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Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
On Saturday night The University of Missouri Tigers will play The University of Oklahoma Sooners for the football championship of the Big 12. Missouri comes in ranked number 1 in the nation, coached by Gary Pinkel.

This is what he had to say this week about the Sooners. From The Columbia Missourian.

"Our players and staff have tremendous respect for Oklahoma,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said during Monday’s teleconference. “You have to. They’re a first-class program. They’re well coached. They recruit well. And they’re accomplished. That being said, that’s also great motivation to play your best game. So I think that (our) focus and intensity is directly because of the great football team that they are, the great program they are.” Pinkel also knows that Oklahoma has the upper hand in playing big-stakes games. “Oklahoma has been in the national championship, and they’ve been through all those experiences,” Pinkel said. “This is just another game for them.”

Here is an observation from Don Borst of Fox Sports: You know what we like about Missouri's Gary Pinkel? That he doesn't overshadow his players the way so many other successful coaches do. Yes, he's in some ways a vanilla guy, but his teams have never played like that.

And from Mike DeArmond of the Kansas City Star: Two Saturdays past, with fewer than 5 minutes left in Missouri’s blowout victory at Colorado, Tigers starting quarterback Chase Daniel stood on the sideline, watching Gary Pinkel squirm. Missouri wasn’t about to lose a game it led 48-10. The Tigers had the football on the Colorado 3. But Daniel looked at a coach who seemed to be in agony as reserve MU tailback Derrick Washington slashed into the end zone for a touchdown. “Man, Chase,” Pinkel said. “I feel really bad about even scoring 55.” “Coach,” Daniel responded. “We’re running the football (almost) every down. We can’t just take a knee.” The thing was, Pinkel almost would have preferred he’d ordered that ploy. While he again went out of his way Monday not to criticize Kansas for hanging 76 points on Nebraska or Nebraska burying Kansas State with 73 points … Pinkel said he had friends in the coaching profession who did that. Well, Gary Pinkel can’t ever see himself doing that. “I’m just telling you what I believe,” Pinkel said. “I believe we’re not here to humiliate coaches and opposing players.”

And if I read the tables on the latest NCAA graduation-rate data correctly, the entering Missouri freshmen football players of 2000-01 (the latest group for which data is available) had a 65% graduation rate. The rate for all MU students in that cohort was 69%. Pinkel came to Missouri in 2001, so this class was under his leadership beginning their second year. The Missouri football program's graduation rate is right at the national average for D-1 programs. Their Saturday night opponent, the Sooners, have a 44% football graduation rate. (Baylor has an 84% football graduation rate., The University of Texas 44%, and Texas A&M 62%)

Working through the difficult years of life demonstrates and develops character. Pinkel has had some tough times while at Mizzou, but has persevered.

If Missouri is ever stupid enough to fire Pinkel, I hope Baylor can get him.

Here is his official biography from the University of Missouri website.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Both Farmer and I have a soft-spot for the Rocky movies and for Sylvester Stallone. As we have pointed out, the theme of redemption figures strongly in the Rocky series.

See this excellent review of Rocky Balboa by Farmer, which contains this paragraph on the original Rocky movie:

But this is a story of redemption. The opening shot frames the story under a giant wall painting of Jesus, who stares down upon a fight matching a hulking Rocky, sleep-walking through another bout, on the way to his twenty-first career loss, against a less-gifted opponent, Spider Rico. But Rico makes a mistake. In control of the fight, he intentionally and gratuitously head-butts our hero, which brings Rocky alive to quickly pummel the offender into a stupor.

I wrote about Stallone's recent return to the Roman Catholicism of his upbringing in this post. The opening paragraph: Sylvester Stallone is reaching out to the churches to publicize his new movie. As he does this he is sharing his story of faith and redemption. A report and response to a conference call with Stallone here from Focus on the Family. Link from Drudge.

Now comes word that another Stallone character, John Rambo, may be seeking his own redemption. The Daily Mail (UK) summarizes the upcoming Rambo movie thusly.

