Der Frühling will kommen, Der Frühling, meine Freud

The very first signs of spring are appearing here in Ohio now and bring to mind some other delightful signs that the outcome of all the death and horrors will be joy in the end.

The first thing is Schubert's “The Shepherd on the Rock.” My amazing sister first brought this piece, one of the last things Schubert did, to my attention many years ago and it has been there in my mind since, particularly during the difficult hours.

There are many versions available, each one bringing out elements of the experience that are, well, holy. I've listened to many renditions of and of course I am incapable of picking out the one that would touch you most closely. But if I had to choose one of the full twelve-minute performances, it would be either that by Arlene Auger or that by Kathleen Battle. Here is Barbara Bonney doing the last two minutes or so, the Allegretto finale, the joy, the “Freud,” the “Der Frühling will kommen:”

There is an unusual performance of the first part using the 'cello rather than the clarinet. The 'cellist's phrasing and expression seem to me to have the whole so I include it, also:

A parallel translation of the lyrics is here.

The second thing is the increase of Elizabeth Warren. The video of her recent questioning of bank regulators “went viral” and I also liked the Bernanke questioning on "too big to fail" banks this last week. The hatred the Wall Street Journal people have for her is beyond shocking - I've never seen anything like it – but there are also many right-wingers who agree with her. She is very clear and to-the-point. The DNC speech, although political, is a lot of fun and a good introduction to her:

Here is a letter she sent to her supporters this morning:

Valdemar --

Attorney General Eric Holder indicated in testimony before the U.S. Senate that some Wall Street banks have gotten so big that they are now above the law.

He actually said earlier this week:

I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.

This is wrong -- just plain wrong. We are a country that believes in equal justice under the law -- not special deals for the big guys. And that's not all the special deals that the big banks get.

According to recent calculations by Bloomberg, the top ten biggest banks receive an $83 billion subsidy every year in the form of lower borrowing costs -- something not available to your community bank or credit union. The markets think that, if things get tough, the government will be there to bail out the big banks again but not the little guys.

To put things in perspective -- that $83 billion subsidy is about the same amount of money being fought over in the sequestration.

So why are we still debating this issue at all? Isn't it obvious that the "too big to fail" problem still exists and is bad for small banks? Bad for taxpayers? Bad for our economy? Bad for justice?

Here's one theory that worries me: maybe people believe that the banks have in fact become too big to shrink. They have started to say that we can't cut these banks down to size.

I'm not one of them, and neither are colleagues of mine like Sen. Sherrod Brown who have been fighting hard on this issue. We know we can take on the big banks and their army of lobbyists and win because we've done it before.

When banks are too big to fail, too big to jail, too big for trial, too big to manage, too big to regulate, too big to shrink, and too big to reform... they are just too big.

We're just getting started here.

Thank you for being a part of this,

Elizabeth