I have my horn, and I'm a happy camper.

On Thursday, I got my new mouthpiece--a Rath B 1 1/2 W--and it is fantastic. The next my new horn arrived, and it also is absolutely fantastic! Here are some pics I took...


The top pic was taken with a good digital camera, while the bottom pic was taken with a not-as-good digital camera. The bottom pic also shows the Cronkhite leather gig bag I got with the horn. The quality of the Cronkhite bag is amazing. Any horn players looking for a great gig bag should definitely check Cronkhite bags. They ain't cheap, but you get what you pay for. You can find Cronkhite bags at Ferguson Music.

Pat Robertson: Assassin for God

Fresh from the "You just can't make this shit up" Department comes the latest proclamation from a guy who is different from the insane street preacher near the bus station only because he owns his own TV network.

I am speaking of Pat Robertson--a founder of the Christian Coalition of America, founder and owner of the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), and now...Assassin for God.

What Robertson said

On Monday's broadcast of "The 700 Club," CBN's news show, Robertson discussed Venezuela and its president, Hugo Chavez. Media Matters has the video and a partial transcription showing that Robertson said the following:

There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result, within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he's going to make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.

You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United ... This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

Pat Robertson is a big dope.

So here we have Robertson, an alleged man of God and one of the leaders of the religious right, expressly calling for the murder of the leader of another country. I will go back and check, but I do not think that my Bible has any statements from Jesus condoning assassination. And yet here is Robertson, a "good Christian man," calling for murder.

And then there is the little matter of assassination of world leaders being expressly against U.S. law.

And what is his justification? Assassination would be cheaper than war. Beside the fact that that is no justification, what this dumbass does not realize is that assassinating Chavez could indeed start a war. Chavez is very popular in Venezuela. The coup that Robertson mentions was engineered by the U.S. (this needs to be addressed in a separate post). It did not fail because Chavez was not killed. It failed because it was not "popular." None of the neighboring countries supported the coup, and many of them were very critical of it. Assassinating Chavez would result in damage to the U.S. in terms of relations with South American countries, and we don't need that.

Pat also is clueless when it comes to oil. Perhaps killing Chavez would not stop oil shipments in a general sense, but it is not like Venezuela has to ship oil here. There's this place called China that has a huge demand for oil, and I say there is a chance that the Chinese would be happy to buy any oil Venezuela would not ship here (and I realize that refinery resources would have an impact on that). In other words, it seems to me that Venezuela does not need us as a buyer of oil as much as we need a supply of oil (and anyone who even tries to say that we can get that oil from Iraq can just pucker up and kiss my ass).

What I want to see happen

I want the FCC to bitch slap this moron. Howard Stern got fined a fortune for being rude and disgusting. The very fabric of existence was threatened by the failure of Janet Jackson's fabric, and record fines were levied. None of that compares to using the public airwaves to advocate murder. If Stern's conduct and the "wardrobe malfunction" required big fines, then Robertson must be assessed a record fine from the FCC.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. "The 700 Club" can't be fined because it comes from a religious organization. Well, guess again. Here is a description of the show from its own web site:

The 700 Club is a news/magazine program that has the variety and pacing of a morning show with in-depth investigative reporting by the CBN News team. Whether reporting live from the scene of a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, CBN News brings coverage on major events affecting our nation. The Washington Bureau reports on news from the capitol and correspondents report on events and trends that shape the world from Moscow to Jerusalem. The 700 Club also includes live guests, special features, and music.

The show is not religious, and, in my opinion, it damn sure ain't righteous either.

Let's see if the FCC has the gonads to go after Robertson. More to the point, let's see if the Bush administration has the gonads to go after Robertson.

COMMENT ON COMMENTS: Three comments to this post have been removed by me because they were spam. For this blog, any comments that actually address the substantive matters of a post will not be removed, but please, no spam.

An essay by E.L. Doctorow related to one of my biggest criticisms of Bush

Anyone who has read this blog knows that perhaps my greatest criticsm of George W. Bush is the fact that he still has not attended even one funeral or memorial service for any soldier killed in Iraq. In fact, I last wrote about this on August 3, 2005. For those of you who have not been readers of this blog, in October 2004 I wrote a series of posts on this subject. A summary, with links to all the posts, can be found at Bush and funerals and hugs--what this series says abount Bush. I concluded with these statements:

As I said before, it is incomprehensible to me that not only has he not attended even one such ceremony, he refuses to do so. This strikes me as cowardly and deeply disrespectful of the lives of the men and women who died serving our nation in a war he ordered. This man is not a leader, and he does not deserve to be President.

Today, my father sent me an essay by E.L. Doctorow which makes the same case with a power and eloquence I wish I could match.

For those who do not know who E.L. Doctorow is, here is a brief bio that accompanies the essay:

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow occupies a central position in the history of American literature. He is generally considered to be among the most talented, ambitious, and admired novelists of the second half of the twentieth century. Doctorow has received the National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle Awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Edith Wharton Citation for Fiction, the William Dean Howell Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the residentially conferred National Humanities Medal.

