. . . are the days when men ruled the world. Over are the times in which men held the upper hand simply because they could beat the crap out of any woman who disagreed. History has taught us that no situation remains long in place that was established through brute force. And like the marginalization of Jews, people of color and homosexual persons we must (to paraphrase John Shelby Spong) cleanse ourselves of our distorted past in order to restore integrity and honor to our society. We must embrace this enlightenment, rejoice in it and celebrate it.
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(from http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/08/19/7-lessons-from-socrates-on-wisdom-wealth-and-the-g.aspx. . . totally out of the original context but genuinely appreciated)
"Those who are already wise no longer love wisdom – whether they are gods or men. Similarly, those whose own ignorance has made them bad, rotten, evil, do not strive for wisdom either. For no evil or ignorant person ever strives for wisdom. What remains are those who suffer from ignorance, but still retain some sense and understanding. They are conscious of knowing what they don't know."
"Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know."
"Oh my friend, why do you, who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?"
"For I go about doing nothing else than urging you, young and old, not to care for your persons or your property more than for the perfection of your souls, or even so much; and I tell you that virtue does not come from money, but from virtue comes money and all other good things to man, both the individual and to the state."
"Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrape every stone to gather wealth, and, yet, take so little care of your own children, to whom one day you must relinquish all."
"In truth, the fear of death is nothing but thinking you're wise when you are not, for you think you know what you don't. For no one knows whether death happens to be the greatest of all goods for humanity, but people fear it because they're completely convinced it is the greatest of evils. And isn't this ignorance, after all, the most shameful kind: thinking you know what you don't."
"At the time, I made it clear once again, not by talk but by action, that I didn't care at all about death – if I'm not being too blunt to say it – but it mattered everything that I do nothing unjust or impious, which matters very much to me. For though it had plenty of power, that government didn't frighten me into doing anything that's wrong."
OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
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Mohammad Rasheed Ahmad, a student at the Ghousia Madrassa, or Islamic religious school, said he was disappointed so few came out to honor hérif and Saïd Kouachi, the Islamist terrorist brothers behind the Charlie Hebdo magazine massacre at funeral in absentia in the city of Peshawar recently.
"We saw tens of thousands of people gathered in France to show solidarity with their slain men, but Muslims didn't come to take part in the funeral of the two heroes who did this great job," he said.
OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak. Please Visit http://www.ohomusic.com
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music will be released April 7, 2014 Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
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“The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.”
-H. L. Mencken
“When men exercise their reason coolly and freely on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions, if they are so to be called, will be the same.”
-Alexander Hamilton
The greatness of the"26 Acts of Kindness," idea, in honor of the students and faculty who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School, cannot be underestimated. This is truly a wonderful effort that unites those involved in a common, elevating, human endeavor that transcends self and serves the greater good.
But I believe we owe ourselves and future generations, a new, personal commitment to change the face of humanity, as we know it, and significantly improve our existence. I propose we adopt an “Acts of Kindness” philosophy all day, every day and ALWAYS. The things that we could accomplish through such a philosophy simply boggle the mind. Limiting our kind acts to 26 is all too like the rear-auto window signs that proclaim “Baby On Board”. In other words, we need not limit our acts of kindness to a mere total of 26 any more than we should limit our cautious driving only to situations where we know the person ahead of us has a baby ‘on board’, as though the life of individuals in cars that are alone, have a parent, friend or sibling on board are less valuable (than that of a baby) and therefore deserve less caution on our part when driving.
In order to achieve this impressive height of human potential we will have to dispense with a multitude of pre-existing baggage and self-serving paradigms. This, needless to say, will be more difficult for some than for others.
We must take great care to prevent these ‘Acts’ from becoming rote ceremony or hollow lip service, like some of us have encountered in our church experience. By this I mean such as the good Catholic who piously bestows a hearty ‘peace be with you’ upon his pew-mate then blows his car horn furiously while flipping the bird to the parishioner in the proceeding vehicle who doesn’t exit the church parking lot as swiftly as the saintly one would like.
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In his seven-decade career, Dave Brubeck was an artistic and a commercial success, a pianist and composer who expanded the musical landscape and who crossed other borders as one of the world's foremost ambassadors of jazz.
He had an inventive style that brought international music into the jazz mainstream, but he was more than a musical innovator: He was an American original.
Mr. Brubeck died Wednesday at a hospital in Norwalk, Conn., one day before his 92nd birthday. His manager, Russell Gloyd, said Mr. Brubeck was on his way to a regular checkup with his cardiologist when his heart gave out.
Considered one of the greatest figures of a distinctively American art form, Mr. Brubeck was a modest man who left a monumental legacy. His 1959 recording "Time Out," with its infectious hit "Take Five," became the first jazz album to sell 1 million copies. He toured once-forbidden countries in the Middle East and in the old Soviet empire and was honored by presidents and foreign dignitaries.
He wrote hundreds of tunes, including the oft-recorded "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke." His quartet, featuring alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, was one of the most popular jazz groups in history, and he kept up a busy performing schedule into his 90th year.
He also composed ambitious classical and choral works, released nearly 100 albums and remained a charismatic and indefatigable performer into old age. In December 2010, the month Mr. Brubeck turned 90, his quartet won the readers' poll of DownBeat magazine as the best group in jazz, 57 years after he first won the poll.
