"Smack Dab in the Middle"*

I've been forced by recent utterly tragic murders and quite ugly events - the Aurora, Colorado shootings and the Penn State University child molestation cover-up - to process dreadful and deadly images of the ruined lives of the Aurora and PSU victims - lives ruined by men masquerading, on the one hand, as a deadly movie character, and an 'educator' on the other hand.  When it comes to assessing the reasons and causes of human behavior, I am a quietist on the head-shaking side of the behavioral science divide. On the other side of this divide would be, I imagine, most moral philosophers, run-of-the-mill psychologists, psychiatrists, and CNN and ESPN worthies. But, in addition to my quietist, head-shaking stance, I am inclined to suppose that the studies of history and economics are of far greater use in understanding the events noted above.
  Education and the lack of economic opportunity. The cost of a decent education at state colleges and universities has become out of reach for many Americans. The exorbitant cost of an undergraduate education at a state college or university is determined to a large extent by legislative fiat (budget appropriations) - legislative acts have become part of the weeding- out and debt enslaving process. If a young person is reckless enough to fall into a student-loan trap, then she is bound for a life of servitude. (I may be mistaken but didn't President Obama payoff his student loan just before taking office - correct me if I'm wrong about this.) Remember the good jobs are handed out to the Ivy League and Stanford grads. So the state school, student-loan, grads will be working for the rich to payoff their student loans. In many cases our student-loan grads will be repeatedly kicked to the curb by their betters.
  The threads connecting paragraphs one and two above are those of impoverished life prospects and poverty - especially as pertaining to the young men victimized because of their impoverished circumstances.
  I sat down to blog-on today about beauty as demonstratively revealed in the Pacifica String Quartet's recording of Elliott Carter's first string quartet. I heard this marvelous work performed by the Concord Quartet in Detroit, Mi. in the fabulous '60s. Carter's quartet is to my ears, among other wonderful and mysterious things, a discussion among violins, viola, and 'cello that erupts often into intense rhythmic happenings - sorry about my amateur thoughts here.
  I hadn't planned on treating the subjects noted in paragraphs one and two above. But Noam Chomsky's Guardian article on the Magna Carta interrupted my swooning away on beauty and Elliot Carter's quartet. Chomsky's illuminating and profoundly disturbing article turned me in the direction of first two paragraphs that appear above. In the mean time, links to Parts 1 and 2 are below.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/24/magna-carta-minor-carta-noam-chomsky
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/25/magna-carta-minor-carta-noam-chomsky/print
__________________
* http://www.elyrics.net/read/r/ry-cooder-lyrics/smack-dab-in-the-middle-lyrics.html

'Bowling for Dollars' - Guns . . . .

I watched Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine this morning - I felt it my duty to watch it. Having watched and read about the tragic assault that took place at the movie theater in suburban Denver, Colorado - 17 miles from Columbine High School; I was particularly sensitive to the ads that ran on the cable channels reporting on the Aurora siege and its attendant loss of life and physical injury. An ad for an insurance company featured an actor smashing melons, resulting in bystanders being awash in melon juice - a 'bloody' scene nevertheless.
  Arms dealers and arms and ammunition manufacturers provide massive financial opportunities for men, women, and corporations around the world; sales to governments, insurgent groups, and individuals. Wars on terror, governments, drugs, and the poor are big business. Chris Hedges opens his recent Boston Review article, "War Is Betrayal", with words that express important connections to the dangerous traps that we as Americans have set for ourselves:

We condition the poor and the working class to go to war. We promise them honor, status, glory, and adventure. We promise boys they will become men. We hold these promises up against the dead-end jobs of small-town life, the financial dislocations, credit card debt, bad marriages, lack of health insurance, and dread of unemployment. The military is the call of the Sirens, the enticement that has for generations seduced young Americans working in fast food restaurants or behind the counters of Walmarts to fight and die for war profiteers and elites.

 http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.4/chris_hedges_war_soldiers_army_military_suicides_ptsd.php 


Connect. Think for yourself. Beware of 'free-market' traps. 


I spoke with an unemployed, middle-aged man at a party about the bulge that I noticed under his shirt. I asked, "What is that?" He replied, "It's my pistol." "What do you need to carry that for?", I asked. He said, "To protect my family." Protect his family from what, from whom?, - from poverty, lack of health insurance, credit card debt, mortgage debt, I thought.
  "Protect your family!" NRA's and its puppet Charlton Heston's slogan. Until I had watched Michael Moore's Columbine, I hadn't realized that the notion of protecting one's family was not a sincere response to my question by my interlocutor, but really an advertising slogan. Plutonium processing facilities and disposal sites might be reckoned by some to be part of a family protection scheme, also.
  Guns. Perpetual war. Assaults by "war profiteers and elites" on the poor and the middle-class - with the full advise and consent of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the oval office - should be old news.
  We certainly have a duty to think these matters through. War is, and has been, a booming business for the few. I guess we've been too stupid to feel this. Perhaps we see it; but don't feel it or understand it. How does that wonderful tune, "Some other time" go? "Oh well. We'll catch up some other time." Bird said, "Now's the time".

