Is it not ironic that President Obama’s approval rating has been going down in recent weeks? I saw where it has now hit the 48% approval level. Buyer’s remorse is an interesting thing. I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised that he would not be as bad as I thought he would be, but that hasn’t happened yet. Instead, he is just about as bad as I suspected he would be. What has surprised me though is the fact that, though try as he may, his federal health care plan looks to be stalling and the cap and trade plan is in similar straights. I guess we can thank some blue dog democrats for that. Appently, the democrats strategy of enlisting more conservative democrat candidates to run in traditional republican districts and states has not worked out as well as they hoped. It has given them the strong majorities they wanted, but the blue dogs aren’t playing along with the more drastic spending and taxing schemes cooked up by the Obama, Reid and Pelosi cabal. So that is a good thing.
But still, the rascals are in office and there can still be a lot of damage done in the next year and a half before we can take out the trash. The republicans are polling better at this point pretty much across the board, with Mitt Romney currently polling even or ahead of Obama and the democrats in Congress are polling worse than ever. I suspect that the democrat brand will continue it’s slide, if they continue on the spending and taxing track they are on. So what’s going on?
My guess is that the American voters, who were hoodwinked by the mainstream media’s used-car-salesman’s slight of hand and seduced by the prospect of proving to the world that they were not racists, and were caught up in the “Historical” moment of the “First Black President”, have recognized, as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright would say, “America’s chickens have come home to roost!” The bloom is off the rose, as they say. It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that Obama has shown himself to be every bit as liberal as his critics said he was. Those who were not really paying attention, or didn’t really think there was that much difference between the candidates and the parties—I was often of the same mind myself—are staring to realize that they really made a mistake, that jumping towards socialism is not a viable answer to our problems. At least I hope so.
It is, of course, a crying shame that we had to do this and waste four years of a presidency and possibly six years for Congress before we can get this country on the right track again. But, hopefully, we will get our stupid fantasy out of the way and come back to reality. If the Republican Party can realize that conservatism is the winning strategy and the answer to America’s economic woes, this last election will not have been a total waste. We had a similar situation during the Carter administration. We just need another Reagan and a new conservative contract with America.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Religion and Man's Search for Meaning
I have recently seen and heard reports about the state of religious belief in America that may seem troubling for Christianity. It seems that surveys reflect a down turn during the past two decades in some aspects of some Americans’ religious belief and adherence. One survey showed a drop of about 11% of people who claim a “Christian” affiliation. But, the percentage of people claiming to believe in God or a “higher power” remains roughly the same, around 90%. Some surveys show significant drops (between 5 to 8%) in membership in some of the largest mainstream Christian denominations, including Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal Churches, etc. Of course surveys also show some growth in extreme “spiritual” practices, such as paganism and wikka, but I doubt that that is where all of the Christian believers are going. Some of the American Christian denominations, which are considered by some to be less mainstream in their doctrine and practices, like Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Pentecostals, have continued to hold their own or grow during the same timeframe. Happily, for me, the Mormon Church—I must remind you readers, or inform you if you are unaware, that the actual name of the “Mormon Church” is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”—has grown about 11% in America and Canada during the past 10 years. Reasons for this, I conclude, are that we live in a time when people are questioning their traditional faith and practices and are seeking spiritual awareness and meaning for existence that the faith of their ancestors fails to provide them. If they are like me, they want to know the “Hows”, “Wheres” and “Whys” in respect to religion, and those answers need to stand up to logic as well as provide a powerful spiritual strength and reinforcement.
Last week, to celebrate our wedding anniversary, I made a short trip with my wife to visit a couple of our church’s older temples in the state of Utah. She had never attended the St. George and Manti temples before. It was a very nice time together to reflect on my spirituality and our thirty years of marriage. A few months ago, I participated in the last dedicatory service for the Draper Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I am anticipating the dedication of the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple in a couple months.
While listening to the messages delivered by some of the principle leaders of the Church at the Draper Temple dedication, I was again impressed by the simple and logical concepts of God and Man that I have embraced since becoming a member of the “Mormon” faith. Mormon doctrine answered my questions about who God is and my relationship to Him. It was their doctrine and practice that appealed to me and provided a religious and spiritual home, or would likely have found myself joining the growing percentage of Americans who believe in God, but do not affiliate with an actual church. I was a religious child growing up. When I was eight years of age, I was moved by a sermon at a Wednesday evening service and came to the front of the church when the call went out to be “saved.” It was a powerful experience for me. I received an assurety at that moment that Christ loved me and had atoned for my sins, that he was my personal Savior. As a youngster of about 10 and 11 years of age I would occasionally strike up conversations with my family’s Baptist minister and I often asked questions about God and religion—he once told my mother that he thought I had a “keen little mind”. My oldest sister and her husband were renting a basement apartment from the pastor in those days and on one occasion, when I had come by to visit; I found that I had just missed her. So, I took the opportunity to have one of my religious discussions with the Reverend. I asked him a question had been on my mind as of late: What happens to people who are born in places or times in history where they have no opportunity to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ? He responded that anyone who does not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior (become “Saved”) will go to Hell. I was thunder struck. I thought, “This does not compute!” How could a loving and just God penalize one of his supposed children or creations to an eternity of torment for something completely out of their control? Of course, this idea seemed ludicrous to me, and as I thought about it since, I am sure it seems crazy to most right-thinking people. No wonder people turn away from such doctrine when family pressure and traditions become less influential in society. Having said that, I must add that it is not my intention to insult anyone of such religious persuasion, and who holds to such doctrine. I know many people, even beloved extended family who adheres to such, whom I know to be good, loving people, who try every day to live according to the Gospel of Christ, as they understand it.
Probably within a few months of my conversation with the pastor, as I recall, my uncle, Leonard Nicolay, joined the “Mormon Church.” He underwent a wonderful change. He had been a generally worldly man, as I recall, but had become dynamo of missionary zeal and approached all of his family and friends about his new faith. His approach was rejected by the majority of his many siblings, but his mother and father followed him into the Church and my own mother (his sister) agreed to listen to the Mormon missionary discussions. This caused great distress for many in the family, both among my mother’s five sisters and among my two older sisters. I had no initial interest in joining a new church at that point—I actually had begun to feel, like my father and older brother, that going to church was not really necessary—but as I listened to the discussions the missionaries presented, I found that they were actually answering many of the questions that had begun to trouble me about God and Man.
The Elders, as they were called, opened the Bible and showed me where I came from, why I was here, and where I was going after this life. I learned that I was literally a spirit son of God and that, as his son, I stood to inherit all that he had if I lived according to his commandments. I learned that because I lived with him in a pre-mortal existence and was a witness and party to the planning and creations of the Heavens and Earth, I had free agency given me to participate in humanity’s mortal quest on the Earth: to gain a mortal body; to learn to live by faith; and gain the knowledge necessary to become like my Father in Heaven. This idea of free agency or free will is paramount when one tries to understand the judgments of God. Without free will we could neither sin nor do good. If we were to be judged for things we have no control over, we have no free will and the judge, God, offers no justice. God must be just to be God and make righteous judgments.
I came to realize that these concepts were familiar to me, like things that I had known all along, but did not have the references for to make them my life’s faith. I also learned that Jesus Christ was literally God the Father’s Son, as the Bible clearly teaches, not some weird personification of the Father, as is taught by much of mainstream Christianity. In essence, Jesus was not doing a ventriloquist act when it was announced from Heaven to John the Baptist at Jesus’ baptism at the Jordon River, “This is My Beloved Son.” Jesus was a literal son of the spirit—making Him our Brother—as “the only begotten Son of God” in the flesh. He was a perfect man and lived a perfect life and with the physical attributes of his mortal mother, Mary, He had the capacity to experience pain and death, and with the attributes of His immortal Father, he had power over death.
I also learned that if we live on this world at times and places where the Gospel for Christ cannot reach our ears, we are allowed the opportunity to be taught it in the spirit world where we all wait for the resurrection. That we will be resurrected with perfect immortal bodies like the Father and the Son both have at this point. These and many other doctrines and teachings, such as baptism for the dead, degrees of glory in the resurrection and eternal marriage are to be found in the scriptures for us to read and understand, however tradition and prejudice prevent most of us from understanding them.
