July 23 Notebook

Now That's a Watching Party.  The husband of a contestant on RTL's Press Your Luck 2019 (airing on ABC, produced by the German television network Radio Television Luxembourg) made some crazy tee-shirts for the viewing party when the episode she taped in May debuted.  Contestants of the ten-episode summer third revival of the 1977 Second Chance (ABC daytime) and 1983-86 Press Your Luck (CBS daytime) William A. Carruthers Company and 2002 Whammy! The All New Press Your Luck (GSN) production were told of their air dates afterwards, and a watch party was organised by the contestant's husband.

Ironically, the contestant's opponents ended up with red fur as both of her opponents were disqualified from the game for reaching the Chinese adage why elevators do not carry the number of a certain NASCAR Monster Energy Series champion that won his first race Sunday.  (It's used in Asian-themed cooking shows also why they assign certain number of servings they avoid that number of servings too!)

Is This the Future?  The controversy over the Women's World Cup National Football Team that won it all continues.  But meanwhile, as we see masculine failure around us, the question will arise as more "equal pay" and "equal use of venues" becomes the issue thanks to Title IX, and even research by groups.  In college, a student who was my classmate did his Senior Thesis paper on how Title IX abuse ran him out of his previous college, as he was a wrestler on scholarship and lost his scholarship and his admission to the school as a result of abusing the Patsy Mink Education Act of 1972.  I made a reference in 2012 to the consequences, but after women scored $3,000,000 in the last World Cup and men were BUST (as they say in RTL's Card Sharks bonus round, another classic game show revived for 2019, but I am not a fan of how slow the game is because Joel McHale doesn't do it the way Bob Eubanks and the late Bill Rafferty or Jim Perry did the game), the debate opens.

The controversy over the national football team will be a warning for parents of boys.  The feminine superiority and masculine failure wil lead to the advancement of ideals in high schools, as we see participation of sports by boys drop and girls rise in many states.  Friday Night Lights will soon be girls' high school futbol, with dance teams dancing at halftime.  Boys will soon be losing their entire extracurricular activities as Title IX activists will ensure only girls are allowed to have events, and boys will not.  Dance teams are replacing cheerleading at many schools because it is girls only while cheerleading is becoming coed in order to give boys who are proficient at gymnastics (which for men is a strength sport, as seen in high bars and rings) and want to be in CrossFit (gymnastics activities are required in those events) a chance to participate in strength activities.  In New York, we learned when new schools opened, only girls could have sport activities in the schools to meet Mink Act rules.  Will boys be subject to these heinous rules in new schools first as schools try to appease the wishes of these authorities working to eliminate masculinity?

You wonder what's next.

What Are You Teaching?  Visiting a church in the area after a long day out of town, there is a discipleship training class (which is an evening Bible study before church services).  As we went through Elijah's story of discouragement, somehow Mendelssohn's Elijah came back to my head after reading about "O Rest In the Lord" and "If With All Your Hearts".  Those songs were written from the oratorio based on the Bible.  Compare that to today's modern worship songs based on feelings of the writer, and not a single part from the Bible.  Go figure.  Why are we teaching feelings instead of objective Word?  That's part of the problem in our culture today.

Regietheater Run Rampant.  So MGM/UA and EON have decided James Bond is retiring and will be in Jamaica for the next film, while regietheater freaks have replaced him with . . . someone in the PC world.  This person fits all the checkmarks of the modern progressive movement.  What?

A Tribute.  The Take-No-Prisoners editor of The Washington Times, Wesley Pruden, died Wednesday at 83, hours after just another hard day of work for the legendary editor.  The man who was that newspaper from its 1982 founding all the way to the end of his life just hours after finishing up another day at the office leaves a legacy of a newspaper he edited and knew how to do things.  Sadly, Amazon, which indirectly owns the rival The Washington [BLEEP], left insults at Mr. Pruden's stepchildren that Media Research Network noted.

An appreciation of Wesley Pruden can be found here.

And here is Pruden's last column.

And just like that...

That sign of our "absence" reminded me of some interesting things that caught my attention,

What You See at a Fishing Magnate's Golf Course.  When I saw the "Gone Fishing" sign, the last thing most would expect to see at a fishing magnate's resort was a PGA Tour Champions golf tournament, and to make it even more absurd, it is a 67-hole tournament over "five" rounds.  Two of the courses are par-three only courses, with one being a nine-hole course, and the other a thirteen-hole course.  The nine-hole course, Top of the Rock, is played four times (three for over-65 teams), and has the oddest flag you would see flying above the clubhouse, the flag symbolising a friend of course owner Johnny Morris, whose Bass Pro Shops is the tournament sponsor.  To top it all off, the man (and his grandson) whom a former Pennsylvania newsman calls "Hizzoner" associated with that person whose flag flies above that clubhouse participated in the Sunday shootout between players over 65 and celebrities in a "skins" format.  It doesn't hurt that the pro-am features morning golf and afternoon fishing, shooting, or archery.  Can you spot the flag you'd least likely to see on a PGA Tour event that Johnny Morris hangs on his clubhouse?

