Miscellaneous Musings and Christmas Wishes:
I made a few additions to yesterday's posting including adding a few more tidbits to the expository musing and a video clip. With Christmas being upon us now, it is time to take leave from blogging to tend to a number of matters which take significant priority.
I hope to get a few more postings up before the end of the year including the thrice-referenced posting which will outline the direction this weblog will take in the indefinite future from that point on.
But before departing until at least St. Stephen's day (December 26, 2007), I want to remind readers of what I wrote at this time last year about the Christmas season and giving. And while this season is one where giving has a special place, it should not be the only time of year. Try at whatever time of year though to do what you can to avoid taking any more of the spotlight than you have to.
And (of course) may the readers of this humble weblog have a most blessed Christmas.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Commemorating a Blues Classic:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
Born Under A Bad Sign Turns 40
As today is the fifteenth anniversary of the passing of blues legend Albert King (1923-1992), it seems appropriate to say something of note on that anniversary and another milestone to which he will forever be associated with. But first a small bit from the above link:
Born Under A Bad Sign was unlike any blues album that came before—or since. And four decades after its release, guitarists everywhere are still reeling.
To start with, the actual birthday of the album was back in August but for all the talk about the music of the "Summer of Love" and the great albums released that year from The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and countless others,{1} one album that has consistently not been mentioned was blues legend Albert King's seminal 1967 album Born Under A Bad Sign.
Rarely has an album been released that completely redefined an entire genre of music (in this case, the blues) and had influence radiating beyond its genre. Furthermore, it is rare that a musician who forged his own unique style and innovated his own licks to have had so many licks stolen -both consciously as well as unconsciously- by fellow musicians who generally received greater recognition than him.
Eric Clapton was lauded as "God" in Britain as far back as 1965 when he was reproducing licks from Albert King's Bobbin Records sessions of the late 1950's and early 1960's. Jimi Hendrix would put his guitar down and pick up a bass to back up King on stage so he could study the man's technique which was wholly original. Fellow blues titans who had reached acclaim and wider audiences when King was still toiling in relative obscurity (i.e. Otis Rush, Freddie King) and who both had earlier influential hits and later significant successes (i.e. Albert Collins) to a man noticeably revamped their styles of play as a result of King's influence.
Clapton's work on Cream's two biggest albums (particularly 1967's Disraeli Gears) and Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced? and subsequent albums have so many copped licks from King (including at times solos nearly note for note) that they should have paid the man royalties.{2} Albert King was also the only bluesmen of that era who consistently sold equally to both black and white listening audiences without changing the fundamentals of his playing style an iota. But while not changing in the fundamentals, he did nonetheless show a capacity for applying his playing style to a variety of rhythmic stylings.
His earliest recordings for Bobbin in the late 1950's for example had more of a swinging jazz approach to them and this carried a bit into the early 1960's. By the mid 1960's, he was the only bluesman on the St. Louis-based Stax label and recording singles with the rhythmic backing of Booker T. and the MG's. After the breakout of Born Under A Bad Sign and a slew of live performances that followed, King at the age of 43 finally crossed over to the white audience and solidified blues as not a dying form but one which was vibrant, living, and adaptable.
This carried into the early 1970's where when funk came about, he utilized funk rhythms and later even some disco rhythms on albums from the late 1970's. But despite those things, the core of his style never changed and he continued to sell about evenly to black and white audiences. This is significant because better known blues musicians (such as BB King) did not accomplish the same feat.{3} He continued to play concerts all the way up to the end of his life with what he may have lost in the final year of his life{4} being minor at best.
Blues would not sound the way it does today if not for Albert King. The same is the case for rock and roll, for "heavy metal", or any other genre you could mention from that time. So for that reason alone, Albert King deserves to be remembered and on this the fifteenth anniversary of his passing and the fortieth anniversary year of THE most important blues album of the past fifty years (if not of all time), that is what we intend to do here at Rerum Novarum.
The video below is from a DVD titled Albert King Live in Sweden from 1980 which suffers from being way too short and the song below being broken up in the middle with an interview which would have been better either at the beginning or end of the song. Oh well, you can still catch from the parts you can hear some of the elements behind his unique approach to playing and singing. The man just oozed soul with every note played as a statement unto itself -something these guitar shredder types completely miss. Nonetheless...
