I have written about Obamacare over and over again on this blog. Dan Mitchell has shared many funny cartoons about Obamacare too. Milton Friedman has spoken out about government healthcare many times in the past and his film series FREE TO CHOOSE is on You Tube and I encourage you to watch it. It is clear that the federal government debt is growing so much that it is endangering us because if things keep going like they are now we will not have any money left for the national defense because we are so far in debt as a nation.
The United States a century ago was a highly charged magnet for immigrants around the world. Thousands entered Ellis Island each day on the hope of making a better life for themselves and their families. Two of those immigrants were Jeno and Sara Friedman; they would become the parents of Milton Friedman, one of the most influential and important economists of the 20th century.
Dubbed the “grandmaster of free-market economic theory” by the New York Times, Friedman’s writings, especially his 1980 book “Free to Choose” authored with his wife, Rose, refuted popular claims that “more government” would improve the quality of our lives. Milton Friedman was the most ardent spokesperson advocating the complete opposite. Voluntary choices of individuals rather than arbitrary dictates of the state, he argued, should be the default mode of human life. Government is justified only insofar as it preserves, protects, and defends individual liberty.
On [last] week’s 100th anniversary of his birth, one may wonder what the Nobel laureate would say about the more controversial policies now unfolding across America. What would Dr. Friedman have thought about the recent advances in school choice, the idea he developed in 1955? How would he react to government’s decision to tax Americans who do not purchase health care?
Would Dr. Friedman take a position regarding the financial impact of soaring public union pensions on state economies? As an expert on monetary policy, certainly Dr. Friedman would have an opinion regarding the federal government’s bailout of the financial industry and its impact on our personal freedom.
On school choice – the principle that all parents should have access to their child’s education funding so that they may choose whatever learning environment is best for their child – I believe Milton would say we’ve come a long way, but not nearly far enough.
Today there are 39 voucher and tax-credit programs in 21 states and the District of Columbia, offering more than 200,000 children educational freedom. In the past two years, more advancement has been made in school choice than in the previous 20 years. Yet most American parents still are not free to choose their child’s school. Limited by financial resources of their parents, children living within arbitrarily drawn boundaries are assigned to government-run institutions. The competitive, diverse, and innovative system of high-quality educational options Dr. Friedman advocated is not yet a reality.
On health care centralization
On health care, Milton likely would have disagreed with the massive centralization of an industry – a consequence of the Affordable Care Act. Moreover, its central tenet – that Americans are forced through taxation to engage in certain behaviors – resembles what Milton’s parents tried to escape when coming to the U.S. in 1894. The results, Friedman might have said, would be a lowering of quality accompanied by a significant increase in cost.
Friedman was particularly dismayed at how much unions continue to drive up taxpayer costs in places like California. Today, public employee unions and their largess have contributed to multiple cities to filing for bankruptcy. Friedman believed a free nation should never be held hostage to monopolies, including trade unions. He would have been heartened by progress made by strong leaders in several states to bring the public sector more in line with the private sector, yet Dr. Friedman would likely have agreed that much more needs to be done as teacher pension liabilities alone approach $1 trillion.
As for those bailouts, it is highly doubtful Dr. Friedman would support propping up any institution that cannot compete in the free market. Milton’s writings on monetary policy were sternly against actions that could cause inflation. But he also did not favor “easy money,” which has become the worldwide solution to the ongoing financial crisis. Friedman believed banks, governments, and individuals must keep their fiscal house in order.
Ultimately, we can rely only on Dr. Friedman’s writings to determine what he might have said to the issues we face today. Yet we can rest assured; at the core of his work was a commitment to the freedom of individuals over the collective force of a centralized government.
Just like in the early and mid-20th century, today the threat of central power and planning is threatening Americans’ freedom and quality of life. And although Milton Friedman is no longer with us, the vision he expressed through his writings endures.
Since his death in 2006, the Friedman Foundation has sponsored annual events around the world to spread the ideas espoused by Milton Friedman. On July 31, more than 140 events will be held in 50 states and in 44 counties honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Friedman, on what would have been his 100th birthday. From California to Chile, Vermont to Venezuela, Pennsylvania to Pakistan, and Illinois to Iran, thousands will gather to remember Milton Friedman and to keep his work alive.
These events are reminders that free markets are about much more than economics. As Friedman wrote in his book, “Capitalism and Freedom:” “Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”
Economic freedom lies at the heart of liberty; to live with the freedom to choose, to build our own lives, is what motivated people like Dr. Friedman’s parents to seek America’s shores many years ago.
__________ Enzi statement on the Supreme Court’s King Vs. Burwell decision 5 Takeaways From Today’s Supreme Court Ruling on Obamacare Wicker Comments on King v Burwell Supreme Court Decision Senator Lankford Discusses the King v. Burwell Supreme Court Decision Congressman Steve King Response to SCOTUS King v. Burwell Ruling Obamacare and the Odious Anti-Constitutionalism of […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 718) (Emailed to White House on 6-25-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]
______ Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1 The Region – Banking and Policy Issues Magazine – Interview with Milton Friedman June 1992 In his new book, Money Mischief, economist Milton Friedman compares inflation to alcoholism; blames the rise of Chinese communism, in large part, on an […]
______ Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage Milton Friedman Interview Milton Friedman is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.Dr. Friedman received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Science. Member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 […]
________ Milton Friedman on Donahue – 1979 Uploaded on Aug 26, 2009 Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, promoting “Free to Choose” on the show Donahue. Walter E. Williams: Milton Friedman was an economist’s economist Print Font [+] [-] Leave a comment » By Walter E. Williams Published: Wednesday, Dec. 6 2006 12:00 a.m. MST Walter […]
_______ José Niño José Niño is a graduate student based in Santiago, Chile. A citizen of the world, he has lived in Venezuela, Colombia, and the United States. He is currently an international research analyst with the Acton Circle of Chile. Follow@JoseAlNino. 40 Years Later: Milton Friedman’s Legacy in Chile “Chilean Miracle” Struck a Blow […]
____ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income NOAH GORDON AUG 6, 2014 Creating a wage floor is an effective way to fight poverty—and it would reduce government spending and intrusion. Swiss backers of a minimum income spread out coins in Bern. Denis Balibouse/Reuters Last week, my […]
________________ Which Fed Bill Would Milton Friedman Have Liked? Posted on March 10, 2015by John Taylor Writing last week on the Cato at Liberty blog, Steve Hanke argued that Milton Friedman would have supported the “Audit the Fed” bill recently introduced in the Senate. Steve’s reasoning is based on Friedman’s 1962 essay “Should there be an […]
A great speech below: Here are the myths:Robber Baron Myth, The Cause of Great Depression Myth, The Demand for Government Service Myth, The Free Lunch Smith, and The Robin Hood Myth. 1) the Robber Baron Myth, 2) the Great Depression Myth, 3) the Demand for Government Service Myth, 4) the Free Lunch Myth, and 5) […]
_______________ FEATURED ARTICLE | SEPTEMBER 4, 2006 An Interview with Milton Friedman Milton Friedman* I recently sat down with Milton Friedman, a few days before his 94th birthday, to discuss the impact of two of his most important contributions to economics and liberty: A Monetary History of the United States, 1870-1960 [co-written] with Anna Schwartz, […]
Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 1of2 Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 2of2 The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits by Milton FriedmanThe New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970. Copyright @ 1970 by The New York Times Company. When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the […]
____________ Levin on Milton Friedman: ‘One Thing to Have Free Immigration to Jobs, Another for Welfare’ By Michael Morris | January 16, 2015 | 5:12 PM EST During his show on January 15, 2015, Nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin recalled the famed economist Milton Friedman and explored an important reason why open immigration, despite […]
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have. Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.
Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR
Dr. Francis Schaeffer: Whatever Happened to the Human Race Episode 1 ABORTION
Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?)
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro)
Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1)
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of Truth & History (part 2)
Olphart you wrote a well thought out post. In it you noted, “Even I can see that you jump to a huge conclusion when you draw the line by saying that abortion is murder. The Bible doesn’t tell you that.”
______________
Is abortion murder according to the Bible. Let’s take just a few verses.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:13-16
________
Sue Bohlin of Probe Ministries has asserted:
Sometimes you will hear a pro-choice argument that says the Bible does not put the same value on the life of the unborn as on infants, citing an Old Testament passage on personal injury law. Exodus 21:22-25 gives two penalties if fighting men hit a pregnant woman. The first penalty was a fine, and some people conclude from this that an unborn baby doesn’t have the same value as a born child. But that penalty was for a situation where nothing serious happened. If there was serious injury, the offender was severely punished with the same injury he inflicted. If the mother or baby died, the offender was to be put to death. This actually shows very eloquently how valuable God considers both the mother and her unborn baby.
Al Mohler talked about Americans’ sense of right and wrong and how everything is turned upside down now while viewing the results of the Gosnell Trial:
What the pro-abortion movement fears most is that Americans will pause to consider what this trial really means. It means that Dr. Gosnell would not be on trial for murder if he had killed those three babies while inside their mother’s body. His murder convictions have everything to do with the fact that the abortions were “botched” and the babies were accidentally born alive. Had the abortions been “successful” — even up to the last hours of pregnancy — Dr. Gosnell might have been charged with performing a late-term abortion, but not of murder.
And, speaking of late-term abortions, the abortion rights movement is against all legal restrictions on those as well. They insist on a woman’s unfettered right to an abortion up to the moment of birth.
Even more chillingly, a Planned Parenthood representative recently told a committee of the Florida legislature that even a baby born alive after a failed abortion should have its life or death decided only by its mother and her doctor.
This is America. A nation that has legalized murder in the womb and that now finds itself staring at what abortion really represents. Human dignity cannot survive in a society that insists that a baby inside the womb has no right to live while that same baby, just seconds later, is a murder victim. Respect for human life cannot endure when a baby inside the womb is just a fetus, but when moved only a few centimeters is a full citizen.
The body parts of babies presented as evidence in the Gosnell trial are routinely discarded as “medical waste” outside your local abortion clinic.
What the Gosnell trial revealed is not the exceptional gruesomeness of a single clinic in Philadelphia. It reveals the truth that all Americans are, by our laws, complicit in Dr. Gosnell’s evil. The real scandal is not just the babies murdered outside the womb, but the millions aborted legally — torn apart by blades, suctioned out as waste, poisoned unto death by drugs.
The trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell revealed the truth about this homicidal doctor and his house of horrors, but it also revealed the moral house of mirrors behind which America hides. Dr. Gosnell is not alone in having the blood of babies on his hands.
Part 1 of 2 Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor speaks at Queen’s Hall, Parliament House, Victoria. Australia – on the eve of the debate to decriminalize abortion in Victoria.
Gianna’s visit was sponsored by the Ad Hoc Interfaith Committee.
Gianna Jessen is an abortion survivor. She was intervewed on Fox’s Hannity and Colmes, where she shared her personal story and also commented on Obama’s voting record. As an Illinois state senator, four times he voted “no” on the Illinois Born-Alive Infant Defined Act, which would protect babies born alive after failed abortions.
There is a lively discussion at the end about whether or not Obama, by his vote, was in fact denying born babies (abortion survivors now outside the womb), the right to live.Pay attention especially to Alan Combs who tries to defend his pro-life liberal president.
Sean Hannity show with Gianna Jessen
Did you see how difficult it was for Alan Combs to defend his liberal president from the charge of infanticide.Logically there is no escape but he tried the best he could. President Obama was so intent on protecting Roe v Wade that he had to endorse a form of infanticide in order to protect Roe v Wade.
Liberals must acknowledge that hospitals are required to save lives. However, if a hospital is paid to perform an abortion and they botch the job then they must turn from trying to snuff out a life to trying to save it again. How ironic.
Part 2 of 2 Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor speaks at Queen’s Hall.
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ What a great article below: Dr. Alveda King: Guilty Gosnell Verdict May Spark More Justice for Women and Babies Contact: Eugene Vigil, King for America, 470-244-3302 PHILADELPHIA, May 13, 2013 /Christian Newswire/ […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ May 14, 2013 Murdered Thousands, Convicted for Three: The Kermit Gosnell Verdict By Drew Belsky Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/murdered_thousands_convicted_for_three_the_kermit_gosnell_verdict.html#ixzz2TMstLk1c Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on FacebookPhiladelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was convicted […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ A Verdict Doesn’t End the Gosnell Story By: Chairman Reince Priebus (Diary) | May 13th, 2013 at 03:27 PM | 28 RESIZE: AAA The horrors that unfolded in the clinic of Dr. […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ All-American Horror Story: Top 10 Kermit Gosnell Trial Revelations by Kristan Hawkins | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 4/12/13 3:38 PM Since so many in the media have failed/refused to report on […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis _____________ Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News Published on May 13, 2013 Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News ________________ Hey Obama, Kermit Gosnell Is What a Real War on Women Looks Like […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ___ _____________ Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News Published on May 13, 2013 Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News ________________ Family Research Council Praises Jury for Bringing Justice to Victims of Abortionist […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ _____________ Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News Published on May 13, 2013 Tony Perkins: Gosnell Trial – FOX News ________________ Kermit Gosnell and the Logic of “Pro-Choice” by Matthew J. Franck within […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Fr. Pavone: Right to choose must yield to right to life STATEN ISLAND, NY — Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, had the following comment on the verdict in […]
Many in the world today are taking a long look at the abortion industry because of the May 14, 2013 guilty verdict and life term penalty handed down by a jury (which included 9 out of 12 pro-choice jurors) to Dr. Kermit Gosnell. During this time of reflection I wanted to put forth some of the […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ The truth of abortion … the hope for Gosnell’s repentance A conviction in the murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell has boosted the efforts of pro-lifers to demonstrate what abortion really […]
The Selfishness of Chris Evert Part 2 (Includes videos and Pictures) _________________________________ _____________________ _______________________ __________________________ Tennis – Wimbledon 1974 [ Official Film ] – 05/05 Published on May 1, 2012 John Newcombe, Ken Rosewall, Bjor Borg, Jimmy Connors, Cris Evert… ___________________ Jimmy Connors Reflects Published on May 13, 2013 Jimmy Connors visits “SportsCenter” to discuss his memoir, […]
The genius of Milton Friedman is that his economic insights are as powerful as they are timeless. Despite the fact that these comments were made more than thirty years ago in 1978 at the Mayo Clinic, they ring as true today as they did then. Milton Friedman’s six-part video series below on the economics of medical care is especially timely, in light of the fact that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Obamacare this week and Milton Friedman predicted in this lecture that increased government involvement in health care would lead inevitably to completely socialized medicine. This Mayo Clinic lecture is also a testament to Milton Friedman’s effectiveness at delivering the message of individual liberty and limited government in a convincing and non-threatening way, as Milton explains diplomatically to an audience of physicians how the “power of organized medicine” led to significant restrictions on entry to their profession through the American Medical Association’s control over occupational licensing for physicians, which has contributed to the rising costs of medical care.
