Opera Wednesday

OK, so this isn't strictly speaking an opera post. Nonetheless, it does have a connection to opera. Therefore, it's good enough for me. And since I'm the editor, that's really all that matters, anyway.

Actually, it reads more like one of Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story" pieces.  It concerns the composer Leonard Kastle, who died last year.  As seen on the left, Kastle was the composer of the opera Deseret, about which we wrote a couple of years ago.  The producer of that telecast, Warren Steibel, was better known as the producer of William F. Buckley's Firing Line.  (The fact that Buckley was a conservative and Steibel a liberal is a great story in and of itself).

When Steibel was given $150,000 by a friend in order to make a movie, he turned to his friend Kastle for ideas.  Together, they came up with The Honeymoon Killers, based on the story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, known as the Lonely Hearts Killers.  So far, so good.  Kastle wrote the scrpit.  The director that Steibel hired, a a newcomer named Martin Scorsese (!  Yes, that Marty Scorsese), didn't work out so well - Steibel accused him of taking an entire afternoon to film a beer can, and fired him. Eventually, unlikely as it may seem, Kastle ended up directing the picture, his only work as a movie director.  Even more unlikely, the movie wound up a cult classic.

Kastle remains best known as a composer and director of musical productions.  The Honeymoon Killers, however, remains his best-known work.  And you can't tell its story without tying in William F. Buckley Jr. and Martin Scorsese.  And now you know the rest of the story.   ◙

Charles Anthony, R.I.P.

New Orleans native Charles Anthony Caruso (he did not use his last name on stage), who sang in 2,928 performances of the Metropolitan Opera in a career of over six decades as a tenor (including a role at 80) in mostly minor roles, died Wednesday at his home in Tampa, Florida, of kidney failure at 82. His career included over one hundred parts in various operas, mostly minor but one as Rodolfo in Puccini's "La boheme" in 1959. To prevent comparisions with another tenor with the same surname, he dropped his surname in performance. He is survived by his wife Eleanor, a sister, three children, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.  ◙

Wish I'd written that

He did every job that came his way, including going home once the job was done. The French poet Chateaubriand put it well: ‘Search the forests where Washington’s sword shone: What do you find there? Tombs? No — a world.’”

Richard Brookhiser on George Washington ◙

Opinions and more

Religious Persecution.  Here we go again. Another round of liberal legislators ramming down “redefinition of marriage” laws to eliminate “man and woman” and “husband and wife,” and replacing them with “Spouse A” and “Spouse B”. A group of religious leaders noted marriage counselors cannot be accredited without recognising these false “relationships,” and special benefits for properly married employees must also be given to sexual deviants. Furthermore, there have been cases where people were fired for violations of moral character when an employer fired an employee for having an illegal marriage that, in South Carolina, violate Sections 20-1-10, 20-1-15 of state law and Article XVII, Section 15 of the state constitution. Churches cannot block their venues from sexual deviant activists who want to hold their ceremonies, and churches cannot sponsor adoption agencies because of their Biblical teachings violate the humanism as the state religion standard.  Various ministers speak out here.  Here are comments from the Archdiocese of New York.

So let me see here. We have schools promoting holidays for Harvey Milk, César Chávez, Vladimir I. Lenin, and other figures of the Left (if you don't be careful, we'll see a birthday celebration for this esteemed Thug in Chief before long), but guess whose birthday is not even observed in schools this weekend, as should be the case? That's right, George Washington, the father of the country. Have we fallen to this low of a standard?

Dress Properly! Controversy at CPAC erupted over a Hotair video when a reporter (Tina Korbe) was found wearing a skirt extremely short that she was shown pulling it down during an interview. When being at an event, please dress professionally!

Debra Saunders on Occupy Oakland's stupidity. ◙

Retro TV Friday

Last week was the 50th anniversary of one of the landmark events in "early" television - Jackie Kennedy's tour of the White House.  It was such a big deal that CBS and NBC aired it simultaneously, and ABC planned to before cancelling for budgetary reasons.

Television Obscurities has a very good writeup on this famous program, in which many Americans got to see the people's house for the first time.  (I know that Charles Collingwood refers to it as the president's house, but we should always remember that it belongs to us - the president merely rents it for four years at a time.)

And I'm reminded once again that I never have understood the appeal of Jackie Kennedy - but, different strokes for different folks.   ◙
 

Retro TV Friday

This week, It's About TV takes a look at an unusual program -  a football game televised on November 23, 1963.  That's right - the day after JFK's death.  Check it out. ◙

Opera Wednesday

Lego Tosca. Need I say anything more? Although, given the quality of productions from the last few years (yes, that means you, Met Opera), this is actually pretty good. ◙

Ben Gazzara, R.I.P.

About Ben Gazzara, three memories:

First, of course, was Run For Your Life.  Now, I don't have clear memories of it - I was, after all, only five or six when it was on.  But I remember him running, always running.  And lying in the back of an ambulance.  And sitting next to someone lying in the back of an ambulance.  And that he was supposed to be dying, but he never seemed to look any different.  And that his dying didn't have anything to do with him having been in the back of the ambulance.*  But I do recall that I liked the show, even at five or six.

*And an opening title scene that looked as if it had been shot on the Bonneville Salt Flats.  But that may also have had something to do with Craig Breedlove, who was breaking the land speed record at the time, and who I watched on Wide World of Sports. 

Then there was a two-part TV movie, The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald.  This was a movie that speculated on what would have happened had Oswald not been shot by Jack Ruby but lived to stand trial.  Gazzara was the prosecuting attorney, and Lorne Greene the defense attorney.  (John Pleshette, in his pre-Knots Landing days, was Oswald, for what it's worth.)  At the time, back in 1978, I was inclined to buy into the JFK assassination conspiracies - it seemed like an exciting thing to believe in.  And that was the crux of the movie, that Oswald had been part of a conspiracy, that Gazzara was relentless in his efforts to prove Oswald's guilt, and that Greene was desperate to get his client off - without, as it happened, Oswald's cooperation.  I also remembered that Oswald was kept in a glass booth in the courtroom, ala Adolf Eichmann.  A nice historical touch, I thought, since Eichmann's trial occurred in 1961, and would have been a strong influence on an Oswald trial in 1964. 

No further comment required

H/T CatholicVote.org

The Gipper at 101

Another mangled one!

The recent buzz over Steven Tyler's entry into The Daly Planet Star Mangled Banner of the Year, the first entrant in the 2012 contest, reminded me that we have seen it before with him, as we remember at the 2001 Indianapolis 500 when he did an equally pathetic rendition that sent the Indy 500 people screaming for the exits, INDYCAR teams befuddled, and Coca-Cola 600 media at Lowe's laughing at this no-talent. Obviously, when names such as Rich, Briggs, and LaRoche are gold standards, there is no way I could even stoop to this level.

