Martin World News

Okay, Bobby G has once again talked me off the ledge.  I told him it almost wasn't any fun to do MWN posts since the world has gone into such a wave of self-imposed stupidity (see my last post on Hurricane Harvey on social media).  But Bobby said, "---Don't give up on the MWN...I LIKE seeing people being stupid in OTHER countries as well (lends a sense of CONTINUITY...globally-speaking)...heh.  Okay, so maybe it's not the BEST motive... but he's right, we HAVE to find something to laugh about, lest we all become like those that are offended by statues and think severed heads are amusing.  And as I'd rather have Kathy Griffin chop off MY head than find her funny, I have risen to the occasion.  Let's start over at the BBC...


ITEM:  Vasil Tabilov, leader of the Azeri enclave (AKA a chunk cut off from the rest of Azerbaijan by a hunk of Armenia) of Nakhchivan (pronounced {muffled sneeze}-ivan) has published a list of thirty books or other reading material he finds that all Azeris should take the time to peruse.  Of course the #1 on the list was former Azeri President Heydar Aliyev's (pronounced, "hey dere, all'a yev") work  "The appeal of the national leader Heydar Aliyev to the people of Azerbaijan in connection with the new year 2001, a new era and the third millennium", there were some interesting English works on the list.

13th was (what I assume to be Aesop's) Fables; 14th was "a letter from Abraham Lincoln to his son's headmaster" which I found is quite popular, though the Illinois Historic Preservation Society says Lincoln never wrote it; 18 was Theodore Dreiser's The Genius, which wiki explains as  "a semi-autobiographical novel by Theodore Dreiser, first published in 1915. It concerns Eugene Witla, a talented painter of strong sexual desires who grapples with his commitment to his art and the force of his erotic needs."  Okay, see the societal value there.  Jack London's Love Of Life was 19, followed by Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea.  At 21 was Machiavelli's The Prince- and at 25 was a cause of confusion.  It seems that Tabilov's countrymen saw the title of the philosophical poem by Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life Of Bees, and thought they were getting a beekeeping manual.

ITEM:  I am not completely sure what the most ridiculous part of this story is, but:  The International Federation Of Icelandic Horse Associations- a committee whose title's word count outnumbers the members of the commission  6-2- has put its foot down, forbidding anyone who wants to register their horse's name on the official registry MUST give it an Icelandic name.  Originally formed to keep people from registering horses with obscene names (thus eliminating my need to find out what $#!thead is in Icelandic), they put their four feet down when a woman tried to name her horse Mosan- which, while I now know it is not Icelandic, I still don't know where she got it.  According to a Google search, it could mean something to due with France's Meuse River, a language group of Pacific NW Indians- I mean native Amer- oh, hell, I mean Indians- or even the brand name of that new Toilet-in-a-van that was on the news lately.

ITEM-ETTE:  And in St Petersburg, Russia, several contestants in the Cozy Garden competition to beautify the city were disqualified- for using what I have to assume is an old Soviet beautification trick:

... but local people on Tkachey Street were unimpressed when they saw gardeners had taped green branches to wilting trees - especially when they weren't even from the same type of tree, Life website reported.

Now, we move our shaking heads over to FoxNews, where we find:

ITEM:  The Des Moines Register reports that a Polk County Democratic Party committee voted not to offer a speaking invitation to Heather Ryan for their upcoming steak fry, where several members of Congress and other candidates from across the state will speak.


And why is that?  Well, it seems that Ryan, who describes herself as "a little left of Jesus", whatever THAT means, is known for being a tad foul mouthed, exemplified by admittedly calling a rival for a state legislature spot "an asshole".

Good manners, good looks.

“The party that tells women to sit down and shut up is not supposed to be the Democratic Party,” she said. “… I may not be refined, but I’m real. The polished turds that they continue to shove down our throats as politicians are still turds.”  Far be it from me to argue, but... maybe the problem isn't with women, maybe it's YOU.

ITEM:  From the "I still don't think you get it" file:  The town of Mataelpino, Spain, instead of a "running of the bulls", has a "running of the balls"- in this case a 9-ft-high, 660 pound ball with a bull painted on it.  It careens down the street at around 20 MPH, and puts people in the hospital far more effectively than any enraged bovine.  You can watch the video on a lot of spots, but as it is a Twitter vid I don't know how to link it, but here's one place you can find it.  The one guy who hit his head on the ground is in a coma with a skull fracture.  The mayor said he would look into putting up some strategically placed foam along the route next year.  BONUS:  Animal-rights groups cheered the idea because it didn’t involve bulls. PETA loved it so much it offered to cover the costs of towns in Spain and Portugal that replaced their bull runs with ball runs, Business Insider reported.

PETA.  Putting Everyone in Terrible Accidents.


ITEM-ETTE:  Headline only needed.


Jerry Springer 'considering' run for Ohio gov, friend says


Meanwhile, in Moscow...

ITEM:  One of our islands are missing...

The Russian far-east island of Sakhalin disappeared from the Russian version of "Google Maps" the other day.  They claim it was a technical glitch, but check out the timing...


Russian media first spotted the technical glitch at around 2 a.m. local Moscow time on Monday, coinciding with North Korea’s firing of a ballistic missile over Japan’s northern Hokkaido Island, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported Tuesday. 

