V is for Vashti, X is for Xerxes, and the W is silent...

So today, we do a bit of a combo deal:  The only big name in the Bible with a V was Vashti, Queen of Persia in the Book of Esther.  She was- at first- married to Ahasuerus, who we believe was better known as Xerxes, and that being the only possible X, we are going to do them together.  But what about 'w', you say?  Well, it is a more modern derivative of the same Hebrew letter that Vashti starts with, so for our purposes, v-w are basically the same.  I promise I'll make up for the posts you get shorted, somehow.

Okay, so not wanting to do a whole 'dissertation on Esther by Martin', I'm going to stick to what we know about the characters.  And that will be easy with Vashti, as there isn't a lot about her in the Bible itself.  The fun comes in trying to figure out who she was historically.  Now, if we are right that Ahasuerus=Xerxes, then Vashti is likely a woman known as Amestris.  Which makes a bit of sense, as Vashti can translate into "best of women", and Amestris is "strong woman".  And while feminists using the Bible to their own ends might think what she did definitely qualifies her for the 'best of women' moniker, the 'strong woman' name definitely wasn't a compliment back then- and in the stories about Amestris, it shows.

Biblical Vashti became famous because of her refusal of her husband's wishes.  Specifically, Xerxes was throwing a down-home, 180-day long "do whatever you want" celebration for the guys, and Vasthi was running the women's get-together.  Along about day seven, Xerxes was 'merry with wine' (of course, he hadn't watched 300 yet), and decided that he wanted his 'best woman' to step out of her party and parade around nude for the boys.

Now, there are a couple of different versions of Vashti/Amestris's origins.  One, from historians of a closer day, claimed she was the daughter of a noble who'd helped save Xerxes's dad from assassination.  The Jews claim her to have been the daughter (or perhaps granddaughter) of the ill-fated last king of Babylon, Belshazzar (the "handwriting on the wall" guy).  Either way, this would be a hard degradation for a proud woman.  And she told him no.  This is where the feminists come in.  From wiki:

Michele Landsberg, a Canadian Jewish feminist, writes: "Saving the Jewish people was important, but at the same time [Esther's] whole submissive, secretive way of being was the absolute archetype of 1950s womanhood. It repelled me. I thought, 'Hey, what's wrong with Vashti? She had dignity. She had self-respect. She said: 'I'm not going to dance for you and your pals.'"

And here's the thing with that mindset:  God decreed that women who submit, as Esther did, would be blessed, while those who don't, as Vashti, would not.  And so it occurred.  But you know I always find a bit more to the story, and the Rabbis added on to the refusal...


Ahasuerus was "very wroth, and his anger burned in him" (Esth. i. 12) as the result of the insulting message which Vashti sent him: "Thou art the son of my father's stableman. My grandfather [Belshazzar] could drink before the thousand [Dan. v. 1]; but that person [Ahasuerus] quickly becomes intoxicated".

I was not able to find the reference to being a stableman anywhere in the story, but the meaning is pretty clear:  "you're a low born usurper who can't hold his liquor."  The Jews, though, thought the request was poetic justice, though, as they accuse Amestris of using nude Jewish girls as her "eunuchs".  And later on in life, apparently restored to some semblance of her former position, in death she proved that humility and kindness were not lessons she had learned:

I am informed that Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, when she had grown old, made return for her own life to the god who is said to be beneath the earth by burying twice seven children of Persians who were men of renown.
Herodotus, Histories 7.114.


So the unanswered question with Vashti/Amestris is this- was she a valiant warrior in defense of women's rights- or just another petty dictator, entitled and hateful?  The Jewish scholars compared her to three women who ruled kingdoms- Jezebel ( I think we all see where this is going), Athalia (who we briefly visited last time), and Semiramis (all you need to know about her are two things- Assyrian; and in legend became Ishtar, the hated Ashtoreth of the Old Testament).  One thing we do know:  the comparison with Esther shows us how trying to overthrow the law won her no honor (at least in God's eyes), while working within the law to effect change won Esther great honor for centuries to come.


And what about Xerxes?  Leaving behind what we know from the history books, let's consider what we have in the Esther story.  We know he was a party boy (at least until after he came back from losing to the Greeks at Salamis and Platea); respect for women apparently varied with his alcohol content; his defeat by the Greeks left him distracted enough to sign anything (like Haman's decree to kill the Jews), forgetful (forgot all about Mordecai saving his life), and insomniac (which is how he got reminded of the same).  But we haven't addressed one critical question- do we have the right guy here?

Wiki says that scholars have four good reasons why they mostly believe he is.  The first: linguistic similarities between the Hebrew Ahasuerus and Persian Xšaya.āršan.  Yeah, big deal.  Second: Herodotus paints a picture of his character that dovetails with the party-boy persona in Esther.  But who wasn't back then (see Belshazzar)? Third:  Herodotus also points out the date when he returned from the loss in Greece and "sought comfort in his harem", and it was the SAME dates when the Bible story says he kicked off the 'Replace Vashti Contest".  Now we're getting somewhere.

Clincher:  Annals from the reign of Xerxes I mention an otherwise unattested official by the name of "Marduka", which some have proposed refers to Mordecai, as both are mentioned serving in the king's court.

So, establishing the circumstantial evidence that says we have the right guy, let's look at the tragic flaw in his character.  He has to go to his wise men to decide what to do when Vashti defies him.  He signs the decree of Haman...