In the latest instalment, Rambo finds himself recruited by a group of Christian human rights missionaries to protect them against pirates, during a humanitarian aid delivery to the persecuted Karen people of Burma. After some of the missionaries are taken prisoner by sadistic Burmese soldiers, Rambo gets a second impossible job: to assemble a team of mercenaries to rescue the surviving relief workers

Story here. I look forward to Farmer's review of this movie when it comes out. We'll see if John Rambo finds peace.
In our recent discussion of Cormac McCarthy, Bosque Boys reader(s) "Bob and Merrill" expressed reservations about calling No Country for Old Men "literature."

I have not read McCarthy--but I can tell you that Shelby Foote was a big fan. Of course, the brilliant Foote was also a huge fan of William Faulkner, which I am not, and a big fan of Marcel Proust, whom McCarthy reportedly detests.

Literature is subjective, to say the least...

One item on which we can hopefully all agree, however, is that Stephen King, while entertaining at times, ranks well short of the greats of American letters.

But you wouldn't know that from listening to him.

From TIME Magazine this week (which Drudge posted yesterday), King explains why he is more valuable and relevant than Britney Spears:

"Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan aren't cultural. They aren't political. They're economic only in the mildest sense of the word."

"Britney Spears is just trailer trash. That's all. I mean, I don't mean to be pejorative. But you observe her behavior for the past five years and you say, here's a lady who can't take care of her kids, she can't take care of herself, she has no retirement fund, everything that she gets runs right through her hands.

"And yet, you know and I know that if you go to those sites that tell you what the most blogged-about things on the Internet are, it's Britney, it's Lindsay."

TIME interjects: "[but] Britney Spears...[is] still fairly young. When you were young, fame sort of screwed you up a bit, didn't it?"

King again: "The difference is that Britney is now famous for being famous. Her sales have gone down with almost every album, bigger and bigger jumps, so that nobody really cares about her music anymore. They care about the tabloid headlines and whether or not she's wearing panties. I mean, is this an issue that the American public needs to turn its brainpower on? Britney Spears' lingerie, or lack thereof?"

Does Stephen King have himself confused with William Shakespeare?

For the entire tragically self-important and self-deluded exchange, view here.
The movie, No Country for Old Men is based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same title. I confess I have not yet read him, but make a premature New Year's Resolution to do so. He perhaps is the current most important American novelist. (yeah, I know, that title doesn't mean as much as it did) Biography here. Harold Bloom regards him as one of America's most important contemporary writers.

McCarthy's novels look unflinchingly at human evil and violence, but not in ways that glorify these things. So say the critics.

His latest novel is The Road, and I recommend this review, by the consistently good James Vanden Bosch.

Other movies made out of Cormac McCarthy novels-- All the Pretty Horses, as well as Blood Meridian and The Road, both in production.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
This past Saturday afternoon, November 17, about 100 members of our community gathered in the warm fall Oklahoma sunshine to dedicate the new Veterans' Park on the north edge of town, at the highway intersection.

Led by the Chamber of Commerce, and involving other organizations, our town of Apache chose to observe the Oklahoma Centennial by building a new park in honor of our veterans. The county brought in fill dirt to create a circle perhaps 40 feet in diameter at the level of the highway. A contractor poured concrete, then memorial bricks were laid to form the surface, each containing the name of a veteran with dates of service. A stone memorial was placed in the center, inscribed with the names of 30 sons of our town, and the surrounding countryside, who either died in service, or were POWs. The population of Apache is less than 2000.

The first name is that of CPL Roy L. Rinker, U.S. Army, World War 1, Died of Wounds Oct. 5, 1918. The most recent death inscribed is that of CPL Joshua J. Ware, U.S. Marine Corps, War on Terrorism, Killed in Action Nov. 16, 2005. (I posted about his funeral here.) Also on the stone, LT Pascal C. Poolaw, Sr., U.S. Army, Vietnam War, Killed in Action Nov. 7, 1967. He remains the most decorated Native American to have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Among the POWs, SSG Bruce W. Klinekole, U.S. Army, World War II, POW Apr 9, 1942 to Sep 1, 1945. He survived the Bataan Death March and was liberated from a Japanese prison camp in Manchuria. A complete list of names is below the fold.