Methinks someone's hiding- and methinks we got a good idea of what Russia thinks of North Korea's missile guidance systems...

WHAT?  You told me everyone uses Google Maps to find their targets...

Hurricane Harvey and the flood of A-holes....

I am not going to belabor the news stories- either you know what is happening in Texas, or you don't care.  Now here, we follow these things pretty closely.  People need prayers, need help, and we have done both to the best of our abilities, 'nuff said.  And it has been heartwarming to see people around the nation- especially the courageous citizens of the Houston area themselves- coming together to do what they can to help.  Hopefully, a lot of them will still be doing so when the water goes down and the hard part begins.


I have taken advantage of several bits of social media to stay informed.  During the landfall itself, I followed the Category 6 blog on Weather Underground, which boasts a lot of really knowledgeable people who go out of their way to educate people who are in harm's way.  After a while, I decided to hop off and go to bed- and a funny thing happened, as I found out.

There was a storm chaser who was live streaming in Rockport- which was the jaws of the beast.  It was fascinating to watch, but the site he was streaming over had two very annoying features.  On the right, an continuous stream of hearts rising up like bubbles in a soda glass for a yet-unknown reason.  On the left, it was posting live comments.  Here was the problem, as most of the comments seemed to be from adolescent pervos making sexual innuendo and foul-mouthed comments about anything and everything.  I might have stayed on it, had this site given me the option to turn them off, but no such luck.  Unable to handle the torrent of utter stupidity, I got off.


A darn shame that, as I saw the next day a compilation video of the stream- without the BS- and it was exciting, amazing, and damn scary.  I also learned that the "comment stream" from this was bleeding over into the comments on WU (which is where I found the link in the first place), and that it had gotten so bad that the well-educated and intentioned regulars threw up their hands at the inability of the moderators to stop the flow of verbal sewage and just signed off till the next morning.  Indeed, much of the first little while I was on WU Saturday was spent on post-mortems of what they described as a debacle.


But by that point, I had already stumbled onto another debacle  brought about by the sheer stupidity of a minority of people.  Twitter was being used to relay info on people in trouble through the hashtag #Houstonflood.  But when I arrived, they were being hit by an ever-increasing amount of bot-spam.  95% of it was advertising for the night before's Mayweather fight, being directed through peoples' accounts by our friends from China, Baidu.com.  The other five were evenly split between a recurring, pair of blatantly porn posts and one that promised lots of examples of Katy Perry "exposing herself".

In between these, there were dozens of idiots that were finding every way possible to blame President Trump for the disaster- from his dropping out of the Paris Accords, to some disaster thing that Obama started that he dropped, to the heinous crime of tweeting about a book by Sheriff Dave Clark, to the fact the "climate change caused the whole thing, and probably another couple dozen nitwit things that I missed.

One person genuinely trying to save the hashtag for good things, begged anyone not in the middle of the tragedy to "report the hell out of the spam."  I spent about a half-hour reporting the same six spam posts over and over, blocking political agendists that felt that lives in danger was a great time to preach about how evil Trump is and that climate change deniers are inbred fools, and occasionally getting to read something pertinent- until somebody using their brains informed everybody to switch to #Houstonflood1 to get away, at least from the spam.

For a while, then, things improved.  I followed the KHOU live stream until they got flooded out of their building and got KFAA Dallas to cover for them, then switched to KRIV.  As the afternoon started, the Twitterites abandoned that hashtag as well, while plenty more brain challenged individuals were trying to follow the talk of the town- #HurricaneHarvery.  Yes, "Harvery".  That was apparently after two other hashtags that couldn't spell "hurricane" right fell by the wayside.


Then as evening settled in, the climate changers returned to WU.  These people weren't even smart enough to remember that 12 years ago, their predecessors were telling us that because of global warming, Katrina was a harbinger of what was going to "happen more and more often"- and yet, this was the first major hurricane to hit SINCE Wilma that same year.  And here they were, telling us that climate change was going to make "Harveys" the norm.  Thankfully, for the most part they were shouted down by the regulars, who told them to take their climate warming and political crap elsewhere.

Was it all leftist talking points?  No, there was a little rightside rhetoric, but the vast majority of that was responding to the people that were struggling with 12-year amnesia.

And today, I see a CNN reporter was all upset because one of the rescue boats had a confederate flag on the back.  "I would have accepted the ride, but I would have torn the flag off when we landed," this reporter said.  I said, " I don't know as I would do that so close to a big, spinning propeller."  And I am also told that MSNBC asked the Governor of Texas if he was doing all he could to rescue illegals along with everyone else.  I will go on record right now as saying to the left, I don't see how you expect me to take your claims of being inclusive and willing to work with others at ANY level when you can interject this manner of utter trash into a disaster situation.  To me, this is telling me that YOU would probably let a community of white Christians drown if you had the chance- at least those of you so willing to show your online courage.

Thankfully, there are a lot of lefts and rights who realize at times like these, politics is even more stupid than it is normally.  And a lot of them are gathering in Texas, or sending money and supplies that way.  To you, I don't apply the above remarks.  But if you are one of those who interspersed your climate change BS in between people's pleas for rescue, the mirror is yours.


Oh, and one more dreg of humanity I wanted to mention. Some prince wrote up a whole deal about calling the National Guard for rescues, giving a phone number that went to some out of state insurance company.  I hope you have a good explanation for your "clever marketing scheme" to give before your Final Judge.

