The funeral service was held on Monday. I found this short poem at a place called Backyard Gardener and had it read at the service. It seems appropriate to how I feel right now.
]]>The funeral service was held on Monday. I found this short poem at a place called Backyard Gardener and had it read at the service. It seems appropriate to how I feel right now.
I’ve had the garden tidied up,
As she would have me do.
This little pal who couldn’t stay
To see the season through.
The flowers were her dearest friends,
The garden was her own,
I’ve watched her work, but never knew
The things that she had grown.
Her catalogues keep coming, and
Her garden magazine;
I run across the queerest names,
And study what they mean,
I read them all, from end to end,
And when the spring is here,
I’ll have a garden just like hers,
As though my wife were near.
-Albert H. Pedrick
Appropriately, Lambert also left this comment: “Make sure to spend time in the sun. I started gardening when my Mother died. It helped.”
The last morning Peggy and I spent together we went out to water the Royal Empress trees she had planted alongside the driveway. As we finished, she turned to me, held me close, and with tears in her eyes said “Please don’t let my trees die!” I was quite surprised by this - I figured she’d be around to take care of them for many years - but I replied, “Of course I won’t let them die!”
There is so much to do now, so much more to learn. I cannot let her trees die.
(Crossposted at Pole Hill Sanitarium.)
]]>As for having a place to go, it’s not a destination, but it’s a damn good starting point.
(Source: O’Fallon, IL Progress.)
]]>As for having a place to go, it’s not a destination, but it’s a damn good starting point.
(Source: O’Fallon, IL Progress.)
]]>“The biggest obstacle we’ve had in the last three years is convincing urban-based program directors in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, and so on that they need to be carrying this ’rural’ network,” Gottsch said. “Imus helps us cross those borders.”
Yeah, a few cracks about “nappy-headed hos” will certainly help to transcend that hillbilly image.
It’s not that Don Imus is untalented; nobody hangs around in radio for nearly 40 years without having a pretty good idea of how to make the medium work. Apart from being a racist, misogynistic boor, Imus has probably inspired more bad radio than anyone else in the history of broadcasting. Rush Limbaugh would be inconceivable without Imus paving his way. Imus’ real legacy, though, is the legion of insufferable “morning zoo” programs, lame acts such as Bob & Tom and John-Boy & Billy; mediocrities who sound like they hired five guys to sit in the back of the studio to make sure that somebody laughs at their jokes. If you wonder why you can’t hear music on the radio on your way to work anymore, blame Don Imus.
Timothy Noah has compiled some of the low points of Imus’ career.
(Crossposted at Pole Hill Sanitarium.)
]]>Former Vice President Al Gore has again been entertaining offers to run for president. Gore has been discussing a run for a third party nomination with family and close aides.
“Al Gore has been energized by the attention he’s been receiving as America’s leading environmentalist,” a political source close to Gore said. “He believes this might present an opportunity to become president or at least try again.”
Sources close to Gore said Ralph Nader has sought to recruit the former vice president to run as the candidate for the Green Party. They said Gore has not rejected the offer and was consulting with family and friends to determine the feasibility of such a candidacy.
One is advised to take the journalism of the Moonie press with the entire carton of salt. Yet this raises an interesting topic for discussion. Gore is beloved by most of the left blogosphere and a sizable chunk of liberal activists. Were he to announce a run for the White House, it’s likely that most of the netroots would follow. Yet the netroots are skeptical at best and contemptuous at worst of third-party politics. Hardly a day goes by that somebody on the nets blames Ralph Nader and the Greens for the Bush Administration and the calamities that followed. So here’s the question of the hour: if Al Gore were to announce that he was running for President on the Green Party ticket, would you follow? Or would you stay with the Democrats?
(Crossposted at Watching Those We Chose.)
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Last night when I stopped at the Crackhead Market at the bottom of The Hill to get a soda for the ride into the big city, the featured item next to the cash register was Toby Keith’s “Angry American Chopper”, presumably destined to be a big hit this Christmas in the trailer courts surrounding the market and making up much of its clientele.
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Last night when I stopped at the Crackhead Market at the bottom of The Hill to get a soda for the ride into the big city, the featured item next to the cash register was Toby Keith’s “Angry American Chopper”, presumably destined to be a big hit this Christmas in the trailer courts surrounding the market and making up much of its clientele.
For the uninitiated, Toby Keith is a pedestrian country music singer whose greatest claim to fame comes from a song in which Mr. Keith threatens to shove his Tony Lama up the ass of any Arab who might get in the way of the mighty Yew Ess Ay. Word around town is that Keith is a mild-mannered fellow none too proud of the ass-kicker image which has netted him a small fortune, having suggested that his record label has taken the “angry American” thing too far in order to promote him. Yet the image of the chopper comes from his own website, where you too may get your own Angry American Chopper replica for $29.95.
On the interstate on the way to the big city, this got me to thinking about an article I read the other day on ZNet, written by Mark Harris:
The right-wing media trades on the grudges, resentments, and frustrations of a section of the popular culture defined by almost endless disgruntlement. It’s a world of faux populism where an unjust war is painted in red, white, and blue hypocrisy, while issues such as unaffordable health care or a pension system under attack fade before the burning evils of gay marriage or stem cell research. In this media world, evolutionary biology is bad news, but political evolution toward a more just, compassionate, and progressive society is just some laughable Hollywood fairy tale.
