An Impartial Judiciary is now just a Myth...
By louisehartmann
According to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation – 75% of Americans believe the Supreme Court is driven by ideological views rather than objective legal analysis. Of course – the justices themselves have done one heck of a job advancing this notion. Scalia, Alito, and Thomas have attended and spoken at right-wing gatherings – gone hunting with prominent Republicans like Dick Cheney – accepted gifts from right-wing organizations – and been educated through right-wing legal think tanks like the Federalist Society. And in the process – have been one of the friendliest courts to corporate interests in recent history.
The Supreme Court has dropped the ball when it comes to objectively analyzing the rule of law in America – and it’s time Congress fulfill it’s Constitutional obligation and hold these corrupt justices accountable.
Comments
#2
Jan Brewer: "Now hold it right there while the photographers get this!"
#3
Jan Brewer to Barack:
"I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!"
#4
If Ayn Rand were alive today she would so disapprove of the lack of "justice" in the Supreme Court!
#5
Any expectation that this corrupt Congress would hold Supreme Court Justics accountable is nonsense. They are all in it together, and this travesty will continue until we are able to elect decent men and women who will not compromise their values and integrity.
#6
I don't know. Wasn't Justice Douglas that played poker every Friday night with FDR, Franfurter that called FDR to discuss legislation before the court. Seems to me that the FDR court made alot of these relationships okay. Think of FDR Justice Black deciding a case, where his law partner was representing one party.
#7
I do not belive the Congress will do the right think! Too many of them are bought already! We need to get the MONEY OUT !!!
#8
And Kagan didn't recuse herself from voting on the health care bill! she worked on prior to being appointed to the court. she also worked on defending Obama on the BC ,issue. You know the one that is no issue only that the President has spent millions in legal fees fighting the so called "laughable issue" in courts across the country? why would a President spend millions in taxpayer dollars to defend a "laughable non issue"? So is it okay for a Supreme Court Justice like Kagan to help defend a legal suit against the POTUS (the BC issue); then get on the Supreme Court and vote to refuse to hear the issue when brought before the court? lets's have a little honesty hear. Both the Democrats (if that's what they are?) and the Republics are totally DIRTY!!!!
#9
Couldn't agree with you more. What a sad event. The founding fathers set up things so that the courts were to be made up of impartial, unbiased, and highly qualified people whose decisions were above politics. Now look what we have. People do not respect them.
Change can come only after some sensible people are elected who might take up this issue--probably left wingers, by today's standards--and get some laws in place holding SC justices accountable and holding them to ethical standards. Getting the money out of politics is essential. I probably won't live that long.
#10
If Congress felt it had responsibilty for holding the justices accountable, how, exactly. would that work?
#11
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nkIIBnIuXHM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> You'll have to copy/paste this to your browser. It's at project camelot
This is an interview with an ex-Navy Seal, who, during the years 1992-2000 was sent on top secret bombing missions in the Middle East, predominantly in Iraq. Years after the first Gulf War when we were supposedly not at war with Iraq yet he and Seal Team 9 were targeting Tomahawk Missiles on a monthly basis taking out targets that were increasingly "soft"... involving deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians. Find out how this highly trained young man and his team were coerced by the military into purposely destroying villages and creating future terrorists as part of a plan that would ultimately serve their dark purpose, the war on terror and 911.
And if that weren't enough, hear how he was trained in Area 51 as a specially gifted group of highly classified psy spies to see beyond the famous Looking Glass technology into the future involving 2012 and beyond.
Groundbreaking in every way.
Kerry Cassidy
Los Angelles, CA
If after watching this video you wish to contact Bill Wood here is his email address for that purpose:
Bill Wood<billwood1022@gmail.com>
#12
Scalia says, if you don’t like the nasty political ads, turn off your TV
Don’t like all those attack ads, which you are seeing in part because of the Supreme Court’sCitizens United decision? Turn them off! It’s not the Supreme Court’s fault! So says Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. No, we are not making this up.
