Tag: Folklore

ECP NetHppenings Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane

Olivia Phillips – Review of
Dan Gutstein. Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2023. 316 pages. ISBN: 1666915432.
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/jfrr/article/view/41138/43112

Reviewed by:
Olivia Phillips
Indiana University
ohphilli [ @ ] iu.edu
Black and white images of little girls in dresses, some of them jumping off a wall

In Poor Gal: The Cultural History of Little Liza Jane, Dan Gutstein takes on the challenge of tracing one of the USA’s most widely sung folk songs through history from the Civil War era to the 1970s. He examines the meandering of the “Liza Jane” song family between Black and white musical traditions, as reflected in studio recordings and on the page, stage, and screen. Illustrated through the saga of “Liza Jane” is the song’s presence within some of both the most disturbing and most uplifting moments in African American history. Gutstein suggests that the song served as a bridge between Black and white Americans in the era of segregation, perhaps because the “every-woman” character of Liza Jane is not racially bound (219). The book is a testament to Gutstein’s meticulous research, his profound care for “Little Liza Jane,” the many voices that have carried her through centuries, and the far-reaching significance of the song and her sister variants.

Two helpful concepts Gutstein uses to frame Poor Gal are “snotches” and “sludge.” Each of the book’s sixteen chapters, for example, is a snapshot in time, piecing together parts of the song’s story. Chapters are organized in a more-or-less chronological order and are based around periods and settings where “Liza Jane” was found—from 1860s newspaper columns to minstrel shows, the Bristol Sessions, Mickey Mouse, The Andy Griffith Show, and the music of Nina Simone and David Bowie. These chapters reflect the concept of “snotches,” small fragments or motifs of a song that, when considered within a larger pattern alongside other snotches, take on greater meaning in the re-creation of that which is unknown within the history of a song tradition. “Sludge,” meanwhile, refers to the messiness or uncertainty surrounding historical records. By drawing on these concepts throughout the book, Gutstein acknowledges the challenges of tracking down a history of “Liza Jane.”

A great gift of a folk song such as the “Liza Jane” family, from a scholarly perspective, is the variety of musical, cultural, and contextual facets that may be unearthed in its study. Through some combination of lyrical and musical analysis and attention to performance style, and social, historical, and performance contexts, the possible approaches to the study of folk song are limitless, if one bears in mind that options for historical case studies may be highly dependent on which records were preserved. Given this, I humbly suggest that Poor Gal is “a” cultural history, rather than “the” cultural history, of “Little Liza Jane.” Regardless, Gutstein, as an experienced musician and writer with an impressive history of combining the two crafts, brings a great deal of careful research and vast historical context and analysis to an understanding of this song’s story. He appreciates the importance of interdisciplinary study, evidenced by his citation of musicologists, ethnomusicologists, African American music scholars, folklorists, historians, and many others.

With full appreciation that Gutstein is writing from a different angle, I note an issue that folklorists, sociolinguists, and perhaps anthropologists might consider in a similar study involving printed folksong lyrics. Throughout Poor Gal, Gutstein references published lyrical transcriptions from the “Liza Jane” song family, going as far back as 1864. Many, if not most, of the transcriptions employ the racialized dialectal interpretations of the (usually white) transcriber. Thus, some discussion of the politics of language transcription and eye dialect may aid readers in considering the unavoidable biases of these lyrical transcriptions, or any transcription based on oral performance.

Gutstein’s evident care for Liza Jane and the people who have sung and recorded her stories in the past 160 years has paid off. Poor Gal would make a welcome addition to the bookshelf of any scholar with an interest in American folksong, the blending of white and African American music traditions, or archival studies of folklore, folk music, and popular culture in the United States.