A week or two before the dedication volunteers spent most of a Saturday laying sod, planting bushes and trees, erecting two flagpoles, and installing lights.

We gathered on the 17th as an Army brass quintet from Ft. Sill played. A welcome was given, a prayer offered, the National Anthem sung, guests introduced, participating organizations recognized, and the history of the project related. Then Lanny Asepermy, a member of the Comanche Indian Veterans' Association and retired Army Sergeant Major, read the names of those on the monument. As he does whenever he speaks on behalf of veterans, Lanny said: "Only two defining forces have offered to die for you--one is Jesus Christ for your soul. The other is the American soldier for your freedom." A gun salute was fired, and taps played. Two state legislators and a National Guard Brigadier General spoke briefly. Then we adjourned to the Community Center for refreshments.

As I sat in the crowd, two voices ran through my mind. I heard Merle sing in his voice at once common and profound:

We don't our burn draft cards down on Main Street
'Cause we like living right and being free

I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down by the court house
And white lightning's still the biggest thrill of all


And I heard words from another November day, at another dedication; words delivered in a high-pitched voice that carried the sound of Kentucky in it, spoken on a ridge in south-central Pennslvania decades before I was born.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

May God grant us strength so to resolve in our generation.

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Josef Pieper, the Thomist philospher and professor at the University of Munster, wrote

As we all know, under [the conditions of tyranny] no one dares to trust anyone else. Candid communication dries up; and there arises that special kind of unhealthy wordlessness which is not silence so much as muteness. This is what happens to human intercourse under the peculiar pressures of dictatorship. Under conditions of freedom, however, human beings speak uninhibitedly to one another. How illuminating this contrast is! For in the face of it, we suddenly become aware of the degree of human closeness, mutual affirmation, communion, that resides in the simple fact that people listen to each other.

Every healthy community puts some boundaries on free speech: no incitement to riot or shouting of fire where there is none. Such restrictions are not tyranny, rather they are the protection of liberty against anarchy. Similarly healthy communities have protections against libel, and requirements for truth, such as in court proceedings. Again, these are not hinderances but aids to ordered liberty. Communities may even hold some words and phrases to be slanderous in and of themselves, offensive to human dignity, and not to be used, such as the N word. Again, restrictions such as this are not tyrannical, but safeguards of true liberty, for their use historically has been to restrict the freedom of those so termed.

But, for healthy community to flourish, as Dr. Pieper points out, people must be free to speak and willing to listen. Conversely, an unhealthy muteness replaces genuine community when under tyranny people are afraid to speak. I think he here specifically refers to our own testimony to events, experiences, perceptions, and especially to ideas.

Of the many bad effects the tyranny of "political correctness" brings, I think the worst is the destruction of human community as we lapse into unhealthy wordlessness over certain issues. Farmer recently pointed out the Cost of Free Speech. What he meant, of course, were the consequences of raising forbidden perceptions and ideas: censure, career damage, labelling. Because of these consequences, most simply do not speak about certain things, becoming mute. And certainly those who are "enlightened" will not listen to another human being if forbidden perceptions or ideas are spoken. Human community is destroyed. Trust is lost.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Here in Oklahoma we are celebrating our centennial. (Well, white Oklahoma is, but that's a different story.) As part of the festivities many towns are writing local histories, some even performing plays and pageants based on their stories. One such community is Ada, in south-central Oklahoma. Here is an excerpt from the Ada Evening News.

In 1909, Ada was a thriving little town of 5,000 that had the reputation of being one of the toughest places in the whole Southwest. The west end of Ada’s Main Street was lined with bootlegging dives, and the town had 36 murders during 1908. Crime went unpunished, for the most part. Moman Pruiett was a brilliant criminal lawyer in Pauls Valley who had defended 343 persons charged with murder and, with his flamboyant way of charming juries, had succeeded in gaining acquittals for 303 of them.

The town was full of gunfighters employed by one of two factions that had long been feuding. On one side was Gus Bobbitt and on the other side were Joe Allen and Jesse West. Constant warfare went on between the two sides. Ada was a frontier town trying to resolve itself into some semblance of law and order, and though there were some who were determined to have respectability prevail, they were in a tough spot.