Source is e-mail from Public Citizen
#13
The guys we have in the Supreme Court are the long-term result of GOP votes for decades. That's what you get voters, for voting for those whose God is money. This country's political landscape is shaped by votes over many elections. The American people created this Supreme Court crew themselves. I don't complain. Just add: Don't vote for GOP!
#14
Just looked for the search term.....
i m p e a c h m e n t
.....throughout this page and comment part.
Why not suggest something like this?
#15
Conflict of interest on the Supreme Court means that our judiciary is bought and owned. There is no way they can make judicial decisions that have no tint of bias. Apparently, the poison of bought judges is also trickling down to the lower courts as well. The investment for billionaires and corporations really gives a lot of bang for the buck: for a small investment they get huge returns.
Somehow Americans have got to get together to end the succubus that is money in politics. This has to become a non-partisan issue. Both New York and California have passed ammendments to ban Citizens United. And if Romney were president he would not only be the richest president we've ever had, he would also be a true believer in corporate personhood. The right-wing is desperate to survive and has become utterly amoral and corrupt. And the Dems have no choice but to go begging from corporations to keep up. How do you raise money from the middle class and poor when they are now strapped from the flogging they are taking from the 1%? Like Buffett said, "We are the 1% and we are winning." But winning at what cost?
#16
The "Supreme Court is driven by ideological views..." HAH!!! The Supreme Court is driven by MONEY, POWER, INFLUENCE, SEX, DRUGS, POLITICS, JOB SECURITY, GUARANTEED HEALTH CARE FOR LIFE AND PENSION... whatever is convenient to them and whatever they want to deny to the American People.
#17
Thank you, Arky, for pointing out a very interesting video! I found the site on YouTube by searching on the appropriate terms. This is a 2-1/2 hour interview...the first 35 minutes had some very noisy background noise..and then the helicopters kept flying over. I used Audacity to filter out most of the background noise. After the first 35 minutes, they moved the interview into a nice quiet studio setting.
So, it seems, our military uses blackmail or coercion of suckers with skeletons in their closets to get them to do the dirty work (killing lots of civilians). And not only that but it seems that they are actually targeting civilians with the purpose of getting the people ticked off enough so that they will fight back so we can call them terrorists. I guess since we lost the Soviet Union as an excuse to keep us very scared and vulnerable, they needed to create enemies..what a great way to create enemies....murder their children and other family members. Gee, and all of this time frame that Mr. Woods talks about was all pre-911.
Since he was a Tomahawk missile expert I guess he should be able to tell what damage a missile would cause versus a large airliner crashing into the Pentagon. He also talked about the tight circular flight path of whatever hit the Pentagon...how that was nearly impossible for a large airliner but quite a typical flight path for a missile. I didn't quite get all that stuff about 2012, convergence, and a yellow cube but it was still interesting. Also, being an expert at being able to guide a missile to it's targets for many years he may have also thought about the possibility of remotely guiding airliners into the WTC building targets....although I don't think he mentioned that specifically.... but he did speculate on how the buildings came straight down as if all supporting structures had been removed in a timed fashion...just like planned demolitions. I just wonder how many highly trained soldiers like that are being black balled into doing things they don't want to do.
#18
"Two U.S. presidents are implicated in the well documented chronicles and confessions of ex-CIA black-ops assassin, Gene “Chip” Tatum, whose tortured body was found in 2007 on a beach in Panama.
The following video was made by Ted Gunderson, a retired FBI Senior Special Agent, who spent many hours interviewing Tatum on video tape, before he, Tatum was assassinated. It presents some of the most provocative insider information and evidence of presidential crime you will ever see. In early 2007, probably as a result of Tatum’s release of the documents shown in this video, his tortured and faceless body was found washed up on a beach in Panama. Chip Tatum should have known he was signing his death warrant when he spoke out on camera and showed the documents presented in this video, many of which he reads from, verbatim, in the video. All of the original documents are being held by a high-level government official in Central America who said he will turn them over to any international investigative agency that can assure him that they will appropriately be used to prosecute the high-level crimes that have been committed against the people of both Central America and North America.