They're Taking Our Churches Away.  The state and federal courts have ruled against the Anglican Church in North America in their efforts to keep the property belong to the Diocese of South Carolina, primarily consisting of the 24 eastern counties, that the Episcopal Church has the right to seize 29 parishes' properties from the Anglican Church in North America diocese in question and hand them over to a newly created diocese of The Episcopal Church, which claims, has all the makings of the Soviet boycott of the 1959 FIBA Basketball World Cup in a political stunt during the medal round that had FIBA punishing the Soviets.  (The Soviets refused to play the Formosan Team because fellow Communist nation the People's Republic of China claims Ihla Formosa belongs to them, so they refused to recognise Chiang's government.  The Soviets eventually won the dispute by 1980.)  With the decline of the liberal Protestant congregation, they could sell the buildings and convert them to mosques, malls, or other types of buildings as an in your face attack on opponents, while leaving numerous congregations without any buildings because of the courts.  Worse yet, it was discovered one member of the state court system that ruled in favour of the heresy group (The Episcopal Church) is involved with the Episcopal Church herself along with her husband, which should mean automatic recusal.

A few years ago, I drew the ire of church members for a written statement I submitted during the vote for a minister when I stated my inability to vote on this election was a byproduct of my association with the candidate's sister through Sanctity of Human Life groups.  Now the courts are saying they ignore the conflict of interest in order to force one group that lost control of its denomination and faces expulsion from the Anglican Communion to seize the churches that have sided with its bishop and moving to the Anglican Church in North America, which is not facing trouble because it still stands on principles, as the Lariseys wrote years ago.

It's All About Me.  I have grown tired of seeing an excessive amount of sexual perversion marketing campaigns by the major athletic companies and businesses everywhere this month.  This seems to be an in your face slap at the majority of Americans, forced on us by an Executive Order and pushed by elite courts because they believe nobody has rights except themselves to make the law.  Isn't this why we rose up against the King of England in 1776?  So it's OK to throw Christians to the lions, but it's not permissible to read the Bible and cite that area in question.  What type of dictatorship have we become?  Look at Hollywood and even "Auntie Maxine," as our County Council calls her, wanting physical attacks against the President and his types.  The Left is trying to win a debate over anything with force.  But emotionalism is their calling card, and a sob story always works.  On every issue they have an entire playbook, Marshall Kirk's After the Ball.

Hisense Has No Sense.  We are in the middle of football, and the one thing that caught my attention, and forced me to report it to the clerk at the store.  The Hisense packing for television has images and sponsorship of the now-defunct United States National Men's Football Team.  That team disbanded in October and we are in June, why are those boxes being sold with pictures of that failure that forced us to disown our own country?  In the true spirit of the other blog, the secretary will disavow the United States, disown the country, and we must renounce our citizenship in a nation that does not exist.   The consequence, as Wells Fargo is showing in ads, is similar to that of NBCSN's Grudge Race, where the loser is shamed.  "Captain America" is waving a Mexican flag.  And I've made it clear of the consequences.  Fox is relegating the World Cup to just two broadcast teams, with other games being done in a Los Angeles studio, while the two teams in Russia are the established Dellacamera and Meola as the number one, and Strong and Holden as the number two.  John Strong has told the media that the classic Vin Scully storytelling style influenced him, as as the video games of John Motson being involved, as he is only 33.  Like the NFL and MLB when they started, Fox has decided to bring in a young voice and you can see he has been trained in the "rules" of broadcasting where goals are to be silent, and you celebrate by letting the player's celebration take charge without any wild "GOL" screaming.  It's the old "let the action do the talking" adage.

Meanwhile, NBC is adding simulcast of Telemundo games on the NBC Sports Network.  Says much about fans wanting the screaming and shouting, and Telemundo's coverage is now being expanded by its parent.  Seems the Spanish calls are now the most popular this year, and they want emotion, not the style of US sports broadcasting that gave us Vin Scully, Verne Lundquist, and Pat Summerall where you can take a book and think over an entire game.

Flood thoughts

While in the Flood of the Century here it seems, I've thought for a while about voices in singing, and even songs that discuss vocal parts.