Gus Bobbitt began to curry favor with the law-abiding element and was successful in gaining a better reputation. He had served as a U.S. Marshall during the Cleveland administration, and he was a Mason, a strong organization in Ada. Bobbitt’s wife, three sons and a daughter had the approval of the social set, which was a big point in Bobbitt’s favor.

. . . When Bobbitt was assassinated
Further investigation indicated that Bobbitt’s old enemies, Joe Allen and Jesse West, had hired Miller to kill Bobbitt. Miller was caught near Fort Worth and brought to Ada by George Culver, Ada’s police chief. Allen and West were arrested shortly thereafter along with a man named B.B. Burrell who had acted as an intermediary between Miller and his employers. They were all in the Pontotoc county jail.

Miller laughed at the nervousness of Allen and West who, knowing Ada, were concerned about their fate. Miller continued to dress well and to eat well, having food sent over from the Elite Café. He wanted all to know that they had hired the Pauls Valley lawyer, Moman Pruiett, and that they would be exonerated of charges.

On a Sunday night in April, Ada’s electricity and telephone service were cut off and a group of between 40 and 50 men came into the jail, overpowered and tied up the guards and took out the four men being held for the Bobbitt murder. They took these prisoners to the old Frisco barn about 30 feet from the jail and hanged them with ropes from the rafters in the barn. Then the group of nameless citizens who had their bellies full of lawlessness in Ada dispersed down an alley to their homes. No news ever leaked about their identity.


Vigilante Justice was common on the frontier, as ordinary means of law enforcement proved inadequate to the challenge. And this during the days before "criminal rights", when bounties sometimes were placed on the heads of wanted men, dead or alive. Perhaps the most famous example of the rewards put on outlaws was the $10,000 offered for Jesse James by Missouri governor Crittenden, which prompted a member of James' own gang to shoot him for the reward. After the Civil War violence plagued my home state of Missouri until bounties were placed on wanted men, dead or alive.(more below)

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Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
Story here. The story speaks for itself.
Story here, with link to the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.

The Ft. Worth, Texas, man had the DVD playing in his vehicle when police spotted it. He was arrested for obscene display, not having a drivers' license, and for an open alcohol container.

Should the police have acted when they saw the images on the screen? Was this an invasion of the man's privacy?

I think it was a good arrest. A car is not private space, but at best semi-private space; which means semi-public space. In order for a driver to see out, others will be able to see in. I think the same would even hold if a person watched pornography near enough an uncurtained window for someone to see in.

The argument that if you don't like it don't watch it, has only limited merit. We also do not want our children exposed to it. Watching pornography in automobiles exposes our children to the images.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
If you close your eyes at an Indian pow-wow, you can imagine yourself anywhere, or anywhen. The men beating the drum in the center of the circle keep up a complex rhythm that sounds on the surface deceptively simple, boom boom boom. The men singers and lady singers do songs in which rhythm and pitch seem to matter as much as the words. While the drummers around here mostly use Southern Style, if you close your eyes, you could be in Oklahoma, or New Mexico, or Texas. With a little imagination you could be anywhere in the world people gather round the drum to sing and dance. Or, you could be anywhen, now or the last century or 3000 years ago. The drum, the singing, the dancing.

Tonight at the Veterans' Day pow-wow put on by the Comanche Indian Veterans Association veterans were honored individually, called into the place of honor during the dance, one at a time. Between dances they were called to the east side of the circle, in small groups, and given gifts. Warriors honored for their service. It does not take much imagination to see other places, other times--the drums and dancing and honor given to warriors: red skin or white skin or black skin or yellow skin or brown skin.

War has been a constant of human history. Before there were nations to defend, there were tribes, clans, families. Apaches in the old days lived in temporary brush shelters, resembling brown igloos with a long entrance passageway. The man slept in the entrance passage, the woman and children in the main body of the shelter. Anyone entering had to get past the man, the warrior.

Tribes and peoples of any and all times and places honored their warriors, for the survival of The People depended upon the courage and tenacity of the men.

