Monday 30 April 2018

International Jazz Day

"This is a day to honour jazz and its enduring legacy, as well as to recognize the power of this music to bring people together."
Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General



Why Jazz? (literally via United Nations)

- Jazz breaks down barriers and creates opportunities for mutual understanding and tolerance;
- Jazz is a vector of freedom of expression;
- Jazz is a symbol of unity and peace;
- Jazz reduces tensions between individuals, groups, and communities;
- Jazz fosters gender equality;
- Jazz reinforces the role youth play for social change;
- Jazz encourages artistic innovation, improvisation, new forms of expression, and inclusion of traditional music forms into new ones;
- Jazz stimulates intercultural dialogue and empowers young people from marginalized societies.



Related postings:

::: "Just a little impromptu thing": LINK
::: Ella & Marilyn: LINK
::: A jazz orchestra is no place to find a husband: LINK
::: Narrative images: The Duke plays baseball: LINK
::: Vote Dizzy: LINK
::: What a Wonderful World: LINK

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Photographs (Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, Timmie Rosenkrantz 1947) via and via

Friday 27 April 2018

Take Yo' Praise (Camille Yarbrough, 1975)

"When we returned from places like Spain, France and Germany, I became an actress in plays on Broadway. As a singer, too, I sang in all kinds of places, from the New York Playboy Club to the Village Gate. But I gradually became discouraged with the business until I appeared in a play in the sixties called To Be Young, Gifted And Black. That inspired me to write my own material, my own monologues, poems, songs, and music, all with a political consciousness - something I think Fatboy Slim has picked up on.



That material became the basis for The Iron Pot Cooker, but although the album got very good reviews, including one in Billboard, it came out during a period of great political change. Nixon was gone; it was the end of the civil rights movement . . . and at that time people didn't want music with a political message anymore, they just wanted to dance . . . boogie, boogie, disco.
I toured my music just before the album came out, and around that time some of my shows on campuses were actually cancelled. Take Yo' Praise was written for all the people who had come through the black civil rights movement, who had stood up for truth and righteousness and justice, because human beings need to praise and respect one another more than they do.
It was also written for one particular young man I was interested in, that I was involved with then."
Camille Yarbrough



Fatboy Slim's version from 1999:



- photograph via
- more about Nana Camille Yarbrough: LINK

Thursday 26 April 2018

The moments that capture your love (Kodak, 2016)

Kodak's short film "Understanding" was given The Washington Reader's 2016 award for "Best Motion Ad of the Year". The motion ad that is "nothing short of stunning" was directed by Terry Rayment with cinematography by Kate Arizmendi (via).



Kodak points out that it "poignantly depicts the transformational power of love and happiness" (via).



image via

Wednesday 25 April 2018

Ageism: Prejudice Against Our Feared Future Self

Age, gender and ethnicity are the basis of categorisations that are made automatically when seeing other persons. They are so "well-learned" that they are also called "primitive" or "automatic" categories. One main difference between these three categories is that while there is a vast amount of studies and research papers on racism and sexism, ageism is definitely ignored. When searching for "racism" in PsychINFO, for instance, 3.111 documents are found, for "sexism" 1.385 documents. When searching for "ageism" only 294 documents are yielded.



According to Martens et al., the root of ageism is that we distance ourselves from anything that reminds us of our mortality. So we associate elderly people with negative age stereotypes (Nelson, 2005), make sure they internalise them and by the time we are considered old, we have internalised them, too.

- - - - - - - - -
- Nelson, T. D. (2005). Ageism: Prejudice Against Our Feared Future Self. Journal of Social Issues, 61(2), 207-221.
- image of "Alfred" Alan Napier (Batman) via

Saturday 21 April 2018

Isabella Rossellini. No longer "too old".

Isabella Rossellini became the face of Lancôme in 1982 - when she was 30. Her deal came to an end when she turned 42. She was "too old", executives told ther that women dreamed to be young and she could not represent women's dream. Advertisement did not represent reality but the dream, they added (via and via and via). Rossellini was replaced, "a younger woman with raven hair" was hired. When she turned 40,  Lancôme sent her a great many flowers which according to Rossellini was "a morgue". "I knew I was dead. They said, 'Be grateful, Isabella. You're lucky you lasted so long in the business." (via).



23 years later, in 2015, Lancôme contacted her - meanwhile in her sixties - again and asked her if she liked to come back (via). This time, the company said that women did not only want to look young and that they wanted to give a message of inclusion. Lancôme chose Rossellini, not another beautiful woman in her 60s, because they knew they had been wrong and wanted to publicly make it right (via).

