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Our Daily Thread 5-29-13

Good Morning!

And on this day in 1453 Constantinople fell to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, ending the Byzantine Empire.

In 1721 South Carolina was formally incorporated as a royal colony.

In 1790 Rhode Island became the last of the original thirteen colonies to ratify the Constitution.

In 1910 an airplane raced a train from Albany, NY, to NYC. The airplane pilot Glenn Curtiss won the $10,000 prize.

In 1912 fifteen women were dismissed from their jobs at the Curtis Publishing Company in Philly, for dancing the Turkey Trot on the job. Now if you’re like me, you asked yourself, “what’s the Turkey Trot, and why would it get you fired?” 🙂  See the first video. 🙂

In 1916 the official flag of the president of the United States was adopted.

And in 1974 President Nixon agreed to turn over 1,200 pages of edited Watergate transcripts.

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Quote of the Day

“A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

John F. Kennedy

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The Turkey Trot. Then, it got you fired. Now, it’s called team building and corporate America encourages it. Along with bowling for some reason. 🙂

Today is the birthday of Mark Lee of Third Day. So here’s Third Day, with help from Brandon Heath, doing Rich Mullins’ “Creed.”

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Anyone have a QoD for us today?

130 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 5-29-13”

  1. Kare, from yesterday’s 22:32.
    And much of that is true.
    And I noticed when I came back South, waitresses still call crusty old men “Honey”.

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  3. I turned some of you loose with some dangerous information that could have others making fun of you.
    I gave you the word ya’ll. (say it faster than you think and pronounce it yawl. End it quickly. DO NOW drag it out yaawwwlllll). Just recently Katie Couric had the Robertson’s from Duck Dynasty on her show. She started saying yaawwwllll and it was a disaster.
    It is just like going to New Or lee unz or New Or-lEEns and trying to say New’Or-Lunz like a native. Yes, I know they have all those cutesy little paintings and posters that say N’Awlins but trust me the natives are laughing at you when you try to say it. You have been warned. Tread lightly.

    Now, all ya’ll behave. Ya hear?

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  4. A few weeks ago, someone posted a link to an essayist who endorsed a book that claimed that the martyrdom of Christians in the Roman Empire was exaggerated. Here is the rebuttal from another essayist: http://www.worldmag.com/2013/05/persecution_myth

    I am one that doesn’t put much stock in the revolutionary interpretations of modern history. I have seen Josephus denigrated as an unreliable source, and now see that most scholars admit he had his facts right. I have even noticed that secular historians are conceding it is likely there really were NT writers like Paul, Luke and John, even as liberal theologians cling to the vague theories of scholars of a hundred years ago. Fifty years from now, people will still be reading primary writings like Perpetua’s account of her final days as she awaited death in the arena or Pliny the younger’s correspondence with the emperor Trajan on how to deal with the Christian problem, and have left this new book in the trash bin of time.

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  5. Kim, I’ll just pronounce it new-vough or-lay-uhn (that last syllable is impossible to really duplicate in English orthography) and tell them that is how it is pronounced in French, who named the place after all ;-p 😉

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  6. Phos, I do not know if you saw my post before on another day that Chicken Soup for the Soul is looking for stories about Winter in Canada. You would be a good one to write such a story.

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  7. Kim posted the a list about the South yesterday. I have to comment on this one:

    You think that the first day of deer season is a national holiday.

    I teach in rural Western Illinois. Our school has a teacher workshop day on the first day of deer season since so many students and teachers want to go hunting.

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  10. I don’t know AJ. That Turkey Trot looks pretty racy to me. 😆 Just kidding. Rich Mullins was a great man of God. He never knew how much he made. He turned his earning over to a group of church leaders and they paid him the average salary of a working man. What did not go to his church went to minister to native Americans.

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  12. And for the sake of all that is good and pure in the world DO NOT PUT SUGAR IN YOUR CORNBREAD!!! That’s’ not cornbread that’s cake.

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  16. Janice, I did see your note. I’m complemented that you think I could write for publication, but I doubt I could write for Chicken Soup. I don’t have time right now and I don’t have any stories in the style that they publish. But thank you for the tip.

    Anon – I have read that the audience was more upset by Nijinsky’s scandalous costumes and dances than by Stravinsky’s music. I find the music more boring than anything else; but then I prefer Prokofiev to Stravinsky.

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  19. I think one of the next big deal in industry is 3D printing. In addition to being able to print plastics, this company, Emerging Objects, has developed “ink” that is fiber reinforced concrete, salt, and wood.

    http://www.emergingobjects.com/

    Some very cool objects they’ve printed out….

