Larry Kart

A post on the subject (or at least I think it is) from a postal worker: "Yup. Post Office is a private plan funded by agency and employee contributions and investments. The only money they get from the government (read: YOU) is what's required to cover the cost of federally mandated programs and subsidies. The rest comes in one stamp, one magazine, one package at a time. Where it gets confusing is, the plan is ADMINISTERED by the same federal agency that handles federal employee retirement plans. And the Post Office pays them to do it. "And yes, it IS a better plan than many in the private sector, but that's because they still have union representation. Even so, the average postal worker earns at best lower middle class wages, and are willing to settle for that due to the better benefits attached. "Just to set the record straight on Social Security -- the only time a postal employee under the old retirement system qualifies for that is if they've earned credit from other employment. Even then, there IS a matching offset against their postal pension, so it's a no gain situation more times than not. Under the new system, it's social security and their version of a 401K based on their contributions ... no different than most decent private sector jobs, and once again, no federal dollars spent."

I ask in genuine innocence/ignorance, how does these stories below jibe with the above?: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-22/u-s-postal-service-will-suspend-contributions-into-employee-pension-fund.html e.g. "The U.S. Postal Service, facing insolvency without approval to delay a $5.5 billion payment for worker health benefits, will suspend contributions to an employee retirement account to save $800 million this year." http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20110825/DEPARTMENTS02/108250303/USPS-health-retirement-plan-proposal-met-skepticism e.g. "The U.S. Postal Service's proposal to pull out of federal health care plans would shift the bulk of nearly a half-million retirees' health care coverage onto Medicare."

One of my favorite Konitz duo albums is "Speaking Lowly Vol. 1" (Philology) with Italian pianist Renato Sellani. It has a special air of tenderness, even stillness, if you will. Lee is in a mood to be very respectful of the melodies, and he leans far more than usual on timbral shadings, almost a la Johnny Hodges at times (e.g. on "Laura"). Here's "Polka Dots and Moonbeams": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-woRCZaBkC0

Like them both a lot.

Horenstein's recording has a rare elemental power: http://www.amazon.co...horenstein rite Yesterday I picked up for $1 at a resale shop the Maazel/Cleveland, which so far is full of novel to my ears detail and yet for all its precision also quite elemental (this to some degree thanks to much care having been taken to give the percussion instruments their full due): http://www.amazon.co...rds=maazel rite I also have Craft/Musicmasters, Stravinsky/Columbia and Monteux/RCA. P.S. I know that Maazel's reputation is that of a technically superb but emotionally empty conductor, but other encounters with his work in recent years (e.g. his Symphony of Psalms, a Debussy disc with La Mer, Jeux, and the Nocturnes, his Daphnis and Chloe) haven't borne that out for me.

He treats us all too well. The times I've eaten at Frontera Grill and Topolabambo, I thought I was in paradise. BTW, I just discovered that his older brother is the infamous Skip Bayless. You are really late to that game. You should have worked at a paper where Skip had a column. His colleagues when he was at the Trib despised him. Interesting that this situation would be echoed at the Sun-Times with Mariotti.

He treats us all too well. The times I've eaten at Frontera Grill and Topolabambo, I thought I was in paradise. BTW, I just discovered that his older brother is the infamous Skip Bayless.

Personally, I thought that thread got out of hand when Sangrey mentioned Rick Bayless.

He did a Raymond Scott album, too. Guess I was wrong. No, you were right.

He did a Raymond Scott album, too.

Hoberman was at the Village Voice for many years; they let him go a while back. Rosenbaum I don't care for either in general. The best film critic I know is Dave Kehr (he's also a friend of many years), but others may not agree on Dave's virtues.

You'll be happy to know that I couldn't stand Studs Terkel. Clearly, I'm the party with the problem here.

Ebert, Margaret Thatcher, now Annette -- discuss.

The "Golden Circle" dates say "produced by Francis Wolff," but I think that (and Chuck or someone else can correct me on this) they were just picked up/released by Blue Note.

LD and Turrentine, yes, but while I like Spaulding, don't think so -- just not enough of a player, while distinctive, and also no leader dates. The others (aside from JMAC, for whom I've already voted) no way because so much of their careers took place away from BN both before and later on, in Ornette's case especially. Spaulding did lead several dates from 1976 onwards - but not on Blue Note, if that's what you mean Yes, that's what I meant.

The posts I've made on this thread provide sufficient background I think for my less than adulatory view of Ebert's career as a critic. That you, and many others in the wake of his death, seem to think that a "pedestal" is where he belongs is among the reasons I decided to speak my piece. Also, just to be clear, my view of Ebert dates back some 35 years, and I worked in the same journalistic community at the same time FWTW. People I know and trust say that he was by and large a great guy personally; I didn't know him well enough on that level to have an opinion there. As for Royko -- yes, he more less became "a crabby shadow of his former self," but he was the (also not-uncrabby) Royko of the legend for decades before that, and during that time his influence was often immense. Also, on many matters during those decades he was just about the only columnist saying the things he said. Finally, I don't begrudge anyone for being broken up over Ebert's passing.

"... in the spirit of public intellectuals like Jean-Paul Sartre...?" Not that Sartre was an unflawed figure, but (to quote from my favorite candy bar commercial) "great googly moogly!" Compare Ebert to a fellow journalist from the same city and of the same general era, Mike Royko, and Ebert IMO had nowhere near as great an impact on the public discourse. Yes, Ebert had many virtues, but what next -- the greatest moral philosopher since Immanuel Kant?

LD and Turrentine, yes, but while I like Spaulding, don't think so -- just not enough of a player, while distinctive, and also no leader dates. The others (aside from JMAC, for whom I've already voted) no way because so much of their careers took place away from BN both before and later on, in Ornette's case especially.

Mobley, McLean and...

Not quite a career move, perhaps, but Ebert did later on conduct a series of "conversations" with Scorsese that were published as a book, "Scorsese By Ebert."

me too. To me he usually sounded like he never had a good enough horn, though surely that was not literally the case. It's like his sound never had the "ring" to it that his style otherwise suggested that it should. Not quite same thing as Charles Tolliver's nanny goat tone (I'm quoting what some critic or musician whose name I can't recall -- perhaps A.B. Spellman? -- said of Tolliver at the time) but probably related.

I like what I've heard of Burns, but how much was there in and/or of Burns to miss out on? A nice but rather low-key player, no? Might as well plump for Idrees Sulieman or Ray Copeland.

The story itself -- about Woods needing to win more majors, beginning with the 2013 Masters, if he wants to enter the game's pantheon (or in this case ... wait for the necessary other step ... "penthouse") -- doesn't really matter. Rather it's that "Blank Stairs" IMO just doesn't work, and for a good many reasons. Chief among them being that if you stick a headline on top of a story, and you need to pore over the readout to grasp what is meant, and even then it's such a stretch as to make you reach for your Sky King Secret Decoder ring...

In my home edition this story: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/golf/ct-spt-0407-masters-tiger-woods-pga-20130407,0,5173901.story bore the back-asswards and still more or less incomprehensible faux play-on-words headline "Blank Stairs," with this as the semi-explanatory readout: "If Woods plans to restart climb to the penthouse of golf, he'd better stop coming up empty at Augusta" Will nobody tell these idiots to stop doing this?

Woody Shaw is great on Natural Essence. There's a part he plays in the ensemble on (I think) "Yearning for Love" that just breaks my heart -- a twisting-turning figure that epitomizes the title phrase.