81 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 4-17-18”

  2. Kizzie, I enjoyed your little joke yesterday about not listening to CDs being bad for your health.

    6 Arrows, “The Boys of Summer” is our son’s favorite song. When he and beloved DIL got married, we had the reception at a bowling alley (following a formal church wedding). It was way more classy than it sounds, a ton of fun, and people still talk about it, 14 years later. She was a teacher at our Lutheran School and the whole church and school were invited. Anyhow, for those who didn’t bowl, hubby and I created a video of pictures of both of them from birth through engagement, set to music, that played on the overhead screens in the bowling alley. Since we vacationed at the beach every year, there were a lot of pictures of him and his brother in that setting and I put them all together set to “Boys of Summer.”

    Speaking of. I had to chuckle yesterday when someone posted one of those silly things on Facebook, asking “What if you got married at the first place you met?” Hubby and I did meet at that same bowling alley that they had their reception in 25 years later.

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  4. From yesterday:
    You can always tell Christmas is coming when Crosby starts to sing.
    He was the best singer/performer I know of.
    But I favored country over pop. Eddie Arnold, Hank Snow, Johnny Cash, Merle Travis, etc.

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  6. I’m headed off to breakfast, but I came back to say that this generation missed something by not having the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope comedy team. They were great. Bob could sing too, but not like Crosby.

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  7. Roscuro and 6 Arrows – Notice that I didn’t say that Dean Martin sounded just like Bing Crosby, but that he could sound like him. Maybe I should have added “at times”.

    I had read that someone back in their era had quipped that Dean sounded like Bing, but had the right face to go with the voice. Then I noticed that there is a similar sound to their voices at times, depending on the song. I don’t know how to describe the characteristics of voices, so I’ll say it has something to do with the timber maybe? But yes, Bing certainly had the deeper voice.

    6 Arrows – One Tin Soldier was the only hit by a group called Coven. This is the beginning of the Wikipedia article on them:

    “Coven is an American psychedelic rock band with occult lyrics formed in the late 1960s. They had a top 40 hit in 1971 with the song “One Tin Soldier”, the theme song of the movie Billy Jack.

    Coven was composed of vocalist Esther “Jinx” Dawson,[3] bassist Greg “Oz” Osborne (not to be confused with Ozzy Osbourne), guitarist Chris Neilsen, keyboardist Rick Durrett (later replaced by John Hobbs), and drummer Steve Ross. They are recognized as being the band that first introduced the “Sign of the Horns” to rock, metal and pop culture (as seen on their 1969 debut album release Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls, which interestingly has an opening track called “Black Sabbath”).”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coven_(band)

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  9. Morning! A very beautiful photo up there….I spy with my little eye!!
    Chas I was brought up watching Hope/Crosby movies and listening to their music. I have a deep appreciation for the old classics of my parent’s generation. 😊

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  10. I am alive.
    Thank you any who prayed for my Boy yesterday. He still wasn’t completely chipper last night, but this morning seems to be more himself. You know I love that little dog.

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  11. Master Amos will be 10 years old on July 17th. His “gotcha day” is in October. The alarm went off this morning and he came up the bed with a little encouragement to snuggle and get “morning loves”. He has a regular vet appointment this week, so Mr. P will take him.

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  13. I also looked up “One Tin Soldier” and discovered the Coven wasn’t the first group that recorded it. But theirs is the one that was a big hit and was used in the movie “Billy Jack”.

    I always wondered why a group would call itself Coven. Now having read the Wikipedia article on them I’m kind of creeped out that I ever listened to that song, even though it doesn’t have the same Satanic themes as some of their other stuff.

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  16. Lifting you up Jo…hoping you are getting sick, hot/cold just do not mix!! Hoping you are sleeping by now!!
    Kim I am glad to hear Mr Amos is doing a tad bit better….it could be your sporadic weather had him a bit discombobulated 😊

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  17. I agree, time for some sleep. I am feeling better, just can’t sleep. My class did a computer generated test these last two days. Very interesting to see the results. One boy just kept working and working. You could see him thinking. I sent the rest of the class back with the aide when they were done, but he kept working. He got a very high score. On the way back to our room he asked me, ” what is the perimeter of a rectangle”? That was what stumped him and he was delighted to find out what it was. This test gets harder and harder if you get the answers right and gives you easier questions if you miss something. It is supposed to find your level of knowledge. One little boy raised his hand the first day and was in tears and said I can’t do this anymore. I looked at his computer and told him that he was on the last question. He was so relieved.