CBS, which aired the AFC Championship Game in question, buys more daytime programming from Idol producer Radio Television Luxembourg than even Fox, and the majority of their non-news daytime programming is controlled by the German television network, as their two hours of current versions of classic game shows is greater than the hour and a half of daytime dramas from Sony (the only network with two daytime dramas). The bigger scare I thought was because Mr. Tyler is involved with RTL Group, it could affect the network considering both The Price Is Right (1972 - RTL acquired the show when it acquired Pearson plc's television arm in 2000) and Let's Make a Deal (2009; RTL, long a holder of foreign licences, acquired the franchise earlier that year) are from RTL, and both game shows are five days a week, 39 weeks a year of original programming.

These rockers cannot sing and with the Budweiser Shootout just two weeks away, need to be called for a visit to the Oval Office. There's a consultation flag waving for Mr. Tyler, and Dr. LaRoche is glad to have him in her office. I write this hours from XLVI -- hoping that we don't have another idiot performance! ◙

Retro TV Friday

This could just as well be Classic Sports Thursday, for that matter, although the game itself is no classic. This is perhaps one of the oldest extant college football television broadcasts: from September 29, 1951.



A few notes: it's the opening game of the season (on September 29! They only played 10 games at this point), which Notre Dame wins 48-6 (Indiana is bad as usual; rare enough that the Fighting Irish get off to a good start nowadays). According to one of the YouTube comments, the game "was actually a broadcast done by something called the Theater Television Network, which didn't do traditional broadcast to homes, but to theaters, where patrons bought tickets to watch the game on the big screen. TTN began in 1951 by televising Truman's State of the Union address and followed with college basketball games that winter and this Sept. 29 game from South Bend, Indiana. TTN died two years later."  Hmm, sounds like an idea for a future article.


And the announcer? None other than the future anchor of ABC World News Tonight, Frank Reynolds!  Who knew? ◙

Government regulations at it again: the wimping of America

In 2000, a day after leading all 300 laps at a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in Loudon, New Hampshire, Jeff Burton was scheduled to make a speaking engagement in Atlanta when between the airport and the speaking venue, a tyre failed and the party was stranded. With an option to call a taxi or a representative of the firm organising the appearance, Mr. Burton refused, telling his group that he was riding, "We're not going to call ahead to get picked up. We can change this." It took eighteen minutes, but the entire traveling group followed the race driver's orders. He responded, "We had the best eighteen-minute pit stop you can imagine. We went in first and came out 843rd."

Now, with the fuel economy standards imposed by years of liberal activism, situations such as Mr. Burton's are disappearing. The American Automobile Association warned with new fuel economy standards requiring greater fuel efficiency, the next thing to go is the spare tyre, jack, and wrench, which can be 15kg or greater of weight savings to reach new federal standards. Some have just an air pump, while others have nothing.

This report warns that if there was a situation such as Mr. Burton's in many modern cars, the only thing left is to call a wrecker with a tyre ordered from random to do the job. Government created wimps who cannot do what is needed is the goal. ◙

Opera Wednesday: Brava, Ashley!

On an Opera Thursday column last year, we used her rendition of "Let the Bright Seraphim" from Händel's Samson at Governess Haley's to reference the opera aria. I've attended a few of her opera performances, and had the chance (Beethoven's Mass in C Major, 2010) to perform with her. I received wonderful news over the weekend that Ashley Briggs had won the South Carolina Regional Qualifier for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and is advancing to the Southeast Regional in Winnipeg, Manitoba!

I've been honoured to have sung with her in Mass in C Major, and express my congratulations!

Brava, Ashley! On to WPG! ◙

Opera Wednesday

In a 2010 Greenville Light Opera Works performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury, set in a South Carolina courtroom, one of the Gentlemen of the Jury was wearing a 2008 Hendrick Motorsports tee-shirt with the #5 team. Now that may sound innocent considering I had seen this performance and discussed it in a previous column on this blog. When seeing the full show, you will understand more of this comedy when news came from the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour.

Wednesday's events included a stop at Hendrick Motorsports, with three of the team's four drivers at the event. The fourth, Kasey Kahne, the 2012 driver of the Hendrick #5, was absent. What was his excuse for not being at the "required" event?

Mr. Kahne was on Jury Duty.

Hopefully he won't be called "Juror Number Five" in any of his cases. But this was life imitating art! A juror in a Hendrick shirt, and now the current driver is on jury duty. Things do think alike! ◙

Life report: 15 years of life!

Our South Carolina Citizens for Life's Life Weekend 2012 (my 15th that I've attended) was busy, but worth every minute of the action. Friday night, the ceremonies began (it's become a frequent event for a Friday event to precede the March for Life, as I remember attending the ones in 2006 (Suzanne Vitadamo) and 2011 (Rick Santorum). This year's "Proudly Pro-Life Dinner" was scheduled to hold 200 people at Our Lady of the Hills Catholic Church, but with over 250 attended, someone forgot and dinner wasn't served to a considerable number of those in attendance, including the children of our keynote speaker! How could that have happened, I can't remember, but a local restaurant was called to finish supplies for those (and the speaker noted that!) deprived. If that wasn't enough, the union airline attendants lost the luggage of our Saturday keynote speaker and she arrived in town without it . . . and the worst part of it was she was shabbily dressed when the contingent were in business suits (and I never appear at major events without a suit)! Oh to think of the old days when people were dressed to the nines for airline flights!

Classic Sports Thursday

Dan Martin at the fine site Sports Man Dan sends us this fascinating detail: an infographic that shows us the pricetag for the "business of football."  Of course, we all know that football, or any sport for that matter, long since ceased being a sport.  And, in fact, the business of sports is often more interesting than the competition itself, at least for me.  Even so, this is still a startling visual breakdown of what it's really all about.

Wish I'd Written That

The great fallacy is that the game is first and foremost about winning. It's nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It's about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.

- Danny Blanchflower

Blanchflower, a former soccer great and later commentator, was speaking about sports. But it applies equally well to other walks of life, don't you think? Like politics, perhaps? ◙

Life Weekend

Photos from Life Weekend 2012, as part of the South Carolina March for Life XXXIX. A further report will be written this week.

At the Friday Night Proudly Pro-Life Dinner, three of the 19 Duggar children play "Be Thou My Vision" on the violin.

Me with the three daughters

A crowd of over 2,000 appeared at the South Carolina March for Life XXXIX.

Numerous organisations at the March for Life, 2012

Abby Johnson speaks of the gruesome stories from her penthouse offices at Planned Parenthood when she worked there.

Me, Abby Johnson (author, Unplanned), Holly Gatling (executive director, South Carolina Citizens for Life), Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar.

◙

For your consideration...

Our last, best hope for president, apparently.

See here for more details.  ◙

Retro TV Friday

This week's look back - as soon as I can get to it - is another goofy retrospective on covers of TV theme songs, reminiscent of our Sammy Davis Jr. essay from a while back.

UPDATED: And here it is - better late than never!  ◙

The chase is on!