"I just couldn’t believe it. I mean, it wasn't like three years later. Twenty-three years is a lifetime. I did say, 'You better see me', because I thought maybe they looked at the old photos and thought I haven't changed."
Isabella Rossellini



"I don't try to be younger, blonder or thinner. I am who I am. I think that women are told always to please, to be kind. And when you're younger you're really at the mercy and at the service of being accepted and being considered a good woman. But once you become older, I just want to do what I always wanted to do and I didn't do. So you find a lot of women in their 50s, 60s, 70s to say, I feel freer."
Isabella Rossellini

"Now they've developed several versions of this cream and the latest is called Rénergie Multi-Glow. We had a long discussion about that, because sometimes it's still described as antiage—and I said, 'Antiage!? That irritates me! ... Because we can't antiage. It's against nature!'" 
Isabella Rossellini 




“It’s wonderful to be back, to be a part of women’s emancipation, and I just happen to represent it through Lancôme.”
Isabella Rossellini

About waiting for the general manager of Lancôme International:
“I’m waiting at a café in Paris, and this motorcycle pulls up, then this tall rider takes off the helmet and her long blonde hair falls out! And I thought, oh my, how times have changed . . . Changes are good and for the better.”
Isabella Rossellini

About her mother:
“I know that she, like me and a lot of other actresses and models, started to work less as she aged, and that was painful to her because she loved it."
Isabella Rossellini

::: Wonderful interview (2018): LISTEN/WATCH



photographs via

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Where Fish Are No Longer Forced to Climb Trees

Albert Einstein once said, everybody’s a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, today on trial we have modern day schooling. Glad you could come. Not only does he make fish climb trees but also makes them climb down and do a ten mile run.



Tell me school, are you proud of the things you’ve done? Turning millions of people into robots, do you find that fun? Do you realize how many kids relate to that fish? Swimming upstream in class, never finding their gifts. Thinking they are stupid. Believing they are useless.

But the time has come, no more excuses. I call school to the stand and accuse him of killing creativity! Individuality! And being intellectually abusive. He’s an ancient institution that has outlived his usage.

So Your Honour, this concludes my opening statement and if I may present the evidence of my case, I will prove it.

Judge: Proceed.

Prince Ea: Exhibit A: Here’s a modern day phone, recognize it? Here’s a phone from 150 years ago. Big difference right? Stay with me… Here’s a car from today, and here’s a car from 150 years ago. Big difference right? Well get this… Here’s a classroom of today and here’s a class we used 150 years ago.

Gallery: Whoaaa…

Prince Ea: Now ain’t that a shame? In literally more than a century, Nothing Has Changed. Yet you claim to prepare students for the future? But with evidence like that I must ask, Do you prepare students for the future or the past?

I did a background check on you and let the records show that you were made to train people to work in factories. Which explains why you put students in straight rows, nice and neat. Tell em’ sit still. Raise your hand if you wanna speak. Give em’ a short break to eat and for 8 hours a day tell em’ what to think.

Oh, and make them compete to get an A. A letter which determines product quality. Hence grade A of meat. I get it. Back then times were different. We all have a past. I myself am no Gandhi. But today, we don’t need to make robot zombies. The world has progressed, and now we need people who think creatively, innovatively, critically, independently with the ability to connect.

See every scientist will tell you that no two brains are the same. And every parent with two or more children will confirm that claim. So please explain why you treat students like cookie cutter frames or snapback hats. Giving them this ‘one size fits all’ crap.

Judge: Watch your language.

Prince Ea: Sorry Your Honour. But if a doctor prescribed the exact same medicine to all of his patients the results would be tragic. So many people would get sick. Yet when it comes to school, this is exactly what happens. This EDUCATIONAL MALPRACTICE. Where one teacher stands in front of 20 kids, each one having different strengths, different needs, different gifts, different dreams. And you teach the same thing the same way? That’s horrific!

(...) See teachers are heroes that often get blamed. But they’re not the problem. They work in a system without many options or rights. Curriculum are created by policy makers. Most of which have never taught a day in their life. Just obsessed with standardized tests. They think bubbling in a multiple choice question will determine success. That’s outlandish.

In fact THESE TESTS ARE TOO CRUDE TO BE USED and should be abandoned. But don’t take my word for it, take Frederick J Kelly. The man who invented standardized testing, who said and I quote, “These tests are too crude to be used and should be abandoned.”

