Mellow Yellow Monday - 11/30

The words of a child:

Spontaneous expression

Of love, warmth and cheer.

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Sunday Music Blogging - Pt .2

Stumbled across this clip, rather by accident.  Classic Basie.

Great solo by Thad Jones.

You can never have enough of the Count!

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Shadow Shot Sunday - Nov 29

Girl in coveralls

Plays in leaves, sun and shadows

On an autumn day.

Granddaughter Em.
From the JzB photo archive, taken in Oct, 2007.
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Sunday Music Blogging

Mamma!

Anyway, you can never have enough Muppets!
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Why I Have Hope

Lyndon Baines Johnson had a checkered record on the civil rights issue. But ultimately he imposed integration on a nation that was, at best, only semi-willing.  Johnson was not above political expediance, but he knew this activity would drive southern white racists into the open arms of the Republican party.

As Clarence Page reported:

Southern Democrats played the race card to win and hold the South against the party of Abraham Lincoln. Conservative Republicans played the race card in the name of "state's rights" to win the South in 1964. On the night President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he told his young aide Bill Moyers, "I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come."

We can see now, almost 5 decades later, the harvest of what Johnson sowed.  On the one hand, the Republicans held the white house for 28 of the 40 years from 1968 through 2008, a legacy of political divisiveness, fiscal elitism, and economic irresponsibility from which the country may never recover.

On the other hand, we now can find pictures like the one above.  To hate, you must dehumanize.  And you can't dehumanize after you are given the opportunity day after day, in the classroom, the playground, and musical performances to see and appreciate the fundamental human dignity of those who do not look like you.

Update:
Make what you will of this counterpoint by kevinearick posting at Naked Capitalism.  I have no idea what the connections might be between the comments and the picture in the post.

Six Word Saturday - 11/28

Step-son Tom is home from Afghanistan!

His mother is actually quite happy.

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Shameless Self-promotion

This is, so far as I know, the only time I have ever been mentioned in the text of an entry at a blog where I do not post.

With a link to here, as well.

Life is full of surprizes.

Sometimes, they're even good ones.

Thanx, P6.

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Sky Shot Thursday - 11/26

No one sees the clouds

Hovering over the field:

All eyes on the ball.

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Giving Thanks

No rants today.  Too much to be thankful for.

Life and love

Family (including 11 grandchildren)

Friends

Liberty

The pursuit of happiness

Good health

American  industry, which provided me with 40 years of livelihood

My pension - paltry as it is

Social Security

America - even with all its problems

The Constitution

President  Obama - even with all his faults

A roof over my head

Spell check

Music

Digital Photography

Blogging

Crossword Puzzles

Turkey

Pinot Noir

Pie

Honker, Dinger, Yoyo Jamborie!

Enjoy!




It doesn't get any better than this.

Cheers!

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Wednesday Poetry Blogging

A few days ago, one of my friends sent me the pictures from the 2010 Playboy calender.  I didn't keep them.

Playboy photography strikes me as being too glitzy.  The girls in the photos display too much technical augmentation for my taste.  IMHO, it's glamor and/or sex appeal done all wrong: au naturale but aw, unnatural.

In short, it is off-puttingly artificial, and I was underwhelmed by the overabundance.

Crossword Puzzle Blogging

L. A. Times Crossword Puzzle


Wednesday, November 25, 2009 Gareth Bain

Theme: RAMA LAMA DING DONG

Yikes!  I never imagined seeing that here.  Or anywhere else, for that matter.

17A 360 degree artwork: CYCLORAMA.  Never heard of it

26A Former resident of Lhasa's Potala Palace:  DALAI LAMA  Easy answer. Hard to spell. Had to rely on perps.

41A Wildly exciting in slang: RING-A-DING.  OK, I guess - but not very common.

52 A Long Time Chinese Leader:  MAO ZE DONG.  Another easy answer, but a real spelling challenge.

And 43D  Named for a car model, group who sang the 1961 hit formed by the end of 17-, 26-, 41-, and 52-Across: EDSELS.  I went from Freshman to Sophomore in High School in 1961.  I remember the song, almost, and the car, but not the group.  The YouTube link says 1957-58, not 1961, and that sounds right to me.

Hi, gang - it's Jazzbumpa, your displaced OHIOAN trombonist.  Let's dedicate today's puzzle to Buckeye and Crockett.  Hope I didn't miss anyone.

Rather a fun puzzle.  I had no clue on the theme until I got to 43 D.