This is a truly astounding video that exposes lots of evidence of high-level government wrongdoing (including plenty presidential wrongdoing), which the power elite would have preferred remain secret."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umN1AdiqoWE&feature=BFa&list=ULsTI99PQB61...
Very interesting conversation between Mike Harari (Mossad Agent) and Buddy Young (Clinton's head of security) during a flight to Palmerola Air Base as recorded by the pilot who was listening with an open mike: Where they talk about smuggling cocaine and how top government figures were in on it. Chip Tatum shows and reads the transcripts starting on video 5 of 8 but at 240 pixels the type isn't readable. You can, however, read the transcript here:
http://qwstnevrythg.com/2010/12/two-u-s-presidents-implicate/
#19
Mr. Tatum stated that George Bush I had ordered the neutralization (he said: which doesn't necessarily mean assassination..which is usually the last on the list...but could mean just intimidate.coerce...blackmail...whatever) of Presidential Candidate Gary Hart...then later on ...Tatum was asked to neutralize H.Ross Perot. He refused both times. In fact, he warned Perot of the order to neutralize him...something about his daughter...Perot initially dropped out then went back in later. He said that most US OSGs would refuse to go after US citizens but he stated that foreign OSGs are often used to do what US operatives would refuse to do. For $15,000 or $25,000 a foreign OSG would assassinate anyone he/she was asked to. He said that they used an OSG to setup Gary Hart and taped that rendevous. He said they have "insurance papers" in case they try to force them to do things against US citizens. He said that when they tried, and initially failed, to convince Daniel Ortega to hold pre-elections...he was told that one of his cousins would get whacked if Ortega didn't agree to the pre-elections. Two weeks later, he got whacked by missile fire...and Ortega came around.
#20
Quote Palindromedary:.... Two U.S. presidents are implicated in the well documented chronicles and confessions of ex-CIA black-ops assassin, Gene “Chip” Tatum, whose tortured body was found in 2007 on a beach in Panama. ....
If all those stories are true, it's just annother proof of American savageness. Whatsoever, I read your stuff very carefully. Lots of information, often interesting, but mostly off-topic and rather chaotic. I guess you probably tend to read sources written by other chaots, out of touch with the real world, fantasizing a lot.
Here's the solution: We need to annihilate our rednecks via education. We won't have a civilized political elite, as long as we have those people. Voting for GOP should become a habit of only a very small minority in future. We gotta go on with Obama for another four years -- and create a strong progressive party to the left of the Democratic Party. The GOP actually is very much like European neo-nazi parties, which rarely get into European parliaments. Idiots vote idiots into office and idiots then appoint more idiots. Who wonders?
America is a developing country. We can't have a better America, before we work hard on educating our folks in a really big way. Obama stands for this.
#21
You can lead a redneck to education but you can't make him think! And what's the problem with imagination? I keeps the old noodle from going soft. You can take that any way you can imagine. What? No imagination? And, yes, perhaps off topic in the strictest sense but still quite relevant to the overall picture. Not that it is in one's best interest to believe in all "conspiracy theories" or "chaotic ideas" (I happen to believe that "dogma kills" and that a lot of people have drank the cool aid when it comes to the silly things they have come to believe...all without an iota of facts or proof) but it is at least a good idea to be aware of the ideas even though you may not want to accept them. Too many people are stuck "in the box" and cannot think "out of the box" which means innovation, for them, is stifled. They have been suckered into a mind set dictated to them by a regimented system of propaganda...often based in superstition and ritualistic dogmatic non-sense. You can lead a thumper to education but you can't make them think.
#22
For example:
I'd be happy if eating meat of any animals could be declared murder -- for I think that way. I just hold my horses, because I know it isn't the time yet to do something like that.... perhaps in 200 years.....