Milton Friedman: “I’m going to talk today about the economics of medical care. This in an area, in which we all know there has been a trend toward ever-greater government involvement. One step in this area inevitably leads to another. We have had an expansion of government involvement in the spending of money – Medicare, Medicaid funds, expenditures by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare for other medical purposes have been growing by leaps and bounds. They have gone from a very tiny portion of the total national expenditures on medical care to a substantial portion. If this trend continues, it inevitably leads to completely socialized medicine. I believe that this trend is very much against the interest of patients, physicians, and other health care personnel. And in the brief time I have to today, I want to explain why I believe the trend is so much against their interest, why it has occurred, and what, if anything can be done about it.”
I have written about Obamacare over and over again on this blog. Dan Mitchell has shared many funny cartoons about Obamacare too. Milton Friedman has spoken out about government healthcare many times in the past and his film series FREE TO CHOOSE is on You Tube and I encourage you to watch it. It is clear that the federal government debt is growing so much that it is endangering us because if things keep going like they are now we will not have any money left for the national defense because we are so far in debt as a nation.
__________ Enzi statement on the Supreme Court’s King Vs. Burwell decision 5 Takeaways From Today’s Supreme Court Ruling on Obamacare Wicker Comments on King v Burwell Supreme Court Decision Senator Lankford Discusses the King v. Burwell Supreme Court Decision Congressman Steve King Response to SCOTUS King v. Burwell Ruling Obamacare and the Odious Anti-Constitutionalism of […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 718) (Emailed to White House on 6-25-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]
______ Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1 The Region – Banking and Policy Issues Magazine – Interview with Milton Friedman June 1992 In his new book, Money Mischief, economist Milton Friedman compares inflation to alcoholism; blames the rise of Chinese communism, in large part, on an […]
______ Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage Milton Friedman Interview Milton Friedman is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.Dr. Friedman received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Science. Member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 […]
________ Milton Friedman on Donahue – 1979 Uploaded on Aug 26, 2009 Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, promoting “Free to Choose” on the show Donahue. Walter E. Williams: Milton Friedman was an economist’s economist Print Font [+] [-] Leave a comment » By Walter E. Williams Published: Wednesday, Dec. 6 2006 12:00 a.m. MST Walter […]
_______ José Niño José Niño is a graduate student based in Santiago, Chile. A citizen of the world, he has lived in Venezuela, Colombia, and the United States. He is currently an international research analyst with the Acton Circle of Chile. Follow@JoseAlNino. 40 Years Later: Milton Friedman’s Legacy in Chile “Chilean Miracle” Struck a Blow […]
____ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income NOAH GORDON AUG 6, 2014 Creating a wage floor is an effective way to fight poverty—and it would reduce government spending and intrusion. Swiss backers of a minimum income spread out coins in Bern. Denis Balibouse/Reuters Last week, my […]
________________ Which Fed Bill Would Milton Friedman Have Liked? Posted on March 10, 2015by John Taylor Writing last week on the Cato at Liberty blog, Steve Hanke argued that Milton Friedman would have supported the “Audit the Fed” bill recently introduced in the Senate. Steve’s reasoning is based on Friedman’s 1962 essay “Should there be an […]
A great speech below: Here are the myths:Robber Baron Myth, The Cause of Great Depression Myth, The Demand for Government Service Myth, The Free Lunch Smith, and The Robin Hood Myth. 1) the Robber Baron Myth, 2) the Great Depression Myth, 3) the Demand for Government Service Myth, 4) the Free Lunch Myth, and 5) […]
_______________ FEATURED ARTICLE | SEPTEMBER 4, 2006 An Interview with Milton Friedman Milton Friedman* I recently sat down with Milton Friedman, a few days before his 94th birthday, to discuss the impact of two of his most important contributions to economics and liberty: A Monetary History of the United States, 1870-1960 [co-written] with Anna Schwartz, […]
Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 1of2 Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 2of2 The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits by Milton FriedmanThe New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970. Copyright @ 1970 by The New York Times Company. When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the […]
____________ Levin on Milton Friedman: ‘One Thing to Have Free Immigration to Jobs, Another for Welfare’ By Michael Morris | January 16, 2015 | 5:12 PM EST During his show on January 15, 2015, Nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin recalled the famed economist Milton Friedman and explored an important reason why open immigration, despite […]
The Beatles in their song BLACKBIRD were taking notice of the plight of the Blacks and their civil rights struggles in the USA in the 1960’s. The song reminds me of U2’s song PRIDE and Dion’s song ABRAHAM, MARTIN AND JOHN. Obviously Martin Luther King was the central leader of the Civil Rights Movement at this time and he was murdered in Memphis just 2 months before the song was recorded by the Beatles. Paul McCartney wrote this song because it was a subject that had to be addressed!!! No wonder in the video THE AGE OF NON-REASON Francis Schaeffer noted that the Beatles did a great job of expressing exactly what people at the time were thinking and feeling in their songs.
How Should We then Live Episode 7 small (Age of Nonreason)
HowShouldweThenLive Episode 6
The Beatles – Blackbird (official video)
U2 – Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Dion — Abraham, Martin and John — Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
The world view that the final reality is only material or energy shaped by pure chance, inevitably, (that’s the next word I would bring to you ) mathematically — with mathematical certainty — brings forth all these other results which are in our country and in our society which have led to the breakdown in the country — in society — and which are its present sorrows. So, if you hold this other world view, you must realize that it is inevitable that we will come to the very sorrows of relativity and all these other things that are so represented in our country at this moment of history.
It should be noticed that this new dominant world view is a view which is exactly opposite from that of the founding fathers of this country. Now, not all the founding fathers were individually, personally, Christians. That certainly is true. But, nevertheless, they founded the country on the base that there is a God who is the Creator (now I come to the next central phrase) who gave the inalienable rights.
We must understand something very thoroughly. If society — if the state gives the rights, it can take them away — they’re not inalienable. If the states give the rights, they can change them and manipulate them. But this was not the view of the founding fathers of this country. They believed, although not all of them were individual Christians, that there was a Creator and that this Creator gave the inalienable rights — this upon which our country was founded and which has given us the freedoms which we still have — even the freedoms which are being used now to destroy the freedoms.
The reason that these freedoms were there is because they believed there was somebody who gave the inalienable rights. But if we have the view that the final reality is material or energy which has existed forever in some form, we must understand that this view never, never, never would have given the rights which we now know and which, unhappily, I say to you (those of you who are Christians) that too often you take all too much for granted. You forget that the freedoms which we have in northern Europe after the Reformation (and the United States is an extension of that, as would be Australia or Canada, New Zealand, etc.) are absolutely unique in the world.
Paul McCartney wrote this about the civil rights struggle for blacks after reading about race riots in the US. He penned it in his kitchen in Scotland not long after Little Rock, when the federal courts forced the racial desegregation of the Arkansas capital’s school system. McCartney told Mojo magazine October 2008: “We were totally immersed in the whole saga which was unfolding. So I got the idea of using a blackbird as a symbol for a black person. It wasn’t necessarily a black ‘bird’, but it works that way, as much as then you called girls ‘birds’; the Everlys had had Bird Dog, so the word ‘bird’ was around. ‘Take these broken wings’ was very much in my mind, but it wasn’t exactly an ornithological ditty; it was purposely symbolic.”
They can’t take it from me if they try
I lived through those early days
So many times I had to change the pain to laughter
Just to keep from getting crazed
Dressed in black from head to toe
Two guitars across our backs
We would walk the city roads
Seeking someone who would listen to the music
That we were writing down at home
But they can’t take it from me if they try
I lived through those early days
So many times I had to change the pain to laughter
Just to keep from getting crazy
Hair slicked back with Vaseline
Like the pictures on the wall
Of the local record shop
Hearing noises we were destined to remember
We willed the thrill to never stop
May sweet memories of friends from the past
Always come to you, when you look for them
And your inspiration, long may it last
May it come to you, time and time again
Now everybody seems to have their own opinion
Who did this and who did that
But as for me I don’t see how they can remember
When they weren’t where it was at
And they can’t take it from me if they try
I lived through those early days
So many times I had to change the pain to laughter
Just to keep from getting crazed
I lived through those early days
I lived through those early days
McCartney explained on Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road, aired in 2005, that the guitar accompaniment for “Blackbird” was inspired by J.S. Bach‘s Bourrée in E minor, a well known lute piece, often played on the classical guitar.
The first night his future wife Linda Eastman stayed at his home, McCartney played “Blackbird” for the fans camped outside his house.[1]As teenagers, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bourrée as a “show off” piece. The Bourrée is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. McCartney adapted a segment of the Bourrée (reharmonised into the original’s relative major key of G) as the opening of “Blackbird”, and carried the musical idea throughout the song.
McCartney was inspired to write it while in Scotland as a reaction to racial tensions escalating in the United States in the spring of 1968.[2]
In May 2002, during a show at the Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas as part of the Driving USA Tour supporting the Driving Rain album, McCartney spoke on stage about the meaning of the song. KCRW DJ Chris Douridas interviewed McCartney backstage afterwards for his radio show New Ground, and the meaning of the song was discussed.[3] This interview aired on KCRW on 25 May 2002.
I had been doing poetry readings. I had been doing some in the last year or so because I’ve got a poetry book out called Blackbird Singing, and when I would read “Blackbird”, I would always try and think of some explanation to tell the people, ’cause there’s not a lot you can do except just read the poem, you know, you read 10 poems that takes about 10 minutes, almost. It’s like, you’ve got to, just, do a bit more than that. So, I was doing explanations, and I actually just remembered why I’d written “Blackbird”, you know, that I’d been, I was in Scotland playing on my guitar, and I remembered this whole idea of “you were only waiting for this moment to arise” was about, you know, the black people’s struggle in the southern states, and I was using the symbolism of a blackbird. It’s not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know, it’s a bit more symbolic.— Paul McCartney, Interview with KCRW’s Chris Douridas, 25 May 2002 episode of New Ground (17:50–19:00)
Also, before his solo acoustic guitar set during the Driving USA Tour, McCartney explained that “bird” is British slang for girl, making “blackbird” a synonym for ‘black girl’. Near the end of the song’s performance, a young black woman sang the lyrics, “You were only waiting for this moment to arrive, blackbird fly…”, after which the program faded to a commercial.
In 2009, McCartney performed this song at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, commenting prior to singing it on how it had been written in response to the 1960s Civil Rights movement, and added, “It’s so great to realise so many civil rights issues have been overcome.”[4]
The accompaniment consists of guitar, tapping, and birdsong overdub. The tapping “has been incorrectly identified as a metronome in the past”, according to engineer Geoff Emerick, who says it is actually the sound of Paul tapping his foot, which Emerick recalls as being mic’d up separately.[7] Footage included in the bonus content on disc two of the 2009 remaster of the album shows McCartney tapping both his feet alternately while performing the song.
The mono version contains bird sounds different from the stereo recording, and was originally issued on a mono incarnation of The Beatles (it has since been issued worldwide as part of The Beatles in Mono CD box set). The song appears on Love with “Yesterday“, billed as “Blackbird/Yesterday”. “Blackbird” provides an introduction to “Yesterday”.
“Blackbird” is, by one count, one of the top ten most recorded covers of all time.[8] The following artists have recorded “Blackbird” in a variety of styles (in alphabetical order):
The Dandy Warhols covered the song in July 2009 following the death of Michael Jackson, in an unintended ode to a line from the first and title track of their 2003 album Welcome to the Monkey House (“When Michael Jackson dies, we’re coverin’ ‘Blackbird'”).[9] The line was thought to partially reference Jackson’s ownership of the Beatles’ back catalogue of songs[10] when he bought Associated Television (ATV), which had previously acquired Northern Songs, in the mid-1980s.
Sarah Darling covered the song in 2012 for the album Let Us In: Nashville – A Tribute to Linda McCartney, and it was released as a single. Darling’s version was later featured in the 200th episode of Criminal Minds.
In 2011, Alicia Keys, music video (Piano & I: A One Night Only Event With Alicia Keys).
Dave Matthews covered the song in three performances during 2005 (2005-08-21, 2005-08-31, 2005-09-10). The third recording was released in his Weekend on the Rocks live album set. It was also played as an outro on 2005-8-20 and used in sound checks a few times prior.
1999 Interview of photographer Richard Avedon by Charlie Rose. The first half of this episode of The Charlie Rose Show is an interview with photographer Annie Leibovitz here: http://bit.ly/1llyFo4
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These first few people were on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s:
This shot of Ringo as Nero was taken by Richard Avedon on 29 January and used as illustration for a Daily Mail article titlled ‘Hail, Ringo’. The pic was taken at Thomson House where Avedon later took his iconic image of the four Beatles on 11 August 1967 (used for the psychedelic Daily Express posters in 1968 and, of course, on the Love Songs album. The Beatles also came to thomson House to start the Mad Day out photo shoot on 28 July 1968. BTW, Thomson House is now the headquarters of the ITV media empire.
Let’s kick off Once and For All February with a subject that hits on a large segment of the Hall’s demographic, involving a favorite band, Rock Superpowers, and the all-important issues of Look. Let’s determine—once and for all—The Beatles’ Coolest Collective Look.
The nominees and the RTH People’s Poll follow…after the jump!
Collarless Suits. What’s more classic, more Beatle-esque than the original collarless suits? Next to the moptop hairdos (and the music, of course), those suits are most responsible for putting the band on the map.
Sgt. Pepper’s. What’s more classic, more Beatle-esque than the moustachioed Sgt. Pepper’s Look? Any Beatles tribute band performance builds to a crescendo once the vaguely Beatles-looking members come back from a brief intermission in their colorful silk military suits and glue-on moustaches.
Rooftop Concert. The rooftop performance Look is heavy, man. Hair is blowing in the wind. Facial hair is in need of that snazzy electric razor favored by Adrien Brody, André 3000, and the Spanish guy from that overlooked gem of a movie The Science of Sleep. To top it off, they’re wearing a mish-mash of women’s fur coats, raincoats, green jeans, and proto-hipster sneaks!
Stoned Soul Picnic. The Rubber Soul album cover photo shoot caught the band on a day when they probably needed a haircut, but someone must have watched the weather report and realized that low humidity would allow for one more day of stoned shagginess.
Richard Avedon glossies. Fashion photographer Richard Avedon’s White Album glossies capture a unique perspective on the boys: they are both immersed in their hippie-dom yet cleaned up and glammed up just enough to show their original guise as the fresh-faced lads they had been just a few years earlier.
Runners up (not eligible): Leonine (ie, when all 4 Beatles were bearded, which I don’t believe was ever captured on camera simultaneously); Walrus/Eggman costumes; Beatles Dress Up Like The Band (ie, Beatles Again album cover)…
American photographer Richard Avedon was best known for his work in the fashion world and for his minimalist, large-scale character-revealing portraits.
American photographer Richard Avedon was best known for his work in the fashion world and for his minimalist portraits. He worked first as a photographer for the Merchant Marines, taking identification photos. He then moved to fashion, shooting for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, demanding that his models convey emotion and movement, a departure from the norm of motionless fashion photography.
Profile
Richard Avedon was born on May 15, 1923 in New York City. His mother, Anna Avedon, came from a family of dress manufacturers, and his father, Jacob Israel Avedon, owned a clothing store called Avedon’s Fifth Avenue. Inspired by his parents’ clothing businesses, as a boy Avedon took a great interest in fashion, especially enjoying photographing the clothes in his father’s store. At the age of 12, he joined the YMHA (Young Men’s Hebrew Association) Camera Club.