Rest in peace Albert.
Notes:
{1} 1967 was also the year of debut albums by Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead.
{2} The biggest culprit in this area was Stevie Ray Vaughan but Vaughan was also the most generous of the bunch -never failing to give Albert King his due as the significant cornerstone influence in Vaughan's own style of play. For more on the relationship between these two, see this album review we posted back in January of 2006.
{3} Well in BB's case, he did with his 1970 hit The Thrill is Gone but that was an exception to the rule.
{4} He lost a lot of weight in his final year due to diabetes and that coupled with a bit of hearing loss affected his playing a bit at that time.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
Born Under A Bad Sign Turns 40
As today is the fifteenth anniversary of the passing of blues legend Albert King (1923-1992), it seems appropriate to say something of note on that anniversary and another milestone to which he will forever be associated with. But first a small bit from the above link:
Born Under A Bad Sign was unlike any blues album that came before—or since. And four decades after its release, guitarists everywhere are still reeling.
To start with, the actual birthday of the album was back in August but for all the talk about the music of the "Summer of Love" and the great albums released that year from The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, and countless others,{1} one album that has consistently not been mentioned was blues legend Albert King's seminal 1967 album Born Under A Bad Sign.
Rarely has an album been released that completely redefined an entire genre of music (in this case, the blues) and had influence radiating beyond its genre. Furthermore, it is rare that a musician who forged his own unique style and innovated his own licks to have had so many licks stolen -both consciously as well as unconsciously- by fellow musicians who generally received greater recognition than him.
Eric Clapton was lauded as "God" in Britain as far back as 1965 when he was reproducing licks from Albert King's Bobbin Records sessions of the late 1950's and early 1960's. Jimi Hendrix would put his guitar down and pick up a bass to back up King on stage so he could study the man's technique which was wholly original. Fellow blues titans who had reached acclaim and wider audiences when King was still toiling in relative obscurity (i.e. Otis Rush, Freddie King) and who both had earlier influential hits and later significant successes (i.e. Albert Collins) to a man noticeably revamped their styles of play as a result of King's influence.
Clapton's work on Cream's two biggest albums (particularly 1967's Disraeli Gears) and Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced? and subsequent albums have so many copped licks from King (including at times solos nearly note for note) that they should have paid the man royalties.{2} Albert King was also the only bluesmen of that era who consistently sold equally to both black and white listening audiences without changing the fundamentals of his playing style an iota. But while not changing in the fundamentals, he did nonetheless show a capacity for applying his playing style to a variety of rhythmic stylings.
His earliest recordings for Bobbin in the late 1950's for example had more of a swinging jazz approach to them and this carried a bit into the early 1960's. By the mid 1960's, he was the only bluesman on the St. Louis-based Stax label and recording singles with the rhythmic backing of Booker T. and the MG's. After the breakout of Born Under A Bad Sign and a slew of live performances that followed, King at the age of 43 finally crossed over to the white audience and solidified blues as not a dying form but one which was vibrant, living, and adaptable.
This carried into the early 1970's where when funk came about, he utilized funk rhythms and later even some disco rhythms on albums from the late 1970's. But despite those things, the core of his style never changed and he continued to sell about evenly to black and white audiences. This is significant because better known blues musicians (such as BB King) did not accomplish the same feat.{3} He continued to play concerts all the way up to the end of his life with what he may have lost in the final year of his life{4} being minor at best.
Blues would not sound the way it does today if not for Albert King. The same is the case for rock and roll, for "heavy metal", or any other genre you could mention from that time. So for that reason alone, Albert King deserves to be remembered and on this the fifteenth anniversary of his passing and the fortieth anniversary year of THE most important blues album of the past fifty years (if not of all time), that is what we intend to do here at Rerum Novarum.
The video below is from a DVD titled Albert King Live in Sweden from 1980 which suffers from being way too short and the song below being broken up in the middle with an interview which would have been better either at the beginning or end of the song. Oh well, you can still catch from the parts you can hear some of the elements behind his unique approach to playing and singing. The man just oozed soul with every note played as a statement unto itself -something these guitar shredder types completely miss. Nonetheless...
Rest in peace Albert.
Notes:
{1} 1967 was also the year of debut albums by Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead.