——–

[Review length: 637 words • Review posted on February 19, 2025]

ECP NetHappenings U.S. Virgin Islands saves the US Mainland from Trump

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ECP NetHappenings U.S. Virgin Islands saves the US Mainland from Trump

GOLF

Fitting. Golf originated when Scots’ shepherds killing time hit petrified sheep turds with wooden sticks into rabbit holes. Honest.
The one and only thing Trump cares about is golf. All protests should be focused on gold courses. Scottish pranksters are targeting Trump’s Aberdeen golf course with some, uh, creative acts of defiance! Reports of intruders “decorating” the greens have led to increased security. I can’t help but chuckle.

 

POLITICS

The richest country in the world is now
asking its citizens for donations on to help pay off its debt.
Or billionaires could just pay taxes like everybody else.

Canada and Mexico are launching the $120B
Northern Corridor, a new trade route created
to bypass U.S. tariffs and customs. It will reduce
reliance on the U.S. and avoid Trump-era tariffs,
it’s set to boost their economies.

Paul Manafort: Pardoned for lying to protect Trump.
George Papadopolous: Pardoned for lying to protect Trump.
Mike Flynn: Pardoned for lying to protect Trump.
Roger Stone: Pardoned for lying to protect Trump.
Next up, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Sandi Bachom @sandibachom
I was in court when one of Epstein’s victims
described how Ghislaine Maxwell trained her
and groomed her. She was a virgin and Epstein raped
her on the floor, and she looked up and saw all the
photographs of the famous people, and Ghislaine
said she had to tell Epstein how fantastic he was after he raped her

Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma schools chief who
wants bibles in the classroom and Christianity
taught to kids, just got caught watching adult content.
On his work computer.
During a Board of Education meeting.
Read that again.
https://www.friendlyatheist.com/p/ryan-walters-tv-displayed-nude-women

In 2002, at an Edge Foundation “Billionaires’ Dinner”
event in Monterey, CA, Jeffrey Epstein brought
Sarah Kellen and Cindy Lopez on his plane
to the event. Here they are with John Brockman.

It’s a great thing that regular TV is on the decline.
They preach merit too. The loudest preachers of
merit are nepo babies like these two and Musk.
Bitching about DEI while acting oblivious about bs like this.
@karlbode.com
To be clear Larry Ellison, a billionaire Trump
donor who believed the 2020 election was stolen
from Trump, used his own money to buy CBS
and install his son as the boss.
They’ll then convert CBS into another right wing
propaganda mill like Fox News.
It’s not really subtle!
Larry Ellison Invests $6 Billion in Son David’s
Paramount Takeover
The family office is funding the majority of the
$8 billion merger with Skydance as RedBird Capital Partn…
July 17, 2025 at 10:36 AM

Melanie D’Arrigo @DarrigoMelanie
Trump can’t legally deploy the military on US soil.
His budget bill gives $30B to ICE to hire 10,000
more masked, armed agents to be deployed in our communities.
He’s building a domestic military accountable only to him.
This isn’t about immigration.
It’s authoritarianism.

GOOD TROUBLE

If you haven’t yet seen the New Episode of South Park
Yes, ‘South Park’ Went There — And It’s Glorious
In a moment when Hollywood and the media are gripped by fear, Trey Parker and Matt Stone stepped to the mic and dropped a balls-out critique of President Trump and Paramount
Amazingly Aired Uncensored
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6khV7jD9xU

Donald Trump is DONE. Stick a fork in him.

Rep. Ro Khanna has FORMALLY
contacted Epstein’s Lawyers to obtain the
birthday book after learning it’s in their
hands – and not the DOJ’s.
“This is an extraordinary step toward justice…
and if needed, we can subpoena it.”
Things just got real for Trump.  @RoKhanna is doing
what justice demands, going straight to Epstein’s
lawyers to get the birthday book. No more stalling.
No more sealed secrets.
The truth is knocking, and it’s not asking twice.