Oh, and that reminds me of another dishonorable mention:  The same old tired atheist troll getting on a "#Prayfor.." hashtag to tell everyone to send money and stop wasting time with fantasy.  I would have nailed him, but he got shouted down by a fellow atheist.  Sometimes there IS a justice of sorts...

Sunday Message: The rules

This week, I heard a discussion in a question and answer session of whether Jesus was Deity (man AND God) or Divinity (man, but at some point, probably at His baptism, imbued with the "spirit of God").  This debate, which I have actually had with certain people in these very Sunday Messages in the past, make me shake my head.  You can believe in a God who can speak creation into existence, with all that complexity at every level, but have trouble with the concept of God being able to do whatever He wants- including combining God and man in one.  It makes me shake my head.  And for a brief moment Saturday morning, I said to myself, "If God MAKES the rules, He can (from our perspective) bend them."  But does He?  No, we just have a flawed understanding of the rules.

So then the next logical question- what exactly ARE the rules?

RULE #1:  God Is Holy.  James 1:17- Every good gift and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.  God is bound by one thing- His own nature.  He is Holy, and all He does is holy.  Thus, while He makes the rules, He doesn't BREAK them.  This also defines Him as perfect, and all things that come before Him must be perfect to remain there.

RULE #2:  Man was made perfect, but blew it.  Almost immediately, in fact.  This forever denies him access to a Holy God- unless an atonement is made to erase his sin.

RULE #3: John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  Note two things here.  The word is "gave", not caused to arise, selected from man, caused to be born.  "Gave" indicates something/someone God already HAD with Him.  That should thoroughly upend those that think Jesus started just a man and got promoted.  The person I formerly debated this with got mad at me because he recommended I read this book and that book about how the Bible had been, I guess, manipulated into giving the crazy notion that a man could be God too.  I got unfriended when I chose to stick to the inspired Word of God rather than the musings of men.

Next, note the word "Son".  This Son is the "Us" and "Our" in Genesis 1:26, the "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way" of Psalms 2:12, the "my Lord" who sits at the right hand of God until "I make your enemies your footstool" in Psalms 110:1 and Matthew 22:44, and whose life was so eloquently described in detail by David and Isaiah and concisely by Daniel.

Apparently a pastor mentioned in the Q and A session claimed that Jesus had to be born of the Adamic curse since he was born of Mary.  My Catholic friends would deflate that by saying that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception means that Mary was born without sin (because how else would she be worthy to bear the Son of God?  But if you think about that, wouldn't that necessitate Mary's parents also being without sin to create such a daughter? And how many generations would you have to go back before you hit someone with an"acceptable" amount of sin to start the process?  Newsflash:  All born of man have the Adamic stain.

So why not Jesus?  In human logic terms, I would venture to say that this is one of the "mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven" Jesus mentioned in Matthew 13:11, and that there are some things that man will not understand because he is NOT God- which of course was my whole point in starting this post, that we fall into heresy when we try to put God in a box that constrains Him to human logic and knowledge.  I will bring up one thing that may help though.  Robert Jeffres in a sermon I heard a while back explained (in trying to explain a totally different point) that the reason man gets the responsibility for sin is that Eve, though she sinned, was deceived by a being vastly more crafty and intelligent than herself.  Adam WILLFULLY committed the sin without being deceived- the serpent spoke to her, not him.  Therefore, one might speculate, that since the conception of Jesus did not include a man, therefore the Adamic sin was not passed on.  I don't think that whether that was the Divine mechanics of the thing or not really matters, though.

Upshot of all this- Jesus was both Man and God, throughout His time on earth.  And more, His PURPOSE for being here was to be that atonement required in Rule #2.

RULE #4:  You MUST be born again.  Jesus, in that same passage in John's Gospel, tells Nicodemus, "How is it you are the Teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?"  The Old Testament is the entire story of the rules thus far, and that man had died to sin.  To be brought to heaven, he must be reborn, the sin removed.  The sin MUST be removed through the atonement.  BUT- you have to ACCEPT that atonement- and that means that you must accept your sin, the Adamic curse, that needs to be lifted.  And there is but one way to get there.  And that is the way Paul spelled out in Romans 10:

9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.


RULE # 5:  The evidence.  Are you saved?  Do you believe?  This is where the sermon before the Q and A comes in- the Parable of the Sower.  The seed that fell on good ground bore fruit.  If there is no fruit, there is no salvation.  Not that you need to do good works to be saved, but that if you don't do good works, then you are not showing the evidence of being saved.  To me, this is the second simplest constantly debated question in Christendom (the first being, how is there "three Persons in One God"), and it amuses me how Catholics and Protestants go back and forth, one accusing the other of "trying to get to heaven through works" and the other accusing them of "getting saved, sitting back and doing nothing", neither of which are true to the true believer.  The point of the matter is this:  When the seed is sown, the Sower expects a fruit.  A wheat plant without a head of grain is a weed.  A tare.  No seed gets planted and says, "Okay, here I am in the comfy soil, my job is done."


So, which rule are YOU stuck on?  Do you debate if there is a God, or why He allows certain things?  Do you deny that there is an ultimate moral good, as so many in today's society are trying to push us towards?  Perhaps you are stuck on the question of Jesus Christ.  Perhaps you need to make that decision for Christ.  Or maybe you haven't "gotten off the hammock" yet in order to be productive.  For myself, I feel a little like Gilligan, where getting into and out of that hammock the first time has been an adventure.  Hang in there, it's a lot easier once the rules are clear.