{2} The biggest culprit in this area was Stevie Ray Vaughan but Vaughan was also the most generous of the bunch -never failing to give Albert King his due as the significant cornerstone influence in Vaughan's own style of play. For more on the relationship between these two, see this album review we posted back in January of 2006.
{3} Well in BB's case, he did with his 1970 hit The Thrill is Gone but that was an exception to the rule.
{4} He lost a lot of weight in his final year due to diabetes and that coupled with a bit of hearing loss affected his playing a bit at that time.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
On Mitt Romney, Conservatives, and the Judiciary:
(Dialogue With Kevin Tierney)
Kevin's words will be in shale coloured font. Without further ado...
So I pursue some reading today, and it talks about how [Mitt] Romney didn’t really oppose same sex marriage. They state that when the court forced the issue, Romney complied.
That is no different than Appellate Court Justice John Roberts voting to confirm Roe vs. Wade in 2003. It did not mean he supported the decision. He was doing what an appellate judge is supposed to do: affirm the laws on the books whether they personally like them or not. Nor in his hearings when he said RvW was "settled law" mean that he did not intend to find a way of overturning that abominable excuse for a proper common law judgment{1} when it was feasible to do. It merely meant he recognized that it was the law until that law was changed.
When faced with the fact that Romney had to obey, they proclaim that Romney should’ve pulled an Andrew Jackson “Justice Marshall has made his decision, let him enforce it.”
That is Jacksonian Democracy at it starkest there. And while hard to be too critical of Andrew Jackson overall -as we would have lost to Great Britain had he not through clever strategery taken out installations in Florida and forced the British to invade at New Orleans- it is also true that what one does when involved in their very survival differs from decisions made in a more calm and secure scenario.
I never understood this fascination with people championing Jackson’s statement.
It has to do with the rise in judicial activism in recent decades. People repine for a simpler time when justices did not invent law and instead sought to rule in accordance with the law. Justice Marshall was the crown jewel of President John Adams' administration apart from Adams keeping us out of full-blown war with France in the last three years of his presidency. There is irony in Adams abhorring Alexander Hamilton as he did but then appointed as Chief Justice someone who was ideologically a Hamilton acolyte. Of course Hamilton and Adams were not diametrically opposite one another ideologically -they both had Federalist outlooks overall- but there is a splendid irony in Marshall's tenure on the court and the decisions he made which shaped it.{2} He was unquestionably the most important chief justice in history but I have optimism that we may see in Chief Justice John Roberts and his court a similar period of judicial cultivation.
But in a summary statement, it is Jackson's statement of telling the Supreme Court to go pound sand which those fascinated with his statement like. Unfortunately, the pre-Roberts courts -going back to at least the late 1930's to an increasingly degree since with the Rhenquist court not exactly doing a complete about face on the matter- have soured a lot of people's countenance on the matter of the Supreme Court and what its limitations are constitutionally. And people in that frame of mind like to see someone stand up to them even if they project Jackson into the present day and his words as applying to certain decisions of the Court in recent decades.{3}
The issue at hand was the forcible removal by United States troops of American Indians. The state of Georgia also attempted to force the Cherokees to abide by Georgia state laws, a clear violation of existing treaties between the federal government and the Indians.
That is correct. The Cherokees were a nation unto their own and therefore the proper relation to the United States was on the federal level, not that of the states.
There’s no doubt that what Jackson did was clearly unconstitutional, and a grave usurpation of executive power.
The problem is, Jackson should have set aside his personal views and executed the decision of the Court. This was not a case of the Court ruling in a fashion that violated the Constitution as was the case with the 2005 Kelo decision.{4}
He ignored the Supreme Court ruling and his actions culminated in the trail of tears, where thousands of Indians died.
Not only that but President Jackson took it a step beyond that. When some Cherokees signed the Treaty of New Enchota in 1835, President Jackson lobbied the Senate to ratify it which they did by one vote. (It was then proclaimed in May of 1836.) President Jackson then escaped the ramifications of the treaty by turning over the presidency to the incoming Martin Van Buren in March of 1837 who refused to consider that the treaty itself was possibly invalid because those who signed it were not authorized by the Cherokee nation to do so. The rest sadly enough is history.
When people study history, nobody ever talks about the Trail of Tears as a highpoint of American History.
