Saturday, September 25, 2021

The Voices


We’ve all heard some cliché joke about ‘voices in our head’, usually posted over and over again on Facebook or quoted by someone who hasn’t quite figured out just how tired that concept is. But this isn’t about some comic concept of ‘voices in one’s head’, but rather something that has haunted me for some time.

I long ago accepted I was a storyteller for my people. It’s never anything officially bestowed upon one by the ancestors, or even a conscious decision for me, but rather something I grew into. I vowed that I would do my best to put my children in touch with those they would never know. Just this morning I was telling them that in a couple of days would be their great-grandfather’s birthday, and the thought came to me yet again: I can tell stories (and often do), give dates and descriptions and all that, but how can I mimic their voices?

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Military courts could order ‘red flag’ gun confiscation under defense bill

 Via Billy

https://www.arizonabikerleathers.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/5c1bf7367ce20.jpg

A provision in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act would allow military courts to issue protective orders that include “Red Flag” gun confiscation, according to the more than 1,300-page bill.

In the legislation, those beholden to the United States Code of Military Justice could be issued a “military court protective order” by a military judge or magistrate, which would make “possessing, receiving, or otherwise accessing a firearm” illegal.

More @ American Military News

What Makes These Musicians Great?–The Balfa Brothers

 Dewey Balfa - Jai Ete Au Bal - Awesome Fiddlesticks

In a significant departure for this series, the 9th installment of What Makes This Musician Great will focus on a band instead of one musician, and more appropriately, a band of brothers.  The Balfa Brothers were a Cajun band of real-life brothers Rodney, Dewey, Will, Harry, and Burkeman.  They learned music from their father, who was a Louisiana sharecropper, and they started playing together in the 1940’s.

Their names are not as big and showy as any of the other musicians featured in this series because their professional timing was terrible.  They first began to perform and record Cajun music at a time when authentic Cajun had become “not cool,” and was being replaced by a more homogenized and progressive sound. Therefore, since the Balfa Brothers persisted with their old, traditional sound and stayed true to their roots, they represent the last, best surviving example of authentic Cajun music before the mass corruption of Cajun culture after World War II.  Eventually, a Cajun cultural renaissance would take place in the late 1960’s, causing The Balfa Brothers to suddenly became a hot commodity with international appeal.  I had a chance to see The Balfa Brothers in the Spring of 1978, and I missed it.  They were performing at a Cajun Festival near New Orleans, and my high school Jazz band was there at the same time performing in a separate Jazz festival.  I had never heard of The Balfa Brothers, but the photo in the newspaper caught my attention – it’s the photo seen with this article.  I was intrigued and conflicted, because something was pulling at my love of music to go and see this group at all costs, but eventually my Jazz snobbery prevailed.  They were Cajun, after all, and NOT Jazz, but I would never get another chance.  Rodney and Will were killed in a car crash in 1979 near Bunkie, Louisiana, just as their careers were really starting to take off internationally.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Border Patrol Outraged by Biden’s Scapegoating: ‘He Just Started a War’

Via Hal

President Biden earned the ire of Border Patrol agents on Friday after endorsing the false claim that they were recorded “whipping” migrants who were attempting to cross the Rio Grande into Del Rio, Texas, earlier this week.

At a press briefing Friday, Biden said the agents would “pay” for allegedly lashing the Haitian migrants — a narrative popularized by journalists on social media even though the video evidence shows no such thing.

More @ Yahoo