ARE YOU AWARE:
While the DOJ — at Trump’s bidding —
hides the Epstein files, little if any attention is
being paid to this: The U.S. Virgin Islands, acting
independently from U.S. law enforcement, exposed
Epstein’s international sex trafficking empire —
and won a record $105M+ civil settlement
in 2022 from his estate.

U.S. Virgin Islands saves the US Mainland
from Trump Their AG called it:
“An expansive criminal enterprise…
where dozens of young women and children
were trafficked, raped, sexually assaulted, and held captive.”
They named it the “Epstein Enterprise”.
They froze accounts, forced the sale of Epstein’s
private islands, and clawed back over $80M
in fraudulent tax credits.
This case got next to zero headlines.

Why?
▶️ It didn’t come from the FBI.
▶️ It didn’t come from U.S. DOJ.
▶️ It came from a Black woman AG in a U.S. territory who did what the U.S. DOJ wouldn’t do: expose the elite cover-up.

So we ask:
Where are the Virgin Islands Epstein files?
The documents. The photos. The logs.
We know they exist.
We demand their release.
Follow this link 12/1/02 to the official
announcement of the
U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice
https://usvidoj.com/u-s-virgin-islands-attorney-general-settles-sex-trafficking-case-against-estate-of-jeffrey-epstein-and-co-defendants-for-over-105-million/

THESE U.S.V.I. PEOPLE ARE SO STRONG AND RESILIENT!!
1990 Festival, U.S. Virgin Islands, Celebrations, Environment
In the Heart of the Storm: The Resilience of Culture

How many of those 4725 wire transfers
were made between Trump and Epstein?
Over 1 BILLION dollars And what were they for?

The Supreme Court just let the Trump
admin remove 3 members of the Consumer
Product Safety Commission without cause,
overruling a federal judge who reinstated them.
This continues a pattern of Trump removing independent officials
with no accountability.

Ralph Nader@RalphNader
Here’s a calculation for you.
Take all of DOGE’s cuts, the close downs of agencies,
the firing of hundreds of thousands of federal workers,
the breaking of all kinds of contracts with business
contractors including small businesses, the depletion
of the social safety net. Add it all up and it doesn’t
amount in terms of dollars to the three major
additions that Tyrant Trump has added:
-$150 billion more to the bloated military budget.
-Another $45 billion for building corporate
concentration camps for migrants who have not been
convicted of anything.
-And another $44 billion to build the wall
between Mexico and the United States.
Those totals are far greater than the cruel
and vicious so-called savings at the expense of the lives
and livelihoods of American families. -R

FOLKLORE

Professor Gregory Hansen
Here are some articles that include lots of photos.
https://arkreview.org/

“Envisioning a Storyworld at the Crowley’s
Ride Raceway.”
Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 55.3 (2024): 186-205.

“Delta Sources and Resources:
Delta Gateway Museum.”
Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 53.3 (2022): 227-9.

“KASU FM 91.9’s ‘Bluegrass Monday’: Performing
Intangible Cultural Heritage and Fostering Historic
Preservation in Arkansas, USA.” In Sustaining Support
for Intangible Cultural Heritage, edited by Shihan de
Silva Jayasuriya, Mariana Pinto Leitão Pereira and
Gregory Hansen.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022, 96-113.

“The Lepanto Terrapin Derby: A Photo Essay in the Time of a Pandemic.” Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies 52.1 (2021): 36-52.

BITCOIN

Bitcoin just proved it can absorb a $9 BILLION
sell order in 36 hours with minimal market disruption.
Huge green light for large fund managers and sovereigns
who can be assured of moving their money in/out w relative ease.
Incredibly bullish liquidity test.

American HODL says the coming Bitcoin treasury bubble
could rival the dot-com era—$11T of capital chasing BTC,
with true mania not hitting until 2026+. That’s when
Bitcoin could theoretically run towards a $1M
blow-off top. Is he on to something?