We modern Americans tend to think peace is the normal state of humanity, interupted by occasional war. Many Americans even think that wars somehow will not involve us if we give no provocation. Perhaps, we dream, with enough food and education and the spread of democracy or construction of international organizations wars will cease. So we dreamed in 1918, when at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month The Armistice took effect. But, we learned differently on December 7, 1941. And Armistice Day became Veteran's Day to include those who fought in another war after The War to End All Wars.

So it continues. Our nation will remain free only so long as we have courageous and tenacious warriors, men who will put themselves between those who sleep and danger. Men who think that home and family and country are worth dying for. In the case of the United States, that liberty is worth dying for. G.K. Chesterton, criticizing the descent of England into merely commercial enterprise, wrote: Men must in the last resort love it; for the simple reason that men must in the last resort die for it. No community or constitution can survive and retain its identity at all, that has not in the minds of its subjects enough of an ideal identity, to appear to them in certain extremes of peril as the vision of something to be saved. It is on that ideal, inhering in the reality, that every state will depend when there is a struggle of life and death. And we will have such warriors only so long as warriors are honored, and remembered.
Norman Mailer is dead. AP story here. Author of many books including The Naked and the Dead, The Executioner's Song, The Armies of the Night, and Harlot's Ghost.

He was An Important Novelist back when that phrase meant something, when people expectantly awaited the next book from Mailer, or Vidal, or Updyke. Novels no longer have a big place in contemporary culture. People await movies, or television shows, or video games. I do not think I am simply being a Luddite or curmudgeon when I say it is a shame.

A good novel immerses the reader in a slice of the universe, real or imagined, in a way that a movie cannot. Movies are flat. The nature of their medium prohibits the kind of richly detailed characters, events, and issues that one can find in a rich novel. Compare Moby Dick to any movie made from it, or read Rabbit, Run then watch the movie (to take nothing away from James Caan). Read a James Joyce novel and try to write a screenplay.

And, novels can provoke sustained thought in a way movies cannot. We can pause a novel any time by lifting our eyes from the page. We can reflect on a word, a phrase, an idea for a moment, a cup of coffee, or an entire day, and lose nothing. Good reading is an active interaction between reader and author, beyond the experience of a movie.

Authors like himself, he said more than once, had become anachronisms as people focused on television and young writers aspired to screenwriting or journalism.

When he was young, Mailer said, "fiction was everything. The novel, the big novel, the driving force. We all wanted to be Hemingway ... I don't think the same thing can be said anymore. I don't think my work has inspired any writer, not the way Hemingway inspired me."

From the Waco Tribune-Herald :

"Jarrell McCracken, 79, pioneer of the Christian entertainment industry, died Wednesday after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease."

"McCracken founded Word Inc. in Waco in 1951 and turned the company from a one-man operation into one of the world’s largest makers of religious recordings and publications."

"The company that began in McCracken’s Waco kitchen burgeoned into a worldwide operation employing more than 400 people. Names such as Amy Grant, Sandi Patti and George Beverly Shea dot Word’s roster of recording artists. The publishing division boasts prominent names such as Billy Graham, Ruth Carter Stapleton, Dallas Cowboys great Roger Staubach and legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden."

"In 1974, ABC bought out McCracken’s share of the company. He remained on as president, however, until 1986, when he resigned amid differences of opinion regarding management style and direction."

McCracken will be remembered for his love for family, the people he met, Baylor Univeristy, and his church.

Jarrell McCracken, rest in peace.

Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
We Americans are blessed that we inherit the hard-won liberties of the Mother Country. For the story of a step on that road, see this post from Brits At Their Best. Anselm's life and work alone demonstrate that the "Dark Ages" are a misnomer.

Of course, no people's saga is spotless. Ask Wales, Scotland, and especially Ireland about their history with the English. But in terms of our inheritance, we benefit from what our Founding Fathers called their Rights As Englishmen.
Category: American Culture
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
From the Waco Trib:

"Hank Thompson, Waco native, died Tuesday of lung cancer at his Keller home; he was 82. Thompson shaped country music in the 1950s and 1960s with his “honky tonk swing,” a danceable sound that made his Brazos Valley Boys the No. 1 country music band from 1953 to 1965. He pioneered much that is standard in the music industry, from lighting and sound systems to stereo recording, live albums and Las Vegas concerts."

