Christmas Music Overload

This is the time of year to hear carols everywhere you go. I do remember the day, many years ago when I too was one of those insufferable people walking through neighborhoods ringing doors with other of my kind singing to those who opened the door three or four songs written a hundred or more years before our births. A kinldy medical doctor joined us playing a saw like a violin. The fond memories of those times last a lot longer for the singers than for the poor souls scratching their heads wondering who the hell those idiots are.
On the radio whether XM or local they pull out the seasonal songs. All singers who want cheap royalties for life do a Christmas Album. Even well known Jews like Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond sang Ave Maria and O Holy Night then sing What A Friend We Have In Jesus while they cash their checks. Those albums have been out for over thirty years, but they're still played on the airwaves and downloaded from the internet. The estates of Gene Aurty, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Perry Como, Elvis Presley, Beryl Ives and on and on cash in on it, or I one would think, maybe the recording companies clean up on the old singers whose roayalties have played out. Talk about pure gravy! Would anyone remember Jose Feliciano if it wasn't for Feliz Navidad? Poor Trini Lopez, why didn't he do a catching latin Christmas song? Lemon Tree is only remembered if you really like watching The Dirty Dozen over and over again.
It seems with so many channels to choose from on satelite and cable half of them are doing some country singer's Christmas special. Wife made me watch Scotty McCreary's. Problem is he had everyone else singing and only sang one song. Not sure about that as she didn't collar me and force the torture on me until the opening part of the show was over, so he may have started the show with a song and then finished it. I like his voice even if it is Randy Travis coming from Opie Taylor.
I really avoid stores as much as possible because they blare seasonal Muzak. Most of it generic like Frosty the Snowman or Let It Snow Let it Snow. Is the song Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire where the term "Chestnut" for a stale joke originated?
I guess I get my aversion for some of these songs because I worked in department stores while in high school and college. I remember standing in the lobby of a Skaggs drug store behind a counter with cigarettes (yes back then they were in the open so all the customer had to do was grab a carton or package or two, hand it to me so I could ring it up, sack it and give change) candy (sounds silly today to be selling those side by side, but that's how they got the kids hooked on both vices) meanwhile back to the original train of thought. Standing there with the music blaring overhead for eight hours of looped holiday music 1) takes away all meaning from the songs, 2) destroys your ability to listen to songs in 3/4 or 4/4 time (that's walz and fox trot to you dancers) 3) and years later when you hear them it brings back all the memories of hurried and short tempered customers and why I was so grateful to spend most of my life trying to educate ungrateful children on the importance of knowing the difference between an noun and verb as well as the three branches of our government and the need for ballance of power between them.
Not all of my aversion to some music is about Christmas Music. Working at Skaggs the summer before going off to college I was tortured by the looped songs of Melany's I Have A Brand New Set of Roller Skates and You Have a Brand New Key followed by Jeannie C Riely's Harper Valley PTA.
Now you know why out of the huge collection of .45's collected while growing up I took none of them with me to college. I only took one lone album (lp) and that was what I tortured my mother with my senior year in high school, Iron Butterfly's Inagodadavida.

Story slowly coming along

Up to 20,000 words on story so I'm a little behind. Still doing paying work is more important.
Wednesday I pick up our Thanksgiving turkey. Last year we bought 3 turkeys. We ate one for Thanks, ate another one between holidays and had the third for Christmas. We haven't wanted turkey for a long time. This year we're only getting one. We used to get a smoked turkey at Powdrell's barbeque and they are absolutely fabulous, but the price kept going up and finally out of our reach. I mean when you can buy a 25lb turkey for $13.00 paying fifty for a smoked one seems silly, but that's what we're doing this year. If we're going to eat turkey again we decided it needs to be memberable for something other than fatigue. BTW, Mom's fixing a roast for Christsmas.