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  25. This Yankee makes cornbread with maple syrup in it. I also put in Montina supplement (Indian ricegrass) for a unique flavor.

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  26. Makeitman, my husband’s boss, the ultimate geek, got a 3D printer earlier this year. He used it to create a sink faucet for a play at his son’s high school. BTW, I read somwehere that instructions for making a gun with one are popping up. They only shoot one bullet and self-destruct after one shot, but wouldn’t that make gun laws interesting?

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  27. Wow, I loved that rendering of “Creed”! Great blend of instruments. And a Young Chang piano! That’s what I’ve got (though not a grand).

    You always provide such a good variety of music here, AJ. 🙂

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  28. I just upgraded to IE 10 this morning. And the new Explorer has spell check. That’s a good thing, because my spelling isn’t. 🙂

    But give it time and I’ll find something I hate about it. 😉

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  30. kbelss: Ya’ll is NEVER singular.

    MiM: Y’all are a singular group of individuals.

    I know some Texans who use y’ll as a singular. Perhaps Texas is not part of the South?

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  33. Thanks for the link to world roscuro, a FB acquaintance had posted something abut this some time ago (in one of those, “see?” tones — interesting because he’s an older guy who professes Christ, belongs to a very liberal church; and he posts primarily about the benefits of – “medical,” a-hem, cough-cough – marijuana and the wonderful cultural advances of gay marriage and bisexuality, so go figure).

    Janice, I was talking to a former colleague yesterday who used to wright for Chicken Soup quite a bit when it was under the original ownership. Apparently they once paid much more for stories.

    It’s another mosquito story for me today at work — the season of West Nile, and all — then a release of recovered sea lions at the ocean tomorrow. At least the cat didn’t attack me this morning, but it’s still feeling like a rather long week already.

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  34. My husband told me that his father made pancakes with cornmeal. Is that what Johnny cakes are? I tried to make some a long time ago but never seemed to get it quite right. But all things taste good with a little honey dribbled over them. Like honey fried chicken. That’s fried chicken dipped in honey. Good food that I only had in one little cafe that is no longer there on the northside of Atlanta.

    My mother always made up some cornbread mix and poured it out into little patties on a hot griddle. I loved those but have never tried replicating them. They were not pancakes and definitely not made with sugar since my brother had diabetes and we had little sugar in our food. I think I have had something similar in a “soul food” restaurant on the southside and they were fried in water instead of oil. Has anyone heard of something like that

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  35. Ha! I misspelled write! Yipes. How embarrassing! 😀 It’s early. I’m tired. Did I mention it’s already been a l-o-n-g week and that the cat is being generally a brat lately?

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  36. Gluten-free Cornbread

    2 c. Yellow cornmeal
    1/2 c. White rice flour
    1/2 c. Tapioca flour
    1/2 c. Montina baking supplement
    1/4 c. Cornstarch
    2 TBS Garbanzo & fava bean flour
    2 TBS Sorghum flour
    2 TBS Baking powder
    2 tsp. Xanthan gum
    1/2 tsp. Sea salt
    3/4 c. Sunflower oil
    3/4 c. Pure maple syrup
    2 c. DariFree milk substitute

    Combine dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl.
    In a separate bowl combine remaining ingredients. Add to dry mixture and stir well.

    Pour into greased 9″ X 13″ baking pan and bake about 30 minutes at 350 degrees. The bread should test done with a toothpick.

    ____________

    There are a lot of different-from-the-usual ingredients if you don’t ordinarily bake gluten-free, but it is VERY worth it to buy these and make this recipe often. Trust me, this tastes much more like cake than any other cornbread I’ve had. Our family eats the whole pan at one meal. 😀

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  37. Donna, I have a whole crop of misquito bites I got while pulling ivy that was sending out a search party to find a home in the carport. I could scratch up a story for you about these southern misquitos. They are small but make for a big itch. 🙂 I looked for Bactine at Publix last night but found none. I hope I can find some elsewhere because it has always been my favorite for bites.

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  39. Six Arrows, you make me feel guilty about my cornbread recipe: Cornmeal mix, yogurt, oil and an egg. I do have a recipe for sweet corn muffins that uses canned kernal corn in the muffins for a nice texture addition.

