Beethoven For Christmas

My son (actually my son-in-law, but I do not like the long form of kinship names, so everyone is son, brother, aunt, etc. I only do the great-great-thingie for the ancestors.) was watching an old TV series  named Revolution. It started in 2012 and ended in 2014. It had two statuesque blonds who always had their hair backlighted in order to emphasize the Aryan blond notion. There was also a younger blond who apparently was a "blond goddess in training".
They always seemed to have haloes around their heads. The brunettes did not, but the dark haired ones I saw were (1) villainesses, or (2) of Asian descent.

Giancarlo Esposito was a member of the cast - he was the evil drug lord Gus in Breaking Bad - and there was a scene in which he approached his house on the qui vive, and Beethoven Seventh, second movement, was playing on the soundtrack.
This immediately led to the question of what other movies used L v B's Seventh for audio, and which one in particular that seemed I had viewed recently. I had a memory that was marked into the "4 month or less" file, but I could not recall it.

Turns out it was The King's Speech, the scene being the one where King George VI gave his "speech" addressing the nation upon the outbreak of war. Very poignant. Very much a better usage than Mr. Esposito gingerly approaching his house, ready to draw his gun.

Then I remember the Reverend Mr. Beebe's remarks on Beethoven and Ms. Honeychurch's piano rendition of Beethoven in Room With A View.

Then, since it was Christmas Eve, I listened the the Ninth - the Lied an die Freude; it is the season, after all.

Then I read a great article on an orthodox council of Jewish rabbis in Israel banning Christmas tree displays in hotels.

Israeli rabbis launch war on Christmas tree
Jerusalem hotels receive warning letter noting that Jewish religious law forbids Christmas trees and new year's parties.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/12/israeli-rabbis-launch-war-christmas-tree-161223074207821.html

Nazareth - As tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims converge on the Holy Land this week to celebrate the birth of Jesus, senior Israeli rabbis have announced a war on the Christmas tree.

In Jerusalem, the rabbinate has issued a letter warning dozens of hotels in the city that it is "forbidden" by Jewish religious law to erect a tree or stage new year's parties.

Many hotel owners have taken the warning to heart, fearful that the rabbis may carry out previous threats to damage their businesses by denying them certificates declaring their premises to be "kosher".

In the coastal city of Haifa, in northern Israel, the rabbi of Israel's premier technology university has taken a similarly strict line. Elad Dokow, the Technion's rabbi, ordered that Jewish students boycott their students' union, after it installed for the first time a modest Christmas tree.

He called the tree "idolatry", warning that it was a "pagan" symbol that violated the kosher status of the building, including its food hall.

About a fifth of the Technion's students belong to Israel's large Palestinian minority.

While most of Israel's Palestinian citizens are Muslim, there are some 130,000 Christians, most of them living in Galilee. More Palestinian Christians live under occupation in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in violation of international law.

"This is not about freedom of worship," Dokow told the Technion's students. "This is the world's only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a 'light unto the nations' and not to uncritically embrace every idea."

 Tannenbaum stengstens verboten!

Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch...
It somebody in power wants to compel some schlub who has no power, why not?

And this was, indeed, a much more heartening and uplifting article than the one about Trump and Putin both being in favor of increasing nuclear arsenals. I knew when crazed Reagan and Gorbachev went down that nuclear disarmament road - paved with good intentions! - that it would need some clearer minds to deal with it.

 Nuclear Crazies: Gorbachev and Reagan

That photo of Gorbachev and Reagan.... I think the soundtrack should be a dark and ominous Beethoven's Seventh, so play it while looking at those two old guys whacked out on peace!

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