Playing Music

"One never knows, do one?" ~ Fats Waller

My wife just bought a brand new car, a Kia Spectra. She gave me her old car, a Ford Taurus. While I was going through the mountain of CD's, separating hers from mine, I came across a CD I had burned on my old desktop computer. It is a compilation of some of my favorite old time jazz and pop songs recorded by various artists from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, to Linda Ronstadt and Fats Waller.

Here is a video of one of the recordings by Fats Waller:

Vincent

"And when no hope was left in sight, on that starry starry night, you took your life as lovers often do" ~ Don McLean

I found this video while searching for another one by Don McLean (which I didn't find). It's just too beautiful not to share.



For those of you who don't already know. This song is about Vincent Van Gogh, who created a painting called "Starry Night". This is what it looks like:

I Am A Kool-Aid Drinker

"Oh, Yeah!" ~ Kool-Aid Man

I've been planning on saying this for a long time. I really hate it when I hear people calling other people Kool-Aid drinkers to describe them as crowd followers.

Conservatives refer to Liberals as Kool-Aid drinkers. Liberals refer to Conservatives as Kool-Aid drinkers. In my humble opinion, Liberals may drink Kool-Aid, but it must be laced with hallucinogens. That's the only logical explanation I know of for their lunatic notions.

And I understand the origin of the term. I know the term originated with Jim Jones and Jonestown, when he managed to convince over 900 of his followers to drink poisoned Kool-Aid in a mass suicide.

I get it.

I understand the term now applies to all those people so committed to a political cause or candidate that they senselessly ignore facts in conflict with their political viewpoint.

But I like Kool-Aid.

I am a Kool-Aid drinker and proud of it. But it has nothing to do with my political ideology.

If you want to classify Sheeple Liberals with some kind of catchy term, how about using the phrase, "Lemming mentality bleeding heart Liberal sob sisters"?

Oh Yeah! Works for me!

Empathy: A Judicial Qualification?

"I figure it must be the will of the Lord because it seems so right to me." ~ Dan McBride

It's indeed gratifying to discover that old men can still learn new things. In my case, I have learned my readers are not Opera fans. Or maybe I've learned I no longer have readers. I certainly can't blame anyone for giving up on me. I have been derelict in my blogging duty.

Be that as it may, there have been a lot of events transpire since I last did a serious entry on this blog. I will now comment on a couple of them.

The Supreme Court, by judicial fiat, has determined that the Constitution is not a valid document by a ruling stating non-uniformed enemy combatants have some kind of previously unknown right to be tried in a civilian district court of law during a time of war.

Needless to say, the basis for this ruling is found nowhere within our Constitution, which basically means it's not a Constitutional ruling. Which means our esteemed Supreme Court of the United States is once again roving around outside the bounds of their jurisdiction.

And Obama wants to appoint more of these renegade judicial activists to the bench, if he is elected President, to wit:

"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom," Obama told a Planned Parenthood conference in Washington, D.C., in 2007 "The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

What does he mean by the word, "empathy"?

I don't know how Obama understands it, but Webster defines empathy (partially) as:

"The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also: the capacity for this."

In other words, empathy is like sympathy, but it's more intense than mere sympathy. Occasionally, men who's wives are expecting a baby experience what is called sympathy pains. They actually experience contractions and morning sickness as if they themselves are pregnant.

That's the best way of describing empathy I can think of.

This is typical of the Liberal mindset here in America. And if anyone fits the description of Liberal, it's B. Hussein Obama.

Liberals feel. Conservatives think.

But I thought Obama was an attorney. Was he somehow missing the day his professors explained how justice is dispensed in America? Was he snoozing when the rest of his classmates learned that Justice is supposed to be blind? Or is he just an idiot?

Empathy has nothing to do with the judicial process. It has no place in a court of law. No matter how unfair it appears to be. After all, in a court of law, fairness is objective. The law has no sympathy, let alone empathy. Ideally, it has only justice. Often times sympathy and justice are in direct juxtaposition to each other.

Whenever there is a point of law being argued, one side always loses. If a judge has empathy, he cannot decide in favor of either side for fear of hurting the other side's feelings. It is not a judge's job to have empathy. It is the judge's job to impartially dispense justice as defined by the Constitution of the United States.

And that's the point. The Supreme Court must dispense impartial justice as defined by the Constitution of our country, not by some legal code of some other country.

And not by their own personal perception of what seems to be right regardless of what is set forth within the Constitution.

Only by our Constitution.

I don't like the fact that sometimes guilty people go free. I don't like it when innocent people get sentenced to prison. I can, and often do, sympathize with people who get the shaft from the legal system.

But it's the law. That's the system designed by the framers of our Constitution.

Is it always fair? Is it always right?

Not always. But one thing is sure:

If Obama has his way, the Constitution will have no relevance to the courts in this country.

What Was In My Head When I Awoke (Sorta)

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak" ~ William Congreve

I'm not a big Opera fan, but here's the background: I woke up this morning with a J.G. Wentworth commercial running through my head. I don't know if Wentworth is nationwwide or local, but the commercial is an opera singer singing, "I have a structured settlement, and I need cash now!" Then a chorus of Opera singers sing, "J.G. Wentworth, 877-CASH NOW!" and so on.

J.G. Wentworth is one of those attorneys who advertise their office on TV.

But, instead of that commercial, I decided to find some real opera to post. My sister, who graduated from Wichita State University with a degree in Music Education appeared in a couple of opera there with the great Metropolitan Opera star Samuel Ramey. Seems he got his degree from Wichita State, also, but unlike my sister, who went on to teach middle school music, he went on to fame and fortune at the Met.

I tried to find a video of him singing the part he played in WSU's production, but I was hindered by the fact that I don't remember the name of the Opus he and my sister were in, nor the names of any of the arias he sang.

