At Jim's Sunday evening Bible study, we were given a selection of questions from the 2010 Pew Rearch Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life poll in 2010 to test our knowledge, with the questions relevant to Christianity only given (we were not given questions unrelated with our study) to the class. We were astonished of the Bible Knowledge questions how many did not answer the questions correctly.
As Our Word does discuss faith issues, we'll see how many of you can answer these questions -- NO USE OF ANY SEARCH ENGINE TO FIND THE ANSWERS. And no, this is NOT an open book test! I missed one, and that I shall not mention.
Please be careful and phrase #10, #11, and #12 in the form of a question!
What is the first book of the Bible?
What are the names of the first four books of the New Testament ("the Four Gospels")?
Where, according to the Bible, was Jesus born?
Of these four, one is NOT in the Ten Commandments. Identify the one NOT in the Ten Commandments:
a) Do unto others as done unto you; b)
Do not commit adultery; c)
No stealing;
d) Keep the Sabbath
Which figure is associated with remaining obedient to God despite suffering?
Which figure is associated with leading the exodus from Egypt?
Which figure is associated with willingness to sacrifice his son for God?
What is Catholic teaching about bread and wine in Communion?
They are the body and blood of Christ
They are symbols
Which Group traditionally teaches salvation is through faith alone?
Protestants
Catholics
Both
Neither
Of Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Mormonism, it was the faith of Mother Teresa.
Of Luther, Aquinas, and Wesley, his writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation.
Of Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney, and William Franklin (Billy) Graham Jnr, he was an evangelist in the First Great Awakening.
Ive marched 16 times and have been part of our state’s Citizens for Life dinner or other related events, whether it’s dinner with Suzanne Schindler or lunch with Jennifer O’Neill. Watching Michael Clancy’s photograph of a baby with spina bifida being operated in utero before his birth was enough this year to witness what we saw.
But sadly, I was appalled at what I saw during our March for Life again. A group of Protestants protested the 40th annual march in our state because the march was led by the Knights of Columbus. This is not an issue between faiths, it is an issue of the sanctity of human life, and we just passed the said Sunday in churches, no longer observed nationally following Dear Leader’s decision to purge the pro-life day while celebrating sexual deviancy “pride” month. Why would people complain about Catholics and Protestants marching for the protection of the life of a child? At our annual banquet, only two denominations were represented – Catholics and Baptists.
Forty years is too much. When we now have a Governor in New York who is an odds-on favourite to become President in 2016 pushing for baby murder all the way into birth and beyond, even ordering Catholic hospitals to close, we are seeing the humanist agenda against life, motivated by a President who has forced faith-based firms to pay for baby murder or face heavy fines (see Hobby Lobby), and over 50 million dead in these baby murder mills, I think of this ill-informed generation that trusts MTV has created a mess reversing gains of the life movement as a generation of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” will listen to what their “dear leaders” will advance.
We've lost millions of children in these gruesome attacks each day, bigger assault weapons than what Dear Leader claims, yet there is no call from him to ban these “assault weapons” that penetrate the skulls of real children. When the National Abortion Rights Action League is glorified and coverage for killing babies is now required under new mandates passed under the “Affordable” Care Act, where does that lead us?
An entire generation of work has now been wiped out by one ferocious dictator. And we mourn for those who have been slaughtered in the 40 years since. I fear now that with the Obama courts everything we've accomplished will be reversed, and the right to kill children and adults that you don't like will become law by judicial fiat.
And it's not just those in the womb. The result is without the sanctity of human life, anyone that a person does not like can be slaughtered at the will of someone who has ulterior motives. Witness Michael Schiavo's fight to kill his wife, the Oregon “death with dignity” law, and the Belgian twins' euthanasia because the deaf were now blind. Are we in a dangerous era of eugenics again?
Kyrie Eleison
I have Mozart's “Dies Irae” from his Requiem in my head in memory of those who have died in the womb in these forty years. ◙
"I am shocked — shocked — to find gambling going on in here."
- Captain Louis Renault, as played by Claude Raines in Casablanca
I suppose there are still people out there who were shocked to see the reports that Lance Armstrong admitted his drug use to National Conscience Oprah Winfrey last night, in an interview to be broadcast Thursday. I suppose we'll have to wait until then to see what he actually said, and how he explained it away, but that hasn't stopped people from commenting on it in the meantime. And one school of thought we're hearing is a variation on the "Robin Hood" theme, i.e. that Armstrong did so much good in his lifetime outside of the cycling game, he raised funds (mostly from big corporations that could afford it) and awareness for cancer, he was an inspirational leader, Livestrong, yada, yada, yada.