Last year, Rick Santorum appeared at the South Carolina March for Life, and everyone seemingly ignored him until Iowa's caucus led to what Mike Joy calls a "Where did he come from" moment, where the caucus came down to a resounding photofinish.

This year, Mr. Santorum has a press conference with Abby Johnson (the 2012 keynote at our March for Life Saturday) scheduled, according to her note. Next Wednesday, Mr. Santorum has an appearance smack in the middle of the hometown, reminding me that in 2000 what happened when a candidate came to speak at the Fairgrounds.

Meanwhile, Rick Perry is scheduled for a Thursday luncheon at a barbecue restaurant, which will likely be the type of venues that we'll see the remaining candidates for this battle (Romney, Paul, Huntsman, Santorum, Perry, Gingrich) find themselves in the ten day war that ends next Saturday. Of course, in the Palmetto State, it has to be one of the three forms of "Palmetto 'Cue," which is considerably different than barbeque from any other part of the country. There won't be Kansas City, Memphis, or Texas style, and tomatoes are not the primary source of the sauce. This showdown will involve copious amounts of Midlands' German mustard-based sauces, the Lowcountry Scottish vinegar and pepper, and the variant in the Upstate and Savannah River, tomato with Scottish vinegar and pepper (similar to the North Carolina Piedmont). As a long-time Midlands resident, I am biased towards the mustard, although in some parts here, the mustard is mixed with a little tomato, the golden mustard is still the evident colour.

Start the barbecue pits, roast the hogs, and cue the candidates! Perry hopes to start his charge, Huntsman is showing life after New Hampshire, Gingrich is on the recovery attempt, Santorum is gaining ground, and Romney is the leader. The next ten days of barbecue, meetings, marches, and rallies will create one exciting showdown that ends next Saturday and will end at the Tampa Bay Times Forum. ◙

Classic Sports Thursday

Have you ever noticed how many times people use the phrase, “I could care less,” when what they really mean to say is, “I couldn’t care less”?

Think about it. If it is true that, as Rush Limbaugh often says, “words mean things,” then it’s only fair that we look at how these words are used. To say “I could care less” in essence means that there are indeed things that would be even less important to you than that in question. Now, if someone told me I’d just won a million dollars, I doubt that my first reaction would be to say “I could care less!” but it would be true – there would be many things that I suddenly cared much less about than having won one million dollars. My job, for instance.

So when I say that I could not have cared less about the election returns Tuesday night, I may be guilty of a slight hyperbole; no doubt the New Hampshire primary carries more interest to me than, say, the latest episode of “American Idol.” Nevertheless, the foregone result of Tuesday's vote was far from the most important thing in mind – not when one had the option of watching Thierry Henry’s return to Arsenal.

Henry is probably one of the greatest soccer players ever, and likely the greatest ever to play for Arsenal, so given the choice – well, there was no choice, really, between watching Fox News’ election returns and Fox Soccer’s replay of Monday’s FA Cup match between Arsenal and Leeds United at London’s Emirates Stadium. (Especially when I hadn't seen the live broadcast Monday.) It was a triumphant, and storybook, homecoming for Henry, who came on as a substitute for the last 25 minutes and ten minutes later scored the only goal in the Gunners’ 1-0 victory over Leeds, advancing them to the fourth round of the FA Cup.





It was also a rare opportunity to see an all-time great return to the scene of some of his greatest triumphs, even more rare if those previous moments occurred beyond your memory. Being a relative latecomer to the world’s most popular soccer league, England’s Premier League (sorry, MLS), I knew of Henry’s exploits in Arsenal only through highlights on retrospective shows: the three FA Cups, the two Premier League titles, the undefeated season in 2003-2004. No, the Henry I was familiar with was the one from Gillette commercials, from his time with Barcelona , from the disastrous French play at the 2010 World Cup, and his late-career move to the New York Red Bulls.

A very good, perhaps exceptionally good, player – but not the great Henry. The one voted greatest Arsenal player of all time. The one memorialized with a bronze statue outside the Emirates. The one who would sit in the stands during MLS’ off season, wearing his red-and-white striped Arsenal scarf.

The prospect of Henry’s return to Arsenal, even if for only a couple of months while on loan from New York (whose season doesn’t start until March), was something akin to what the younger generation must have felt when Schumacher came out of retirement to race again in F1. But with that anticipation also came concern: would Henry wind up the same way as Schumacher, not even very good (relatively speaking) but only good enough to not embarrass himself, which would in itself be embarrassing? Would the crowd's roar as Henry prepared to enter the match be the highlight of the evening?

Well, as it turns out, it was more than a night for nostalgia. As Steve Rushin pointed out in this terrific article, Henry's match-winning goal, coming as it did, was a reminder of why we watch sports on TV. Because for just a moment it was as if time had stood still, and for someone who had never appreciated the Arsenal years, that was time enough. ◙

Wish I'd Written That

I don't thank you for coming," [Wolfe] said. "I'm not disposed to thank you for anything. I have reason to believe that you are withholding information that would be of value. Indeed, I think you have lied. Don't bother to deny it. I tell you that only to establish the temper of the conversation. I'll be trying to find support for my opinion. What will you be doing?"

She would be staring. She was staring. "I know what I ought to be doing," she said. "Leaving. I ought to be on my way out."

"But you're not. You wouldn't, even if I'm wrong, because you want to know why. That's what makes us the unique animal, we want to know why and try to find out. We even try to discover why we want to know why, though of course we never will."

- Rex Stout, Please Pass the Guilt ◙

Retro TV Friday

It seems odd with the AT&T Cotton Bowl tonight that it's the only New Year's postseason game left that's on broadcast network television (Fox) when it stayed on network television when the major games all switched to pay television. But that leads to the bigger story of today's column.

To think about it, if it's an SEC matchup, then you'd expect to hear the Super Bowl XXI theme for a major game -- that's right, twenty-five years ago, at the Rose Bowl. CBS decided it would not be used for NFL coverage, but for college football (College Football Association) games at the time, and by 1995 it would be used for the network's Southeastern Conference coverage, a gamble considering CBS was by that time a minor network and wasn't available in suburban areas of some major markets (Detroit and Milwaukee most notably) because of their low-powered affiliates, and two SEC markets were in trouble, as in Georgia, CBS lost its affiliate to Fox and the former Fox affiliate chose to join the WB, so CBS came close to the weakest station in the market (channel 69) before independent channel 46 agreed to join CBS (ratings are still worse than the Spanish language station and independent stations in the area), and in South Carolina, the local CBS affiliate took a partial United Paramount affiliation, and was contemplating joining Paramount full-time if the NFL had not returned to CBS in 1998, leaving cable companies in their metropolitan area ready for backup from the Augusta, Florence (similar to NBC, which had no Florence/Myrtle Beach affiliate until 2008), Charlotte, or Charleston affiliates had WLTX bolted to Paramount full-time in order to boost the Star Trek franchise (which was the main reason they took a partial Paramount affilation). The CBS/SEC gamble worked, as by 2001 the CBS/SEC deal became one where the CBS game would become the only guaranteed national Game of the Week, which has the ESPN-affiliated conferences crying foul, since their games are regional while the SEC's game was national.