ECP NetHappenings Saylor Academy Free Education For All

Supreme Court allows Trump to lay off nearly
1,400 Education Department employees

@grok said
Comparing debt-based fiat and Bitcoin:

Fiat: Relies on perpetual debt expansion to pay
prior obligations, eroding value via inflation
(e.g., USD lost 99% since 1971). Ponzi-like as new
money funds old without real backing,
risking collapse sans growth.

Bitcoin: Decentralized, fixed 21M supply, no central promises. Value from scarcity/market demand, not new entrants paying old.

Fiat more Ponzi-like (70% probability) due to debt
pyramid; Bitcoin low (10%) as asset, not scheme.
GROK AI SAYS THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS CORRUPT
BECAUSE IT “CREATES MONEY FROM THIN AIR.”
ITS ONE WORD SOLUTION: #BITCOIN

Mark Moss @1MarkMoss Jul 25
The “Holy Grail” Bitcoin indicator is the PI Cycle Top Indicator.
It has perfectly nailed Bitcoin cycle tops in 2013, 2017,
and 2021, but… what it’s calling next is hard to believe.
While everyone is expecting BTC to peak in Q4 2025,
the PI Cycle Top is calling for a peak in Q1 2027, with the
bitcoin price being $395,000
Will the Pi Cycle top continue to be accurate, or is it broken?
Only time will tell.

What Is the Dolphin Card?
The #DolphinCard has a 1% fee but you maintain full privacy & sovereignty.
Other cards might pay you 4% to use them, but you have to give up all your info, let them track your spending habits, and sell your data.
*They can de-platform you anytime too. I know which one I prefer.

HEADLINES

@BladeoftheS
The USA is the only country on the planet that
employs more people in Health Insurance than
it employs as Doctors and Nurses.
Most of your money is spent BLOCKING your own treatment.

OPT OUT OF ADVERTING

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check the server’s SSH capabilities

21 children, some birthed by surrogate mothers,
found in connection with L.A.-area home
A local hospital notified police of an infant
who was taken to its care with head injuries.
Police said they are investigating whether the
children found at the home in the San Gabriel Valley
east of Los Angeles were part of a surrogacy scam.
The home’s residents — Silvia Zhang, 38,
and Guojun Xuan, 65 — were released from custody,
pending further investigation, authorities said.
It is not clear how many children at the
home were born to surrogate mothers

Meta shareholders vs Mark Zuckerberg in $8 billion lawsuit

The Patterns of Elites Who Conceal
Their Assets Offshore | Dartmouth

Minnesota Supreme Court Rules on
Unicorn Riot DAPL Subpoena

Ex-NYPD commissioner sues NYC mayor,
alleging he ran police department as a ‘criminal enterprise’

7 Concerning Levels Of Acoustic Spying Techniques
Take my hand while I gradually show you how to
spy in ways that will make KGB agents look like noobs.

▓▓▓—▓▓▓—▓▓▓—▓▓▓

ECP NetHappenings News Headlines BTC, Politics, AI, Folklore

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BTC, Politics, AI, Folklore

#BITCOIN

 

Nov. 5, 2023 Why Banks Are Suddenly Closing Down Customer Accounts
Surprised individuals and small-business owners can’t pay rent or make payroll, and no one ever explains what they did wrong.
“Per your account agreement, we can close your account for any reason at any time,” the script often goes. By law, banks must file a “suspicious activity report” when they see transactions or behavior that might violate the law, like unexpectedly large cash transactions or wire transfers with banks in high-risk countries.

Eric Balchunas: “This is first spot ETF listed on DTCC, none of the others on there (yet). Def notable BlackRock is leading charge on these logistics (seeding, ticker, dtcc) that tend to happen just prior to launch. Hard not to view this as them getting signal that approval is certain/imminent”
DTCC clears and settles virtually all broker-to-broker equity, listed corporate and municipal bond and unit investment trust (UIT) transactions in the U.S. equities markets.