Avedon later described one childhood moment in particular as helping to kindle his interest in fashion photography: “One evening my father and I were walking down Fifth Avenue looking at the store windows,” he remembered. “In front of the Plaza Hotel, I saw a bald man with a camera posing a very beautiful woman against a tree. He lifted his head, adjusted her dress a little bit and took some photographs. Later, I saw the picture in Harper’s Bazaar. I didn’t understand why he’d taken her against that tree until I got to Paris a few years later: the tree in front of the Plaza had that same peeling bark you see all over the Champs-Elysees.”
Avedon attended DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City, where one of his classmates and closest friends was the great writer James Baldwin. In addition to his continued interest in fashion and photography, in high school Avedon also developed an affinity for poetry. He and Baldwin served as co-editors of the school’s prestigious literary magazine, The Magpie, and during his senior year, in 1941, Avedon was named “Poet Laureate of New York City High Schools.” After high school, Avedon enrolled at Columbia University to study philosophy and poetry. However, he dropped out after only one year to serve in the United States Merchant Marine during World War II. As a Photographer’s Mate Second Class, his main duty was taking identification portraits of sailors. Avedon served in the Merchant Marine for two years, from 1942 to 1944.
Upon leaving the Merchant Marine in 1944, Avedon attended the New School for Social Research in New York City to study photography under Alexey Brodovitch, the acclaimed art director of Harper’s Bazaar. Avedon and Brodovitch formed a close bond, and within one year Avedon was hired as a staff photographer for the magazine. After several years photographing daily life in New York City, Avedon was assigned to cover the spring and fall fashion collections in Paris. While legendary editor Carmel Snow covered the runway shows, Avedon’s task was to stage photographs of models wearing the new fashions out in the city itself. Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s he created elegant black-and-white photographs showcasing the latest fashions in real-life settings such as Paris’s picturesque cafes, cabarets and streetcars.
Already established as one of the most talented young fashion photographers in the business, in 1955 Avedon made fashion and photography history when he staged a photo shoot at a circus. The iconic photograph of that shoot, “Dovima with Elephants,” features the most famous model of the time in a black Dior evening gown with a long white silk sash. She is posed between two elephants, her back serenely arched as she holds on to the trunk of one elephant while reaching out fondly toward the other. The image remains one of the most strikingly original and iconic fashion photographs of all time. “He asked me to do extraordinary things,” Dovima said of Avedon. “But I always knew I was going to be part of a great picture.”
Avedon served as a staff photographer for Harper’s Bazaar for 20 years, from 1945 to 1965. In addition to his fashion photography, he was also well known for his portraiture. His black-and-white portraits were remarkable for capturing the essential humanity and vulnerability lurking in such larger-than-life figures as President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan and The Beatles. During the 1960s, Avedon also expanded into more explicitly political photography. He did portraits of civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Julian Bond, as well as segregationists such as Alabama Governor George Wallace, and ordinary people involved in demonstrations. In 1969, he shot a series of Vietnam War portraits that included the Chicago Seven, American soldiers and Vietnamese napalm victims.
Avedon left Harper’s Bazaar in 1965, and from 1966 to 1990 he worked as a photographer for Vogue, its chief rival among American fashion magazines. He continued to push the boundaries of fashion photography with surreal, provocative and often controversial pictures in which nudity, violence and death featured prominently. He also continued to take illuminating portraits of leading cultural and political figures, ranging from Stephen Sondheim and Toni Morrison to Hillary Clinton. In addition to his work for Vogue, Avedon was also a driving force behind photography’s emergence as a legitimate art form during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. In 1959 he published a book of photographs, Observations, featuring commentary by Truman Capote, and in 1964 he published Nothing Personal, another collection of photographs, with an essay by his old friend James Baldwin.
In 1974 Avedon’s photographs of his terminally ill father were featured at the Museum of Modern Art, and the next year a selection of his portraits was displayed at the Marlborough Gallery. In 1977, a retrospective collection of his photographs, “Richard Avedon: Photographs 1947-1977,” was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before beginning an international tour of many of the world’s most famous museums. As one of the first self-consciously artistic commercial photographers, Avedon played a large role in defining the artistic purpose and possibilities of the genre. “The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion,” he once said. “There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”
Richard Avedon married a model named Dorcas Nowell in 1944, and they remained married for six years before parting ways in 1950. In 1951, he married a woman named Evelyn Franklin; they had one son, John, before they also divorced.
In 1992, Avedon became the first staff photographer in the history of The New Yorker. “I’ve photographed just about everyone in the world,” he said at the time. “But what I hope to do is photograph people of accomplishment, not celebrity, and help define the difference once again.” His last project for The New Yorker, which remained unfinished, was a portfolio entitled “Democracy” that included portraits of political leaders such as Karl Rove and John Kerry as well as ordinary citizens engaged in political and social activism.
Richard Avedon passed away on October 1, 2004, while on assignment forThe New Yorker in San Antonio, Texas. He was 81 years old.
One of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, Richard Avedon expanded the genre of photography with his surreal and provocative fashion photography as well as portraits that bared the souls of some of the most important and opaque figures in the world. Avedon was such a predominant cultural force that he inspired the classic 1957 film Funny Face, in which Fred Astaire’s character is based on Avedon’s life. While much has been and continues to be written about Avedon, he always believed that the story of his life was best told through his photographs. Avedon said, “Sometimes I think all my pictures are just pictures of me. My concern is… the human predicament; only what I consider the human predicament may simply be my own.”
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Groucho Marx by Richard Avedon
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Buster Keaton, comedian, New York, September 1952. Photo Richard Avedon
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Dwight-EistenhowerRichard Avedon Foundation. Eli Reed. ‘Tupac Shakur’ 1992 (printed 2013)Richard Avedon. Charlie Chaplin Leaving America. NYC, September 13 1952___________
Good luck keeping your $#!% together when you walk into a room and see Jackie O., Malcolm X, Elizabeth Taylor, Tina Turner, Truman Capote, Janis Joplin, Katharine Hepburn, and Andy Warhol all in the same place. Perhaps one of the most striking photography exhibitions in modern history, the SF MoMA’s Richard Avedon retrospective in 2009 was the first comprehensive retrospective of the American photographer since his death in 2004. Titled “Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004,” the exhibit focused purely on Avedon’s black and white photographs spanning his fifty+ year career, from pieces that graced the pages of Vogue to a portrait series of rural, Midwestern farm hands, carneys and beekeepers.
Born to a Russian Jewish family in New York City in 1923, Avedon began his career in his 20s in commercial and fashion photography, producing shots for Harper’s Bazaar, and soon after for Vogue and Life Magazine.
Funny Face – trailer (1956) AUDREY HEPBURN
Though he began his career in fashion photography, as he became a more established artist his interests meandered to the movers and shakers of the American political and social scene. Many of Avedon’s iconic photos depict some of the most famous models, actresses and actors, politicians, writers and artists in modern history. In most cases, however, Avedon tried to capture a version of each person that is stripped of the Hollywood or political branding and bravado, instead aiming to represent basic human emotions and relatable expressions.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of the work reproduced below was originally produced on a larger-than-life scale, some reaching 8 by 10 feet or larger.
Even if you had no idea who these people were or what they did for a living, each portrait could give you a pretty good idea based on how Avedon chose to represent them. The combination of the simple background with the close-up details and epic proportions of each photograph force your eyes to focus sharply on each facial expression and body movement; You notice the wrinkles around the lips of the trumpeter, the musician’s easy posture, a wife’s admirative stare, the grin and outstretched hand of a budding politician.
“He was trying to cut to the heart of the matter…to understand what people’s lives were really like under force of pressure. His work, in a way, strips away the masks that we all wear, and in doing so reveals a kind of deeper humanity. I think that when photographers today, or artists or writers or the public at large, look at his photographs, that this is what they’ll really be able to take away from the work: this penetrating of the masks that we all wear in order to hide ourselves.” -Paul Roth, curator of Photography at Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C.
Famous for saying, “All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”, Avedon understood that photography is an art of collaboration between a photographer and his subject, with push and pull, give and take from each. He enjoyed using stories to evoke specific reactions from his subjects and to play with their emotions, allowing him to capture the expressions he wanted to show.
Take, for example, his photo shoot with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Here is a photo of the duo taken in the Bahamas by the The Vancouver Sun in 1940 (not by Avedon):
Infamous for abdicating the throne to marry the woman he loved, Edward VIII was given the title Duke of Windsor, and his new wife Wallis Simpson became the Duchess of Windsor upon their marriage in the 1930s. Wallis was an American socialite with two living ex-husbands (the second divorce was not finalized when she met Edward VIII)–hardly a suitable companion for a British monarch. In addition to the initial political uproar that their romance caused in Britain, during the Second World War the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were also suspected by many to be Nazi sympathizers.
Avedon knew that these political and socialite subjects were no strangers to being photographed, and that they were likely expecting a classic “stock photo shoot.” As they sat down in front of the camera, and with the knowledge that they were avid Pug lovers, Avedon told them that on his way to meet them that day, his taxi had run over and killed a dog.
The following expression ensued:
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Waldorf Astoria, Suite 28A, New York, April 16, 1957
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Avedon’s focus shifted from celebrity portraits to documenting “working class” Americans. He created a series, eventually published into an exhibition catalogue, called “In the American West: 1979-1984.”
Avedon himself said, during his transition from celebrity and fashion photographer to “staff photographer” (ha!) at U.S.A. Today:
“I’ve photographed just about everyone in the world…but what I hope to do is photograph people of accomplishment, not celebrity, and help define the difference once again.”
In lieu of me posting a million (or two) additional mesmerizing Avedon portraits, check out The Richard Avedon Foundation’s website, which keeps his artwork and legacy alive in truly stunning photo displays, as well as in arts institutions worldwide.
This is the portrait of three different generations of men from the same family, each of them moving through life at different speed and in different direction, immobilized for a fraction of a second within the same frame.
From left to right: John Avedon, Jacob Israel Avedon (died in 1973) and Richard Avedon (died in 2004). The complete series of photos Richard Avedon took of his father can be found online at The Richard Avedon Foundation website.
palonka: photo of Coco Chanel by Richard Avedon via Accro de la Mode
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PATTI HANSEN aka Ms KEITH RICHARDS – Richard Avedon (1977) (Via superseventies)George Bush below:Henri Cartier-Bresson – Photographer Richard Avedon, Carmel Snow and Marie-Louise Bousquet, Paris 1951
Legendary American fashion photographer Richard Avedon who revolutionized the industry during his 60-year-long career (until his death in 2004) has taken tens upon thousands of the most well-done and well-known photographs. He is also famous for saying, “Think about the dream of Paris that everyone has. I helped invent that dream.” To honor this icon, theBoston Museum of Fine Arts is hosting a traveling exhibition of Avedon’s works entitled Avedon Fashion 1944-2000 which runs through January 17 2011.
Andy Warhol, Jay Johnson and Candy Darling, New York, August 20, 1969
Audrey Hepburn, evening wear by Balmain, Dior, Patou, at Maxim’s, Paris, 1957
Born in New York City in the 1920s, Richard Avedon was fascinated since childhood by the art of photography, and the power that it has to portray clothes and women. He realized this as he grew up watching his father’s business (a women’s clothing store). Dropping out of Columbia University, Avedon began his career as a photographer for the Merchant Marines in 1942, followed by shooting advertisements for a department store. He soon caught the eye of Harper’s Bazaar’s creative director, eventually leading him to occupy the role of chief photographer for the magazine. During this time, Avedon opened up his own studio and began working on assignments for US Vogue and Life magazine.
Dorian Leigh, evening dress by Piguet, Paris, August 1949
Marilyn Monroe, New York City, May 6, 1957
Dovima with elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, 1955
In 1966, Avedon followed famous editor Diana Vreeland when she left Harper’s Bazaar for Vogue; he subsequently became the staff photographer at Vogue until Anna Wintour‘s entry in 1988. He was also the star photographer year after year for the Gianni Versace label circa the 1980s. Numerous 1990s supermodels such as Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Stephanie Seymour and Cindy Crawford were featured in his photos. These images are now considered precious collectibles.
Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista & Paulina Porizkova for Gianni Versace, 1988
Christy Turlington & Linda Evangelista for Gianni Versace, 1987
Karen Elson for Versace Couture, 1997
At a time, when fashion photographers followed de rigeur of asking models to remain still and emotionless in order to emphasize the clothes, Avedon went against the grain, asking models to jump, laugh, run down the street and wear rollerblades. He is said to have been able to animate the clothes via the model unlike any other photographer.
Model Carmen, coat by Cardin, Paris, August 1957
Richard Avedon with Twiggy in the 1960s
Stephanie Seymour, dress by Chanel, Paris, 1995
Richard Avedon was not only responsible for animating designers’ creations, but his photos of Paris can be said to hold testament to his self-proclaimed statement regarding the invention of the dreamy vision of Paris that exists today. As he frequented Paris in the latter half of the 1940s on Harper’s Bazaar assignments, Avedon began taking multiple series of photos of bleak Post-World War II Paris. However instead of showing a disheartened, gray city, he showed models skipping on the sidewalks, showing a real sense of joie de vivre.
Models Elise & Monique, hats by Schiaparelli, Cafe de Flore, Paris, August 1948
Suzy Parker & Robin Tattersall, evening dress by Grès, Moulin Rouge, Paris, 1957
Christian Bérard & Renée, suit by Dior, Le Marais, Paris, 1947
He found a way to take designers’ creations, be it Dior or Balenciaga, depict a woman wearing these clothes with sophistication, and then involve her with an element of the city, be it at the Moulin Rouge, or watching street performers in the Marais or outside the many cafes that line the Parisian sidewalks.
Kate Moss, May 1998
John Galliano, December 1999
Although Avedon did take non-fashion photographs as well, the Avedon Fashion exhibition explores only one aspect of his multi-faceted talent. The exhibition runs at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts until January 17, 2011.
Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 – October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that “his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America’s image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century”.[1]
In 1944, Avedon married 19-year-old bank teller Dorcas Marie Nowell who later became the model and actress Doe Avedon; they did not have children and divorced in 1949.[27] In 1951, he married Evelyn Franklin; she died on March 13, 2004.[28] Their marriage produced one son, John Avedon, who has written extensively about Tibet.[29][30][31][32]
In 1970, Avedon purchased a former carriage house on the Upper East Side that would serve as both his studio and his apartment.[33] In the late 1970s, he purchased a four-bedroom house on a 7.5-acre (3.0 ha) estate in Montauk, nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and a nature preserve; in 1998, he put the place on the market for $10 million and sold it for almost $9 million in 2000.[32][34]
The Richard Avedon Foundation is a private operating foundation, structured by Avedon during his lifetime. It began its work shortly after his death in 2004. Based in New York, the foundation is the repository for Avedon’s photographs, negatives, publications, papers, and archival materials.[35] In 2006, Avedon’s personal collection was shown at the Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, and at the Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and later sold to benefit the Avedon Foundation. The collection included photographs by Martin Munkacsi, Edward Steichen and Man Ray, among others. A slender volume, Eye of the Beholder: Photographs From the Collection of Richard Avedon (Fraenkel Gallery), assembles the majority of the collection in a boxed set of five booklets: “Diane Arbus,” “Peter Hujar”, “Irving Penn”, “The Countess de Castiglione” and “Etcetera,” which includes 19th- and 20th-century photographers.[36]
Hollywood presented a fictional account of his early career in the 1957 musical Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire as the fashion photographer “Dick Avery.” Avedon supplied some of the still photographs used in the production, including its most famous single image: an intentionally overexposed close-up of Audrey Hepburn‘s face in which only her famous features – her eyes, her eyebrows, and her mouth – are visible.