Straight No Chaser, which does "Back Home Again in Indiana" at the 500, has their own take on "All About That Bass," making it a song about a vocal part in their own a capella style.  I am no fan of bad pop music, but it made me laugh about this version because as a tenor myself, note the putdowns on the tenors by the basses!



And of course, while the boys talk about low men, there is a song for girls about the low women.  And this lament is one that could make some of them unsuitable for Fox News, if you understand the network's dress code, and they want to be on Fox News!  Ben Moore wrote this song, "(I Can Be a) Sexy Lady" for Susan Graham, a mezzo lamenting her roles in opera.  It is part of the mezzo's repetoire, and often sung at recitals, as I've learned.  The first time I heard it was Kelsey Harrison in her recital (since Serena LaRoche had a part in that recital), and I wanted to know what the song was -- and it was a lament.  Now think about "(I Can Be a) Sexy Lady" and "All About That Bass (No Tenors)" and think of their low voice songs.



Hoosier Hysteria Retirements

So one "gospel" singer who has performed the National Anthem at the 500 in 1992, ironically the year that a famous motor racer who never won at the Brickyard despite seven career starts presented her that trophy for Female Vocalist of the Year for an 11th consecutive year.  Neither won in that premier class in their careers after that year.  The presenter retired after 2000.  That singer just announced she is on her farewell concert tour.

Add to that another Hoosier, a motor racer, with 20 years in major motorsport, who is hanging it up after 2016 too, and unfortunately, he fits in the same role as Doug Sanders, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, and Colin Montgomerie do in golf.  He is the best driver in motorsport to never win a major, though he has won championships and other races, he never won an official INDYCAR or NASCAR Sprint Cup major.

The Chase Is On - SPB 1959-2015

The title was inspired by a television show once hosted by the late WCIV weekend reporter who later worked for Fox, Steve Byrnes, who died of cancer in April. #ByrnesStrong

Football is Back - And Fox Adopts Promotion and Relegation for the Presidential Candidates. It's only fitting that with football starting this week, the ads for the Barclays Premier League on the Comcast stations (and other leagues on Al Jazeera, plus Bundesliga on FS1/FS2/FSP), that Fox has split a fuller than full field of Republican contenders for these "glorified press conferences," as the late original host of Fox News Sundaycalled them in an early episode of the show, into football-style divisions for Thursday's press conferences. With apologies to Fox's new rights for the Bundesliga, they are split this way:

Bundesliga: Trump, Bush, Walker, Huckabee, Carson, Cruz, Rubio, Paul, Christie, Kasich

Zweite Bundesliga: Perry, Santorum, Jindal, Fiorina, Graham, Pataki, Gilmore.

Of course, if this was Comcast, I'd have used Premier League and Championship!

Baby Slaughter. The outrage over the selling of murdered children's body parts by "Planned Parenthood," the biggest baby murder mill in the country, is everywhere except for mainstream media, which has become a source of propaganda for left-wing causes. The arrogance of the organisation and even the legislators and Administration in full support of them is now in full colour to see. Why do we fund them, and the Administration probably bullies companies to give to them or lose contracts. Meanwhile, the outrage over the killing of a lion has more exposure than the killing of babies. Why?

Of course, as we should expect the next few weeks, television shows will be scripted to favour Planned Parenthood as planning begins for the binge watching generation who watches all ten episodes of a "season" in one setting on the streaming services. How lazy can you be?

Victory Laps. The sexual perversion crowd, fresh off the illegally officiated left-wing overturning of constitutions nationwide, is now creating a worldview apartheid where the Bible will become criminal as we see in Kentucky and other places. But isn't this an extension of the ban of the Great Compromise at the state level, as Scalia notes New York City's bias in the Supreme Court?

And Speaking of Premium Television. Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, and James May have joined the premium pay, watch all ten in one revolution. Fresh off their firing from OFCOM-regulated The Beeb, where standards matter, they have signed with Amazon to do a show on their streaming service, likely a watch ten in one show, so they tape all ten shows, then people watch them when they want. Time is not an essence, and content can be as raunchy as they go. What is next?

Mid-January reflections

Rookie, Is That Legal? The National Football League has strict policies on items there athletes cannot endorse. 49ers running back Marcus Lattimore, who has been on the "Non-Football Injury List" all year for legal reasons, could run afoul of the NFL's rules against gambling endorsements after he accepted money from a state gambling commission to appear in ads for the state gambling agency. Under League policies, appearing in advertising for gambling is strictly prohibited.