(...) I don’t have much faith in school but I do have faith in people. And if we can customize healthcare, cars, and Facebook pages, then it is our duty to do the same for education. To upgrade it. Change it. Do away with school spirit, cause that’s useless. Unless we’re working to bring the spirit out of each and every student, that should be our task.

(...) So let’s attend to their dreams and there’s no telling that we can achieve. This is a world in which I believe. A world where fish are no longer forced to climb trees.

text via

Monday 16 April 2018

Dale Messick

"Featuring a worthy female counterpart to male heroes in adventure strips, Brenda Starr marked a milestone among strips by women."
Martha Kennedy



Before Dale Messick (1906-2005) created "Brenda Starr" - which first appeared in June 1940 -, women drawing comics were restricted to subjects such as cute children and animals (via) as the comics industry was a masculine domain (via). Messick became the most important female cartoonist of the 20th century (via). Her strip "Brenda Starr" ran for 71 years (via) and became a US-American icon (via).
"(...) comic historians will hopefully revisit Dale Messick's massive output and recognize how it spoke to many female - and male - readers." Alisia Grace Chase (2008)
Dale Messick was born Dalia Messick and changed her name into a male pseudonym after encountering discrimination against women in the newspaper cartooning business (Hinton 2016 and via). Messick was influenced by Nell Brinkley (1886-1944) who "chronicled in her daily columns the new American woman of the twentieth century, a woman who went to work, played an important part in the First World War, got the vote, removed her corsets, and became a flapper, smoking and drinking with the boys" (Robbins 2004).

- - - - - - -
- Chase, A. G. (2008). "Draw Like a Girl". The Necessity of Old-School Feminist Interventions in the World of Comics and Graphic Novels. In A. M. Kokoli (ed.) Feminism Reframed. Reflections on Art and Difference (61-84). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Hinton, L. (2016). "Wondering about the Wonder Women of Contemporary American Poetry". In L. Hinton (ed.) Jayne Cortez, Adrienne Rich, and the Feminist Superhero. Voice, Vision, Politics, and Performance in U.S. Contemporary Women's Poetics (1-44). Lanham, Boulder, New York & London: Lexington Books.
- Robbins, T. The day of the girl. Nell Brinkley and the New Woman. In A. Heilmann & M. Beetham (2004) New Woman Hybridities. Femininity, feminism and international consumer culture, 1880-1930 (179-189). London & New York: Routledge.
- photograph via

Saturday 14 April 2018

The Story of O.J.

"The song starts off with JAY-Z rapping, "Light n****, dark n****, faux n****, real n**** Rich n****, poor n****, house n****, field n**** Still n****, still n****." This line (and the first line in the first verse) is seemingly intended as a callout to black people who attempt to distance themselves from the black community. JAY-Z uses O.J. Simpson as a prime example of this by starting off the first verse of the song by saying, "O.J. like, 'I'm not black, I'm O.J.' …OK."



This is a reference to a quote ESPN Robert Lipsyte said (...). Lipsyte revealed in the special that Simpson once said he was happy a white woman apparently thought he "wasn't black." Lipsyte said,
He overheard a white woman at the next table saying, 'Look, there's O.J. sitting with all those n***ers.' I remember in my naiveté, saying to O.J., 'Gee, wow, that must have been terrible for you.' And he said, 'No. it was great don't you understand? She knew that I wasn't black. She saw me as O.J.'"  (literally via)
His video shows the derogatory style used in the "Censored Eleven" cartoons and has Nina Simone playing and singing "Four Women" in the background. It was ranked best music video by Rolling Stone Magazine.

Thursday 12 April 2018

We Shall Overcome, by Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson (1965)

I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of Democracy. I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.



At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. There, long suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many of them were brutally assaulted. One good man--a man of God--was killed.

There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our Democracy in what is happening here tonight. For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great government--the government of the greatest nation on earth. Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country--to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man. In our time we have come to live with the moments of great crises. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues, issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression.

But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, or our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, and should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For, with a country as with a person, "what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"



There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.

And we are met here tonight as Americans--not as Democrats or Republicans; we're met here as Americans to solve that problem. This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose.

The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created equal." "Government by consent of the governed." "Give me liberty or give me death." And those are not just clever words, and those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty risking their lives. Those words are promised to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions. It cannot be found in his power or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom. He shall choose his leaders, educate his children, provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.