Hepburn was Avedon’s muse in the 1950s and 1960s, and he went so far as to say: “I am, and forever will be, devastated by the gift of Audrey Hepburn before my camera. I cannot lift her to greater heights. She is already there. I can only record. I cannot interpret her. There is no going further than who she is. She has achieved in herself her ultimate portrait.”[37]
Merce Cunningham, choreographer, New York, February 17, 1993
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Arnold Schwarzenegger, actor, Republican candidate for Governor of California, New York, June
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Truman Capote
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Richard Avedon with Francis Bacon
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Willem de Kooning
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Ronald Reagan
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Patti Smith
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Janis Joplin
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John and Jackie Kennedy
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Andy Warhol and Group
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Francis Schaeffer’s favorite album was SGT. PEPPER”S and he said of the album “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” (at the 14 minute point in episode 7 of HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? )
How Should We Then Live – Episode Seven – 07 – Portuguese Subtitles
“Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings…” Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984). We take a look today at how the Beatles were featured in Schaeffer’s film. How Should We then Live Episode 7 small On You Tube […]
I really got a lot out of this article from the Cato Institute concerning Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech.” The Constitutional Foundations of Martin Luther King’s Dream By David Azerrad January 14, 2011 Nearly 50 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered one of the greatest speeches in American history. Standing […]
Why do liberals ignore these core principles that Martin Luther King Jr believed in? Martin Luther King’s Conservative Principles Matt Spalding January 15, 2012 at 9:00 am Martin Luther King Day has arrived once again, and like clockwork, liberals are invoking King’s name to support their causes. In an e-mail to activists, Obama’s former “green […]
Libertarian Jonathan Martin on Francis Schaeffer Episode 8: The Age Of Fragmentation Published on Jul 24, 2012 Dr. Schaeffer’s sweeping epic on the rise and decline of Western thought and Culture How Should We Then Live Episode 9: The Age Of Personal Peace & Affluence _______________________ I love the works of Francis Schaeffer and I […]
These are some of the most popular posts in the last 30 days about the spiritual quest of Chris Martin of Coldplay that can be found on http://www.thedailyhatch.org: Chris Martin of Coldplay unknowingly lives out his childhood Christian beliefs (Part 3 of notes from June 23, 2012 Dallas Coldplay Concert, Martin left Christianity because of […]
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many […]
Anti Abortion Pro-Life Training Video by Scott Klusendorf Part 1 of 4 Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices […]
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many […]
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many […]
The Selfishness of Chris Evert Part 3 (Includes videos and Pictures) ___________________ SportsCentury Chris Evert Part 1 SportsCentury Chris Evert Part 2 Chicago 1982 Michelob – Connors vs McEnroe flare-up In 1984 I traveled to Memphis and watched Jimmy Connors win the United States National Indoor tennis championships. I had been a big tennis fan […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ The truth of abortion … the hope for Gosnell’s repentance A conviction in the murder trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell has boosted the efforts of pro-lifers to demonstrate what abortion really […]
I have written about Obamacare over and over again on this blog. Dan Mitchell has shared many funny cartoons about Obamacare too. Milton Friedman has spoken out about government healthcare many times in the past and his film series FREE TO CHOOSE is on You Tube and I encourage you to watch it. It is clear that the federal government debt is growing so much that it is endangering us because if things keep going like they are now we will not have any money left for the national defense because we are so far in debt as a nation.
“Deplorable, deeply regressive, a sign of the corporatization of the university.” That’s what Harvard Classics professor Richard F. Thomas calls the changes in Harvard’s health plan, which have a large number of the faculty up in arms.
Are Harvard professors being forced onto Medicaid? Has their employer denied coverage for cancer treatment? Do they need to sign a corporate loyalty oath in order to access health insurance? Not exactly. But copayments are being raised and deductibles altered, making their plan … well, actually, their plan is still extraordinarily generous by any standard:
The university is adopting standard features of most employer-sponsored health plans: Employees will now pay deductibles and a share of the costs, known as coinsurance, for hospitalization, surgery and certain advanced diagnostic tests. The plan has an annual deductible of $250 per individual and $750 for a family. For a doctor’s office visit, the charge is $20. For most other services, patients will pay 10 percent of the cost until they reach the out-of-pocket limit of $1,500 for an individual and $4,500 for a family.
The deepest irony is, of course, that Harvard professors helped to design Obamacare. And Obamacare is the reason that these changes are probably necessary.
The culprit is the “Cadillac Tax,” the hefty excise tax on high-cost plans. The purpose of that tax is to hold down health-care costs, by making it much more expensive for employers to offer the kind of gold-plated benefit plans that shield consumers from virtually all the costs of their health-care decisions.
The economic logic is impeccable. Milton Friedman famously divided spending into four kinds, which P.J. O’Rourke once summarized as follows:
1. You spend your money on yourself. You’re motivated to get the thing you want most at the best price. This is the way middle-aged men haggle with Porsche dealers.
2. You spend your money on other people. You still want a bargain, but you’re less interested in pleasing the recipient of your largesse. This is why children get underwear at Christmas.
3. You spend other people’s money on yourself. You get what you want but price no longer matters. The second wives who ride around with the middle-aged men in the Porsches do this kind of spending at Neiman Marcus.
4. You spend other people’s money on other people. And in this case, who gives a [damn]?
Most health-care spending in the U.S. falls into category three. In theory, the people who are funding our expenses–the proverbial middle-aged men in Porsches, except that they’re actually insurance executives and government bureaucrats–have every incentive to step in, cut up the charge cards, and substitute a gift-wrapped box of Hanes briefs with the comfort-soft waistband. In practice, legislators frequently intervene to stop them from exercising much cost-control. The managed care revolution of the 1990s died when patients complained to their representatives, and the representatives ran down to their offices to pass laws making it very hard to deny coverage for anything anyone wanted. Medicare cost-controls, such as the famed Sustainable Growth Rate, fell prey to similar maneuvers. The only system that exhibits sustained cost control is Medicaid, because poor people don’t vote, or exit the system for better insurance.
The result is a system where everyone complains that we spend much too much on health care–and the very same people get indignant if anyone suggests that they, personally, should maybe spend a little bit less. Everyone wants to go to heaven–but nobody wants to die.
Unfortunately, this is what cost-control actually looks like, which is to say, like people not being able to spend as much on health care. Oh, to be sure, we could achieve this end differently–instead of asking patients to pay a modest share of their own costs (the article suggests that this amount is less than 10 percent, in the case of Harvard professors)–we could simply set a schedule of covered treatment, and deny patients access to off-schedule treatments, or even better, not even tell them that those treatments exist. But people don’t like that solution either, which is why medical dramas are filled with rants about insurers who won’t cover procedures, and the law books are filled with regulations that sharply curtail the ability of insurers to ration care. And the third option, refusing to pay top-dollar for care, would be a bit tricky for Harvard to implement, given that they run exactly the sort of high-cost research facilities that help drive health-care costs skyward. Nor do I really think that the angry professors would be mollified by being given a cheap insurance package that wouldn’t let them go see the top-flight specialists their elite status now entitles them to access.
Instead, they persist in our mass delusion: that there is some magic pot of money in the health-care system, which can be painlessly tapped to provide universal coverage without dislocating any of the generous arrangements that insured people currently enjoy. Just as there are no leprechauns, there is no free money at the end of the rainbow; there are patients demanding services, and health-care workers making comfortable livings, who have built their financial lives around the expectation that those incomes will continue. Until we shed this delusion, you can expect a lot of ranting and raving about the hard truths of the real world.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg View’s editorial board or Bloomberg LP, its owners and investors.
__________ Enzi statement on the Supreme Court’s King Vs. Burwell decision 5 Takeaways From Today’s Supreme Court Ruling on Obamacare Wicker Comments on King v Burwell Supreme Court Decision Senator Lankford Discusses the King v. Burwell Supreme Court Decision Congressman Steve King Response to SCOTUS King v. Burwell Ruling Obamacare and the Odious Anti-Constitutionalism of […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 718) (Emailed to White House on 6-25-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]
______ Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1 The Region – Banking and Policy Issues Magazine – Interview with Milton Friedman June 1992 In his new book, Money Mischief, economist Milton Friedman compares inflation to alcoholism; blames the rise of Chinese communism, in large part, on an […]
______ Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage Milton Friedman Interview Milton Friedman is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.Dr. Friedman received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Science. Member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 […]
________ Milton Friedman on Donahue – 1979 Uploaded on Aug 26, 2009 Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, promoting “Free to Choose” on the show Donahue. Walter E. Williams: Milton Friedman was an economist’s economist Print Font [+] [-] Leave a comment » By Walter E. Williams Published: Wednesday, Dec. 6 2006 12:00 a.m. MST Walter […]
_______ José Niño José Niño is a graduate student based in Santiago, Chile. A citizen of the world, he has lived in Venezuela, Colombia, and the United States. He is currently an international research analyst with the Acton Circle of Chile. Follow@JoseAlNino. 40 Years Later: Milton Friedman’s Legacy in Chile “Chilean Miracle” Struck a Blow […]
____ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income NOAH GORDON AUG 6, 2014 Creating a wage floor is an effective way to fight poverty—and it would reduce government spending and intrusion. Swiss backers of a minimum income spread out coins in Bern. Denis Balibouse/Reuters Last week, my […]
________________ Which Fed Bill Would Milton Friedman Have Liked? Posted on March 10, 2015by John Taylor Writing last week on the Cato at Liberty blog, Steve Hanke argued that Milton Friedman would have supported the “Audit the Fed” bill recently introduced in the Senate. Steve’s reasoning is based on Friedman’s 1962 essay “Should there be an […]
A great speech below: Here are the myths:Robber Baron Myth, The Cause of Great Depression Myth, The Demand for Government Service Myth, The Free Lunch Smith, and The Robin Hood Myth. 1) the Robber Baron Myth, 2) the Great Depression Myth, 3) the Demand for Government Service Myth, 4) the Free Lunch Myth, and 5) […]
_______________ FEATURED ARTICLE | SEPTEMBER 4, 2006 An Interview with Milton Friedman Milton Friedman* I recently sat down with Milton Friedman, a few days before his 94th birthday, to discuss the impact of two of his most important contributions to economics and liberty: A Monetary History of the United States, 1870-1960 [co-written] with Anna Schwartz, […]
Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 1of2 Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 2of2 The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits by Milton FriedmanThe New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970. Copyright @ 1970 by The New York Times Company. When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the […]
____________ Levin on Milton Friedman: ‘One Thing to Have Free Immigration to Jobs, Another for Welfare’ By Michael Morris | January 16, 2015 | 5:12 PM EST During his show on January 15, 2015, Nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin recalled the famed economist Milton Friedman and explored an important reason why open immigration, despite […]
Mark Richt appeared in the movie “Facing the Giants”
November 30, 2015
Greg McGarity, Athletic Director, University of Georgia
Dear Mr McGarity,
I know that you are in a tough position now since you are trying to get a football coach that can win more than all the other coaches in the country currently. Personally I think you have set the bar too high. You had a coach that is #5 on the list of coaches with the best winning % now but that was not good enough for you.
I remember when LSU went around and collected millions to buy out Les and then the leadership of the university discovered how many Tiger fans loved Les because of his 110 wins in a 11 year period!!! Then the administration backed off.
Richt’s dismissal represented a rarity in that he was let go less than 24 hours after completing a 9-3 season. It also came after winning 49 games in the last five years (9.8 per season), after winning a higher percentage of games (.740) than any coach in modern school history, while sitting fifth in the nation among winningest active coaches and while being one of only four men in NCAA Division I history to record 135 or more wins in his first 14 seasons.
Let me put another fact out there. In January of 2013 Bama beat Nortre Dame 42-14 FOR THE NATIONAL TITLE and just one game earlier that same season Georgia had a first down at the Bama 10 Yard Line with time running out and barely missed an opportunity to represent the SEC in that national title game. IN OTHER WORDS, YOU HAD A COACH THAT WAS COACHING AT A VERY HIGH LEVEL!!! Why did you fire him?
I just wonder why the upper tier of the SEC coaches are getting fired?
Let’s go back to LSU again. They went 13-1 and beat Bama earlier in that same year on the road but lost to Bama in national title game.
Let’s add Auburn to mix. Their coach wins national title with Cam Newton and then is fired a couple of years later.
What is Sabin to make of this? His toughest competition: GA, AUB and LSU all attempt to fire their coaches because their teams are not good enough!!!
Ironic!!!! It’s the world turned upside down. That is not mentioning the fact that Tommy T actually had a winning record over Bama!!!
Thanks for your time and I wish Georgia continued success in the future but only at a lower level. Maybe you can drop from 74% to 72% since Vince Dooley won at that rate and he was able to remain the head coach for 25 years and by the way he was the best speaker we ever had the Little Rock Touchdown Club!!!!
