I appreciate a variety of music, and throughout the years have even shown more interest in motion picture music than in the movies upon which the scores are based. The emotional blessings involved with turning off commercial-infested TV networks and substituting a few hours of mood-appropriate movie music should not be underestimated.
But, um, then there's rap music. I guess I've kinda liked a little of what I've heard, but generally -- well, I still value my Cannibal Corpse CDs, and rap isn't on that list, so. . .
Kanye West. Kanye? Yes, Kanye. Up until a few days ago, I would not have recognized a Kanye West song were it blasted in quadraphonics from the sky. Come to think of it, I still wouldn't know a Kanye song. But no matter.
Mr. West has apparently ingratiated himself somewhat to Republicans for Trump and conservative-friendly tweets, and some of his fellow rap artists are angry, very angry. We hasten to wonder whether West's thoughts in this direction will be picked up by black youth and others badly in need of encouraging words, as opposed to the same old destructive leftist crap espoused by gang-bangers and politicians with hidden self-serving agendas. That the likes of Maxine Waters also criticized West for stepping off the leftist reservation speaks volumes.
Arriving almost hand-in-hand with West's thoughtful messages comes a new Reuters poll demonstrating a phenomenon among millennials, something previously hinted among various conversations with young people: Millennials are abandoning Democrat Party "values" in large numbers. A substantial percentage evidently believe also that the reduction in taxes by the Trump administration is definitely a selling point for taking a fresh look at conservative standards. If millennials figure out that true conservatives are and always have been the best and true conservators of wildlife and environmental concerns, November's elections might turn out a bit differently from Democrat expectations.
Those bastard macrophages! Medical science historically taught that macrophages, those teeny-tiny cells believed to engulf and digest bloodstream debris and dangerous invasive microorganisms, were our friends. Instead, research in recent years demonstrated that these microscopic little traitors might even assist cancer cells to grow and grow. This and other health-related topics are explored in the book, Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, by Barbara Ehrenreich. This new book is reviewed in some depth in the May issue of The Atlantic by Victoria Sweet, herself a medical author.
We mention this because medical science has a way of turning itself upside-down just as Your Huffy and Arrogant Physician insists that a medical fact is a medical fact and you had better respect everything laid out so handsomely and so finally in expensive medical books and education. This sort of thing is why we miss the quickly-vanished doctor-patient relationship which once gave the patient a voice in determining a course of "treatment," whether for good or ill. Now, it's all drugs and mirrors and whatever agenda the American Medical Association and a ton of other scientific fists demand must be implemented. Meanwhile, the old remedies depended upon by generations of healers either disappear or become banned or swallowed up by major drug companies insistent upon making us use their lawsuit-material poisons.
Which reminds me -- there's lots kicking around out there right now about pesticides and a variety of hazardous chemicals being found in every food we consume, and our old friend, Monsanto is again being looked upon with wary eyes about potentially not-so-nice effects of Roundup on crops which make their way into our bodies and the pollen bees depend upon. Me? I'd just ask the bees. The bees always know.
