States' Star Spangled Banner is based on a drinking song, To Anacreon in Heaven. The Smithsonian talks about this, with a link to a recording of it. Check out the recording of the Star Spangled Banner as well. Although I thought that people improvise too much based on the Star Spangled Banner now, they still did so in 1853. (and I think the 1853 version sounds quite fine, actually)

Mount St. Helens Erupted 25 years ago today

Mount St. Helens erupted 25 years ago today. There was an article on
NPR Morning Edition today, they talked about tourists visiting the
Johnston Ridge observatory. I've been there, and if anyone was ever in
the area, I'd definitely suggest going to it. Although Johnston Ridge
is a few miles away, it looks much closer than it is, and even today,
you can still see the impact of the eruption.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4656182

Canadian Parliament Could Fall

In Canada, it looks like Parliament might fall, and there might be a new election.  What I find interesting is that the Liberals seem to be trying to to say that various measures which, to me, look like lack of confidence measures are not really lack of confidence measures.  I think it's a little bit weird that they are doing this, but since I do not consider myself an expert on Canadian politics, perhaps I'm wrong, and maybe they are fully within their rights to be doing this.  In any case, here is the link.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/05/09/confidence-government050509.html

Kermit The Frog Here

I love listening to NPR in the morning, you hear all sorts of random stories, like this one:
Kermit the Frog turns 50 today.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4635468

Sigh...
I suppose I should get back to Evidence, but this studying distraction was brought you by the letters K, and F, and by the numbers five and zero.

Cool bluegrass music

I happenned upon a bluegrass concert last Monday afternoon at Dickinson College. The group was Special Consensus, and they have a website, in case anyone is interested, here. I was quite impressed with them, and bought a CD of theirs and I'm probably going to buy some more of their music over the summer. I think that while there are a few good country music songs these days, much of the music is uncomplicated and is not particularly complex to sing. It is thus uninteresting, and I think that country music has been moving closer and closer to being just like pop music. If you're interested in hearing good (at least in my opinion) country music and you're not quite ready to make the jump to straight bluegrass, the "O' Brother Where Art Thou" CD is a really good idea.

One Month Old Ipod

So, I've now had an Ipod (Click Wheel) for a month. For the most part, I like it, it's nice to be able to carry my whole collection of songs around with me, rather than having to switch CDs all the time. There are, though, one or two things that I do not like. If you do not use the Ipod for awhile, usually about a day and a half, it goes into what Apple calls "Deep Sleep" mode. According to Apple, this saves battery power. That's great, except when I turn it back on, it has forgotten all of my settings except for the clock. It still has my music on it (and the music is accessible). Losing my music would be a much bigger deal.
While I was looking around for information on this, I came across this website:
http://www.vsa.cape.com/~danh/ipod.htm
which has information on the Ipod's battery. I think its worth a read if you have an IPod.
The other thing that I don't like is how it forgets how to play songs that I have downloaded from Itunes, requiring it to be reset, losing all my settings (yet again). So far, it has done this twice. But overall, I think it is a really nice device, and it's great to be able to have my music whenever I want to.