I do think the first Louisiana State-Alabama game, however, will have drawn more viewers than the rematch for the BCS title, because of the CBS/SEC tie-in instead of ESPN. ◙

Poetry Wednesday: Journey of the Magi

A special return of Poetry Wednesday is here as we celebrate the Epiphany tomorrow, while today marks Day Eleven of Christmastide, and those eleven pipers piping represent the eleven faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Journey of The Magi

T.S. Elliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped in away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death?
There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death. ◙

Opening Night

Well, after months and months and years of anticipation (not to mention debates), the Republican presidential race finally began in earnest tonight, with the caucuses in our neighbor to the south.* At this point we don't know for sure who the winner is, although it looks as if Santorum is having a good night. The pundits are suggesting that Romney is not breaking through his ceiling of support, and Paul may be unable to expand beyond his core.

* Sample Iowa joke: A man from Iowa runs up to the border with Minnesota, holding a stick of dynamite. "I've had it with Minnesota! I'm not going to take it anymore!" With that, he threw the dynamite across the border. It landed at the foot of a Minnesotan who bent down and picked it up, lit the fuse, and threw it back.

The big winner tonight just might be "none of the above." Should the winner wind up with less than 25%, it suggests to me that none of these candidates is really turning on the voters. What this means for the fall election, who knows. As for what the true influence of Iowa is, your guess is as good as mine. Whatever the influence is, it's probably more than it deserves.** Bachmann is probably out, Gingrich and Perry have been hurt but will likely stay in until South Carolina at least, and we won't know about Huntsman until New Hampshire.

** Another Iowa joke: The Universities of Iowa and Minnesota are playing football. A train running past the field blows its horn. Minnesota, thinking it means halftime, runs off the field. Iowa scores four plays later.

It's often said that the campaign is a marathon, not a sprint. Prepare for a long grind. Prepare also to ask yourself, more than once, "Is this the way to pick a president?" ◙

Has New Year's lost its luster thanks to Pay TV having the Bowls?

Does it seem that New Year's Day is no longer the “major” television event it was years ago? The big college football games are no longer staples for local television affiliates, as pay-television has acquired the entire kit and kaboodle, and the major New Year's Day sporting event on network television is the NHL Winter Classic, which thanks to its NBC deal (a new ten-year deal starting today) while the college bowls have moved to pay-television means the only “New Year's Day” bowl left on network television is the AT&T Cotton Bowl, which is not even played at the said stadium, but in Arlington at Jerry Jones' billion-dollar edifice on a Friday night. CBS is left with just their regular daytime programming on New Year's (the game shows and dramas have original programming today).

With the bowls likely moving to pay-per-view in the future, it seems the lustre of the big games has been lost. We learned the first year of the pay-television revolution the ratings dropped considerably, and when the BCS Championship rematch draws less than the same two teams on broadcast network television in November, we've seen that pay television is worse. What we're seeing now is the same thing Britons will see when F1 moves to pay television this year with a price of over $500 for the season (for F1 races only; this subscription for F1 must be ordered to have F1) so the Beeb could save coverage of The Open Championship and Wimbledon – two events that in the US have moved to pay-television exclusively.

With no New Year's programming left on broadcast television, what does this say about the quality of television when raunchy programming is the “standard” of quality? ◙

Notable Quotables: Best of 2011

It seems the mocking of faith has become clearer each and every day, and Albert Herlong's Communist Goals of 1963 keep marching towards the goals of the CCCP in that bad "art," this time mocking God, is acceptable in the eyes of the modern Left. Pushing such bad art is helping towards the goals of demolishing the church while anything insulting to God is acceptable, as we saw in the last Congress." -- in light of the "Crash the Super Bowl" promotion with a sacrilegious advertisement from a Life Enhancement Centre.

"In the mid-90's, Charleston radio station WTMA (a news-talk radio station that is receivable in the day here) hostess Nancy Wolf ranted on her afternoon-drive show about abusive spending in the Charleston County School District where she called the newly built Calhoun Street building ताज महल , a mausoleum in Agra, India." -- on the bad educational system of today, where many schools in Charleston County were listed on the nation's 100 worst schools list.

"Whatever happened to civility with a former KTUU anchorwoman? It's clear we have uncivilised liberals who attack any conservative at any time, and with both Mr. Morgan's and the Missoula Children's and Community Theater's attacks of this woman." -- on a Mikado and a Saturday Night Live attack each on Sarah Palin.

"We have seen secularism run rampant when the odds of Poulenc's Gloria are more to be heard in the symphony hall than in the church, which is dead-set on rock or karaoke settings of 'The Climb,' 'It's My Life,' or the latest hit from a Sony television series (Granger had their congregation vote on which tune from Glee to perform there) in today's Warrenist Life Enhancement Centre every church wants to become. " -- after a Dawn Marie Wolski concert.

"There was a little irony in watching the Keselowski Brothers draft their way to Daytona and it came as I saw a YouTube video of Rich Mullins and Mitch McVicker performing 'Brother's Keeper' in that Brad was Brian's keeper in making him a Daytona 500 bound driver. I remember Darrell presented an award to Mullins (who had died 18 months prior to his presentation) and McVicker for a song that won a major award at Bridgestone Arena ('My Deliverer') and thought of the irony that 'Brother's Keeper' was the perfect theme for this race." -- to Mike Joy, on a Rich Mullins song that came to me when watching Daytona qualifying. The top two non-exempt drivers in each "heat" race (Brian was not exempt) advanced to the feature by racing their way in.

"Sorry men, you are the weaker sex and women deserve clubs where No Boys Allowed is the rule, but it doesn't work the other way." -- could federal authorities make men's sports illegal in schools in the future?
 "After checking (a video with friends), I am starting to feel depressed about not (participating) with the team that I want to take my life by jumping off the Ponte Vecchio into the Arno. That's how distraught I am about it. " -- After an event. How bad have you got it for opera?

"Humanism, especially Gaia worship, is now recognised by Washington but not the Resurrection of the Saviour. " -- after learning the government won't celebrate Holy Week but instead observed Lenin's Birthday in official statements. Just this week we learned Christmas was ignored, while the White House celebrated Kwanzaa, a Communist-influenced racist event.

"Why has it come to the point where dance, not singing, is the effective mandate of church music? " -- after a choral event at church for youth."That's it. Maybe my truck had a National Guard sticker!" -- on my frustration on attempting to make it to a concert. Failed both times. The National Guard reference was to Memorial Day, when J. R. Hildebrand goes into the wall with just 1,800 feet from the 500-mile point at Indianapolis, and Dale Earnhardt Jnr runs out of E15 just 1,000 feet from the 603-mile point at Charlotte. As Mike Joy said it in the last 1,000 feet at Charlotte, "And as at Indy, the leader at Turn Four does not get to the flag!"