Time Machine co-ordinates VIXVII44482572

It's August 25th, 1972, and today we go to Wal-Mart!

Huh?

From Wiki:

(on this day) Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. first began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. On its opening day, the price closed at $33 per share. Although the value of the stock dropped 77% in the first two years, an investment of $1,000 would have grown to $870,000 from 1972 to 2008.


So get you some odds and ends, and get back in the Musical Tardis for the M10's 2nd anniversary edition!  And who will it be at the top this week?

The song that would be on its record fifth week at the top;
The song that would spend its first week at the top on its record 8th week on the chart;
The song that as a dark horse would be the sixth act to have multiple #1s;
Or the really dark horse that hit #1 on Cashbox 25 years ago in December... but charted NO other place in the world...

Hey... I think he's talking about ME...

Yes I am, and these four fought all this last week for my attention.  ONE of them is the anniversary #1... but which one?  Also, the final five of the biggest acts of Summer!  Let's go check out- the hits!


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So we start off by saying hello to Barry Gibb, who as POTM rep for his family group will give us a much more truncated list of candidates for this week's battle- 18 candidates from 49 stations!

Actually, Chris, that's quite a lot...

Well, if you want to avoid the job, quit winning!

Valid point, I suppose.  But last week, Karen Carpenter...

...is Karen Carpenter.  Think about it.

Yes, quite, I see your point.  Let's have a look at the list, shall we?

Well, our mate Gilbert O'Sullivan would certainly be a favorite, with Alone Again Naturally at #1 on Cashbox this week.

Mac- is that his name?  Mac Davis is at #13 with Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me.

The O'Jays are at #7 with Backstabbers.

Michael Jackson did his lovely rat love song, Ben, at #44 but on the rise.

Three Dog Night- how well I know THAT phrase- is at #18 with Black And White.

Looking Glass is at #2 with Brandy, You're A Fine Girl.

You're supposed to say that last part in parentheses.

Hh.  Mick is right about you.  You can be a straight...

Sorry.  Move on, please.

Righto.  Next would be the Troggs with another entry from our friends on Lorenzo Marquez Island.  It is called, Feels Like A Woman, and it charted in South Africa (#7) and in Rhodesia (#14).  Better?

Much.

Bread, who made such a run last week, is at #17 with Guitar Man.

Rod Argent and the band he named for himself are at #6 with Hold Your Head Up.

Luther Ingram's (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Wanna Be Right is at #5.

The Right Reverend Al Green is at #3 with I'm Still In Love With You.

Stephen Stills- speaking of people involved in last week's episode- and Manassas are at - well, they peaked at #61 back in June- with It Doesn't Matter.  Apparently not.

Ah, the Hollies are at #4 with Long Cool Woman.  That was one of those that wasn't quite as popular back home in London, as I recall.

Here's a personal favorite- Chuck Berry is at #45 with My Ding-A-Ling.

Might not wanna advertise that.  There ARE some perverts around here.

I'm sure.  Meanwhile, one of our Australian stations was just getting about Donny Osmond's Puppy Love, which had peaked in the States back in April.

Gary Glitter is at #11 with Rock And Roll, Part 2.  Bit of a tarnish on Gary's image these days, right?

Alice Cooper is a bit late in the year with this, but his School's Out is at #23.  Number one back home right now...

And finally, a duo calling themselves Mel And Tim got a vote for Starting All Over Again- a song which is actually a couple months away from the charts here in the colonies.  And that's it!

Nice job, Barry.  Now this week's winner took a 20-point victory in the polls, so there's every possibility Barry was right about Gilbert O'Sullivan taking this.  The others who were involved in what race there was were, with one exception, nowhere to be found in the CB top ten.  So besides the #1 Alone Again Naturally, look at Looking Glass, Mac Davis, and Three Dog Night as your contenders.  In the meantime...

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This was a week in which I had a strong enough ten that it WOULD have been another no-debut week- except for one song.  And since there is just the one, instead of going right to her debut, I thought I'd share with you the FIRST time I encountered this lady's voice- in a song by our old friends, Flogging Molly.  Here they are- with the woman who will be doing our debut- Lucinda Williams:





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So not only did Barry give us the #1 in the UK, he reminded me that I hadn't even gotten around to looking UP that part of our show!  Obviously Alice also had the highest there that was on our charts, and the highest here that was on theirs was the Rev Al with I'm Still In Love With You at their #41.

The rest of the stat pack:  Glen Campbell sat at #101 this week with I Will Never Pass This Way Again, part of the minor chart slide he had between 1970's Dream Baby and 1975's Rhinestone Cowboy.

And the #72 in '72 was actually a pretty big hit for a change- Bill Withers' Use Me, which was in its second week on the chart.

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And now, the end of the summer's biggest event- the biggest acts of Summer in the Martin Era 2.0!  To review, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, from 1955 to 1977, and as usual with points assigned on a 10-9-8 etc basis.  I bring this up because, for the only time since we started our journey, I'm going to let you in on how the points scored.  We started our journey with #40 Gilbert O'Sullivan (him again?!) racking up 90 points.  We crossed the 100-point mark with Ray Stevens at #32.  We didn't cross the 150-point plateau until the Beach Boys last week at 158, and crossed 200 with the Everlys at 239.  So now, without further doo-doo- the Final Five:

At #5 with 277 points...