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  19. Oh, Billy Jack and One Tin Soldier, ah the memories 🙂

    I remembered, too, that I’d seen Sammy Davis Jr. AND Sinatra ? (I’m almost sure) at a political rally — we had to attend one for our social sciences class in high school in 1968 so a friend and I went to a Hubert Humphrey for President event at (I think) the Shrine Auditorium in downtown LA. Sammy Davis was there along with others, I should try to go online to see if I can find the event on some obscure history blog. I think Davis sang I Gotta Be Me and Sinatra did his big hit at that time, “It Was a Very Good Year.” Anyway, kind of a star-studded event now that I think about it. I had to write a report afterward. I remember Davis drawing cheers when he said that Richard Nixon “had no soul.” That was like saying he just wasn’t cool, of course, but it came off sounding rather odd.

    We are getting some chilly, very windy weather here. Annie’s lying on top of a heater vent this morning.

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  21. Nope, I see that Sinatra did go for Humphrey.

    This may have been the event I attended: “During September and October 1968, a number of Hollywood’s stars and celebrities came around to support Humphrey, with gala events and/or rallies such as one at the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts in New York in late September, and another at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in late October.”

    http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/hubert-humphrey/

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  22. Nothing about the entertainment, but I think this was the event I attended as well — copies of Humphrey’s speech, some of the earlier ones marked up with handwritten edits. Amazing what’s on the Internet.

    Click to access 00442-02825.pdf

    Here was the news release:

    Los Angeles, Calif., October 24–Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey warned today that dissatisfied voters cannot afford the luxury of “protest voting” or sitting it out in this critical election year.

    In remarks at the Shrine Auditorium here, Humphrey declared that Americans will cast a “critical vote” on November 5th. “It is up to your” said Humphrey, “to stop the tide of reaction.” Pleading for an end to hate, he stated that “this country does not==have to be torn and divided.”

    Stressing that the central issue of the campaign is the question of trust, Humphrey asked “whom can the American people trust to lead this country for the next four years. Can we trust each other as people?”

    He charged that Nixon has refused to discuss the issues in this campaign because he doesn”t want the American people to remember his past record . He said that the only decisions Nixon has made in this campaign are his selection of Spiro Agnew as a running mate and the decision “to say nothing else for the rest of the campaign.”

    The text of Vice Pre s ident Humphrey’s remarks is Attached • ••••more

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  23. I also questioned your memory of Sinatra being for Humphrey because I also though he supported Nixon. It turns out he did support Nixon, but not until 1972. From Wikipedia:

    The first sign of Sinatra’s break from the Democratic Party came in 1970 when he endorsed Ronald Reagan for a second term as Governor of California; Sinatra, however, remained a registered Democrat and encouraged Reagan to become more moderate. In July 1972, after a lifetime of supporting Democratic presidential candidates, Sinatra announced he could not support the left-ward turn of the party and its candidate, George McGovern, and would therefore support Republican U.S. President Richard Nixon for re-election in the 1972 presidential election. His switch to the Republican Party was now official; he even told his daughter, Tina, who had actively campaigned for Nixon’s Democratic opponent George McGovern, “the older you get, the more conservative you get.” Sinatra said he agreed with the Republican Party on most positions. During Nixon’s Presidency, Sinatra visited the White House on several occasions.

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  24. But I may have made up the part about Frank Sinatra actually being there.

    Shrine Auditorium Rally:
    October 24, 1968

    From the USC Daily Trojan:

    “There was quite a show but that wasn’t what the people came to cheer about. The crowd in the Shrine Auditorium had seen Jose Feliciano, Sammy Davis Jr., Nancy Sinatra and more, but it wanted Hubert Humphrey. And so when Nancy Sinatra clapped and danced on stage, the 10,000 people changed “HHH.”

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  27. Kim, if Amos is only ten, he should have a good number of additional years. That’s barely middle-aged for a little dog. My he be your little sweetheart for a good long while!

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  32. I was momentarily stumped about the perimeters of a triangle. I think it has to do with the sum of the squares of the sides. I have never known how that could be useful.

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  33. Chas, I’ve seen a couple of the Bob Hope & Bing Crosby films. Their recurring female lead was Dorothy Lamour. Generally, Bing got the girl, despite Bob’s best – or perhaps, worst – efforts.
    In the 50s, Bing made several films with the Rat Pack, and appeared on television with them frequently.

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  34. Michelle, apparently “Dateline” did a special on the California fires, that aired on Easter. I just watched the first half of it (recorded) last night. It is quite powerful and informative. Have you seen it?