Quite a few long fills and nice 5-stacks.  I counted 36 black squares.  Let's work it out.

I think it's a Jackalope!

Orange County Firefighters

Somebody help me here.

I don't know how to make this claim by Mish and Greenhut of absurdly high average compensation for Orange Co., CA firefighters* jibe with this actual information about their salaries.

Is it some kind of fuzzy math, do their benefits total >>$100,000 per year, or are Mish and Greenhut simply union-busting liars?

Is there another possibility I overlooked?

Really.  What is the truth here?
______________________________________
* Image from -http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26185269

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Mellow Yellow Monday 11/23

This art work was produced by granddaughters a few weeks before we tore the deck out and replaced it with a paver brick patio.

Butterflies in chalk

Flit on the faded finish

Of the wooden boards

Could also have been a shadow shot.

Sunday Music Blogging

Back to Bach.

The prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 is an intensely emotional piece of music.  I first heard it on guitar, and am partial to that instrument.  Here are two interpretations.  First, Mischa Maisky on cello, then  Li Jie on guitar.   Which do you prefer?

 

Shadow Shot Sunday - Nov 22

In dappled shadows

Of mid-Summer Sunday,

A brass band playing

Deep Stupid #12

It almost seems cruel to do a DEEP STUPID entry on the pant-load who foisted LIBERAL FASCISM on the world.  But, since he won't shut the hell up, I'm not going to let that stop me.  In a REAL CLEAR POLITICS entry dated Nov. 20, 2009, the illustrious Jonah Goldberg* excreted this masterpiece on vicious librull criticism of Sarah Palin's new book, GOING ROGUE.

Palinophobes Hate First, Ask Questions Later

Copyright 2009, Tribune Media Services Inc.

This will probably be less painful than actually reading Palin's vapid reality show cum venge-quest of a memoir, so let's have at it.

Slate magazine is just one of the countless media outlets convulsing with St. Vitus' Dance over that demonic succubus Sarah Palin.

Actually, he's off to a pretty good start, having at least accurately portrayed Palin as "that demonic succubus."

Six Word Saturday - 11/21

Her two, my two: eleven grandchildren . . .

Wednesday Poetry Blogging

And now, for something completely different:

A poem by 9-yr-old granddaughter Rebekka.

A Girl


I know a girl
Who loves to loves to dance.
When she dances,
It's almost like she is floating on air.


I know a girl who loves to swim.
When she swims,
It seems like she's flying under water.


I know a girl who likes to dream big dreams.
When she dreams,
She goes to her own land that will always be hers . . .


This girl is . . .
Smart,
Funny,
Hilarious,
Sweet and,
Fabulous!
No girl in the whole world can ever be even close,
Ever be even similar to her.


~ Rebekka


Copyright Rebekka, all rights reserved.

Cricket

On a gravel path

we see a small green creature

Jumping Jiminy!

Mellow Yellow Monday - Nov. 16

An intersection

Middle of . . . Where? . . . I don't know

Which brick road to take

Shadow Shot Sunday, Nov. 15

In the shadow of

A slanting tree the footprints

Of ducks in a row

Sunday Music Blogging

Cuz, sometimes nothin' but a little Led Zep will do.

Six Word Saturday - 11/14

Twenty-seven years later,

married highschool sweetheart.

Sky Shot Thursday

Splashes of color

Amidst the high clouds, shining

Ice crystals perhaps refract

 
This unusual meterological display was captured while looking approximately South on the afternoon of August 12, 2008 at Cold Water Lake, Michigan.  Note the small splash of blue-green to the right, as counterpoint to the pink and orange on the left.

Update:
Thanks to Eddie B for this information.  This phenomenon is properly called a Circumhorizontal arc, or more casually, a fire rainbow.  Wikipedia has a good article on the subject, with some nice pix included.  It is a high atmosphere event, indeed caused by light refraction of ice crystals in a specific orientation. Here is a magnificent example.
Update 2, midnight-ish:
Last word of the haiku changed.

Veteran's Day

I learned this afternoon, listening to the Ed Shultz show, that there are over 130,000 homeless veterans, and over 1.4 million who have no health insurance.

I don't know the statistic for PTSD among those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is high.

And we do nothing for them.

How horribly shameful for our country.

Wednesday Poetry Blogging

Today, two haiku for you, of space and time.

In honor of the above diagram*:

Love of Geometry

Platonic solids
Having no concavities
Can only be friends.

