'Cause black folks, leftists, and ESPN clowns CAN'T be racists, that's why.

From The Urban Daily.com:

Is RG3 Distancing Himself From Black People?

ESPN’s Rob Parker has ignited a serious discussion of the changing views of race when he called Washington redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III a “cornball brother.”

Parker, who is the host of ESPN’s “First Take,” called RGIII out because he feels the football star is “distancing himself from his black people.” Rob Parker’s rant came after Robert Griffin III said being African-American doesn’t define him as a person. What added fuel to Parker’s fire is Griffin having a white fiancée and being a Republican.

Golly, that's the race traitor trifecta! I'll bet ESPN will never again refer to Mr. Griffin as an "athletic quarterback". He's so obviously white he must hereafter be called "cerebral" and a "gym rat" with a "high motor".

Rob Parker got all bent out of shape because of Griffin’s comments in a USA Today article. In the article, RGIII is quoted:

“I am an African-American in America. That will never change. But I don’t have to be defined by that…We always try to find similarities in life, no matter what it is so they’re going to try to put you in a box with other African-American quarterbacks – Vick, Newton, Randall Cunningham, Warren Moon…That’s the goal. Just to go out and not try to prove anybody wrong but just let your talents speak for themselves.”

I may be getting old, kiddies, but that sounds like MLK Jr. to me.

The “First Take” host responded to the USA Today article with a pointed question:

“It makes me wonder deeper about him. I’ve talked to some people in Washington D.C. My question, which is just a straight, honest question, is he a brother or is he a cornball brother”

Retroactive abortion: To the 40th trimester and beyond!

It's not just that schoolkids are easy targets, kiddies. The Death Worshippers have taught us they are inconvenient, expensive, and disposable.

From Fox News:

• URGENT: At Least 26 Dead, Including 18 Kids, in Conn. School Shooting

  Authorities say at least 26 people, including 18 children, were killed Friday when a gunman clad in black military gear opened fire inside a Connecticut elementary school.

  A law enforcement official said the shooter, who is dead, was from New Jersey and had ties to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. Authorities recovered a Glock and Sig Sauer 9mm handgun, but it was unclear who killed the shooter, who wore black combat garb and a military vest.
  
  Local news outlets report that the shooting occurred inside a kindergarten classroom, and that all the pupils in that classroom are unaccounted for. 
  An official with knowledge of the situation said the 20-year-old gunman, whose name has not been released, also had a .223-caliber rifle. The motive is not yet known.
  
  Police are also questioning another man in connection with the shooting. Witnesses told the Connecticut Post that a handcuffed man, dressed in camouflage, was led out of a nearby woods by officers. 
  
  Connecticut State Police Lt. Paul Vance said during an afternoon news conference that police arrived at the scene "within minutes" of a 911 call placed shortly after 9:30 a.m.
  
  “Every door, every crack, every crevice of that school” was checked, Vance said. “The entire school was searched.”
  
  Vance did not give details about the number of victims other than to say they included students and staff, pending notification of the families. He said more information would be released, possibly later Friday.
  
  The massacre began inside the school's main office as the principal was making morning announcements. Sources told Fox News students throughout the school could hear gunshots over the intercom system before the gunman entered the kindergarten classroom and continued his bloody rampage. 
  
  A dispatcher at the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps said a teacher was shot in the foot and taken to Danbury Hospital. Local news outlets also reported that the principal was among those shot. 
  
  Parent Lisa Procaccini told Fox News that her daughter was sitting in a classroom when she and others heard gun shots. 
  
  "She was in a small class -- a reading group and they started hearing bangs," Procaccini said. "Her teacher, and I’m grateful  for this, rushed kids into the bathroom and locked the door. They told kids it was hammering and tried to keep them calm.”
  
  "Children were crying," Procaccini said. "She did tell me about a little boy that was in a police officer’s arms, bleeding. I don’t know if she gets it."
  
  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said two firearms were recovered from the scene. 
  
  President Obama was notified of the shooting around 10:30 am ET, White House officials said. 
  
  The Newtown School District has locked down schools as a preventive measure to ensure the safety of students and staff.
  
  A statement on the district's website stated that afternoon kindergarten classes have been canceled.
  
  The elementary school has close to 700 students. 
  