That's an interesting proposition, that the good Armstrong's done outweighs his personal failings, one that I thought was worth an experiment. Let's try the following statements on for size, and see what your reaction is to each of them:
"I know he's cheating on me, but he provides for me and my children, so I can't really deny that."
"I may have lied to the American people about a break-in, but I was going to win reelection anyway, and Watergate doesn't really diminish the end of the Vietnam War, my trip to China, and the other things I've accomplished, right?"
"Perhaps the stem cells did come from aborted babies, but they saved my life, so I'm not complaining that someone had to die so I could live."
"So what if I did steal that money from the insurance company? They can afford it, and anyway, I gave all the money to feed starving children. What's the difference?"
Chances are that most of you were offended by at least one, if not all, of these statements. Perhaps they struck close to home for some of you. At any rate, I doubt that anyone out there would have agreed with all four of them.
Presumably there are those who feel themselves taken in by
the manufactured aura that surrounded Armstrong. And, human nature
being what it is, we're loathe to blame ourselves, to suggest that we
should have known better. We don't want to think, even in private, that
we might have been stupid enough to fall for this con artist's story,
hook, line and sinker. That's understandable, and so to cover ourselves
we might want to provide cover for Armstrong. We tell others (because
we're really telling ourselves) that although he might have been wrong,
he did so much that was good that we can somehow excuse, at least in
part, the bad things.
And in so doing we're really suggesting that these good works and charitable endeavors somehow excuse at least some of his sins, that he likely wouldn't have been able to accomplish all these things
without the fame that came from winning seven Tour de France titles. That, in essence, the end justify the means.
Now, it's a generally accepted part of Christian theology that good ends never justify bad means (while at the same time it's acknowledged that God can always bring forth good even from the worst actions). But since Lance Armstrong is a secular humanist, a non-believer, that doesn't enter into the equation. Having said that, would we suggest that bombing a city in Afghanistan and killing 100,000 innocent people (assuming one could verify such a thing) would have been justified had we been able to guarantee Osama Bin Laden would have died in the wreckage? After all, the end justifies the means.
The libel lawsuits he filed against journalists. The threats and intimidation he leveled against colleagues. The brazen lying to the world press and public. Are we to assume that all of this was justified simply because he was able to do something "good"? Is that what we're supposed to tell David Walsh, whose employer (The Sunday Times) paid £600,000 to settle a libel case brought by Armstrong after Walsh exposed some of his tactics? Or Emma O'Reilly, former masseuse for Armstrong's team, who said Armstrong "tried to make my life a living hell" after she told what she knew about drug use within the team? People's reputations were damaged; the trust of their colleagues was threatened; their lives, indeed, were made "hell" - all because Lance Armstrong acted against them for making accusations that, he knew all along, were true. But then we shouldn't worry about that if the end justify the means.
You and I were bilked out of some of our money, since the U.S. Postal Service sponsored Armstrong's team and paid something in the neighborhood of $31 million as part of an agreement that stipulated "no performance-enhancing drugs." Granted, the government being the government, that money probably would have been wasted somewhere else anyway, but it still peeves me anyway, and I'm not likely to feel more sanguine about it if you tell me that the end justifies the means.
People heard about Lance Armstrong's foundation through his fame; they were moved by the story of a cancer survivor who overcame the odds to become a would champion. And they gave money to that foundation assuming it to be honest because
they believed in the man who started it, and while there's no evidence
that anything unethical has ever gone on there, it was the
trustworthiness of Lance Armstrong that the organization banked on. Even the most naïve among us might see the potential for an ethical conflict here, given the fiction that was Armstrong's reputation. But in this cynical world, where we've seen so many trustworthy institutions come under scrutiny (and often fall short), should we give Armstrong a free pass because, after all, the end justifies the means?
Once upon a time there was something called "character." It's a hard thing to define, I suppose, but there was a day when it was considered very important. It often went hand-in-hand with something known as "principle" and people's actions were often analyzed based on how they measured up in relation to these two qualities.
We're also told not to judge someone's heart, for only God can read what is held in secret. For us to take the measure of a man, we have to look at his public statements and actions - tangible things that we can see and appreciate, even if we don't always understand them.
And by that standard we know that Lance Armstrong was a cheat, a liar, and a fraud. We know that he hurt, or tried to hurt, other people in order to protect this fraudulent life. I wouldn't presume to call him an "evil" man - that's reading his heart, remember - but I will say that he did evil things. And the end, no matter how noble or good we want to think it is, can never be justified by that.