"Is the Humanist Manifesto the official standard, as we see governments persecute churches on the request of sexual deviants?" -- problems with churches today.

"Isn't this the problem with society today, with welfare, freeloaders, and people who want something for nothing, and would discourage those who work the hardest to provide the wanted product? " -- on illegal streaming, welfare, and other major issues today.

"(I)t's clear (Occupiers) want a utopia reminiscent of the CCCP that will fail." -- on Occupy. ◙

New Year's Eve, 1965

Those of us of a certain age remember seeing Guy Lombardo ring in the New Year from New York, usually on CBS. If you're a little younger, you probably grew up watching Dick Clark and his New Year's Rockin' Eve on ABC. Easy enough, because neither of those networks had regular late-night programming on a consistant basis.

Nowadays, NBC has its own show, with Carson Daly. But for many years the peacock network stuck with its regular programming - that is to say, Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show. Johnny didn't do a regular New Year's special per se, but especially during the years when he broadcast from New York, he'd cut away as the clock approached midnight to provide live coverage from Times Square. Here's a rare clip from New Year's Eve 1965, as Johnny goes to (I believe) Ben Grauer to watch the ball drop. (Note how the studio broadcast is in color, but the live remote is still black and white.) Frankly, from the looks of this footage, I think they'd already been celebrating back at the studio.

2011 has not been a great year, and there's a lot of apprehension about 2012 - the economy, the state of the nation at home, tensions overseas, the election. It's somewhat poignant listening to Ben talking about 1965 and all that had happened, particularly the escalation of the war in Vietnam, and his hopes that 1966 will be better. In fact, I thought as I watched this, the worst was yet to come - even more war, even more drugs, even more death, MLK, RFK, riots, and more. John Lindsay, the new mayor of New York, will turn out to be a disaster, and it will take the city until the time of Rudy Giulianni to return to its former glory. Carson himself will leave New York for Hollywood in a few years.

Tonight we hope that 2012 will be a better year. Personally, I think that it will - at least, let's hope that 2012 will be kinder to us than the end of the 1960s was to that crowd in Times Square on New Year's Eve, 1965. ◙

The Our Word Awards: Best of 2011

I'd love to have all of you involved in this new project for Best of 2011, the Our Word Awards! And this time, we're inviting our readers to vote! What do you think was the best of 2011?

 

Most Insulting Ideas of the Year:

• Pepsi's Crash the Super Bowl promotion that included an ad that mocked Communion at Church
• A South Carolina state legislator proposing cutting the school year to 144 days from 180.
• New York state legislators betraying the people to redefine marriage in order to persecute the church.
• The shutdown of the US Armed Forces in favour of establishing the Department of Social Engineering, Special Rights Division.
• Macy's protects sex offenders by firing a worker who catches a man in a woman's dressing room.

 

Quotes of the Year:

• "Within ten years, I wonder how many fine orchestras will survive Generation Gaga? What will happen to talent like this?" – Ingrid Schlueter
• “I for one welcome our new computer overlords” – Ken Jennings
• “But Governor Walker has freed the government union serfs from (union leader Richard) Trumka's plantations in Wisconsin.” – Peter Ferrara
• “We will not allow the goodness of the traditional value system in our military, an ethos which has kept us safe all these years, to be undermined by misguided and deviant interpretations of American history.” – Bill Connor
• "Being in a bookstore helps me to think. I find that my mind makes connections between authors and books and ideas as I walk along the shelves and look at the tables. When I get a case of writer’s block, I head for a bookstore. The experience of walking among the books is curative." -- Albert Mohler

 

Heartbreak of the Year:

• J. R. Hildebrand crashes in Turn 4 on Lap 200 of the Indianapolis 500.
• The United States House is unable to pass any of the reforms promised because of Dingy Harry.
• Butler is stopped again at the Championship Game of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
• Boise State, a top 10 team, is relegated to a pre-Christmas postseason game in Las Vegas.
• The millions of Japanese affected by the earthquake and tsunami.

◙

Retro TV Friday

Over at the It's About TV site, I reprise a piece from last year, on TV Guide's look at New Year's Day, 1961. ◙

Classic Sports Thursday

Back in the day, New Year's Day used to be the holy grail of the college football season. It was known to many as "Bowl Day," and invariably one of the games would settle the national championship.

Today, of course, the season drags on, with mostly meaningless games on New Year's (or January 2, as the case may be), and even more games leading up to a fabricated championship game a week later. But this wasn't always the case, as illustrated by this classic showdown, the 1973 Sugar Bowl* between undefeated, top-ranked Alabama and undefeated, third-ranked Notre Dame (undefeated and second-ranked Oklahoma was on probation). Here's the climatic sequence from Notre Dame's thrilling 24-23 win, with the incomperable Chris Schenkel providing the call.

*OK, so this year the Sugar Bowl was played on New Year's Eve, to try and keep the game from getting lost amidst the other three games on New Year's Day. They did that for a few years, went back to playing on January 1, and now the game's all over the calendar. ◙

Opera Wednesday

In the opera world, nothing says New Year's Eve quite like Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus, which certainly has one of the great English-translated titles in all opera - "The Bat."*

*I've often wondered why, in the memorable scene of Christopher Nolan's first Batman movie where young Bruce Wayne's parents are murdered coming out of the opera, they didn't use Fledermaus for the music. I think they used music from Faust instead, which was also a good choice, but I could be wrong.

Fledermaus is frequently performed around New Year's Day, often with big-nbame guest stars in cameo roles. (The Met's doing it on its radio broadcast this Saturday, New Year's Eve.) But you don't need a big-name singer when you've got a big-name conducter like Herbert Von Karajan, who brings us the delightful overture here with the Vienna Philharmonic in a 1987 New Year performance. ◙

A story that's more Boxing Day...

When the Christmas shopping bag had a few cans of canned food that would be donated to a food pantry as part of Christmas Eve Midnight services and communion, and the focus was more for those that need help more than the self, it's evident the story is about those in need.

And one story on this Boxing Day that makes you think about it is this from the 1970's, when brothers Kevin and Keith Parsons (yes, the Keith Parsons who would spend much of his sportswriting career for the AP based in North Carolina, covering the ACC) helped their father remind us of the disadvantaged, and how their father and his peers helped kids in rural North Carolina.

Tom Higgins reports on this story . . . ◙

Celebrating the Feast of St. Stephen

Who is St. Stephen, the man whose feast is celebrated on December 26? ◙

Happy Boxing Day!

Wait - you mean that's not what it means? ◙

O Church, Oh Why, O Church, Are You Resting on His Birth?

Christmastide has started! Starting today (Sunday) until near the end of the first week in January (January 5), we are in the Christmas season, and as is tradition, we are in the season.