And, at no extra charge:

Travel Times

I've seen Dublin twice,

Thrace thrice; make repeated trips

To WallaWalla.

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*From this website,
http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/projects/geoweb/participants/dutch/PETROLGY/PaulingsRules.htm
 which is actually about chemistry.
But, then again, isn't everything? 
Or is it just a-Pauling?

The End of the Wall

I'll bet you didn't know this.

Wasn't it supposed to have been St. Ronnie, "with a sledgehammer?"

Birds

Birds in Silhouette

Against a Winter Sky;

Feel like Branching out

Mellow Yellow Monday - Nov. 9

I don't feel mellow
About losing my tree, but
The tree feels chipper


Details here.

Sunday Music Blogging

In Comments, J has mentioned Scriabin a couple of times. Other than the name, unknown to me. Let's give him a listen.

Ahh - the third one sounds familiar. Don't know where I might have heard it before.

Shadow Shot Sunday, Nov. 8

A day of Sunshine


Leaves on the ground . . . Bradford Pear


Casts it's last shadow





Details here.

Six Word Saturday - 11/07

Alas, poor Bradford Pear - rent asunder.




10:00 AM
Update:  Stump is now being removed.

GOP victories send message to Democrats

That is the headline of this L A Times article,   which contains a brilliant quote from the always-on-top-of-things Michael Steele.

"It sends a clear signal that voters have had enough of the president's liberal agenda," Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele said after Robert F. McDonnell emerged as the winner in Virginia.

Let's examine these results and see if Steele has a point.  Republican Robert McDonnell crushed his Democratic opponent.  As the linked Times article indicates:

Deep Stupid # 11

What I love most about Michelle Malkin is her ideological purity. To Michelle, having a record slightly to the right of the average New York State Republican Assembly Member is equivalent to radical liberalism.  You, know, it would almost be fun - in a plodding, tedious sort of way - to be making this stuff up.  But, the second thing that I love about Michelle is that she saves me the trouble.


In case you missed it, the 23rd congressional district of the great state of New York had an open seat to fill.  It seems that radical leftist/socialist/democrat-partyist/nazi-commie/arab-and-or-muslim President B. Hussein O'Bama, in a fit of devious cynicism, appointed Republican Congressman John M. McHugh as Secretary of the Army.  Thus opened the seat, and this week's election filled it.

Wednesday Poetry Blogging

Today, A real-life incident.

A non-fruit-bearing Bradford Pear tree in our front yard split and fell in the wind overnight, Friday to Saturday.  We discovered this trick on Hallowe'en morning.

       My Erstwhile Tree

I never thought that I would see
The fracture of my lovely tree.

A tree that stood with rigid will
Against the side of my front hill.

A tree whose leaves were late to stay
Until a frozen winter day.

A tree whose slant was cause for dread,
Whose leafy arms were too wide spread.

But now whose shape is just half-round
As once high branches touch the ground.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But a mighty wind unmade my tree.

Daughter of Ungoliant

The silken fabric 

Of my life; end of the line
For the unwary.

Mellow Yellow Monday

Same sand castle as last week. Different lighting conditions, moat hydrology and population density.





For more MYM, visit 
http://mellowyellowmonday.blogspot.com/

Confession of a Stat-Counter Sock Puppet

Since I installed Statcounter on October 2nd, over 1000 guests have visited my blog.  Not bad for one month at what I thought was the most obscure blog in the known universe.

Full disclosure - For technical reasons, I'm not able to prevent stat-counter from counting my own hits - hence my unintended sock-puppet activity.  I'm not sure how many times I've been counted, but I'm guessing fewer than twice per day.

By tomorrow, Nov. 2, the hit count will be far enough past 1000, that I'm sure the actual visitor count will be close enough to round up.

Thanks for visiting.  Leave a comment.  Tell me when I'm wrong.

Cheers!
JzB

Sunday Music Blogging

William Byrd was born around 1540, about 35 years after Thomas Tallis (1505-1585), and lived until 1623.  

What a difference a few decades can make. This fantasy sounds much more modern than the Tallis hymns posted last week, and probably represents a transition from modal music, which was obsolete by about 1600. There are a few typical 16th century devices in the cadences and some of the bass line figures.  But the theme sounds more 17th century to me, and some moments remind me of Bach.  And - is it in C Major?

But why over analyze? This is pleasant and very well crafted music.  Enjoy.