Est 3:8  Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, "There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them. 
Est 3:9  If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, that they may put it into the king's treasuries." 
Est 3:10  So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. 
Est 3:11  And the king said to Haman, "The money is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you." 

Haman never tells him WHICH people he wants to eliminate, and he never asks!

Moving on, he has to ask Haman what good thing he should do for Mordecai, since he couldn't come up with anything; he has to go outside and think when Esther accuses Haman of his crime...

Est 7:7  And the king arose in his wrath from the wine-drinking and went into the palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that harm was determined against him by the king... 

And even then it took the mistaken impression of Haman attacking Esther to get him to act...

Est 7:8  And the king returned from the palace garden to the place where they were drinking wine, as Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was. And the king said, "Will he even assault the queen in my presence, in my own house?" As the word left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman's face. 

BTW, the phrase "they covered Haman's face", means that Xerxes's loyal eunuchs were there, and were prepared- they bagged Haman's face and he would be led away thus to his execution.  But even this, Xerxes had to have some help with...

Est 7:9  Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, "Moreover, the gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, is standing at Haman's house, fifty cubits high." 

Est 7:10  And the king said, "Hang him on that." So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king abated. 

This in particular brings up several points.  One, Harbona was one of the seven eunuchs sent to bring Vashti to the imperial peep show, and he never questioned Xerxes then, as he does now.  This suggests a couple of things:  One, did he keep silent when fetching Vashti BECAUSE she was everything the Jews claim and he was happy to see her humiliated?  Two:  The eunuchs KNEW what a rat Haman was, and their quick preparation and suggestions for his demise makes me think about another section of the story, when Mordecai convinces Esther to act...

Est 4:13  Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 

Est 4:14  For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" 

Do you suppose that God had Harbona and his buddies primed to be the 'another place' in case Esther failed to act?   Hmmm...

Maybe.  As we see, the help wasn't going to come from Xerxes without a push.  He wasn't capable of making ANY decisions, at least in his court, without someone's wind to blow him one way or the other.  Even in Greece, he listened to the subterfuge of Themosticles and lead his entire navy to be wiped out at Salamis.  Kinda makes one wonder how much courage Vashti really needed to stand up to him...

To Chad

Sir, you were not long my boss.  As much as it might have surprised the me I was when we met, I wish it could have been longer.  I didn't always see it through my selfish eyes, but you always treated me with more respect than I was frankly due.  But now, what I see is another hole in life where someone should be standing.

This has been a horrible year in many ways.  Not so much work-wise, though it did at times have the seeming of Gilligan and the Skipper clinging on to the rail while the Minnow's wheel spun uncontrollably.  (Had to throw something like that in, lest you wouldn't know who this was, right?)  But I would have to say this is something that has affected me in a way I don't quite understand.  With Scrappy, it's like I keep looking around for missing pieces of me.  This, this is more like living at the foot of a mountain, and one day the mountain just ups and disappears.

Your boss was in, and he did his best to say all the right things.  Did a damn fine job, in fact.  He tried to buoy us up, to look forward to good things, many of which you had a hand in.  As one of my co-workers said, "Maybe tomorrow."

Your wife came in, too.  That is one brave woman.  I don't know how she could handle coming in and talking to a basic bunch of strangers that soon.  You were truly blessed, and I get you knew that.  Once upon a time, you told me that you saw me as a man of integrity.  She talked about how much that word meant to you.  I thanked her for letting me know what an enormous compliment that was, as I had no true appreciation of it- not to what it deserved- before then.  And thank you.

I think the bite marks in my arm from trying not to break down as she talked are almost gone, finally.

I have learned a lot of lessons I thought I knew, but didn't, over the last few years.  If someone asked me what I learned from you, this would be the easiest question of the bunch.  The lesson you taught me that I needed the most when you taught it was, that there are different layers and levels of humility, and I hadn't even started yet.  You showed me that when I lifted my "throw rug", I had a lot of dirt under it- entitlement, pride, arrogance, all of it masquerading as virtues that I of course waved like a banner.  And when I saw it, and started taking it apart, there was a very physical element that everyone could see that I had to take down.  Others thought you might have ordered me to do it, and wanted to get mad at you.  You came over and cared enough to ask if it was your fault.

I wish I would have appreciated THAT when it happened.  I certainly did later on, though not like I do now.

Satan has to find a way to mock everything God does.  He has many ways to mock life, but the biggest one is death.  I can only hope you are in heaven right now, looking Satan in the eye and saying, "So what?" 

Sunday Message: Holy nations

Rev 3:14  "And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: 'The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation. 

Rev 3:15  "'I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 

Rev 3:16  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 

Rev 3:17  For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 

I've been re-reading a book on the 1848 revolutions in Europe, and not for the first time, a certain thought has struck me.  You see, in those days Poland was not a nation; their kingdom had been divided, like Babylon of old, between the Prussians, Russians, and Austrians.  Two years before, the Ruthenian (think Ukrainian) peasants of Galicia (Austrian Poland) had risen up bloodily against the Polish nobles- the landed rich- who claimed their serfdom.  Now, as the liberal revolution sought to make a parliament of all the peoples under the Hapsburg banner, Ukrainian delegates stared across the room at Polish nobles with undisguised hatred.

Only a couple hundred years before, Poland prided itself as being the defender of the Catholic faith in eastern Europe, surrounded as they were by the Protestants of Germany and Bohemia and the Orthodox of Russia and the other Slavs.  A 'holy nation' of sorts.  But this 'holy nation', like so many others before, did not treat OTHERS with any kind of holiness;  they lost their strength, and the Great Powers divided it up.