  Newtown is in Fairfield County, about 45 miles southwest of Hartford and 60 miles northeast of New York City.  
•  VIDEOS: Multiple Deaths in School Shooting | Mother of Student at School Speaks | Follow @FoxNews
• PHOTOS: 26 Dead in School Shooting

From AP via Yahoo News: 

Source: Shooting suspect had ties to school

A law enforcement official says the attacker in the Connecticut school shootings is a 20-year-old man with ties to the school.

The official said that a gun used in the attacks is a .223-caliber rifle. The official also said that New Jersey state police are searching a location in that state in connection with the shootings, said by an official in Connecticut to have left 27 dead, including 18 children.

The official in Washington spoke on the condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak on the record about the developing criminal investigation.

Dave Brubeck, Requiescat in pace.

"Take Five" isn't the only great thing Mr. Brubeck produced, but it would have been enough for me.

 

From The Canadian Press via Yahoo! Canada News:

Jazz legend Dave Brubeck, who helped define genre's rhythms in 1950s and '60s, dies at 91

 

You don't have to be a jazz aficionado to recognize "Take Five," the smoky instrumental by the Dave Brubeck Quartet that instantly evokes swinging bachelor pads, hi-fi systems and cool nightclubs of the 1950s and '60s.

"Take Five" was a musical milestone — a deceptively complex jazz composition that managed to crack the Billboard singles chart and introduce a new, adventurous sound to millions of listeners.

In a career that spanned almost all of American jazz since World War II, Brubeck's celebrated quartet combined exotic, challenging tempos with classical influences to create lasting standards.

The pianist and composer behind the group, Brubeck died Wednesday of heart failure at a hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut. He was a day shy of his 92nd birthday.

Brubeck believed that jazz presented the best face of America to the world.

"Jazz is about freedom within discipline," he said in a 2005 interview with The Associated Press. "Usually a dictatorship like in Russia and Germany will prevent jazz from being played because it just seemed to represent freedom, democracy and the United States.

"Many people don't understand how disciplined you have to be to play jazz. ... And that is really the idea of democracy — freedom within the Constitution or discipline. You don't just get out there and do anything you want."

Amen to that, brother.

The common thread that ran through Brubeck's work was breaking down the barriers between musical genres — particularly jazz and classical music. He was inspired by his mother, a classical pianist, and later by his composition teacher, the French composer Darius Mihaud, who encouraged his interest in jazz and advised him to "keep your ears open" as he travelled the world.

"When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection," Brubeck said in 2005. "Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music."

Brubeck was always fascinated by the rhythms of everyday life. In a discussion with biographer Doug Ramsey, he recalled the rhythms he heard while working as a boy on cattle drives at the northern California ranch managed by his father.

The first time he heard polyrhythms — the use of two rhythms at the same time — was on horseback.

"The gait was usually a fast walk, maybe a trot," he said. "And I would sing against that constant gait of the horse. ... There was nothing to do but think, and I'd improvise melodies and rhythms."

American music...How cool is that?

Brubeck combined classical influences and his own innovations on the seminal 1959 album "Time Out" by his classic quartet that included alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, drummer Joe Morello and bassist Eugene Wright.

True genius surrounds itself with genius and is never jealous.

It was the first jazz album to deliberately explore time signatures outside of the standard 4/4 beat or 3/4 waltz time. It was also the first million-selling jazz LP and is still among the bestselling jazz albums of all time.

Columbia executives blocked its release for nearly a year — until label President Goddard Lieberson intervened.

"They said, 'We never put out music that people can't dance to, and they can't dance to these rhythms that you're playing,'" Brubeck recalled in 2010. He also wanted a painting by Joan Miro on the cover, something else the record company had never done.

Hee-hee.

"I insisted that we go with something new," he said. "And to their surprise, it became the biggest jazz recording they ever made."

The album opens with "Blue Rondo a la Turk," a piece inspired by Turkish street musicians Brubeck heard on a 1958 State Department tour. The piece was in 9/8 time — nine beats to the measure instead of the customary two, three or four beats — and blended folk rhythms with jazz and a Mozart piece.

Cool, baby. Way cool.

The album also featured "Take Five," the cool and catchy odd-metered tune that became the Brubeck quartet's theme. The tune was derived from a pattern that Morello liked to play backstage. Brubeck asked Desmond to write a two-part melody over the rhythm, and Brubeck patched the pieces together.

"It was a song that people could relate to, and it influenced the future of the music," said George Wein, a jazz pianist and founder of the Newport Jazz Festival.