As for Armstrong himself: how, then, to wrap up his sordid tale? I can't think of anything better than the words of Oliver Cromwell as he dismissed the Rump Parliament in 1653.
"You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go."◙
Life. The March for Life is coming either this week or next week, depending on your state chapter of the National Right to Life organisation. Don't forget about it! Our state dinner tickets are set and I'm set to march for the sixteenth time!
Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. It's no longer a day celebrated by the White House with this totalitarian in chief who wants as many babies (and adults) dead as possible to advance his agenda. But how many churches will be observing it the next two weeks?
Totalitarianism? Just noted Bill O'Reilly commented on the President's clear move towards a dictatorship of "Dear Leader." I've seen too many moves where he has aimed towards that tactic, whether it is energy, fuel economy, the financial crisis, and now guns.
Emergent! While the controversy over Louie Giglio at the Coronation of Dear Leader was massive because he would violate the New World Order's rule on hate speech (anything opposed to sexual deviants is hate speech to the NWO), people never discussed the questionable theology of Passion and the related movement. How can any of us, Protestant or Catholic, sit in the middle of these Life Enhancement Centres, drowned out by 100 dB rock music, with such questionable garbage dominating the service?
Bottom of the Barrel? A complaint I heard on social media last night was how a "celebrity diving" show, taken from European concepts, was brought to the United States as filler before the biggest show of the second half of the television regular season. These are Olympic sports we rarely hear but every four years, but isn't it time that these sports are shown more often on network television, even if it is in stranger situations such as celebrities trying it? They called it scraping to the bottom of ideas for television, but if you're the United States Olympic Committee and the National Governing Bodies of the sports in question, how much positive exposure is it to see celebrities trying it? Imaging a celebrity Modern Pentathlon, Biathlon (shooting and cross-country skiing), or even team handball (a sport in its professional level that that Al-Jazeera has carried on its airwaves) and water polo?
Don't Be Fooled.Time Warner Cable dropped Ovation, which angered many in the arts field, but it was not mentioned in the way Current was dropped after Al-Jazeera's purchase. Remember they added Al-Jazeera's BeIn, a channel we mentioned in the summer that carries the BBVA League and Serie A among notable football leagues, and is rapidly growing because of it. While they lost to Comcast the rights to the biggest of the leagues, they still carry the serious leagues with names such as Barca and Real.
Prayer Request. My grandmother had a urinary tract infection three weeks ago, and released from the hospital Tuesday, she is still recovering (and 92). Keep her in your prayers as she continues to recover from the nastiness of the antibiotics she was taken and the other things that happened to her. ◙
Tosca, Tosca. In thinking of our February column on Lego Tosca, I thought of my anger at the Ray Tanner Home Run 12km when organisers mishandled my entry, and I contemplated suicide, naturally jumping off a castle, near the start line. Obviously I must have read too much on Giacomo Puccini's opera! Gymnasts and ballet dancers who are sopranos should be the only ones playing Tosca since the suicide leap is a must.
Rossini – Meow! If we talked Rossini on his birthday, we had to do it. But it was likely de Pearsall who did it built around Rossini's Otello.
Fundraisers and Fines. Look at how Cee-Lo Green, deserving of a $100,000 fine and a 25-point penalty, went off scot-free from his use of improper language at a fund-raiser for Dear Leader this year – and the Low Information Voter ran off and put Dear Leader back in office.
The Left's New Tactics. “If (turning a National Day of Prayer breakfast into an Occupy Wall Street rally by your speech) does not show how the Left would rather promote Occupiers, Class Warfare, and all sorts of "social gospel" that does not include the Bible at a National Day of Prayer event, this should be a warning that the Left will hijack any event to advance their evil, anti-Christian agenda.” And yet Obama is pushing for this to be federal law. We saw the consequences at Penn State. “Sexual deviancy special rights activists care about normalising pedophilia and other wicked sexual deviant behaviour at the expense of children.” We saw his endorsement of false "marriage" lead to a winning streak by the sexual deviants, and now they are replacing Freedom of Religion with forced acceptance of their lifestyle of sin.
Prerecorded Music at an Orchestra Event? “Now who are the divos? The group that demanded singing to prerecorded music? It's as bad as the church singers who sing almost exclusively to the can, claiming it sounds better than the real thing. Don't tell me that. If I'm paying for Mary Lee, Jennifer, Mori, or other musicians to play in a concert, I want to hear them. I don't want to hear a recording! Real musicians are not Powerade bottles.”
