Oscar Peterson - R. I. P.

A musical giant and a great human being just passed away, after over 75 years of making music which gladdened the hearts of all that heard him.

To say his piano playing was influential is one of the biggest understatements one could make. As a pianist I can testify to his impact on my playing for the many, many years I've been listening him. I know of no other pianist that would not agree that his impact on their playing was enormous. My playing was most affected by his peerless ballad playing, and his incomparable ability to accompany other soloists, in the most tasteful and understated way. His touch, his harmonic sense, and his total command of the instrument was the standard that I aspired to and continue to do so. He, like Erroll Garner and Art Tatum, who also gained total command of the piano, are the gold-standards for all musicians to aspire to and emulate.

I remember first hearing him in the late 40s and being astonished at his virtuosity and touch. Later in the 80s I was able to meet him in person and spend a rewarding two or three hours with him in a piano emporium owned by a dear friend, David Abell, who also has passed on. He was in town on that occasion, to play at a jazz club owned by the bassist of his first great trio, Ray Brown. In our conversation, we discovered that we had a similar cultural background, and that our fathers were both immigrants from the West Indies, and had immigrated from there approximately the same year, his dad to Canada and my dad to New York. They were both amateur musicians and had started each of us in music lessons around the age of five.

From that time on, right up to his recent passing, I was able to more deeply identify with him as a person, along with continuing to being inspired by his awesome musical gifts. The outpouring of love and affection for him from around the world, as well as the universal admiration for his prowess on the piano, is a tribute to the man and his music.

Rest In Peace Oscar - musically, you left this world a much better place, and we are the richer for it.

The 'Cause' or the 'Effect'?

All year, on topics of race, I have been ranting and raving at the ongoing news stories that highlight the dual-standards that the media applies to blacks, particularly athletes, versus whites. I've also been outraged at the plethora of black so-called 'truth-tellers', who are supposedly 'keeping it real', while savaging mostly the black underclass for their lack of sophistication, morals, poor English, and a litany of other supposed sins.

I say they are neither 'truth-tellers' nor 'keeping it real', instead they are cravenly, crass, well-paid opportunists, who will say anything for fame and fortune, while giving aid and comfort to unrepentant whites, most of whom are hiding their racist agendas behind the 'cover' provided by these black proxies. The proof is how whites generally fawn over them, providing them with lucrative book deals, bully pulpits, media appearances, and constantly commend their 'truthfulness' and their 'independent thinking' which they say runs refreshingly counter to the prevailing mindsets of those blacks who they dismissively label as 'poverty pimps', or worse.

The latest in the lengthening list of these black proxies is Roland Martin, a CNN contributing columnist. Another, is author, Pamela Wilson,who claims to be a born-again Christian. Both are being lauded by the white media and praised to the sky for their 'fearless truthfulness'.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/11/roland.martin/index.html
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20071217/30521_Black
_Christian_%27Racialism%27_Challenges_Faith_in_America.htm

I say nonsense! - they are guilty of half-truths, false straw-men arguments, and a host of other pandering-to-their-benefactor, sins. But my biggest problem with them, is their appalling failure to identify and excoriate the historical, systemic racism of whites, which is the context and the 'cause' of much of the black dysfunctions they are railing against, and instead are obsequiously slamming the conduct of the black underclass, which is merely the 'effect'.

Bill Cosby, Juan Williams, Roland Martin, Pamela Wilson and a host of others, are in this stew of black foot-shufflers, who are being lauded, feted and patted on the head by whites, and commended for their 'refreshing honesty'. They are either too stupid, too greedy or too self-hating, to recognize that if the accolades are coming more overwhelmingly from racist whites than from blacks who agree with them, then their screeds must be demeaning and hurtful to the black underclass in particular, and to blacks in general.

Perhaps they don't even care - this is what makes them so utterly contemptible.