One beautiful summerday I watched street workers in the hot sun. I thought this was impossible, they will get skin cancer one day. But I know it's useless, because even some of these worker would probably say, "Hey, we're not gay! Do you consider us softies, or egg-heads?"
Today my lady bug died, because I made a mistake. I cared for him since November 5 and today he died. Because I was afraid it had been too cold at the window and then I forgot to take him of the radiator and it go to hot. So I killed him after almost three months feeding.
Isn't this world terrible?
#23
All things being relative, it can be a very terrible world at times for some. Sorry about your lady bug. And speaking of radiators...what about boiling frogs? Sibel Edmonds and Peter B. Collins has a great podcast called The Boiling Frogs. Their most recent program has Coleen Rowley on as a guest. Very illuminating! Most of us may experience the same fate as your ladybug.
#24
Okay, here are more unrealistic points, not restraining myself, nor my imagination:
I hate all cars, they kill people, animals and even children
I hate oversized flat screens and loud speakers, any kind of amplified live music, violent media, illuminated advertising
I want to change the internet to pure text, so we need e-book screens only. Furthermore downsize all audio devices to low volume/sound level. Restrict all live bands to banjo instead of electric guitars.
I am indeed fighting the textless stupidity of those who only look for images on my blog. You see them on blogspot stats. So I deleted the images of my musical instruments and loaded them up again politicized with paroles.
http://occupy-stupid-textless-images.wow
_____________________________
Let's downsize myself to the realistic point of public education. This is the key to solve almost all thoses problems as I feel. It won't get better at once, for it needs time.
I won't ever give up on the rednecks. Some of them would love to be educated. But above all we have to educate their kids. It takes time, we can't change everything at once -- things must grow.
#25
Hi Clarissa and P,
I enjoy this give and take from both of you. It's the best writing and most innovative thought on this blog. You both push each other to new heights, expanding the mind. This is where change is born. Great job both of you, keep it up. I took the following quote from the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. It fits here.
"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."
#26
Images can be just as deceiving as words...sometimes pleasurable...sometimes not. But if images are so undesirable, then why post one...which is not at all undesirable, and may be the reason why some may be searching for more?
"My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from "The Wizard of Oz." But I warn you, my dog is always with me. WOOF!"--OO Spool from "Wild At Heart".
Look out for those Capital Os.
MM: Danke Schoen and Shookran! As Mel Brooks said...It's nice to be King...but since I'm not...It's nice to be a little crazy once in a while...and just pretend. But, as long as one can separate "just pretend" from "reality" he/she may not jump off of tall buildings or into the Lion's den...and live another day. There are those who know they can control people through fear and diversion and they highly capitalize on it. Where would these charlatans be if everyone thought out of the box and were unable to corral the beliefs and emotions of the people who could be lions but opted for sheep. But I agree with CS in some things...it would be better, perhaps, to be eating only veggies and listening to banjos and staying out of the hot cancerous sun. But the Generals often force the sheep into battles to be sacrificed for the greedy few and the politicians keep the sheep in a trance bleating "vote! vote! what else can we do?" "we have no other choice!" --arbeit macht frei--don't rebel--just get on that train--maybe everything will be ok! Those German Shepherds bark some! WOOF!
#27
You're probably right, MaryMary. I am kinda hi-strung, since the political situation scares me. When I came in here and saw Ron Paul fans downright swarming all over this liberal blog I felt like going after a bedbug pest. Taking away foot stamps and medicare from grandma!
Whatsoever, I am too harsh..... sorry for that. You're right, palindromedary is a fairly bright fellow.
#28
CS: merci beaucoup! I'm in good company. We all really want the same thing and are all, bottom line, fighting for the same things although we may have differing views on the means to get there. Ron Paul scares me too! He's got some good ideas but also some very bad ideas. And even what we think may be good ideas...may just be political lies but that holds for all politicians.
#29
Quote palindromedary: Images can be just as deceiving as words.And their admirers often tend to avoid words.
