Category Archives: News
Coulter Capitulates
“OK fine, let’s do that, but in the end, at some point, if the Bush tax cuts are repealed and everyone’s taxes go up, I promise you Republicans will get blamed for it. “It doesn’t mean you cave on everything, but there are some things Republicans do that feed into what the media is telling America about Republicans.”
– Ann Coulter, admitting to Sean Hannity on FOX News that taxes on the wealthy should be raised.
At last! There’s a victory on the reasonable front! Now, if we could get more conservatives to admit George W. Bush’s tax policies are what screwed up the economy in the first place, we’d be on the road to recovery. Getting over denial is always the toughest part.
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In Memoriam – Dave Brubeck, 1920 – 2012
Legendary jazz composer and musician Dave Brubeck died this morning, December 5, at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut, just one day shy of his 92nd birthday. Brubeck, who was born in Concord, California, is best known for his 1959 piece “Take Five,” from the album “Time Out.” “Take Five” is one of the most complex jazz instrumentals every composed and helped to redefine the musical genre. He moved it beyond the “4/4 time,” or what he called “march-style jazz.” “Time Out” became the first jazz album to sell a million copies.
Brubeck’s mother had forbade him and his two brothers from listening to music; believing that, if you wanted to hear music, you should play it. The Brubeck brothers all played various instruments and studied classical music, as well as spirituals and cowboy songs. Born cross-eyed, Dave Brubeck learned most of this music by ear, since sight-reading was difficult. At the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California, Brubeck was initially intent on pursuing a career in veterinary medicine. But, as he worked his way through college as a pianist in jazz bands, he switched his major to music. While in college, Brubeck met and married Iola Whitlock. Upon graduation, though, he was immediately drafted into the military, as part of U.S. involvement in World War II.
In 1946 Brubeck formed an octet and three years later, created the Dave Brubeck Trio. He formed the Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1951 following a near fatal car crash.
In 1954 Brubeck became only the second jazz musician, after Louis Armstrong, to be featured on the cover of Time magazine.
In 1999 Brubeck was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Ten years later he received a Kennedy Center Honor for his contribution to American culture. He gave his archives to his alma mater.
Brubeck’s son Michael died in 2009. In addition to his other sons and his daughter, Brubeck is survived by his wife; 10 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Brubeck once explained succinctly what jazz meant to him. “One of the reasons I believe in jazz,” he said, “is that the oneness of man can come through the rhythm of your heart. It’s the same anyplace in the world, that heartbeat. It’s the first thing you hear when you’re born – or before you’re born – and it’s the last thing you hear.”
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In Memoriam – Hartford “Sonny” Black Eagle, 1934 – 2012
Hartford and Mary Black Eagle and President Barack Obama bow their heads in prayer during the White House Tribal Nations Conference at the Interior Department in Washington on December 2, 2011.
Hartford “Sonny” Black Eagle, an elder from Montana’s Crow Indian Nation whose family “adopted” Sen. Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, has died. He was 78. Black Eagle passed away at his home in Lodge Grass on November 26, after suffering problems from a recent bout with pneumonia.
Black Eagle and his family had ceremoniously adopted Obama when the latter visited the Crow Indian Reservation shortly before Montana’s Democratic primary. As part of the adoption, Obama attended a purification ceremony where he was prayed over by Black Eagle and received a Crow name that translates as, “One Who Helps People Throughout the Land.”
Black Eagle’s son, CedricBlack Eagle, current Crow Tribal Chairman, said the ceremony was one of his father’s proudest moments and felt that it was his duty to make sure Native American voices were heard. “He felt like he was representing all of Indian Country as a spokesman, and always telling his (adopted) son, the President, that he has to make sure all of the people in Indian Country are heard and try to help them all,” Cedric Black Eagle said.
Black Eagle and his wife, Mary, later attended Obama’s inauguration. During destructive flooding on the reservation last year that left Lodge Grass largely isolated and forced many tribal members from their homes, Obama called Hartford and Mary Black Eagle to check on their safety, Cedric Black Eagle said.
Funeral services for Hartford Black Eagle are scheduled December 6, followed by internment at Lodge Grass Cemetery.
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HPY 20 TM
Today is a historic one in the world of electronic communications. On December 3, 1992, Neil Papworth, a 22-year-old engineer with a company called Semea Group Telecoms in the United Kingdom, sent the first text message: ‘Merry Christmas.’ And, he didn’t even use his thumbs! Papworth typed the message on a large computer as an experiment for Vodafone, a European cellular carrier.
But, others claim that Edward Lantz, a former NASA employee, actually submitted the first text message 3 years earlier. Using a Motorola beeper, Lantz typed in a series of numbers that, when flipped upside down, turned into words. I suppose textaholics (usually anyone under the age of 25) can argue the semantics over that issue.
However, neither Papworth nor Lantz actually invented the text message concept. That honor goes to Matti Makkonen, a Finnish engineer who developed the idea even further back in time – 1984. We’re talking electronics here, so 8 years is like two millennia in computer-speak. By 2010, the International Telecommunications Union reported that 200,000 text messages were sent every minute.
I have to wonder how our descendants will consider these advancements. I mean, the Mayans had codices, and Johannes Guttenberg developed the modern printing press. Is there any way to preserve cloud computing in a glass jar? Just wondering.
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I Knew That!
“Christianity is not a religion; it is a philosophy.”
– Bill O’Reilly in a discussion with David Silverman, the president of American Atheists, on the religious right’s “war on Christmas.”
Here we go again – every year around this time in the U.S. the “War on Christmas” gets shocked back to life. It’s the Hugh Hefner of religion.
Chief Writing Wolf 