Hacker Gummo mines 80,000 Bitcoin with computers he build himself

*Taiwan to Recognize Bitcoin as Legal Tender

*Hong Kong to offer Spot BTC ETF

Billionaires Behind Bars: Crypto Fraud Sam Bankman-Fried joins “illustrious” list
https://www.forbes.com.au/news/billionaires/billionaires-behind-bars/

#POLITICS

Why Israel Slept
The long catalogue of intelligence failures that allowed Hamas to stage its brutal surprise attack on October 7 begins at The Venetian, Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas resort.

Plans to install Trump as dictator in 2024 are out in the open

 

Mark Meadows made false election claims in his book and the publisher wants their money back
Although Meadows promised that everything in his book was accurate, one chapter opens with “I KNEW HE DIDN’T LOSE”

AI bot capable of insider trading and lying, say researchers

Trump Disclosed Trademarks in China and Russia After Leaving the Presidency

X CEO Linda Yaccarino Helped Remove Viral Pro-Hitler Post: Report

VIDEO The biggest bank heist in history (and why you’ve never heard of it)

#AI

EU ‘in touching distance’ of world’s first laws regulating artificial intelligence
Dragoș Tudorache, MEP who has spent four years drafting AI legislation, is optimistic final text can be agreed by Wednesday
By Lisa O’Carroll
Oct 24 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/24/eu-touching-distance-world-first-law-regulating-artificial-intelligence-dragos-tudorache

The EU is within “touching distance” of passing the world’s first laws on artificial intelligence, giving Brussels the power to shut down services that cause harm to society, says the AI tsar who has spent the last four years developing the legislation.

A forthcoming EU AI Act could introduce rules for everything from homemade chemical weapons made through AI to copyright theft of music, art and literature, with negotiations between MEPs, EU member states and the European Commission over final text coming to a head on Wednesday.

“Artificial intelligence does have a profound impact on everything we do and therefore it was time to bring in some safeguards and guardrails on how this technology will evolve for the benefit of our citizens” said Dragoș Tudorache, a Romanian MEP and co-rapporteur of the parliamentary committee steering through the legislation, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.

Speaking in his Brussels parliamentary office, Tudorache said: “I’m more optimistic than I am pessimistic about AI. I would be a pessimist if we did nothing about it.”

Tudorache said there was a chance he could get a final text agreed for the AI Act by Wednesday. It would then be formally adopted by parliament and, bar any hiccups, become law early next year.

“We are in touching distance,” he said. “A good 60-70% of the text is already agreed.”

One of the remaining areas of contention is the use of AI-powered live facial recognition. Member states want to retain this right, arguing it is vital for security on borders but also to avert public disorder. But MEPs felt real-time facial recognition cameras on streets and public spaces was an invasion of privacy, and voted to remove those clauses.

They also voted to remove the right of authorities or employers to use AI-powered emotional recognition technology already used in China, whereby facial expressions of anger, sadness, happiness and boredom as well as other biometric data is monitored to spot tired drivers or workers.

Tudorache hinted at a compromise in the making on all the remaining contentious areas.

“There is a plausible scenario that we keep talking until the middle of the night and close the file on 25 October,” he said.

The handful of subjects that have not yet been agreed were all “intrinsically linked” so there would be no opportunity for simple trading of text between the political interests, he said. Everyone would have to concede something in order for the surveillance clauses to get over the line in a package.

Apart from real-time surveillance concerns, one of hottest topics preoccupying regulators are the unknown threats that AI could pose, threats that developers don’t even know about, such as the ability to create pathogens and other biohazards.

“You could grow your own little monster in your kitchen,” said Tudorache of AI’s capacity to give members of the public the tools to create biohazards.

The person who builds the bomb can be picked up by police under existing laws in all countries. But under the AI Act, the developer or owner of the AI tools will also be accountable and could be fined up to 6% of their revenue or banned from the EU entirely.

