Jazz At The White House

Paquito D'Rivera and Wynton Marsalis

From the Times-Picayune:

WASHINGTON -- "That was cool," said Kyle Wedberg, interim president and chief executive of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, loosening his tie as he exited the White House into a saunalike spring day.

The White House fairly dripped of New Orleans on Monday, from the jamming of the jazz master Marsalis family inside to the hand of White House Social Secretary Desiree Glapion Rogers, who guided the opening of the White House Music Series.

The series, which will include days devoted to country and classical music, began with jazz, because, Rogers said, "it's America, it's the jewel." And then, she said, there was also that buzzing in her ear from "Mr. Wynton" -- Marsalis of course -- "with his 'Desiree, we got to, you know.'"

"America's indigenous art form was born in the great city of New Orleans just a century ago through the African-American experience," Michelle Obama, who is hosting the music series, said in brief remarks in the East Room.

Yes, yes, yes, I know that other cities claim to be the birthplace of jazz, but Michele Obama is right. And she comes from Chicago!



Sasha, Malia, and Michele Obama enjoy the music.

Photos from CBS News.

Into The Pool

Thursday - registration, Friday - unsuccessful attempt to enter the pool area, and today - Success! - into the pool. The temp here was in the mid-90s (34° for the foreigners), so the pool was a welcome relief in coolity. It's a great pool and not at all crowded.

I had hoped to show a rear view picture of my two grandchildren, but all the pictures show one face or another, so I used the picture of the swimming pool again. And no pictures of me in my bikini. That would be going way too far.

Prayers Please....

Fran requests prayers for her sister-in-law, who recently had surgery, and is now suffering from post-operative bleeding.

Fran has a paper to finish tonight, so please pray for her, too, as she is worried sick and can't reach anyone now and finding it hard to focus on her paper. Her SIL must have gone to a hospital for help, but she doesn't know for sure.

UPDATE: FranIAm said...

Thank you for all of the prayers. My SIL called at 11:40pm to say that she was just home from the hospital.

They do not ultimately think the bleeding has long term danger, she is off to see her surgeon today, an appointment that was already scheduled.

I am so grateful for all the prayers - I will keep you posted.

God bless.


BLOGGER DOWN!

From Ellie at Child of Illusion:

Dear Readers,

Here's an email I sent out to a number of friends and family members last Friday:

Dear friends and loved ones,

This morning I received a certified letter from the bishop of Oklahoma informing me that, for financial reasons, my position with the diocese is being eliminated and that my employment will be discontinued effective December 31, 2009.

I had already begun the process of petitioning for early retirement and was hoping to qualify for medical retirement. That effort now seems to have been preempted unless there is some legal loophole I don't know about.

I'm confident that I can raise enough money to live on through my work at the Center (St. John's Center for Spiritual Formation here in Tulsa). My big concern, of course, is health care coverage. The law gives me 18 months of extended group coverage if I pay what it costs my previous employer. As of today that cost is $611 a month. After that I am essentially uninsurable privately because of my medical history. I will need to come up with some plan to provide medical coverage for myself until I'm eligible for Medicare when I'm 65. (I turn 60 next month, by the way.)

Well, that's the news, folks! Do keep me in your thoughts and prayers and if anybody has any ideas regarding my predicament, I'll be glad to hear them!

Every blessing to you all,
Ellie

Of course, there's more to this story. The "official" reason the Diocese is giving has to do with budgetary concerns. However the reality is that the new bishop has disliked me from the get go -- for reasons that continue to escape me. It's all very sad.

I will probably say more about this later. For now, this will have to do.

"Miss Affirmative Action, 2009"

"Where's the gratitude?"

From Pat Buchanan's "A Brief For Whitey" in Human Events in March 2008:

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

[Jeremiah] Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Whew! The piece was a tough read, I can tell you. The "Silent Majority" ruled for only 8 years. That wasn't nearly enough time for them to have their voices heard and to have their way. My heart bleeds for downtrodden hetero white men. They don't get no respect. No one listens to them. Minorities and women rule!

From Pat's latest, "Miss Affirmative Action, 2009" on Sonia Sotomayer in Human Events:

No one has brought forth the slightest evidence she has the intellectual candlepower to sit on the Roberts court. By her own admission, Sotomayor is an "affirmative action baby."