I started on Blogspot, surrounded by Ginger Roger fans. The intellectual message of Ginger, as actress, is no message at all. Those Ginger fans are in a way nice, but their sharing "Gingery" photos is simply superficial. These folks are shockingly apolitical and uncritical. My best pals were southern Baptists. These people really taught me to hate images.
I happen to be a tap dancer, so Ginger meant something to me. But today she's a stranger to me. My blog had always focused on the progressive actress Jean Arthur and some of those Ginger fans liked that, because they felt Jean was very beautiful as well. It was useless to stress Jean's political and highly intellectual aspects -- they mainly admired her pretty and cute faces I added via DVD screen shots. My best pals encouraged me to post more images and I constantly reminded them I felt more like a newspaper than a picture book. Today I find these 'nice' people disgusting. I scared them away with politics, by occupying my own blog.
And it is really so, that the masses of googlers look for images. My most popular image was this:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QoZoEcxXdnU/Thck3ZZWGmI/AAAAAAAABI0/W6xEmyCRfUU/s1600/BaroqueAngel.JPG
The headline was "Bunch of Hooey", the caption "Baroque angel — how much nudity can our civilization take?" and the issue "Tarzan and His Mate" (1934). My take was very critical, so I felt abused by those probably unpolitical angel-googlers. They really made me mad, so finally I spoiled their pretty angel with a political parole.
To show my above musical instruments makes sense indeed, after recording music for the blog -- at first each single wind instrument, my original camera shots in high resolution. Soon googlers were especially after my cornet. There I was again an unpolitical institution for sharing unpolitical images. That's why I combined them all in one collage and again added paroles.
I am actually trying to educate people. I take away whatever they tend to use in unpolitical ways and add more message instead. And I'm less generous in things high resolution. I agree, a cornet looks very pretty -- but if it's all about neatness.... please count me out.
#30
Wow! You are very talented! Loved your music..especially the cornet with that mute....I have played trumpet off and on for years..although I have not played in a couple of years now. Got lots of music books of variety..mostly all Fake books. I found your s&t blog....I don't know if I could switch so easily from playing a trumpet to playing a trombone like that. Very talented!!! You're not really 111 years old are you? I found the s&h site as well. Columnist of the TSO since 1930? How mysterious!! Oh, I liked your blogs too!
#31
Thanks! Well, frankly I have problems to change from trombone back to trumpet. I actually started on trombone in jazz and didn't play it for years after changing to trumpet and cornet. Nevertheless my old trombone skills came back after a few minutes this winter. This is different on trumpet and cornet, I have to train daily. Trumpet lipping is an extremely delicate thing.
Oh, that 30s dating was necessary for the time travel, to emotionally get into the year 1933. I heard only music and saw movies that were popular in that year -- during about half a year this calendar slowly went on to 1935. As I read everything with the eyes of the reader in those years. All this totally changed my mood, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to write those articles on my Times Square Observer.
Politically there were a few aspects to watch the New Deal euphoria a bit distrustfully. Hollywood's Busby-Berkely-dreamworld solution (FDR was in a way involved even there) was quite a bit kitschy. But after the terrible winter 1932/33 anything that lifted the fataly depressed spirits of average Americans was welcome. Considering America a life-threateningly sick patient, there weren't other options. I very much felt like that. My articles I wrote 'in early 1933' sound strangely otherwordly in my ears today. That was literally written out of the past.
#32
Yes, I know what you mean about having to keep at it daily in order to keep the old embouchure in shape. I haven't played in a couple of years so I would probably sound pretty horrible. I imagine it wouldn't do my hearing problem much good to continue playing...maybe I should take up the shrunk. ;-} Just saw The Artist...liked it. Enjoyed the tap dancing...and since I have problems hearing and understanding most of what is said at the movies, even with hearing aides, it was nice to be able to read the captions.