Pondering on the gift of the Only Begotten Son, I drove past numerous churches and saw no morning Bible studies happening, save for a minute number of churches that were doing a full plate of morning studies, and most venues had relegated themselves to one short service that was more party, and discarded Bible studies, even though denominational study books carried a Christmas study. The last time Christmas fell on a Sunday, the church responded with kids cheered as they "danced" to a butchered "Ave Maria" from a teen pop artist that wasn't even the sacred song itself that claimed to be one thing and was another.

The trendy Life Enhancement Centres promoted big parties on the days leading to Christmas, but come Christmas morning, there was nary anyone, as they were shuttered, while restaurants (some quick-service, but also sports-themed, since the NBA season opener was Christmas Day, and hotel-attached ones), movie theatres (the Oscar nominees need to have their releases made on Christmas), and gambling halls were wide open on Christmas Day. Does something feel wrong when the world is open, but not a House of God?

Why the complacency of such an important day? Christmas is not the time to keep Houses of God silent. It's the right time to sing the sacred songs and observe such an important day! When I have to find a place that's not in party mode and doing the right thing, we know how serious it has become. ◙

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Hope you found everything you wanted under the tree this morning! ◙

Classic Sports - Friday?

Yes, it's a special Friday edition of Classic Sports Thursday, to celebrate the Yule season. (After all, if the NFL can have special "Sunday Gameday" editions on Saturday, we can do whatever we want, right?)

This is a quick link to this story at SI.com by Don Banks, clearly a man after my own heart, as he remembers back to Christmas Day 1971, and the longest football game ever played (not counting a playoff game from the USFL, but who's counting?) between the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Like Banks, I would sit at the dinner table with one eye on the food and one eye on the field when big dinners and big games happened to collide. (When I was really spoiled, I'd be allowed to eat in the living room, in front of the TV, while everyone else was in the dining room.) Unlike Banks, I was not rooting for the Dolphins that day - never did, really. At the same time, I don't recall that I was rooting for the Chiefs, either. I do remember, though, the drama that accompanied that double-overtime thriller, and how it pretty much ended the NFL's playing football on Christmas for many years. They do now, but it's only one game, at night, when the movie theaters have opened and restaurants are serving and people are looking to wind down anyway. I think a lot of dinners were ruined that day, waiting for men to come in from a game that seemed it would never end.  What a Christmas!

As Banks mentions, the NFL Network is doing a one-hour retrospective on that game on, appropriately enough, Christmas.  Don't interrupt your dinner for it, but set the DVR.  It should be a lot of fun. ◙

A Christmas Miracle: The Story of the 2010 Carolighting

Last year, at the South Carolina State House, the Governor's Carolighting, which had been lost two of the past three years, was in danger of being lost to complacency when the volunteers were able to rescue it in time, with a volunteer chorus and musicians, for Mark Sanford and the boys to light their final State House Christmas Tree.

Unfortunately this year, when we had the all-state crews back and ready for this year's Carolighting, the event, moved to Monday night this year, was called off as a result of weather, the third time in five years the state's annual Christmas Tree lighting ceremony did not take place, meaning Nikki Haley would not have the ceremony for her first year in office. 38-year Raycom newsman Bill Sharpe, the unofficial dean of South Carolina newscasts (joined WCSC in 1973, and has stayed with the station since then), was set to host the event.

Let's remember back when a group of hearty volunteers made a State House tradition as a miracle on Gervais Street. Raycom's Dawndy Mercer Plank had the honours. ◙

TV Guide: Christmas, 1977

Over at It's About TV!, I've got a longish piece on Christmas 1977 as seen in the pages of TV Guide. Hop the first sleigh and hightail it over there. ◙

Rockin' Christmas

For reasons that don't really bear going into, here are some Christmas classics I'm fairly confident you haven't heard in quite this way before. First, a medley of seasonal favorites by Jimi Hendrix, including "Silent Night," "The Little Drummer Boy," and "Auld Lang Syne," with a little bit of "Taps" thrown in for good measure.



As if that wasn't enough, here's a Jim Morrison impersonator with a surprisingly effective rendition of "Jingle Bells":



Just goes to show that Christmas music comes in all shapes and sizes, doesn't it? Say what you will, this beats Celine Dion and Mariah Carey any day. ◙

Cool Yule Links

A couple of neat sites to keep you in that Christmas spirit:

As seen on the Travel Channel (at least that's where I found out about it), the National Christmas Center in Paradise, Pennsylvania, is indeed Paradise for anyone who wants to recapture the Christmas memories of their youth. I've come to see this not as a desperate attempt to relive the past, but rather to find out just what it is about Christmas back in the day, and to share it with those who never lived through that time. There's no doubt that the way we celebrate Christmas isn't what it used to be, and I think what is missing from it is the sense of awe and wonder, not to mention the general acceptance that Christmas was a fundamental part of American culture, something to be shared and celebrated.

Speaking of back in the day, for me one of the highlights of the kid Christmas season was the arrival of the Christmas catalogs from Sears, JC Penney, and Montgomery Ward. Again, it's hard to find the modern-day equivalent - online shopping has replaced the mail-order catalog, and it has its own charms, but imagine shopping for Christmas decorations, toys, artificial trees, cards, even candies and nuts - all from the same store. This terrific site helps bring back those memories of the epic days when the catalogs arrived, and immediately became dog-eared with the items that I hoped would wind up under the tree. And a lot of times, they did! ◙

Even our name spells Christmas

Wrapping up our week-long look at Christmas commercials is probably my favorite of all the old-time commercials - the Norelco Santa. As one of the commentators says, it wasn't Christmas until you saw the Norelco Santa on television.

In this version from the early 70s, Santa flies through the village, meeting some decidedly odd but charming snowmen.



By the 80s the look had been updated, but it was still classic.



The great news is that this year the Norelco Santa is back! Some differences, to be sure (while it would have been nice to have the famous "Noëlco" ending, as is it isn't bad), but it retains almost all the elements that make the original so endearing. Great to see that there's still a place for tradition, at this most traditional time of the year.

A cornucopia of Christmas music

In February, I celebrate ten years since a 26-year old college graduate decided to have fun and take voice from a 24-year old master's student earning the degree in vocal performance who needed it to fulfill her degree requirement, and over the years, it has blossomed into an enjoyable friendship with Dr. LaRoche, her pets, her friends, and her (newlywed) husband. I've sung sacred Christmas works at the 2010 Governor's Carolighting (the ceremony was not held in 2011 because of weather) when a makeshift choral group was required because of the lateness of its organisation, and have been part of two one-offs with church choral groups because of the laziness of our own church with Christmas music becoming extremely secular in nature. Monday night is the annual sing-along at Washington Street that I've enjoyed over the years, with Dr. LaRoche, The Brittnee, and the Rattrays in the past.

As someone who appreciates the serious church music of Christmas, and is sad to see many of the works disappear from our daily grind, being replaced by winter songs that are not sensible for the season (remember half of the world it's summer!), let's open a cornucopia of wonderful song for Christmas.