"Thompson’s death came only days after spokesman…had announced the country star was retiring after more than 60 years as a performer. Fittingly for some Waco friends, his last public performance came Oct. 8 at the Heart O’ Texas Fair & Rodeo, a day proclaimed as Hank Thompson Day by Gov. Rick Perry and Waco Mayor Virginia DuPuy."

I am linking Carl Hoover's excellent obituary here--but I am also adding the tribute in full under the "read more" section, as the Trib does not permanently archive their stories on the internet.

Country Music Hall of Fame link here.

Via YouTube, Thompson's first hit, "Whoa Sailor," and a retrospective montage to the tune of "Six Pack to Go."

Perhaps his most famous lyric (from the "Wild Side of Life") and one that embodies a dominant motif for a generation of country music artists and fans:

I didn't know God made honky tonk angels
I might have known you'd never make a wife
You gave up the only one that ever loved you
And went back to the wild side of life

The glamour of the gay night life has lured you
To the places where the wine and liquor flows
Where you wait to be anybody's baby
And forget the truest love you'll ever know


Perhaps the quintessential "somebody done somebody wrong song."

From the Bosque Boys: Hats off to the leader of the Brazos Valley Boys. Rest in Peace.

For the Trib article in its entirety:

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Category: American Culture
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Back in June, when Lionsgate Films released Michael Moore's Sicko, I predicted an "anemic performance." I suppose "anemic" is relative. Fact: Sicko has grossed $24,540,079, which makes it the third highest grossing documentary of all time. It is just ahead of An Inconvenient Truth and tens of millions behind March of the Penguins and Moore's own Fahrenheit 9/11. On the other hand, Sicko did not take the nation by storm like the other three fore-mentioned films.

This week, Sicko hits the DVD racks. We'll see what happens next. Here is my original non-review from June:

"At least one source is already calling the early box office for Sicko "healthy" ($1.3 million in 441 theaters on Friday).

An aside: these numbers are approximately five-times weaker than the opening for Fahrenheit 9/11--but still very strong for a documentary.

“Considering the pre-opening publicity for the film, which began in earnest a month ago, the high profile of the filmmaker, and the plethora of positive reviews, no one should be surprised at the initial interest in Michael Moore's latest offering.

“Having said that, my hunch is, in the end, Sicko will fall well short of expectations (however, even if my prediction comes to pass and the picture goes South, don't hold your breath for much critical press coverage).

“The feature-length documentary is receiving a big push from the studio and a first-class ride from the film-reviewing fraternity, many of whom are big fans of Michael Moore's politics and like-minded in their basic assumptions about America, big business and evil Republicans.

“However, my prediction is that Sicko will not have legs. Once the usual suspects see the film (and go back and watch it again a few times for the team), who else is really going to care about this film?

“In general, American filmgoers are not fans of the documentary genre. In terms of style, if you have seen one Michael Moore film, you have seen them all. Why would Joe Sixpack and family spend thirty-some dollars to go see a serially angry and malcontented demagogue deliver a heavy-handed and patronizing harangue dripping with sarcasm and a depressingly redundant deep-seated cynicism?

“In the bluntest terms, it is unlikely that the work will ever appeal to anyone other than the axis of American liberalism (Hollywood, the mainstream media and academia). One great irony is that the biggest fans of this film will be an elite echelon of Americans who actually enjoy the best health care in the world. Even more ironic, there are actually very few of these ostensibly compassionate humanitarians who will be willing to give up their own premium personal care to stand in line in some national health system so that the "unfortunate" might have more access. In the most practical sense, they are as much against "leveling" as William F. Buckley.

“In the end, the hype around Sicko will prove to be another self-indulgent exercise of the American Left. Without seeing the picture, I can already tell you that it is a frontrunner for an Academy Award. Barring a late entry from Al Gore, Michael Moore should have a clear path to another statuette. On the other hand, Moore, who too often listens to his own press and the retinue of fools who encourage his antics, is still not a major player in American politics. He is a major player in Hollywood--but he carries very little weight (no pun intended) in fly-over country.”