Whether as Paul and Linda, Paul solo, Wings solo- Paul McCartney and Wings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


At #4, with 292 points...

...the last surviving old-timer, Pat Boone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just nosing Pat for #3, with 294 points....

...the Rolling Stones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At #2, with a comfortable 81- point advantage over Mick and the boys at 375 points...

...The Beatles, natch!

And could there have been any doubt about this one? with 580 points, over 200 ahead of second- from 18 top ten summertime hits, topping the Beatles by a solid six...................

...the King, and still Champeen, Elvis Presley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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Now, let's get to the actual debut this week.  This was actually first released 25 years ago on an lp called This Sweet Old World- and a new live version is being released this year to celebrate!  And this particular song was released as a lead single.  Debuting all the way up at #6, here is Lucinda Williams...



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Okay, so I'm going to do things a bit different this week- I'm gonna give you the remaining NON-contenders for M10 #1 this week first, saving the Battle Grande for the end.

Cotton Mather fell this week from 3 to 10 with Girl With A Blue Guitar.

Squeezed down a notch to #9 this week were the Pom Poms with Heart In A Suitcase.

Alvvays climbed a pair to #8 with In Undertow.

Howard Jones likewise gained 2 to #7 with Just Look At You Now.

And a portent of things to come, perhaps- The Japanese House climbs from 6 to 3 with Somebody You Found.


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In 1987, Richard Carpenter called on Dusty Springfield to do the vocals on a song from his solo lp called Something In Your Eyes.  It would be a #12 AC hit.  Dusty was getting used to the AC side, and in 1989 she scored a hit with BJ Thomas with the theme from the TV show Growing Pains, As Long As We've Got Each Other.  The third version of the theme (the original with BJ solo was an lp cut, and the second with Jennifer Warnes wasn't recorded), it made #7 on the Adult Contemporary chart (just in case you didn't know what AC stood for).  The writer of this song was one John Bettis, who has a long list of writing credits (including Michael Jackson's hit Human Nature).  He was a co-writer with the aforementioned Richard Carpenter on the Carpenters' hit Goodbye To Love, which was at #8 on CB but got no love from the Panel.  Oh well, maybe Karen will take the guys on the Panel list next time...


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And just because we're doing things different this week...

...if you went with Barry and took Gilbert O'Sullivan this week, you're a winner!  Alone Again Naturally, in the last week of its 3-week run at the top on Cashbox, took 32.65% of the vote to 12.24 for Brandy and 10.2 for Mac Davis.

And now, As The Contenders Fall.....


Wayne, buddy, sorry, but you only moved up from 7 to 5 with The Letter.

Next to fall is Quiet Hollers, as Funny Ways spends week #8 dropping a pair to #4.

And it's over, it's over
I'm circling these vultures
Got me praying and it's hunger
Feeling something rotten
Last time I saw you said "What's up?"
And pushed right through
Then I tried to catch you
But we're always on the move
And now it's over, we're sober
Symptoms of the culture
And the night ain't getting younger
Last call's around the corner...

And so it goes for Foster The People, who despite intense lobbying near the end slip to #2 this week with the 4-week #1 Sit Next to Me.

Which means, at #1.....

...Northern Faces moves up from 4 to the top with Cops Come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Northern Faces now joins Beach House (3), The Explorers' Club (2), Lucius (2), Melody's Echo Chamber (3), and Chicano Batman (2) with multiple songs to hit #1 on the M10!

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Next week:  1973, Gilbert O'Sullivan, and the Biggest Songs Of Summer 2017!

And more pictures

First a little Monday night excursion....

Kinda late for you to be out, eh, big boy?

And PFW has figured out how to keep the boat ramp free of dead bodies- post a sign on each side saying, "Parking for vehicles with boat trailers only."  Escalades and Hearses are pointedly left out.


Tuesday Afternoon ( I sense a song there)...

So they dug up those strips only to re-plant with grass.  This is about to be us ignoring the barrier.

For a minute there, I had thought those teeny little flowers with no leaves and little white flowers grew up to be white gooseberries, but no....

They stay little and get tiny black berries, actually.

Last wild strawberry of the year- only one I've seen in a couple of months.  Ate 'im, too.  No taste, as usual.

And the latest destruction for the convenience of runners and joggers- tear out all the growth along the side trail.  Really?

Right after Scrappy stepped on this mushroom and knocked it down while breaking on the ravine trail.

And while I looked out at the view...

...he stepped on another one!

Scrappy, Slayer of Mushrooms.

Just hanging out...

Better greeters at the ravine trail than Wal-Mart

Last time I saw these, it was closer to Halloween.

Chris's guide to what Fascism really is

Today, Laurie came to me in frustration.  With everybody throwing the word "fascist" around like they knew what they were talking about, she had went in search of what fascism IS- and like anybody seeking simple answers, came away frustrated.  I boiled it down for her as best I could, but I decided to flesh it out a little bit more.  Fascism is more than that skin head over there who burns crosses, although racism and violence are strong components of it.  And a note to Antifa- if you were TRULY anti-fascist, you'd put away the clubs and masks that so identify you WITH fascism, and maybe read a book once in a while.