Confrontation

As people get older they seem to lose inhibitions. Mainly they say things that when they were younger they thought but kept to themselves or said privately.
A few weeks ago my mother, wife and I had dinner at a restaraunt. There was a woman and a small child around three or four years old. The child was screaming, not crying, just screaming to scream. It was very annoying. We were trying to have a nice conversation after we were through with dinner, but were forced to leave. Walking past the woman my mother made the comment that in her day parents didn't allow children to scream like that and then walked on. I paid the bill and the lady came out, kid still screaming and left. I thought that was the end of it, but the woman came back in by herself and started screaming at my mother. I positioned myself between them and in my strongly projected "teacher voice" told her to back away. I repeated my request three or four times until she left. We waited about ten minutes and the manager walked us out to the car, he was very supportive of us in the matter. That didn't stop the woman from driving past us and yelling some obscenities.
Is it just me or are parents today so afraid of being charged with child abuse that they have given up on trying to discipline their children?
Mom never beat us, but she did have a wicked pinch that got our attention and let us know to stop whatever behavior we were doing. Dad was fond of saying when we were in public, "Children should be seen and not heard!" I've read many child psychologists and other writers demonizing that statement, but we learned there was a line not to cross when in company and to respect our parents and other adults.
Today you can't go into a store or mall without the crying and screaming of kids that didn't happen thirty or forty years ago, but let a parent give the child a reason to cry and the full force of the law will hit like a ton of bricks.

Back to normal

At least that's what I'm hopin for. Drove all over creation today and didn't get much writing done. Since this month started I've been running around doing this that and the other. Tomorrow I golf and I have my van back from my daughter at least until my Mom gets back from her trip and wants her car back.
Daughter is done with the Obama campaign and now we're hoping this experience will get her into a full time job. This is the frist time she's put in long hours and kept at it.

National Bullying

A bi-partisan report using actual numbers showing that giving the rich tax breaks does NOT and I repeat NOT add jobs. Guess what the Bully Party has supressed the report. Or should it be called the Temper Tantrum Party. Jobs reports come out showing that things are improving and look at the way they scream at the messenger and since they are masters at skepticism concerning science and all things factual that don't support their pre-conceived ideas their rhetorical questions bombard non stop.
I loved it when the head of GM (remember the good old days of "I Like Ike" when what's good for GM is good for America?) said Romney the son of an auto CEO, is living in a paralell universe.
I don't know what it is, but most retired golfers seem to be republicans and I've decided that politics is not something to talk about, but yesterday the pure hatred expressed towards Obama and the local Senatorial candidate by most of the guys while waiting to tee off has made me decide not to golf with them anymore and go to other golf courses. If Obama wins I don't want to be anywhere near them as they wail and gnash their teeth and if Romney wins I also don't want to be around them when they gloat.
When the fundamentalists took over the SBC anyone who disagreed with their dogma was shouted down in Sunday School Class and shunned making anyone who actually tried to know what they believe keep their opinions to themselves or leave. Now in one of the most enjoyable forms of exercise I participate in I'm forced to do the same.
Goddamn those mutherfucking bullies that stifle a free flow of ideas. I'm tired of being the only one who exercises discretion and avoid agrument when they feel like they can say anything they want. I'm no longer enabling their bullshit.
Is it any wonder that assholes like this find ways of justifying rape?

Working on the book

I've completely redone my opening to Bona Dea and the main idea of the story. I realized that what I had was fine for a short erotic story, but it needed to be toned down and have a different message for a novel. I'm happy with it so far. Up to 12,000 words so I'm kind of jumping the gun for NaNoWriMo, but the whole idea is to get to 50,000 words. I'll be happy to get to that milestone by the end of the month, but it'll take a bit more time to get it up to 100,000 by the time its ready for publication.
I still have The Fan Plan to work on and someday I'm going to write that novel on the life of Matthew Fontaine Maury, not to mention the sequel to Optimus. Wow so much to write!