Sir, You Can't Use Your Name. While walking in downtown Charleston over the weekend, the local "Second Sunday on King" had book signings from local media personalities Ken Burger (retired from the local newspaper) and Bill Walsh (weatherman in the Charleston area for over 25 years, initially at WCIV-4 (then an NBC station, and in the early 1980's had Steve Byrnes as weekend sports), but the past 20 at WCSC-5, eventually replacing the legendary Charlie Hall, whom after his death the road leading to WCSC's new studio being constructed at the time was named for the station's first sign-on personality in 1953 -- 2126 Charlie Hall Blvd) with their novels. In order to prevent mainstream confusion for reasons (the late gridiron legend), the popular weatherman has to go under an assumed name for his novel so that nobody knows he works for a television station or his station. (Photo of author W. F. Walsh.)

So Freedom Doesn't Ring, but Adult Language, Adult Content, and Psychological Nudity is Permitted. Sean Hannity's decision to break up from Cumulus Media has led my regional market to lose Sean Hannity, but we now have live three hours of San Francisco's Michael Weiner, Ph. D., and his legendary "The Savage Nation." So freedom won't ring now, but one of the notoriously nasty radio personalities is now on air regionally.

Crazier Denouncements of Pro-Life Groups. The notorious Steve Lefemine came to protest the South Carolina March for Life Saturday. According to his protests, aimed at the National Right to Life and its South Carolina chapter where I marched for the 17th time in 2014, the "road leads to Rome" because the pro-life marchers were Catholic and the affiliation was with Roman Catholics. What does it say when the President of the group and many sponsors are South Carolina Baptists including Convention-affiliated North Greenville University teachers, staffers, and the college-student karaoke performers? You're barking up the wrong tree with your anti-Catholic zealotry, Mr. Lefemine! Furthermore, our speaker this year was David Barton of Wallbuilders -- and he is not Catholic.

Islamic Cheering over Israeli Deaths. The classlessness of many Palestinian and Islamic organisations after high-profile Israeli deaths is poor behaviour that I cannot stand. Eleven years ago we saw it after STS-107 (an Israeli astronaut). With the death of Ariel Sharon, we are seeing numerous cheers and parties by anti-Israel groups. And now we have a college group saying the Holy Land is evil. What is happening?

Bourgeoisie vs Proletariat. So the new Governor of Virginia was elected by the "city-state" of Fairfax, which has effectively turned Virginia into a city-state run by the area near Washington, and he boasts of every leftist cause with codewords to protect "women's rights" (code for "men are bad" and "kill as many babies as you can) and "no matter who you love" (code for driving the church out of the public square and imposing a new state religion that will eliminate God's Moral Law, as we learned from our March for Life weekend). Then you have the socialist New York mayor who wants to ban horse drawn carriages. If it isn't clear now that there is a new "proletariat" of liberal leaders attacking the "bourgeoisie" who believe in a Moral Compass and high standards, it's clear.

Commie Core. A recent report noted how Classic Literature has been replaced by propaganda for left-wing causes in reading classes for Common Core. That is part of the plan to bring more liberals who cannot read, write, do arithmetic, but will feel good and follow in the steps of every leftist cause. ◙

St. Patrick's Weekend Thoughts

Paying for It, But Not Getting It. When I shop at the Waters boys' Piggly Wiggly, the local Walmart (the only two supermarkets that do not sell lottery tickets; this was a liberal ruse to have people spend their cash in government instead of investing in legitimate corporations or buying food for the family), or travel to Charleston to Whole Foods (I hold shares in WFMI), if I purchase 16 ounces of a product, I expect 16 ounces of a product. This is the week for college basketball tournaments, this is also the annual Block ESPN week. ESPN charges a per-subscriber rate around four dollars, and what happens (regardless of cable, satellite, or phone company) is ESPN is blocked for the entire weekend, off and on, as federal Syndicated Exclusivity laws (“Syndex”) will block ESPN. On cable systems, ESPN will be replaced by ESPNews, which is not a four-dollar channel. On satellite and phone systems, the channel will be blanked, accompanied by the note “This channel is not available in your area.” If people are paying $60 for television, and there are four days of ESPN being blocked because of Syndex, along with frequent shutdowns, why can't the cable company just cut the cable bill four dollars to reflect that ESPN is blocked too frequently during the basketball season? And don't forget too that the syndicator that blacks out ESPN owns the market's #1 television station. Television schedules you see in TV Guide don't mean anything as ACC and SEC basketball pre-empts everything.