In my digging, I came across two unexpectedly great helps.  One was an amazingly even-handed article from the Washington Post by John McNeill titled, How Fascist is Donald Trump? There's Actually a Formula For That (Oct 21, 2016)- in which Trump rated only a 26 out of 44 "Benitos".  The other is a Diffen.com comparison between communism and fascism (which became more helpful by pointing out how communism was SUPPOSED to work vs fascism- and thus had a lot of usage of the phrase "in theory".)  So let's take a look at what we have here.


First, the closest thing to a definition of Fascism- by Mussolini himself- had three parts:  Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.  Fascism was a lot like Louis the XIV of France- I AM THE STATE.  The state is the single most important thing.  Now, much of the way Communism DID work was like that, but their "pretty lie" was that there was NO state- that it was the people working together, from top to bottom.  The truth was exactly this, though they made great pains of re-branding "the state" to "the people."

Now, the concept of state was a bit different.  The first quality on the WaPo list was hyper-nationalism.  Italy for the Italians, "Asia for the Asiatics" (a term the Japanese often used between the wars which pretty much translated to "Asia for the Japanese"), Germany's need for Lebensraum ("living space", which of course the Czechs, Poles, and eventually Russians were living on).  Pride in the nation went hand in hand with another quality, which WaPo called "the lost Golden Age syndrome".  Germany was to be the Third Reich, hailing the glories of Charlemagne's Empire.  Italy was to bring back the Glories of Rome.  Now the communist setup was basically the opposite here:  Their theory was to unite the workers of the world as one people, without regard for nationality nor the past.  To do that, they had to strip religion from the masses as well, and thus all the way back to Marx, communism had to have an atheist world to work.  Not to mention workers dumb enough to buy that the intellectuals (their term) who were running things were "workers like them."

Hm.  Perhaps that is the crux of the difference between fascism and communism.  One requires a gullible populace, the other a stupid one.

Similar to the above is the differing take on economics.  In communism, everyone "worked together for the common good", everyone "owned everything in common".  In practice, of course, everyone worked for the communist party, and the party owned it all.  You could almost switch out "party" for "state" and have the truth fascism didn't bother to hide.  Industry was organized into cartels- and the state told the cartels what to do.  This gave the corporations a teeny little more leeway to innovate and grow- but not much.  Which brings us to a side point about how things were run on more local levels.  In 1922, the Soviets came up with the brilliant idea of dividing the nations into 15 ethnic "republics", nominally independent (which was a step back from the whole "one people" thing), but in fact, ruled by the local communist party, which of course was subservient to the national party,  In fascism, the geographic/ethnic entities were submerged in favor of dividing the nation via the cartels.  Hence the fascists came closer to the one-people thing than the communists did.

NOTE:  What I said above about the Soviet Union ties into what I have been reading about the Soviet Collapse.  Gorbachev, in order to enable himself to make requisite reforms, basically broke the uniting power of the party- which left fifteen basically independent republics who then decided to STAY independent.


Fascism depended on the cult of personality- Mussolini, Hitler, Hirohito (even if he had less real power), Franco.  Communism theoretically was a movement of the people, yet from the beginning was riven with personality cults- Lenin, Stalin, Gorbachev- even Khrushchev. Never mind the "dead guys in waiting club" between Khrushchev and Gorby.

I found it intensely entertaining on the Diffen article a section titled, "Means of Control":

Communism:Theoretically there is no state control.

Fascism: Fascism employs direct force (secret police, government intimidation, concentration camps, and murder), propaganda (enabled by State-directed, heavily-censored media), rallies, etc.


And if you substitute "gulag" for "concentration camps" and "mindlessly boring party meetings and parades" for "rallies", you can see the non-difference here as well.

Many of the other categories WaPo touched on- militarism, swaggering masculinity, mass mobilization of the people, standing as a "bulwark against outside evils", and mass indoctrination of youth- dovetail nicely with communism's reality.  One site I found described the difference between the two as fascism being "socialism with a veneer of capitalism".  And pointed out that the main reason the two hated each other was that communism feared losing control to the rabid nationalism of the fascists, while fascism feared that the theory of worker ownership would seem more appealing.

Racism-wise, the fascists grabbed the headlines, mainly because like everything else, they made no attempts to hide what they were.  The Soviet Union has a long history of deporting nationalities, ethnic cleaning (particularly against the Ukrainians and Poles), and Russia has an even longer history of pogroms against the Jews.  If Antifa is really all about stopping racism, they would do well to stop pissing around with violent symbolic gestures against white supremacists, and look at the communists and radical Muslim sympathizers in their own ranks, who preach a much more significant and equally abhorrent racism.

Finally, There is one more of the WaPo categories that is actually different between the two ideologies- "theatricality".  Fascism put on a big, shirt off, fly-unzipped show.  The Soviet Union spent a day and a half marching the army through Red Square.  At least the fascists were more entertaining.

What falls out the camera this Monday...