Do People Understand the Fiscal Cliff? The sad thing about this current financial issue is that the House passed its budget nine months ago, but the Senate refused, hoping, as they have successfully stalled, Dear Leader to win a second term based on the “praise the government as the deity” mentality. Add to that an Olympics in the UK where they ran propaganda on the virtue of socialism, and teaching of socialism everywhere, and it's only natural that they supported Dear Leader. If I have five dollars, do I spend twenty? ◙
"And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us."
Reading Acts 6-8 remind us today why, as believers, we observe December 26 as St. Stephen's Day, in memory of the first martyr of Christendom. ◙
From the chill of Minnesota to the mild Carolinas, we wish our readers at Our Word the message of rejoicing as the Saviour is Born!
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David); to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
◙
One of the lessons often lost in the world of social media is to be careful with words, because they mean things. This is particularly important when it comes to words such as right and wrong, good and evil, and the like. They’re pejorative words; a lawyer might call them “leading,” in that they’re designed to provoke a certain type of response, positive or negative.
The word “bad” is one of the worst kinds of pejoratives. It is a judgmental word, going beyond actions and straight to the heart of a person’s soul. It imputes values not only to deeds, but to motives as well. A man who does something wrong or foolish or misguided is not necessarily a bad man. We’re reminded that we’re to judge the act, not the actor.
Robert Bork, who died yesterday at the age of 85, was a brilliant and accomplished jurist who was done in, professionally, by bad men. More specific than that: he was done in by men such as Edward Kennedy and Joseph Biden.
I don’t hesitate to call them bad men, because they knew that the things they said about Robert Bork were not true. They were outright lies, or they were words twisted out of context, or they were pejoratives of their own that were designed to put Bork in the worst possible light. They sought to keep Bork off the Supreme Court, not because he wasn’t qualified, not because he wouldn’t uphold the law, but because they disagreed with him, they feared the effect he would have on the policies they favored, and they resolved to do whatever it took to deny him confirmation. They weren’t acting out of ignorance – they knew what they were doing. They weren’t acting on good intentions – they knew of their deceptions. And they went ahead with them.
In 1986, Biden was quoted in the Philadelphia Enquirer thusly: “Say the administration sends up Bork and after our investigation he looks a lot like another Scalia, I’d have to vote for him and if the groups tear me apart, that’s the medicine I’ll have to take, I’m not Teddy Kennedy.” As Bork pointed out in The Tempting of America, “My record was in fact almost identical to Scalia’s. . . .”Biden knew this, but it wasn’t convenient for him.* Having boxed himself into a corner (not the first time, nor the last), he chose to willingly deny the facts, because to do so suited his purpose.
*If I'm wrong - if, in fact, Biden really is that clueless that often, then - well, in the words of wrestling announcer Nigel McGuiness, "Everyone has a right to be stupid, but let's be honest, he's kind of abusing the privilege."
And as for Edward Kennedy – well, the less said about him, the better. ‘Tis not good to speak ill of the dead, after all. But Jim Gereghty, calling Kennedy “one of the most despicable men ever to hold high public office in the United States” (and to that I’d only add – why stop there? Surely few people of any prominence have been as despicable as Kennedy), referred to Kennedy’s “calumnious lies designed not simply to prevent Judge Bork from being appointed to the Supreme Court but to soil his character irretrievably.” For example, in Robert Bork’s America, “which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters,” and so on. Kennedy knew these were lies – he would have had to be not only despicable but impossibly stupid otherwise – but he said them anyway, because they suited his purpose.
Joe Nocera, himself a political liberal, provides on the op-ed page of The New York Times a brutally honest assessment of the left’s tactics, asserting that “many of the liberals fighting the nomination also knew they were unfair. That same Advocacy Institute [a liberal think-tank] memo noted that, ‘Like it or not, Bork falls (perhaps barely) at the borderline of respectability.’ It didn’t matter. He had to be portrayed ‘as an extreme ideological activist.’ The ends were used to justify some truly despicable means.”
The fact that Kennedy and Biden and their like did not soil Bork’s character irretrievably – that Robert Bork remained a distinguished and respected man – speaks not only of his character, but of theirs. They may have succeeded in keeping Bork off the Supreme Court, but they were not able to silence him, nor were they able to take away the respect that so many had for him.
