The People have spoken and the demand is made, loudly and clearly: We want issues pertaining to global warming and planetary climate change put on the international political and economic agendas. And we want meaningful action taken on these issues — today, right now.

That was the one voice in which an estimated 400,000 people, nearly half a million strong, spoke in New York City on Sunday, 21 September, during the “People’s Climate March”. Tens of thousands more marched in solidarity in cities around the world.

I wondered aloud in a recent blog post how young people in the USA get their hands on high-caliber weapons, often with tragic consequences of innocent people getting killed. But I could just as well ask the same thing about police forces throughout the United States.

Ferguson, Missouri immediately comes to mind, of course, and the shooting death by police of 18-year-old Michael Brown. But contrary to what the apologists might say, we have seen this tragic scenario play out many times over the years in the United States of America, and it goes something like this:

The recent release of the new Miles Davis CD, Miles at the Fillmore, has got me going back in time these days to the late 1960s/early 1970s and digging the period when Miles’ electric band dominated the music scene, both in jazz and rock circles. What I’ve been hearing on this new 4-CD set knocks me out, and I’ve got to share something about it here.

This is not a review or a tribute — more like a reminder, if any were really necessary, of just how much of a musical giant Miles was in his lifetime and how, many years after his death in 1991, musicians and fans continue to stand in his widely cast musical shadow.