Good Morning!
On this day in 1870 Kappa Alpha Theta, the first women’s sorority, was founded at Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University) in Greencastle, IN.
In 1880 Thomas Edison patented the electric incandescent lamp.
In 1900 foreign diplomats in Peking, China, fearing a revolt, demanded that the imperial government discipline the Boxer rebels.
In 1945 Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
And in 1973 the Vietnam peace accords were signed in Paris.
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Quote of the Day
“Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.”
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Today is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts’ birthday.
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Wandering Views 
Wake up everybody! It’s almost 7:30.
Karen, check in if you have power.
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Good morning, Chas! I slept nine hours last night. I feel like a new woman!
L. is enjoying her new school. 90% of Freshman have “A” lunch; L. had B lunch, which is mostly Sophomores and Juniors. She knew no one in B lunch, so I encouraged her to ask her counselor if there was any way to move to A. She was reluctant to do so, so I called and spoke with the counselor yesterday. In less than five minutes, she was able to tweak L.’s schedule so she now has A lunch. The counselor, Ms. B, was very kind to us during registration, so I wrote an email to the Freshman principal yesterday extolling her virtues. He responded almost immediately, thanking me for my email, saying they usually hear only complaints.
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😦
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My 😦 was before Ann posted. I thought I was all alone here.
Hi Ann..I’m glad the school thing worked out.
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Well, I’ll drop in to say “hi” so Chas won’t be lonely. I’m staying at my sister’s house in Annapolis this week (and maybe next) to help her, as she had surgery yesterday. She’ll come home tomorrow. She has dogs and I’m not a “dog person” so it’s a bit uncomfortable for me. Fortunately, Julie, her cat is helping me adjust.
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Good morning, all. Another day with lots to do and only a limited number of hours. I am so glad they are limited.
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I mentioned before that I’m reading Stonewalled by Sharyl Attkisson. It’s a good book, but a difficult read. The details are so detailed that it’s hard to follow at times. And it deals with important subjects, but subjects which, unfortunately, people are not interested in. It doesn’t
have to do with football inflation or a Kardashian dress. So? Who cares? Everything requires so much context that it doesn’t lend itself to quotes.
But I have found an important issue that is relevant without the context. p. 321.
“I have a slightly different interpretation of the administration’s sensitivities. It’s not that they are really so sensitive. They’re simply executing a well-though-out strategy to harass reporters and editors at the slightest air of negativity so as to impact the next news decisions. To provide so much unpleasant static and interference that we may subconsciously alter the way we report stories. To consume so much of our time explaining and justifying what we’ve reported, that we begin to self-censure in the future. They accuse us of “piling on” when all we’re doing is accurately covering their actions and the outcome of their decisions. But what human being doesn’t instinctively learn to avoid negative, unpleasant feedback?”
My take is slightly different. I think many of the editors and reporters are on their team.
😆 Sharyl Attkinsson’s name is hard to spell because it’s counter intuitive, especially the double letters. I recommend her book. Everyone needs to read Chapter 6, “I Spy”.
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Karen should have checked in by now if she has electricity.
II Spy” is a chapter about the government spying on her. And others. I doubt that they care about us. But they know about us.
Be aware.
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The principle of a very expensive school in Providence, RI, called a snow day with this very fun parody of Frozen: http://time.com/3683498/frozen-blizzard-let-it-go-parody/
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I can’t find my favorite scene from Amadeus in the clips, but it’s where Mozart is writing and music is loud and flowing. His wife walks in and shouts his name, several times, before the music stops, he blinks and looks up at her confused.
She tells him something. He nods, she leaves and he’s immediately immersed in the music again, her request forgotten.
That’s what it’s like sometimes for me when I’m writing. 🙂
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I just saw on yesterday’s thread that Karen O would not check in if they lost power (because they don’t have a Smartphone). Since the Smartphone needs an electrical charge, it wouldn’t be of help either. You can charge it in the car, if you don’t mind using up your gas to do so.
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I am working in the dining room, which has a picture-window view of the front street. The trash men came by, emptied the can, and threw it on its side on the driveway behind the car. The recycle men then came by and one of them picked up the empty trash can and stood it upright back on the curb where it belongs. Nice service.