It is therefore understandable to me why there seems to be growing disinterest in most traditional mainstream Christian sects, or what is considered by many to be organized religion. And, it is easy for me to appreciate why some other lesser known faiths, such my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are growing in membership and influence. My study of traditional Christianity today affirms my findings from my research into the ancient Church that Christ established. There is little resemblance except within the Mormon Church today. Mankind, to some extent, is thinking more and not leaning as much on traditional ideas. They want something that is intrinsically logical and makes them want to be better people. Also, a religion must, as the Prophet Joseph Smith affirmed, require sacrifice of its adherents to create the faith necessary for them to progress and obtain salvation. I believe people need and want meaning in life. They want to know why they are here. They want to know that they have choices and freedom. It is a powerful heady feeling that you can be whatever you want to be, and people, if they have not had that innate Heavenly spark removed from them by traditions and degrading life choices, are willing to sacrifice whatever it might take to obtain it.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Music, Music, and More Music.
I haven’t blogged much lately. I have been focused on a number of things at work and pet projects of my own to the point that even when I had a few moments to do it, I could not get the inspiration. On the work side, I have been working to be ready for the first insurance company safety audit of the year. About a third of my income is dependent on the out come of these audits—there are usually three every year—and this one did not happen until over five months into the year. The extra focus there seems to have paid off—we had our audit this week and the auditor was very impressed and will likely give us a better than average score which will equal the money needed to do several project around the home (sprinkler system, more fence and a shed—the pool will have to wait another year again).
On the music side, I am even more preoccupied. The recordings I have been doing the past few years have taken me in different directions musically. My writing, as of late, has been rather broad in style and genre and has evolved into projects beyond the typical Mundy Mundy CDs to be released every couple years or so. Usually I write a few songs representing different styles of music and decide on a dozen or so to include on a CD, package it and start trying to sell them. Now I find myself trying to do a bunch at literally the same time.
At this point, the various CD projects (6, I think) are at different levels of completion, with none complete to my satisfaction. I have been trying to get some mixes of the several recording projects I have going that I am 100% happy with, to make masters for the forthcoming CDs. I work on them when I have a few spare minutes after work or when there is a lull in my Saturday or Sunday activities. I keep thinking that I can get the mixes better, and I usually do, but at some point I will have to accept the reality that it won't be any better than I have the facilities and resources to make it.
I plan on two CDs—I’ve written a lot of material for this—of the me (A solo act with a backup band) doing Rock and Blues, which will likely be entitled "Outstanding in His Field" and "Blue Mundy"—it could also be a double CD. Along with these, I have a new Mundy Mundy CD planned to be entitled "On New Ground", with some of the usual lead vocals by my wife and singing partner, Karen, with the usual eclectic collection of Rock-Pop-Country material, and a CD compilation of songs with Karen on lead vocals, which I will probably just call The Best of Karen Mundy, or something as equally unoriginal.
I had not released anything apart from the "Mundy Mundy" recordings since the "Randy Mundy Band" days in the mid seventies—my "Celestial Skies" album. The reason being, that I had gotten married to a very talented singer and really enjoyed trying to promote us as a group. However, recently I decided to do something that I have wanted to do for a long time: make a blues album or CD. My brother, Danny Mundy, and my best friend, Danny Wood, and others as well, have begged me to do more blues songs in my act, because they thought I had the chops to do it and had been wasting them. In truth, I love the blues and love to do it. So, since I had the inclination, and since we, as Mundy Mundy, were not trying very hard in recent history to play out much, I started writing with a blues CD in mind. Once I got started, it was hard to slow down. I hadn't been so prolific as a song writer for many years. I guess my affinity for the blues just opened the floodgates of my creativity. Before I knew it, I had more than enough good material for a single CD, in fact I really had enough to do a double CD or two separate. Most of the songs were written and recorded with a lot of instrumentality in mind—I wanted some good blues guitar and keyboard solos to make the tracks cook, so they tend to be bit lengthy—blues lovers don’t mind long instrumental soloing, as a rule—something that does not really bother me much when I write other styles of songs either. As the recording progressed in Topeka, Lloyd McDonald did some very nice guitar work and Ted Landry did some great sounding drum tracks. We also got some other really good local keyboard talent to round-out the sound. Then, with that project just started and maybe half of the CD recorded, I moved to Utah for work. The blues CD had to wait until I rounded up some new players. Upon arriving in Utah, I got with my old buddy, Dave Wayt (also now living in Utah), who had been an intricate part of our act in California and Tennessee, and who was part of our "Life on the Run" CD recorded in Nashville. He introduced me to some of the Utah musicians he had been working with in several bands and we tried several different configurations of players till we felt like we had a good mix of interest and talent.
With Dave on Bass and backing vocals, Bob Bonham on lead guitar, and Glenn Meigs on drums, I was off and going again, and writing some more blues tunes. Along the way, I discovered that my new family doctor, David Poor, was a great sax man and I got him to play on some tracks. The result was so cool that I decided we needed to try a bigger band sound. The good doctor played on several more cuts and even arranged some sax sections for some of the tunes. Then it turned out that there was a guy in our church ward, Scott Devey, who played trumpet in a big local R&B group. He graciously added his trumpet to some horn section. I wanted a good keyboard player all along, but the new bigger sound made it imperative. We needed a keyboard player, but it was hard to find a good player that fit. Eventually, Dave suggested that his old friend, Bob Bailey, a jazz pianist and arranger who used to play with the likes of Dean Martin, might be interested in helping on the recording. So, Dave and I paid Bob a visit and played him some of the stuff that we had recorded thus far. Bob was impressed enough to take part with both keyboard and string and horn arrangements to embellish what I had already done. The ultimate product has turned into a bit of a jazzy big blues band-type sound. Bob even spiffed up some of the earlier tracks I did with the guys in Kansas.
The "Outstanding In His Field" title is one I have had in mind since about 1976, with a picture of me standing in a wheat field—I know, a bit silly, but it sort of fit with my Kansas heritage. This CD will include roughly a half dozen of some new and old songs, recorded for the most part over the last two or three years with the guys in Kansas, with some additional instrumental parts added by Bob Bonham, David Poor, Scott Devey and Bob Bailey and some backing vocals by Dave Wayt, Glenn Meigs and my two new talented backup singers, Lacey Jackson and Cassie Wayt (Dave’s daughter). The remainder will be some tracks from previously released Mundy Mundy CDs that I have re-mastered with some extra musicianship by Bob Bailey and vocals by the girls added to the mix. The overall sound from one song to the next seems cohesive in style and feel, perhaps, more Rock-laced than "Blue Mundy", the proposed follow-up blues CD.
The "Blue Mundy" CD will be almost exclusively songs written since arriving in Utah and so, almost all recorded with the Utah players. The sound, again, is big, Bluesy and Jazzy, so I was thinking of calling the act "Randy Mundy & the Little Big Blues Band"—since then, we have decided on a different name for the group, but more on that later. Between the two Blues CDs you will have around 25 songs of about 100 minutes of some pretty tasty and listenable music.
The Mundy Mundy CD, "On New Ground", consists of several songs that we started recording in Kansas and finished with differing degrees of Utah additions as well—Bob Bailey features in a majority of those cuts where keyboards and string/horn work were deemed appropriate. The collections of songs on this CD, as is generally the case with Mundy Mundy CDs, range in eclectic fashion through Country, Folk, Pop Ballads and Rock. Again, there is a strong influence of a big band in some of the arrangements, thanks to Mr. Bailey.
The Karen compilation is what it is: all of the songs that I have written over the years to feature Karen to feature as the lead vocal. She is such a great vocal talent that she deserved to be spotlighted on at least one CD for her fans who don't want to sort through all of the Randy songs to hear their girl excel.