Random Thoughts

By Bobby

What are the prizes? It was announced by CBS that Jim Nantz, who will call the Final Four in Detroit next week, appeared a few weeks ago on the set of The Price Is Right to present a prize package to a contestant. The prize package that he is slated to offer a contestant on the Showcase is a sports fan's dream package -- a trip to the Final Four, with airfare, hotel, and game tickets to the games. Seems Drew Carey has decided the last daytime game show left needed to up its stakes for prizes -- adding couture clothing for women and giving sports fans their ultimate dream package. But what do you expect for a man who co-owns the Seattle Sounders FC, taking its ownership cues from FC Barcelona, and featuring a live marching band ready to play music? He's a fan, a team owner, and someone who seems to understand to get fans, you dangle that carrot of the finest sports packages ever offered as a prize.

A Losing War? A friend at church talked with me over the week about the losing war over music. She mentioned that the children in school today never even listen to classical music, or strong sacred music. When they attend church, they are very comfortable with the same thug music they hear on the radio each day that they do not understand sacred music anymore after hearing the same thug music day in and day out, and the leaders at church feed the youth the same music they year on the radio, and do not feed them any sacred music, let alone classical. Thus, these children believe the only church music is the same rock and hip-hop they hear on the radio, and vastly ignore Renée Fleming, Анна Нетребко, Plácido Domingo, Walter Cuttino, or Tina Stallard. The real concern is that what the youth listens is devoid of the Gospel, let alone the Bible, and it gives them a false image of church music that never seems to get out of them.

Faking It . . . VI. These children in their annual performance sanctioned by the church, with the adults once again believe that being a fake band, dancing around to loud rock music, and jigging to everything but sacred music is church. What does it teach them when faking is all they know? Just fake your way through life.

Entertainment Instead of God's Word. Church organisers announced a "strength team" was going to be the feature for a "revival" at the church. Now once again we have entertainment replacing study of God's Word, and the focus is too much on tickling the senses and not studying.

Speaking of Emergent Churches . . . There seems to be a development now with the type of "circus church" that features no study of God's Word, but is full of parties, games, rock concerts, and the works, when these children grow up, they lose sight of faith, only to be fallen into secularism, atheism, the occult, and sexual deviancy. The churches where many of today's children attend are full of postmodernism and the idea that church is one long party. The result of this is showing, and it is not pretty. When these children walk into a church in college for the first time, and hear the pipe organ play Bach, Händel, Watts, Faure, Poulenc, or Mozart, they find church to be "boring" with "dead music". They find themselves more adept to attend live rock concerts and more secular views from what they have learned. Are today's churches causing a problem themselves by teaching children feelings, what is hip and trendy, and what is off MTV, and not from God's Word that is timeless?

Don't Count Them, Overcount Those. The plan for ACORN to participate in the 2010 US Census has suspicion written all over it. It's clear from the Minnesota fracas they want to fix the election for an Al Franken win when Norm Coleman won. The Senate leadership endorses Franken, as does the President. ACORN is involved. Now ACORN is participating in the 2010 Census. I suspect we shall see them undercount areas that are predominantly red, and overcount blue areas, and give the Blue Wall enough seats that they will have 270, and give them a permanent majority for ages to come. This sounds like "professional wresting," and I am ashamed to say this, but one former University of Minnesota wrestler is now in the WWE and went to school with me. The ACORN plan reminds me of "professional wrestling" because it is to fix the election to tilt one way.

Stop the Madness. Speaking of things that are false, how many times have we heard this "global warming" junk out of the media today? It is sickening but is nothing short of a government plan to implement the Soviet takeover of the country. It is government in control of everything using the false premise of "save the earth". This is Gaia worship to push for a Soviet takeover.

A Drag Race. The MTV homosexual network, which we know now has more prevalence than Fox News in the pecking order at the White House (since the President appeared in a debate on that channel, but not Fox News), has renewed a program from a transvestite deviant. Sadly, the title is an insult at ESPN, Coca-Cola, and numerous people across the country. When "Drag Queen" means Ashley Hood beating boys at 1,000 feet, and "Drag Race" means one of thousands of race tracks across the country launching cars side by side at 660, 1,000, or 1,320 feet across the country, MTV wants to change the terms "drag queen," "drag king," and "drag race" from what is common (terms for two cars side by side at 660, 1,000, or 1,320 feet) to what they want it to mean -- sexual deviancy. Of course, Coca-Cola has too much invested in a Drag Race called the Full Throttle Series that airs on ESPN. MTV, on the other hand, wants to change our society. They've done it in churches. Now they want to ensure "drag" means their meaning of sexual deviancy, not a shootout with pre-staged, staged, three ambers, a green, or a red at 660, 1,000, or 1,320.

Bridge Time. Next week will be my sixth Cooper River Bridge Run -- one DNS included because of illness. I was so angry at the illness I said I wanted to take my own life. Naturally, my voice teacher heard that and said, The Consul! How bad have you got it for opera?