A bespectacled cowboy who grew up on a remote California ranch, Mr. Brubeck was known for his complex rhythmic patterns, which he said were inspired by riding his horse and listening to its syncopated hoofbeats striking the ground.
He studied in the 1940s with the experimental French composer Darius Milhaud, who encouraged his interest in jazz. Mr. Brubeck was among the first jazz musicians to make wide use of polytonality, or playing in more than one musical key at a time. He was also an early advocate of "world music," adopting exotic sounds that he heard in his worldwide travels.
After forming his quartet in California in the early 1950s, he sought to branch out from the dank nightclubs of San Francisco and Los Angeles. His wife, Iola, suggested the quartet perform on college campuses, which produced a nationwide sensation, with record sales to match.
"We reached them musically," he told The New York Times in 1967. "We had no singers, no beards, no jokes. All we presented was music."
With their curly hair and horn-rimmed glasses, Desmond and Mr. Brubeck looked like professorial brothers and were unlikely jazz stars. The two had an instant musical bond and could anticipate each other's bandstand improvisations, as Desmond's ethereal, upper-register saxophone soared above Mr. Brubeck's driving keyboard attack.
With the release of "Time Out" in 1959, Mr. Brubeck had the first jazz album to sell more than 1 million copies. It reached No. 2 on the pop charts, and its eternally catchy signature tune, "Take Five," became a surprise hit.
The tune, written by Desmond but heavily arranged by Mr. Brubeck, built a memorable melody over a complex rhythm in the unusual time signature of 5/4. "Take Five" became a staple of his concerts and helped make the Dave Brubeck Quartet the most popular jazz group of the 1950s and '60s.
"Every once in a while," jazz historian and critic Ted Gioia wrote in an email exchange with The Washington Post, "jazz is blessed by one of those great figures who can do it all. They give us a body of work that is full of musical riches ... but the music also can appeal to the average listener. Dave Brubeck is one of those figures."
"Cool jazz"
Mr. Brubeck's position in musical history has often been debated. He was born the same year as Charlie Parker, the tortured genius of the bebop movement who brought a new rhythmic and harmonic sophistication to jazz in the 1940s, but Mr. Brubeck was never a true bebopper. He defied the raffish image of the jazz musician by being a clean-living family man who lived with his wife and six children.
He was considered a seminal force in the West Coast's understated "Cool Jazz" school of the 1950s, but he disdained the "Cool Jazz" label and preferred to forge an original musical path.
After early struggles, he was reportedly earning more than $100,000 a year by 1954, the year he became the second jazz musician to be featured on the cover of Time magazine (after Louis Armstrong in 1949).
Some musicians and critics resented his success, and others questioned his prominence in a form of music that was created primarily by black musicians.
But Mr. Brubeck was an outspoken advocate of racial harmony and often used his music as a platform for cross-cultural understanding. He once canceled 23 of 25 concerts in the South when local officials would not allow his African-American bass player, Eugene Wright, to appear with the rest of the group.
On a tour in the Netherlands in the 1950s, African-American pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith was asked, in Mr. Brubeck's presence, "Isn't it true that no white man can play jazz?"
Smith gestured toward Mr. Brubeck and said to the reporter, "I'd like you to meet my son."
In 1958, Mr. Brubeck and his quartet undertook an international tour for the State Department, spreading the improvisatory spirit of jazz to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey and Sri Lanka, among other countries. In Poland, they were among the first U.S. jazz musicians to perform behind the Iron Curtain.
In each new country, Mr. Brubeck mingled with musicians, absorbing local rhythms and melodies. Long before the term "world music" gained currency, he was writing compositions that borrowed elements he had heard in Mexico, Japan, Turkey, India, Afghanistan and other countries.
Cowboy childhood
David Warren Brubeck was born Dec. 6, 1920, in Concord, Calif. He and his family lived on a 45,000-acre ranch near Ione.
His father was a champion rodeo roper and his mother was a conservatory-trained pianist who had studied in London with concert star Dame Myra Hess. She gave her three sons a surprisingly advanced musical education, and his two older brothers, Henry and Howard, became music teachers and composers.
Because of early eyesight problems, Mr. Brubeck always had difficulty reading musical notation. He compensated by learning to improvise and to play by ear, which served him well in jazz.
At the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., he had planned to study veterinary medicine. But a zoology professor saw how much time he spent in the music department and suggested he change majors.
A dean called him a disgrace but allowed him to graduate after a professor pleaded on his behalf, calling him a budding genius.
In college, Mr. Brubeck proposed on his first date with Iola Whitlock, and the two were married in 1942.
During World War II, Mr. Brubeck was pulled from the ranks of an infantry unit by an Army colonel, who asked him to start a jazz band to entertain troops on the front lines.
After the war, he did graduate work at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., with Milhaud and wrote and performed avant-garde jazz.
Drummer Joe Morello joined Mr. Brubeck and Desmond in 1956, followed by Wright in 1958, forming a group that recorded dozens of records and found international acclaim. The quartet had a huge following until it split up in 1967.
Besides his wife, of Wilton, Conn., survivors include his four sons and a daughter.
In the early 1980s, Mr. Brubeck formed a new quartet, with which he toured until shortly before his death.
In 1996, he won a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement, and he was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2009.
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