Saturday, October 11^th, 2008 opened the Augusta Symphony's 2008 season.I'll not go into much depth about the performance of the symphony per se: they were good, but not at the top of their game, in part due to the fact that they were working with a guest conductor — Susan Haig — candidating to take over as Donald Portnoy retires.

The soloist, however, was incredible. Leonard Rowe, a young baritone, took on the well-known and much-butchered "Prologue" from I Pagliacci as his opening number. I was worried that the generally-staid ASO venue would result in a "straight" performance of the piece; my worries were unfounded, though, as the stage-right house door opened and Mr. Rowe's head poked out to see the audience. From this auspicious beginning, his rendition of the "Prologue" far outshone the majority of its performances.

His next piece was "Non piu andrai" from Le Nozze di Figaro. Again, a fairly standard piece (Augusta audiences seem to expect most concerts to be made up of "fairly standard pieces"), but a good one; and again, he did very well by it.

His coup de grâce thus far, though, was "Cortigiani" (Rigoletto). A full operatic performance — sans only period costume — made him an incredibly believable Rigoletto. Yes, it was still the middle of the concert, but this piece deserved the standing ovation it drew from the crowd.

I feel I've not done the previous pieces justice in my brief descriptions. I can only excuse myself by saying "the best is yet to come". Rarely (if ever) have I heard a concert where the encore blew the entirety of the show completely out of the water.

Rewind.

Augusta crowds give standing ovations for nearly every performance. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a show here — from either side of the footlights — that didn't receive one. When the orchestra finished their final number, the crowd (perhaps bowing to ideas of Southern gentility and politesse) rose. I and most of the people I was with did not. Their performance was good, but that was it.

I kept watching that stage-right door.

Finally, I was rewarded. Ms. Haig exited, and re-entered, followed shortly by Mr. Rowe.

I stood. Everyone I could see that had not been standing for the orchestra was driven to their feet for Mr. Rowe.

He spoke something to Ms. Haig, and somehow she managed to quiet the applause with promise of an encore.

And the orchestra began with the opening chords of "Old Man River".

I don't know that I can explain his performance, but for two things. First, the entire audience was transfixed, and fully invested in the music to a degree they hadn't been the rest of the evening. Second, if I were to see a poster reading, "Leonard Rowe performs 'Old Man River', tickets $25", I would pay, and I would go.

It was worth the price of admission all on its own.

If you plan to vote for a major-party presidential candidate in the upcoming election, abortion is a non-issue.

I'm a member, generally, of what the press condescendingly refers to as the "values voter republican base". It the (albeit few) years I've been able to vote, I've only once not voted Republican, and that was for a state office (I voted Libertarian, by the way, not Democrat, so don't start getting ideas).

I believe that public policy is "values", and thus values are the only reasonable basis for a vote. Some of the values I've voted on are educational freedom, civil liberties, the right to life, and respect for the Constitution. The right to life, particularly, has been a bellwether issue: I've never voted for a pro-abortion candidate.

There are currently two presidential nominees that have any chance whatsoever of taking office: Barack Obama and John McCain. Obama is very outspoken in his pro-abortion stance, which has led most of my fellow "values voters" to assume what the Republican party is desperately attempting to promulgate: that McCain is in some sense anti-abortion.

Don't you believe it.

1999 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle

But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.

May 3, 2007 GOP Presidential Debate

I believe that we need to fund [embryonic stem cell research].

Those are just two of many public demonstrations of McCain's true stance on abortion: I'll not bore you with the litany, but you will find numerous examples in three or four pages of search engine hits.

Honestly, he and Obama probably agree quite a bit on most of the "values" questions: as demagogues, they probably don't hold a personal conviction either way, and simply take the public stance they feel will garner them the most votes. Anyone who can believe

If you're voting for a major-party ticket in the upcoming presidential election, you're in luck. Abortion is a non-issue. Neither candidate is pro-life, so you can scratch one more issue from your list of "important considerations".

Me? I have a candidate in mind who's on my side as far as the abortion issue goes, among agreeing with me on the vast majority of other issues.

Yes, I realize you think I'm throwing my vote away. You may even think I'm de facto supporting Obama by not supporting his ostensible rival. Don't you see, though, that, far from Republican and Democrat being the two votes available, "major-party" and "third-party" are really what's at issue.