Paderborner Domchor's - Veni Veni Emanuel



Johannes Kalpers - “Hush, hush, hush, for the little child wants to sleep!”. This Austrian folk tune from Salzburg is about the infant Jesus and Mary as they sleep. The song was given to me for the informal recital with friends, and it's become a favourite of mine.



I'm guilty of always (especially the first verse) wanting to sing this in Latin. One of my first Christmas music selections I purchased was a Luciano Pavarotti album (are you kidding me?) and why would he be an inspiration for a college student who hadn't heard much classical music? Once I anchored my boat with the young Mississippi Squirrel, I had gone classical and my steps haven't turned back. A Montréal, chanson "Adeste Fideles," avec Pavarotti . . .

Say it with Andre

I always loved this commercial for Andre's sparkling wine. We think about this as being a Christmas commercial, but as I recall (and I'm always open to correction), it only ran between Christmas and New Year's.

Now, maybe it's just because I was still going to school when these were on, and therefore I would have been on break between Christmas and New Year's, but I'm convinced that back in the day, people recognized that New Year's Day was an extention of the Christmas season - you still heard Christmas music, parties were still being held, and ads still featured holly and other Christmas trimmings. In other words, the Christmas season didn't end at the stroke of midnight on December 26. I kinda liked that. ◙

The family that sleds together drinks Coke together

Yesterday I shared a clip of a 1958 Coke Christmas commercial featuring the "Santa Doll." Here's a different commerical from the same Christmas - a typical example of the animation that was so prevalent in commercials of the 50s and early 60s. I think many of us are used to seeing the polar bears or remembering the "I'd like to teach the world to sing" Coke commercials; it's fun to see something different. I guess it's true that if you stick around long enough, the old becomes new. ◙

The Real Thing

As far as I'm concerned, Coke has always been the official soft drink of Santa. Last year, the Swedish Institute here in Minnepolis had a magnificent exhibition of the Coke Santa illustrations of Haddon Sunblom. So it's no surprise that this 1958 Coke commercial prominently features the big guy himself.    You can read more abou the Coke Santa Doll here.

Hot Pepper!

We're doing Christmas commercials here at Our Word this week, and let's start with this one for a Christmas beverage tradition I'm not previously familiar with: hot Dr. Pepper. Enlighten me, anyone who's tried this. ◙

Retro TV Friday

Over at the "It's About TV!" website, I've got a piece on the 1960s Christmas special "Carol for Another Christmas." I've written about it before, but it's got some new links, and it's worth checking out.  In my humble opinion, that is. ◙

Cleaning up on Christmas

During our Christmas carnival of features a few years ago, I posted this picture with a comment to the extent that nothing says Christmas like finding a vacuum cleaner under the tree.

Well, as it turns out, I guess there's more truth to this idea than I realized. It just goes to show that I really don't understand what women want, apparently.

The YouTube description says this is a 1962 commercial from Australian television. Proof that all the mad men weren't in the United States. ◙

The most wonderful time of the year...

It's December, and that means it's time once again for our parade of Christmas-themed videos and stories. Believe me when I say that this is not only the best time of the year, it's also the time when it's the most fun for me to write this blog.

Speaking of the most wonderful time of the year, let's get it started with Mr. Christmas himself, Andy Williams, in this clip from one of his great Christmas shows, from around 1965. ◙

Opinion Digest

The sands of time tick away, yet the run to the primaries is less than 30 days away until the first caucus of the 2012 election season!

Neal Boortz interviewed Jack Chambliss of Valencia College, who assigned students in economics a project on "The American Dream". The sad state of what is being taught in schools and media show their true colours in this report.

Paul Jacob talks about junk science.

Amy Oliver Cooke and Michael Sandoval uncover the disaster of "clean energy."

David Limbaugh believes the President is moving the goal posts, and benefiting from each move. ◙

Wish I'd Written That

The law is an envious monster, and you represent it. You can't tolerate a decent and swift conclusion to a skirmish between an individual and what you call society, as long as you have it in your power to turn it into a ghastly and prolonged struggle; the victim must squirm like a worm in your fingers, not for ten minutes, but for ten months. Pfui! I don't like the law. It was not I, but a great philosopher, who said that the law is an ass."

- Nero Wolfe, as written by Rex Stout, The Red Box

Crazies at it again

So here I am, after picking up parts for our small business easily, on Friday morning without any traffic and being very peaceful (it's good for B2B work, too, to save money and see no traffic at brick and mortar places), I join a close friend who is running the Rock n Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon next week in a tiring 90-minute cardio and weights workout, before heading back to the shop at lunchtime, all of which came just a day after I disappointed myself being sixteen seconds slower than last year's turkey trot (my tenth).

Meanwhile, the looniness of the big-box stores and malls with “Black Friday Doorbusters” rears its ugly head with land-rushes worse than the “sooners” before 23 April 1889. Stores turn into Krzyzewskiville on Thanksgiving, some even piling the lines with tents and sleeping bags after lunch, waiting for the 20.59.53 ignition of the first red light, all the way to having the five red lights turn off at 21.00.00, or others with the same procedure at 21.59.53 or 23.59.53. Some places the lights were on at 4.59.53, but they were mostly malls and those who turned on the red lights later later were late-comers with few shoppers except for those with sense.

Those parked under the starting gantry watching the five red lights come on and running immediately to the department of the store where they wanted to buy the must-have item within tenths of the lights extinguishing were the ones who showed little class. In Los Angeles, a woman used pepper spray, typically used ins self-defence against stalkers, to spray those trying to purchase a video game system at deep-discount prices. In Arizona, a shopper hid a video game in his clothes, which led officials to worry a shoplifter or was a terrorist, since homicide bombers load explosives under clothes in the acts of terror, resulting in his beating. In North Carolina, shootings took place at malls. The numerous violence of Black Friday with shoppers standing outside as if they were in Krzyzewskiville, watching the red lights at the gantry prepare for their five-second rundown, has gone too far. We have lost our standards of decency.

What gives? Oh to just do a Turkey Trot (27:42) with one friend and then a hard workout with another on the ensuing Friday instead of being packed at the “worst day of the year in the malls” ensures knowledge that there are things more important, such as health and a day at work, instead of the obsession that has taken place. Might track clubs seriously consider Black Friday half marathons starting at 5 AM to keep real runners on course and not in the malls? ◙

Let the holidays begin!

◙

Classic Sports Thursday

Today Steve Spurrier, head football coach for South Carolina, is known as "The Old Ball Coach." But back in the day he was a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback at the University of Florida. Here he is appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1966 as part of the All-America team.