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  42. Janice, your recipe sounds much saner. 🙂 I seem to live by the philosophy “Why make things simple when they can be complicated?” 😯 I’m a gluten for punishment. 😉

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  45. Janice, you may be talking about scalded hoe cakes.
    When I have more time I will tell you how to make cornbread. NOTHING sweet goes IN cornbread. You may drizzle honey or sir-rop over it. The secret is plenty of buttermilk. I swear that the entire reason I am currently married is that I fixed a pork roast, turnip greens, peas & butterbeans, sweet potatoes, and cornbread for a Sunday meal. I couldn’t have beat that man away with a baseball bat after that.

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  46. Donna, are the public still fearing the West Nile virus? We had a whole outbreak of fear when the mosquitos here contracted it, but it died down after a couple of seasons. After all, it is hard to get concerned about a disease which produces no symptoms or only vague flu like ones in the vast majority of those who get it. Only a tiny percentage ever get anything like encephalitis. My teachers in nursing school were talking about vaccines and the motive for producing them and they used West Nile as an example of a vaccine that would never be produced is because most of the population in a given risk area would already be immune within a couple of years. Probably if a blood test were done in a random sampling in L.A., it would be found that most people had already had the virus without knowing it.

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  47. Now I’m confused. Kim’s list says ya’ll is singular and all ya’ll is plural, but KBells says ya’ll is never plural. What authority can we count on here?

    And how’s it spelled anyway? I’ve seen it as y’all (I assumed that was a contraction for You ALL), but now I see Kim and KBells say ya’ll. Is that a contraction for YA aLL?

    I think I’m not smart enough to be a Southerner…

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  48. Kevin it is a trick of the language. All ya’ll are here on the blog. Ya’ll are a lot of fun to chat back and forth. I prefer to use ya’ll in the the plural. KBells is up nawth of me and uses ya’ll as the singular. Ya’ll (meaning you, Kevin) get those clod hoppers off my fresh dusted coffee table.

    See? It’s just a nuance.

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  49. Interesting from an NPR interview with popular writer Stephen King:

    “If you say, ‘Well, OK, I don’t believe in God. There’s no evidence of God,’ then you’re missing the stars in the sky and you’re missing the sunrises and sunsets and you’re missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together.”

    Yes, stating the obvious. 😉

    http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/05/29/stephen-king-universe-suggests-intelligent-design/

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  50. I was talking to my mom (a Yankee her whole life) on the phone yesterday, and at the end of the conversation she used that “y” word with the apostrophe somewhere in it 😉 telling us all to take care. She’s never said “y’all” or “ya’ll” (how DO you spell that anyway?) that I recall, but my sister’s husband frequently says that, so she must have caught it from him. 🙂

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  51. Interesting that the spell check on here says y’all is a word, but ya’ll is spelled wrong. It’s got the little red squiggly line under it.

    So that’s the final word, y’all. 🙂

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  52. Kevin, it helps a lot if you’re born into it. But you can learn.
    My uncle, the one who fought in N. Africa and Italy, brought home a Catholic woman from Michigan. This was mostly a Lutheran family. They were all outraged. Not that he married a Catholic, but that he married a Yankee. (This was in 1945.)
    But she turned out to be one of the family favorites. She cared for her SIL after her (SIL’s) husband died. Then they lived together when her’s died.
    My dad’s father had four boys and one girl. This woman’s son is the only one to carry on his name. (If that matters, it doesn’t to me.)

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  53. Kim, Opposite, no one around here would use Y’all (I have been misspelling it) in the singular. Anyone who does that gives themselves away as a Yankee either trying to sound southern or making fun of us.

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  54. roscuro, I think the ‘panic’ factor is gone — still, the disease did supposedly cause 6 LA County deaths last year. Enough to take precautions, but clearly most people who contract it don’t even show symptoms.

    We do hate mosquitoes, however. 😉 With a passion. (And we don’t even live in a bad mosquito region.) We are very tender out here.

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  57. There is a fondness by you southern folk to make towns and state names sound nothing like they’re spelled. I’ve seen it in New Orleans, Mississippi, and Louisville Kentucky. The way my Kentucky friend say Louisville is hard to mimic exactly, and sounds like a completely different spelling, which I think is the point. That way they can tell the locals from the Yankee tourists. 🙂 The way they say it is OK with me, I know what they mean. 🙂

    And my friend Ray who I grew up with here, for like 40 years, has by assimilation began using a Tennessee southern drawl. His sister who’s been there for 8 has it now too. Cracks me up, they don’t even realize it. 🙂

    So the language can be learned by northerners, but it requires immersion in the culture. Me personally, I can’t do it. But only because I won’t eat grits, or that nasty okra, and the heat is awful. I love everything else about the South, but those 3 are deal breakers. 🙂

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  60. I’mma go out on a limb here and say that Kim is incorrect in her spelling.