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Michelle, I remember back when my husband did income taxes from our home that sometimes a client would call when I was immersed in reading a book. The client would think they had awakened me from sleep because I was having to transition out of reading thoughts to a telephone conversation. It was amusing and distressing all at the same time.
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So enjoying the music today. Thanks Aj
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I am still waiting for our predicted sunny day. It is brightening up, but still not quite there. Sunny days in winter mean the blues go out of the people and show up in the sky. 🙂
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Still have power! Yay! Thanking God!
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Good to see Karen’s power survived. So is the worst over?
We got only light rain through the evening, but anything is better than nothing. Still, … 😦
And I’m feeling like I was run over by a Mac truck as we used to say — started coughing yesterday at work and now I’m completely congested. It’s been going around the office, some kind of virus; not sure if it’s the flu or not but whatever it is, it has definitely sidelined me for today.
Hate to confess, it gets me out of covering what was going to be an intense and late night meeting tonight …
But we’re so short-handed, that being out is a hardship — we have another reporter covering a trial in downtown L.A. all day and another one going out tonight on a homeless count they’re doing in our communities, another one with a different night meeting in her community.
It’ll be quiet.
I also had to cancel reschedule 2 doctor’s appointments I had this week.
cough cough
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chas, I don’t know that the white house press corps is all that enamored with the president at this point. The honeymoon is pretty much over, as they say — and the strong-armed tactics haven’t set well with a lot of the press having to deal directly with covering obama and friends.
I think it’s probably a surprise for them in general as they did largely take to him quite warmly in the beginning, as you point out.
But it seems that it’s turned pretty adversarial (which is what that relationship between press & president should generally always be from the start) in at least the last year.
I doubt there’s much love lost at this point between the two.
Does she address the overall relationship in the book, whether it’s shifted dramatically over the 6 years?
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I have not paid especial attention to the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in former years, although my uncle’s (by marriage) mother died there, because I took it for granted that the lesson was well learned. Sadly, this past year, I have discovered that there is a powerful movement questioning the extent of the Holocaust – they prefer to call themselves revisionists, rather than deniers. One of my relatives (not descended from my uncle) has been sucked into this spin and questions whether Auschwitz was really a death camp. In response, I have been reading the memoirs of Rudoph Hoess, the former commandant of Auschwitz, which he wrote while awaiting death. Hoess is always trying to show that he wasn’t responsible for the cruelty, but he makes no attempt to deny that people were systematically gassed and cremated – he even speaks with professional pride at his discovery that Zyklon B was more efficient than mass executions (he tested it on several hundred Russian prisoners). What is more, the events that Hoess relates are repeatedly born out by other eye witnesses, both survivors and guards, as well as documents and photographs. There is no room for saying that Auschwitz was not a death camp.
The relative who questions is a Christian and very conservative and orthodox in his thinking; he is also young and vulnerable to conspiracy theory websites – he also thinks that 9/11 may have had other causes – as many young millenials are. My generation is not lazy or narcissistic, as some people describe us, but we are incredibly skeptical of any majority opinion of our elders (I wonder if that is why we are so much more pro-life than our parents were). Although our elders had many wrong opinions (the baby boomers/hippie generation are our grandparents or, in my case, our parents), that doesn’t mean they were wrong about everything, something which, unfortunately, my peers seem to have a hard time grasping.
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Donna, she addresses the overall relationship, but not a shift.
My opinion is that, as much as possible, they protected Obama through the election.
But the Administration hasn’t been honest with them. They will react as much as their liberal hearts will permit.
They will never get into anything that really hurts Obama.
I have an e-mail that asserts that most of the White House is Muslim or influenced my Islam. But I haven’t checked it out thoroughly. i.e. Valerie Jarrett is Muslim . I have verified that she was born in Iran of Iranian parents. Another on-line source says she’s dating a Muslim football player.
etc.
Other than killing some leaders with drones, I can’t think of anything that Obama has done to retard the progress of radical Islam My guess is that there will never be a significant move to prevent an Iranian Bomb.
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It’s still snowing, but not as heavily as last night. Last night around 10, when I put Heidi outside to go potty, it was snowing sideways. 🙂 I think we have about 18″ out there.
Janice – Lee & Emily have smart phones, but I don’t, & I don’t know how to use theirs. I’d better learn pretty soon, before I get too far behind on technology.