With that in mind, here is the essay...

I fault this president (George W. Bush) for not knowing what death is. He does not suffer the death of our twenty-one year olds who wanted to be what they could be.

On the eve of D-day in 1944 General Eisenhower prayed to God for the lives of the young soldiers he knew were going to die. He knew what death was. Even in a justifiable war, a war not of choice but of necessity, a war of survival, the cost was almost more than Eisenhower could bear.

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.

They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life.... They come to his desk as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq.

How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing. He does not regret that his reason for going to war was, as he knew, unsubstantiated by the facts. He does not regret that his bungled plan for the war's aftermath has made of his mission-accomplished a disaster. He does not regret that rather than controlling terrorism his war in Iraq has licensed it.

So he never mourns for the dead and crippled youngsters who have fought this war of his choice. He wanted to go to war and he did. He had not the mind to perceive the costs of war, or to listen to those who knew those costs. He did not understand that you do not go to war when it is one of the options, but when it is the only option; you go not because you want to but because you have to.

This president knew it would be difficult for Americans not to cheer the overthrow of a foreign dictator. He knew that much. This president and his supporters would seem to have a mind for only one thing --- to take power, to remain in power, and to use that power for the sake of themselvesand their friends. A war will do that as well as anything. You become a wartime leader. The country gets behind you. Dissent becomes inappropriate. And so he does not drop to his knees, he is not contrite, he does not sit in the church with the grieving parents and wives and children.

He is the President who does not feel. He does not feel for the families of the dead; he does not feel for the thirty five million of us who live in poverty; he does not feel for the forty percent who cannot afford health insurance; he does not feel for the miners whose lungs are turning black or for the working people he has deprived of the chance to work overtime at time-and-a-half to pay their bills --- it is amazing for how many people in this country this President does not feel.

But he will dissemble feeling. He will say in all sincerity he is relieving the wealthiest one percent of the population of their tax burden for the sake of the rest of us, and that he is polluting the air we breathe for the sake of our economy, and that he is decreasing the safety regulations for coal mines to save the coal miners' jobs, and that he is depriving workers of their time-and-a- half benefits for overtime because this is actually a way to honor them by raising them into the professional class.

And this litany of lies he will versify with reverences for God and the flag and democracy, when just what he and his party are doing to our democracy is choking the life out of it.

But there is one more terribly sad thing about all of this. I remember the millions of people here and around the world who marched against the war. It was extraordinary, that spontaneously aroused oversoul of alarm and protest that transcended national borders. Why did it happen? After all, this was not the only war anyone had ever seen coming. There are little wars all over the world most of the time.

But the cry of protest was the appalled understanding of millions of people that America was ceding its role as the last best hope of mankind. It was their perception that the classic archetype of democracy was morphing into a rogue nation. The greatest democratic republic in history was turning its back on the future, using its extraordinary power and standing not to advance the ideal of a concordance of civilizations but to endorse the kind of tribal combat that originated with the Neanderthals, a people, now extinct, who could imagine ensuring their survival by no other means than pre-emptive war.

The president we get is the country we get. With each president the nation is conformed spiritually. He is the artificer of our malleable national soul. He proposes not only the laws but the kinds of lawlessness that govern our lives and invoke our responses. The people he appoints are cast in his image. The trouble they get into and get us into, is his characteristic trouble.

Finally the media amplify his character into our moral weather report. He becomes the face of our sky, the conditions that prevail: How can we sustain ourselves as the United States of America given the stupid and ineffective warmaking, the constitutionally insensitive lawgiving, and the monarchal economics of this president? He cannot mourn but is a figure of such moral vacancy as to make us mourn for ourselves.

E.L. Doctorow

More pics of the Kanstul 1662

These are pics of the actual horn I will be getting. Here you can see the difference between rose and yellow brass, the in slide tuning, and the minibal linkages.

These pics--and the horn--are from Ferguson Music in Los Angeles. The website is www.hornguys.com. If nobody else buys this horn in the next few days, it will get shipped to me. Otherwise, I'll just have to wait while another one is ordered. There are several options with the 1662: rose brass (22 gauge), yellow brass (in 22 or 24 gauge), or bronze (24 gauge) bell; wide (Bach) or narrow (Conn) slide in yellow brass, bronze, or nickel; 7 interchangeable leadpipes (3 come with the horn). There is also an inline, independent version of the 1662.

Ferguson Music is much more than just a trombone shop, but if you are a trombone player, it is a particularly good place to shop. Here are the brands they sell: Kanstul, Bach, Shires, Getzen, Conn, Yamaha, Rath, and King. They also have some high quality used horns, including Besson and Greenhoe. And that's just the horns. Mouthpieces, mutes, stands, cases, and everything else a bone player needs are there. Steve Ferguson, Noah Gladstone, and Robert Coomber are all professional trombonists, and they are very knowledgeable and helpful. Check it out.

UPDATE: Today (Tuesday) I spoke with Steve Ferguson, and the horn is on its way here. Next on the list is a new mouthpiece. I'm thinking a Rath B 1 1/2 W.