    It IS a contraction for “you all”. I don’t care what that sweet southern belle says.

    I like cornbread anyway you fix it.

    The grits you can have. Leave me out of that mess.

    Y’all behave now because it’s my birthday, and I said so.

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  67. Mumsee usta make cakes for birthdays. I haven’t seen one lately.
    Just as well, it’s usually gone before I get some.
    Anyhow:
    Happy Birthday MiM!

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  71. Happy Birthday, MiM
    By the way, even in this age of digital printers, nothing can equal the beauty and durability of woodwork. I would prefer a wooden table made by a skilled carpenter than the best engineered machine-made contraption.

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  76. I’m mostly a lurker because, one, I’m a listener, not a talker; two, I don’t have anything worthwhile to add; three, sometimes I’m not on here all that much, and when I am, it’s either too early or too late to join in.

    I loved the Southern post. I’m not deep South, but most of that holds true here in my mountain region too. I never learned to love Southern food though. I do love fried okra and most any vegetable unless it’s cooked till it’s soggy. Yuck.

    You can tell the outsiders here definitely by the way they pronounce things and the accent, or lack of one. Sometimes you’ll hear a local business advertised on the radio, and they’ll mispronounce the name of our small town. And it’s not a difficult name. You’d think if people were going to make a commercial, they’d at least check on the pronunciation of the place they’re advertising.

    As a late addition to the Memorial Day post, I come from a family of military vets. A great grandfather in the Civil War, father (drafted) and several uncles in WWII (one buried at Arlington), and husband in Iraqi Freedom. All came home from the wars. Other family members (uncles, cousins, father-in-law) served during peace times. My husband says people get Memorial Day confused with Veterans Day. I hadn’t thought about it before then, but I agree. I think anytime you give honor to veterans is a good thing though. Their job is not an easy one.

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  78. There is a fondness by you southern folk to make towns and state names sound nothing like they’re spelled.

    Don’t forget Natchitoches, LA or Nacogdoches, Texas. I think they are both pronounced like nagodish or nackadish, I can never tell when a native says it.

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  80. Welcome Megvalley1. I too come from a long line of military families on both sides. My uncles and my mom all served in WWII. Both my grandfathers served in the war between the states on the confederate side. Both yours truly and my wife of 35 years are Vietnam Era Veterans. You husband is correct about people getting Memorial Day confused with Veteran’s Day. My wife was a Marine so I always remember Marine Corp Birthday. The day before Veteran’s day. My son, like his father was a Navy man.

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  82. I am the poster formerly known as Meg. I haven’t posted in so long I forgot how. Not my real name anyway so no matter.

    Now can someone tell me how to log back out? Thanks!

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  83. People are coming out of the woodwork. Greetings, megvalley1, why would you want to log out? I don’t think I have ever done that so am no help.

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  84. Cornbread:
    3 cups corn meal (yeller or white…it don’t make no never mind) I prefer Marha White
    1 cup of flour
    3 eggs
    1 stick butter melted
    3 to 4 cups of buttermilk.

    melt another stick of butter in the bottom of the pan you are going to use. Pour the mixture in the pan and back at 450 about 45 minutes or until it is done.

    I cannot be held responsible for any weight gain or heart attacks. If you don’t have butter use bacon grease.

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  86. I know there are those of you who were sweating it out with me, but we finally settled on a price for the Bay House from Saturday. We are headed to inspections, estimates, and everything else but having a closing scheduled for July 10th at an acceptable price for all concerned.

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  88. Hi Meg! If you want to log out (which would be necessary on a public or shared computer), go to the upper right hand part of the viewing area and find your user name and avatar. If you hold the mouse over the name, a small drop-down menu appears with a Sign Out option.

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  90. I will get 10% of the commission but you have to remember I have a salary plus commission. The “regular” buyer’s agent will get 45% and the “team” will get 45% and I will get 10. It’s all good because I have 7 buyer’s agents working with me. I haven’t shown property in about a year so I was happy to be out with people and I got to practice my contract writing which I haven’t done since last August.
    I think Mr P would like to go back to Annapolis soon and see a Sweet Baby Boy and this will cover our trip.
    Just say a prayer that we slide through all the contingencies because I gave my people a lot of jump out clauses.

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  91. Peter, What company is your real estate agent with? What are they doing to market the house? Have they sponsored a lunch during the week and had a realtor’s open house? That is how you get agents through to see your house so they will show it. Also you might buy a 25 or 50 dollar gas card. The agents will leave their card when the come see the house and you will pick a winner. In some cases your agent might do this for you. She/He should definately sponsor the lunch.
    I used to give agents Target gift cards for showing some of my listings.

