During a concert in Berlin, Germany, Duke Ellington and his orchestra play Take the A Train . The featured soloist is trumpetplayer Cootie Williams.
Cootie Williams (1910 -1985) rose to prominence as a member of Duke Ellington’s orchestra, with which he performed from 1929 to 1940. He also recorded his own sessions during this time, both freelance and with other Ellington sidemen. In 1940 he joined Benny Goodman’s orchestra, then in 1941 formed his own orchestra, in which over the years he employed Charlie Parker, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Bud Powell, Eddie Vinson, and other important young players.
He began to play more rhythm and blues in the late 1940s. In the 1950s he toured with small groups and fell into obscurity. In 1962 he rejoined Ellington and stayed with the orchestra till 1974, after Ellington’s death.
Cootie Williams was renowned for his use of the plunger mute, and is reputed to have inspired Wynton Marsalis’s use of it.
Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies interviews Chalmers Johnson in his Conversation With History series. If you’ve never read any of Chalmers books…… you should. This is a great interview. You can listen to it or watch it here.
It is the official, considered position of the state of Texas that President Bush is a constitutionally ignorant power-grabber.
An unusual case that the Supreme Court will hear as it begins its new term features Texas accusing its former chief executive of overstepping his office, by ordering Texas judges to comply with an International Court of Justice ruling involving a condemned killer from Mexico.
“It is, in my judgment, a breathtaking order,” the state’s chief appeals lawyer, Solicitor General Ted Cruz, said a few days ago as he previewed his arguments for the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. “This president’s exercise of this power is egregiously beyond the bounds of presidential authority.”
Best wishes to Jane for a safe trip and a safe stay in Iraq. I look forward to reading your reports.
Berkeley blogger Jane Stillwater has been approved to embed with the U.S. Marines and will leave for the Iraq war zone Oct. 6.
In March, the 65-year-old grandmother filed 17 reports on her blog, jpstillwater.blogspot.com, from a borrowed computer in the Combined Press Information Center in the U.S.-protected, fortified Green Zone in Baghdad.
This time, she will be embedded with the Regimental Combat Team at Camp Ripper and will spend time in Asad and Fallujah, according to an e-mail Stillwater received Friday from the center’s media embed coordinator, Spc. Michael Sherman.
“I’m just totally excited. … I’m just really jazzed,” said Stillwater, who is not a professionally trained journalist but is a colorful writer and a probing interviewer.
Stillwater said she is going to Iraq because she has dedicated her life to spreading a message of peace. She also said she hates injustice and corruption in any form, especially injustice and corruption paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
As with her last trip, she said she secured press credentials with the help of a small Texas newspaper, The Lone Star Iconoclast. She also writes for the Web sites OpEdnews.com and the Black Commentator.
American diplomats have been ordered to compile a dossier detailing Iran’s violations of international law that some fear could be used to justify military strikes against the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.
Members of the US secretariat in the United Nations were asked earlier this month to begin “searching for things that Iran has done wrong”, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
Some US diplomats believe the exercise - reminiscent of attempts by vice-president Dick Cheney and the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to build the case against Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war - will boost calls for military action by neo-conservatives inside and outside the administration.
One diplomat revealed the plans for an Iran dossier to Steven Clemons, a fellow with the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank, who has previously revealed attempts by Mr Cheney’s allies to pressurise President George W Bush into war.
We’ve known this for a long time. How about we get out of Iraq and spend the billions of dollars we are spending on that war here at home where it’s needed. Healthcare, education, security, infrastructure. While our country falls apart we destroy another, and spend billions to do it! That Bush…..he’s a genius! Just wait, history will prove it!!
Terrorists carrying radioactive materials could easily enter the United States from Canada undetected, government investigators said Thursday after they were able to cross the 5,000-mile border four times carrying a large, red duffel bag without being intercepted.
The crossings took place at unguarded and unmonitored sites in four northern-border states. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, did not disclose the sites.
“Our work shows that a determined cross-border violator would likely be able to bring radioactive materials or other contraband undetected into the United States by crossing the U.S.-Canada border at any of the locations we investigated,” the report said.
Even though the northern border is more than twice as long as the U.S.-Mexico border, it has less than one-tenth as many agents patrolling it.
Every time I read something related to Abramoff I am reminded of the charges against Tom Delay and wonder what’s going on with that case. The Texas courts ruled this week that the dismissal of the conspiracy charge stands. He’s still charged with money laundering and conspiracy to launder money. No trial date set. I’m still hoping upon hope that he’s convicted.