Even with these projects and so much material, we still ended up with songs recorded that are not making it to a CD this time around. Some are pretty folksy and spiritual in nature and just didn't seem to fit on the other projects, but would be great on a CD with some other songs in the same general style and message. Our attempt at a Gospel CD, "On Solid Ground", from about ten years ago, has some good moments, but it did not carry the same production quality throughout and was actually a shorter CD than most of ours. We only had 9 originals written for the project and I was in too big of a hurry to get it done, so we added a couple of LDS hymns in a semi-pop-country-vain treatment to bring the song count to at least 11. I have been thinking about revisiting that project, recording some of the songs and adding some of these spiritually-driven songs to the remake. Other recent songs are just really different. In the process of working together, Bob Bailey and I have formed a mutual admiration society. Bob played several of his instrumental compositions he has written, but thought that they might be good candidates for lyrics. Having developed a respect for me as a lyricist, he asked me if I would try my hand with his pieces. I think we were both really pleased with the outcome--4 totally different types of songs, but individually, very cool. I also recently added lyrics and melodies to a couple of Lloyd McDonald instrumentals that I really like and think would be good candidates for such a CD.
But, first things first: these 4 CDs have to be finish and offered for popular consumption. Our website will hopefully be up and running soon, where a person may go and sample the songs to see if they want to download them for a fee. I will try to get a link on the blog site or maybe figure out a way of letting you hear them here without downloading them. I'm not a web master genius, but I am a thinker.
Note: More later on my new blues band and the shows we are planning
On the music side, I am even more preoccupied. The recordings I have been doing the past few years have taken me in different directions musically. My writing, as of late, has been rather broad in style and genre and has evolved into projects beyond the typical Mundy Mundy CDs to be released every couple years or so. Usually I write a few songs representing different styles of music and decide on a dozen or so to include on a CD, package it and start trying to sell them. Now I find myself trying to do a bunch at literally the same time.
At this point, the various CD projects (6, I think) are at different levels of completion, with none complete to my satisfaction. I have been trying to get some mixes of the several recording projects I have going that I am 100% happy with, to make masters for the forthcoming CDs. I work on them when I have a few spare minutes after work or when there is a lull in my Saturday or Sunday activities. I keep thinking that I can get the mixes better, and I usually do, but at some point I will have to accept the reality that it won't be any better than I have the facilities and resources to make it.
I plan on two CDs—I’ve written a lot of material for this—of the me (A solo act with a backup band) doing Rock and Blues, which will likely be entitled "Outstanding in His Field" and "Blue Mundy"—it could also be a double CD. Along with these, I have a new Mundy Mundy CD planned to be entitled "On New Ground", with some of the usual lead vocals by my wife and singing partner, Karen, with the usual eclectic collection of Rock-Pop-Country material, and a CD compilation of songs with Karen on lead vocals, which I will probably just call The Best of Karen Mundy, or something as equally unoriginal.
I had not released anything apart from the "Mundy Mundy" recordings since the "Randy Mundy Band" days in the mid seventies—my "Celestial Skies" album. The reason being, that I had gotten married to a very talented singer and really enjoyed trying to promote us as a group. However, recently I decided to do something that I have wanted to do for a long time: make a blues album or CD. My brother, Danny Mundy, and my best friend, Danny Wood, and others as well, have begged me to do more blues songs in my act, because they thought I had the chops to do it and had been wasting them. In truth, I love the blues and love to do it. So, since I had the inclination, and since we, as Mundy Mundy, were not trying very hard in recent history to play out much, I started writing with a blues CD in mind. Once I got started, it was hard to slow down. I hadn't been so prolific as a song writer for many years. I guess my affinity for the blues just opened the floodgates of my creativity. Before I knew it, I had more than enough good material for a single CD, in fact I really had enough to do a double CD or two separate. Most of the songs were written and recorded with a lot of instrumentality in mind—I wanted some good blues guitar and keyboard solos to make the tracks cook, so they tend to be bit lengthy—blues lovers don’t mind long instrumental soloing, as a rule—something that does not really bother me much when I write other styles of songs either. As the recording progressed in Topeka, Lloyd McDonald did some very nice guitar work and Ted Landry did some great sounding drum tracks. We also got some other really good local keyboard talent to round-out the sound. Then, with that project just started and maybe half of the CD recorded, I moved to Utah for work. The blues CD had to wait until I rounded up some new players. Upon arriving in Utah, I got with my old buddy, Dave Wayt (also now living in Utah), who had been an intricate part of our act in California and Tennessee, and who was part of our "Life on the Run" CD recorded in Nashville. He introduced me to some of the Utah musicians he had been working with in several bands and we tried several different configurations of players till we felt like we had a good mix of interest and talent.
With Dave on Bass and backing vocals, Bob Bonham on lead guitar, and Glenn Meigs on drums, I was off and going again, and writing some more blues tunes. Along the way, I discovered that my new family doctor, David Poor, was a great sax man and I got him to play on some tracks. The result was so cool that I decided we needed to try a bigger band sound. The good doctor played on several more cuts and even arranged some sax sections for some of the tunes. Then it turned out that there was a guy in our church ward, Scott Devey, who played trumpet in a big local R&B group. He graciously added his trumpet to some horn section. I wanted a good keyboard player all along, but the new bigger sound made it imperative. We needed a keyboard player, but it was hard to find a good player that fit. Eventually, Dave suggested that his old friend, Bob Bailey, a jazz pianist and arranger who used to play with the likes of Dean Martin, might be interested in helping on the recording. So, Dave and I paid Bob a visit and played him some of the stuff that we had recorded thus far. Bob was impressed enough to take part with both keyboard and string and horn arrangements to embellish what I had already done. The ultimate product has turned into a bit of a jazzy big blues band-type sound. Bob even spiffed up some of the earlier tracks I did with the guys in Kansas.
The "Outstanding In His Field" title is one I have had in mind since about 1976, with a picture of me standing in a wheat field—I know, a bit silly, but it sort of fit with my Kansas heritage. This CD will include roughly a half dozen of some new and old songs, recorded for the most part over the last two or three years with the guys in Kansas, with some additional instrumental parts added by Bob Bonham, David Poor, Scott Devey and Bob Bailey and some backing vocals by Dave Wayt, Glenn Meigs and my two new talented backup singers, Lacey Jackson and Cassie Wayt (Dave’s daughter). The remainder will be some tracks from previously released Mundy Mundy CDs that I have re-mastered with some extra musicianship by Bob Bailey and vocals by the girls added to the mix. The overall sound from one song to the next seems cohesive in style and feel, perhaps, more Rock-laced than "Blue Mundy", the proposed follow-up blues CD.
The "Blue Mundy" CD will be almost exclusively songs written since arriving in Utah and so, almost all recorded with the Utah players. The sound, again, is big, Bluesy and Jazzy, so I was thinking of calling the act "Randy Mundy & the Little Big Blues Band"—since then, we have decided on a different name for the group, but more on that later. Between the two Blues CDs you will have around 25 songs of about 100 minutes of some pretty tasty and listenable music.
The Mundy Mundy CD, "On New Ground", consists of several songs that we started recording in Kansas and finished with differing degrees of Utah additions as well—Bob Bailey features in a majority of those cuts where keyboards and string/horn work were deemed appropriate. The collections of songs on this CD, as is generally the case with Mundy Mundy CDs, range in eclectic fashion through Country, Folk, Pop Ballads and Rock. Again, there is a strong influence of a big band in some of the arrangements, thanks to Mr. Bailey.
The Karen compilation is what it is: all of the songs that I have written over the years to feature Karen to feature as the lead vocal. She is such a great vocal talent that she deserved to be spotlighted on at least one CD for her fans who don't want to sort through all of the Randy songs to hear their girl excel.
Even with these projects and so much material, we still ended up with songs recorded that are not making it to a CD this time around. Some are pretty folksy and spiritual in nature and just didn't seem to fit on the other projects, but would be great on a CD with some other songs in the same general style and message. Our attempt at a Gospel CD, "On Solid Ground", from about ten years ago, has some good moments, but it did not carry the same production quality throughout and was actually a shorter CD than most of ours. We only had 9 originals written for the project and I was in too big of a hurry to get it done, so we added a couple of LDS hymns in a semi-pop-country-vain treatment to bring the song count to at least 11. I have been thinking about revisiting that project, recording some of the songs and adding some of these spiritually-driven songs to the remake. Other recent songs are just really different. In the process of working together, Bob Bailey and I have formed a mutual admiration society. Bob played several of his instrumental compositions he has written, but thought that they might be good candidates for lyrics. Having developed a respect for me as a lyricist, he asked me if I would try my hand with his pieces. I think we were both really pleased with the outcome--4 totally different types of songs, but individually, very cool. I also recently added lyrics and melodies to a couple of Lloyd McDonald instrumentals that I really like and think would be good candidates for such a CD.
