In her speech at the Time to Thrive conference Friday, actress Ellen Page came out as gay. This was a big moment for the 26-year-old as her speech will not only make others more empowered but it’s ultimately a big step in her own journey as well.
“I’m here today because I am gay. I am tired of hiding and I am tired of lying by omission,” Page said. “I suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered and my relationships suffered. And I’m standing here today, with all of you, on the other side of all that pain.”
Ellen’s speech contains several powerful messages regarding how we view each other and how we could create a world that would be a lot more loving and peaceful for everyone. It is so awesome to see such a huge increase in powerful events taking place in all areas of our social paradigm as it is clear a shift is taking place amongst humanity in our consciousness/how we view our world.
Finding Meaning in a Trumpeter’s Jagged Life and Death
William Claxton/Courtesy Demont Photo Management
Top of his game: Chet Baker in Los Angeles in 1954.Mike Zwerin wrote that by the 1980s,‘‘He began to resemble an old Indian, the last of a tribe that had seen a lot of suffering.’’
‘‘He was one of the first generation of masters who created the powerful American urban music that came to be called bebop. He was the last of them to remain faithful to heroin, long after the others had cleaned up or died young. It was a love affair more than a habit.’’
He was Chet Baker, the junkie trumpeter, a legend of sordidness and stone brilliance, who fell to his death at age 58 out the window of room 210 at the Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam, near the drug-dealing area on Zeedijk. The fall was seemingly drug-induced and probably came as he nodded off while sitting on a windowsill. It was three in the morning on May 13, 1988.
The writer, reporting from the scene a day or two later, was the late Mike Zwerin, the International Herald Tribune’s man on jazz. He had both musical authority — he played trombone with Miles Davis on a couple of tracks of his revered ‘‘Birth of the Cool’’ album (which is like having pinch hit in a baseball lineup alongside Babe Ruth and Willie Mays) — and a warm, approachable style in print that comforted his many strong judgments.
Of Chet, who lived in Europe for most of the ’80s, becoming a romanticized, broken-virtuoso commodity for Continental club owners and record producers, Mike reported:
‘‘The creases on his face had multiplied and deepened and his lips turned in over the dentures he had worn since his teeth were knocked out by angry dealers in San Francisco. He began to resemble an old Indian, the last of a tribe that had seen a lot of suffering.’’
Mike also pointed to a fierce irony: The mythic junkie had become an immense musician. After he embarrassingly won best-trumpeter polls as a ‘‘great white hope’’ in the 1950s in America, Mike insisted that Chet ‘‘on a good night in the middle 1980s was capable of playing jazz as well as it can be played, yet was dismissed as a has-been.’’
On his newspaper’s good days in the ’80s and ’90s, Mike Zwerin represented a big piece of its elegant, Paris-based eclecticism. Looking back to the sixties, Volker Schlöndorff, the Oscar-winning film director, said there were moments ‘‘when nothing could be more sexy than to be seen with a copy of the Herald Tribune sticking out of your coat pocket.’’
The IHT had people who wrote about jazz, fashion, the art markets and eurobonds, but no White House correspondent, or anyone on the front lines in the Balkans — the news turbines of its publishers since 1967, The New York Times and The Washington Post, did those jobs masterfully for the Trib.
Rather, the IHTs editorial page editor, Robert Donohue, wrote about rugby’s Five Nations Tournament, and Sam Abt, the paper’s deputy editor, filled columns for years with insights into cycling and the Tour de France.
The IHT tried to pick its spots carefully.
Tom Buerkle, writing from Brussels, enraged European Union bureaucrats by showing how the bloc’s own statistical service demonstrated that Germany and France had areas of poverty greater than corresponding ones in the United States.
And when the European Union seriously considered taking Turkey in as a member, the newspaper sent Tom Fuller to Turkey’s borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria to report strikingly on how real life appeared at what were projected to become Europe’s frontiers.
For the record, the day of Chet Baker’s death, Mike Zwerin complained like hell about having to stir himself and head for Amsterdam on a couple of hours notice. And in the middle of the afternoon! He was told that breathing the air of the canals would do him great good.
The piece he wrote, probably smoking and still cursing, remains fine reading.
John Vinocur, an opinion page columnist for the International Herald Tribune, was its executive editor from 1986 to 1996, and also served as the newspaper’s vice president.
Today, the US marine corps recruiting page was hacked by Syrian hackers, with a message warning US soldiers against joining ‘Al Qaeda’ in fighting in the Syrian civil war. It contained images of US soldiers holding pieces of paper, declaring that they will not fight in Syria, images that have been circulating around the internet rapidly in recent days, and the following message-
“This is a message written by your brothers in the Syrian Army, who have been fighting al-Qaida for the last 3 years. We understand your patriotism and love for your country so please understand our love for ours. Obama is a traitor who wants to put your lives in danger to rescue al- Qaida insurgents.”
“Marines, please take a look at what your comrades think about Obama’s alliance with al-Qaida against Syria. Your officer in charge probably has no qualms about sending you to die against soldiers just like you, fighting a vile common enemy. The Syrian army should be your ally not your enemy.”
“Refuse your orders and concentrate on the real reason every soldier joins their military, to defend their homeland. You’re more than welcome to fight alongside our army rather than against it.”
Your brothers, the Syrian army soldiers. A message delivered by the SEA”
In these recent days, protests unprecedented in history have been held and planned, some considered ‘emergency protests’, a concept that seems to just have been created. This is an excellent sign that activists, truth speakers, and the opposition to war are finally being heard. People continue to wake up faster than ever before, and consequently, the people in power who want this war are trying to advance their agenda rapidly. Please share this with as many people as possible, as a method of raising morale and confidence for the opposition to this senseless war. Yet this raising confidence is not hollow, this isn’t building support for a resistance that is likely to fail- this is very powerful, very real opposition by spreading of information, and it is having a dramatic effect on the consciousness of people everywhere.
Writer Bio:
Cassius Methyl is a journalist writing for Intellihub.com and a liberty activist who plays every instrument and vocals for an experimental metal-truth movement project called “Core of a Virus”. Find his music on Facebook.
For media inquires, interviews, questions or suggestions for this author, email: cassius@intellihub.com or telephone: (347) 759-6075.
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President Barack Obama smile during a news conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. The president said he’ll work with Congress to change the oversight of some of the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance programs and name a new panel of outside experts to review technologies.(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama smile during a news conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. The president said he’ll work with Congress to change the oversight of some of the National Security Agency’s controversial surveillance programs and name a new panel of outside experts to review technologies.(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says the housing market is healing, but it’s time to turn the page on the “bubble-and-bust mentality” that led to the market’s collapse.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama calls on Congress to let all Americans refinance at current low rates. He wants more help for first-time homebuyers and expanded affordable rental housing. He’s proposing to phase out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so private capital can play a bigger role in mortgages.
At the same time, Obama says the U.S. must preserve access to popular 30-year mortgages.
In the Republican address, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina says Obama’s energy policies have failed. He says Republicans want government to get out of the way, including by approving the Keystone XL pipeline.
By Cassius Methyl