So I have pics from a week ago on to share today... let's go to the film:

Monday night painted sky

So Monday was like round two of WTH happened at the boat ramp?  I had told FWPD that the night before they found the body, two cars were parked at the ramp, around a dozen people were in lawn chairs on the river on the south side of the foot bridge- and I passed a guy with a lady a couple of times that MIGHT have matched the description of the "dear departed".  Monday night, a couple of ladies stopped me at the swamp and asked if I knew where the "boat dock" was.  When they pulled away, I saw it was at the very least the SAME make and model of one of the cars I saw the first night.  Afterwards, they were searching the south side of the footbridge (but not where the group had been), using a phone for a flashlight, when the one lady said, "(didn't catch the name), I found it!"  I didn't stick around to find out what "it" was, but did tell the detective Tuesday.

White Escalade

We now move on to Wednesday, where we find...

Bunny Summer rolls on...

Hey!  Where you going?

Back at work around the trail.  Finally removing their trash?

It was SOOOO hot, I treated Boofus to a trip to the creek

Next, I bring you Saturday...

...and yes, they ARE finally tearing the supports out from around the towers.

And finally Sunday...

Yet another newly fallen tree.  A lot of them this summer...

And, nature's birdbath!

Time Machine Co-ordinates VIXVI44381871

Today we go to August 18, 1971, and today the British Army in Ireland killed a terrorist who pointed a gun at them.  Or, as the evidence showed, they killed deaf-and-dumb Eamon McDevitt, 24, who was just waving his arms at him- the only communications life afforded him.  "He finally brandished this weapon and was coming up to the aim position against one of my soldiers at short range," Colonel Roger Ephraums said.  Mrs Lily Tobin, a friend, said all he had in his hand was a spent rubber bullet which he was "playing about with".  The BBC says, "The army, which altered its first official statement on the shooting, later set up an inquiry into the incident. "  As of 2011, the family is STILL trying to clear his name.

Welcome to Time Machine, where this week we likely set another (unkept, just guessing) record by averaging a mere 1.9 candidates for the Panel pick per station- 56 stations, 29 candidates!  Also, do any of you remember what Stephen Stills, Billy Preston, Rita Coolidge, Booker T Jones, and newsman Ed Bradley have in common?  Plus, the all time greatest hit from Australia, and another big moment in M10 history!  Plus, the top ten of the biggest acts of Summer starts this week!  We are one week away from the M10's second anniversary- and it's time to go!


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And we start off with the first of THREE M10 debuts- which will bring us to 239 songs that have hit the M10 in a week less than two years!  And this act has been here before- three times!  From the upcoming lp Antisocialize, here is... Alvvays!





In Undertow comes in at #10.


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This week, we have a very special guest to help with some of the Panel list, and that is Miss Karen Carpenter!

Thanks for having me!

My honor, Karen.  I had a big crush on... well, on your voice, when I was little.  For some reason I always imagined you with long, blonde hair, though.

Well, I imagined you as thin, tall, and good looking...

I was thin, then...

So, why blonde?

Third grade crush had long blonde hair, so...

Ah.  That's okay, then.  Did she stay your sweetheart?

Never even knew.  Most of them didn't.  The rest weren't all that thrilled.  Maybe we better get to the list...

Okay, so how do we want to do this?

Whatever works for you.

Okay, let me do the female leads, and you do the guys?

Well, this will be a short guest shot... Okay, let's do it.

All right, so alphabetically... first song is I Hear Those Church Bells Ring, by a girl group called Dusk.  The lead singer was Peggy Santiglia, lead voice of the Angels when they did My Boyfriend's Back.  It was at #42 on this week's cashbox chart.

Then comes Jean Knight's Mr Big Stuff.  It was at #4.  Go, Jean!

Third- which you're pushing at me on a technicality- is Never Ending Song Of Love by Delaney and BONNIE and Friends.  It was at #9.

And finally, Aretha Franklin was at #14 with Spanish Harlem.  Well, I'm done!

And thank you for doing 14 % of the list!  And now, for the remaining 86%...

Chicago's Beginnings was at #11, while the flip side, Color My World, was at 92 starting out.

Tommy James was Draggin' The Line at #2.

The next alphabetical song, I'm going to hold off towards the end for a special reason.  Fear not, it got but one vote.

Donny Osmond held down the #23 spot on CB with Go Away Little Girl.

A station out of the island of Lorenzo Marquez voted for a tune by John Kongos called He's Gonna Step On You Again.  It was on the current UK chart and would peak at #4 there.

The Bee Gees were at the top of the CB chart this week with How Can You Mend A Broken Heart.

Rare Earth was at #21 with I Just Want To Celebrate.

On the way down, the Raiders were at #22 with Indian Reservation.

Rod Stewart had Maggie May climbing at #84, and the flip Reason To Believe at #86.

The Jackson Five was at #20 with Maybe Tomorrow.

Marvin Gaye was top ten at #5 with Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).

And where would we be without one station that "missed the memo"?  Climax with Precious And Few, which peaked way back in February, got a vote.

The Doors were at #15 with Riders On The Storm.  After last week's lead in (I guess that was two weeks ago, vacation and all), maybe they shoulda called it Sleepers On The Porch...

The Five Man Electrical Band was at #12 with Signs.

Hey!  Here's the Undisputed Truth with Smiling Faces Sometimes, at #16 on CB.

The Stampeders were at #52 with Sweet City Woman.

CCR was at #6 with Sweet Hitchhiker.

John Denver held down the #3 slot with Take Me Home Country Roads.

Wings were at 38 in their second week on the hot 100 with Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.

The Dramatics were at #25 with Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get.

Tom Clay's What The World Needs Now Medley was at #7.