#33
I understand. Although, playing with the good old Chicagoan Wa-Wah Du All stonelined mute is very gentle ear treatment. It is the mute I used in the videos and I very much hope Humes & Berg didn't outsource their production from Chicago to China. I hope they're still being made in America, by American craftspeople. There's really no better wa-wa mute, as I feel. :)
Maybe I should mail Humes & Berg and ask them.... If they still make their mutes in East Chicago, I'd like to add a little report under my profile here and add a photo of my mute. Nice little story about an example of REAL American exceptionalism with a little personal touch, because I love that mute very much. :)
#34
http://www.birdlandmusic.net/item-HUB111--UPC-5685106690-Humes-Berg-111-...
Thanks for the tip...I ordered one and will let you know if there are any Made in China stickers on it. I've got two trumpets...actually 3 if I count the old battered one I got at a flea market many years ago. Nothing much to brag about though..a Conn Trumpet and a little Bestler shortie...looks a little like yours. Thanks for the inspiration! Gotta have something to tear me away from the computer once in a while. I think if I use the mute most of the time I shouldn't have to worry much about adversely impacting my hearing.
#35
I've been pondering this all the time. If you now tell me, you wanna try something, I find this really great!
Right now you seem to sound like very loud music actually harmed your ears..... right? You know what? My trumpet caused bad-bad asthma during the first summer. I felt like proving a girl has power too and played very aggressive. When grass pollen began to be an issue in summer, the pressure was too much to my bronchi. Since then I changed to a very mellow style.
A trumpet can be a dangerous weapon -- cause literally physical harm to the audience. I'm actually not a Miles Davis fan, he sounds too depressed as I feel. But I copied his targeting the floor. You hear yourself better and don't have to play so loud -- it's really great sound monitoring. Above all you don't harm anybody in the audience by targeting them. By that you force your colleagues to restrain themselves too. "We don't hear your trumpet!" So what, turn down the volume, guys.
My old Swingtett was a drag at times. They loved to play very loud, as long as people didn't complain. Once we played in a club where people enjoyed the blast very much. It hurt my ears so much -- after my chorus I went outdoors and wouldn't return until all the other soloists were done.
#36
Oh, you ordered right away? A wa-wa suits very well to jazz. What styles do you play? The great point referring to the stonelined one is a very present low register. All other wa-wa mutes I tried were weak on low notes, while sounding quite a bit piercing during high notes. Don't know how it's possible, but this mute takes back the high register, while low notes are quite present. On the whole the mute sounds much warmer. But frankly a cup mute sounds even mellower still -- only a bit louder.
#37
I don't know if it was my playing the trumpet that hurt my ears or the bout of shingles I had that shot across my scalp from ear to ear many years ago. That's when I really noticed my hearing difficulty...I'm sure the trumpet helped worsen the condition though. It also could have started while I was in the Navy having experienced very loud missile and gun fire from my ship. I too have asthma but don't know if playing the trumpet has anything to do with it.
I just played a variety of music: Fake books: Large Fake Books: Jazz, Swing, Blues, Classical, Pop-Rock, R&B, Country, Scottish Dance, Folk Songs, Disney Songs, Jewish Songs, Latin Dance, and a lot of smaller Fake Books...Marsalis, Vizzutti, Sandoval, and many others. I also have a lot of different practice books from Arbans to Claude Gordon to Rubanks. Got a lot of "Plus One" and "Take The Lead" books with CD so I can play along with the band. I tried to visit various sheet music stores everyplace I traveled and collected a lot.
Sometimes, when I traveled, I used to take a special electronic mute that deadened the noise while letting me hear the sound through the headphones so I wouldn't get kicked out of motels.
I've never performed publicly, except in the Boot Camp Navy Marching band (not the much better Navy Band). We even formed a Navy Flag at Soldiers Field at half time in Chicago while play some "patriotic" music. Played at several American Allegiance celebrations marching and playing down main streets. I had stopped playing for many years after that but then found an old trumpet at a flea market about 10 or so years ago and then really got into it. Got better than I had ever been and quite pleased with myself. But I think you are much better. Envious. Anyway, maybe my old soft embouchure will stiffen up a bit after I get the new mute and get to it again. Thanks again for the inspiration and tip on the mute.
