In music, I sure have enjoyed Kenny Davern. On the death of Davern, Terry Teachout, WSJ reporter recommended the album he did with Dick Wellstood as his best. That is in the blog About Last Night cited in the left margin. A high school friend who went to Loyola NO was a clarinet player, don't know that he took the locale opportunity to do any jazz work, should have. We joined the band together and played in a loft of an old building. The flute was free or $15; so I played it. I don't know that I've been as honored, though also a bit guilty, as when I left and Mr. Holman the old band/ orchestra director said, publicly as I was leaving with the band there, 'Where would the United States be if, like you, the soldiers had left George Washington?' It must have been February; I was going to run track with Frank Joyce, who would die a year and a half later of Addison's disease. I will always remember the brown mottled color it gave to his shins. If he had gotten more sick before the end of the school year, I do think my father would have visited and diagnosed him. I do wish I could have continued the flute, run track, and not been in denial about the potential seriousness of Frank's illness.

Things that I thought were notable in journalism this last week. Commonweal continues on some parallel universe to me. They had their lead article on Darwin. The fact that intelligent design was never mentioned must make them some kind of intellectual. It was about Darwin the standard British imperialist really; I sent the editors this note commenting also on their Iraq editorial (I think you can see Commonweal with a simple registration):

Christ spoke correctly of the Darwinian success of humanity when he said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit the earth." Man almost uniquely has the capability of seeing the stranger in himself. The 'poor in spirit' see themselves as one among others. Your article was of interest to me as an amateur historian who prefers to see the war disaster of the twentieth century as due, first of all, to the defense of the British Empire which had as a consequence preventing German competition by, firstly, preventing German military movement by a constraining web of alliances. Thus, when the Kaiser went to confront terrorism in Serbia, World War I started. As has oft been said, the failure, the European wars in the West, has led to a self hatred. In Iraq, the U.S. does not seek dominion; there are only 50 American troops in the Kurdish sector. We are in Iraq as police. Police are necessary when an individual or group grossly violates the principle of seeing others as equivalent to themselves. Catholics are correct in seeing that even especially for the police it is necessary to be "poor in spirit."

I was glad to see that Piestewa's parents and children got the house she dreamed to give them (article in the LA Times). Her friend Spc. Lynch, the young woman injured and rescued in the first weeks of the Iraq War, asked Extreme Makeover Home Edition to provide it; ABC did. Piwestra, a young woman from a reservation, you may not recall was with Lynch and killed. Instapundit connects to some funny/awesome pictures and videos from the line 'the troops prepare to be defunded.' See 'the British' link in comments. I liked the British 'On the way to Amarillo' and the 'mercenary sniper' video noted in column right on the British video page.