http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/meanwhile_over_at_the_worlds_l/ Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:03:34 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/meanwhile_over_at_the_worlds_l/comment-page-1/#comment-217 Alex Reed Wed, 18 Oct 2006 17:23:52 +0000 http://pajamasmedia.com/claudiarosett/2006/10/17/meanwhile-at-the-worlds-leading-multilateral-institution/#comment-217 While thinking over your post about the latest sad pratfalls and shenanigans at the UN, and absently stirring some lemon into a cup of tea just now, I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized that I was humming a tune -- not unusual given my vast repertoire, and weakness for the sound of my own voice. However,..... (Freud may have been stoned out of his mind most of the time, but, as the proverb says, even a toothless, blind chicken sometimes finds some corn: the subconscious mind is a wonderful, wild and deliciously alien thing within us that sometimes deigns to part with a little treasure.) The tune I was humming was from "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny", Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's paean to greed, degeneracy and cruel indifference. (Where they indicted capitalism as the font of these crimes, feel free to pencil in "UN World Government".) No work in the entire history of opera is better suited, with minimal revisions, to reflect the personages, culture, and modus vivendi of the United Nations. They should put on a production every year in the Great Hall to inaugurate the General Assembly. While thinking over your post about the latest sad pratfalls and shenanigans at the UN, and absently stirring some lemon into a cup of tea just now, I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized that I was humming a tune — not unusual given my vast repertoire, and weakness for the sound of my own voice. However,….. (Freud may have been stoned out of his mind most of the time, but, as the proverb says, even a toothless, blind chicken sometimes finds some corn: the subconscious mind is a wonderful, wild and deliciously alien thing within us that sometimes deigns to part with a little treasure.) The tune I was humming was from “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny”, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s paean to greed, degeneracy and cruel indifference. (Where they indicted capitalism as the font of these crimes, feel free to pencil in “UN World Government”.) No work in the entire history of opera is better suited, with minimal revisions, to reflect the personages, culture, and modus vivendi of the United Nations. They should put on a production every year in the Great Hall to inaugurate the General Assembly.

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