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Chas, those liberals who supported Obama (at least among journalists I know) are more disappointed than anything — they haven’t turned on him per se, but they’re no longer under the spell. 🙂 Those actually covering the president have a close-up view of how he’s treating the press, so I can only imagine they’re a tad bitter and “over him” at this stage.
That said, most media will always be tougher on conservatives than they are on liberals.
roscuro, interesting. And denying the holocaust isn’t new, it’s been bubbling up for a while now — but probably (maybe) more so in the future as the immediate, eye-witness generations pass from the scene.
Today with the explosion of “media” sites, you can find theories that say any and everything. Readers and consumers of news need to be discerning — I tend to initially take things reported by far left or far right sites with something of a grain of salt, unless solidly well-sourced. Bloggers and commentators aren’t really journalists who operate by the high standards of real news gathering.
There’s a difference between commentary and news — but too often commentary bleeds into news, more so now that we have the internet.
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A former (Jewish, 50-something) colleague who now does research & writing for a holocaust project at one of our major universities is in Europe for the Auschwitz anniversary, I see from his FB page. But he’s a jokster & hasn’t posted too many serious comments, which is kind of head-scratching (although knowing him, that’s really just the way he is)
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So thankful you have power, Karen. Now if I could just get some energy! Do you think that the E. Bunny might be willing to share some? I doubt it because then he couldn’t do the ads. 🙂
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Kim, i heard back from my friend. She said all the PTSD patients receive the book, Courage After Fire. So you could start with that if your/Mr. P’s son does not have it.
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Excellent book on sanctification for those interested: “Extravagant Grace: God’s Glory Displayed in Our Weakness” by Barbara R. Duguid. I am getting blown away by reading my own experience (and frustration/failures) in personal Christian growth.
Refreshing, eye-opening and so reassuring. To God be the glory.
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Also, Kim, I read a short novella, At the Edge of a Dark Forest, by Connie Almony, which would be great for wife and husband to read aloud. It is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast where the “Beast” is a man suffering from PTSD. I did a review of it on Amazon.
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A couple weeks or so ago, there was in the news a story about a teenage boy who was a “trans girl” who committed suicide. His Christian parents had tried getting him some counseling, which he felt was adding to his pain. Blog posts & comments about the parents were brutal, saying that they deserved no sympathy, that it was their fault their “daughter” committed suicide.
Those who negatively commented about the parents, as well as many others (such as YF) who support the normalization of homosexuality, transgender-ism, etc., believe that we cannot truly love those trapped in that life unless we fully accept them as they are. The argument is that this is an integral part of who they are, & if we don’t accept & love that part of them, then we don’t accept & love them at all.
I know deep inside that it is indeed possible to love & “accept” (as a fellow flawed, broken human being) a homosexual, & yet still view acting on homosexual feelings (rather than merely having the temptation of them) as sin. In fact, we may even love them more than those who “accept” their homosexuality (or transgender-ism or whatever).
But I don’t know how to express this in words that YF or someone like her would understand. 😦 I know there is a depth of love that goes beyond “acceptance”, but I can’t think of the words to convey that idea. I can understand how YF & those bloggers & commenters I mentioned above can hold the view they have, but I also know that they are wrong.
(No, I’m not in the middle of a Facebook discussion with YF. I’ve just been thinking about this matter, & wondering what I could say if confronted.)
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I think it important, Karen, to stress that you are only wanting the very best for them. That is loving them.
You could ask the question about if they thought life could be any better or if their life is as good as it could ever be. Then explain that your life is not as good as it could be. Then say the closer you get to God and the closer you follow Him that you discover the better plans He has for your life. Explain they may never choose to do life as God prescribes in the Bible. That does not stop your love and compassion for them. You will always hope for the best for them. Then maybe explain that you don’t feel loved when you are not accepted as you are. Your life is better for following what you know about God and His plans for your life. Explain no life will be perfect because we are all touched with the effects of sin on this earth. So you are looking for common ground, but not giving in to their desire and design to make you stop following what you know is best for your life. I hope that helps.
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Re: My 10:13 ” I recommend her book. Everyone needs to read Chapter 6, “I Spy”.’
You can read chapter 6 without reading the first part of the book. Get it from the library and read Ch. 6.
