He seemed to be signalling that he will be running for President this year, as he did four years ago, in open opposition to the American oil industry: “These are the same oil companies that have been making record profits off the money you spend at the pump. It’s outrageous. It’s inexcusable.”The President’s policies toward the oil industry are not easy to categorize. He has backed oil and natural- gas alternatives such as solar power and wind power, and also the development of electric cars. Yet he has encouraged new domestic oil production as well. The average price of a gallon has risen by more than fifteen per cent since January, and congressional Republicans have repeatedly attacked the President for not doing enough to keep prices down.

Between 2. 01. 0 and 2. United States rose by twenty- five per cent; the percentage of household income that Americans spend on gas has tripled since the late nineteen- nineties. The President has acknowledged that there is no way that the expansion of drilling can affect gasoline prices anytime soon—it takes a long time to add to the supply, and, in any event, gas prices are tied to the global oil price, which is determined by factors such as turmoil in the Middle East and Chinese consumption rates. But, by calling for more drilling, Obama can say that he is taking action.

By lambasting the oil companies, he can suggest that he is not at fault. The contest between the Democrats and Big Oil this year will be reciprocal, and Big Oil will be led by Exxon. Mobil, by far the largest and most profitable oil corporation headquartered in the United States. In recent election cycles, the corporation has directed more of its political- action- committee spending to Republicans than any other of the largest American public corporations. About ninety per cent of Exxon. Mobil’s PAC giving during the 2. Republicans. An even higher percentage has gone to them this year, according to databases maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Among the other large shareholder- owned corporations that maintain active PACs, Walmart, General Electric, Bank of America, and Ford gave about half or more of their contributions to Democrats during the 2. Even Dow Chemical, historically wary of Democratic politicians, because of environmental and regulatory issues, directed about half of its PAC contributions to Democrats in the last cycle. Chevron and Conoco. Phillips, the second- and third- largest American oil companies, gave to Democrats at twice the rate of Exxon. Mobil. The evolution of the country’s biggest and most powerful oil company into a finance arm of the Republican Party is a story of both energy economics and style.

On November 7, 2006, the Democratic Party took control of the House. A few weeks later, Ken Cohen flew to Washington. On a chilly afternoon in early December, he. The action house that sold the photo the other day was expecting $100,000 for the piece. It’s unclear how the auctioneers came into possession of the photo, but.

Glenn Herbert Gould (/ Uncertainty remains, however, about whether the person who prepared the documents really could have had a copy of Calibri in 2006. We know that the typeface was. Subscribe and SAVE, give a gift subscription or get help with an existing subscription by clicking the links below each cover image.

Exxon. Mobil describes itself as a non- ideological corporation, yet it has developed an algorithmic formula for political spending and lobbying that has reinforced its alignment with Republican candidates in ways that Democrats could hardly see as anything but antagonistic. Over the past six years, the company has tried to adapt to the revival of the Democratic Party, but it has struggled to do so, in large part because of its own rigid internal culture. Exxon. Mobil was created by a hostile act of the United States government. In 1. 91. 1, the Supreme Court ordered the dismemberment of the Standard Oil monopoly, founded by John D. Rockefeller. Some of its executives, judging by the skepticism they express toward Washington, seem not to have got over the initial breakup. Exxon. Mobil’s chairman and chief executive, Rex Tillerson, who is active in the Boy Scouts of America, told the magazine Scouting recently that his favorite book is “Atlas Shrugged,” Ayn Rand’s dystopian 1. The company has a culture of secrecy—with nondisclosure agreements and internal security that can make it seem like an intelligence agency.

Company executives deflect press coverage; they sometimes withhold co. The captain had been drinking, and he left the bridge shortly before midnight, in violation of company policies. His crew members became confused, attempted to turn the ship, and lost track of their position altogether. At a few minutes past twelve, there was a terrible sound. We’re fucked,” the chief mate called out.

The Valdez dumped more than two hundred thousand barrels of oil into the water. Soon, the pleading black eyes of oil- soaked sea otters became the symbols of a broad wildlife massacre. The Valdez disaster became a catalyst for reforms at Exxon. Mobil that still influence every aspect of its operations, including its approach to politics and lobbying. Almost since its founding, the company has emphasized procedure and orthodoxy. But after the wreck Exxon’s executives placed extraordinary emphasis on uniform, scientific, idiot- proof, automated systems of safety, management, finance, and business analysis. Some of the reforms made the company resemble a cult.