 ...but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored. 

Dan 5:24  "Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed. 

Dan 5:25  And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, and PARSIN. 

Dan 5:26  This is the interpretation of the matter: MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; 

Dan 5:27  TEKEL, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; 

Dan 5:28  PERES, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians." 

Another historical area that has fascinated me was the fall of Constantinople, the Holy city of the Byzantines, the last vestige of Rome's empire, to the Turks in 1453.  A city that was supposed to be the heart of the True Faith (to Orthodox minds), but known for scandals, and labyrinthine plots to obtain power.  A city where Patriarchs were excommunicated based on the 'faith' of the seated emperor.  I remember reading of the several 'supernatural' signs that occurred in the weeks before the final siege; one in particular.  A parade was held with the Ikon of the Virgin Mary in the lead, to beg the Mother of God for mercy and miraculous intervention.  Halfway through the procession, it fell from the wagon it rode in and crashed to the street below.

Or how about the "Holy Roman Empire", a medieval collection of German states under an "Emperor" elected by the states.    The Pope was to bless each coronation, and it would be the defender od Rome against Lombards, Saracens, etc.  Except that most elections became disputed; the Pope would excommunicate, the Emperor would bring his army into Italy, a new Pope (or antiPope, as the case may be) was installed.  Even when Henry IV went to Canossa to beg absolution from Pope Gregory in 1077, the peace was short lived, as within 7 years Henry besieged Rome 3 times.  In the end, "Holy Roman Emperor" became just a title on the Archduke of Austria's resume, and in 1804 Napoleon did away with it altogether- and no one cared.

Or what about "Holy Russia", the term that became popular in the 16th century for the bastion of Orthodoxy after the fall of Constantinople?  Certainly this 'holiness' had a cancer that finally burst out in 1917 to produce the most un-holy state the world ever saw.

Point being, God listens when a nation declares itself 'holy'; and woe to them who depart that way.  So when we declare the United States a Christian nation, we put ourselves under a judgment.  200+ years down the road, we have a nation where the tares are begging that the wheat be burned up, too wrapped in evil and selfishness to realize that if the wheat goes, the tares do as well.  And the 'wheat'?  Well, a lot of them have forgotten that being Christian means being 'like Christ'; and the only ones Christ ever insulted were the Pharisees, who had a form of religion fueled by self-righteousness.

I often hear preachers mention that the United States is not mentioned in prophecy;  and if you know me, I say it is.  I could be wrong, but let's just say I'm not.  We pride ourselves (or used to) on our Founding Fathers putting everything they did for us in God's hands.  Now, are we closer to that, or to this....

Rev 18:11  And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their cargo any more; 

Rev 18:12  the cargo of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and every ivory vessel, and every vessel of very precious wood, and of bronze, and of iron, and of marble, 

Rev 18:13  and cinnamon, and incenses, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. 

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN. 

Time Machine co-ordinates VICXIV5527261956

All right, I'm back this week, and many thanks to the guys that filled in last week!  Um, Bellbottom mentions that it WAS him, up until the MAGS video that he never quite recovered from, so we thank Lite Beer and Rodney for that spectacular pinch hit performance to close out last week.  Anyway, we move on to July 26th, 1956- the day that Gamel Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.  Egypt would find their bank accounts in Britain frozen two days later, and the four cornered war between Britain, France, Israel, and Egypt would break out a couple of days before Halloween.  Nasser was (not) quoted as saying, "Let them freeze our assets.  I never did get those shillings and pounds and pence and so on.  Give me a good solid gold Dinar any day."

Nasser:  Prolly would have been less confused if the Euro had been around back then.

This week, the Panel was a bit 'poorly attended', so I'm doing a little finagling on the picks, and Ill be fleshing out ELO's 4-week accomplishment a bit.  Plus, a Supreme Court 6D with Robert Bork in a cameo, the new (yes, new) M10 #1, and a new hit by a former #1 act we haven't heard in a while!  And the Mythical Top Ten! Oh, yes, and Bill Haley!  So let's Shake, Rattle, and Roll!


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 So let me start out with this "Mythical Top Ten".  This is what I called my non-written top ten in my childhood- a list that fluctuated often, and had many songs have a seat at the table.  In fact, when I was considering doing this, I counted 22 songs that at least were "on the bubble" so to speak.  So, I'm going to give you the list in three chunks, alphabetically by song, not in order.  Some held onto that power and are still among my faves, others have drifted down a bit.  At a guess, I would say the MTT began in or around 1974 and it remained just an unofficial list until sometime in 1977.  Anyway, here's the first 8:

Best Of My Love, Eagles- Didn't we all grow up owning that 1st Eagles greatest hits  lp?

(They Want To Be) Close To You, Capenters- C'mon, you know I was in love with Karen back then...

Dance With Me, Orleans- One of maybe seven that were in most iterations of the list.

BONUS:  As I started typing this, I thought of 2 more that needed to be on this list!  One of them should have never been forgotten:  If, Bread.  Ever since the first time I heard it, being used as theme music in an ad for a long ago Miss Fort Wayne contest.

Love (Can Make You Happy), Mercy-  This one was more of a bubble candidate, but it does fit.  It takes me to some long ago morning that I only remember like deja vu when the world was young and right.

Love Is Blue, Paul Mariat- Just as good to me now as it was then.