     

"Think for yourself!" Or else!

This morning I read of Alexander Claud Cockburn's death at the age of 71. His obituary appears in today's New York Times. I used to read his pieces in The Village Voice and The Nation - back in the days when I was a subscriber, before internet-editions.
  I have resisted the urge to blog-on about political matters. But reading of Alexander Cockburn's death - another left-wing ally has left us - has caused me to be in a state lowered resistance to my anti-political urges. Another 'virus' has attacked my anti-political sensibility in the form of FaceBook propaganda from people that I know who pronounce their voting preferences with utterances like, "I don't like [Governor ]Romney, but I'm voting for him; I can't take four more years of [President] Obama."
  Not that it matters who these propagandists vote for - our next president will be as bent by the same 'free-market' forces as our present president. The FaceBook propagandists whose postings I promise to myself never to read again(yet I alway do read) are not, as far as I know, wealthy. If they were wealthy, their propaganda would not be of the FaceBook kind; instead, they'd silently put their money into Romney's campaign.
  Karl Kraus, the Austrian writer and satirist of fin de sièle Vienna remarked, "When faced with the lesser of two evils [Romney or Obama], choose neither.".
  It's too bad that Christopher Hitchens isn't with us for our upcoming presidential election. It brings a massive smile to my soul to imagine Hitchens hooking himself up to the Romney bandwagon - after all that's where the money is.
  I am more comfortable, as is were, with President Obama's birth certificate (non)issue, than I am with Governor Romney's inter-planetary certificates, tax returns, &c. President Obama seems to be of planet earth, while Governor Romney seems to be of another (yet to be discovered) planet.
  It's not the case that President Obama didn't treat Wall Street, the banks, and insurance companies very well indeed, it's just that there are more suckers (voters) to be had; and a president from another planet can do an even better job of Reverse Robin Hood economics - squeezing the poor and poorer. Neither Romney nor Obama are about creating jobs; both are about creating wealth for their homeboys on their respective planets.
  I am sad that Alexander Claud Cockburn (R.I.P.) is no longer with us.
  Robert Paul Wolff argues that Romney will not win the election.
  http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2012/07/romney-will-not-win-election-and-obama.html
  


      

Juxtaposition - 1999 v. 2012

David Murray & Rayesti

Byas Bias

Ethan Iverson directed our attention to Don Byas in a recent blog-post - Do The Math. Don Byas was tenor saxophone master whose playing bridged the swing and bebop eras. His greatness is certainly demonstrated in the fabulous Coleman Hawkins' Keynote recordings featuring Don Byas, Tab Smith, and Harry Carney. Byas's Town Hall performance of "I got rhythm" with Slam Stewart on contra-bass   is one of the great recorded musical works of art and saxophone artistry. Mr Iverson's transcription of Mr Byas's solo can be found on Do The Math also.
  Story Time. I think that I told this Byas story before - I don't remember where I got it from; it is worth retelling. Don Byas's home base was in Europe for a number of years. He had a regular gig at a club in Paris France. Musicians from the USA would look up Byas to hear what he was playing when visiting or giging in Europe. One evening, Byas, while he was performing, saw John Coltrane come in the club and take a seat at the back of the club. After a couple of sets, Byas went up to Trane and asked him how long he had been sitting there. Trane told Byas that he had just come in! It must have been quite a saxophone lesson that Byas gave.

Amadeus Café - Ann Arbor, Mi. 22 June 2012

It's Been A Long, Long and a Hot, Hot While

The much anticipated Part 2 remains unwritten and (worse) unthought about. Summertime summons my attention to Gustav Mahler's music (to his life and his wife, Alma) and to music for clarinet - Finzi, Brahms and Mozart. There's a lot of clarinet action in Mahler's music too - in addition to marches, cowbells &c.
  My wife and I had a delightful few days with our three grand daughters in Ann Arbor/Chelsea, Michigan and with our youngest grand daughter and our son in Columbus earlier this week.
  I plan to blog on about what I've been reading and the music that has captivated me. Hopefully the heatwave will subside in a day or two. Be Cool.