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  40. on engaging the culture

    http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2018/04/status-and-belief/

    _________________________________________________

    From Patheos blogger Dean Abbott, at The Road Home

    … If enough evangelicals, the idea was, could be trained to engage the surrounding culture, especially in the culture-making arenas of politics,education and the media, eventually these well-placed agents of change could turn things around.What this plan never took into account is the dynamics of social status. Evangelicals sought to engage the culture by being relevant, by creating works of art , by offering good arguments for their positions. None of these addressed the real problem: that Christian belief simply isn’t cool, and that very few people want to lower their social status by identifying publicly with it.

    Many evangelicals sensed something was going on. They responded as though the problem were a matter of style rather than content. They created churches calculated to prove evangelicals could be as hip as anyone else. The result was churches that had rocking worship bands, superb lighting, a million cool programs and no cultural impact.

    The only lasting success to come from this trend was to make the hip pastor in a goatee and skinny jeans a universal object of derision. When the elites see him, they aren’t impressed. Rather than seeing someone so cool they want to emulate him, they see desperation. They see a low-status guy craving their approval, and they are rightly repulsed.

    This is just one example of how evangelicals misjudged the context in which they operate. They could not see that Christianity has fallen from its place of cultural dominance not because we haven’t had enough worldview seminars, cool clergy or “God’s Not Dead”-style movies. Christianity has become marginalized because Christian belief has become an obstacle to getting what most people want: social status and the privileges which accompany it.

    Veith responds:

    First of all, the upper and middle classes, by income, tend to go to church. As we have been blogging about, the most unchurched social cohort is the “lower class,” particularly the white working class. And yet, Mr. Abbott is right that Christianity is a low-status marker with a particular group of high prestige people today….

    … But today, according to the “New Class theorists,” a new social class has arisen, existing alongside the others. Traditional economic classes made products that were tangible. The wealthy owned factories that manufactured steel beams, automobiles, and gasoline. The middle class sold groceries, fixed TVs, and bought real estate. The working class worked with their hands, running the machinery and moving the goods. The New Class, though, makes its living with information.

    The New Class–the term came from a description of Soviet bureaucrats who exercised an inordinate amount of power under Communism–consists of “information technology workers,” academics, teachers, creatives, members of the “helping professions,” journalists, media professionals, and other traders in information.

    Right now, members of the New Class hold the most prestige in our society. It isn’t a matter of economics. A journalist might not make all that much, but still be scornful of “the rich” and “middle class values.” The New Class also tends to look down its collective nose at the working class, stereotyped as “rednecks” or “white trash.”

    Christianity is still socially acceptable among the old product-oriented classes–whether upper, middle, or lower–but it tends not to be socially acceptable among the New Class. So Mr. Abbot is right about that. Not that there aren’t Christians in the New Class, but they may experience conflicts if they put great store in being accepted by the “cool people” among their peers.

    Of course, our complicated society is full of different social groups. Your status anxiety depends on what group you aspire to be accepted in. It is also possible not to care.

    I do think more people have rejected the Christian faith not because of reasoned objections but because they sought acceptance in the faculty lounge or with elite members of their information-oriented profession or because they wanted to identify with their “cool” creative friends. …
    ______________________________________________________

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  47. Linda, what fun — your son and DIL’s reception! I would enjoy an event like that.

    I never heard of Coven, though I do like that song One Tin Soldier. Had never heard the background concerning that group. Eeeeee.

    It Might As Well Be Spring. Not familiar with that song, and not very familiar with spring yet this year. We have another winter storm warning coming tomorrow.

    Hope that doesn’t trigger any more songs to get stuck in AJ’s or others’ heads. 🙂 Though the discussion about once-popular songs and groups that it’s spawned here the last couple of days has been enjoyable.

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  49. Fourth Arrow is going shopping at the mall this afternoon with her cousin. Niece is picking her up around 3:00. Nice that she offered to come get her. I think they will enjoy their time together. They’ve never, just the two of them, done anything together. Should be fun.

    Second Arrow is coming this weekend to go bridesmaid’s dress shopping with 3rd and 4th, who are in her wedding in September. She’ll be here Sunday, in between working on Saturday and Monday. I don’t know how she’s going to coordinate that, working overnights, and then having close to a 3-hour drive to get here, and the same for the way back.

    First Arrow will also be home this weekend. His birthday is on Sunday, and Third’s is on Monday.

    Kind of a blur around here, with everything going on lately!

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  52. It is thinking of spring here. Daffodils and some other bulbs are in bloom and you can see green on a lot of the trees. But we had snow on the ground overnight (granted, not very much, but still), and the warmth is still waiting to come our way.