But, first things first: these 4 CDs have to be finish and offered for popular consumption. Our website will hopefully be up and running soon, where a person may go and sample the songs to see if they want to download them for a fee. I will try to get a link on the blog site or maybe figure out a way of letting you hear them here without downloading them. I'm not a web master genius, but I am a thinker.
Note: More later on my new blues band and the shows we are planning
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
EMAILS SOMETIMES GET ME MOTIVATED TO BLOG
I have to admit here that much of the following was expressed in the proceeding blog, but I think it bares repeating. This blog was inspired by a couple of emails forwarded to me recently by my friend, Greg, in Kansas City. I met him while I was working in the KC area about six years ago as a safety consultant. He was a foreman for a roofing company client of mine, so I got to associate with him on just about a weekly basis, and I got to know him as a very earnest individual on the road to enlightenment. When I first met him, he had recently become more religious, and I think his faith had begun to prompt him to consider other facets of life beyond religion. So, during by safety inspections of his job sites, we would often talk for a little while on subjects apart from safety issues. He admitted that it was relatively uneducated and it was often difficult for him to read and get his mind around some things that he read. He had a lot of questions on various topics including religion and recent events and, having apparently developed some respect for my opinions would ask me my thoughts about the subjects. He was often conflicted about politics. Because of his recent turn to God, he had become more concerned about social issues and generally expressed socially conservative thoughts. However, his family background and voting pattern had been exclusively for democrats. He had grown to believe like my father, the old tired dogma that the democrats were for the working man and the republicans were for the rich man. We had number of chats on politics and I tried to help him see that the Democrat Party had evolved from the so called “working man party” to a collection of special interest groups and that the old-guard-leadership of conservative democrats had been replaced largely by liberals with proclivities towards socialism. I cannot say that I was able to make much headway initially. Old prejudices are often hard to overcome and when our conversations would head down the same tracks and he would voice his frustration with what society was becoming and what our government was doing, I often had to make the same arguments: that liberal politicians and federal judges—mainly democrats—were pushing liberal and socialist agendas that he obviously opposed and that he needed to recognize that he and others like him were voting against their conscience when they keep voting for democrats, that leadership of that party was not governing in their interest. I was never sure if my admonishments were doing him any good and I do not know how he has voted since then.
After I moved to Salt Lake we kept in contact—we have exchanged emails regularly, and, occasionally, he has called me to ask me to explain something or get my opinion on something. The emails are often forwards with religious content and occasionally with social or political content that he thinks I will appreciate. It appears from the content of the socially and politically charged emails I have gotten as of late that he is taking a more conservative stand on social, even political issues, and may be recognizing who is representing him in government. The first email he sent me, that inspired this blog, was about Speaker of the House, Pelosi, and her desire to tax “windfall retirement income.”
My response was the following:
Yes, it's not bad enough that Congress meddling in sub prime loans (mishandling Freddie Mac and Fannie May and coercing lending institutions to give bad loans, and funding ACORN to blackmail banks and falsify elections) caused the recent economic collapse and most Americans to lose 1/2 of their retirement--I lost half of my 401K--now they want to steal what is left. We now have a majority in both houses and a White House that thinks the same way Pelosi does. They are a despicable bunch. I've never been so disgusted with American political leadership. We've always had these types in government, but they were almost always in the minority. Now the nuts are running the asylum, and it's the American electorate's fault. We have to pay attention and vote these crazies out as soon as possible or even darker days are ahead of us.
I later received another email from my friend, Greg, with a rather long attachment about a Tennessee high school sporting event where a school official allegedly stood and apologized to the people in the stands for not being able to do the usual prayer and playing of the National Anthem to honor God and Country that they were accustomed to. The official went on to lament that, though he could not, by federal court dictate, express anything publicly that might be construed as religious, but that he was free to express any politically correct policy, such as promote condom use to students, no matter who might be offended. I am not sure that the origin of the email was legitimate—things like this are often fabricated and get sent around a lot—I have not checked it with Snopes. However, the reason it is believable is because it is not far from the truth in this day and age in America and will surely be the case in short order. The gist of the email got me motivated and I responded to him with some of the following, and as I wrote my thoughts down I decided add some additional thoughts and make it the subject for this blog:
Again, we have had anti religious zealots around since the birth of the United States, because our Constitution largely allows American citizens the freedom to express their beliefs as they wish, acknowledging that free agency is God's gift to man. However, though they have always been in the small minority in our nation's past, this group has grown, because of the freedom they enjoy to preach and spread their anti religion (primarily anti-Christian), and they have influenced many of the majority of religious Americans (primarily liberals or progressives) over the past 60 years or so to believe the Constitution says something that it clearly does not. Again we need to see and understand that we in the electorate have allowed this to come to pass. We have allowed the faithless to gain the highest positions in the land and they will surely lead us to destruction, if we let them continue. Obama made a very astute analogy the other day in a press conference when he compared the US economy to a big battle ship, that it took time to reverse course, intimating that the turn had to be very wide. This can be said about the state of religious faith in America as well. We have drifted way of course and it will take some serious time, and possibly dire circumstances to humble the majority enough, to turn this ship of faith around.
Again, we have had anti religious zealots around since the birth of the United States, because our Constitution largely allows American citizens the freedom to express their beliefs as they wish, acknowledging that free agency is God's gift to man. However, though they have always been in the small minority in our nation's past, this group has grown, because of the freedom they enjoy to preach and spread their anti religion (primarily anti-Christian), and they have influenced many of the majority of religious Americans (primarily liberals or progressives) over the past 60 years or so to believe the Constitution says something that it clearly does not. Again we need to see and understand that we in the electorate have allowed this to come to pass. We have allowed the faithless to gain the highest positions in the land and they will surely lead us to destruction, if we let them continue. Obama made a very astute analogy the other day in a press conference when he compared the US economy to a big battle ship, that it took time to reverse course, intimating that the turn had to be very wide. This can be said about the state of religious faith in America as well. We have drifted way of course and it will take some serious time, and possibly dire circumstances to humble the majority enough, to turn this ship of faith around.
Having brought up the economy, I might express here again that what Obama and Congress are doing and plan to do on the economy mirrors almost exactly what was done by FDR and the Democrat majority in the 30s and 40s. Hoover, a progressive Republican, much like Bush (liberal on spending), had the great stock market crash of 1929 during his presidency. His response was to raise taxes and try to spend the way out. It was ineffective. Franklin Roosevelt then came to power with a new Democrat majority in both houses and did the same as Hoover, but more so. He tried everything he could think of but what should have been a short recession was turned into the Great Depression, which lasted until almost the end of World War II. In fact, the war is what finally brought America out of it. With the war came employment for everyone--even women who were never in the workforce in such great numbers before. When the war ended, the whole world needed what America--virtually untouched by the ravages of war that the rest of the world suffered--could make and sell to them. The stock market finally regained its prior level in the early 50s. Like it was last year, the stock market in 1929 was overvalued due to unprecedented growth and prosperity during the (roaring) 20s and needed to drop to right itself, which it would do as it had done on prior occasions. Property values were inflated and many banks had made faulty loans and investments without real security. When the Crash happened, there was a panic that influenced government to try to control it--just like it did last year. Clearly, that approach did not work well and it is very likely that it will not work well again.