The reason for my inactivity

After saying that I would resume posting despite my heavy work load, I failed to do so. Instead, I chose to devote my time to quickly being able to acquire something to help in my part time musical endeavors, namely a new bass trombone. Below is a picture and some specs.

• Kanstul 1662 Double Bass Bone
• .562 bore
• Stacked dependent Kanstul CR rotary valves (larger than standard rotary valves, with a larger bore--.593--lightweight, and vented to prevent popping)
• Minibal linkages for valves and triggers
• In slide tuning (no tuning slide in bell section)
• Open wrap in F and D, lightly braced, D slide on the front for better balance, narrow D crook for neck clearance
• 9.5" bell with Conn Elkhart taper

Those are the basics. The horn I will get will look different from the above picture. My horn will have a rose brass bell (22 gauge) and a wide Bach-type slide.

I started playing bass bone in high school on an Elkhart Conn 70-H--which for you trombone afficianados will explain my initial interest in the Kanstul 1662--and in college I played a Holton TR 180,which I have been playing on since--and that should explain my preference for a rose brass bell.

I realize that most people will have no idea what all this means, and even fewer will care, but this is really exciting stuff for me, and any bass bone players out there will appreciate all this info.

More pics to follow...

Musings on Roberts, Bolton, and memorial services

Nomination of John Roberts

As I said in And the nominee to the Supreme Court is..., I was wrong about who would get the nomination. I thought it would Priscilla Owen, with Alberto Gonzales as my second choice. I am truly happy that neither of them got the appointment.

Still, the choice of Roberts caught me by surprise--because it was a sensible choice, and I honestly did not think Bush was capable of anything sensible. Roberts has plenty of real, practical experience with the Supreme Court, he is liked and respected by conservatives and liberals in Congress, and he has solid conservative Republican credentials. In other words, Bush chose someone who would satisfy his winger base and could get through the confirmation process relatively easily. The Democrats are going to have a hard time going after Roberts.

I have concerns about Roberts being on the Supreme Court, but he is so much a better choice than Owen or Gonzales.

Perhaps the truly insane choice is yet to come, so I pray for the health of Rehnquist (and, by the way, I fully supported Rehnquist's nomination as Chief Justice).

Recess appointment of Bolton

With this bullshit move, the Bush administration went back to its SOP of doing stupid, arrogant things. Monday morning at 9:00 a.m. I was listening to Carl Kassell deliver the news on NPR. He started by saying that there was a strong possibility that Bush would make a recess appointment of John Bolton as U.N. Ambassador, and then two minutes later he said, "This just in..President Bush has appointed John Bolton as U.N. Ambassador."

Beside the fact that Bolton is a completely boneheaded choice, this move shows the true colors of the Bush administration. I will address in detail is a subsequent post, but for now I will sum it up by citing Sen. Joe Biden's comment last night on "The Daily Show" when he called the appointment "an abuse of power."

Bush plans to go to a memorial service

In case you did not know, four Boy Scout leaders were killed in an accident at the recent Scout Jamboree. A memorial service was scheduled for Wednesday last week, and it was announced that Bush would attend. Due to weather problems, Bush did not appear at the Jamboree until this past Sunday. Let me make some things clear. First, the Boy Scout leaders deserved a memorial service. Second, I have no problem with Bush attending such a memorial service. Third, I have no problem with Bush cancelling that appearance because of bad weather. In fact, the cancellation of events was the Boy Scouts' idea.

What I have a problem with is the fact that Bush will decide to go to a memorial service for Boy Scout leaders, but he STILL has not and will not go to even one memorial service for those who lost their lives in the Iraq war that he ordered.

Cosmic Wheel after one year.

Although my profile shows that I have been a Blogger member since July 2004 (July 12, 2004, to be precise), today marks the first anniversary of my first post on "my humble space in the blogosphere."

I became a Blogger member so I could post comments on a blog started by a big time Wes Clark supporter as a result of what was happening at the Clark Community Network at that time. This particular supporter and many others, myself included, were voicing displeasure over the Kerry/Edwards ticket and the approach that Kerry was using and what he and Edwards were NOT doing. All of us were going to support the ticket, and we were saying what we felt the ticket needed to do and why. What we encountered was ridicule and abuse, and one of us (the aforementioned big time supporter, whose online handle was Kramer) started a separate blog on July 11.

I figured that I would not do anything with this blog. I had a blog at the Clark Community Network (still do, actually), but published only 17 posts there from September 2003 to July 2004. By August 2004, I realized I had a lot of things I wanted to talk about, but given that the CCN was (and still is) General Clark's official site, I felt that that would not be the appropriate forum for much of my writing. So on August 3, 2004, I published my first post here, Tommy Franks in the news; first in a series. Since then, I have posted 203 times (not counting this one).

And, by the way, I am still a supporter of Wes Clark.

To those people who have taken the time to read anything here, I say "thank you." For those who have actually left comments here, I say "thank you, again."

I have been taking a break from posting due to a heavy work load, but I'm about to get started up again. After all, the Cosmic Wheel will always turn...