Magic Town, the Vogues- Maybe the lowest charter on the list, but high on mine.

and  Mandy, Barry Manilow-  First record ever paid for with MY money.


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Bill Haley, nice to have you back again!

Always groovy, man!

This is the second time you've took POTM in 1955.  You ever gonna share the title?

Man, the summer was my gig, man!  You might wanna come back in December if you wanna hear them other cats!

Hmm...Christmas with Bill Haley, has a nice ring...

Yeah, why not?  So what's the gig today, daddio?

Well, the actual Panel produced 8 songs- which ain't bad- but only nine votes- which is.  I thought it might be pretty cheesy to give a two vote winner.  So I took those 8 songs, found where they charted on all 9 of the charts, threw in Cashbox and Billboard for that week for good measure, took an average, and it made a very nice two-horse race...

Man, you do some crazy stuff with statistics...

Yeah, what can I say?  So here's the list, you give out the song, and you can mention whether it was a Cashbox or Billboard top ten- but no more.  That should make it a good contest.

Okay, daddio, you're the man with the plan!  So here's the hot list for '56, you cats:

Doris Day, singing away with Whatever Will Be (Que Sera Sera), top ten on both charts.

Teresa Brewer kinda holds back with Sweet Old Fashioned Girl.  I'd like ta meet her!

The big man, Fats Domino, gets top ten on the C-Box with I'm In Love Again...

George Cates had the SECOND most popular version of this tune- Moonglow and Theme From Picnic-  top ten combined with Mo Staloff's disc on CB, but independent every where else.

Pat Boone almost lost his mind with I Almost Lost My Mind in both top tens...

...an' from the looks of THAT outfit, the 'almost' might be charitable...


The Platters were top ten on both with My Prayer...

The Jay Hawks- my note says, 'Not the guys you know from the M10'- had the second most popular version of a tune called Stranded In The Jungle.  The Cadets had a bigger hit.

An' finally, Miss Gogi Grant with The Wayward Wind, top ten on both.  There you go, da-dee-o!

Thanks Bill!  So come back in a bit for a clue- I'll give you the four that had the best average spot on the 11 different charts!  In the meantime, here's our M10 debut- the first appearance in just over two years for The Orwells...




Gotta love that dig at their FORMER label...


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Next on the Mythical Top Ten:

Misty, Ray Stevens- Another of the seven or so that were on most versions of the MTT.

My Special Angel, Bobby Helms- Which, as I recall, I have as my favorite song of the 50s.

Nights Are Forever Without You, England Dan and John Ford Coley- ever since watching them do it on Mike Douglas.

Nights On Broadway, Bee Gees- Both these last two would be among the 'almost always'ers.

No Time, the Guess Who- What a surprise, one of my top two or three all-timers...

Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Steely Dan- another bubbler, but worth the mention, eh?

Roundabout, Yes- Dominated the very early versions.

and Sherry, the Four Seasons- What a surprise, one of my top two or three all-timers... (Hmm, heard that somewhere before....

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"All things considered, this is a pretty feeble cameo..."

Sorry, Justice Bork, but actually the tale turns on the man who got "Borked" right after you- Douglas Ginsberg, who withdrew his nomination to the SCOTUS after Nina Totenberg tattled how he smoked dope as a Harvard professor (which explains a lot).  Perhaps he was smoking it in 1965 with three undergrads when they invented the first computer dating service, called Operation Match.  One of those matches kinda tangentially fits into our marijuana-tinted storyline- actress Mimi Kennedy, who played Dharma's hippie mom on Dharma and Greg, and her husband Larry Dilg.  They were matched in 1966- but took 12 years sweet time to get hitched.  And it was Mimi Kennedy, who while acting in Jim Steiman's musical Rheingold, said these immortal words to Jim, who was wondering why his works weren't flying:


"Well Steiny, your stuff is so complicated. Can't you write something simple?" (And while she was saying that the oldies station was on the radio and it was playing that old Elvis song,  'I Want You, I Need You, I Love You') "Why don't you write something simple like that, 'I want you, I need you, I love you'?"


And that inspired him eventually to the tune Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad; but it is the song that inspired it, Elvis and I Want You, I Need You, I Love You, that is our 6D victim, #3 on both charts without a Panel vote...


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Hey, I almost forgot to give you your hint!  The best averages belong to Doris Day, Pat Boone, Fats Domino, and the Platters.  You take it from there....

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And the rest of that Mythical Top Ten...

Someone Saved My Life Tonight, Elton John- definitely one of those consistent seven...

Strange Magic, ELO-  What a surprise, one of my top two or three all-timers... (Is there an echo in here?)

Summer Breeze, Seals and Crofts- a song that sends me smiling to a place I've never been...

Surfer Girl, Beach Boys- a bit of a bubbler here, too...

Theme From A Summer Place, Percy Faith- What a surpr- oh, you've heard that one...

BONUS:  one I forgot that DEFINITELY belongs, though I must admit it hasn't worn as well as some- Top Of The World, Carpenters.  That was more for the crush on the girl I sat next to than the one on Karen by that time.

We've Only Just Begun, Carpenters- Yes, them again!  I swear the only way you got me to the doctor's office back then was the fact he played the easy listening station in the waiting room and I usually heard either this or Close To You.

and finally, Working My Way Back To You, Four Seasons- this song has NEVER lost its 'new car smell' for me, 53 years later...