Though the Obama media have been ballyhooing her brilliance -- No. 1 in high school, No. 1 at Princeton, editor of Yale Law Review -- her academic career appears to have been a fraud from beginning to end, a testament to Ivy League corruption.

Two weeks ago, The New York Times reported that, to get up to speed on her English skills at Princeton, Sotomayor was advised to read children's classics and study basic grammar books during her summers. How do you graduate first in your class at Princeton if your summer reading consists of "Chicken Little" and "The Troll Under the Bridge"?

I must conclude that all of Sotomayer's professors colluded in grading her work through her undergraduate years to boost her to her summa cum laude degree and her award as one of the two outstanding graduates at Princeton for her year. And the reason she was chosen as editor of the Yale Law Journal was not because she merited the position, but because the Journal needed a poster Hispanic girl.

To me, it seems that the assistence that Sotomayer received along the way did what it was supposed to do, helped her excel through her own efforts and hard work. Of course, I could be wrong.

Okay, so we all know that folks with racist and anti-feminist views dwell amongst us. Human Events has the right to publish despicable drivel. But why does Buchanan have a reserved seat as a commentator on matters conservative at MSNBC, a major cable news channel? No doubt Pat is well-compensated for occupying his chair and blathering on and on with his idiocies. He exercises restraint on MSNBC, because he knows where his bread is buttered. Is Buchanan an example of what the cable channel thinks of as balanced opinion presentations?

H/T to Zachary Roth at TPM Muckraker.

Jesus Stills A Storm

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

Mark 4:35-41

For quite a long time, I've loved this passage from Mark. As I read the story, it's not really about the miracle of Jesus calming the wind and the sea, but rather about Jesus calming the storm inside me - an entirely different miracle, but a wonder nontheless.

My prayer, "Lord, do you not care that I am perishing?" Then comes the soothing, calming answer, "Peace! Be still!...Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"

At times, I still have no faith, or not enough faith. But all it takes is faith the size of a mustard seed to move forward. "Peace! Be still!...Why are you afraid?"

There Were Two Nuns....

One of them was known as Sister Mathematical (SM), and the other one was known as Sister Logical (SL).

It is getting dark and they are still far away from the convent.

SM: Have you noticed that a man has been following us for the past thirty-eight and a half minutes? I wonder what he wants.

SL: It's logical. He wants to rape us.

SM: Oh, no! At this rate he will reach us in 15 minutes at the most! What can we do?

SL: The only logical thing to do of course is to walk faster.

SM: It's not working.

SL: Of course it's not working. The man did the only logical thing. He started to walk faster, too.

SM: So, what shall we do? At this rate he will reach us in one minute.

SL: The only logical thing we can do is split. You go that way and I'll go this way. He cannot follow us both.

So the man decided to follow Sister Logical.

Sister Mathematical arrives at the convent and is worried about what has happened to Sister Logical.

Then Sister Logical arrives.

SM: Sister Logical! Thank God you are here! Tell me what happened!

SL: The only logical thing happened. The man couldn't follow us both, so he followed me.

SM: Yes, yes! But what happened then?

SL: The only logical thing happened. I started to run as fast as I could and he started to run as fast as he could.

SM: And?

SL : The only logical thing happened. He reached me.

SM : Oh, dear! What did you do?

SL : The only logical thing to do. I lifted my dress up.

SM : Oh, Sister! What did the man do?

SL: The only logical thing to do. He pulled down his pants.

SM: Oh, no! What happened then?

SL : Isn't it logical, Sister? A nun with her dress up can run faster than a man with his pants down.

And for those of you who thought it would be about sex,

Say two Hail Marys!

and - of course - forward this mail!

And I forward it to you, my readers.

Thanks to Susan.

Obama's DOJ And DOMA

Ever since I read the post from Americablog yesterday, I've wanted to write something about the defense of DOMA by the lawyers at Obama's DOJ. However, I was so disheartened by what I read there, that I had no energy to write anything at all until now, and this is mostly cut and paste.