A free economy must ebb and flow and right itself when it gets too inflated. If you remember the 70s and the recession then, with inflation in the double digits and interest rates for home loans as high as 19%, and Jimmy Carter trying to manage the economy with governmental price controls, you can see that we have been on this precipice before. However, Reagan's approach was to cut taxes and do away with price controls and the economy righted itself, leading to continued economic growth that continued over 25 years. It should be clear to anyone who thinks about it that when you tax something it becomes more expensive to buy or consume, whether it is food, clothing, housing, energy, or entertainment and diversions. When something is more expensive, there are fewer people who can afford to buy or consume it. When farmers, manufacturers, and merchandisers are unable to sell as much of their product, they are unable to make as much profit. Loss of profit, of course, will eventually translate to a need for cutting costs, including cutting jobs and payroll and, if they are a large enough to do so, possibly moving their businesses to states or countries with less tax stress for business. If businesses have to reduce their number of employees to keep more of their profits, or even to stay in business, the numbers of unemployed Americans go up, creating more "need" for government spending, in the form of unemployment benefits and government welfare. No economy can grow to its potential if government overly taxes it or tries to unduly control it.
The area where our local, state, and federal governments can really help the economy is where it has not done a very good job: Policing Criminal Behavior in the Business Place. We have laws on the books against graft and theft, but many times the perpetrators of these crimes in business and government--and it is generally when these two entities are combined or conspire to steal from the public that they go unpunished or ignored. It has become clear that, during the last decade quasi-government lending institutions (Freddie and Fannie)and community groups (ACORN, for one), funded by Congress and being over-sighted by Congressional committees, have repeatedly falsified records and stolen profits and coerced and blackmailed lending institutions to give faulty loans to borrowers, including illegal aliens who did not have to prove their identity, who have no serious hope of repaying them. When the Bush administration's commerce department suspected that things were getting too loose and asked for tighter oversight by Congress, they were told by powerful ranking members of the banking committee (mainly democrats, like Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd) told them to fly a kite, that there was nothing wrong with those institutions. Instead of prosecuting the CEOs of these institutions who clearly cooked the books and got away with millions in bonuses before leaving their posts before the recent "economic crisis" they are allowed to skate or even become an economic advisor to President Obama like Franklin Raines, the ex-CEO of Fannie Mae. So far, not only has not one of these corrupt members of Congress or the aforementioned institutions been brought up on criminal charges, but they have been allowed to become the chairmen of their committees and to keep their ill-gotten gains. The party in control of the federal government at this time, though they have routinely scathed their opposing party for alleged corruption and misgovernment over the past decade, has been loath to police their own--William Jefferson, the democrat congressman from Louisiana who ordered government relief troops to take him to his flooded residence, during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, to retrieve a hundred thousand dollars in bribe money hidden in his refrigerator did not suffer any reprisals from his party had to be ousted from office by losing his bid for reelection to a republican. Instead, they continue to muddy the water around their own culpability and shower blame on capitalism and big business, while agreeing to bailout failing companies and institutions which should have been allowed or required to file chapter 11 bankruptcies, requiring renegotiation of supplier and labor union contracts, or selling off assets. These actions do nothing but support the status quo of corruption and will, at best cost us and future Americans quadrillions of dollars for many decades, even if we see the proverbial light in the next elections and seriously try to change course to a more conservative social and fiscal direction. My fear is that we might have to scrap what we have and start over again. If that becomes the case, we will need a more moral and faith-based society, willing to make sacrifice and do the right things.
May God Bless Us! And my all my friends come to see the light!
After I moved to Salt Lake we kept in contact—we have exchanged emails regularly, and, occasionally, he has called me to ask me to explain something or get my opinion on something. The emails are often forwards with religious content and occasionally with social or political content that he thinks I will appreciate. It appears from the content of the socially and politically charged emails I have gotten as of late that he is taking a more conservative stand on social, even political issues, and may be recognizing who is representing him in government. The first email he sent me, that inspired this blog, was about Speaker of the House, Pelosi, and her desire to tax “windfall retirement income.”
My response was the following:
Yes, it's not bad enough that Congress meddling in sub prime loans (mishandling Freddie Mac and Fannie May and coercing lending institutions to give bad loans, and funding ACORN to blackmail banks and falsify elections) caused the recent economic collapse and most Americans to lose 1/2 of their retirement--I lost half of my 401K--now they want to steal what is left. We now have a majority in both houses and a White House that thinks the same way Pelosi does. They are a despicable bunch. I've never been so disgusted with American political leadership. We've always had these types in government, but they were almost always in the minority. Now the nuts are running the asylum, and it's the American electorate's fault. We have to pay attention and vote these crazies out as soon as possible or even darker days are ahead of us.
I later received another email from my friend, Greg, with a rather long attachment about a Tennessee high school sporting event where a school official allegedly stood and apologized to the people in the stands for not being able to do the usual prayer and playing of the National Anthem to honor God and Country that they were accustomed to. The official went on to lament that, though he could not, by federal court dictate, express anything publicly that might be construed as religious, but that he was free to express any politically correct policy, such as promote condom use to students, no matter who might be offended. I am not sure that the origin of the email was legitimate—things like this are often fabricated and get sent around a lot—I have not checked it with Snopes. However, the reason it is believable is because it is not far from the truth in this day and age in America and will surely be the case in short order. The gist of the email got me motivated and I responded to him with some of the following, and as I wrote my thoughts down I decided add some additional thoughts and make it the subject for this blog:
Again, we have had anti religious zealots around since the birth of the United States, because our Constitution largely allows American citizens the freedom to express their beliefs as they wish, acknowledging that free agency is God's gift to man. However, though they have always been in the small minority in our nation's past, this group has grown, because of the freedom they enjoy to preach and spread their anti religion (primarily anti-Christian), and they have influenced many of the majority of religious Americans (primarily liberals or progressives) over the past 60 years or so to believe the Constitution says something that it clearly does not. Again we need to see and understand that we in the electorate have allowed this to come to pass. We have allowed the faithless to gain the highest positions in the land and they will surely lead us to destruction, if we let them continue. Obama made a very astute analogy the other day in a press conference when he compared the US economy to a big battle ship, that it took time to reverse course, intimating that the turn had to be very wide. This can be said about the state of religious faith in America as well. We have drifted way of course and it will take some serious time, and possibly dire circumstances to humble the majority enough, to turn this ship of faith around.
Again, we have had anti religious zealots around since the birth of the United States, because our Constitution largely allows American citizens the freedom to express their beliefs as they wish, acknowledging that free agency is God's gift to man. However, though they have always been in the small minority in our nation's past, this group has grown, because of the freedom they enjoy to preach and spread their anti religion (primarily anti-Christian), and they have influenced many of the majority of religious Americans (primarily liberals or progressives) over the past 60 years or so to believe the Constitution says something that it clearly does not. Again we need to see and understand that we in the electorate have allowed this to come to pass. We have allowed the faithless to gain the highest positions in the land and they will surely lead us to destruction, if we let them continue. Obama made a very astute analogy the other day in a press conference when he compared the US economy to a big battle ship, that it took time to reverse course, intimating that the turn had to be very wide. This can be said about the state of religious faith in America as well. We have drifted way of course and it will take some serious time, and possibly dire circumstances to humble the majority enough, to turn this ship of faith around.
Having brought up the economy, I might express here again that what Obama and Congress are doing and plan to do on the economy mirrors almost exactly what was done by FDR and the Democrat majority in the 30s and 40s. Hoover, a progressive Republican, much like Bush (liberal on spending), had the great stock market crash of 1929 during his presidency. His response was to raise taxes and try to spend the way out. It was ineffective. Franklin Roosevelt then came to power with a new Democrat majority in both houses and did the same as Hoover, but more so. He tried everything he could think of but what should have been a short recession was turned into the Great Depression, which lasted until almost the end of World War II. In fact, the war is what finally brought America out of it. With the war came employment for everyone--even women who were never in the workforce in such great numbers before. When the war ended, the whole world needed what America--virtually untouched by the ravages of war that the rest of the world suffered--could make and sell to them. The stock market finally regained its prior level in the early 50s. Like it was last year, the stock market in 1929 was overvalued due to unprecedented growth and prosperity during the (roaring) 20s and needed to drop to right itself, which it would do as it had done on prior occasions. Property values were inflated and many banks had made faulty loans and investments without real security. When the Crash happened, there was a panic that influenced government to try to control it--just like it did last year. Clearly, that approach did not work well and it is very likely that it will not work well again.