Exxon. Mobil departments worldwide organized regular safety meetings and competitions. Workers were awarded prizes for insuring that office clerks did not leave file drawers open, lest someone bump into them. Failing to turn off a coffee pot might draw a written reprimand. Cars had to be backed into parking spaces, so that in case of an emergency the driver could see clearly while speeding away. Group safety confessionals covered conduct beyond the workplace and included discussions of the correct use of a ladder while cleaning gutters at home and the danger of getting too much sun on a beach vacation. Employees stood up and shared stories of “near- misses” with personal accidents, as in a twelve- step recovery program. One manager who had been at the company for twenty- eight years recalled listening to a colleague confess that while cutting the grass in his yard he had mishandled his lawnmower, causing an object to fly out of it and strike his leg.

The atmosphere within Exxon. Mobil’s offices is one of studied formality; the corporate aesthetic suggests a Four Seasons hotel without many guests. At industry meetings, the Exxon.

Mobil participants can usually be identified easily: the women in charcoal pants suits and the men in dark suits and white shirts, with short and proper haircuts. Such values were “not just a lot of lip service,” another longtime executive said. Rockefeller went to church every Sunday and his employees better by God go to church on Sunday or they were not good employees.”According to interviews with current and former Exxon. Mobil managers and lobbyists, the corporation’s political spending largely reflects the free- market outlook of its senior executives; virtually all of them joined the company out of college or graduate school and stayed on for life. Exxon. Mobil has engineered its free- market creed into a ranking and evaluation process, the “key vote system,” for directing political- action- committee contributions. The corporation’s public- affairs analysts identify important votes in Congress that affect Exxon. Mobil’s business interests; politicians are then rated on the basis of these votes.

The corporation’s heavy spending on Republicans is the outcome of objective analysis, an executive involved in political strategy said. Since the nineteen- fifties, Exxon has always been in the top five on the annual Fortune 5. It functions as a corporate state within the American state—constructing its own foreign, economic, and human- rights policies—and its executives are self- conscious about their sovereignty. Its business model—drilling holes in the ground all over the world and maintaining oil and gas wells profitably for up to forty years at a stretch—means that the political and economic time horizons for its corporate strategies extend much farther than those of almost any government.

Lee Raymond, Tillerson’s predecessor, once remarked, “We see governments come and go.”Exxon. Descargar Cancion Siguelo Wisin Yandel there. Mobil’s headquarters are in Irving, Texas, on a placid campus near the Dallas- Fort Worth airport. Its Washington office is in a pink granite- and- concrete office building on K Street.

Glenn Gould - Wikipedia. Glenn Herbert Gould. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and capacity to articulate the polyphonic texture of Bach's music. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 2. Although his recordings were dominated by Bach, Gould's repertoire was diverse, including works by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, pre- Baroque composers such as Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Orlando Gibbons and William Byrd, and such 2. Paul Hindemith, Arnold Schoenberg and Richard Strauss. Gould was well known for various eccentricities, from his unorthodox musical interpretations and mannerisms at the keyboard to aspects of his lifestyle and personal behaviour.

He stopped giving concerts at the age of 3. Gould was also a writer, broadcaster, conductor, and composer. He was a prolific contributor to musical journals, in which he discussed music theory and outlined his musical philosophy.

Had he lived beyond 5. As a broadcaster, Gould was prolific. His output ranged from television and radio broadcasts of studio performances to musique concr. His childhood home has been named a historic site by the City of Toronto. Both his parents were musical, and his mother, especially, encouraged the infant Gould's early musical development. Before his birth, his mother planned for him to become a successful musician, and thus exposed him to music during her pregnancy. He learned to read music before he could read words.

He would play his own little pieces for family, friends, and sometimes large gatherings, including, in 1. Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (a few blocks from the Gould house) of one of his own compositions. This left a tremendous impression. He later described the experience: It was Hofmann.

It was, I think, his last performance in Toronto, and it was a staggering impression. The only thing I can really remember is that, when I was being brought home in a car, I was in that wonderful state of half- awakeness in which you hear all sorts of incredible sounds going through your mind.

They were all orchestral sounds, but I was playing them all, and suddenly I was Hofmann. I was enchanted. The photo was taken in 1. Gould fully developed this technique. As a young child, Gould was taught piano by his mother. At the age of 1. 0, he began attending The Royal Conservatory of Music, (known until 1.

Royal Charter from King George VI, as the Toronto Conservatory of Music) in Toronto. He studied music theory with Leo Smith, the organ with Frederick C. Silvester, and piano with Alberto Guerrero.