We just got the brief from reader Lavi Soloway. It's pretty despicable, and gratuitously homophobic. It reads as if it were written by one of George Bush's top political appointees. I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn't just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn't motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn't be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn't discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can't).

Aravosis' statement in bold type (my emphasis) turned out to have been prescient because he later learned that "one of the three Obama Justice Department attorneys who wrote and filed the anti-gay DOMA brief last night is W. Scott Simpson, a Mormon Bush holdover who was awarded by Alberto Gonzales for his defense of the Partial Birth Abortion act."

And before Obama claims he didn't have a choice, he had a choice. Bush, Reagan and Clinton all filed briefs in court opposing current federal law as being unconstitutional (we'll be posting more about that later). Obama could have done the same. But instead he chose to defend DOMA, denigrate our civil rights, go back on his promises, and contradict his own statements that DOMA was "abhorrent." Folks, Obama's lawyers are even trying to diminish the impact of Roemer and Lawrence, our only two big Supreme Court victories. Obama is quite literally destroying our civil rights gains with this brief. He's taking us down for his own benefit.

During the campaign, Obama stated that he would be gay-friendly. When will he begin?

Thanks (or no thanks?) to Counterlight for the link to Americablog.

From A Sermon For The First Sunday After Trinity

No, not by me. By MadPriest, posted at Of Course I Could Be On Vacation, because he is on holiday, but not quite yet, unless he's recorded the sermon for play on Sunday. You may want to read the entire sermon, for it's quite good, excellent, really. Here are a few short quotes to entice you to read it all.

Gospel reading for the day: Mark 4: 26-34 (Parables on the Kingdom of God - of sowing, of harvesting, of the mustard seed)

...Christians are called to be the hands of God on earth. We are included within God’s creative plan as active agents of bringing the Kingdom of God into being. We cannot just resign ourselves to believing that what will be will be or that everything is God’s fault. We are creatures of free will who can effect change in our own present and future for good or ill.
....

And the gospel truth we heard this morning in our main reading is that the Kingdom of God will come into full being through the agency of uncountable, small works of goodness performed by the people of the Kingdom, you and me, included. Our actions, when they are in line with the commandments of God the Father and the teachings of Jesus Christ, are like tiny seeds sown on the ground. Seeds so small you can hardly see them. Seeds that appear lost amongst the dirt and the stones of the soil into which they are cast. But these seeds, because they are of God and his Kingdom sprout and grow. And although they start off as tiny, individual seeds they become a vast field of healthy crops or a whole plantation of mighty mustard bushes. Our individual, usually insignificant, good deeds join together to become something very visible and vast in its scale. And that is what the Kingdom of God is about. It is the coming together of many individuals to become one people within the presence of God.

Now go. Go read the rest.

Should Olde Acquaintance...?

If an old and long-winded acquaintance, whom we see from time to time in a meet-up in New Orleans, calls and leaves an extended message on the answering machine, telling us everything that's happening in his life right now, running out the tape, must I return his call?

All right, then. I already know what your answers will be. I shall make the call. Am I a bitch for even asking the question?

You Can't Have Him!

From The Advocate:

Efforts are underway to raise money nationally for a Bobby Jindal presidential campaign.

“We will be sending out mailers, requests, hosting fundraisers,” Dan Kyle, treasurer of the Republican Party of Louisiana, said Friday.
....

Kyle said the governor is not yet participating.

“I believe he is aware of it. I have not personally talked to him about it,” he said.

None of you in the rest of the country have done anything to deserve consideration from those of us here in Louisiana or expectations that we would be willing to share our wealth with you. Jindal is ours, all ours. All the governor's fundraising trips around the country are ONLY for the purpose of raising money for his next campaign for governor of Louisiana.

Earlier this year, he gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s first address to Congress. The response was widely panned, casting a shadow on Jindal’s national profile.

Jindal is struggling to deal with the substantial financial problems facing the state.

Revenue is falling short, creating the possibility of heavy cuts to higher education and health care.

Earlier this week, four of the state’s five living former governors urged Jindal to reduce his proposed cuts to higher education.

What to do? For the Republicans, there is only one answer: run him for president! The entire country should be so fortunate as to have a leader like ours here in Louisiana.