To apply any other test, to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race or his religion or the place of his birth is not only to do injustice, it is to deny Americans and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom. Our fathers believed that if this noble view of the rights of man was to flourish it must be rooted in democracy. This most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country in large measure is the history of expansion of the right to all of our people.



Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument: every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to insure that right. Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes.

Every device of which human ingenuity is capable, has been used to deny this right. The Negro citizen may go to register only to be told that the day is wrong, or the hour is late, or the official in charge is absent. And if he persists and, if he manages to present himself to the registrar, he may be disqualified because he did not spell out his middle name, or because he abbreviated a word on the application. And if he manages to fill out an application, he is given a test. The registrar is the sole judge of whether he passes this test. He may be asked to recite the entire Constitution, or explain the most complex provisions of state law.

And even a college degree cannot be used to prove that he can read and write. For the fact is that the only way to pass these barriers is to show a white skin. Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books, and I have helped to put three of them there, can insure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it. In such a case, our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color.



We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath. Wednesday, I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote. The broad principles of that bill will be in the hands of the Democratic and Republican leaders tomorrow. After they have reviewed it, it will come here formally as a bill. I am grateful for this opportunity to come here tonight at the invitation of the leadership to reason with my friends, to give them my views and to visit with my former colleagues.

I have had prepared a more comprehensive analysis of the legislation which I had intended to transmit to the clerk tomorrow, but which I will submit to the clerks tonight. But I want to really discuss the main proposals of this legislation. This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all elections, federal, state and local, which have been used to deny Negroes the right to vote.

This bill will establish a simple, uniform standard which cannot be used, however ingenious the effort, to flout our Constitution. It will provide for citizens to be registered by officials of the United States Government, if the state officials refuse to register them. It will eliminate tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote. Finally, this legislation will insure that properly registered individuals are not prohibited from voting. I will welcome the suggestions from all the members of Congress--I have no doubt that I will get some--on ways and means to strengthen this law and to make it effective.

But experience has plainly shown that this is the only path to carry out the command of the Constitution. To those who seek to avoid action by their national government in their home communities, who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections, the answer is simple: open your polling places to all your people. Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin. Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land. There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong--deadly wrong--to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.

There is no issue of state's rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights. I have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer. But the last time a President sent a civil rights bill to the Congress it contained a provision to protect voting rights in Federal elections. That civil rights bill was passed after eight long months of debate. And when that bill came to my desk from the Congress for signature, the heart of the voting provision had been eliminated.



This time, on this issue, there must be no delay, or no hesitation, or no compromise with our purpose. We cannot, we must not, refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every election that he may desire to participate in.

And we ought not, and we cannot, and we must not wait another eight months before we get a bill. We have already waited 100 years and more and the time for waiting is gone. So I ask you to join me in working long hours and nights and weekends, if necessary, to pass this bill. And I don't make that request lightly, for, from the window where I sit, with the problems of our country, I recognize that from outside this chamber is the outraged conscience of a nation, the grave concern of many nations and the harsh judgment of history on our acts.

But even if we pass this bill the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

And we shall overcome.

As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil, I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society. But a century has passed--more than 100 years--since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight. It was more than 100 years ago that Abraham Lincoln--a great President of another party--signed the Emancipation Proclamation. But emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact.

A century has passed--more than 100 years--since equality was promised, and yet the Negro is not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise, and the promise is unkept. The time of justice has now come, and I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come, and when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American. For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white children have gone uneducated? How many white families have lived in stark poverty? How many white lives have been scarred by fear, because we wasted energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?

And so I say to all of you here and to all in the nation tonight that those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future. This great rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all--all, black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are our enemies, not our fellow man, not our neighbor.

And these enemies too--poverty, disease and ignorance--we shall overcome.



Now let none of us in any section look with prideful righteousness on the troubles in another section or the problems of our neighbors. There is really no part of America where the promise of equality has been fully kept. In Buffalo as well as in Birmingham, in Philadelphia as well as Selma, Americans are struggling for the fruits of freedom.

This is one nation. What happens in Selma and Cincinnati is a matter of legitimate concern to every American. But let each of us look within our own hearts and our own communities and let each of us put our shoulder to the wheel to root out injustice wherever it exists. As we meet here in this peaceful historic chamber tonight, men from the South, some of whom were at Iwo Jima, men from the North who have carried Old Glory to the far corners of the world and who brought it back without a stain on it, men from the east and from the west are all fighting together without regard to religion or color or region in Vietnam.

Men from every region fought for us across the world 20 years ago. And now in these common dangers, in these common sacrifices, the South made its contribution of honor and gallantry no less than any other region in the great republic.