The trouble is the media warriors exploit the public’s various frustrations and fears and offers nothing in the way of real solutions. This is a milieu that thinks it’s having a serious discussion when it solicits callers’ comments on the topic of whether the minimum wage should ever be raised, or even exist! Their product is especially toxic when what’s for sale is a belligerent brand of patriotism, the kind that equates “supporting the troops†with unquestioned support for an administration whose fogged vision has meant death for nearly 3000 troops.
Big business, stirring up anger for anger’s sake. Instead of sitting down and working out answers to real problems, a big part of our media stirs up resentments against Arabs or Mexicans or gays or whoever might be a convienient target at the moment. We can’t find a way out of the quagmire, but hey, we feel good. Some kid in a trailer has a new toy for Christmas. Toby Keith makes money. The media conglomerates make money. Another Iraqi gets Uncle Sam’s boot up his ass. All this anger in the end strips us of our power to make real changes, doesn’t make us a better people, and brings out some of America’s worst instincts for all the world to see.
]]>Ertegun, the son of a Turkish diplomat, along with his brother Nesuhi developed a love for jazz and blues while growing up traveling Europe and the US with their father. The Erteguns eventually settled in Washington when Turkey appointed his father ambassador to the US. By the time Ahmet was grown, the Ertegun family had amassed a collection of over 25,000 jazz and blues records.
In 1947, Ertegun borrowed $10,000 and set up Atlantic Records in partnership with his friend Herb Abramson. The duo made their mark in the music industry by signing, recording and promoting the R&B and blues artists that they loved and the major labels of the day were reluctant to sign. Within a few short years, Atlantic was America's premiere R&B label. Artists who recorded for Atlantic included Big Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, the Coasters, the Drifters, and Ray Charles. The label also attracted a top-notch stable of writers and producers, including the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Jerry Wexler, and older brother Neshui Ertegun, who achieved success in his own right as a producer. Wexler and the elder Ertegun would eventually become partners in Atlantic as well.
In the 60's and 70's, Ahmet Ertegun would diversify Atlantic into the pop and rock fields. Ertegun attempted to sign Elvis Presley in 1956, but was outbid by RCA. The label continued to pursue rock acts, though, and by the early 70's would have under contract such titans as Led Zeppelin, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, and Yes. Ertegun was also instrumental in acquiring Atlantic the distribution rights for the Rolling Stones' new label. While this was going on, Neshui helped solidify Atlantic's reputation as a jazz label by producing the likes of John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. Ertegun never lost his interest in R&B, either. When Aretha Franklin came to Atlantic after Columbia Records didn't know what to do with her, Ertegun, with the help of producers Wexler and Tom Dowd, turned the dynamic singer from a case of unfulfilled potential into a superstar. Also, in partnership with Stax Records, he helped take a Southern R&B circuit veteran named Otis Redding to the height of international fame prior to Redding's untimely death.
Ertegun would keep up with trends in popular music almost to the end. He was elected to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 1997, and his friends in later years included Kid Rock and Lil' Kim.
Ahmet Ertegun may well be best remembered for his ability to cross racial and cultural lines as well as musical ones. He was a Turkish Muslim in partnership with Jewish Americans who got his start recording black musicians. There is hardly a branch of popular music in which Ertegun failed to make a mark. Popular culture has lost one of its giants.
- An early history of Atlantic Records, prominently featuring Ertegun's role in the label's success.
- A Slate Magazine interview of Ertegun from 2005.
]]>We get reruns of Meet The Press around here in the wee hours of Monday morning, around the time the night shift supervisor comes around to stick his John Hancock on all the paperwork the EPA requires me to fill out each night at work. He's getting settled in, and they're flashing the cover of the latest Newsweek up on the screen: "al-Sadr: The Most Dangerous Man In Iraq". I'm thinking, "This could get ugly…"
]]>We get reruns of Meet The Press around here in the wee hours of Monday morning, around the time the night shift supervisor comes around to stick his John Hancock on all the paperwork the EPA requires me to fill out each night at work. He's getting settled in, and they're flashing the cover of the latest Newsweek up on the screen: "al-Sadr: The Most Dangerous Man In Iraq". I'm thinking, "This could get ugly…"
SUPE: We should have taken that sonovabitch out when we had the chance.
DR. S.: You know, he's likely to end up running the whole show over there.
SUPE: Exactly. That's why we should have taken him out when we had him in that mosque a couple of years ago. But no, we got rules that say we don't bomb their holy places. Look, you find the enemy, you kill him, that's how war works.
DR. S.: But you kill him and they just get another one to take his place. You've solved nothing.
SUPE: And then you kill him too. You keep killing them until they get the message that we ain't playing around.
DR. S.: So you keep going until they either surrender or they're all dead?
SUPE: Exactly! You have to be as brutal as they are 'cause that's all they understand.
DR. S.: Yeah, that's the way to win hearts and minds…
SUPE: The hell with hearts and minds! They're backwards, ignorant people. They'll never understand democracy. Trying to teach them anything is a waste of time. All they can understand is brute force! Listen, I was in the rice paddies in Vietnam! I've seen how they live! That's why we got to keep fighting them, we gotta keep 'em over there, otherwise they're gonna come over here, 'cause all they want is to drag us down to their level!
Ah yes, the Clash Of Civiizations. Time to change the subject; I've got an evaluation coming up in January, and he's one of them who's going to be signing off on it…
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