Good music is a universal language. It is understood implicitly, like a smile.

When the Romulans try to take us out, we should play "Take Five" for them so they won't kill us...

That's assuming our humanity isn't crushed by the American Stalin and his useful idiots before that day arrives. 

Brubeck "proved that a song with five beats in it and one with seven beats in it could become popular," pianist Herbie Hancock said in an email.

The jazz master played a key role in popularizing the first jazz festivals in the 1950s, playing at the Newport festival at least 50 times and helping to found the Monterey Jazz Festival.

He was also the first modern jazz musician pictured on the cover of Time magazine — on Nov. 8, 1954.

Brubeck always felt that his successful jazz career led fans to overlook the second career he launched as a jazz-inspired classical orchestral and choral composer in 1967 after disbanding his original quartet.

His experience in World War II led him to look beyond jazz to compose oratorios, cantatas and other extended works touching on themes involving religion, civil rights and peace.

"I knew I wanted to write on religious themes when I was a GI in World War II," Brubeck said, recalling how he was trapped behind German lines in the Battle of the Bulge and nearly killed. "I saw and experienced so much violence that I thought I could express my outrage best with music."

The best way to combat horror? Beauty.

His interest in classical music was inspired by his mother, Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck, a classical pianist, who was initially disappointed by her youngest son's interest in jazz. She later came to appreciate his music.

Born in Concord, California, on Dec. 6. 1920, Brubeck took piano lessons with his mother as a child. Then his father moved the family to a cattle ranch in the foothills of the Sierras.

When he enrolled at the College of the Pacific in 1938, Brubeck had intended to major in veterinary medicine and return to ranching. But while working his way through college by playing piano in nightclubs, he became smitten with jazz and changed his major to music. In 1942, he married Iola Whitlock, a fellow student who became his lifelong partner, librettist, and sometime manager.

Brubeck joined the Army as an infantry man, but ended up leading the semi-official Wolf Pack band attached to Gen. George S. Patton's army. They played popular standards as well as some of his first original jazz tunes, including "We Crossed the Rhine," based on the rhythm of trucks hitting the metal pontoon bridges as they entered Germany.

His band, which was one of the first integrated units in the then-segregated Army, reopened the Opera House in Nuremberg, the site of mass rallies organized by the Nazis, who had banned jazz.

Take that, Hitler!

Years later, the addition of Wright to Brubeck's quartet made the group one of the nation's best-known integrated music acts. A longtime champion of civil rights, Brubeck cancelled lucrative gigs at Southern universities and on television's Bell Telephone Hour when the organizers insisted that he replace Wright. He refused to play in South Africa under apartheid.

After his discharge, he enrolled at Mills College in Oakland, California. That's where he formed an octet, including Desmond on alto sax, Dave van Kreidt on tenor sax, Cal Tjader on drums and Bill Smith on clarinet. The group played Brubeck originals and standards by other composers. Their ground-breaking album "Dave Brubeck Octet" was recorded in 1946.

In 1949, Brubeck with Tjader and bassist Ron Crotty, both fellow octet members, formed a more commercially viable trio and cut their first records, which gained a national audience. After surviving a near-fatal diving accident in 1951, Brubeck formed a quartet by adding Desmond.

Brubeck continued performing with the latest version of his quartet until just past his 90th birthday, despite needing heart surgery and a pacemaker.

In a 2010 interview, Brubeck, who converted to Catholicism in 1980, envisioned an afterlife where he'd again see his family and jazz friends, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Count Basie.

Amen to that, brother.

"If there's a heaven," Brubeck said, "let it be a good place for all of us to jam together and have a wonderful, wonderful musical experience."

Brubeck is survived by his wife of 70 years, a daughter and four musician sons. Another son died in 2009.

Check out this reggae cover of "Take Five" by Ossie Scott and other cool covers of one of the greatest tunes ever from Youtube...




... How about this one, with lyrics by the incredible Al Jarreau...



...or Mr George Benson on guitar...

 

...The Bolyki Brothers...



...from Brittni Paiva on electric ukulele...



...and Benjamin Creighton Griffiths on the harp...



Heck, kiddies, I could do this all day.Why don't we all take five from the oppressive fascism of Obamastan and let some joy in?

World War II continues apace...