Honest assessments of Robert Bork speak of his warmth and humanity, his sense of humor, his loyalty, and his brilliance. He would have served the Supreme Court, and the nation, with distinction and honor. That he was derailed primarily by two bad men, who had (or, in Biden’s case, have) neither distinction nor honor speaks less of Bork than it does of us as a people, for continuing to raise people like them to positions of authority. Corruption, as Bishop Sheen once pointed out, rises, like the bubbles in a glass of beer, from the bottom. ◙
The nature of this commentary is extremely sensitive for me to write. Twenty years ago, a close friend in school was brutally attacked, shot, and nearly killed by a thirteen-year old monster who was sentenced to thirty years in prison, and after raping a second woman, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole under South Carolina's two yellow cards rule on heinous crimes. After Roper v. Simmons declared the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was law albeit it wasn't ratified by the United States Senate, his sentence was overturned for the second conviction and has less than ten years left on his original sentence. Today we've reconnected on social media, and she blogs about homeschooling (great site for parents who are serious about having their children learning things from a Biblically-based worldview, not the humanist worldview that created this monster that caused the shootings).
I offer my prayers for the victims and their families, along with the other children involved with the Connecticut school incident as I write today. In 2 Chronicles 7:14, a verse commonly quoted during the National Day of Prayer (not even observed by the current Administration), the verse states, "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." We are in need of that tonight.
For nearly eighty years, the Humanism of John Dewey has been the guiding light for schools and how people are taught in schools. People are taught there is no right, there is no wrong, and your feelings matter. In the postmodern worldview which includes abusing a certain verse in Matthew 7 on judging, our Sunday evening Bible study teacher discussed the folly of the twisting of the verse, and we have noted the twisted logic is taught in schools today. In such twisted logic, a pitch that crosses "an area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap" is not to be called a strike, and on a two-strike count, is not worthy of a punchout.
When schools are not allowed to teach Biblical standards but promote sin as normal, and right and wrong cannot be taught, what gives?
Christina Hoff Summers warned of how girls had the WNT's World Cup winners as role models while boys had Columbine. Well, what is next? A monster at this age who killed his mother and a class of children and more is sad. Humanism's danger is clearly evident now. Have we created monsters where God's Word no longer matters, and feelings mean anything goes?
When God is eliminated, we create the idea there is no right, there is no wrong, the only thing that matters is how you feel about yourself. The type of monster we created humanism we pay for the consequences today. ◙
Christmas is always a quandry for this Palmetto State resident. At his home church the schedule calls for a "musical" for the youth called for a Warner Music Group musical, complete with karaoke, and plenty of dance, but nothing else. I had to shake my head considering the endorsement was by a Rick Warren official. Is this suitable for church?
So that was out of the picture. Clearly junk isn't worth a penny in my notebook. Two choices were clear -- one was the Episcopal church nearby with a Händel's Messiah, but I've noticed they are very corrupt considering the diocese line (I live on the other side of the line, where we have no Episcopal church, as our county's churches are now independent Anglican because of their alliance with the Charleston-based South Carolina diocese). Or is a serious piece with serious carols and hymns at the home church of the Flying Pig worth it?
(And yes, if you do remember, Flying Pig refers to the 2011 winner of the women's division at Cincinnati's marathon.)
Naturally after invitations it was a go to "fly with the Flying Pig," even though she and her mother and kids were a bit confused, not familiar with seeing me in a suit and tie (we're runners, so she's used to seeing me in running gear, not a suit). Another of our fellow runners (and fellow triathlete) was playing her violin, and an accompanist that I had for a recital was there on piano, and family joined on the trombone.
Ah, you have to love it when The Many Moods of Christmas had more serious material. Add the Hudson Sisters, legendary musician Dick Goodwin, and our violinist Hill, serious beats jokes.
And I have to remember Monday is Sing-along Messiah, which is another time I can have a shot to sing. Why are these opportunities harder to find? And there is some emotional thoughts into this one, as last year's bass soloist died in April from a terrifying automobile collision. Allison and I discussed the tragedy from then as she reflected tomorrow's event.
Life is truly precious, whether it was that crash in April we're discussing, or the terrifying Connecticut shooting that killed far too many, we must cherish life at every minute. ◙
Have you been keeping track of the TV blog? If not, check out my version of what might have happened on one of my favorite shows if one of my favorite movies had been real.
Oh, by the way, if you haven't been reading It's About TV, why not? ◙
“Once word of the proposed conference leaked, other schools, witnessing the Darwinian changes in college football during the period, began nosing around for invitations as well.”