If my vote for a third-party candidate can convince anyone else to vote by conscience rather than by some imagined expediency, it will have done more good for our country than thousands of votes for either major-party candidate. I'm young, yes. But even I've been able to catch on to the Washington tag-team game, each party playing paper tiger for the other while taking its turn in power, entirely solidifying support for major-party politics whatever happens.

I'm not convinced.

I know better.

I'm voting Barr.

Some things in life are important to start early, and loves one might wish to inculcate in a child's life are best introduced as part of the Universe — or their conception of it — rather than as separate pursuits. Books, for instance. If books simply are — if they're an ambient feature of the environment — rather than needing to be sought out (furniture, to be simply used without particular goal or foresight), literacy becomes a given, not a goal.

Chess. It's one of those things that doesn't even occur as a possible "furniture-piece" in a child's life. How can chess, ever the symbol of deep thought and solemn old men, become such an early fixture?

I'm still not sure. In fact, several days ago, I'd've said it couldn't. That was before I started teaching a four-year-old to play chess, though.

It was at a lab party. I very nearly didn't go. I don't care for parties, and I care even less for parties among co-workers. Not that I dislike my boss and lab-mates . . . it's just that . . . meh.

However, go I did, and several slices of pizza, pieces of catfish, and insipid fireworks (not all of the preceding were eaten) later, affairs had settled into rather dry, boring conversation. Now, the conversation I'm likely to enjoy at a party is what most people would term dry and boring, so conversely, this talk of [rock] music, [bleeding-heart liberal] politics, and popular entertainment is the stock in trade of most parties — and bores me to absolute tears.

In the living room, far from the madding crowd, was a chessboard. D__ had played a game earlier with Misa, the four-year-old daughter of one of the attendees. Rather, he'd been playing against himself until she started soliciting advice from everyone else: then it became him against the entire lab, and he (quite predictably) was forced to resignation. I mean, how can you start playing yourself to a weak position, and then hold up to a committee of moderately-intelligent, moderately-experienced chess players? (When she checked him for the first time, I told her, "Say 'check'." "Check!" she gleefully announced.)

So later, Misa and her eight-year-old brother were still orbiting the chessboard, obviously wanting someone to play another game with them. Who was I to refuse (especially given the dearth of any other intellectual pursuits in the vicinity)?

I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to do it. I mean, Misa was the one showing the most interest in having a game, and she obviously couldn't be expected to find legal moves, much less good ones.

So I set up the board, asked her if she wanted to be white this time (she'd been black for the first game), and swiveled the board. I gave her a choice of first moves: a knight or king's or queen's pawn. I think she chose her king's knight. I answered with preparations for what's become my standard opening (set up an outpost for my king's knight and fianchetto that bishop), more out of habit than anything.

As the opening progressed, she made the choice each time (sometimes more-, sometimes less-restricted) of which piece to move and where to move it. Eventually Suse (her brother) got more into the game, finding possible moves and suggesting them. He delighted in pointing out why certain moves were bad moves: "If you go there [moving the piece] he'll [pointing to another piece] eat you."

We got well into the midgame by the time the first capture occurrecd. I'd decided not to "pull punches", and simply take a decent capture for either side when it made sense. She was suitably disappointed that I'd drawn first blood, but stated philosophically that "it's only one of the little ones". Farther in, she pulled ahead in material, and there came a point where her best move would've been a bishop-for-knight exchange.

Somehow I resisted the urge to tell her where to move, and instead presented several moves — I think a couple pawns (she called them "little ones") could advance, there was a safe pawn capture, and of course the exchange. I explained that if she took the pawn, she would be safe, but if she took the knight, she'd be trading her bishop for it, because I'd kill her bishop on the next turn.

With the philosophical aplomb already mentioned: "Trade."

Unfortunately, the time came long before the game was over to leave: in the middle of the game, at the height of the excitement — an excitement over a checkerboard battle I'd thought a four-year-old couldn't know.

I think I probably learned as much as she did. Granted, she caught on to the idea of castling (impressive in itself), and even accepted the diagonal attack of the pawn (I explained it as a swordsman marching forward slashing off to the side, and analogy that delighted her), but I discovered something I should've been able to figure out: if the child believes himself to be in control of his progress, he engages just as fully — and perhaps more so, as protective control prevents the insurmountable obstacles that often frustrate young learners of any pursuit — as if he were in an actual situation facing every decision himself.