Gould's mother would urge the young Gould to sit up straight at the keyboard. The chair allowed him to pull down on the keys rather than striking them from above, a central technical idea of his teacher at the Conservatory, Alberto Guerrero. Gould showed considerable technical skill in performing and recording a wide repertoire including virtuosic and romantic works, such as his own arrangement of Ravel's La valse and Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's fifth and sixth symphonies.

Gould worked from a young age with Guerrero on a technique known as finger- tapping: a method of training the fingers to act more independently from the arm. His manual practising focused on articulation, rather than basic facility. He may have spoken ironically about his practising as there is evidence that, on occasion, he did practise quite hard, sometimes using his own drills and techniques. It tends to have a mechanism which is rather like an automobile without power steering: you are in control and not it; it doesn't drive you, you drive it.

This is the secret of doing Bach on the piano at all. You must have that immediacy of response, that control over fine definitions of things. Listeners regarded his interpretations as ranging from brilliantly creative to outright eccentric. He was a child prodigy.

For Gould, . The institution of the public concert, he felt, degenerated into the . He founded the Festival Trio chamber group in 1. Isaac Mamott and the violinist Albert Pratz. In 1. 95. 7, Gould embarked on a tour of the Soviet Union, becoming the first North American to play there since World War II. Gould made his Boston debut in 1. Peabody Mason Concert Series. D minor (BWV 1. 05.

Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic. He argued that public performance devolved into a sort of competition, with a non- empathetic audience (musically and otherwise) mostly attendant to the possibility of the performer erring or not meeting critical expectation. This doctrine he set forth, only half in jest, in . Bach's The Art of Fugue, and Paul Hindemith's Piano Sonata No. For pianists such as Van Cliburn, 2.

He felt that he could realize a musical score more fully this way. Thus, the act of musical composition, to Gould, did not entirely end with the original score. The performer had to make creative choices. Gould felt strongly that there was little point in re- recording centuries- old pieces if the performer had no new perspective to bring to the work. For the rest of his life, Gould eschewed live performance, focusing instead on recording, writing, and broadcasting. Eccentricities. He usually hummed while he played the piano, and his recording engineers had mixed results in how successfully they could exclude his voice from recordings. Gould claimed that his singing was unconscious and increased proportionately with the inability of the piano in question to realize the music as he intended.

It is likely that this habit originated in Gould's having been taught by his mother to . This became . For example, a reviewer of his 1. Goldberg Variations opined that many listeners would . The temperature of the recording studio had to be exactly regulated.

He invariably insisted that it had to be extremely warm. According to Friedrich, the air conditioning engineer had to work just as hard as the recording engineers.

He continued to use this chair even when the seat was completely worn through. George Szell, who led Gould in 1. Cleveland Orchestra, remarked to his assistant, . D minor with Gould as soloist, he informed the audience that he was assuming no responsibility for what they were about to hear. He asked the audience: ? The answer is, of course, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved.

The speech was interpreted by Harold C. Schonberg, music critic for The New York Times, as an abdication of responsibility and an attack on Gould. The live radio broadcast (along with Bernstein's disclaimer) was subsequently released on CD. Gould was averse to cold and wore heavy clothing (including gloves), even in warm places. He was once arrested, presumably mistaken for a vagrant, while sitting on a park bench in Sarasota, Florida, dressed in his standard all- climate attire of coat(s), hat and mittens.

He hated being touched, and in later life he limited personal contact, relying on the telephone and letters for communication. On one visit to Steinway Hall in New York City in 1. William Hupfer, greeted Gould by giving him a slap on the back. Gould was shocked by this, and complained of aching, lack of coordination, and fatigue because of the incident. He went on to explore the possibility of litigation against Steinway & Sons if his apparent injuries were permanent.

Gould is here.. Probably the best- known are the German musicologist . A CBC profile noted, . Documentarian Bruno Monsaingeon said of him, . Bazzana writes that . When Gould was in Los Angeles in 1. Cornelia Foss and her husband Lukas. Cornelia was an art instructor who had studied sculpture at the American Academy in Rome; Lukas worked for both the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Brooklyn Philharmonia.

After several years, Gould and Cornelia Foss became lovers. She purchased a house near Gould's 1. St. Clair Avenue West apartment. In 2. 00. 7, Cornelia Foss finally admitted that she and Gould had had a love affair lasting several years.

But I assure you, he was an extremely heterosexual man.