Busy Busy Busy

• I posted some pictures with different views of Sandia Mountain taken from three different golf courses at Captain's Log.
• Daughter is busy actually making money working in the campaign, too bad the pay check ends with the election, but hopefully this will give her enough experience to find meaningful employment. Keeping fingers crossed.
• Trying to keep two vehicles that are over ten years old running is proving very expensive lately, but still much cheaper than buying newer. With four drivers in the family going in different directions and only three vehicles is a logistics problem in itself, but when one of them is down it turns into a  nightmare.
• I'm turning a short story into a novel for National Novel Write Month (NaNoWriMo). I did this about six years ago and it resulted in Human Sacrifices. Now available at smashwords.com and on the provided link at Amazon for the very reasonable price of only 99 cents. Bona Dea, the one I'm working on is up to 10,000 words right now with half a month to reach 50,000. I'm not ready to post the opening yet, but will in a few days for my few loyal readers.

Math and Science

On last nights policital debate and the hype that this would be a game changer for Romeny. Come on, the only televised political debate that decided an election was in 1960 and that was because Nixon's face melted on TV, everyone who heard it on radio felt Nixon won. This election hinges not on debates but blind faith over reason and reality -- lies vs facts. Two thoughts to make my point:

1. On the morning news they showed Obama repeating Clinton's point that the Republican plan of further reductions in Billionaire taxes plus closing loopholes will ballance the budget, and the arithmatic doesn't add up. (Paul Krugman's been saying this ever since it came out)
2. Bruce has a post about Oklahoma Baptist University hiring as head of its religion department a guy who is a "Young Earth" theologian and the ongoing fight with religious right dunderheads who keep advocating Creation Science or Intellegent Design over Astronomy, Geology, Biology, Zoology, Antrhopology, Achaeology and a host of other ologies.

Christian fundamentalists have been fighting against science from the beginning. Charles Darwin's Origen of Species and Descent of Man and the theory of evolution started the war against science which is ongoing and will never cease as long as Christian fundamentalists continue in their idiotic insistence on a literal interpretation of books in the Bible like Genesis and Revelation that were purposely written metaphorically and symbolically.
Science is at its bedrock mathematics. All science is a numbers game, they simply add empiricism (scientific method) to their particular discipline. So why do so many Christian fundamentalists have a problem understanding that the Republican plan doesn't add up? They've been brainwashed by their preachers and professors and home schooled or private religious schools to be skeptical of math. They've been taught that Carbon 14 dating, which relies on the same math that produced the atomic bomb is wrong, so trust their preachers and what they say about the origens of the universe based on the Bible.  When Romney and the Republicans say "Trust me" they've been brainwashed to place their faith in God's political party instead of arithmatic. Their preachers said so.

The religious right does use math, and Blind Faith in their childish literal interpretation of the Bible to do great harm to education and our country. Why do these morons still insist that the universe is only 6,000 years old.  The basis for this is the computations of Bishop Ussher a17th century theologian who added up all the ages of the patriarchs listed in Genesis until Abraham. He then calculated back from the birth of Jesus and settled on creation happening in 4004 BC.
This theory of creation was refuted by many theologians but I like this one written in 1890 by Professor William Henry Green in his Biblioteca Sacra:
We conclude that the Scriptures furnish no data for a chronological computation prior to the life of Abraham; and that the Mosaic records do not fix and were not intended to fix the precise date either of the Flood or of the creation of the world.
For those who insist "God said, I believe it, that settles it" guess what, God never said he created the universe in 4004BC or that those ages added together meant anything; Bishop Ussher did. Do you believe God or Bishop Ussher?
There is no scriptural or common sense reasoning to support the mathematical calculations of Ussher that God created the universe only 6,000 years ago even if you believe as I do that He did. Many Christians believe both the Bible and science. To us evolution is how God did it and is continuing to work His creation. There is no conflict between faith and reality or between the Bible and science because we interpret the scriptures metaphorically and symbolically like the reasoning beings we are:
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. I Corinthian 13:1 NASV.
Only children and the feeble minded interpret everything litterally. Think of Abbot and Costello's classic comedy routine "Who's on first" why is it so funny? Because Costello can't get past his literal interpretation of the word 'who' to figure out that it's the players name.