Orignal post here.

06/11: Flashback

Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
For some reason, the music in my head this evening is from the early 70s--specifically some of the groups that tried to put jazz and rock together: Chicago, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and Chase. The last group is not well known, turning out three albums. For a year or so in high school, I got the juices flowing with a shot of Chase in the morning, cranked up.

From Youtube, a cut from their first album. For those of you too young to remember, the thing you are seeing in the video is called a turntable and the round piece of vinyl going round and round was called an album.

My favorite album is the second, Ennea, because of side two, a retelling of Greek mythology of the gods.

The Wikipedia entry on Bill Chase, the group's leader, and the band. A great bio from Trumpetgig that includes some great clips. (Does anyone but me, think captions for the last two clips are switched?)
This evening I listened for a while to a radio interview with the author of a new book on the experience of people who survive disasters. She termed the psychological reaction "shock," and stated that it included a regression to a child-like state in which one looks to "adults" for help, such as the government. This state of "shock" she said, happened because those affected by the disaster could not mentally process what has occurred to them; they could not fit it into their mental narrative of their life and the world. She offered as examples survivors of Hurricane Katrina and the nation in the aftermath of 9/11.

Hmmmmm. OK. Some folks appeared to behave in ways that support her thesis, like Ray Nagin and much of New Orleans, some did not, like the NYFD.

Assuming her central idea to be true, how can we prevent our going into "shock" following a disaster? If the cause is a lack of ability to process the experience into our narrative of the world, then perhaps we need to start with our world-view. As a professor of mine used to say, "If you find yourself becoming disillusioned, perhaps you had some illusions you needed dis-ed from."

Start by accepting the idea that bad things happen. If you live on the Gulf Coast or Southeast Coast of the U.S., you will get hit by hurricanes. Here in the Midwest, tornadoes; the Plains, blizzards; California, earthquakes and fires. Think about that fact. Imagine that fact.

Then, act like an adult. Make plans and take steps. Insure yourself and your home. In tornado alley, have a cellar or know where the nearest public storm shelter is. In California fire country, keep brush cut back near your house, use fire-resistant shingles. Along the coasts and in fire and flood country, choose carefully where you live.

Make plans. Talk to your family about your plans. Keep a supply of canned food and water in the house in case of utility outages. Make sure your local community has emergency plans, even if you must run for the city council to get it done.

02/11: Buddy Rich

Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
My 8th grade year I walked into the bandroom before school one morning and heard music playing that changed my life. Someone had a Buddy Rich album on the stereo and I stopped dead in my tracks, spellbound. From that moment to this, my favorite music has been jazz.

From YouTube, a clip from 1978 of Buddy and his band playing in the Netherlands, a good introduction to his style.

By 1978 Buddy was already 61 years old, but you noticed in the video clip that his sticks were a blur, and life on the road had not worn him down. Biography here.

Here's Buddy and his band again. He proves that snow on the roof don't mean the fire's out in the stove. Notice how most of the band members are young. Buddy had a good ear for young talent, hired it, and trained it. He was a hard task-master demanding self-discipline, constant attention to detail, and absolute professionalism in performance. His temper was legendary when he thought a member of his band was giving a half-hearted effort. But, the Buddy Rich Big Band was a great training ground for any young player who wanted a career in the business.

This is a Buddy Rich drum solo, from 1970. The tape is not speeded up nor overdubbed. This is a sample of what you could see at any gig he played, from New York club to college campus to Las Vegas to a high school gymnasium in Dubuque. He kept a Big Band on the road long after almost all had died. In this clip the 53 year old man shows the rock boys how it's done.

Many think this is the greatest drum solo every caught on film.

But what always impressed me most was his skill in leading and driving a big band. For example, here on this medley from West Side Story. Buddy crafted his skills as a drummer and leader over decades of disciplined work. Here he is in 1949.

Finally, from Berlin, Buddy and the band doing Mercy, Mercy, a tune that could lift me up any time I was down during those sometimes long nights of high school.

Buddy died April 2, 1987. Frank Sinatra gave the eulogy.