#38
Doesn't sound like "shingles" falling from a roof on your head..... Scalp bout, ear to ear? Say might this have been sort of stroke? There are mild forms of strokes. Another explanation: idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSHL). This can be cause by physical damage, even loud noise. If you feel like gunfire might have been the trigger -- yes it sounds reasonable.
If would indeed prefer a mellow Miles Davis style. I give a little more in the middle register and play the lowest very ardently (I like to imitate saxophones down there), but the higher I go, the more slender my tone. Powerful high notes -- above all with hard attack -- pressurize not only the respiratory tract, but also brain vessels and even increase intraocular pressure. Ergo I very much assume it can affect the hearing too: over vessels in the auditory center of the brain, possibly even directly in the inner ear.
I remember those days when I loved to blast out samba stuff: the little LED lights of my audio devices where shaking before my eyes every time a hit one of those powerful high notes. So I believe at once if I read, this can cause detachment of the retina on long term.
I learned improvisation on trombone by playing with original recordings of the 20s during my high school days. When I changed to trumpet, in November 2004, I very much profited from Aebersold media (music book with play-along CD). I still prefer Aebersold, because playing a piano background on midi takes too much time. Well, I had played trombone in clubs over years, so I knew where I had to go. But this play-along stuff is the best teacher as I feel.
#39
It was a stroke alright...a stroke of bad luck! I don't know what it was....scalp got itchy in a line right across the top of the scalp from ear to ear. Then my ears started to ring...and haven't stopped ringing..got much worse over the years....tinnitus..I think it is called. The doctors mentioned they thought it was shingles..no...not from my roof ;-}
Well, after several years of not touching my trumpet...I try it out this evening. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Still have a pretty good tone..but has been better. Fingering still good. Played a few old favorites from my Jazz Fake Book. But I didn't last long. Lips tire easily. Going to have to build up on it. Funny thing that my trumpet doesn't sound as loud as before...I wisely play without hearing aids. Many years ago, I listened to mostly classical music and have a lot of cassettes of classical music but I don't really listen to music, any music, much anymore. Sometimes when I hear some music..I think how much I have missed not listening to music. I mostly listen to talk shows....pod-casts...all liberal or progressive. Maybe that's why I am such an uptight paranoid. Don't watch much TV either except some shows like Bill Maher...and some things on Free Speech TV or Link TV. Spend a lot of time leaning new things, like various programming languages and everything on technology, via tutorials and college and university classes on YouTube. I think getting back into playing my trumpet will be good for me. How is Miss G? Peggy? That's quite a story..saving the bird and keeping it as a pet all those years.
#40
The herpes virus obviously attacked the auditory nerve -- sounds pretty scary. In this case I would not be too concerned about a negative effect by moderate trumpet playing. I even have hope, the damage might better over the years, because nerves do find new ways to connect to each other.... You must have found Miss G's profile as artist, but wonder how? There aren't actually the right keywords. But her first name is really only there to find.
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"No one communicates more thoughtfully or effectively on the radio airwaves than Thom Hartmann. He gets inside the arguments and helps people to think them through—to understand how to respond when they’re talking about public issues with coworkers, neighbors, and friends. This book explores some of the key perspectives behind his approach, teaching us not just how to find the facts, but to talk about what they mean in a way that people will hear."
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"In an age rife with media-inspired confusion and political cowardice, we yearn for a decent, caring, deeply human soul whose grasp of the problems confronting us provides a light by which we can make our way through the quagmire of lies, distortions, pandering, and hollow self-puffery that strips the American Dream of its promise. How lucky we are, then, to have access to the wit, wisdom, and willingness of Thom Hartmann, who shares with us here that very light, grown out of his own life experience."
Thom
It was the Cuyahoga River that caught fire. Cleveland area.
Former Toledoen here.