SANDERS now AHEAD in poll in New Hampshire

Didjuze see where a new Boston Herald/Franklin Pierce Univ. poll (not sure how reliable?) shows Bernie Sanders AHEAD of Clinton in New Hampshire for the first time.

SANDERS    44

CLINTON    37

BIDEN           9 

Here is what you always wanted to know about Ionian "speech" vis a vis human music, in a nutshell

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It's not that it's rude, exactly, among Ionians, to interrupt another's "speech," or make unnecessary noises while someone is communicating with you. More like a sign of mental illness. Virtually unheard of, so to speak. 
 

Ionians "talk" to one another by using external tympani and cord-like surfaces in their head and neck area, scraped by special appendages to produce elaborate, harmonic sounds that to human ears resemble eerie combined vocal/instrumental music. Whole paragraphs of thought can be encoded in a single "chord." An adult Ionian can "speak" continuously, in what almost sounds like a slow, discordant pavane, with a steady but free rhythm. Poetry, to them, is when speech is music; then it is both; every voicing and timbre, every tempo, every rhythm, every harmony, precisely crafted to create an artistic and emotional effect, while at the same time containing semantic content, indeed, great meaning. To Ionians, this is the highest art. 

Encountering human music, Ionians are perplexed. Sometimes it seems lovely, in an otherworldly way. But so tedious. So repetitive. So limited in scope. So meaningless. Almost like a subtrack of crude emoticons to punctuate thought. Just ba-ba ta-ta, over and over again with no coherence or content, and then it usually just comes round to where it started and stops, for no reason. So curious. Interesting, but odd. Now and then, just occasionally, really beautiful, but for the most part just weird. 

Human speech, to them, on the other hand, sounds like grunts and moans. Awful, brash noises that fail to cohere into any kind of harmonic or rhythmic pattern to indicate meaning. Learning to actually discern meaning in this raucous cacophony is difficult, although not impossible, for an Ionian to learn. Indeed, they can even learn to reproduce a reasonable approximation of it, a feat the inverse of which will almost certainly be beyond human beings, at least in the absence of technological augmentation. 

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Part of an occasional series of tidbits about the Ionians, a fictitious alien race I have devised to populate a "science fiction universe" I've been thinking about. 

Bernie Sanders addresses huge rally for second day in a row

​28,000 in Portland on Sunday.

LA Times: « "The reason we're doing so well in this campaign is we're telling the truth," Sanders told the L.A. crowd, which his campaign estimated at 27,500, both inside the arena and in an overflow area outside watching on giant television screens.​ »

These two rallies alone were more than the attendance at every single campaign event of every other candidate of either party to date, combined. Admittedly, it's early and a lot of them haven't even had public events, but this is still meaningful. The rally in L.A. drew a huge crowd despite having been given short notice. The event was only announced to supporters on Wednesday.

​I was there, at the Sports Arena in Exposition Park, and it was electric. Somethin's happenin' here. ​Sanders hit every point, told it straight, and laid out a completely realistic Progressive agenda for America.

Go Bernie!

Republican Party: the Party of Nonsense.

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​Here's Krugman's take:

....While it's true that Mr. Trump is, fundamentally, an absurd figure, so are his rivals. If you pay attention to what any one of them is actually saying, as opposed to how he says it, you discover incoherence and extremism every bit as bad as anything Mr. Trump has to offer. And that's not an accident: Talking nonsense is what you have to do to get anywhere in today's Republican Party.​

Fox Newsaganza!

​I'm glad to hear from various folks that the Clown Car clatch​ created a negative impression over all in the Fox Newsaganza last night. The thing about Trump is that he actually represents the core of fearful, hate-filled revanchists who make up the "base" of the Republican party. These people are unreachable and not much of a threat, because they are slightly less than 20% of the electorate (actually a shockingly high number, but anyway). Many of the rest who typically vote Republican in presidential elections are actually reachable with a populist message, especially if it doesn't alienate their "values." Abortion and gay rights, unfortunately, are deal breakers for some. I watched a right wing acquaintance go from agreeing with Sanders on many issues despite having voted Republican since 1980, to rejecting him over these deeply deceptive Planned Parenthood hitjob videos and his Pro-Choice stance. But on economic issues, many heartland Republicans are surprisingly open to economic populism. 30 years of failed trickle down policies have started to hurt.
 

My dream is that Trump will fail in the Republican primary process (a safe bet), but NOT just fold up his tent; instead try to be a Ross Perot. If Trump is seriously spending money and running as an independent, it almost doesn't matter who either the Republicans or Democrats nominate, the Democrat will win.

Let's Primary Schumer out of office: No Democrat he!

​​• So Schumer has aligned himself with the Right-Wing Israeli government over his own country's, and the world's best interests, and come out against the Iran Nuclear Deal. I've despised Schumer for some time, as a Wall Street shill among other rightish policy positions. But this is it. Were I a New Yorker I would support ANYONE BUT CHUCK for the Democratic senate primary. 
 
We REAL Democrats must stop allowing these Nixon Republicans (hell, he's MUCH WORSE than Nixon!) to continue to succeed in OUR party!