I just discovered the delightful pianist and satirist, Tom Lehrer, via Roderick Long’s blog. A mathematician (BA magna cum laude from Harvard, a phi beta kappa, and teaching stints at MIT, Harvard, and Wellesley, although he never finished his doctorate), Lehrer was employed at Los Alamos and the National Security Agency and then lectured widely in political science and musical theater. There are dozens of great pieces of his posted on youtube, on everything from Werner von Braun to World War III. To my ears, Lehrer sounds a bit like Danny Kaye (another of my favorites) – for the politically savvy.
The lyrics of this song, “Poisoning Pigeons In the Park,” perfectly capture the macabre sangfroid toward cruelty and wanton destruction that the corporate-state tries to inculcate in the population.