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  53. It is always Opposite Day in Colorado!! 🙃
    I find Mel Torme as more of a jazz type singer.I believe he was known as some sort of musical genius and I do love Nat King Cole’s rendition of “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” which was co written by Torme. Something about Torme’s voice just doesn’t sound pleasing to my ears…now remember I do wear hearing aids…. 🙃

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  58. I did get some sleep, but it is time to get up and moving now. My wrists get cold and last night it was my forearms. Too hot under the covers, too cold out of the covers. I finally put on a sweatshirt and was able to sleep. I also wear runner’s sweat bands at night because my wrists are thin and get cold. I saw a little girl wearing something similar at school and her mom told me that is something they do in Germany as that is where the veins are close to the skin, so you get cold easily. Who knew?

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  66. Well, I had microwaved scrambled eggs this morning. My stove would not light. I went out and switched the gas bottle, but still no luck. I am thinking that both of the tanks may be empty. Maybe May switched the bottle, but didn’t order a new one??? Luckily I made a large meal last night and will be able to just heat in the microwave for the next several nights. I think they only deliver tanks of propane on Fridays. But it has been a while since I don’t use much. A new adventure??

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  67. And thanks, Jo. We actually were challenged as parties were scattered from Florida to Texas to Iowa — so we really had to rely on submitted photos we could use. Used to have ties to papers in those areas who could cover and pinch hit for us to grab professional photos, but staff cuts everywhere have made that a luxury.

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  68. I haven’t read the intervening posts yet, so I don’t know what’s going on.
    Question who is this Stormy Davis and why is she trying to protect herself.
    There was s segment on FoxNews about her this afternoon, but nobody said what her problem is.
    I checked on “Google” but I avoided the attached links because I was afraid I would get involved in something.
    I’m just curious about what the fuss is about. That’s all.
    I know it had to concern sex because one link said “she could describe his………”

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  69. Somebody with whom Trump allegedly had sex, his lawyer paid her to not talk about it, she signed a non disclosure but Trump didn’t. For some reason, this is now important ten plus years after the event of two adults having a consensual relationship.

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  71. When I was in the AF , the SOP was that when you were in your seat, you had your seat belt on.
    I have always practiced that. It’s a safety factor. A plane doesn’t have to crash to be dangerous. Sometimes, even juts will hit an air pocket and lose altitude quickly.
    When you’re in your seat, buckle up.l

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  73. Peter, on your question about modern crooners, I’m tempted to say: “Michael who?” Actually, I do know who Michael Buble is, I just don’t care 🙂 His is not a voice that is in any way memorable – or maybe it is the songs that he sings that are not memorable – actually, it is both. The crooning style has never been among my most favorite of musical styles. The voices of the crooners (always excepting Sinatra) are good, but the most of the music they sing to does not strike a chord with me. The crooners fit into a certain niche of pop sentimentality that existed in their day. I do not think that niche exists anymore. There are popular sentimental singers which I grew up hearing played on the radio but they are closer to the classical genre than the jazz genre which the crooners came out of – I’m thinking of singers such as Andrea Boccelli and Josh Groban. The classical music station my family listened to played their music quite frequently, in addition to the actual operatic and other classical music singers. Modern jazz has lost the big band sound that the crooners sang to, and there isn’t really any spot for any type of successful revival of the crooning style.

    That isn’t to say the songs that the crooners sang should never be sang again. In fact, their hits have been quite successfully covered by operatic singers, who often give them a new twist. When I was young, the classical music station would play, every once in a while, an operatic cover of one of the crooners’ songs, “Swingin’ on a Star”. In the crooning style, the song sounds a bit too cute – as if the writers were trying too hard to appeal to children, but the operatic performers gave it an ironic twist which always made us laugh. That is how I first heard many of the hits of people like Crosby and Sinatra, not sung by them (although the classical music station would also play the crooners on occasion), but covered by operatic singers. The operatic singers have a precedent for their covers of popular hits, as the highest paid actress of 1947 was the operatic singer Deanna Durbin, who sang both the repertoire of the crooners and of the opera house:

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  76. I hear another return being printed. We are going down to the wire. I am the last one to finish the work on the returns.

    I have really enjoyed getting to know more tax clients this year since I was here full time. It is a great place to work to meet new friends.

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  77. Al three news channels are discussing Barbara. Fox is best.
    Interviewing people who knew her.
    MSNBC: “The last of decent Republicans”

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  78. In passing, someone said, “Your dogs get smaller as you get older.”
    I hadn’t noticed that, but in my experience, it seems true.

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  80. LOVED Rod Stewart, but in his heyday, not his crooner era as much

    I would get smaller dogs next time … but for the coyotes. Thinking of bigger dogs now

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