California Rep. John Doolittle said Thursday that the Justice Department has issued subpoenas to him and five of his staff members seeking office records going back 11 years in connection to the congressman’s relationship with jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Doolittle’s attorney indicated that he might fight having to comply.
Doolittle, a Republican, declined further comment about the subpoenas. But his criminal defense attorney, David Barger, said in a prepared statement that the subpoenas “raise serious constitutional issues going to the very core” of the separation of powers between the Congress and the executive branch.
The statement didn’t say what records are being sought but said they include “virtually every record, including legislative records, for the congressman for the past 11 years.”
That would indicate that prosecutors want to review records dating from 1996, which is about the time Doolittle would have met Abramoff.
In an interview in February 2006, Doolittle said he couldn’t recall exactly when he met Abramoff but thought it was at a fundraiser held for someone other than him. The first political contribution by Abramoff on the records of the Federal Election Commission was $1,000 on Jan. 22, 1997, to former Rep. Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who later became House majority leader. Doolittle was a friend and loyal lieutenant to DeLay.
Cheney was the keynote speaker at the meeting where the idea for the group formed. Several members of the AEI (experts on radical Islam uh huh) will speak at a forum they’re holding next month. They placed a newspaper ad calling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a terrorist. They’re hellbent on war with Iran. Oh, and they have loads of money. Watch out for this group of whackos.
Freedom’s Watch, a deep-pocketed conservative group led by two former senior White House officials, made an audacious debut in late August when it began a $15 million advertising campaign designed to maintain Congressional support for President Bush’s troop increase in Iraq.
Founded this summer by a dozen wealthy conservatives, the nonprofit group is set apart from most advocacy groups by the immense wealth of its core group of benefactors, its intention to far outspend its rivals and its ambition to pursue a wide-ranging agenda. Its next target: Iran policy.
Next month, Freedom’s Watch will sponsor a private forum of 20 experts on radical Islam that is expected to make the case that Iran poses a direct threat to the security of the United States, according to several benefactors of the group.
MTP: ex-Pres. Bill Clinton (D); roundtable of WaPo’s Dan Balz, MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan, NBC’s David Gregory, and PBS’ Tavis Smiley.
FTN: Gov. Bill Richardson (D-NM); roundtable of author Lawrence Wright, AEI’s Danielle Pletka, and WaPo’s Robin Wright.
This Week: Newt Gingrich; Bill Clinton; roundtable of ex-Pentagon spokesperson Torie Clarke, Dem strategist Donna Brazile, and George Will.
FNS: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY); Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS); Des Moines Register’s David Yepsen and Boston Globe’s James Pindell.
Late Edition: Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO); New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh; Iraqi FM Hoshyar Zebari; roundtable with CNN’s Elaine Quijano, CNN’s Juan Carlos Lopez, and CNN’s Bill Schneider
TV ALERTS
* Chris Matthews Show 9/29-9/30: David Brooks, Katty Kay, Cynthia Tucker, David Ignatius discuss “Is Hillary Clinton talking like a hawk on Iraq and Iran for political reasons or because she would govern as a hawkish president? Why have Republican presidential candidates given up on the African-American vote?” Quotes here.
* Newsmakers (C-SPAN, 10am, Sunday): US Amb. to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad interviewed by Times of London’s Gerard Baker and McClatchy’s Warren Strobel
* The Week at War (CNN, 1:30pm, Sun): Myanmar uprising; Ramadan in Iraq; insurgents attack Iraqis working with the Coalition; who runs Iran; sniper ‘baiting’; hackers threatening national electric grid?
* 60 Minutes (CBS, Sun): Clarence Thomas; Vince Young; what killed Rebecca Riley?
* Today Show: Jenna Bush 10/1
* The View: Diane Sawyer 9/28; Chris Matthews 10/1; Jack Cafferty 10/4
* Tavis Smiley: panel on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with Marc Morial, Cornel West, Farah Griffin on 10/1; Ken Burns 10/2; Frank Rich 10/3
* The Daily Show: Jack Cafferty; Chris Matthews; Ted Koppel
* The Colbert Report: Rev. Gene Robinson or Charlie Savage 10/1; John Mearsheimer 10/2; Jim Lovell 10/3; John Kao 10/4
* Regis & Kelly: Ted Koppel 10/3