A free economy must ebb and flow and right itself when it gets too inflated. If you remember the 70s and the recession then, with inflation in the double digits and interest rates for home loans as high as 19%, and Jimmy Carter trying to manage the economy with governmental price controls, you can see that we have been on this precipice before. However, Reagan's approach was to cut taxes and do away with price controls and the economy righted itself, leading to continued economic growth that continued over 25 years. It should be clear to anyone who thinks about it that when you tax something it becomes more expensive to buy or consume, whether it is food, clothing, housing, energy, or entertainment and diversions. When something is more expensive, there are fewer people who can afford to buy or consume it. When farmers, manufacturers, and merchandisers are unable to sell as much of their product, they are unable to make as much profit. Loss of profit, of course, will eventually translate to a need for cutting costs, including cutting jobs and payroll and, if they are a large enough to do so, possibly moving their businesses to states or countries with less tax stress for business. If businesses have to reduce their number of employees to keep more of their profits, or even to stay in business, the numbers of unemployed Americans go up, creating more "need" for government spending, in the form of unemployment benefits and government welfare. No economy can grow to its potential if government overly taxes it or tries to unduly control it.
The area where our local, state, and federal governments can really help the economy is where it has not done a very good job: Policing Criminal Behavior in the Business Place. We have laws on the books against graft and theft, but many times the perpetrators of these crimes in business and government--and it is generally when these two entities are combined or conspire to steal from the public that they go unpunished or ignored. It has become clear that, during the last decade quasi-government lending institutions (Freddie and Fannie)and community groups (ACORN, for one), funded by Congress and being over-sighted by Congressional committees, have repeatedly falsified records and stolen profits and coerced and blackmailed lending institutions to give faulty loans to borrowers, including illegal aliens who did not have to prove their identity, who have no serious hope of repaying them. When the Bush administration's commerce department suspected that things were getting too loose and asked for tighter oversight by Congress, they were told by powerful ranking members of the banking committee (mainly democrats, like Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd) told them to fly a kite, that there was nothing wrong with those institutions. Instead of prosecuting the CEOs of these institutions who clearly cooked the books and got away with millions in bonuses before leaving their posts before the recent "economic crisis" they are allowed to skate or even become an economic advisor to President Obama like Franklin Raines, the ex-CEO of Fannie Mae. So far, not only has not one of these corrupt members of Congress or the aforementioned institutions been brought up on criminal charges, but they have been allowed to become the chairmen of their committees and to keep their ill-gotten gains. The party in control of the federal government at this time, though they have routinely scathed their opposing party for alleged corruption and misgovernment over the past decade, has been loath to police their own--William Jefferson, the democrat congressman from Louisiana who ordered government relief troops to take him to his flooded residence, during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, to retrieve a hundred thousand dollars in bribe money hidden in his refrigerator did not suffer any reprisals from his party had to be ousted from office by losing his bid for reelection to a republican. Instead, they continue to muddy the water around their own culpability and shower blame on capitalism and big business, while agreeing to bailout failing companies and institutions which should have been allowed or required to file chapter 11 bankruptcies, requiring renegotiation of supplier and labor union contracts, or selling off assets. These actions do nothing but support the status quo of corruption and will, at best cost us and future Americans quadrillions of dollars for many decades, even if we see the proverbial light in the next elections and seriously try to change course to a more conservative social and fiscal direction. My fear is that we might have to scrap what we have and start over again. If that becomes the case, we will need a more moral and faith-based society, willing to make sacrifice and do the right things.
May God Bless Us! And my all my friends come to see the light!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Why To Vote Democrat
It has been a good little while since I was able to find time to post a blog, but I recently got an inspiration and made this time.
I get emails from conservative friends on a daily basis with attachments, some funny, expressing frustration with our government and the direction our country is heading. I recently got one entitled "Why I Voted Democrat" which was funny and from the "perspective" of a democrat voter who, if they have any conservative notions, are completely unconnected with the obvious results of their voting habits. This is an extremely frustrating thing for me. I have friends and family he routinely pull the lever for the democrats, because they "feel", like my father did throughout his life--he grew up with FDR propaganda during the Great Depression--that the "Republicans are for the rich man and the Democrats are for the working man". I should say here that I do not hold Republican politicians blameless. It seems as though most of the republican office holders are more worried about sustaining their place at the public feed trough than doing the right thing. In recent years, most of them have been willing accomplices in allowing government to run roughshod over the tax payers and the Constitution. But I have to say that the Democrats in office are the worst culprits and the the most deserving of our conservative ire and disdain.
You may have seen the following before. It is basically the attachment from my friend, but I thought, in some respects, it was not harsh enough for my taste, so I added to it and edited it to reflect my own opinions more closely. In this format, the ideas are no longer expressed sarcastically from a first person perspective, but only a little sarcastically from a second person perspective.
So, if you are a compulsive democrat voter, please read and reflect. Maybe there is hope.
You Voted Democrat:
You voted Democrat because you obviously love the fact that you (the collective public) will eventually be able to "marry" whatever you want. You might eventually decide to marry my horse (maybe even two horses, if they are both consenting adults).
note: The term marriage used to mean combining dissimilar things that work together, like "lyrics and melody", so horse and human really makes more sense than two men or two women if you want to play around with the meaning of words.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe the government will do a better job of spending the money you (and I) earn than I would.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it, except of course Christians.
You voted Democrat because it is obvious that when we pull out of Iraq we can trust that the bad guys will stop what they're doing because they now think we're good people.
You voted Democrat because you (and I) are way too irresponsible to own a gun, and you know that the local police are all we need to protect you (and me) from murderers and thieves.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if we don't start driving Priuses, and embrace government cap and trade policies and there there is no way you can be convinced that "cap and trade" is a nothing more than a big new tax scheme.
You voted Democrat because obviously hope to have a great new government controlled socialist health insurance plan like Canada, France, The UK and Cuba. And, you think the wealthy from those countries (Cuban government leaders excepted)come here to the States to get health care because they just want to see how bad our system is.
You voted Democrat because you obviously not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies, so long as we keep all death row inmates alive and all animals and terrorists are kept comfortable.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit. You also believe that the congressional leaders (who were primarily democrats, like Barney Frank) who bullied banks to give untold numbers of loans to risky borrowers for political interest and subsidized quasi-governmental lending institutions, like "Fannie Mae" and "Freddie Mac", in their illegal and corrupt policies, should be able to skate free and be completely in charge of banking oversight.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.
And, you voted Democrat because your head is so firmly planted in such a dark and snug place that it is unlikely that you will ever have another point of view.
I get emails from conservative friends on a daily basis with attachments, some funny, expressing frustration with our government and the direction our country is heading. I recently got one entitled "Why I Voted Democrat" which was funny and from the "perspective" of a democrat voter who, if they have any conservative notions, are completely unconnected with the obvious results of their voting habits. This is an extremely frustrating thing for me. I have friends and family he routinely pull the lever for the democrats, because they "feel", like my father did throughout his life--he grew up with FDR propaganda during the Great Depression--that the "Republicans are for the rich man and the Democrats are for the working man". I should say here that I do not hold Republican politicians blameless. It seems as though most of the republican office holders are more worried about sustaining their place at the public feed trough than doing the right thing. In recent years, most of them have been willing accomplices in allowing government to run roughshod over the tax payers and the Constitution. But I have to say that the Democrats in office are the worst culprits and the the most deserving of our conservative ire and disdain.
You may have seen the following before. It is basically the attachment from my friend, but I thought, in some respects, it was not harsh enough for my taste, so I added to it and edited it to reflect my own opinions more closely. In this format, the ideas are no longer expressed sarcastically from a first person perspective, but only a little sarcastically from a second person perspective.
So, if you are a compulsive democrat voter, please read and reflect. Maybe there is hope.
You Voted Democrat:
You voted Democrat because you obviously love the fact that you (the collective public) will eventually be able to "marry" whatever you want. You might eventually decide to marry my horse (maybe even two horses, if they are both consenting adults).
note: The term marriage used to mean combining dissimilar things that work together, like "lyrics and melody", so horse and human really makes more sense than two men or two women if you want to play around with the meaning of words.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe the government will do a better job of spending the money you (and I) earn than I would.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it, except of course Christians.
You voted Democrat because it is obvious that when we pull out of Iraq we can trust that the bad guys will stop what they're doing because they now think we're good people.