I went to 12 of the Little Rock Touchdown Club Lunches this year and I enjoyed George Schroeder’s talk the most!!! Coach Kevin Kelley (L) of the Pulaski Academy and USA Today writer Goerge Schroeder FWAA president George Schroeder presents the Grantland Rice Trophy to Florida coach Urban Meyer. (Photo: Alex Gort/Orange Bowl) Little Rock […]
______ Tony Bua told some funny stories at LITTLE ROCK TOUCHDOWN CLUB!!!! Little Rock Touchdown Club – November 16, 2015 Tony Bua is shown in this photo. Bua definitely enjoyed his ride with Razorbacks Share on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services0 By Jeremy Muck This article was published November 17, 2015 at 3:28 a.m. […]
______ Brown: It takes a different kind of coach at Texas Share on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services0 By Jeremy Muck This article was published today at 3:14 a.m. Being the head football coach at the University of Texas is no small task. Ask Mack Brown, who was in charge of the Longhorns’ football program […]
_________ Cowboys VP: Don’t be surprised if we change quarterbacks <p>Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones</p> By SportsDayDFW.com Follow @SportsDayDFW websports@dallasnews.com Staff Published: 12 October 2015 05:33 PM Updated: 12 October 2015 10:46 PM Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones spoke at the Little Rock Touchdown Club on Monday. Some highlights via @LRTouchdownClub and â@chase_shannon : On […]
___________ Jones: Cowboys studying options Share on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services1 By Jeremy Muck This article was published today at 3:03 a.m. PHOTO BY MELISSA GERRITS Dallas Cowboys COO Stephen Jones reacts to comments by Rex Nelson before addressing the Little Rock Touchdown Club October 12, 2015 at Embassy Suites. Comments aAFont Size It […]
___________ Stephen Jones did a great job at the Little Rock Touchdown Club today and he told a lot of stories about his dad and Father Tribou of Catholic High of Little Rock. Little Rock Touchdown Club – October 12, 2015 Streamed live on Oct 12, 2015 Stephen Jones speaks to the Touchdown Club _______________ […]
___________ Jay Barker mentioned his wife Sara Evans several times in his talk at Little Rock Touchdown Club so I have included some of her musical videos and more about their relationship below. Little Rock Touchdown Club – October 5, 2015 Streamed live on Oct 5, 2015 Jay Barker speaks to the Touchdown Club _____________________ […]
______________ Jay Barker said that coach Gene Stallings emphasized the THIRD WEEKEND IN OCTOBER series with the Vols when he was the coach at Bama and sure enough those 4 games that Barker started in came down to the wire. Bama tying in 93 and winning the other 3. In 91 Bama won over #8 […]
Jay Barker explained at the Little Rock Touchdown Club what the word CHAMPIONS meant to him and it all started with being Christ-centered and that is the “C” in CHAMPIONS. Barker warned against being self-centered or morality-centered. Little Rock Touchdown Club – October 5, 2015 Streamed live on Oct 5, 2015 Jay Barker speaks to […]
Jay Barker said Sabin will motivate Bama players by saying, “Hogs went into Knoxville and knocked off Vols and now they believe they can come in here and knock us off too!!!!” Little Rock trip not first for Barker By Jeremy Muck This article was published today at 3:11 a.m. Comments aAFont Size PHOTO BY […]
SOMEWHERE HIGH ABOVE Mississippi, the super agent some call the most powerful man in college football is simultaneously clutching his knee with his left hand and an armrest with his right. His eyes are tightly closed.
Jimmy Sexton is riding in a King Air 200, which bounces like a yo-yo through heavy turbulence from a slow-moving thunderstorm. He opens his eyes and shouts at the two pilots in the cockpit.
“Hey, guys, is it going to be like this [the] whole way?” Sexton asks them.
“We hope not,” one of them says. “We’re trying to climb higher to get above it.”
“How long have we been in the air?” Sexton asks out loud to no one in particular.
It had been only 14 minutes.
“Great,” Sexton says. “This is going to be great for your story. The guy whocontrols everything is freaking out at 18,000 feet.”
Indeed, the short flight from Oxford, Mississippi, to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in the late afternoon on Nov. 7 is one of the rare occasions in which Sexton, the agent behind the careers of many of college football’s most successful coaches, doesn’t seem completely in control.
BEFORE THIS COLLEGE football regular season ended, there were more than a dozen head-coaching openings, including Power 5 jobs at schools such as Miami, Missouri, South Carolina, USC and Virginia Tech. A handful of other jobs opened as soon as the regular season ended, including Georgia, Rutgers and Virginia, in what might be the most active firing-and-hiring season in recent college football history.
While there’s uneasiness at football offices from coast to coast, the one certainty is that the decision-makers at many of them will have Sexton on speed dial. He’s the go-between for many coaches and the athletic directors who want to hire them.
In many ways, Sexton drives the marketplace when it comes to college football coaches. With a roster so deep, there’s a good chance some of his clients are going to be fired and others are going to be hired — sometimes for the same job.
Sexton is the co-head of the football division of Creative Artists Agency, which represents more than 100 professional players and more than 50 FBS coaches. He personally reps more than a dozen FBS coaches, including Alabama’s Nick Saban, Auburn’s Gus Malzahn, Florida State’s Jimbo Fisher and UCLA’s Jim Mora.
That’s why he is considered one of the most powerful people in the sport, even if the 52-year-old single father of three sons doesn’t like the label very much.
“I don’t really understand it,” Sexton said. “I don’t try to be influential. I just try to build good relationships. In this business, it’s all about the relationships you have with your clients and the people who are hiring them.”
Earlier this year, Forbes estimated that Sexton has negotiated about $742.5 million in contracts for NFL players and college coaches, earning about $24.8 million in commissions (the industry average is about 3 to 4 percent). He recently negotiated huge deals for NFL clients including Philip Rivers, Ndamukong Suh and Julio Jones.
“He’s never pissed anybody off,” Saban said. “He’s always done great for me, and I really appreciate it. Not once has somebody been upset about the negotiations. You really don’t want to ruin relationships over those kinds of things.”
Sexton always seems to be on top of everything happening in the coaching world, even if he is rarely in one place for very long. His iPhone is constantly in his hand and his voice mailbox always seems to be full when he doesn’t answer. He has probably accumulated more than one million frequent-flyer miles since football season kicked off in early September.
“He doesn’t slow down,” Malzahn said. “The great thing about Jimmy is that he’s wide awake if you call him at 6 a.m. and he’s wide awake if you call him at 1 a.m. He’s always there.”
Last Saturday, Sexton had clients on opposite sidelines in three of the sport’s biggest rivalries: Alabama (Saban) vs. Auburn (Malzahn), Florida (Jim McElwain) vs. Florida State (Fisher) and UCLA (Mora) vs. USC (Clay Helton).
In those games, Sexton says it’s hard to cheer for one team.
“I think sometimes if you catch yourself rooting for a guy, you’re rooting for the guy who needs it most,” Sexton said. “It’s hard. It’s good for your business, but sometimes they’re beating each other.
“In a perfect world for business, you’d want them all to win enough to where they’d get new deals, but it doesn’t work out that way.”
Sexton works closely with CAA agents Trace Armstrong — who represents Ohio State’s Urban Meyer, Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly and Penn State’s James Franklin — and Walker Jones in managing the firm’s college coaches. They oversee a handful of other junior agents and about 30 employees in offices in Atlanta, Memphis and Nashville.
As the dominoes started to fall in recent days, Sexton was right in the middle of the action, landing the two premier jobs for two of his clients. Helton, who has a 6-2 record in two stints as USC’s interim coach, landed the Trojans’ job, and Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart was tabbed by Georgia to replace Mark Richt, who was fired after 15 seasons. The two biggest openings in the country were filled by clients who had never before been permanent head coaches.
Auburn defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, another Sexton client who was fired as Florida’s head coach last year, is a candidate for the South Carolina job.
“People talk about how we’re going to make so much money because there are so many open jobs and we’re going to move our people around,” Sexton said. “I don’t look at it like that. I look at it like there are going to be a bunch of schools open, and we’re going to place our clients at the best places for them to succeed. That’s really what it’s all about.”
Some of Sexton’s clients are already trying to land the same jobs. For example, Indianapolis Colts associate head coach Rob Chudzinski is a candidate at Miami, along with former Rutgers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano and former Hurricanes coach Butch Davis, both Sexton clients.
In many ways, Sexton’s role as adviser to so many coaches seems like a walking contradiction.
“If a job came open and another one of Jimmy’s guys was up for it, I don’t think he has the power to tell an athletics director, ‘Here’s your guy,'” said Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze, who is represented by Sexton. “You have to think that he wouldn’t push one over the other and would push both equally.”
SOMETIMES, THE TOPSY-TURVY world of college football puts Sexton in uncomfortable situations. In some instances, he has been accused of having too much influence, as well as having the ability to pull too many strings behind the scenes.
Last year, for instance, Florida fired Muschamp, a Sexton client, and replaced him with McElwain, a Sexton client, then used Sexton’s expertise in negotiating McElwain’s $7 million buyout at Colorado State, a complicated process that included the scheduling of a future game between the schools as compensation. The Gators then paid Muschamp a $6.3 million buyout for the remaining four years on his contract and watched as Sexton landed Muschamp a deal as the defensive coordinator at Auburn for $1.6 million a year, making him the highest-paid assistant in the country.
“Obviously, Jimmy was Will’s agent and he’s Mac’s agent, but he didn’t push Jim McElwain on us,” Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said. “It’s our job to find the coaches. It’s not Jimmy Sexton’s job. The University of Florida is hiring its coaches, and if they work out great or don’t work out, it’s on us. It’s on nobody else. It’s on me.
“In my dealings with Jimmy, the bottom line is I find him trustable. When he tells you something, it’s the truth. Obviously, he’s an agent and he does what he does. … He’s been a straight shooter and I respect him for that.”
But that wasn’t the extent of Sexton’s involvement.
Freeze was also one of the Gators’ top targets — until he signed a four-year contract extension that boosted his salary from $3 million to $4.5 million annually to stay with the Rebels.
Another example of Sexton’s clout: In 2013, with Mack Brown on the hot seat at Texas, Sexton took a 45-minute phone call with former Texas Regent Tom Hicks and current Regent Wallace Hall Jr. about Saban’s interest in replacing Brown. According to e-mails obtained by the Associated Press in November of that year, Sexton told the Texas officials that Saban would consider leaving Alabama for Texas and that coaching the Crimson Tide had put Saban under “special pressure.”
“I don’t hire the coach. I’ve never hired a coach. Contrary to what people might believe, I never hired a coach at Tennessee.”
Agent Jimmy Sexton, a Tennessee alum.
Saban, who said he was unaware of the meeting, dismissed the idea that he’d leave Alabama and joked that he was too old to start over at another school.
But even so, when Texas eventually fired Brown, Sexton was able to negotiate new contracts for Saban, Fisher, Malzahn and Mora at their current schools after they were linked as potential candidates to coach the Longhorns.
At one point, Tennessee (Sexton’s alma mater) hired three of his clients consecutively. Sexton represented former Volunteers coach Phillip Fulmer, who guided UT to a 1998 national championship and was fired after the 2008 season. Then-UT athletics director Mike Hamilton hired Kiffin to replace Fulmer. Hamilton then hired Derek Dooley when Kiffin bolted for USC after only one season with the Volunteers in 2009.
“I don’t hire the coach. I’ve never hired a coach,” Sexton said. “Contrary to what people might believe, I never hired a coach at Tennessee.
“I remember the Lane Kiffin deal like it was yesterday. They let Fulmer go and there was a two- or three-week gap in between. Mike Hamilton called me and said, ‘I need to go talk to somebody. I can’t go talk to anybody for two or three more weeks because everybody is still playing. Who can I go talk to?’ I told him to fly Lane Kiffin to Atlanta and talk to him there. They hired him and the rest is history.”
While Sexton has some influence in which coaches are hired, he doesn’t have much say in whether they’ll succeed. Some of his clients, such as Saban, have been wildly successful, while others such as Dooley and recently fired Rutgers coach Kyle Flood struggled.
“Bill Parcells used to say to me that they don’t sell insurance for this business,” Sexton said. “In other words, you can’t insure success. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”
Because many of Sexton’s clients compete against one another, he often toes a fine line in regards to what he divulges from his conversations with them. Some of the information his clients share with him might be considered state secrets.
For instance, Sexton was told earlier this season that quarterback Jake Coker wasn’t going to start against Ole Miss on Sept. 19, a decision Saban didn’t tell the media. When Sexton talked to Freeze later in the week, he couldn’t tell him that Crimson Tide backup Cooper Bateman was going to start.
“I’ve been with the guy since 1997 and never once have I felt like I couldn’t trust him with anything,” Saban said. “Anything I’ve ever told him or asked him, even though he represents a lot of guys, I still think I can trust the guy. He never tells me anything about the other guys, and I never ask him. I never put him in that situation. He’s never, ever told me something that I thought I shouldn’t know about somebody else. That’s why you can trust him.”
In the end, both Crimson Tide quarterbacks played in a 43-37 loss to the Rebels, which was Alabama’s only defeat of the regular season.
“I would never expect — and nor would he — ever cross that line,” Freeze said. “I’m totally confident that he would protect anything that I share with him, as he would with his other clients.”
ACTING LIKE SWITZERLAND in many of the sport’s fiercest rivalries isn’t exactly easy. On Nov. 6, the day before Sexton watched a pair of his coaches lead their teams in two of the biggest SEC games of the season, he flew home to Memphis after spending 10 consecutive days on the road.
When Sexton is away, a full-time nanny and assistant manage his house and help care for his two younger sons, Parker, 18, who is headed to the University of Texas on a golf scholarship, and Blake, 14. His oldest son, James III, 20, is a sophomore at Ole Miss.
Sexton is constantly juggling his sons’ activities, along with the needs of his clients. This week, for instance, Sexton was working on job openings while also attending three of his youngest son’s basketball games. When his sons were growing up, he often attended their Pop Warner football games in the morning, and then they jumped on a plane with him to attend a college football game.
“It’s amazing how he juggles everything and cares for his boys,” said Colorado’s Mike MacIntyre, one of Sexton’s clients. “That’s what makes me feel good about him. I trust him a ton, but I even trust him more when I see how he is with his boys.”
After returning from his extended business trip, Sexton planned to spend a rare night at home. He lives in the suburbs of Memphis on an expansive property he shares with the parents of former Alabama and current Chicago Bears offensive lineman Barrett Jones.
But while driving to a restaurant in Memphis, a friend of Sexton’s called from Oxford and urged him to come there for dinner. Sexton had planned to drive to Ole Miss the next morning to watch the Rebels play Arkansas before flying to watch the Crimson Tide play.
After a five-minute phone call, Sexton pulled a U-turn on Poplar Avenue in his Range Rover and headed back to his house. After packing an overnight bag and calling his nanny to make sure she’d be there to care for his chocolate lab, Shaq, he made the 70-mile drive to Oxford.
Soon, Sexton was having dinner with a few close friends at a trendy new restaurant on the square. He mingled with Sean and Leigh Ann Tuohy, the Ole Miss grads made famous in the movie “The Blind Side.” A few minutes later, Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, one of Sexton’s most famous clients and a close friend, stopped by his table to say hello.
Early Saturday, Sexton attended parents’ weekend at his son’s Ole Miss fraternity, purchased a pullover jacket for his youngest son and even took a telephone call from a Power 5 athletic director looking for a new head coach.
He then spent a few hours in the Ole Miss football offices, where he watched Florida struggle to beat Vanderbilt 9-7 to win the SEC East, which, as part of McElwain’s contract, earned the coach a $37,500 bonus in his first season. Then Sexton watched the Rebels play the Hogs from Freeze’s suite at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Sexton kept one eye on the TV, watching Fisher’s Florida State team stay close with No. 1 Clemson before the Tigers eventually won the game, 23-13.
Former NFL and USC defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, whose son, Chris, is the Rebels’ defensive line coach, also watched the game from Freeze’s suite. It was his first time watching the Rebels play in person. When Kiffin mentioned that he’d never watched Alabama play in person, either, Sexton offered him a seat on his plane and a chance to go watch Lane Kiffin, Monte’s oldest son, as well as a return flight after the game.
On the phone before the game, Sexton had jokingly asked Freeze to make sure his team was ahead by three touchdowns at halftime so he wouldn’t miss Alabama’s kickoff. Instead, the Rebels and Razorbacks were tied at 17 at the half when he left the stadium. Once the plane landed in Tuscaloosa more than an hour later, the Hogs and Rebels were deadlocked at 31 heading into the fourth quarter.