Ultimately this war on science is doing irreparable harm.

• It weakens the message of Christ by limiting His power. Who are we to say He had to create the universe in only this way and at only this time?
• It limits the Bible to only one possible way to read it limiting the power of the Bible for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. II Timothy 3:16b NASV
• It separates all Christians in the eyes of our culture and country and weakens our witness about the saving power of Jesus to change people lives, because the lost see us as out of touch with reality.
• Insisting on adding creationism or intellegent design to public school curriculums paints all Christians as childish or stupid and anti-science, anti-education, and no sane person would believe a word any Christian says about salvation destroying our witness.
• It is making generations of our children intellectually retarded and unable to think for themselves.
• Fundamentalist Christians are being used by greedy preachers and politicians in an unholy alliance in the Republican party to squeeze more and more money out of our economy and because they have been brainwashed that evolution is evil and science is of the devil they have their minds made up so don't confuse them with facts.

Romney and Ryan can lie over and over again on the campaign trail, in their advertisements and in the debates and the Fundies will eat their words like cotton candy. Unfortunately if Romney gets elected all of us will get stuck with tooth decay.

Comment thought

From my friend in Oklahoma who works in the oil industry, his comment on the Cross of Gold Speaches:
I'm pretty conservative in a lot of things and really into free markets and call myself a Republican but I really don't recognize them anymore. They seem to be living in a fantasyland these days. The moderates and Democrats seem to be totally bumfoozled by the whole thing and totally don't seem to know how to respond.

Listen my children and you will get a history lesson:
The United States has never been a free market economy!
The first thing Congress did at the urging of then Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton after the constitution was ratified and the government in place was to pass a tarrif on foreign goods. So much for a free market.
Slavery was the smokescreen for the Civil War. The first call for secession in the South was the Tarrif of Abomination when Andrew Jackson was president. Northern industries liked their unfree market place and didn't care that the exporting South was retaliated against by the countries the tarrif harmed.
A major contributing factor for the world wide Great Depression was tarrif's passed under the Cooledge administration.
What was one of the first acts of President George W. Bush? He passed a tarrif on steel from China.
If you really want a free market our government would have to:
suspend all farm subsidies. Every small farmer who receives a subsidy check should thank the Democrats.
suspend all corporate subsidies and tax credits
Face it corporations are buying the best government money can buy so they can still get their corporate welfare and have no regulations limiting their ability to slash salaries and benefits, increase hours for workers, gouge the public, and steal from the public coffers.

Optimus Is Back

I've finished revising Optimus and it is now available for only .99 when Publish America priced it at 27.95. pmprescottenterprises.com will also take you to all my other novels, anthologies and stories.
You can get it at smashwords.com and amazon.com.
There are still some used print copies at Amazon.

Cross of Gold

 Absolutely amazing how the Republican Party has dragged us back in the last thirty years of their trickle down economics and now wanting a return to the gold standard. A speech given in 1896 is still relevant to answer all the of what is on the Republican economic platform.

Free Round of Golf

On the Eastern side of Sandia Mountain is a beautiful golf course: Paako Ridge. It's in a national forrest with breathtaking views of Sandia Mountain and the others around it. Ranked one of the top 25 golf courses in the country open to the public. It is a bit expensive compared to the local Municipals. I got to play there with the Albuquerque Seniors at our set price, even had a nice boxed lunch.

 If you go on their web site and sign in they'll send you a certificate for a free round the month of your birthday. So I got to play for free this month. It's not often I get to play here twice in one summer. It is closed from November to March due to being covered in snow.

 The course is long and rugged not many try to walk it. Even in a cart getting from the path to the greens is quite a hike and climb as most of them are elevated with two or three ridges.
The sky is much bluer than in Albuquerque. It's good to get out of the exhaust fumes.