Realignment over the past few years has dealt more or less exclusively with the football side of things, and it usually boils down to two considerations: television and money. Or perhaps more accurately, television’s money – since the revenue generated by television, either through appearances in BCS bowl games or the conference’s television contract, is the prime consideration in almost (?) all of these moves.
It’s caused a lot of us to look back to the relatively stable days of yore, when the Big Ten actually had 10 teams, when all the schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference actually were on the Atlantic Coast, when the Southwestern Conference and the Big 8 existed side by side, and so on. Most of all, we remember when conferences were geographical collections of schools that shared particular commonalities. But when we consider a Big “East” that includes schools from Hawaii, Nevada and Idaho, we just shake our heads.
And yet, it may come as a surprise to learn that the idea of a conference in which the members were connected by planes rather than buses goes back over 60 years. It certainly did to me, until I ran across it in a couple of books I've been reading for articles on the TV blog: The Fifty-Year Seduction by Keith Dunnavant and College Football and American Culture in the Cold War Era by Kurt Kemper. And thus we come to the origin of the quotation at the beginning of this article.
The idea of a so-called “Airplane” Conference first arose in 1951, promoted, ironically, by Notre Dame President John Cavanaugh.* And, as we might have assumed, “the ability to attract revenue lay at the center of the proposal.” Cavanaugh’s plan included Indiana, Iowa State, Navy, Michigan State, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Army, Penn, Pittsburgh, SMU, Texas, USC, UCLA and Yale – an interesting mix of schools from around the country, including the presence of several which we might scoff at in any discussion of major college football today.
*I say “ironically” because Notre Dame has long been known as a holdout against joining any conference, at least for football.
Although Cavanaugh’s plan never really got off the ground, it laid the groundwork for Thomas Hamilton’s later plan for a National Conference. Hamilton, the AD at Pittsburgh, left in 1957 to head up efforts to form the conference, consisting of 12 members in two divisions, the winners of each division meeting for a de facto national championship game on New Year’s Day in the Rose Bowl. The Eastern Division of Cavanaugh’s National Conference would have included Army, Navy, Pittsburgh, Penn State, Syracuse and Notre Dame, while the Western Division would have included the five members of the AAWU (the conference providing the Western representative in the Rose Bowl) – USC, UCLA, Stanford, California and Washington, plus Air Force.
Hamilton’s plan was an intriguing one, because it didn’t poach on any existing conferences – the AAWU would have been the fulcrum of the conference, and the rest of the members were all independents at the time. And the idea gained great support – one newspaper columnist said “it will mean the beginning of a new era in college football. Harry Stuhldreher, member of Notre Dame’s legendary Four Horsemen, called it “a must.” Another supporter called it the “most outstanding sports idea” of his lifetime. As word leaked out, other schools – Houston, Miami, Penn, Duke and Georgia Tech – tried to position themselves for inclusion.
And yet it never happened. Why?
There are various theories – some thought that the military academies scuttled the idea, but that seemed unlikely; President Eisenhower was a great supporter of the football program at West Point, and it’s likely that membership in such a prominent conference would only help the service academies during the Cold War.* More likely, it was due to the administrators from the West Coast schools, worried about the increasing prominence of big-time sports. (They have fewer scruples today.)
*One called service academy football “travelling advertisements” for the schools.
Whatever the reason, the National Conference never did get off the ground. But isn’t this what we’re seeing today? Speculation is that college football will eventually wind up with four major superconferences, each with 16 members, and when that does happen there will be those who look back and wonder about the good old days. Who knew that progress was always on the agenda, and the good old days were merely an interruption? As I’ve written more than once, the more things change, the more they stay the same. ◙
While reading an article by Fox News reporter Lauren Green, attending an event in Italy's Foundation for Sacred Music and Arts (“La Fondazione Pro Musica E Arte Sacra”), she noted, “While today most sacred music of the great composers like Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, and others, are performed in secular concert halls, the festival aims to reverse that trend -- at least in the eternal city. Their respective travel businesses make it all happen.”
Peter Bahou (of Peter's Way Tours) notes, “even world-renowned musicians, who've performed for presidents and princes, are brought to tears when Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' (from his Ninth Symphony) or Mozart's 'Requiem,' are presented under the high altars of some of the venues like the grand Cathedral of St. Paul Outside the Walls, or the soaring arches of the Basilica of St. Mary Major.”
Miss Green also notes the differences between time periods of sacred music, with the Gregorian Chant representing the Medieval, the voices of Palestrina and Thoams Tallias representing the Renissance, with Bach being Baroque (which Leah Hungerford said during an early voice lesson was my voice).