“It means AI companies can’t wash away their responsibility. They won’t be able to say: ‘Well, it is the user who is responsible for taking my model and doing something bad with it.’ If their AI model is capable of producing something that is illegal, then they will have legal responsibility for it,” said Tudorache.

He said that this would be a strong deterrent against the potential downsides of AI. The rules would “also help these companies”, he added.

“AI companies themselves say that they see their models as creating very serious risks, some of them to mankind. And I use their own words, not mine,” he said.

“There are now AI safety summits left, right and centre, one in London in the next two, three weeks,” he said, referring to an international AI safety summit to be convened by the UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, next week, where organisers plan to delve into the challenge of regulating unknown threats.

Increased accountability and transparency that will be required under the AI Act “is not only an obligation that puts a burden on them, I also see it as a good opportunity for them to build confidence in their models” and in the public, Tudorache added.

Other elements of the act unlikely to be affected by the final round of negotiations include protection of the creative sector.

AI companies will have to submit lists of data sources to the European Commission as part of a regular reporting requirement, which Tudorache hoped would act as a deterrent to the use of data and creative content without recompense.

The idea is to enable musicians, scientific researchers or authors to easily see if their work has been plagiarised and give them legal protections.

[snip]

#FOLKLORE BOOK REVIEWS

Rachel Horner – Review of Andrew Snyder, Critical Brass: Street Carnival & Musical Activism in Olympic Rio de Janeiro

Lee D. Baker – Review of Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt, Franz Boas: Shaping Anthropology and Fostering Social Justice

Journal of Folklore Research Reviews

Journal of Folklore Research Reviews
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/jfrr/index

Reviewed by Christine Goldberg
Christine Goldberg – Review of Camiño Noia Campos, Catalogue of Galician Folktales

Reviewed by Kip Lornell
Kip Lornell – Review of Ross Cole, The Folk: Music, Modernism, and the Political Imagination

Reviewed by Tsafi Sebba-Elran
Tsafi Sebba-Elran – Review of Marc Eliany, Jewish Folktales from Morocco: Tales of Seha the Sage and Seha the Clown

Reviewed by Jack Zipes
Jack Zipes – Review of Julie Koehler et. al., Women Writing Wonder: An Anthology of Subversive Nineteenth-Century British, French, and German Fairy Tales

Reviewed by Martin Tsang
Martin A. Tsang – Review of Solimar Otero, Archives of Conjure: Stories of the Dead in Afrolatinx Cultures

Reviewed by Amy Shuman
Amy Shuman – Review of Dan Ben-Amos, Folklore Concepts: Histories and Critiques

Reviewed by Ken Perlman
Ken Perlman – Review of Norm Cohen, Carson Cohen, and Anne Dhu McLucas, An American Singing Heritage: Songs from the British-Irish-American Oral Tradition as Recorded in the Early 20th Century

—

Teacher Planbook: Folk Music, Folklore and Culture in the Classroom at…
Virginia Folklore Society Bulletin, in 1913, through the US
https://edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/folk.html

Use Music in the classroom to teach reading.
https://edu-cyberpg.com/GuavaberryBooks/Domino/classroom.html

Learn about the Indigenous Folksong Reading Curriculum, Cross Curricular Thematic …
Technology in the classroom. 2) The Oral Tradition and the New
https://edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/ReadingModule/Indigenous_Folksong_Readi.html

Educational CyberPlayGround: Folklife Grants, Research Projects and Folklife…
Women in the Arts Open Folklore Project – Twitter Smithsonian
https://edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/folk2.html

1998 H.R. 4112 Alan Jabboor announces the permanent authorization of the American …
headed in the area of folklore studies.” Robert Baron has held
https://edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/folkletters.html

Educational CyberPlayGround: Teaching Reading Through Song
interviewed school and kindergarten teachers, visited their classrooms
https://edu-cyberpg.com/Culdesac/ReadingModule/Research-shows-Motor-Cognitive-Sk