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And speaking of ELO, last week they became the 7th M10 song to get a 4th week at the top with Mama.  Just to fill that in, ELO joins, in point order low to high, Foster The People's Sit Next To Me, Tangerine's You'll Always Be Lonely (7th all time), Beach House's The Traveller (5th all time), the Jayhawks  Quiet Corners And Empty Spaces (2nd), Mo Kenney's Unglued (#1), and the Shacks with the El Michaels Affair and Strange Boy (3rd), which had 3 weeks at the top, three at second, and then a fourth at the top.

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Stat pack time!

This time around, I knew eight of the top 50 before I started Time Machine- Elvis's I Want You etc, Heartbreak Hotel, and Hound Dog, the big debut at #50; Gene Vincent's Be-Bop-A-Lula; Patti Page's Allegheny Moon; Panelists Que Sera and Sweet Old Fashioned Girl; and the one I pick as my favorite of the lot, The Wayward Wind.

Eddie Heywood had the big mover with Soft Summer Breeze, 12 spots from 36-24.

And y'know, I looked it up, even played it for Laurie, and forgot to write it down- the UK #1 was Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers with Why Do Fools Fall In Love.


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And speaking of the M10:

Alkonost starts a parade of songs moving down, with Ribbon In The Wind falling 2 to 9.

Beach Bunny gets a 2-spot rise to 8 with Prom Queen.

Maybird's Keep In Line falls after peaking at 3, to #7.

Foster The People slips one to 6 with Imagination;  Silversun Pickups pick up that one spot to #5 with Simpatico.

Agnes Obel begins her descent after 9 weeks with Riverside falling 2 to #4.

And the once and future king, ELO's Mama, slides 2 to #3.

The big move was MAGS and Drugs, up from 9 to 2.

And the new #1- his second-

...King Leg and Running Scared!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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Finally, here how the averages fell out.

Those who didn't make the top four:  Sweet Old Fashioned Girl, 9.4; Moonglow, 12.2; Stranded In The Jungle, 14.5; and The Wayward Wind was indeed wayward at 10.0.

And now your choices:

Fats and I'm In Love Again averaged 6.7...

Doris and Que Sera got 5.0...

and the winner with a half-spot between them, 2.1 to 2.6....

...Pat Boone, and I Almost Lost My Mind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Be back next week when I, and a more appropriately dressed Pat, tour 1957....


(Oh, BTW, the song that got the original two votes?  My Prayer.  Don't hate on me, Platters...)

Wednesday Bible Study: U is for Uzziah

A phrase I hear often in my reading is, "It's a generational thing".  And that is the key to figuring out what there is to learn about Uzziah, King of Judah.  And so, before we get TO Uzziah, we need to go back a few generations.

Back to Uzziah's grandfather Joash.  See, Judah had had a good king in Jehoshaphat, but his son Jehoram married the daughter of Israel's king Ahab- and thus daughter of Jezebel.  Her name was Athaliah, and she was the mother of  king Ahaziah.  Ahaziah was meeting with another Jehoram, the son of Ahab and king of Israel, when Jehu killed them both and became king in Israel.  With Ahaziah's death, Athaliah usurped the throne of Judah and put to death all of the line of her grandfather Omri and all of the House of David in Judah- or so she thought.

See, Ahaziah had a good daughter whose name is a mouthful in any time period, and she was married to the priest Jehoiada.  She saved the youngest son- Joash, and she and Jehoiada raised him.  Eventually he came of age, and Jehoiada organized a palace coup, got rid of Athaliah, and installed Joash upon the throne.

Which is where we come in.

Now the four generations we have to look at all followed the Lord to one extend or another.  And the story of Joash from 2 Chronicles 24 starts out ominously for young Joash:

 And Joash did what was right in the eyes of the LORD all the days of Jehoiada the priest.

But alas, Jehoiada died first, so what did Joash do?  Well, first let me say he did an amazing job re-establishing the priesthood and the Temple worship.  But unlike the line of Hezekiah-Josiah, they did nothing to bring the PEOPLE back to God.  So when the priest died...

2Ch 24:17  Now after the death of Jehoiada the princes of Judah came and paid homage to the king. Then the king listened to them. 
2Ch 24:18  And they abandoned the house of the LORD, the God of their fathers, and served the Asherim and the idols. And wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this guilt of theirs. 

And God even sent prophets to warn them- including Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada.  But when Zechariah spoke against Joash, he had him killed- fine repayment to the man that raised you, to kill his son.  So God let him get waxed by Syria.  He was severely injured, and the household servants who hated his abandonment of God, finished him off.  And his son Amaziah took the throne.  His outlook proved as ominous as his father's:

2Ch 25:2  And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart. 

2Ch 25:3  And as soon as the royal power was firmly his, he killed his servants who had struck down the king his father. 

2Ch 25:4  But he did not put their children to death, according to what is written in the Law, in the Book of Moses, where the LORD commanded, "Fathers shall not die because of their children, nor children die because of their fathers, but each one shall die for his own sin." 

Here I want to point out the theme that sets these four kings apart.  With good Jehoshaphat before, and with bad Ahaz and good Hezekiah after, the kings are compared in how they walked "according to their father David."  But these four are going to be judged against what their OWN fathers did.  I really believe that the reason is, like I said- no matter what good they did, none of them turned the peoples' hearts back to God.