From ABC via Yahoo News:

That's no ordinary gun, ma'am

 (Image credit: NECN)

 

Just like a scene out of "Antiques Roadshow," a woman in Hartford, Conn., turned in an old rifle to her local police station's gun buy-back, only to discover the gun was worth anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000. The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, inherited the gun from her father who had brought it home with him from Europe as a memento from World War II.

The two officers conducting the gun buy-back, who are resident gun experts for the Hartford Police Department, informed the owner she was in possession of a Nazi Assault Rifle, the first of its kind, that dates back to 1944.

The gun is called a Sturmgewehr 44, literally meaning "storm rifle," and is the first "modern assault rifle ever made, eventually replaced by the AK 47 in 1947 by Russia, who copied the German design of the Sturmgewehr 44," Officer Lewis Crabtree, one of the two officers who discovered the gun, told ABC News.

"It's like finding the Babe Ruth of baseball cards," said Officer John Cavanna. "The rarity, it was made for such a very short period."

Most people, however, who aren't avid gun fans would have no idea what role this gun played in history.

"If you were to look at the gun and didn't know anything about guns, you would think it was garbage," Crabtree said.

That is essentially what the owner thought the gun was, bringing it to the station knowing full well it would be put into a smelter, melting the gun down into an iron brick.

"People turn in guns for a variety of reasons," Cavanna told ABC. "They don't have a good way to secure it, they have kids around their home, or they don't know how to use it. This is an anonymous way for someone to take an unwanted firearm and get it off the streets. We then give them a $50 or $100 gift card to Wal-Mart."

Crabtree attributes gun accidents to ignorance and carelessness. The anonymous gun buy-back program is aimed at preventing people from running into potentially dangerous situations with a gun they don't know how to use or work.

This seems to be the reason the woman who dropped off the historic rifle.

"Her father passed away. The gun was in her closet," Cavanna said. "She did not know it was a machine gun.

"If the gun had been in the closet loaded, any second you could hit the wrong level and discharge a fatal round," he said of the Sturmgewehr 44.

This German-made machine gun can fire 500 rounds in minutes, according to Cavanna, who is also a gun range master.

At the time the officers received the gun, it was in such disrepair that it was inoperable, unable to shoot a bullet even if the gun had been loaded. Cavanna said ammunition would have to be especially made for this gun.

The unnamed owner of the gun has left the valuable artifact at the police station for safe keeping.

"We did not take the gun in for the gun buy-back program," Crabtree said. "If we took it as part of the buy-back, we would have no choice but to destroy the gun. We don't want to destroy that gun."

The owner intends to sell the Sturmgewehr 44.

"It sounds like her family could use the money," Cavanna said.

The Black Widow inches closer to flight...

From the THE MID-ATLANTIC AIR MUSEUM in Reading, PA:

SEPTEMBER 20, 2012
Pappy Strine, shown here bucking rivets on the P-61 elevator.	Luke Jones and Pappy Strine install rivets on the elevator leading edge.
When the elevator is finally finished the fixture will be modified and reused for rebuilding the wings.	One of the drop tanks.
Another one of the drop tanks awaits restoration.	Wiring and hydraulics in the right rear of the turret compartment. The fuselage carry thru spars can be seen at right.
The gun compartment showing the two lower 20mm cannons and LH upper gun	A view of the cannons.
View of the area behind the instrument panel with the armor plate removed	Nose gear wiring to control switches and taxi lights
Gunner's turret control box is mounted on the RH gunners cockpit wall.	The landing gear selector handle is mounted left of center on the pilot's sub panel
The flap control handle on the left cockpit wall	Bail out bell on LH side between pilot and gunner
Ammeter s and circuit breaker box on RH pilots wall.	RH gunners folding armor plate. Cockpit heater is installed in the right rear corner.
Gunners LH folding armor plate.	Propeller switch box ready for installation on the left cockpit wall.
he throttle quadrant awaits being strung once the wiring is in place. Mounts for elevator, rudder, and aileron trim wheels.	More wiring at the instrument panel. Completed harnesses have cannon plugs installed which are wrapped in plastic.
ilot's instrument panel. The bok to the left contains the main switch panel. Directly in the center is the autopilot rack.	The voltage regulator box installed on the bulkhead at the aft end of the gunner's compartment.
RH turret compartment wiring. Once each bundle is complete it will be combed out and laced in place	Wiring on the LH turret compartment buss is in process.
Wiring harness inside the lower right fuselage. This is mostly radar wiring.	Right hand nose gear door being fitted
Fitting the new leading edge skin to the elevator