Those excerpts forced me to remind myself while we have ejected the sacred music of the great composers from the church hall, we have replaced it with modern junk devoid of doctrine and theology, built around emotions, with 100-decibel loud rock music from the Michael Jackson Library, very secular. How have we come from the seriousness of sacred music being thrown off the halls of churches to replacing it with the latest in secularised pop tunes with loud rock instruments or karaoke? When houses of worship are playing Highway to Hell, Party Rock Anthem, Gangnam Style (duck! Can I have the Lowe's Holden Commodore with its Safety Car lights flashing to stop this insanity?) or the latest Top 40 song from the Billboard charts, it's clearly time we restore our church music back to church halls and take the pop drivel out of our cathedrals. ◙
Last week, we saw the jackpot for one of the two multiple-state lottery games reach a value of five hundred million dollars in an annuitised jackpot.
It makes me shake my head to consider the number of people piling into groceries, convenience stores, and other wild places (some in dangerous parts of towns) to spend a Thomas Jefferson paper currency (or more) to purchase “chances” at winning this jackpot (for which the odds are slim to none). Why would people trust their entire fortune on the luck of one draw at 2259 hours (GMT-5) to see if they have five numbers and the special red number to clinch that pot of which the person is not expected to even win. Meanwhile, the President and his group are interested in telling people to cease participation in the market in favour of trusting the government, with new taxes aimed at the investors but not at those who participate in state-run numbers rackets.
Hard work is a virtue, but we have seen it replaced, especially with the results of the election earlier this month, with the idea government is a deity, and the entitlement generation has taught us government, not hard work, is the best virtue. Luck from the government is being encouraged, while we discourage hard work and investing with the masses piling to the numerous numbers racket locations, wanting their two dollars to spend on a worthless ticket.
So we no longer trust God, we no longer want hard work, we just want the government to pay us aplenty. That's the message from the lottery lines.
What gives?
And oh, by the way: Sony's Glee is going “Gangnam Style” and they're singing it in Korean. I don't think the Greenville Light Opera Works would want that, considering both what I've read from Renée Fleming's The Inner Voice about opera before the 20th century, when supertitles did not exist, the operas were sung in the tongue of the region, not the original tongue of the opera, which is how our Upstate opera company sings their operettas in English translation. If the Upstate opera company can sing translations of great operas, why can't this raunchy pop culture show sing a Korean tune translated? Turns out many Korean tunes (K-pop) popular with the youth of Korea are translated from other languages from Swedish pop factories. If they tried to sing other K-pop ditties might they try to sing those in English? How many times have I seen a Greenville Light Opera Works singer sing the wonderful opera pieces that should be in Italian instead in English? That was then, and this light company does it the way it was. ◙
Most play-by-play men take to the helm of bigger events when they are older. In this case, Diffey was 26 when the Great Australian Touring Car Split occurred in 1997 (television was the dispute between the Seven and Ten networks; Seven had Bathurst's legendary 1,000km event, but refused to let the race be on Ten, which had the Australian Touring Car (V8 Supercars) contract, relegating the 1,000 in its October date to the European 2000cc Super Touring format and the V8's had to find another date. (Murray Walker ironically was on Seven's broadcast team for the Super Touring 1000) Ironically, this is similar to what has happened with V8 today in Melbourne. Currently, Seven has the rights to V8 Supercars (contract ends at the end of 2012) and Ten has Formula One rights. In order for Australia's favourite 5000cc formula to race in Melbourne after V8 went from Ten to Seven in 2007, it changed from championship to an exhibition race, non-championship event. (Why Abu Dhabi's V8 round can be a championship race I don't know but Ten picks up a British television broadcast of the race for all but their own race so they don't worry; V8 will race in Austin for May.)
For Ten's five-litre formula call, Diffey had the call with the late British motorcycling legend Barry Sheene (whose name now is laid on a crucial turn in the forest at Brands Hatch):
1997: Craig Lowndes, who would become a legend of the Mountain, hits the wall:
2005: Every Australian knows this incident on the Mountain. Ambrose vs Murphy It was Ambrose's last time on the Mountain. Both Ambrose and Diffey are now Charlotte based.
That led to this hilarious interview between the two parties, six years later, with Ambrose in Kansas City and Murphy in Bathurst. Another Charlotte-based commentator, Mike Joy, who is on the Mountain for the 2011 Great Race, presides over this verbal fight. If Mike had his way, he would have had a spotter in The Cutting report it before the pictures showed him the result.