After the plane landed on the rain-slicked runway at Tuscaloosa Regional Airport, Sexton and his party climbed into a pickup truck. His son Blake and his friend, who also attended the SEC doubleheader, noticed a gun rack — complete with guns — on the truck’s ceiling.
“Don’t worry,” the driver told them. “They’re not loaded.”
Welcome to Tuscaloosa.
A few minutes later, Sexton was behind the wheel of a rental car, hoping to beat traffic to watch the end of the Ole Miss game. Sexton used several side streets to avoid the crowds on Paul W. Bryant Drive and pulled into a parking space adjacent to Bryant-Denny Stadium.
He was able to watch the end of the Ole Miss game in the North Field Suites. Arkansas tight end Hunter Henry caught a pass on fourth-and-25 and wildly lateraled over his head to tailback Alex Collins, who ran 31 yards for a first down. Meanwhile, Sexton’s assistant, Autumn Clark, was hiding under a table, unable to watch the dramatic ending. Clark played basketball for Freeze in high school and also worked for him at Ole Miss until Sexton hired her.
She might have been the only person in Bryant-Denny Stadium who wasn’t cheering when Arkansas upset Ole Miss 53-52 in overtime. The Razorbacks’ victory meant Alabama would win the SEC West if it won its final three conference games.
Sexton spent the next three hours watching the Crimson Tide dismantle then-No. 2 LSU 30-16 from a luxury suite. He spent much of the night talking to Baltimore Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome, with whom he’s worked on NFL deals in the past. Sexton also showed plenty of interest in a game on one of the TVs: Auburn and Malzahn were upsetting Texas A&M and Sumlin 26-10 on the road. The Tigers were coming off back-to-back losses and desperately needed a victory.
“We need a couple of our guys to rebound,” Sexton said.
Just before midnight, Sexton made his way through the crowd to wait outside Alabama’s locker room, where he greeted Kiffin and Smart as they made their way off the field. Sexton would have to wait a while to see Saban, who spent more than an hour mingling with recruits and filming his weekly TV show.
Sexton sometimes avoids seeing coaches after games, especially if two of his clients were coaching against each other.
“I don’t love going to the games where I have both coaches,” Sexton said.
SEXTON WASN’T EVEN an agent when he helped negotiate his first deal. He was a 20-year-old equipment manager at Tennessee in 1983, when Volunteers defensive end Reggie White was considered one of the premier prospects in the draft. During a walk-through practice at the Citrus Bowl, two men in trench coats approached Sexton. One of them was Pepper Rodgers, coach of the Memphis Showboats of the up-and-coming United States Football League, and the other was Robert Fraley, an agent. They knew Sexton and White were close friends and shared a dorm suite at UT.
“It was like a scene out of a movie,” Sexton said.
“Do you know how much money Lawrence Taylor makes in the NFL?” Fraley asked Sexton.
“He’s a great player,” Sexton said. “How much does he make?”
“He makes $400,000,” Fraley said. “He’s the highest-paid defensive player in the NFL. We want you to go in there and tell Reggie White we’re going to offer him $1.5 million as soon as the game is over tomorrow night.”
Sexton ran into the locker room and found White.
“Big Dog, you’re about ready to get paid,” Sexton told him.
Later that night, Sexton and White discussed the deal in their hotel room. White told Sexton he’d been contacted by a few agents but didn’t know any of them. He asked Sexton to represent him.
The next day, Sexton called his father, a dentist in Memphis.
“Whatever you do, you better be careful,” his father told him.
After Tennessee defeated Maryland 30-23 in the Citrus Bowl, Rodgers and Fraley found Sexton on the sideline. They handed him a manila envelope that contained a USFL contract.
The next day, Sexton went home to Memphis for the Christmas holidays. Rodgers called him and asked him to invite White to the Liberty Bowl. White agreed to come to the game, but he wanted a date with actress Vanessa Williams, who was singing the national anthem. Their prospective romance ended after a short conversation in a skybox. The date never happened.
Rodgers and Fraley sent Sexton to the Hula Bowl, a college football all-star game in Hawaii, to keep a close eye on White. When Sexton arrived at his hotel, a man approached him in the lobby. The man told Sexton to leave White alone, which Sexton believed was a warning from the NFL.
Eventually, White decided to sign a five-year, $4 million contract with the Showboats, and Sexton had an attorney finalize the deal. White played two seasons in Memphis before the USFL collapsed in 1985, and then he signed a four-year, $1.85 million deal with the Philadelphia Eagles, who held his NFL rights.
“I started to think it was a viable business,” Sexton said.
“Most of these guys can do anything. Nick Saban could run General Motors. He just happens to be a football coach.”
Jimmy Sexton
After finishing his final year at Tennessee in 1984, Sexton planned to attend law school. But Don Kessinger, a former MLB shortstop, and Kyle Rote Jr., a former pro soccer player, offered Sexton a position at their fledgling sports agency. One of Sexton’s first clients was Scottie Pippen, a budding basketball star from Central Arkansas.
Sexton represented NBA players for about 10 years before transitioning to work full-time with NFL players and coaches. His first coaching client was then-Ole Miss coach Tommy Tuberville. He asked Sexton to examine his contract, and Sexton negotiated a clause into the deal that made it easier for Tuberville to leave if the school’s chancellor or athletics director left. In 1999, Tuberville left for Auburn — shortly after he said he’d leave Ole Miss in a “pine box” — and had to pay the Rebels only a $100,000 buyout.
One of the biggest breaks in Sexton’s career came amid tragedy in 1999. Fraley, who had approached Sexton at the Citrus Bowl more than 15 years earlier, died in the same plane accident that also killed PGA golfer Payne Stewart. Fraley represented New York Jets coach Bill Parcells, who soon hired Sexton as his agent. Parcells liked how Sexton negotiated contracts for a handful of players who signed with the Jets.
“Parcells had a huge impact on me, probably more than any other guy in the business,” Sexton said. “He was very much a mentor to me as far as convincing me that this was a huge business. He would tell me, ‘Jimmy, you don’t get it. The players’ business is great, but the coaching side is where nobody is and there’s a huge need for it.’ He really pushed me that way.”
Sexton then landed another big client when Saban hired him to negotiate his contract when he left Michigan State for LSU after the 1999 season. Current NCAA president Mark Emmert, then the LSU chancellor, was on the other end of the negotiating table.
“I remember when I asked Mark Emmert for $1.2 million for Nick Saban in 1999,” Sexton said. “It’s all I could do to hold a straight face. It really was. When he said yes, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh!’
“That’s not even competitive anymore.”
At a Final Four press conference in 2009, the late Myles Brand, Emmert’s predecessor as NCAA president, questioned schools’ roles in skyrocketing salaries being offered to coaches.
“You have to ask some very hard questions, whether this is really in tune with the academic values, whether we’ve reached a point already that these high salaries and packages for coaches has really extended beyond what’s expected within the academic community,” Brand said.
But Sexton said the market is what has driven the rise in compensation.
“Most of these guys can do anything,” Sexton said. “Nick Saban could run General Motors. He just happens to be a football coach.”
This season, Saban is college football’s highest-paid coach, earning more than $7 million in base salary and outside income.
Sexton negotiated that deal, of course, just like he did when he helped the Crimson Tide land Saban in January 2007. Two years after guiding LSU to the 2003 BCS national championship, Saban left to coach the Miami Dolphins. His two mediocre seasons in the NFL ramped up speculation that Saban would return to college football.
After repeatedly being asked about the Crimson Tide’s opening, Saban famously told reporters, “I guess I have to say it: I’m not going to be the Alabama coach.”
But Sexton had been talking to then-Alabama athletics director Mal Moore behind the scenes. When the Dolphins’ season ended, Moore flew to South Florida. However, Saban refused to meet with him. After spending a couple of days in a hotel room a block from Saban’s house, Moore called Sexton out of desperation.
“Jimmy, we’ve been talking about this for a month,” Moore said. “He won’t even meet with me. We’ve got to make this happen.”
“Mal, just be patient with him,” Sexton said. “You’ve got to hang in there. Do notget on that plane and go back to Tuscaloosa.”
“Don’t worry,” Moore said. “I’m taking this plane to Cuba if Nick Saban isn’t on it.”
The next day, Saban met with Moore and agreed to take the Alabama job.
“Before I ever went to Miami, Jimmy told me, ‘You’ve got to make a decision, man. Is your legacy going to be as a college coach or do you want to take the next step and take a challenge?'” Saban said. “I think he saw after I was in Miami for two years that I was a little frustrated.”
Now in his ninth season at Alabama, Saban has won three national championships and has the Crimson Tide on the brink of reaching the College Football Playoff for the second straight year.
Sexton figures to have his hands in many of the high-profile decisions that are about to be made for schools hoping to land another coach who can be a difference-maker.
FANS WON’T SEE the man working the deals in the background, and Sexton wouldn’t have it any other way.
“The people that think he desires attention or wants it don’t know him at all,” Freeze said. “He’d rather be in a corner unnoticed than to be talked about in that light.”
Sexton is not out front in press conferences announcing the contracts he negotiated. Instead, he prefers for his clients to receive the attention. In fact, a Google images search returns few photographs of him.
“I try to stay back in the weeds,” Sexton said. “Where I see coaches and players have problems is when the agent tries to become part of the show. You’re an agent. You’re only trying to facilitate something for your client, and that’s your job. It’s not to say, ‘Hey, look, I’m Jimmy Sexton.’ I think my clients like the fact that I don’t try to find attention. I want to be the exact opposite of what the stereotype is of an agent.”
But, like on that plane headed for Tuscaloosa, Sexton can’t control everything. As his influence has been felt across the college landscape, his reputation precedes him.
After he wandered onto the field after Saban’s Crimson Tide defeated Georgia 32-28 in the 2012 SEC championship game, fans celebrated the man who brought them the title. Or at least brought them the coach who delivered it.
A chant began to echo across the Alabama student section.
I went to 12 of the Little Rock Touchdown Club Lunches this year and I enjoyed George Schroeder’s talk the most!!! Coach Kevin Kelley (L) of the Pulaski Academy and USA Today writer Goerge Schroeder FWAA president George Schroeder presents the Grantland Rice Trophy to Florida coach Urban Meyer. (Photo: Alex Gort/Orange Bowl) Little Rock […]
______ Tony Bua told some funny stories at LITTLE ROCK TOUCHDOWN CLUB!!!! Little Rock Touchdown Club – November 16, 2015 Tony Bua is shown in this photo. Bua definitely enjoyed his ride with Razorbacks Share on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services0 By Jeremy Muck This article was published November 17, 2015 at 3:28 a.m. […]
______ Brown: It takes a different kind of coach at Texas Share on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services0 By Jeremy Muck This article was published today at 3:14 a.m. Being the head football coach at the University of Texas is no small task. Ask Mack Brown, who was in charge of the Longhorns’ football program […]
_________ Cowboys VP: Don’t be surprised if we change quarterbacks <p>Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones</p> By SportsDayDFW.com Follow @SportsDayDFW websports@dallasnews.com Staff Published: 12 October 2015 05:33 PM Updated: 12 October 2015 10:46 PM Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones spoke at the Little Rock Touchdown Club on Monday. Some highlights via @LRTouchdownClub and â@chase_shannon : On […]
___________ Jones: Cowboys studying options Share on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services1 By Jeremy Muck This article was published today at 3:03 a.m. PHOTO BY MELISSA GERRITS Dallas Cowboys COO Stephen Jones reacts to comments by Rex Nelson before addressing the Little Rock Touchdown Club October 12, 2015 at Embassy Suites. Comments aAFont Size It […]
___________ Stephen Jones did a great job at the Little Rock Touchdown Club today and he told a lot of stories about his dad and Father Tribou of Catholic High of Little Rock. Little Rock Touchdown Club – October 12, 2015 Streamed live on Oct 12, 2015 Stephen Jones speaks to the Touchdown Club _______________ […]
___________ Jay Barker mentioned his wife Sara Evans several times in his talk at Little Rock Touchdown Club so I have included some of her musical videos and more about their relationship below. Little Rock Touchdown Club – October 5, 2015 Streamed live on Oct 5, 2015 Jay Barker speaks to the Touchdown Club _____________________ […]
______________ Jay Barker said that coach Gene Stallings emphasized the THIRD WEEKEND IN OCTOBER series with the Vols when he was the coach at Bama and sure enough those 4 games that Barker started in came down to the wire. Bama tying in 93 and winning the other 3. In 91 Bama won over #8 […]
Jay Barker explained at the Little Rock Touchdown Club what the word CHAMPIONS meant to him and it all started with being Christ-centered and that is the “C” in CHAMPIONS. Barker warned against being self-centered or morality-centered. Little Rock Touchdown Club – October 5, 2015 Streamed live on Oct 5, 2015 Jay Barker speaks to […]
Jay Barker said Sabin will motivate Bama players by saying, “Hogs went into Knoxville and knocked off Vols and now they believe they can come in here and knock us off too!!!!” Little Rock trip not first for Barker By Jeremy Muck This article was published today at 3:11 a.m. Comments aAFont Size PHOTO BY […]
This article was published November 24, 2015 at 3:58 a.m.
USA Today college football reporter George Schroeder follows the sport as close as anyone in the national media.
And the 2015 season, Schroeder said, has unique characteristics.
Schroeder gave his take Monday to members of the Little Rock Touchdown Club.
“It’s been a wild, did-you-see-that-game season,” Schroeder said, speaking at the club’s weekly luncheon at the Embassy Suites Hotel.
Schroeder, who is from Little Rock, mentioned the last-minute finishes for Michigan State at Michigan, the Miami-Duke game and the Arkansas’ 4th-and-25 lateral against Mississippi in overtime.
“Arkansas, it was the wildest lateral that actually worked,” Schroeder, 47, said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Schroeder revealed a top four of Clemson, Alabama, Iowa and Oklahoma when talking about the weekly College Football Playoff rankings, which will be released tonight.
He ranks Michigan State, Notre Dame and Baylor as Nos. 5-7, respectively.
Iowa, which is 10-0 and the only undefeated team remaining from the Big Ten Conference, has clinched a spot in the Big 10 Championship game Dec. 5. The Hawkeyes are a nice team with a good resume, Schroeder said, but he understands why some national analysts have questioned whether Iowa is a top-four team.
But then again, Schroeder said that there isn’t a great team in college football, calling Alabama “very good” but not great.
“You could draw the top four out of a hat,” Schroeder said.
The College Football Playoff’s four-team structure is in its second season, and Schroeder said that while he’s opposed to increasing the number of teams to 8, he said he does feel that the playoff will have eight teams at some point in the future.
“It’s the best regular-season in sports,” Schroeder said, backing his stance about the merits of a four-team playoff. “But it is going to go to eight sometime.
Regarding Arkansas’ 2015 season, Schroeder said he and several analysts overlooked the Razorbacks’ losses of defensive linemen — Trey Flowers and Darius Philon and linebacker Martrell Spaight — instead believing they could win 9-10 games team this season.