And in some instances, a great many of them, more. And I have not the slightest doubt that good men from everywhere in this country, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Golden Gate to the harbors along the Atlantic, will rally now together in this cause to vindicate the freedom of all Americans. For all of us owe this duty and I believe that all of us will respond to it.

Your president makes that request of every American.

The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety, and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change; designed to stir reform. He has been called upon to make good the promise of America.

And who among us can say that we would have made the same progress were it not for his persistent bravery and his faith in American democracy? For at the real heart of the battle for equality is a deep-seated belief in the democratic process. Equality depends, not on the force of arms or tear gas, but depends upon the force of moral right--not on recourse to violence, but on respect for law and order.



There have been many pressures upon your President and there will be others as the days come and go. But I pledge to you tonight that we intend to fight this battle where it should be fought--in the courts, and in the Congress, and the hearts of men. We must preserve the right of free speech and the right of free assembly. But the right of free speech does not carry with it--as has been said--the right to holler fire in a crowded theatre.

We must preserve the right to free assembly. But free assembly does not carry with it the right to block public thoroughfares to traffic. We do have a right to protest. And a right to march under conditions that do not infringe the Constitutional rights of our neighbors. And I intend to protect all those rights as long as I am permitted to serve in this office.

We will guard against violence, knowing it strikes from our hands the very weapons which we seek--progress, obedience to law, and belief in American values. In Selma, as elsewhere, we seek and pray for peace. We seek order, we seek unity, but we will not accept the peace of stifled rights or the order imposed by fear, or the unity that stifles protest--for peace cannot be purchased at the cost of liberty.

In Selma tonight--and we had a good day there--as in every city we are working for a just and peaceful settlement. We must all remember after this speech I'm making tonight, after the police and the F.B.I. and the Marshals have all gone, and after you have promptly passed this bill, the people of Selma and the other cities of the nation must still live and work together.

And when the attention of the nation has gone elsewhere they must try to heal the wounds and to build a new community. This cannot be easily done on a battleground of violence as the history of the South itself shows. It is in recognition of this that men of both races have shown such an outstandingly impressive responsibility in recent days--last Tuesday and again today.

The bill I am presenting to you will be known as a civil rights bill. But in a larger sense, most of the program I am recommending is a civil rights program. Its object is to open the city of hope to all people of all races, because all Americans just must have the right to vote, and we are going to give them that right.

All Americans must have the privileges of citizenship, regardless of race, and they are going to have those privileges of citizenship regardless of race.

But I would like to caution you and remind you that to exercise these privileges takes much more than just legal rights. It requires a trained mind and a healthy body. It requires a decent home and the chance to find a job and the opportunity to escape from the clutches of poverty.

Of course people cannot contribute to the nation if they are never taught to read or write; if their bodies are stunted from hunger; if their sickness goes untended; if their life is spent in hopeless poverty, just drawing a welfare check.

So we want to open the gates to opportunity. But we're also going to give all our people, black and white, the help that they need to walk through those gates. My first job after college was as a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, in a small Mexican-American school. Few of them could speak English and I couldn't speak much Spanish. My students were poor and they often came to class without breakfast and hungry. And they knew even in their youth the pain of prejudice. They never seemed to know why people disliked them, but they knew it was so because I saw it in their eyes.

I often walked home late in the afternoon after the classes were finished wishing there was more that I could do. But all I knew was to teach them the little that I knew, hoping that I might help them against the hardships that lay ahead. And somehow you never forget what poverty and hatred can do when you see its scars on the hopeful face of a young child.

I never thought then, in 1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never even occurred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students, and to help people like them all over this country. But now I do have that chance.

And I'll let you in on a secret--I mean to use it. And I hope that you will use it with me.



This is the richest, most powerful country which ever occupied this globe. The might of past empires is little compared to ours. But I do not want to be the president who built empires, or sought grandeur, or extended dominion.

I want to be the president who educated young children to the wonders of their world. I want to be the President who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare them to be taxpayers instead of tax eaters. I want to be the President who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election. I want to be the President who helped to end hatred among his fellow men and who promoted love among the people of all races, all regions and all parties. I want to be the President who helped to end war among the brothers of this earth.

And so, at the request of your beloved Speaker and the Senator from Montana, the Majority Leader, the Senator from Illinois, the Minority Leader, Mr. McCullock and other members of both parties, I came here tonight, not as President Roosevelt came down one time in person to veto a bonus bill; not as President Truman came down one time to urge passage of a railroad bill, but I came down here to ask you to share this task with me. And to share it with the people that we both work for.