Well, no one I am aware of does. The idea of reservations themselves are not the issue with me as much as how this was handled. Those who did not want to assimilate should have been allowed to retain their land either wholly or in part and received just compensation for the rest. But without question the Cherokee relocation was a black mark on this nation's history.
Jackson flagrantly violated the Constitution he was sworn to uphold, his actions were fueled by bigotry, and led to the death of thousands.
Andrew Jackson was very much a despiser of Indians and this went back to his history as a warrior fighting the Indians.The problem is, as President of the United States you have a responsibility to the common good in a way that you do not as a military man. And on the matter in question, one could argue that President Jackson should have recused himself -his lobbying for the passage of the treaty certainly does not fall under the category of "recusing oneself" or at least I do not see how it does.
And conservatives want to emulate this???
Well, this is an example of wanting the wrong thing for the right reasons on the part of many conservatives. Judicial activism is rightfully deplored by so many of them. But you do not fight judicial activism by refusing to recognize the rule of law. I understand the problem with judicial activism and I sympathize with those who parrot the famous Jackson dictum on Justice Marshall. However, once one side sanctions judicial activism, they have no recourse against the other side doing it as well. And without recognizing the rule of law, we are no better than the animals -that is the bottom line really.
Notes:
{1} On Fundamental Rights, Common Law Principles, and Abortion (circa February 1, 2007)
{2} Not to mention that John Adams sent his son John Quincy to clerk for Alexander Hamilton when the latter was arguing cases in court -another interesting irony in the Adams-Hamilton saga to put it mildly.
{3} I will not lie: I had Jackson's statement in mind after the Rhenquist Court ruled on Kelo case back in 2005. If not for the fact that the decision made me so livid I could not write genteelly on the matter, I would have blogged on it at the time in some detail.
{4} One of several cases in recent decades prior to the Roberts Court where this was unquestionably done as the pretenses of judicial activism grew amongst the "penumbra of a penumbra of a penumbra" crowd of make-it-up-as-you-do Constitutional so-called "interpretation." Chief Justice Marshall's words in his ruling of Worcester vs. Georgia in 1832 should be branded onto the forehead of every nominee to the high court:
"If it be true that the Cherokee nation have rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted. If it be true that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past or prevent the future."
That embodies a principle that was misplaced in a good chunk of the twentieth century. Hopefully with the Roberts Court we will see a court much more like the Marshall Court than any Court of the previous six decades plus were.
(Dialogue With Kevin Tierney)
Kevin's words will be in shale coloured font. Without further ado...
So I pursue some reading today, and it talks about how [Mitt] Romney didn’t really oppose same sex marriage. They state that when the court forced the issue, Romney complied.
That is no different than Appellate Court Justice John Roberts voting to confirm Roe vs. Wade in 2003. It did not mean he supported the decision. He was doing what an appellate judge is supposed to do: affirm the laws on the books whether they personally like them or not. Nor in his hearings when he said RvW was "settled law" mean that he did not intend to find a way of overturning that abominable excuse for a proper common law judgment{1} when it was feasible to do. It merely meant he recognized that it was the law until that law was changed.
When faced with the fact that Romney had to obey, they proclaim that Romney should’ve pulled an Andrew Jackson “Justice Marshall has made his decision, let him enforce it.”
That is Jacksonian Democracy at it starkest there. And while hard to be too critical of Andrew Jackson overall -as we would have lost to Great Britain had he not through clever strategery taken out installations in Florida and forced the British to invade at New Orleans- it is also true that what one does when involved in their very survival differs from decisions made in a more calm and secure scenario.
I never understood this fascination with people championing Jackson’s statement.
It has to do with the rise in judicial activism in recent decades. People repine for a simpler time when justices did not invent law and instead sought to rule in accordance with the law. Justice Marshall was the crown jewel of President John Adams' administration apart from Adams keeping us out of full-blown war with France in the last three years of his presidency. There is irony in Adams abhorring Alexander Hamilton as he did but then appointed as Chief Justice someone who was ideologically a Hamilton acolyte. Of course Hamilton and Adams were not diametrically opposite one another ideologically -they both had Federalist outlooks overall- but there is a splendid irony in Marshall's tenure on the court and the decisions he made which shaped it.{2} He was unquestionably the most important chief justice in history but I have optimism that we may see in Chief Justice John Roberts and his court a similar period of judicial cultivation.