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Speaking of new cars, is this the next bubble? https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/why-the-automotive-industry-is-headed-for-a-major-slump-055308099.html
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Music post. 🙂
I lose myself in my music while I’m playing piano. Sometimes I don’t even hear the phone ring if the music is loud enough. (Like when I’m playing the last two movements of Bartok’s Rumanian Folk Dances, which I’m preparing for this spring’s piano show, which contain nothing but mezzo-forte, forte, and fortissimo dynamics, with accents and sforzandos — medium-loud, loud, and very loud, with occasional extra-heavy individual strikes, if you’re wondering.) It’s happened that one of the children will answer the phone downstairs, walk upstairs to hand the phone to me as I’m hammering away at the piano, and I won’t know anyone is standing next to me until I hear a loud voice say, “It’s for you!” 😉
That quote of the day was a good one for me to contemplate how I can play Bartok pieces like those mentioned above so that it “should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music.” Of course, Mozart didn’t know a Bartok would be arriving on the music scene a century hence. 😉
Michelle, I thought of you yesterday when I saw an article at the Minnesota Public Radio website about a novelist who wanted to take her readers into the mind of her protagonist symphony conductor, so she interviewed several professional conductors, asking them what went through their minds as they stood at the podium.
I enjoyed the article, and thought of you and all the research you do to help your readers get inside the minds of your characters.
Anyway, here’s the link, if you’re interested: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2015/01/26/inside-conductors-head
Speaking of professional conductors, my husband told me a fun story about someone he met today at a car dealership. After talking with the guy about Volvos and other vehicles they both like, the man mentioned that he’d had a good friend with whom he’d traveled to Chicago many years ago on some car-related business.
Turns out that good friend of his was the father of a good friend of mine from my college days, a fellow music major who came from a family of quite skilled musicians and who LOVED classical music.
This guy my husband met today said that when he and my friend’s dad went to Chicago (a quite lengthy journey from a state that doesn’t even border Illinois), they took in a concert of the world-class Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I don’t know what year it was, or who the conductor was at that time, but the guy reports that after the show sometime, the conductor happened to see them on the street or something, raised his hand in the air and yelled to my friend’s dad, “Hey, Richard, how ya doin’?” 🙂
So I guess that’s my closest connection to the world of world-class musicians — a friend’s dad on a first-name basis with one. 😉
Now I’m curious about who it was!
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Great Mozart music today, BTW, AJ. He’s got a lot of music in major keys, so it was nice to hear a couple works in minor keys.
Oh, and speaking of Amadeus, that movie came out when I was in college. It was all the rage in the music department. 🙂
OK, done with the music posts for a while now — Karen, glad to see you have power! And Ann, I enjoyed reading your 7:59. 🙂
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It’s still snowing. We’re getting another couple inches on top of what I reported earlier.
As for still having power, my friend Mike would say that, as Christians, we always have power, we just don’t always have electricity. 🙂
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Donna – I’ve learned to pay more attention to sources mentioned within articles. Sometimes I’ll read an article or blog post that I agree with, but I think the writing is too snarky. If I want to post the info, I’ll click on the links within the snarky post to find a better source.
There is a natural remedies site that a couple friends share from on Facebook. One time I looked at one of the articles shared, & wondered where they got their info from. At the end of the article, they listed their sources. Most of their sources were their own previous articles.
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Hahaha. Citing yourself, I like that.
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Addendum to my 4:15 (music) post. (This post — or, the link in it, rather — mentions cats, too, for all you pet lovers.) 🙂
I just remembered that a world-class conductor came to our university recital hall and gave a lecture at one point during my college years. However, though I was a music major, I hadn’t grown up in a very musical home, as far as classical music was concerned. I was still very influenced by rock music in my college years, so it wasn’t all that impressive to me that I had the privilege of hearing Sir Neville Marriner, founder of the world-famous orchestra (but not to me in those days) The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields come and speak to us. I’d never heard of him or the orchestra before that day.