You voted Democrat because you (and I) are way too irresponsible to own a gun, and you know that the local police are all we need to protect you (and me) from murderers and thieves.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if we don't start driving Priuses, and embrace government cap and trade policies and there there is no way you can be convinced that "cap and trade" is a nothing more than a big new tax scheme.
You voted Democrat because obviously hope to have a great new government controlled socialist health insurance plan like Canada, France, The UK and Cuba. And, you think the wealthy from those countries (Cuban government leaders excepted)come here to the States to get health care because they just want to see how bad our system is.
You voted Democrat because you obviously not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies, so long as we keep all death row inmates alive and all animals and terrorists are kept comfortable.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit. You also believe that the congressional leaders (who were primarily democrats, like Barney Frank) who bullied banks to give untold numbers of loans to risky borrowers for political interest and subsidized quasi-governmental lending institutions, like "Fannie Mae" and "Freddie Mac", in their illegal and corrupt policies, should be able to skate free and be completely in charge of banking oversight.
You voted Democrat because you obviously believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.
And, you voted Democrat because your head is so firmly planted in such a dark and snug place that it is unlikely that you will ever have another point of view.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Odds and Ends of MY Busy Life.
Note: I deleted a portion of the this blog in reference to my recording projects. My later Blog, "Music, Music, and More Music" largely covered the same stuff, so I copied and pasted the material that was below and made revisions that reflect better the current situation.
I have not been able to get back to my blogs for a while. I've been busy with rehearsals for the Smokey Joe's Cafe production that will happen from March 27 through April 4 of 2009 and work. The show, from the standpoint of cast, is coming along Okay. The other cast members are very capable, and I have been able to avoid too much dancing and scary choreography. It has allowed me to focus on my strength: singing Rock and Roll and Rhythm and Blue. It also allowed me to spend more time learning the lyrics and vocal parts on the group numbers. However, as of last night, the band has not been fielded in entirety. We have two keyboardists, a drummer and a bass player who also plays sax. We still need a good lead guitarist and a good sax player, or maybe another bassist to free up the bassist we have to cover the sax--the sax is real important to the sound of a lot of the tunes. I play guitar as a solo on one tune and help color the instumental background with my blues harp on another song. We are supposed to start rehearsing the show with the band next week. I'll try to get curtain times for those readers of this blog who live in the Salt Lake area and think they would like to see the beast do his thing in the flesh. They should let me know if the plan to come, so that I can look for them.
I also sent out an email last week to try and garner some interest in helping fund the casting of my sculpture of Christ, which I have been trying to get done, with hopes of having it displayed at the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple. I plan on donating it to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I do not have the cash at the moment to cover the molds and casting process to make it a more appealing donation. And, with the economy as it is, it does not look good for that project. Needless to say, my plan for a sculpting business on the side has taken a back seat to other projects, until I can generate more income. The old adage that "it takes money to make money" is unfortunately true. But, we soldier on.
On the subject of enlarging my income in a time of need, I received an email yesterday from a safety consultant friend in Topeka, asking if I would be interested in making a trip back to Topeka to teach an OSHA 10-hour class in Spanish for one of his clients sometime in the next couple of weeks. I responded that I would be indeed be interested if the logistics worked out and the remuneration was enough. They did and it was, so we made arrangements for me to fly back there next weekend (3/14/09)and teach the class on the following Monday. The money for that will be good and it will give me a chance to visit with family and friends. I will likely blog about it when I get back.
I have not been able to get back to my blogs for a while. I've been busy with rehearsals for the Smokey Joe's Cafe production that will happen from March 27 through April 4 of 2009 and work. The show, from the standpoint of cast, is coming along Okay. The other cast members are very capable, and I have been able to avoid too much dancing and scary choreography. It has allowed me to focus on my strength: singing Rock and Roll and Rhythm and Blue. It also allowed me to spend more time learning the lyrics and vocal parts on the group numbers. However, as of last night, the band has not been fielded in entirety. We have two keyboardists, a drummer and a bass player who also plays sax. We still need a good lead guitarist and a good sax player, or maybe another bassist to free up the bassist we have to cover the sax--the sax is real important to the sound of a lot of the tunes. I play guitar as a solo on one tune and help color the instumental background with my blues harp on another song. We are supposed to start rehearsing the show with the band next week. I'll try to get curtain times for those readers of this blog who live in the Salt Lake area and think they would like to see the beast do his thing in the flesh. They should let me know if the plan to come, so that I can look for them.
I also sent out an email last week to try and garner some interest in helping fund the casting of my sculpture of Christ, which I have been trying to get done, with hopes of having it displayed at the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple. I plan on donating it to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I do not have the cash at the moment to cover the molds and casting process to make it a more appealing donation. And, with the economy as it is, it does not look good for that project. Needless to say, my plan for a sculpting business on the side has taken a back seat to other projects, until I can generate more income. The old adage that "it takes money to make money" is unfortunately true. But, we soldier on.
On the subject of enlarging my income in a time of need, I received an email yesterday from a safety consultant friend in Topeka, asking if I would be interested in making a trip back to Topeka to teach an OSHA 10-hour class in Spanish for one of his clients sometime in the next couple of weeks. I responded that I would be indeed be interested if the logistics worked out and the remuneration was enough. They did and it was, so we made arrangements for me to fly back there next weekend (3/14/09)and teach the class on the following Monday. The money for that will be good and it will give me a chance to visit with family and friends. I will likely blog about it when I get back.
Friday, February 6, 2009
SAMUEL LONGHORNE CLEMENS
I haven't added to my Prophiles of American Leadership segments for a while, so I thought it would be a nice change of pace for me to indulge myself and return to a historical vignette of an American to whom I give credit for leading in the world of literature. So, here are my thoughts on...
SAMUEL LONGHORNE CLEMENS
Though I watched a lot of television as a young boy, where I caught old movies as well as old and current programs produced for television, I also read a lot. I tended to read adventure stories—Edgar Rice Burroughs was my favorite—but, I also read many of the classics of literature before I got into high school. Before being required to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school, I had already read it twice, along with its companion, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I have reread them both several times since, to my children, to expose them to great literature and story-telling, and for my own enjoyment. In my opinion, which I share with many others, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is likely the Great American Novel and no one has been his equal in producing colloquial speech on the printed page. Of course there have been other great American novels since—To Kill A Mockingbird and Gone With The Wind—and some extremely important and popular ones before—Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Last Of The Mohicans—but, Mark Twain’s story about the coming of age of a disadvantaged, troubled youth, struggling with his conscience in a time when America was doing the same, was a masterpiece of writing that put America on the literary map of the English-speaking world. All of the serious novelists of the 19th century in the English language had been from Great Britain, like Sir Walter Scott, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens. But Samuel Clemens, under the name, Mark Twain, became the Father of American Literature, and showed the American authors who followed after him how to do it well.
Samuel Longhorne Clemens (Mark Twain)
(November 30, 1835-April 21, 1910)
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida Missouri twenty-five years before the start of the American Civil War to John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. Clemens spent much of his boyhood in his Hannibal, Missouri, home along the Mississippi River. Samuel’s father died when Samuel was 11 years of age, which allowed for his mother, who was a free thinker and defender of the down-trodden and lover of animals, to have great influence on his personality and character. After his father’s death, Samuel took work as a typesetter and a contributing writer of humorous sketches for his older brother, Orion’s, newspaper. At the age of 18, Clemens traveled east and worked as a printer in Saint Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York, and educated himself at the local libraries. By age 22, Clemens decided that he would return to The Mississippi River and pursue his childhood fancy, to be a river boat pilot. Clemens plied that trade from 1857 to 1861, from which he chose his pseudonym, Mark Twain, referring to the call of the leadsman on the river boat, measuring two fathoms depth in the river. At the start of the Civil War, Clemens and some friends joined a volunteer group for the Confederacy, but the group disbanded after a couple of weeks and decided to travel with his brother to Nevada where his brother was filling an appointment as secretary to the territorial governor. While in Nevada, he tried silver mining with little success, but in 1862, he began a career as a newspaper journalist and veered off shortly thereafter to humorous literary pieces, including the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. This piece was picked up and republished by other newspapers across the country, and much to Samuel’s surprise, brought him national notoriety and helped launch his career as America’s premiere novelist and humorist.