I do remember my sister had a line in that Opus. I don't remember if she had more than one line, but it was either, "Wast ist Das?" or "Das ist der Mont!"

Incidentally, At one point during the Opus, the stagehands neglected to turn off the back lighting after Mr. Ramey (playing St Peter) sang, revealing the stepladder he was standing on to appear as if he was floating in the clouds. At this point, Ramey invoked the name of God, not knowing the microphone, like the lights, was not yet turned off. It went something like this: "G--D--- it! Turn off the lights!"

He didn't sing the words, either.

So anyway, here, for your enjoyment (or agony) is Sam Ramey , Metropolitan Opera Basso extraordinaire:

How To Destroy America

"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism." ~ Theodore Roosevelt

I recently received this in my e-mail from my daughter, who, I just found out, is expecting her third child. She has a boy and a girl already. Soon she will be able to say, "I have three children. One of each!"

We know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado. In that context his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an immigration overpopulation conference in Washington, DC , filled to capacity by many of America 's finest minds and leaders. A brilliant college professor by the name of Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest book, "Mexifornia" explaining how immigration - both legal and illegal was destroying the entire state of California . He said it would march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream.

Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America.

The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States. He said, "If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy America It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that 'an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide."

"Here is how they do it", Lamm said:

"First, to destroy America , turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. The historical scholar, Seymour Lipset, put it this way: 'The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.' Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, and Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, Corsicans and Muslims."

Lamm went on:

"Second, to destroy America , invent 'multiculturalism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. Make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal; that there are no cultural differences. Make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due solely to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds".

"Third, we could make the United States a 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: 'The apparent success of our own multi-ethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentricity and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.' Lamm said, "I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America enforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."

"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high school".

"My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of 'Victimology'. I would get all minorities to think that their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority."

"My sixth plan for America's downfall would include dual citizenship, and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other - that is, when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshipped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic Games. A common enemy, Persia , threatened their liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to overcome two factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions. Greece fell. 'E. Pluribus Unum' -- from many, one. In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'Unum,' we will 'Balkanize' America as surely as Kosovo."

"Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits. Make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of 'diversity.' I would find a word similar to 'heretic' in the 16th century - that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like 'racist' or 'xenophobe' halt discussion and debate. Having made America a bilingual/bicultural country, having established multi-culturism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of 'Victimology', I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good. I would make every individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of millions of them."

In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound silence followed. Finally he said, "Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis's book 'Mexifornia'. His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book."

There was no applause. A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous cloud above every attendee at the conference. Every American in that room knew that everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically, quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States today. Discussion is being suppressed. Over 100 languages are ripping the foundation of our educational system and national cohesiveness. Even barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are growing as we celebrate "diversity". American jobs are vanishing into the Third World as corporations create a Third World in America. Take note of California and other states. To date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast. It is reminiscent of George Orwell's book "1984" . In that story, three slogans are engraved in the Ministry of Truth building: "War is peace", "Freedom is slavery", and "Ignorance is strength".

Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the conference that our nation and the future of this great democracy are deeply in trouble and worsening fast.

If we don't get this immigration monster stopped within three years, it will rage like a California wildfire and destroy everything in its path, especially The American Dream.

Will Obama Tempt Fate And Hillary?

"If you wish to make a man look noble, your best course is to kill him. What superiority he may have inherited from his race, what superiority nature may have personally gifted him with, comes out in death." ~ Alexander Smith

So now, the other shoe has dropped and it is now confirmed that Barry Hussein Obama will be the Presidential nominee of the Democratic party.

As if we didn't see that coming.

But what of Hillary Rodham Clinton? Well, according to the Liberally biased AP, she refuses to concede, but has finally suggested she would be open to the vice presidential slot on Obama's ticket.

Of course, Hillary wants the VP slot. Vice President is a literal heartbeat away from the most powerful position in the world. For someone who we all know will stop at nothing to attain the presidency of the United States, it's common sense.

If she can't be President by election, she may have hopes of securing the office by succession.

What? Am I saying Hillary might carry out an assassination plot on her dear friend, B. Hussein, just to be President?

Not at all.

That, of course, is unthinkable.

But, if there is anybody in the world who is both capable and ambitious enough, it is the Clintons, Bill and Hillary. One only has to go back to the link Lone Ranger left in my comments section a while back to find the list of people linked to the Clintons who died under mysterious and suspicious circumstances. I especially like the one who died of decapitation that the Clinton backed coroner determined to be "natural causes" and the one who committed suicide by shooting herself in the back of the head.

It doesn't have to be the Clintons, though. Since the Democratic party was founded by white racists with a party platform to keep the blacks enslaved, and under the domination of the white race in this country, it is not a stretch of the imagination to conclude some loyal racist Democrat somewhere may just do the job for Hillary without her pre-knowledge or (official) consent.

There may be some people in this country who will take drastic measures to prevent a black man from being President.

Hillary, of course, is well aware of the racist attitude that permeates the Democratic party even today. She may very well be counting on some extremist Democrat nutcase to usher her into the Oval office. But, in deference to her position as a well-respected leader of Democrats, let's assume she wouldn't personally approve of such drastic and final action, even from extremists.

That's not to say she wouldn't take full advantage of the opportunity to become President, even if it is by such extreme measures.

She has even indicated that the possibility of Obama being assassinated exists, and drew no small amount of indignation for her comment, but she was merely saying what many others were thinking.

Hmmm. telling the truth. What a novel concept for Hillary!

If Obama has any common sense at all (and the jury is still out on that one), he will recognize the fact that choosing Hillary as a Vice Presidential candidate could be a fatal mistake for him.

Literally fatal.