“This is a team, despite what happened [against] Mississippi State, that nobody wants to play right now,” Schroeder said. “They have every shot to be 7-5 and win a bowl game.
“They’ve looked better than the teams they’ve beaten. It’s not a fluke. They’ve just been flat better than Ole Miss and LSU. It should be encouraging to Arkansas fans.”
Schroeder, who has worked at USA Today since 2012, started his career at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from 1991 to 1999. He became the Oklahoma football beat reporter at The Oklahoman, where he worked from 1999 to 2007. Schroeder was hired as a sports columnist at The Register Guard in Eugene, Ore., in 2007 and spent five years at that paper before being hired at USA Today.
Schroeder said that if Arkansas (6-5) had three fewer losses, it would hold its own in a bowl game against teams that will play in the New Year’s Six bowls. Instead, the Razorbacks will play in a non-New Year’s Six bowl for the second consecutive season. Arkansas beat Texas in last year’s Texas Bowl to finish 7-6.
“They’re likely to get some opponent who can’t handle them,” Schroeder said. “They’re likely to catch an opponent that they can roll, which is not a bad way to end the season. If you can’t play in the playoff, a New Year’s Six game or in Florida, then go win big.
“If they’re not disappointed in themselves, then they can go do that.”
______ Tony Bua told some funny stories at LITTLE ROCK TOUCHDOWN CLUB!!!! Little Rock Touchdown Club – November 16, 2015 Tony Bua is shown in this photo. Bua definitely enjoyed his ride with Razorbacks Share on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services0 By Jeremy Muck This article was published November 17, 2015 at 3:28 a.m. […]
______ Brown: It takes a different kind of coach at Texas Share on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services0 By Jeremy Muck This article was published today at 3:14 a.m. Being the head football coach at the University of Texas is no small task. Ask Mack Brown, who was in charge of the Longhorns’ football program […]
_________ Cowboys VP: Don’t be surprised if we change quarterbacks <p>Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones</p> By SportsDayDFW.com Follow @SportsDayDFW websports@dallasnews.com Staff Published: 12 October 2015 05:33 PM Updated: 12 October 2015 10:46 PM Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones spoke at the Little Rock Touchdown Club on Monday. Some highlights via @LRTouchdownClub and â@chase_shannon : On […]
___________ Jones: Cowboys studying options Share on facebookShare on twitterMore Sharing Services1 By Jeremy Muck This article was published today at 3:03 a.m. PHOTO BY MELISSA GERRITS Dallas Cowboys COO Stephen Jones reacts to comments by Rex Nelson before addressing the Little Rock Touchdown Club October 12, 2015 at Embassy Suites. Comments aAFont Size It […]
___________ Stephen Jones did a great job at the Little Rock Touchdown Club today and he told a lot of stories about his dad and Father Tribou of Catholic High of Little Rock. Little Rock Touchdown Club – October 12, 2015 Streamed live on Oct 12, 2015 Stephen Jones speaks to the Touchdown Club _______________ […]
___________ Jay Barker mentioned his wife Sara Evans several times in his talk at Little Rock Touchdown Club so I have included some of her musical videos and more about their relationship below. Little Rock Touchdown Club – October 5, 2015 Streamed live on Oct 5, 2015 Jay Barker speaks to the Touchdown Club _____________________ […]
______________ Jay Barker said that coach Gene Stallings emphasized the THIRD WEEKEND IN OCTOBER series with the Vols when he was the coach at Bama and sure enough those 4 games that Barker started in came down to the wire. Bama tying in 93 and winning the other 3. In 91 Bama won over #8 […]
Jay Barker explained at the Little Rock Touchdown Club what the word CHAMPIONS meant to him and it all started with being Christ-centered and that is the “C” in CHAMPIONS. Barker warned against being self-centered or morality-centered. Little Rock Touchdown Club – October 5, 2015 Streamed live on Oct 5, 2015 Jay Barker speaks to […]
Jay Barker said Sabin will motivate Bama players by saying, “Hogs went into Knoxville and knocked off Vols and now they believe they can come in here and knock us off too!!!!” Little Rock trip not first for Barker By Jeremy Muck This article was published today at 3:11 a.m. Comments aAFont Size PHOTO BY […]
__________ Little Rock Touchdown Club – September 28, 2015 I really enjoyed hearing Heath Shuler today at the Little Rock Touchdown Club!!! Q&A: Rep. Heath Shuler Shuler, a Democratic Congressman from North Carolina who ran as a social conservative, defeated a Republican incumbent in 2006. Interview by Collin Hansen/ JUNE 26, 2007 What is the […]
Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald left the prohibitionist America for wet Paris in the 1920’s and they both drank a lot. WINE, WOMEN AND SONG was their motto and I am afraid ultimately wine got the best of Fitzgerald and shortened his career. Woody Allen pictures this culture in the first few clips in the movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. Solomon also tried this solution of WINE, WOMEN AND SONG in his life. In his talk on ECCLESIASTES Francis Schaeffer commented:
PAPA HEMINGWAY CAN FIND THE CHAMPAGNE OF PARIS SUFFICIENT FOR A TIME, BUT ONCE HE LEFT HIS YOUTH HE NEVER FOUND IT SUFFICIENT AGAIN. HE HAD A LIFETIME SPENT LOOKING BACK TO PARIS AND THAT CHAMPAGNEAND NEVER FINDING IT ENOUGH.
____
In MIDNIGHT IN PARIS Gil becomes good friends with a few of these people, including Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), an interesting representation of the man pictured below.
________
Midnight in Paris clip
Let’s go in. Paris, the city of lights.- Relax! Have some champagne. I do like champagne, yeah.Cheers! Cheers! The night is young. Drink up!- I’m drinking!- Have a drink!Yeah, drink up! (Cole Porter sings “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fallin Love”) Let’s fall in love… In Spain, the best upper-sets do it… Lithuanians and Lets do it. Let’s do it. Let’s fall in love. The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it. Not to mention the Finns Folks in Siam do it- think of Siamese twins..Some Argentines without means do it. People say in Boston even beans do it Let’s do it- Let’s fall in love..Romantic sponges, they say do it… Oysters down in Oyster Bay do it.. Let’s do it- Let’s fall in love…
midnight in paris – Fitzgeralds and Hemingway
ZELDA FITZGERALD: You look lost!-
GIL PENDER: Oh, yeah!-You’re an American?-
ZELDA FITZGERALD:If you count Alabama as America, which I do.I miss the bathtub gin. What do you do?-
GIL PENDER: Me? I’m a writer.-
ZELDA FITZGERALD:Who do you write?-
GIL PENDER: Oh, right now I’m working on a novel.
ZELDA FITZGERALD:- Oh, yes?I’m Zelda, by the way. Oh, Scott! Scott!-
SCOTT FITZGERALD:Yes, what it is, sweetheart?-
ZELDA FITZGERALD:Here’s a writer, from, um… where?- California.–
SCOTT FITZGERALD:Scott Fitzgerald, and who are you, old sport?
GIL PENDER: Gil…the… You havethe same names as…
SCOTT FITZGERALD:As what?Scott Fitzgerald and…
GIL PENDER: Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
SCOTT FITZGERALD:TheFitzgeralds. Isn’t she beautiful?
GIL PENDER: Yes. Yes! Yeah, that’s… that’sa coincidence…like….uh…
ZELDA FITZGERALD:You have a glazed look in your eye. Stunned.Stupefied. Anesthetized. Lobotomized.
GIL PENDER: .I...I…keep looking at the man playing piano, and Ibelieve it or not, recognize hisface from some old sheet music.
ZELDA FITZGERALD:I know I can be one of the great writers of musical lyrics- not that I can write melodies, and I try,and then I hear the songs he writes, and then I realize: I’ll never write a great lyric,- and my talent really lies in drinking.-
SCOTT FITZGERALD: Sure does.
GIL PENDER: Yeah, but, he didn’twrite the music, did he?That’s not possible…
SCOTT FITZGERALD:So…um…- What kind of books do you write?-
GIL PENDER: I…I…I’m working on a…um…Where am I?
SCOTT FITZGERALD:Oh, I’m sorry. Don’t you know the host?Some friends have gotten togethera little party for Jean Cocteau.
GIL PENDER: Hey, lady. What… Are you kiddding me?
ZELDA FITZGERALD:I know what you’re thinking.This is boring. I agree!I’m ready to move on.Let’s do Bricktop’s!- Bricktop’s?- I’m bored! He’s bored! We’re all bored.
SCOTT FITZGERALD:We. Are. All. Bored. Let’s do Bricktop’s.Why don’t you tell Cole and Linda to come with, and…um…uh…Gil? You coming?
SCOTT FITZGERALD:This is one of the finest establishments in Paris. They do a diamond whiskey sour.Bon soir, tous le monde!(Good evening, everyone!)Un peu tir de bourbon, s’il vous plaît.(A small shot of bourbon, please.)Greetings and salutations.You’ll forgive me. I’ve been mixing grain and grape.Now, this a writer. uh…Gil. Yes?- Gil…
GIL PENDER: Gil Pender.- Gil Pender.
Hemingway & Fitzgerald Clip – Midnight in Paris
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: Hemingway.
GIL PENDER: Hemingway?
ERNEST HEMINGWAY:You liked my book?
GIL PENDER: Liked? I loved! All your work.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY:Yes, it was a good book,because it was an honest book,and that’s what war does to men.And there’s nothing fine and noble about dying in the mud,unless you die gracefully,and then it’s not only noble, but brave.
ZELDA FITZGERALD:Did you read my story? What’d you think?
ERNEST HEMINGWAY:There was some fine writing in it, but it was unfulfilled.-
ZELDA FITZGERALD: I might’ve known you’d hate it.-
SCOTT FITZGERALD:But darling, you’re too sensitive.
ZELDA FITZGERALD:You liked my story, but he hates me!
SCOTT FITZGERALD:Please, old sport, you makematters extremely difficult.
ZELDA FITZGERALD:I’m jumpy. Suddenly I don’tlike the atmosphere here any more. Ah! Where’re you going?
BULL FIGHTER: Para reunirse con mis amigos en Saint-Germain.(To meet some friends on Saint-Germain.)-
ZELDA FITZGERALD:He’s going to Saint-Germain. I’mgoing with him. –
SCOTT FITZGERALD:Zelda, sweetheart…
ZELDA FITZGERALD:If you’re going to stay here and drink with him, I’m going with the toreador.
SCOTT FITZGERALD:Would you bring her back at a reasonable time?-
ERNEST HEMINGWAY:She’ll drive you crazy, this woman.-
SCOTT FITZGERALD:She’s exciting,and she has talent.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY:This month it’s writing. Lastmonth it was something else.You’re a writer. You need time to write.Not all this fooling around.She’s wasting you because she’sreally a competitor.
___________________
Touring Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, Ernst Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dali, TS Eliot, Djuna Barnes, Josephine Baker, Man Ray and Luis Buñuel – the latter gets a tip for the argument of The Exterminating Angel a brilliant scene
Woody Allen made it known that his pessimistic view on life started at a young age when he learned about man’s mortality. But in the Bible Solomon’s first book was the SONG OF SOLOMON which was written in his early 20’s and is very upbeat. The Book of PROVERBS was written probably when he was in the middle of his life. Finally, the Book of ECCLESIASTES was written at the end of his life and is extremely pessimistic!!
Today we look at Solomon’s views on wine, women and song as presented in the Book of ECCLESIASTES. Solomon knew these very well. He filled his home with the best wine (Eccl 2:3), and like Hugh Hefner he slept with over 1000 women ( Eccl 2:8, I Kings 11:3), and he filled his palace with song (Eccl 2:8).
I will parallel Solomon’s views to those of Woody Allen and some of the characters in the movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. Thefirst post I did in this seriesdealt with MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT, but the second post and third postmoved on to the movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS as does the fourth post today.
(In the movie MIDNIGHT IN PARIS you have the may character Gil Pender very interested in Picasso’s mistress Adriana, played by Marion Cotillard. PICTURED ABOVE.)
Francis Schaeffer pictured below:
Concerning the Book of Ecclesiastes Francis Schaeffer noted:
Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life.His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life. Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.
Ecclesiastes is the only pessimistic book in the Bible and that is because of the place where Solomon limits himself. He limits himself to the question of human life, life under the sun between birth and death and the answers this would give.
In Ecclesiastes 1:8 he drives this home when he states, “All things are wearisome; Man is not able to tell it. THE EYE IS NOT SATISFIED WITH SEEING. NOR IS THE EAR FILLED WITH HEARING.” Solomon is stating here the fact that there is no final satisfaction because you don’t get to the end of the thing.
What do you do and the answer is to get drunk and this was not thought of in the RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KAHAYYAM:
Ecclesiastes 2:1-3
I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.” And behold, it too was futility.2 I said of laughter, “It is madness,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?”3 I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives.
You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse I made a Second Marriage in my house; Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Translation by Edward Fitzgerald)
A perfectly good philosophy coming out of Islam, but Solomon is not the first man that thought of it nor the last. In light of what has been presented by Solomon is the solution just to get intoxicated and black the think out? So many people have taken to alcohol and the dope which so often follows in our day. This approach is incomplete, temporary and immature. PAPA HEMINGWAY CAN FIND THE CHAMPAGNE OF PARIS SUFFICIENT FOR A TIME, BUT ONCE HE LEFT HIS YOUTH HE NEVER FOUND IT SUFFICIENT AGAIN. HE HAD A LIFETIME SPENT LOOKING BACK TO PARIS AND THAT CHAMPAGNEAND NEVER FINDING IT ENOUGH. It is no solution and Solomon says so too.
Ecclesiastes 2:4-11
4 I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself;5 I made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees;6 I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees.7 I bought male and female slaves and I had homeborn slaves. Also I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem.8 Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself MALE AND FEMALE SINGERS AND THE PLEASURES OF MEN–MANY CONCUBINES.
9 Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me.10 All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure…
If one would flee to alcohol, then surely one may choose sexual pursuits to flee to. Solomon looks in this area too.
Ecclesiastes 7:25-28
25 I directed my mind to know, to investigate and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the evil of folly and the foolishness of madness.26 And I discovered more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are chains. One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.
27 “Behold, I have discovered this,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find an explanation,28 I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman. (Good News Translation on verse 28)
One can understand both Solomon’s expertness in this field and his bitterness.
I Kings 11:1-3 (New American Standard Bible)
11 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall notassociate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love.3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.
An expert but also the reason for his bitterness. Certainly there have been many men over the centuries who have daydreamed of Solomon’s wealth in this area [of women], but at the end it was sorry, not only sorry but nothing and less than nothing. The simple fact is that one can not know woman in the real sense by pursuing 1000 women. It is not possible. Woman is not found this way. All that is left in this setting if one were to pursue the meaning of life in this direction is this most bitter word found in Ecclesiastes 7:28, “I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman.” (Good News Translation on verse 28) He was searching in the wrong way. He was searching for the answer to life in the limited circle of that which is beautiful in itself but not an answer finally in sexual life. More than that he finally tried to find it in variety and he didn’t even touch one woman at the end.