Now Amaziah did a pretty fair job- at first.  And God rewarded him- at first.  But where Joash's downfall was listening to man- first Jehoiada, then the princes- Amaziah's problem was listening when it was convenient.  As soon as he started getting comfortable, God let him get waxed by the Syrians as well.  So he thought he would salve his pride by beating up his 'hillbilly relations' in Israel.  But it wasn't God's plan, and when he got told so...

2Ch 25:14  After Amaziah came from striking down the Edomites, he brought the gods of the men of Seir and set them up as his gods and worshiped them, making offerings to them. 

2Ch 25:15  Therefore the LORD was angry with Amaziah and sent to him a prophet, who said to him, "Why have you sought the gods of a people who did not deliver their own people from your hand?" 

2Ch 25:16  But as he was speaking, the king said to him, "Have we made you a royal counselor? Stop! Why should you be struck down?" So the prophet stopped, but said, "I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not listened to my counsel." 

So now, listening to God was inconvenient, and he told God, and his prophet, to buzz off.  Jehu, who was only marginally closer to God himself, but had fulfilled the prophecy against Ahab's line, beat him soundly, and broke into Jerusalem itself.  After the defeat, Amaziah was so unpopular he had to go live in the nearby city of  Lachish, where they tracked him down and killed him.

And that brings us to Uzziah, who should by now have learned the correlation between sin and disaster, obedience and blessing, and for the most part he had.  He was able, skipping the fine details, to put Judah back on the map as a regional power- and he was blessed by God in the weakness of his neighbors.  We know Egypt was going through a string of crumbling dynasties at the same time, the most powerful of which wasn't even Egyptian, but usurpers from Cush (think 'Sudan').  The Assyrians were more or less in the 'Jonah' era, with the kingship weakened by court intrigues and the citizenry panicked by an eclipse and a plague.  And Babylon had a brief moment of mostly freedom from the Assyrians, but it was under a non-native Chaldean ruler that was happy he didn't have to deal with the struggling Assyrians while keeping his Kassite population under wraps.
And we know this was the approximate time because Amos mentions a tremendous earthquake coming during Uzziah's reign; the quake, scientists have learned, was somewhere between a 7.8 and an 8.2 in the neighborhood of Lebanon- oh, and it happened around 750 BC give or take 30 years.

But his fall is the one that really puzzled me:

2Ch 26:16  But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the LORD his God and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. 
2Ch 26:17  But Azariah the priest went in after him, with eighty priests of the LORD who were men of valor, 
2Ch 26:18  and they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, "It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong, and it will bring you no honor from the LORD God." 
2Ch 26:19  Then Uzziah was angry. Now he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, and when he became angry with the priests, leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the LORD, by the altar of incense. 
2Ch 26:20  And Azariah the chief priest and all the priests looked at him, and behold, he was leprous in his forehead! And they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the LORD had struck him. 
2Ch 26:21  And King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death, and being a leper lived in a separate house, for he was excluded from the house of the LORD. And Jotham his son was over the king's household, governing the people of the land. 

Oh, and according to the chronology that puts Uzziah's death at around 739 BC, he became leprous in 750 BC.  This dovetails with Josephus's claim that the earthquake hit at the time of Uzziah's sin, the sun poured through a rent in the Temple, and illuminated Uzziah's leprousy.


What on earth would motivate him to take the priesthood into his own hands?  One commentator said he wanted "to make himself high priest of his kingdom, like the kings of Egypt and of other nations, whose kings were also summi pontifices, and to unite all power in his person, like Moses, who consecrated Aaron and his sons to be priests."  I didn't buy that.  Basically, because none of his neighbors at the time were actually doing that.  Others say he wanted to run the priesthood as David and Solomon had- except they never usurped the function.  Before I speculate, though, we have one more generation to look at.

The last few years of his reign, Uzziah had to turn the reins over to his son Jotham.  Now, Uzziah's story began with, "And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done"- to which I note that Amaziah had not been whole-hearted in what he had done.  Now, look at the very David-like description of Jotham:

2Ch 27:2  And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD according to all that his father Uzziah had done, except he did not enter the temple of the LORD. But the people still followed corrupt practices. 

Now you want to notice two things here- Uzziah was only charged with the one sin (just like David was only charged with Uriah's death).  And, still, Jotham didn't set the people back to revival.  But the flip side of that first point, unlike Great Grandpa, Grandpa, and Dad, Jotham did NOT make the big mistake.  And his result?

2Ch 27:6  So Jotham became mighty, because he ordered his ways before the LORD his God. 

2Ch 27:7  Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all his wars and his ways, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. 

2Ch 27:8  He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. 

2Ch 27:9  And Jotham slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David, and Ahaz his son reigned in his place. 

1- He became mighty because of his obedience- and STAYED that way.

2- He didn't get murdered, he didn't have to flee, he didn't get exiled.  He lived and died in Jerusalem, and was buried there in peace.

But I was still not quite getting Uzziah.  Then I got a message- think in terms of the Parable of the Sower...

Joash was the hard ground.  Once Jehoiada was gone, he listened to men, and was easy pickings.

Amaziah was the stony ground.  His roots in God were shallow- when it came time to choose, he chose himself and lost.

Jotham was the good soil- he was fruitful; not as much as he COULD have been, but fruitful nonetheless.

So that would make Uzziah the seed that found thorny ground:

Mat 13:22  As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 

What care was it, what deceit, that choked off Uzziah in the end?  The Jewish Encyclopedia says, "Uzziah's strength became his weakness; for he attempted to usurp the power of the priesthood in burning incense in the Temple of Yhwh. "  Makes sense.  Joash failed to humble himself before Zechariah the son of the priest;  Amaziah failed to humble himself before the unnamed prophet who warned him; and now, Uzziah failed to humble himself in recognizing that God purposefully puts a priest between Himself and any king.