But in a summary statement, it is Jackson's statement of telling the Supreme Court to go pound sand which those fascinated with his statement like. Unfortunately, the pre-Roberts courts -going back to at least the late 1930's to an increasingly degree since with the Rhenquist court not exactly doing a complete about face on the matter- have soured a lot of people's countenance on the matter of the Supreme Court and what its limitations are constitutionally. And people in that frame of mind like to see someone stand up to them even if they project Jackson into the present day and his words as applying to certain decisions of the Court in recent decades.{3}
The issue at hand was the forcible removal by United States troops of American Indians. The state of Georgia also attempted to force the Cherokees to abide by Georgia state laws, a clear violation of existing treaties between the federal government and the Indians.
That is correct. The Cherokees were a nation unto their own and therefore the proper relation to the United States was on the federal level, not that of the states.
There’s no doubt that what Jackson did was clearly unconstitutional, and a grave usurpation of executive power.
The problem is, Jackson should have set aside his personal views and executed the decision of the Court. This was not a case of the Court ruling in a fashion that violated the Constitution as was the case with the 2005 Kelo decision.{4}
He ignored the Supreme Court ruling and his actions culminated in the trail of tears, where thousands of Indians died.
Not only that but President Jackson took it a step beyond that. When some Cherokees signed the Treaty of New Enchota in 1835, President Jackson lobbied the Senate to ratify it which they did by one vote. (It was then proclaimed in May of 1836.) President Jackson then escaped the ramifications of the treaty by turning over the presidency to the incoming Martin Van Buren in March of 1837 who refused to consider that the treaty itself was possibly invalid because those who signed it were not authorized by the Cherokee nation to do so. The rest sadly enough is history.
When people study history, nobody ever talks about the Trail of Tears as a highpoint of American History.
Well, no one I am aware of does. The idea of reservations themselves are not the issue with me as much as how this was handled. Those who did not want to assimilate should have been allowed to retain their land either wholly or in part and received just compensation for the rest. But without question the Cherokee relocation was a black mark on this nation's history.
Jackson flagrantly violated the Constitution he was sworn to uphold, his actions were fueled by bigotry, and led to the death of thousands.
Andrew Jackson was very much a despiser of Indians and this went back to his history as a warrior fighting the Indians.The problem is, as President of the United States you have a responsibility to the common good in a way that you do not as a military man. And on the matter in question, one could argue that President Jackson should have recused himself -his lobbying for the passage of the treaty certainly does not fall under the category of "recusing oneself" or at least I do not see how it does.
And conservatives want to emulate this???
Well, this is an example of wanting the wrong thing for the right reasons on the part of many conservatives. Judicial activism is rightfully deplored by so many of them. But you do not fight judicial activism by refusing to recognize the rule of law. I understand the problem with judicial activism and I sympathize with those who parrot the famous Jackson dictum on Justice Marshall. However, once one side sanctions judicial activism, they have no recourse against the other side doing it as well. And without recognizing the rule of law, we are no better than the animals -that is the bottom line really.
Notes:
{1} On Fundamental Rights, Common Law Principles, and Abortion (circa February 1, 2007)
{2} Not to mention that John Adams sent his son John Quincy to clerk for Alexander Hamilton when the latter was arguing cases in court -another interesting irony in the Adams-Hamilton saga to put it mildly.
{3} I will not lie: I had Jackson's statement in mind after the Rhenquist Court ruled on Kelo case back in 2005. If not for the fact that the decision made me so livid I could not write genteelly on the matter, I would have blogged on it at the time in some detail.
{4} One of several cases in recent decades prior to the Roberts Court where this was unquestionably done as the pretenses of judicial activism grew amongst the "penumbra of a penumbra of a penumbra" crowd of make-it-up-as-you-do Constitutional so-called "interpretation." Chief Justice Marshall's words in his ruling of Worcester vs. Georgia in 1832 should be branded onto the forehead of every nominee to the high court:
"If it be true that the Cherokee nation have rights, this is not the tribunal in which those rights are to be asserted. If it be true that wrongs have been inflicted, and that still greater are to be apprehended, this is not the tribunal which can redress the past or prevent the future."
That embodies a principle that was misplaced in a good chunk of the twentieth century. Hopefully with the Roberts Court we will see a court much more like the Marshall Court than any Court of the previous six decades plus were.
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