    Now I just buy my agents Starbucks gift cards because that is where they hold their every other week meeting. Tomorrow we are having a 30 minute contest. They just don’t know it yet. A $10 Starbucks card is at stake. I am more than willing to bribe people to do what I want them to do.

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  92. Uh, Kim, this is a rural area. Many of the realtors don’t leave a card when they show a house. In fact, our realtor (who works for a small local company, not a national “chain”) said when he started out, he left a card at a house and the listing agent got upset, saying he was infringing on her business.

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  93. You leave cards so the listing agent can pick them up and harrass you on why your buyer hasn’t made an offer on their listing. 😉

    I really shouldn’t get involved unless it is to convince you (like I have trying to convince Michelle) to move here so I have have all my “people” gathered about me.

    Michelle, I can still try to get you some sort of writer in residence grant and a place to stay. (Do you have any crazy, eccentric relative…it would look better if you did)

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  94. Hi Meg. I figured it was the same Meg.

    Also in the right side bar under Meta is a Log Out, just click it.

    And so you know, everyone has something worthwhile to add. In fact, you just did. 😉
    Don’t be bashful.

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  98. It’s been a while since we’ve done that, but I’m feeling sort of shy tonight (“Yeah, right”, everyone says, seeing the bright pink avatar splashed all over this page). 🙂

    Someone else can have it…

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  110. Happy Birthday, MiM! I have given up cake baking. Though the youngest two and I made a delightful cake for the neighbor (our local grandma). Brownie with chocolate chips for the lower layer topped with a nice chocolate fudge cake, put together with homemade icing and topped with the same. She threw in a bucket of neapolitan ice cream and hot chocolate and we had a party…..
    Same to you, MiM! All served in hand turned wood bowls with wooden spoons.

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  111. I only get the count at the top.
    No if you were to win a prize, would you want lunch with me or with your “boss”?

    I am running a mini contest for 45 minutes for the agents tomorrow. They don’t know what their prize is yet, but either I will take them to lunch or the Team Leader/Bossman will. Their choice. Oh and I did tell the TL what I was thinking.

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  112. There used to be a recipe where you used ice cream sandwiches in a pan as the bottom layer and then you soak it in your favorite alcohol ( this step could be skipped) and topped it with whipped cream and something else. It was really good. Back when I played Bunco it was popular

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  115. I once had a yellow cake mix I wanted to get out of the pantry so I cooked it up and since I had no frosting I decided to pour some applesauce over the warm cake. It was delicious. Sometimes simple things can be surprisingly good.

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  118. Chas, did you see the movie “Walk the Line” about Johnny & June (Carter) Cash? Wondering what you thought of it — I saw it in the theater when it came out (2005?) but then watched another made-for-TV version movie about the pair the other night (which wasn’t as good). But I didn’t realize she was quite the comedian in her earlier acts, I actually didn’t know much about her at all.

    I remember Cash mostly as a cross-over artist whose songs sometimes aired on rock or pop stations — and who appeared in guest shots on TV, not sure I ever watched their show per se.

    Their’s was a pretty bittersweet story.

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  119. KBells,

    All this talk about food reminded me that you have a website with food. I lost my favorites when I went to IE 10 this morning. Can you give me a link again please? 🙂

    And I could add you to the sidebar too. I should have already. Sorry.

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  121. 11 squared!

    Kim, if we moved down there we would be too far from grandchildren for Mrs L to enjoy. Plus, I don’t do Southern heat and humidity too well. Then there is the fact that I couldn’t give cave tours in Alabama!

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  123. Although Midwestern mosquitoes are a pretty formidable swarm now that I think of it. All that nighttime buzzing, waking up with welts …

    Scratching-scratching-scratching just thinking about it.

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  125. You haven’t seen mosquitoes until you’ve been up north here – and I hear they get worse even farther north. I love mosquito coils – they keep me from having to wear OFF when I’m on the deck.

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  126. hmmmm… haven’t had any cornbread since I opened that box from the store full of critters. mostly I put things like that in the freezer for a week, but that box got by me. Cairns, Australia equals cans, always interesting how folks pronounce things

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  128. Jo – So you have the ‘critters’ too? I guess it is probably even worse in the tropics. Here in the sub-Saharan, the flour must be frozen for at least a day and then sifted before it is palatable. I learned to not break apart flour lumps after I discovered they are weevil nests.

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