The New York Times notices Van Jones

I'm keeping most political stuff on my Twitter "account", if that's the word for it, but I found this so amazing I wanted to touch on it at greater length-the first mention in the New York Times of Van Jones is to note that he has quit.

Now that's the kind of neutral, just-give-us-the-facts journalism The Times is known for!

And even in finally discussing the controversy, of course the Times watered it down, saying Jones had signed a petition questioning whether the Bush Administration had "allowed" the 9/11 attacks.

Nope, the petition said Bush and Co. deliberately allowed same. There's a world of difference with that word added. "Allowed" could be negligence, or incompetence-"deliberately allowed" calls for evil intent, in this case to get us into a war.

Pool-playin' pooch

This is the hard-hitting, weighty, serious stuff you've come to know and love here at Rene's Apple.


H/t-Cute Overload (who else?)

Michel Petrucciani, Billy Strayhorn-"Take the 'A' Train"

Extremely hip version of Duke Ellington's Take the 'A' Train (all right, sidekick's Billy Strayhorn's) by the great pianist Michel Petrucciani, with uber-drummer Steve Gadd, and bassist Anthony Jackson. This dates from 1998. Petrucciani had a rare bone disorder and died relatively young-you can see how tiny he was-but he was a phenomenal player. So is Steve Gadd-this is one drum soloist who won't bore you.

"Take the 'A' Train"-reminds me of Buddy Rich's joke about kitschmeister Lawrence Welk introducing the tune-"Now we are going to play the Duke Ellington classic, Take a Train."




Here's another (1965) version of "A Train", with Strayhorn, a fantastic pianist in his own right, sitting in with Duke's band. His style was much like Ellington's, but more fleet-fingered.



UPDATE: While we're at it, let's hear Maynard Ferguson's A Train. This looks to be maybe late early '80's, MF with some all-star band.

"Is Mr. Market's Tummy Full?"

I like Larry Kudlow, but that's got to be the worst blog post title ever seen. Until I repeated it here.

The idea is that the recent stock market run may be coming to an end.

There may be true. Then again, it may not be. What will happen to the stock market is completely unpredictable.

First lady says she's been abducted by aliens

No, not Michelle Obama-Japan's new first lady, Miyuki Hatoyama, says she's been visited by otherwordly beings.

She also says she knew Tom Cruise in a previous life, and that Tom would understand perfectly if she said to him, "long time, no see." She'd like to make a movie with her "old friend."

And you thought American politics was strange!

Mrs. Hatoyama claims that she was abducted while she slept twenty years ago, and that she rode a triangular UFO to a green and beautiful place.

While it's true that thousands of people believe they've been abducted, it's also true that those people are crackpots.

Jam with Sam-Duke Ellington

Fun Ellington chart with Clark Terry, Britt Woodman, Quentin Jackson, Cat Anderson, et al blowing. Looks to be about 1960. Cat goes into his usual screeching but shows he can swing, too. What a band!


H/t-Trumpet Kings

The happy buzz of the city

"The screech and mechanical uproar of the big city turns the citified head, fills citified ears--as the song of birds, wind in the trees, animal cries, or as the voices and songs of his loved ones once filled his heart. He is sidewalk-happy."

Frank Lloyd Wright, The Living City


Who knew Wright could, uh, write like this? I know what he means-I was in South Philly yesterday, and the buzz of noise, from people and vehicles, gave the area an energy that made it compelling.

At other times, though, all the noise is just grating. I don't know what accounts for the difference.

Presenting the Otamatone

This device, called an Otamatone, can be manipulated to produce what sounds like somebody singing. Here  its user is doing a raga thing with it.

Hilarious!

Not sure I'd want one, unless it was real cheap-might get tiresome fairly fast, but it would be fun to fool around with. I assume it's from Japan...looks it anyway.


H/t-Bifurcated Rivets.

Obama to speak to kids Sept. 8-watch out

Pres. Obama will be indoctrinating addressing America's schoolchildren on Sept. 8-a most excellent reason to take your kids to the zoo that day.


UPDATE: "You are your child's moral tutor, not that shady lawyer from Chicago." 


FURTHER UPDATE: Obama Incompetence Alert-turns out school's not even open yet in a lot of places-including Los Angeles, New York City, and Boston-on Sept. 8.

No major hurricanes are likely to pound US mainland this year

So says Alan Sullivan, who's not a meterologist but plays one, quite convincingly, on the Net:

"You can almost see the subtropical jet flowing along the divide between dry and wet air-masses, from central Texas, along the Gulf Coast, up the Carolina coast and on past maritime Canada. This is the eastern trough, of which I have often spoken this summer. It is a wall of protection against hurricanes. It would not be impossible for a tropical cyclone to pierce it and come ashore, but it would lose most of its strength before reaching the coast. In all likelihood the US will see no landfalling hurricanes this season..." 

This may upset Al Gore, whose prophetic acumen is threatened by good weather news, but will please the rest of us.


UPDATE: Meanwhile, idiot Democrat (but I repeat myself) blames CA wildfires on global warming.

Interesting hypothesis. Even if anthropogenic warming is real, who says that would necessarily make SoCal drier, even if we can be assured it would make it warmer? Rising CO2 levels, which would change climate little by themselves, are supposed to create a positive feedback in which increased water vapor, a far more powerful greenhouse gas, actually causes the vast bulk of the warming. Wouldn't at least some places thus be wetter? Maybe one of those places will be Linda Sanchez' California district.

Michael Jackson-still alive. Paul McCartney-still dead.

Yesterday's post about the still-living, still-dancing Michael Jackson, who, like Ken Lay, faked his own death, in MJ's case to revive a moribund career, brought a fair number of people to these parts. I definitely buy into this conspiracy theory. I mean, why else would people post helpful, informative videos on the subject on Youtube, if it weren't true? Surely those people aren't cranks?

Also: Paul is still dead.