I want this to be the Congress--Republicans and Democrats alike--which did all these things for all these people. Beyond this great chamber--out yonder--in fifty states are the people that we serve. Who can tell what deep and unspoken hopes are in their hearts tonight as they sit there and listen? We all can guess, from our own lives, how difficult they often find their own pursuit of happiness, how many problems each little family has. They look most of all to themselves for their future, but I think that they also look to each of us.

Above the pyramid on the Great Seal of the United States it says in latin, "God has favored our undertaking." God will not favor everything that we do. It is rather our duty to divine His will. But I cannot help but believe that He truly understands and that He really favors the undertaking that we begin here tonight.

- - - - - - - -
- speech held on 15th of March via; written by Richard N. Goodwin
- photograph (LBJ at a Civil Rights Symposium with Barbara and Vernon Jordan, taken by Franke Wolfe) via, (LBJ with civil rights activists including MLK and Roy Wilkins, 1964, taken by Yoichi Okamoto) via and via and via, (LBJ shaking MLK's hand immediately after signing the Voting Rights Act) via and via, (with civil rights leaders, 1964) via, (with civil rights activists before signing the Voting Rights Act, 1965) via

Wednesday 11 April 2018

The Great Society, by President Lyndon B. Johnson (1964)

It is a great pleasure to be here today. This university has been coeducational since 1870, but I do not believe it was on the basis of your accomplishments that a Detroit high school girl said, "In choosing a college, you first have to decide whether you want a coeducational school or an educational school." (...)



Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. (...)

It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods. (...)



So, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin?
Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty?
Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace--as neighbors and not as mortal enemies ?
Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?

There are those timid souls who say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.

Those who came to this land sought to build more than just a new country. They sought a new world. So I have come here today to your campus to say that you can make their vision our reality. So let us from this moment begin our work so that in the future men will look back and say: It was then, after a long and weary way, that man turned the exploits of his genius to the full enrichment of his life.

Thank you. Goodby.



Remarks at the University of Michigan, 22nd of May 1964



- speech via
- photographs (1963 and 1964) of Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders via and via and via and via, by Yoichi Okamoto

Sunday 8 April 2018

Annabel's Dilemma (2017)

There's a little lake of tears
In the middle of the kitchen table
And she watches as another one
Drips from his nose into the deep
And he keeps talking and talking and talking
But talk is cheap and weak and watered down
Just another awkward sound she doesn't need to hear
He's just a shadow only half a man
And she can hardly muster even half a damn about this
Sorry situation
In the the back room, kids are watching Frozen
Fate's her only opponent



Hey, Annabel
What you gonna do girl?
Hey, Annabel
What you gonna do now?

There's only so many times
A grown woman can swallow this
Hollowness
Before her itchy trigger finger
Starts to wake her in the dead of night
So she goes walking and walking and walking
But these old streets don't change
There's no metamorphosis here
Were you really gonna wait until the coast was clear?
Were you really gonna wait?
She's just a shadow
Only half a human
Living a half-life inside the institution of what?
Does she only ever get what she's got?
With the voices in her head all screaming

Hey, Annabel
What you gonna do girl?
Hey, Annabel
What you gonna do now?

In the pre-dawn silence
Her hands are shaking too hard
To hold a secret cigarette
Strange kind of violence
When the blows never land
And the blood's never let

Annabel
You're one of the best
We'll always love you
Even if he don't
We'll always love you
Even when he won't

Annabel
You're one of the best
Only a winner on a losing streak
When you can't find strength
Doesn't mean your (sic) weak

These were always someone else's decisions
This was always someone else's life
These were always someone else's decisions
This was always someone else's life
These were always someone else's problems
This was always someone else's wife
It was always someone else's husband
It was always someone else's wife

lyrics via

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Just Jack Sunday Link Pack:

::: Get Your Shoes On: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Disco Friends (Ford Lane Version): WATCH/LISTEN
::: Hymn For Her: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Starz In Their Eyes: WATCH/LISTEN
::: No Time: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Inside: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Alchemist: WATCH/LISTEN

Saturday 7 April 2018

Quoting Hugh Hefner

"Ageism is a variation of racism or sexism, all the other isms."
Hugh Hefner



I shall like to add that I am not a fan of Hefner's. I do, however, like the quote (and find it interesting coming from him) and the photograph; hence this posting.

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photograph via