The 'Roids of Summer

Now that the Mitchell report has been released, the untouchable teflon wall erected around Clemons, the multi-Cy Young award-winning pitcher, while the home-run champion, Bonds, was being savaged, has now crumbled as it should.

In fact I would say, if the pitchers were on steroids, the hitters arguably had a duty to counter their pitching advantage with their own steroid use. I probably would not use steroids, but then again, I'm not being judged on how well I am hitting against steroid-enhanced pitching, which also could affect the size of the contract I could get next season based on my hitting. Bonds and others could certainly have used this rationale, and probably did. But let us not forget one important fact, Bonds never failed a drug test, and based on that, remains innocent of all charges.

But I have another angle that is seldom considered, all of baseball history and records are suspect, going back to the days of segregated baseball. The white 'record-holders' like Ruth, Cobb, etc., got those records by being shielded through the farce of segregation, from the pitching and fielding of many of the superior negro-leaguers like Satchel Paige and others. Had they had to face them, many doubt they would have obtained a fraction of those records.

So once again, this country's sorry racist history is coming back to bite it, and baseball now embroiled in the steroid scandal, is 'reaping-what-it-sowed' for disenfranchising worthy black ballplayers for 50 years, and denying them an equal opportunity to make a living and earn the records that whites got credited for, by not having to earn them on a level playing field.

Those early records should have been given an asterisk but were not, now the current records are plastered with those asterisks. And the Hall of Fame, which had already embraced wife beaters, murderers, gamblers, and drunkards, now has to embrace 'Roiders....so much for baseball's supposed 'integrity'

Our Tortured History

Why are we so surprised at the present-day willingness to torture by our government. Don't we remember the thousands of blacks that were routinely lashed, lynched, raped, branded, sold away from their families, discriminated against, kidnapped and forced to work as slaves from sunup to sundown - all forms of torture, for much of this country's history.

What about the delightful practice of scalping the 'savage' native Americans we found here?

So torture is as American as apple pie, and it should not surprise us that we are readily repeating our history and cannot run away from it. In fact we parse and justify things like waterboarding, just like we justified torture back then.

To prove it was normal and accepted by the good citizens of those times, how many of the torturers of blacks were ever indicted, tried, jailed or executed?? - few, if any - do you know of any, I sure don't?

So we can spare ourselves the feigned outrage - history is merely repeating itself, it's in America's DNA.

Who Should Come Clean??

Quoted today from the British Guardian Unlimited newspaper, -

"Bush demanded that Tehran detail its previous program to develop nuclear weapons ``which the Iranian regime has yet to acknowledge.'' The Iranians have a strategic choice to make,'' he said before a political appearance in Omaha, Neb. ``They can come clean with the international community about the scope of their nuclear activities,'' and accept U.S.-backed terms for new nuclear negotiations, ``or they can continue on a path of isolation."

I say, why isn't Bush demanding that Israel "come clean" with the international community about the scope of it's nuclear activities, which the Israeli regime has yet to acknowledge? Apparently I'm one of the few that is willing to ask this question....maybe it's because I have not been paid off or blackmailed to ensure my silence.

Israel with nuclear and other weapons is much more dangerous to it's neighbors than Iran could ever be - in June 1967, it bombed, torpedoed and napalmed the clearly identified American naval vessel the USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors and injuring 174 others; in 1982 it invaded Lebanon and preemptively bombed Iraq's nuclear facilities; in 2005 it bombed Lebanon again and attacked Syria in 2007; not to speak of it's illegal settlements and it's brutal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, where in 2007 they killed 457 Palestinians, while the Palestinians only killed 10 Israelis in retaliation.

I'm so sick of the deafening silence regarding Israel's lawlessness and immoral criminal actions, while neighboring countries are being held to a higher moral and political standard than she is being held to. She gets away with it because four-fifths of the country including her leadership, are European whites who are part of the world-wide network of white supremacists seeking permanent imperial dominance over non-white countries, particularly those with valuable natural resources that they covet.