The lesson here would seem to be that we ALL need to have someone between ourselves and God. Whether salvationally in Jesus or educationally with Pastors, teachers, commentators, or mentors. And we have to be willing to admit our mistake; witness Uzziah:

 And they rushed him out quickly, and he himself hurried to go out, because the LORD had struck him. 

He did hurry from his sin, and I believe he had true repentance; but he didn't escape the consequences, and perhaps those were the thorns that choked away his ability to bear fruit.

Spam 101 class#4

Welcome to another round of educating the spammers in our lives.  The last few weeks, a great deal of the spam comments I've gotten start off with something like this:

Cheap Jerseys free shipping http://uxjaw.com/comment/html/?35195.html 

'Cheap jerseys', 'wholesale jerseys', 'NFL jerseys', and other variations on this theme.  They then follow with what usually becomes two different stories, neither of which make any sense.   So I guess I should start with a little basic spam etiquette:  The link nobody's ever gonna click on should come at the end, with the appropriate "Check out my link" afterwards.  Do you really think anybody other than someone dedicated to showing how stupid you are will give it two seconds otherwise?


If you can just learn that, half my job is done.  But, since exactly half of the items in my spam filter right now DO have that 'jersey link', I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

Anyway, let's look into a few of these messages- and just for the sake of anyone keeping track, I'm going to start with a "jersey" comment (skipping the link), and alternate between "jerseys" and "non jerseys".


First, let's talk to Little Eddie down at Pimlico:

I still think if you have a good horse and you are a good trainer your horse will win over the Polytrack. But trainers do have to learn how to prepare their horses for it. It seems to me that a horse needs to be very fit. Hi everyone, it's my first pay a quick visit at this site, and post is in fact fruitful for me, keep up posting such articles or reviews. 

Okay, so for you (like me) who never heard of 'Polytrack', it is an artificial horse racing track, first used in 2007.  However, I don't think- as Eddie apparently does- that the horse races against the polytrack.  I think Eddie might have wanted to mention that it was his first visit, etc, at the beginning, ,before he started to give out fruitful horse racing tips on a post that, of course, had nothing to do with horse racing.  Or cheap jerseys from China.


Next up, here's Barack the community organizer:

Hey! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a group of volunteers and starting a new project in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us valuable information to work on. You have done a extraordinary job! 

This would be one of 3 comments that began with an excited, "Hey,"- the other two were the standard, "do you know of any widgets I can add to my webpage" comments that make you wonder how many bloggers out there DON'T know how to add widgets.  On this one, Barry, I have to admit I'm not sure whether my post was "in the same niche" or my community is.  As it was a Time Machine post, I figure either you are starting a rock band or a Marty McFly fan club.  You might want to be more specific.  Remember, the more specific you are, the more laughs I can get from you.


Next up, The Music Man from LA had this to add to his jersey link:

 The video is in support of Kelly's debut solo album, Time Bomb, Baby () which releases on Oct. 13 with a fall tour to support. The album is currently available for pre order HERE. you are in reality a good webmaster. The web site loading pace is incredible. It kind of feels that you are doing any distinctive trick. Moreover, The contents are masterwork. you've done a great activity on this subject! 


Despite the fact it wasn't, this would have been a good one to land on a Time Machine post.  Kelly, as it turns, is Sean Kelly, and his lp is available from mpress records, which means YOU GUYS ARE LOADED WITH BOTS!  Anyway, a couple of technical things here, music guy:  First, if you're gonna use parentheses, put something IN them.  2, if you're going to put "HERE" in all caps, it might be wise to actually put a link THERE.  Then maybe you can do a great activity like I did.


General Malaise sends this one from Camp Benin, mentioning:

I like this web site very much, Its a real nice billet to read and find info.


Billet:  n. a place, usually a civilian's house or other nonmilitary facility, where soldiers are lodged temporarily.

I just can't get anything done with all these darn soldiers milling about my blog.  Can't you guys go fight a war or something?


Bankruptcy attorneys Dewey Cheatam and Howe bring up our next "jersey" comment:

The Chapter 7 petition includes all debts on the date of the filing. Any new debt incurred after the petition is filed will not be discharged with the petition. This piece of writing is really a fastidious one it assists new internet people, who are wishing in favor of blogging. 

So I finally thought, "Let's go get a definition of fastidious", which I didn't think I was.  But apparently, besides being a cleaning nut, fastidious can also mean that you have an attention to detail, so I guess I have to let that one slide a bit.  However, anyone who is out there incurring more debt during their Chapter 7 filing likely has more problems to tackle than "wishing in favor of blogging."

Joe from Sunnyvale, CA, doesn't think much of my Newspage Go!  posts:

I believe everything published was actually very logical. But, consider this, what if you composed a catchier post title? I am not saying your content is not good, however what if you added a post title that grabbed people's attention? I mean "Newspage Go!" is a little vanilla. You should peek at Yahoo's home page and see how they create article titles to get viewers to open the links. You might add a video or a picture or two to grab people interested about what you've got to say. Just my opinion, it might bring your posts a little bit more interesting. 