I would love to meet and chat with the man now, though. 🙂
If you’ve seen the movie Amadeus, then you’ve heard The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, directed by Marriner.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/sir-neville-marriner-conductor-ill-just-die-on-the-podium-with-any-luck-9731419.html
🙂
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6 Arrows, I had exposure to some pretty wonderful music when I was in Chicago. Once attended a concert with a quartet of Strativarius (sp?) instruments. We had an excellent classical station, and my dial was set there. A church three or four miles from my home had monthly Bach events. (I’m tired and can’t think of the term of what kind of musical form they were–cantatas maybe.)
I’m not a real music person–I learned to read music but never took music lessons, have pretty much never listened to music except if I’m alone in the car, and don’t recognize much of anything except hymns in terms of who is playing / singing or what number it is. But I did recognize that we had a true luxury there in terms of world-class talent, free events, and so forth, and I took advantage of some of it.
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One year Itzhak Perlman was playing at Ravinia on my birthday, and I tried to get a friend to go with me, but she wouldn’t, and I missed my chance to hear him. (My friend’s boyfriend had recently died suddenly of an aneurysm, and it turns out the two of them frequented Ravinia, and she didn’t have the heart to go there. I understood that, but didn’t know of anyone else who would have wanted to go with me, so I was disappointed.)
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Interesting, Six Arrows, thanks. The Academy of St Martin in the Field is across the street from the National Gallery of Art in London and holds free concerts at lunchtime. I doubt Marriner, however, conducts for all those tourists! 🙂
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YoYo Ma played here the other night, he stops in Sonoma County fairly often. My Zumba instructor heard him for her birthday and we all oohed and ahhed.
The woman behind me said last year a friend of hers had two extra tickets to hear him and invited her and her husband. The tickets included dinner.
They weren’t classical music fans, but they went anyway where they sat at the same table with YoYo Ma and the chancellor of the University of California. “We had no idea,” she blushed, “our friend was so well connected.”
And afterwards, the concert?
“Oh! It was wonderful!”
🙂
I’m writing tonight but tempted to watch Amadeus . . .
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Cheryl, yes, those were probably Bach cantatas at the church you mention. About 200 of his cantatas survive to this day.
I would love to be in on the Chicago cultural scene if I lived closer. And Perlman would certainly be a great performer to see.
You mentioned your husband plays piano, I think? Does he play classical or other genres? You may have said, but I’ve forgotten. One or both of your daughters play, too, right?
I had a professor in a graduate-level course I took once (not a music course) who enjoyed classical music immensely, and was not a musician himself. We had very interesting conversations about classical music — which pieces we liked best, the orchestras and conductors and recordings we most enjoyed, etc.
One certainly does not need to be a musician to appreciate any given type of music. And we performers do enjoy having an audience. 🙂
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Michelle, I missed a chance to see YoYoMa several years ago when he performed within an hour of here. I should have gone, but was in the throes of some difficult parenting years and couldn’t get away.
Some day… 😉
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6 Arrows,
My husband has a few pieces he’s trying to learn to play well. I don’t necessarily know the pieces and can’t think of the titles, though I’ve heard him play “Something in the Way She Moves.” He didn’t like taking lessons as a child (he preferred to be playing basketball) and rather resented it, and not until our younger daughter took lessons did he take it up again, this time with no pressure. He has very eclectic music tastes. If we eat out, he’s always telling me who played the music that’s on and what else they played. Pop music, jazz, light rock, some theme songs, some classical.
Our younger daughter has a natural touch; her piano teacher says she’s the best she ever taught, and she hardly practiced. For a long time she hardly ever played, but now we hear her again, everything from classical to hymns, and she plays in church some now.
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Cheryl, that’s probably the Beatles’ song, Something, which opens with the lyrics “Something in the way she moves.” 🙂
That’s good to hear your husband is playing piano again after having had lessons he didn’t enjoy. Sometimes just finding the right time to take up instrument study is the key to really delighting in it.
That gives me hope for one of my children who didn’t study piano for nearly as long as her older sibs — she wasn’t ever very excited about it, and got to the point of actually disliking it, so I quit teaching her, at my husband’s recommendation.
Perhaps she’ll take it up on her own terms sometime in the future. Or not. Just so long as she doesn’t come to permanently hate music of that type because of prolonged over-exposure to an aspect of music that isn’t necessary — taking lessons, in this case. I don’t believe that has happened with her.
There are many ways to enjoy music without taking lessons, and if one can find pleasure in being a consumer of music, that is a good thing, too.
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