Captain America dominates the news, in many ways

KoreaTimes newspaper of April 5, 2014: the front page features five items: a photo of the Avengers2 film shoot, with Captain America posed on the set; four stories with these headlines: Japan adopts absurd claims in textbooks; Obama plays favorites; Ortiz’s selfie makes White House uneasy; and ‘US knows japan at fault on row with Korea’ … all about America and Japan! (Obama is said to be favoring Japan -- he even supposedly pressed the Virginia governor to veto the bill requiring Virginia textbooks to add the name “East Sea” to Sea of Japan!).

And the Avengers2 filmshoot dominates public talk -- students and teachers alike discuss sightings of the film crew or actors, and the resulting traffic delays at the bridges in use. But it is considered worth the effort, to show the world that Korea is a hip, modern place, worth the effort for Captain America to defend against the villains (from the north, perhaps?).

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String Quartet Broken String

We attended a marvelous concert last night, at the Porto Museum of Casa do Infante , a beautifully-renovated 1325 building near the river. At one point it served as a customs house. The government sponsors Portuguese musicians to return from other European orchestras to perform in their homeland. We heard and saw this group play a traditional piece – Haydn string quartet Opus 20 #2. Then the modern Benjamin Britten's Three Divertimenti – the stunning last movement of which they performed as an encore. They performed (and I recorded) the Shostakovich Quartet #9, during which the first-violinist broke a string (it features several strongly-plucked chords!) and had to retreat&repeat!

EUA: tanto estrago em tão pouco tempo

As part of my effort to learn about Portugal, both the country and the language, I'm subscribing to the centrist newspaper, O Publico . There are plenty of newspapers: conservative tabloids, and socialist and communist-sponsored daily papers; I find O Publico to be most sober, with consistently interesting columnists and opinion pieces, in addition to some local (Porto) news, with just enough sporting news to keep me chatting with the taxi driver. Today's opinion piece sums up, I think, European pundits' view of the U.S. government. As the title puts it: so much damage in so little time. I shudder at the rank incompetence and corrupt behavior, demonstrating a cynical attitude toward public service, showing indeed that the cruelty is the point. What scandal, what damage will be the tipping point to collapse this government? And what will it take to recover from the damage? Who will be able to trust the US government again, ever? Only ni...

Música Tunas e Boémia

We attended an unusual concert last night: Música Tunas e Boémia (bands and parties) University student folk-music groups — big groups of 40 and more each! put on a great show of singing, playing, flag-twirling, tambourine-swinging, all at the major (private) concert hall. The most unusual thing about it was that nobody used any electronic device (except for microphone amplification)—no electric guitar or keyboard, no big drum set…every instrument and prop was hand-held. The singing was quite good, given the effort to synchronize 40 voices.

Thomas journals

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