Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: That Was Who?

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

That Was Who?

Did you ever find out after you were at an event that the person that you shared a cab with and spent the night chatting with was a celebrity? Well, it happened to me. I was down in Washington DC to lobby for the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crime law and ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) in 2007. We were sitting around in the hotel bar and talking before we went to the reception, when we were getting ready to go to the reception, this woman asked if we wanted to share a cab to the reception and we all piled into the taxi. Over the course of the three days when our paths crossed we chatted and on the last day when we were leaving, something was said that set off a little light in the back of my head… I heard that name before, where did I hear it? When I got home, I googled her name, Jennifer Leitham.

Jennifer Leitham (born August 10, 1953) is an American musician and double bass player. Being left-handed, she has also used the nicknames "Lefty" or "The Southpaw”
An active live performer, Leitham has been bassist on more than 100 recordings including eight of her own. She is known for long associations with Mel Torme and Doc Severinsen. She has also appeared with Woody Herman, George Shearing, Gerry Mulligan, Peggy Lee, Joe Pass, Cleo Laine, Louis Bellson, Pete Rugolo, Bill Watrous and been a member of the Tonight Show All-Stars, The Woody Herman Thundering Herd, the Benny Carter Quintet, and the Bob Cooper Quartet.
Wikipedia

Now she has an award winning documentary out, “I Stand Corrected,” it won the “Best Film” American Documentary Film Festival and other award at film festivals from around the country.

Watch Jennifer Leitham perform and it’s instantly obvious the tall striking redhead is an original. This world-famous jazz bassist plays her instrument left handed (something virtually unheard of in the profession) and when she takes center-stage – standing to play rather than sitting – her entire body seems to dance with the bass as her mane of long, fiery hair whips and bobs to the blistering pace set by her fingers. She is a special talent made all the more unique because Jennifer Leitham began her life and career when she was known as John Leitham.
IMDb

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

That Was Who?

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