Great, isn't it? First the camera misses Spurrier altogether, then when Ed has him out later in the show, you can hear him mistakenly refer to Spurrier being from "Miami" rather than "Florida." Oh well, that's Ed - gotta love him. ◙

Opinion Digest

Paula and Jason Coyle uncover another Life Enhancement Centre that has released another piece of apostasy called a "Bible Study" that's built around another piece of pop culture, and not on God's Word. When will these ministers learn that these studies of popular culture are not appropriate for God's House?

Albert Mohler describes the defeat of Mississippi's "Personhood Amendment" as one where "We're All Harry Blackmun Now," a reference to the Supreme Court justice who authored the legalisation of baby murder.

Jonah Goldberg notes how the President is now blaming regular Americans for the employment crisis, when the problem has been the policies in place since Pelosi took power in 2007.

Dan Doherty talks about the Leftist indoctrination on college campuses -- and as I've noted, the leftist indoctrination there is why school policies protect pedophiles, which has launched the recent round of troubles on campus with sex offenders.

Janice Shaw Crouse writes on liberal activists' attempt to normalise pedophilia -- it is indeed an outrage, and normalising it would protect pedophiles further, as the sexual deviants' agenda has successfully barred policies against pedophilia.

Victor Davis Hanson asks why the United States defends Israel, Taiwan, Kurdistan, Greece, and Armenia. ◙

Retro TV Friday

With the news Time Warner (owner of Lorimar) and their cable channel TNT will air a sequel to Lorimar's 1978-91 series "Dallas" that could in theory be called "Dallas: The Next Generation," as it focuses on John Ross Ewing III (the son of J. R.) and Christopher Ewing (the adopted son of Bobby Ewing), two characters when last we saw them were children, we look back at the anniversary to a legendary moment in television that still is one of the biggest in television because of a two-month delay caused by an actors' union strike. The episode is still the most watched non-special or season/series finale shows of all time. While it was the most-watched show of all-time when it first aired, the last M*A*S*H* and Super Bowl XLIV (the end of CBS Sports' 50th NFL season) have surpassed it but they were not regular episodes.

350 million watched the episode worldwide, with 83 million in the United States alone, carrying a 76% share.



Sunday is an anniversary of a television legend. ◙

Classic Sports Thursday

As part of our Tribute to Joe Frazier, we remember the Foreman-Frazier bouts. This from 1973, and we know the famous call.

"I think Joe is hurt. Angie (sic) Dundee, Ali's trainer right next to me is saying it. You may hear him . . ."



The end of the sequal of Foreman-Frazier:



And one more for the show, the Ali-Frazier battle had a fourth chapter, in the turn of the century. The daughters had a 21st century battle more about determination than skill, boxing at its grass roots, in eight two-minute rounds (in women's boxing, rounds may be no longer than two minutes) on the Boxing Hall of Fame Weekend. ◙

Opera Wednesday

During the runup to an aborted election to determine if video poker would be stopped by the next July, a famous evangelical minister, Anthony Evans Snr, spoke to a large crowd about the issue after the video poker lobby (“pokies” to our Australian mates) had bought the preceding year’s gubernatorial election, eventually leading to expanded gambling in our state that has hurt it. Isaiah 65:11-12 warns those who forsake God and sets a table for luck, and furnishes an offering to it will be killed, as they ignored God in favour of luck.

While we stopped the pokies and had them banned the next July (it was my only time I could celebrate winning that fall; I had just graduated from college in the middle of a terrifying losing streak and that fall was a winless year; it was so bad I contemplated taking the family’s Mercedes and dipping it into the pond near the home or entering it into a demolition derby, as everyone in town supported the rival and they cheered at my expense; my car couldn’t stand it and a head gasket blew out after the season), sadly, our state a year later (mostly because of a certain group that voted for it) sold out to the casino lobby with the state “LOOTtery,” and people have forsaken God in favour of luck, with luck being a virtue now in schools.

Now what does that have to do with opera?

Ah, it reminds me of a recent attendance of a twin-bill of Menotti operas, The Old Maid and the Thief and The Medium, with my discussion based on the latter that I attended, along with a plethora of old friends I’ve known (Mr. and Dr. LaRoche, Miss Heintzkill, Dr. Stallard, et al) from my Decade of Classical Music.

Looking at the number of media that appear on television in the past decade, with infomercials for the “psychic friends” organizations prominent during late-night television, and the popularity of New Age spirituality among Hollywood with ideas such as Harry Potter teaching a generation into the New Age, seeing old friends sing again (one posted me a message that she was emotional as it was her last with the university opera company), I thought about what I had seen in The Medium. Seeing Mme Flora (the medium) away, her daughter Monica and servant Toby are playing your typical children’s dress-up games and upon the return of Mme Flora, they haven’t prepared the home for the upcoming session with the Gobineaus and Mrs. Nolan.

The medium is supposed to “speak” to the deceased sixteen-year old daughter, after which Mrs. Nolan, infuriated at what she thinks is her girl but is Monica and Toby running an elaborate light and telephone scheme, tries to meet Monica, but is restrained by the other family in the psychic’s home, the Gobineaus, which then attempt to speak, using the medium, to their deceased daughter, but it is the laughing voice of the medium’s daughter too! The result was the psychic thinks the servant has pulled trucks, and refunds the two parents of the deceased. Still, the deceased’s parents think they truly spoke to their dead children. Thinking the servant, who was in the puppet theatre, was a spirit, she kills the servant.

What came to my attention was how gullible people are to “crossing over” with the deceased. The Gobineaus and Mrs. Nolan both believed they spoke to their dead children, when it was Monica and Toby’s games. They had been suckered, and Mme Flora was too, as she thought the servant she hired for the ruse was too a ghost.

The Gobineaus, Mrs. Nolan, and Mme Flora all had forsaken God in favour of finding cups to fortune. Two were lied and never believed it, and Mme Flora thought her own servant was a ghost to be killed. Regardless, the lesson I learned was never to trust psychics, and that Bible verse posted at the start of this column should be a warning why we cannot trust media such as those in the Menotti opera. ◙

This was from the practice session:

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

- John McCrae ◙

Occupiers' Reign of Terror continues

The Occupy Wall Street crowd's antics continue to trouble me. In Mount Pleasant, on the U. S. S. Yorktown, docked at Patriot's Point (where we went on field trips), Congressman Michele Bachmann made an important speech on foreign policy when Occupy protesters started screaming and whining about "diving America" and complaining about the rich (their modus operandi). It is evident we have a group who wants America like the first two years of Obama, where it was they hold all speech cards, and nobody could speak but they can. They want another four years of one-sided liberal rule, and to disrupt Mrs. Bachmann's speech shows their entire goal is a CCCP. ◙

We've converted the military from a fighting force to defend this nation from enemies to ramming down indoctrination of the sexual deviants' agenda down our throats. This continues the troubling mess of the Left.

This Just In

Classic Sports Thursday

I wroter earlier this week about the "Fight of the Century" between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. Here it is, from 1971, in all its glory and splendor. The legendary Don Dunphy is at the mic, with assistance from former champ Archie Moore and Burt Lancaster (!). ◙