I've found it best to go early in the morning on a weekday. Prices are better after 2pm, but thunderstorms that build up in the afternoons can ruin your round before you're finished.

Press Conference

Here's the video of Russ Sype's press conference last Saturday. It's well done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkvGgX30i18

Olympics, my thoughts

I watched quite a few hours of the Olympics this year. I'm not going to go into a lot of the different events because I never competed in any of them but two.
I ran the mile and three mile. (1500 meters and 3000 meters). Back in my day when I ran against Olympians like Eastern New Mexico's Kenyan Mike Boit (bronze medalist '72 in 800 and 4th in 1500) and Howard Pain's Ghanian Billy Forger (tripped Jim Ryan in '72) in college I naturally dreamed about peaking for the Montreal Olympics. Knee injury shattered the dream, not that it was within my reach. I remember while watching the Olympics in '76 a commentator mentioning that qualifying time for the mile was under 4 minutes and it was less than twenty years since the first sub 4 minute mile was run by Roger Banister. In 1974 Filbert Bayi broke Jim Ryan's world record of 3:51.1 with a time of 3:51.0 and later that year Scott Walker of New Zealand broke that record with a 3:49.08. Walker took gold in the '76 Olympics when Bayi was part of the African boycott.
I mention all this because while watching the 1500 meter race this year a commentator said something very similar to the one at Montreal. He said the average best time of the runners in the final was a 3:49 mile. Much was made of Sebastian Cole who set the world record for the mile three different times and Morroco's Hicham El Guerrouj 3:43.13 that has stood since 1999.
When it became the average for runners to break the 4 minute barrier much of the explaination was better training methods, equipment and running surfaces. Now what were times only one or two runners in the world could achieve is common place and average. I don't think training methods have improved that much. Diet is much better than it was then, but the real difference from the 1980's on is the age of the world record holders. In the '50's and '60's it was  college age runners or just past graduation. Sebastian Coe didn't reach world record times unitl he was 35. I haven't researched the ages of the other record holders, but the fact that top runners can continue to train and make a living till nearly 40 has to be a major contributing factor.

Sype for the General Welfare

The press conference at the Elegante motel was a resounding success. There were around 25 in attendence with a reporter from the Alibi. It was video taped and in a week or two I'll post the U-tube link.
Russell's main point is that government is charged with providing for the general welfare and if a high quality public eduaction isn't covered, What is? If quality health care for all citizens isn't, What is?
More to come.

Sype for President

 

William Russell Sype will announce his candidacy for President of the United States in the year of our Lord 2016 at the Elegante Hotel in Albuquerque, NM tomorrow August 9, 2012 at 10:30am. I've agreed to the honor of serving as his campaign manager. All who are in the neighborhood and wish to attend are more than welcome. We've been informed that the local media will attend.