Clemens’ Later novels included: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. His writings, whether fiction or nonfiction, were largely vehicles through which he criticized society’s ills and poked fun at hypocrisy. Huckleberry Finn and Pod’s Head Smith criticized the evils of racism and slavery, while The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee were commentaries on the injustices of monarchies and the socially privileged.
Clemens was highly critical of hypocrisy wherever he saw it. In The Gilded Age, he skewers American politicians and what he saw as a corrupted system of government in his day, which allowed “knaves” to govern at the cost of “fools”, and embraced a misguided, unthinking patriotism. Clemens seems to have shared religious notions with Thomas Jefferson, a believer in God, but suspicious of organized religion at large. In some lesser known writings, such as A Penn Warmed up in Hell and Letters from the Earth, he pokes fun at organized religion and “Christians” in particular, for a penchant to live their religion once per week or less, and a general sense of unchristian superiority and an inability to be charitable and tolerant.
Clemens was friends with and admired by many noted Americans of his time, including Ulysses S. Grant. But, he also enjoyed celebrity in Europe as well. His friends and admirers abroad included fellow greats of English literature, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, Lewis Carrol, and Alfred Tenny. His celebrity was due to his great talent as a writer and his ability to criticize, even ridicule, society and humanity, shedding light on their blemishes; and do so with disarming humor. He became, to some in his time, a voice of reason and conscience in troubled times. Much of his cynicism may have come from the many personal tragedies in his own life. His father passing at an early age and the accidental death of his younger brother, Henry, in a river boat explosion—Samuel had talked his younger brother into following him into the riverboat life—surely effected his general outlook. His later years also provided further unhappy moments: He had several financial setbacks due to business dealings with people whom he trusted too much and only had one of four of his children survive him in death. His wife, Olivia, died 1902 and his health, which had not been good for many years, declined through next eight years until his death.
Though Clemens may have suffered significant tragedy, hardship and disappointment during his life, he had a strong spirit of self achievement and social conscience. He overcame stumbling blocks placed before him by trying new things and taking chances on his abilities. His various careers prior to his final career gave him insight and experience to draw from to let his fertile imagination create characters and stories that will surely entertain and inspire readers, young and old, for centuries to come. His talent and persistence made him the first great American Novelist of international acclaim. He was the first great American humorist appreciated abroad—he was presented with a Doctor of Letters degree from Oxford University in 1907. And, he may have been the foremost popular moralist of his time. He led the way for many aspiring American writers who tried to emulate his great talent for telling a story and presenting a moral message, but few have approached the height of his achievement. In usual humor he stated the before his death:
I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It might be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’
Samuel Longhorne Clemens’ was prayer was apparently answered: He died April 10, 1910, one day after Halley’s Comet making its closest approach to the Earth.
SAMUEL LONGHORNE CLEMENS
Though I watched a lot of television as a young boy, where I caught old movies as well as old and current programs produced for television, I also read a lot. I tended to read adventure stories—Edgar Rice Burroughs was my favorite—but, I also read many of the classics of literature before I got into high school. Before being required to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in high school, I had already read it twice, along with its companion, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I have reread them both several times since, to my children, to expose them to great literature and story-telling, and for my own enjoyment. In my opinion, which I share with many others, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is likely the Great American Novel and no one has been his equal in producing colloquial speech on the printed page. Of course there have been other great American novels since—To Kill A Mockingbird and Gone With The Wind—and some extremely important and popular ones before—Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Last Of The Mohicans—but, Mark Twain’s story about the coming of age of a disadvantaged, troubled youth, struggling with his conscience in a time when America was doing the same, was a masterpiece of writing that put America on the literary map of the English-speaking world. All of the serious novelists of the 19th century in the English language had been from Great Britain, like Sir Walter Scott, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens. But Samuel Clemens, under the name, Mark Twain, became the Father of American Literature, and showed the American authors who followed after him how to do it well.
Samuel Longhorne Clemens (Mark Twain)
(November 30, 1835-April 21, 1910)
Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Florida Missouri twenty-five years before the start of the American Civil War to John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens. Clemens spent much of his boyhood in his Hannibal, Missouri, home along the Mississippi River. Samuel’s father died when Samuel was 11 years of age, which allowed for his mother, who was a free thinker and defender of the down-trodden and lover of animals, to have great influence on his personality and character. After his father’s death, Samuel took work as a typesetter and a contributing writer of humorous sketches for his older brother, Orion’s, newspaper. At the age of 18, Clemens traveled east and worked as a printer in Saint Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York, and educated himself at the local libraries. By age 22, Clemens decided that he would return to The Mississippi River and pursue his childhood fancy, to be a river boat pilot. Clemens plied that trade from 1857 to 1861, from which he chose his pseudonym, Mark Twain, referring to the call of the leadsman on the river boat, measuring two fathoms depth in the river. At the start of the Civil War, Clemens and some friends joined a volunteer group for the Confederacy, but the group disbanded after a couple of weeks and decided to travel with his brother to Nevada where his brother was filling an appointment as secretary to the territorial governor. While in Nevada, he tried silver mining with little success, but in 1862, he began a career as a newspaper journalist and veered off shortly thereafter to humorous literary pieces, including the short story, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. This piece was picked up and republished by other newspapers across the country, and much to Samuel’s surprise, brought him national notoriety and helped launch his career as America’s premiere novelist and humorist.
Clemens’ Later novels included: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. His writings, whether fiction or nonfiction, were largely vehicles through which he criticized society’s ills and poked fun at hypocrisy. Huckleberry Finn and Pod’s Head Smith criticized the evils of racism and slavery, while The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee were commentaries on the injustices of monarchies and the socially privileged.
Clemens was highly critical of hypocrisy wherever he saw it. In The Gilded Age, he skewers American politicians and what he saw as a corrupted system of government in his day, which allowed “knaves” to govern at the cost of “fools”, and embraced a misguided, unthinking patriotism. Clemens seems to have shared religious notions with Thomas Jefferson, a believer in God, but suspicious of organized religion at large. In some lesser known writings, such as A Penn Warmed up in Hell and Letters from the Earth, he pokes fun at organized religion and “Christians” in particular, for a penchant to live their religion once per week or less, and a general sense of unchristian superiority and an inability to be charitable and tolerant.
Clemens was friends with and admired by many noted Americans of his time, including Ulysses S. Grant. But, he also enjoyed celebrity in Europe as well. His friends and admirers abroad included fellow greats of English literature, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, Lewis Carrol, and Alfred Tenny. His celebrity was due to his great talent as a writer and his ability to criticize, even ridicule, society and humanity, shedding light on their blemishes; and do so with disarming humor. He became, to some in his time, a voice of reason and conscience in troubled times. Much of his cynicism may have come from the many personal tragedies in his own life. His father passing at an early age and the accidental death of his younger brother, Henry, in a river boat explosion—Samuel had talked his younger brother into following him into the riverboat life—surely effected his general outlook. His later years also provided further unhappy moments: He had several financial setbacks due to business dealings with people whom he trusted too much and only had one of four of his children survive him in death. His wife, Olivia, died 1902 and his health, which had not been good for many years, declined through next eight years until his death.
Though Clemens may have suffered significant tragedy, hardship and disappointment during his life, he had a strong spirit of self achievement and social conscience. He overcame stumbling blocks placed before him by trying new things and taking chances on his abilities. His various careers prior to his final career gave him insight and experience to draw from to let his fertile imagination create characters and stories that will surely entertain and inspire readers, young and old, for centuries to come. His talent and persistence made him the first great American Novelist of international acclaim. He was the first great American humorist appreciated abroad—he was presented with a Doctor of Letters degree from Oxford University in 1907. And, he may have been the foremost popular moralist of his time. He led the way for many aspiring American writers who tried to emulate his great talent for telling a story and presenting a moral message, but few have approached the height of his achievement. In usual humor he stated the before his death:
I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It might be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’
Samuel Longhorne Clemens’ was prayer was apparently answered: He died April 10, 1910, one day after Halley’s Comet making its closest approach to the Earth.
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