The Who were at #18 with Don't Get Fooled Again.
And at long last, You've Got A Friend by James Taylor was at #8.  Whew!


Not surprisingly, 17 of these got but one vote, and another 6 got two.  If I gave you the songs that made CB's top ten, you'd have 20 votes to play with.  Instead, I'll give you the top three vote getters, who managed 18 themselves.  Your choices for next week's POTM are- the Undisputed Truth, the Bee Gees, or McCartney and Wings- the #s 16, 1, and 38!

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Here, take a break and listen to the new debut at #9.  It originally was released from his 2005 Revolution Of The Heart lp, but comes out again on his Best 1983-2017 live lp.  You might remember this old friend- Howard Jones:





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Now that song I left off was from an Australian station, so you may not recognize the song Eagle Rock by the band Daddy Cool.  I'll bet Jo-Anne, does, as it is listed as the second biggest Australian song in history, topped only by another you should recognize- the Easybeats with Friday On My Mind.  They listed the top 30 on my source, and there were 6 that I knew, including Friday:

3- Midnight Oil's Beds Are Burning from 1987;
4- Men At Work's Down Under from '81;
7- Crowded House's Don't Dream It's Over from '86;
9- AC/DC with It's A Long Way To The Top from 1976;
And Little River Band's Cool Change from  '79 (for whatever reason, after the top ten they were listed chronologically).

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So this week's 6D victim would be the Isley Brothers' rendition of the Stephen Stills tune Love The One You're With, which was bereft of votes at #10 on this week's Cashbox survey.  Now there were a lot of figures involved in this song, besides the Isleys and SS.  For example, it was titled after a phrase Billy Preston used frequently, and Stills asked permission to write a song around it.  His partners in CSN sang background on Stills' version, and so did Rita Coolidge.  Another name on that background list I didn't know was one Priscilla Jones.  She was the sister of Rita, and at the time married to Booker T Jones of the MGs.  She later married CBS newsguy Ed Bradley, and still later a loser by the name of Michael Siebert.  He was a pie-in-the-sky con man according to Rita, and Pris was about to leave him when he shot her and then himself.

Ironically, his family wanted nothing to do with him, either, so it fell on Rita to arrange his, er, disposal.  She had him cremated- and they delivered the ashes to her.  She took them out into the desert, just looking for a place to dump them.  She saw a sign that read "Trespassers will be shot", and said, "Perfect."


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Stat Pack:

The #71 in '71 is Tommy Roe's take on Stagger Lee, a tune that first charted by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians in 1924 (as Stack O' Lee's Blues) and hit #1 by Lloyd Price in 1958.

At #101 is Brenda and the Tabulations with A Part Of You.  This act seems to get quite a few mentions on TM despite a record that includes 13 singles, only three of which


***CONTINUITY ALERT***


Sorry about this, but I was down in the M10 and remembered I still owed you 10 to 6 on the greatest acts of Summer!  Here we go!  At #10...

The Beach Boys!  At #9...

Three Dog Night!!! At # 8...

Old timer Perez Prado and his Orchestra!  At #7...

...Stevie Wonder!!! and at #6....

...my favorite POTMs, the Everly Brothers!  Next week, who will be number one?  You know we haven't hit Elvis, the Beatles, or the Stones yet, but will they be there- and-where- and who'll be with them?  Alright, back to the M10 for me, and back to your scheduled feature for you!



 cracked the top 50.  This one ended at #94.

The UK #1 was Diana Ross with I'm Still Waiting, a tune that only made it to #63 here, and dealt a glancing blow to the top 40 R&B.  The highest UK charter  that charted here was Won't Get Fooled Again which was 9 there but 18 here; the flip of that was Sweet Hitchhiker, which was 6 here and #33 there.

And this was a big week for "same song, different act" on the UK list.  Never Ending Song Of Love was in their top ten at #3, but by the New Seekers instead of D&B&F.  And also in their top ten  was Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by Middle Of The Road, while Mac and Katie Kissoon had it at #53 here.

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And now, let's kick off the M10 with another debut, by another act that has been here twice before.  The Pom Poms, who had the two big hits last summer with Betty and 1-2-3, come in at #8 with another song from the finally-finished lp Turn You Out:






Heart In A Suitcase debuts at #8.  And the rest?

Wayne Newton moves up a pair to 7 with The Letter; so does The Japanese House to #6 with Somebody You Found.

***CONTINUITY ALERT***

I just remembered I haven't done this week's section of the biggest acts of summer yet!  Let me run back in time and stick them in, and I'll be right back...

Alrighty, that's taken care of, and our next two are stuck in place- The Killers with The Man at #5 (BTW, up 4 to #10 MSR and up one to #6 Alt this week on BB...), and Northern Faces with Cops Come at #4.

A flip flop next, as Cotton Mather ends a 2-week run at #2 with Girl With A Blue Guitar, and Quiet Hollers keeps their hopes alive for becoming the longest to take to get their first week at #1 with Funny Ways.

And the number one- becoming the fourth member of the 4-weeks-at-#1 club...

...Foster The People with Sit Next To Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And the winner of this week's Panel by an 8-5-5 margin...

...the Bee Gees and How Do You Mend A Broken Heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's a wrap!  See you next week for 1972 and the five biggest acts of Summer- and in two weeks for the M10 Songs Of Summer 2017!