Love Quotes

Movie 1776

In November of 1971 Mom and Dad had season tickets to what was then the Civic Light Opera and they couldn't attend one of the preformances and gave the tickets to me and my girlfriend at the time. It was 1776. I was blown away at the performance and could remember so many witty lines. When I was in college during out nations bi-centennial the play was performed, but I couldn't attend as I was married, didn't have the money and needed to work that night.
The movie came out in 1972, but it didn't come to Plainview so I never saw it on the big screen. One of the first items I bought with my first Summer school money was a VCR and on the 4th of July 1983 the movie was aired and it was the very first movie I taped. The following summer I taught American History in Summer school in a portable. On the other side of the partition was a math class. I showed the movie and the teacher came over after class:
Math teacher: I thought you're teaching America History.
Me: I am.
Math teacher: What did you show?
Me: The movie 1776.
Math teacher: It had singing and dancing.
Me: Yes, it's a broadway musical turned into movie.
Math teacher: How is that history?
Me: It lets the students know the positions of all the colonies prior to the vote on independence and what it took to get a unanimous vote. It's also pretty good at giving them an idea of how parliamentary proceedure works.
He wasn't convenced and didn't have much of an artistic understanding.
All the years I taught U.S. or American history I showed this movie buying a copy as soon as it was on sale at Blockbuster.
After Grinnygranny and I were married it was performed at Popejoy Hall. Mom and Dad got tickets and we went with them. So I've seen it twice performed on stage and a million times on video. Try watching it six times a day over numerous years.
It was with weeping and gnashing of teeth that I took all my video players to Goodwill and converted to Blue Ray. I bought the Restored Director's cut. There are a number of lines left out in the theatrical version and one song. In this version you get a better sense of Judge Wilson and why he made the decision for independence. I knew from seeing the play they cut out Cool Cool Considerate Men  and learned that it was at the request of Richard Nixon because he thought it put conservatives ie Republicans in a negatative light. It's actually John Dickenson's and the others who opposed independence victory song thinking they've won. A shame it was cut because in the middle of the song a dispatch from Gen. Washington comes in describing the British navy's surrounding of New York and using it as a staging area for moving on Philidelphia. In the rest of the movie they talk about the Redcoats being at their door without a decent explaination. But the real crime of the cut was omitting these crucial lines:
Dickenson asks John Hancock why he isn't on their side since he hates John Adams and is a man of property. Hancock replies, "Fortunately there are not enough men of property in America to dictate polity."
Dickenson then says, "Perhaps not, but most men with nothing would rather defend the possibility of being rich than face the reality of being poor."
This in a nutshell explains why so many hundreds of thousands of Confederate soldiers died defending slavery when they didn't own slaves and why today so many with so little still vote for the party that consistently raises their taxes while cutting them for the rich and gives corporations subsidies for outsourcing their jobs. After all they may hit the lottery and be rich someday even if they are living under a bridge or in their car after having their homes forclosed and can't find a job.
I could have used that line all those years I showed this movie, but Tricky Dick didn't like it.

I looked up most of the actors in the movie, hard to imagine it's been out 40 years now. William Daniels (John Adams) Ken Howard (Thomas Jefferson) Blythe Danner (Martha Jefferson) and John Cullum (Edmund Rutlidge) are still working. Howard Da Silva (Benjamin Franklin) was a black listed actor during the McCarthy era and many of his credits are in the 1930's, 40's and 50's. The role of Franklin on Broadway and the movie restarted his career. He died in 1986. Virginia Vestoff (Abigail Adams) died of cancer at age 42 in 1982. Donald Madden (John Dickenson) died in the 80's. Quite a few of the actors were soap stars with most of them coming from Dark Shadows.
Some of my favorite lines:
John Adams:
 I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, two become a law firm and three or more become a congress.
This is a revolution dammit we're going to have to offend somebody.

Benjamin Franklin:
Treason is the reason given by the winners in order to hang the losers.
Careful Mr. Dickenson those who give up their freedom for temporarty safety deserve neither freedom nor safety.
Revolutions come into the world like Bastard Children, half improvise and half compromise.
If we don't hang together we will most assuredly hang separately.

Stephen Hopkins (Old Grape and Guts from Rhode Island):
Well I tell you what, in all my born days I ain't ever seen, heard or smelled an issue that couldn't be talked about. Hell yes, I'm for debating anything.

Political Haiku

Fellow Blogger Ruined Chappel My Moonlight has some interesting poems concerning all political extremes. Worth a look and a laugh.

Going to see Les Miserables

Tonight I'm taking my wife, son and his wife to see Les Miserables at Popejoy Hall. I have had a fascination with the musical since I watched the 10th anniversary concert on PBS. The 25th Concert was even better and when I found out it was going to be performed here I vowed I'd see it come hell or highwater. The rest of the family run fleeing every time I watch the concerts so I didn't think they'd be all that interested, but given a chance to dress up and have a nice night out they decided to come along.
I'm looking forward to seeing the whole thing instead of just the concert.