2011: Diffey's career started in public address systems for motorcycling and he calls what has become sadly a type of motorcycling event that has faded from the international scene, the 200-mile, 320km format that once was prominent in races such as Imola. Daytona's Sportbike race now has the classic distance:
It still is not known what will happen for the five to seven races that Diffey will be unavailable because of INDYCAR commitments.
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Whereas I can remember the red lights turning on at 5:59 for the traditional 6 AM lights extinguishing, we have seen the lights at 4:59 AM, and now have crept to Thanksgiving, with 11:59 PM lights, and some merchants have switched to 7:59 PM lights – and the NFL is likely unhappy with such mass consumerism. Whatever happened to running a Turkey Trot, having a nice family dinner and the three NFL games (Noon, 4 PM, and 8 PM) and then resting, and if you are a merchant, preparing for another day (remember Wall Street does sound the 9:30 AM bell) and my fitness partner and I have often done, tough Black Friday workouts, that I cannot imagine the stores full of people before Faith Hill hates herself for loving you at 8 PM ET.
No wonder merchants and families are wanting their day back. Those of us up at the crack of dawn and running for charity have more virtue than those eating too much, let alone piling stores at 5 PM, awaiting the 7:59 PM lights turning on, similar to the crowds at concert venues for the pop star's next concert at a venue that sells out quickly (which is why one country star went from the 18,000 seat arena to a 80,000 seat stadium for local concerts), where people can be attacked and even killed in the stampedes worse than 15 bovines, led by Asteroid, tossing 15 cowboys, led by Silvano Alves, in less than five seconds each. The five red lights should not be turning on Thanksgiving, let alone 7:59 PM, 9:59 PM, or 11:59 PM, or even Friday before sunrise! No wonder I'm planning to do a hard workout on Black Friday morning and doing some merchant tools instead of a trip to the mall. ◙
Well, Comcast has done it again. Another major sports property is going to the Philadelphia-based cable company, as the Barclays Premier League has signed a deal to move all 380 games to Comcast properties in 2013-14 for three seasons. This will mean NBC, NBC Sports Network, and likely CNBC (since the business channel doesn't have anything on Saturday or Sunday mornings, so this gives them programming on weekends; in addition, another Comcast channel -- likely G4, E!, or one of their entertainment channels, could carry games on F1 weekends when NBCSN is committed to F1) will air the games with streaming of the other games.
It puts the question that has withered on the vine since we discussed it earlier. Which channel will News Corp sacrifice for the new Fox Sports One that has been discussed with the new baseball deal? Speculation on Daly Planet has been Speed, but with the loss of soccer rights (except for the Scottish league, UEFA, and all FIFA from 2015 until 2022), could one of the two Fox Soccer channels be dumped to create the new Fox Sports One, and the Plus become Fox Sports International with rugby (did you know that the six-tackle rule in Rugby League was borrowed from the gridiron code's four downs to make ten yards), Aussie Rules, and V8 Supercars (which has a May race at the Circuit of the Americas; during the 2011 season, Fox sent their top play-by-play man and analyst to the Australian touring car series' big races on Mount Panorama in Bathurst, New South Wales and the streets of Surfers Paradise, Queensland (which was a CART Champ Car event from 1991-2007, and an INDYCAR exhibition race in 2008; the 2011 V8 race was the first time in a long time US-based broadcasters were actually Down Under for Surfers and not holed in a studio Up North as was the case in the later years of CART/Champ Car and INDYCAR).
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This isn't, strictly speaking, an opera piece, but I think it's appropriate all the same, seeing as how it's Halloween. From the American composer Michael Daugherty (who has written operas, by the way, so there's my tie-in), here is the charmingly weird and delightfully offbeat Dead Elvis, for Solo Bassoon and Chamber Ensemble.
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Over at the TV blog this week, I've got a piece up on my my top political movies, a revision of a similar post I did here a few years ago. One of the additions to that list is a taut, well-done TV docudrama about the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Missiles of October.
As it so happens, Terry Teachout wrote an article about The Missiles of Octoberearlier this month, observing the 50th anniversary of the event that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Teachout describes many of the same aspects of Missiles that I admired in the production, so rather than rehash them I recommend you click on the link and check him out. (You should anyway; he's one of the most talented culture critics around, and always edifying.) It's gratifying to know I have such good taste in television!
Watch The Missiles of October it its entirety, starting below with part 1. ◙
