Posted 9:06 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Another night in the jazz world

Music has always had an important place in my life, because nothing... absolutely nothing... gets to my emotions faster or more directly. Being an in-control sort of guy, "progressive" jazz has always been something I could listen to, with difficulty and amazement, but could never even imagine being part of. It's just too "far out" for me. I can appreciate it no end, precisely because it's so alien to me, so impossible for me to consider doing myself. It requires an instinctive mental freedom somehow merged with great skill that can only happen with great abandon that is beyond me. So, I sit, watch, and listen with awe for those who do it. Thanks to my jazz prod friend Charles, last night was another such episode... at the Artist's Quarter in St. Paul, listening to two wonderful performers of that art, Frank Morgan on alto sax, and George Cables on piano. We got more than our moneys-worth... two long sets of beautiful and exciting jazz from these two old-timers.

As no more than an occasional jazz buff, I had to check out a little history for Morgan and Cables. As we were leaving, we conjectured that Morgan, at age 74, must have led a clean life to still be playing so well. Not so. He was a heroin addict for 30 years, and spent time in prisons, playing with Art Pepper there. Morgan has recovered from all that and made an amazing comeback at an age most of us would have just been glad to have survived. Several times during the sets last night, Morgan smiled and said "It's great to be alive, isn't it?" Now I have an idea why he said that.

George Cables, who seems to be able to do any damned thing he can imagine on a piano (and he has a hell of an imagination), including some that sound impossible, is a young man by comparison, at age 62. Cables also had a connection to Art Pepper, who called him "Mr. Beautiful", his favorite pianist.

There aren't many things that can get me to sit still, without a smoke, for hours. These two men did. It's still hard for me to imagine jazz, with booze but without smoking, but that's the creepy world we live in now... a world with more illegal drug use than cigarette smoking.

Posted 10:18 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

An elder we can all learn from

I often grouse about my age (67) which seems old to me and to most of the people I hang around with, because it's older than the hordes that represent the baby-boom generation. I was pleased this morning to listen to a man to whom I must seem like a child. He's 94, and he's Milton Friedman, Nobel-winning (1976) economist. For much longer than I've been really paying attention, Friedman has educated large numbers of people with the common sense beauty of the free market.

Here is a two-part recent audio interview with Friedman that demonstrate his modest optimism and ability to hone in on the essentials. His voice sounds 94, but that great mind seems to have lost nothing.
Interviews from the Library of Economics and Liberty.

Posted 4:45 PM by Robert Ronald Smith

We're just a wrinkle in the fabric of time

We humans are filled with our self-importance, aren't we? We work so hard at achieving whatever, making ourselves unique from others, and often do it all with grand pomposity. Yet, we are but a pimple on the arse of the universe, and may be even that for only a relatively brief period of time.

When I spent a year on Midway Island, it seemed to me to be, alternatively, a paradise and a prison. In the Navy, I had no choice in being there, and no chance to leave until my time was up. Midway, as this article points out, was the original "Hawaiian Island" of the chain we know now, and it was volcanic. Now it is just a small atoll containing 2 small sandy islands that are, thanks to the whim of the Fish and Wildlife Service, essentially a now-treeless wildlife refuge, banned to almost all humans. It will eventually sink below the surface of the Pacific. If there are humans around then, they'll not likely have even heard of Midway.

Betwixt volcano and extinction, Midway had some high points. Those humans laying the first trans-Pacific communications cable lived and worked there. The original trans-Pacific airline flights had a refueling base there. The Navy, Army, and Marine forces stationed there were pivotal in defeating the superior Japanese carrier fleet shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. During the Cold War, early-warning flights patrolled constantly from Midway to Alaska and back. My photos of a Midway now gone become more precious each year to those of us who were there.

To anyone involved in any of those activities, Midway was of special importance, yet it is almost already relegated to the past. One of the inevitable grimaces that accompany aging is watching your past vanish.

Posted 12:16 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Destruction beyond comprehension

I once maintained an "Iraqi cemetery" on my website, showing the number of Iraqi civilians who had been "liberated by death" via our insane War in Iraq. By February 8th, 2004 (2 years and 8 months ago) the task had gotten too difficult, and I stopped updating it. Here's a reduced snapshot showing a small part of the final update:



My intent was to allow us to visualize the number of deaths, using tiny white crosses, but it quickly got out of control. There is no way to visualize such levels of destruction; we just have to try to comprehend the numbers themselves. Problem is, nobody really knows what those numbers are. I used the Minimum number carefully arrived at by Iraq Body Count, which is, as I write, is showing 43,937. That's a verified minimum, but it could be far, far higher, as indicated by a recent epidemiological study that came up with the number 655,000.

Estimates of deaths through war have always increased after the war was over. Only then is it possible to gauge the true destruction.

If there had been only ONE death as a result of this insane, useless war, it would have been one too many, because it would have been purposeless, but there have also been 2,756 Americans killed and 20,468 wounded... WASTED LIVES.

We need to continually remind ourselves that those aren't simply numbers... they're people, little different from you and I... with relatives, friends, hopes, plans, and futures, now gone.

Posted 10:00 AM by Robert Ronald Smith

Only a structure?

For many, many years, there have been plans to rebuild the crazy I35W/Crosstown interchange. Within the last year, new plans by the state fell through when their funding was late. They tried, with laughter in response, to get contract bidders to fund themselves until the money was available... so, the project got put off for another year. Not, however, before MNDOT did some destruction in preparation for the project that may never happen. I can see (and hear) the Crosstown traffic from my apartment, and, when I moved here, my apartment building was one of a pair that shared a big, shady yard between us. With two buildings of residents, there was almost always someone in the yard, which attracted others. It was our own little park and party area that allowed residents to get to know each other, share a beer, and maybe do some barbeque.

The yard is still there, but has become unused. MNDOT needed the space under the other building for construction space when (and if) the Crosstown construction ever actually happens, so they bought the building and evicted all the residents. Some people had lived there for 15 years. For many months the building sat untended, then, gradually, MNDOT has had people gutting, boarding, and dismantling it. As I write, two men are removing the decks facing the yard.

To people making decisions on a large project, the structure is a minor snag, but to the people who chose to live in this inexpensive, out of the way space, it was home. It not only uprooted those people, some of whom were elderly, but it changed life for those of us in the remaining building. We still have the big shady yard, but with half as many residents, it has largely become unused. I don't know nearly as many residents now as I did then. Let me show you the difference it can make. The first photo is a party (no, there weren't many that large) when there were two buildings sharing the yard. The second photo is current, showing the same yard but empty... it's normal condition now.





Condemning one small apartment building is a minor action in the grand scheme of highway construction, but not to the people who lived there, nor to the neighborhood. Thanks to the normal ineptitude of government, the destruction took place (at least) one year before needed.