(Francis Schaeffer on right and his wife Edith pictured below on left)
Ecclesiastes 2:24-25
24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoymentin his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,25 for apart from himwho can eat or who can have enjoyment?
The best translation is “should eat and drink and delight his senses.” Also with the phrase “from the hand of God” Solomon doesn’t really mean this is from God but this is just an expression. This is statement of desperation when he says that one “should eat and drink and delight his senses.”
But interestingly enough the story of Ecclesiastes does not end its message here because in two places in the New Testament it is picked up and carried along and put in its proper perspective.
Luke 12:16-21
16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully,17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax,eat, drink, be merry.”’ [ALMOST EVERYONE WHO HAS PROCEEDED HERE HAS FELT CERTAINLY THAT JESUS IS DELIBERATELY REFERRING TO SOLOMON’S SOLUTION.]20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Christ here points out the reason for the failure of the logic that is involved. He points out why it fails in logic and then why it fails in reality. This view of Solomon must end in failure philosophically and also in emotional desperation.
We are not made to live in the shortened environment of UNDER THE SUN in this life only!!! Neither are we made to live only in the environment of a bare concept of afterlife [ignoring trying to make this life better]. We are made to live in the environment of a God who exists and who is the judge. This is the difference and that is what Jesus is setting forth here.
I Corinthians 15:32
32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
There is no doubt here he is reaching back to Solomon again and he is just saying if there isn’t a resurrection of the dead then let’s just follow Solomon and let’s just eat and drink for tomorrow we die!!!! If there isn’t this full structure [including the resurrection of the dead] then just have the courage to follow Solomon and we can eat and drink because tomorrow we die and that is all we have. If the full structure isn’t there then pick up the cup and drink it dry! You can say it a different way in the 20th century: If the full structure is not there then go ahead and be an EXISTENTIALIST, but don’t cheat. Drink the cup to the end. Drink it dry! That is what Paul says. Paul the educated man. Paul the man who knew his Greek philosophy. Paul the man who understood Solomon and the dilemma. Paul said it one way or the other. There is no room for a middle ground. IF CHRISTIANS AREN’T RAISED FROM THE DEAD THEN SOLOMON IS RIGHT IN ECCLESIASTES, BUT ONLY THEN. But if he is right then you should accept all of Solomon’s despair and his conclusions.
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Brandon Barnard, teaching pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas in his July 5, 2015 message noted:
Why does the resurrection matter? Let’s dive into the scriptures and see what Paul has to say about it in I Corinthians 15:12-22:
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.19 If in Christ we have hope[b] in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Paul lays it out. If Christ was not raised from the dead then my preaching is in vain and your faith is useless and you have been wasting your days. If Christ is not raised from the dead then people should pity you. However, Paul steps in here and says Christ has been raised from the dead. There is proof and evidence. And because Jesus has been raised from the dead no one should pity us!!!
The Bible and Archaeology – Is the Bible from God? (Kyle Butt 42 min)
article, HEAR 2.5 HOURS OF GREAT JAZZ SONGS FEATURED IN WOODY ALLEN FILMS posted on the blog Film, Music on November 16th, 2015, you can hear a lot of those songs.
From “Blue Jasmine” to “Stardust Memories”, from “Midnight in Paris” to “Hannah and her sisters”, from “Radio Days” to “Mighty Aphrodite”, from “Annie Hall” to “Bullets over Broadway”, Woody Allen has always used jazz in his films. The music underlines the storyline and merges beautifully with each scene. Some of the greatest names in jazz and many of the greatest big bands have featured in his creations: Tommy Dorsey, Billie Holiday, Harry James, Django Reinhardt, Glenn Miller, Bix Beiderbecke, Ben Webster, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, Chick Webb, Lester Young, Erroll Garner, Artie Shaw, King Oliver, Red Garland, Jelly Roll Morton, and many more …
1 – Sidney Bechet “Si tu vois ma mère” (from Midnight in Paris)
2 – Josephine Baker “La Conga Blicoti” (from Midnight in Paris)
3 – Lizzie Miles “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (from Blue Jasmine)
4 – King Oliver “West End Blues” (from Blue Jasmine)
5 – Louis Armstrong “Back O’ Town Blues (from Blue Jasmine)
6 – The Ink Spots “If I Didn’t Care (from Radio Days) 7 – The Mairy Macs “Mairzy Doats” (from Radio Days)
8 – Tommy Dorsey “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You” (from Radio Days)
9 – Glenn Miller “In the Mood” (from Radio Days)
10- Red Garland “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year” (from Whatever Works)
11 – Chick Webb “If Dreams Come True” (from Stardust Memories)
12 – Louis Armstrong “Stardust” (from Stardust Memories)
13 – Harry James & Helen Forrest “I’ve Heard That Song Before” (from Hannah & Her Sisters)
14 – Harry James “You Made Me Love You” (from Hannah & Her Sisters)
15 – Artie Shaw “Moonglow” (from Annie Hall)
16 – Fred Astaire “Cheek to Cheek” (from The Purple Rose of Cairo)
17 – Tommy Dorsey “Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now” (from Interiors)
18 – Jelly Roll Morton “Wolverine Blues” (from Interiors)
19 – Benny Goodman “Whispering” (from Mighty Aphrodite)
20 – Erroll Garner “Penthouse Serenade” (from Mighty Aphrodite)
21 – Dooley Wilson “As Time Goes By” (from Play It Again Sam)
22 – Lester Young “I Can’t Get Started” (from Anything Else)
23 – Billie Holiday “Easy to Love” (from Anything Else)
24 – Django Reinhardt “Nagasaki” (from Bullets Over Broadway)
25 – Bix Beiderbecke “At the Jazz Band Ball” (from Bullets Over Broadway)
26 – Glenn Miller “Sunrise Serenade” (from the Curse of the Jade Scorpion)
27 – Duke Ellington “Sophisticated Lady” (from the Curse of the Jade Scorpion)
28 – Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli “Liebstraum # 3” (from Sweet & Lowdown)
29- Ben Webster “My Ideal” (from September)
30 -Teddy Wilson “I Got Rhythm” (from Celebrity)
31 – Coleman Hawkins “Out of Nowhere” (from Deconstructing Harry)
32 – Benny Goodman “Sing Sing Sing” (from Deconstructing Harry)
33 – Benny Goodman “If I Had You” (from You’ll Meet a Tall Dark Stranger)
34 – Duke Ellington “I let a Song Out of My Heart” (Melinda &Melinda)
35 – Artie Shaw “Moonglow” (from Alice)
36 – Erroll Garner “The Way You Look Tonight” (from Alice)
37 – Tommy Dorsey “Opus n°1” (from Radio Days)
38 – Glenn Miller “American Patrol (from Radio Days)
39 – Artie Shaw “Frenesi” (from Radio Days)
40 – The Mills Brothers “Paper Doll” (from Radio Days) – JazzAndBluesExperience – SUBSCRIBE HERE : http://bit.ly/10VoH4l (Re)Discover the Jazz and Blues greatest hits – JazznBluesExperience is your channel for all the best jazz and blues music. Find your favorite songs and artists and experience the best of jazz music and blues music. Subscribe for free to stay connected to our channel and easily access our video updates! – Facebook FanPage: http://www.facebook.com/JazznBluesExp…
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It takes no great research pains to find out that Woody Allen loves jazz. He scores most of his movies with the music, never failing to include it at least under their signature simple black-and-white opening titles. He has worked jazz as a theme into some of the films themselves, most notably Sweet and Lowdown, the story of a dissolute 1930s jazz guitarist who heads for Hollywood. He plays the clarinet himself, touring with his jazz band as seen in the documentary Wild Man Blues. He makes no secret of his admiration for fellow clarinetist (and also saxophonist) Sidney Bechet, after whom he named one of his daughters.
Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories
Uploaded on Jun 16, 2009
These scenes make up the ending of Woody Allen’s ‘Stardust Memories’.
It’s a beautiful film, and a wonderful American tribute to Fellini’s 8 1/2. Plus Louis Armstrong’s version of ‘Stardust’ is one of the greatest you’ll ever hear.
It’s hard for a filmmaker to capture the joys of “just sort of sitting around” with someone you’re in love with, and he does it beautifully here. That long, unbroken shot conveys it all.
And then I couldn’t go uploading this without leaving in the train scene, too.
Allen has publicly discussed a dream project called American Blues, a movie about the very beginning of jazz in New Orleans seen through the careers of Bechet and Louis Armstrong. He acknowledges that a story of that scale would require a far larger budget than the more modest films he makes just about every year, and so, in light of the unlikelihood of his commanding that budget, he has evidently contented himself with infusing the work that does come out with as much jazz as possible. You can hear almost two and a half hours of it in the Youtube playlist at the top of this post, which includes cuts from not just Bechet and Armstrong but from Tommy Dorsey, Billie Holiday, Django Reinhardt, Glenn Miller, Lester Young, Jelly Roll Morton, and many other respected players from prewar and wartime America. You can find a list of the songs featured in the jazz playlist, complete with timestamps, in the blurb beneath this YouTube clip.
Midnight in Paris Jazz Score Sidney Bechet Si Tu Vois Ma Mere.
Even apart from what film scholars would call the non-diegetic jazz in Allen’s pictures (i.e., the jazz we hear on the score, but the characters themselves presumably don’t) he also includes some diegetic jazz, as in the ending of Stardust Memories, when Allen’s character puts on a Louis Armstrong record. And isn’t now just the right time to revisit the sequence from Midnight in Paris just above, a montage celebrating life in the City of Lights set to Sidney Bechet’s “Si tu vois ma mère”? After that, have a look at the clip below, in which the man himself plays with the Woody Allen and Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band at New York’s Cafe Carlyle — where you can catch them every Monday night through December 14th.
Woody Allen & Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band no Café Carlyle
The genius of Milton Friedman is that his economic insights are as powerful as they are timeless. Despite the fact that these comments were made more than thirty years ago in 1978 at the Mayo Clinic, they ring as true today as they did then. Milton Friedman’s six-part video series below on the economics of medical care is especially timely, in light of the fact that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Obamacare this week and Milton Friedman predicted in this lecture that increased government involvement in health care would lead inevitably to completely socialized medicine. This Mayo Clinic lecture is also a testament to Milton Friedman’s effectiveness at delivering the message of individual liberty and limited government in a convincing and non-threatening way, as Milton explains diplomatically to an audience of physicians how the “power of organized medicine” led to significant restrictions on entry to their profession through the American Medical Association’s control over occupational licensing for physicians, which has contributed to the rising costs of medical care.
Milton Friedman: “I’m going to talk today about the economics of medical care. This in an area, in which we all know there has been a trend toward ever-greater government involvement. One step in this area inevitably leads to another. We have had an expansion of government involvement in the spending of money – Medicare, Medicaid funds, expenditures by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare for other medical purposes have been growing by leaps and bounds. They have gone from a very tiny portion of the total national expenditures on medical care to a substantial portion. If this trend continues, it inevitably leads to completely socialized medicine. I believe that this trend is very much against the interest of patients, physicians, and other health care personnel. And in the brief time I have to today, I want to explain why I believe the trend is so much against their interest, why it has occurred, and what, if anything can be done about it.”
I have written about Obamacare over and over again on this blog. Dan Mitchell has shared many funny cartoons about Obamacare too. Milton Friedman has spoken out about government healthcare many times in the past and his film series FREE TO CHOOSE is on You Tube and I encourage you to watch it. It is clear that the federal government debt is growing so much that it is endangering us because if things keep going like they are now we will not have any money left for the national defense because we are so far in debt as a nation.
__________ Enzi statement on the Supreme Court’s King Vs. Burwell decision 5 Takeaways From Today’s Supreme Court Ruling on Obamacare Wicker Comments on King v Burwell Supreme Court Decision Senator Lankford Discusses the King v. Burwell Supreme Court Decision Congressman Steve King Response to SCOTUS King v. Burwell Ruling Obamacare and the Odious Anti-Constitutionalism of […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 718) (Emailed to White House on 6-25-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]
______ Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1 The Region – Banking and Policy Issues Magazine – Interview with Milton Friedman June 1992 In his new book, Money Mischief, economist Milton Friedman compares inflation to alcoholism; blames the rise of Chinese communism, in large part, on an […]
______ Milton Friedman – A Conversation On Minimum Wage Milton Friedman Interview Milton Friedman is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Chicago and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.Dr. Friedman received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Science. Member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 […]
________ Milton Friedman on Donahue – 1979 Uploaded on Aug 26, 2009 Dr. Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate, promoting “Free to Choose” on the show Donahue. Walter E. Williams: Milton Friedman was an economist’s economist Print Font [+] [-] Leave a comment » By Walter E. Williams Published: Wednesday, Dec. 6 2006 12:00 a.m. MST Walter […]
_______ José Niño José Niño is a graduate student based in Santiago, Chile. A citizen of the world, he has lived in Venezuela, Colombia, and the United States. He is currently an international research analyst with the Acton Circle of Chile. Follow@JoseAlNino. 40 Years Later: Milton Friedman’s Legacy in Chile “Chilean Miracle” Struck a Blow […]
____ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income NOAH GORDON AUG 6, 2014 Creating a wage floor is an effective way to fight poverty—and it would reduce government spending and intrusion. Swiss backers of a minimum income spread out coins in Bern. Denis Balibouse/Reuters Last week, my […]
________________ Which Fed Bill Would Milton Friedman Have Liked? Posted on March 10, 2015by John Taylor Writing last week on the Cato at Liberty blog, Steve Hanke argued that Milton Friedman would have supported the “Audit the Fed” bill recently introduced in the Senate. Steve’s reasoning is based on Friedman’s 1962 essay “Should there be an […]
A great speech below: Here are the myths:Robber Baron Myth, The Cause of Great Depression Myth, The Demand for Government Service Myth, The Free Lunch Smith, and The Robin Hood Myth. 1) the Robber Baron Myth, 2) the Great Depression Myth, 3) the Demand for Government Service Myth, 4) the Free Lunch Myth, and 5) […]
_______________ FEATURED ARTICLE | SEPTEMBER 4, 2006 An Interview with Milton Friedman Milton Friedman* I recently sat down with Milton Friedman, a few days before his 94th birthday, to discuss the impact of two of his most important contributions to economics and liberty: A Monetary History of the United States, 1870-1960 [co-written] with Anna Schwartz, […]
Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 1of2 Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 2of2 The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits by Milton FriedmanThe New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970. Copyright @ 1970 by The New York Times Company. When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the […]
____________ Levin on Milton Friedman: ‘One Thing to Have Free Immigration to Jobs, Another for Welfare’ By Michael Morris | January 16, 2015 | 5:12 PM EST During his show on January 15, 2015, Nationally syndicated radio host Mark Levin recalled the famed economist Milton Friedman and explored an important reason why open immigration, despite […]
Richard Avedon Foundation. Eli Reed. ‘Tupac Shakur’ 1992 (printed 2013)
Richard Avedon. Charlie Chaplin Leaving America. NYC, September 13 1952
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George Bush below:
Henri Cartier-Bresson – Photographer Richard Avedon, Carmel Snow and Marie-Louise Bousquet, Paris 1951
The Daily Hatch 