Now, I'll have you know Bobby G worked his butt off on that logo (Just look at the man, he has no butt!), and I think that should be catchy enough.  Can I help it that the topical nature of the Pokemon game I stole it from has run it's course?  Unlike Pokemon and Yahoo, I endure forever!  And besides which, there were SIX pictures on that post, besides the logo!

Ahem.  Next up on the jersey side, Chris Matthews from NYC had a bit of a salty beginning to his tale...


 While Mnuchin is literally in China trying to work shit out, Trump will do his Trump thing and send probably the worst possible tweet he could send under the circumstances regarding Chinese trade. Yesterday, while I was at work, my cousin stole my iphone and tested to see if it can survive a twenty five foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My apple ipad is now broken and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone! 

We will ignore Chris Matthews' idiot cousin, since she and many like her have dropped by to point out their stupidity before.  As for Trump, well, how is that a surprise?  Maybe he tweeted the Pooh picture...

And as for Mnuchin, I can only suggest you can catch more Chinese with honey than $#!t.  Flies, though, you're good.


Here's Sam from... ah, who knows, but he definitely proves one of my points:

I am glad to be a visitant of this everlasting web site, thank you for this rare info!

See, everlasting!  I told you, I endure forever!  I did have to see if 'visitant is indeed a word, and indeed it is.  I just hope Sam's the part about "paying a visit" and not the part about "a supernatural apparition"!

All right, let me close this up with Paul from Toronto...

Had that gift, even as an 18 year old captain in junior. Years later, Maurice would become one of the youngest head coaches the NHL had ever seen. Magnificent beat ! I wish to apprentice whilst you amend your website, how could i subscribe for a weblog web site? The account aided me a acceptable deal. I have been tiny bit acquainted of this your broadcast offered brilliant clear idea 

Well, if you are trying to say that you want to apprentice with me to help you with "brilliant clear idea", you should know that I think it's already too late for you....

Time Machine co-ordinates VICXIII55171955

AHEM, Yes, this is Horace Bellbottom representing your host, Christopher Martin.  He is indisposed, due to, shall we say, habens partem misericordia, and has asked me to step in as he doesn't feel he could put forth his best effort.   In perusing the date of our arrival, that being July 19th, 1955, once again we are finding no noteworthy events; however, I was quite excited by yesterday's commencement of the Geneva Summit....

"Darn, ya old stick-in-the-mud, you coulda told 'em that Disneyland opened yesterday..."

Yes, quite, thank you young man.  Perhaps we should start with the, er, teaser.  Something happens for just the 7th time on the M10, as well as two new debuts... and a jolly mess that was.  Also, the shortest Panel in history- length wise, not height wise... and the prerequisite changes made necessary by the moving our statistical package...

E:  It's a stat-pack, man...

The use of this heathen music and long hair by you younger fellows does not preclude the necessity of good grammar!  Finally, Mr Alan O'Day will be with us- and he will be dropping in to do the greatest hits of the summers of the 1970's, as it would have been unkind to show him the door after only this microscopic Panel list.  Mr Presley, would you like to handle the "pithy saying at the end of the teaser"?

E:  Are you kiddin'? This'd be like doing stand up after your mom's eulogy!  Just play the first song...

Very well.  Now, Mr Martin has a statement he'd like me to read vis-a-vis the debuts on the M10 chart.  As follows:

Hi guys,

This was the week I felt it time to drop King Leg's monster hit Seeing You Tonight from the chart.  As I also had another song dropping out, that meant I needed 2 debuts.  Well, I let the well run a little dry, and there were only three good candidates in the shuffle.  My first choice has a video that, typical for this band, is awfully reminiscent of an orgy, and the other choice video-wise was a lyric video that would prominently place an f-bomb at the beginning, so I said, no way.  The next choice was fine and dandy until I googled the band's name to learn more about them, and the word 'allegations' came up.  So I went to a news story and found that at least one band member- which they fired- and possibly more, had used knockout drops on young ladies attending their concert.  Mind you this was no heavy metal band, in fact they sounded a lot like former M10ers courtship.  And they were not alone in their crimes- apparently this is a thing going on in the Austin, TX, music scene.

So after firing them, I went to the last choice I felt good about in the shuffle- no video, no way to share it with you, the audience.  Thus began a frantic 2-night search for something good enough to take the spots- and I finally found a couple I really liked.  And you get the benefit of my diligence with a couple of pretty good tunes!  Enjoy, CWM



***********************************************

E:  Man, he's as windy as you, Bellbottom!  Let me play this here song.  It's by a little cutie name of Lili Trifilio, but she goes by the handle of Beach Bunny.  She's spinnin' at #10 this week with this hot hit:






****************************************

All right, then, we next welcome Mr Alan O'Day to our show...

A:  Glad to meet you, Mr Bellbottom!

E:  You won't be...

Ahem, It is a pleasure, sir.  Now, you received this honor for winning last week's vote with Undercover Angel, which sounds frankly a bit risque to me, but the tastes of the times, I suppose...

A:  Ummm... yeah, I guess...

At any rate, we have magically brought you back here to 1955, but alas, the Panel is a bit on the small side.  With only four stations- all of them, it seems, from the Pittsburgh, PA, area- our host combined them with the Cashbox and Billboard most sold lists, and we end up with but four songs and 9 total votes.

A:  So everyone's a finalist!

Just so!  Also, you won't be able to give away their positions on the national chart, as those charts are PART of the vote.  So, before going on to the Panel itself, I am instructed to let you handle the listing of the biggest hits for this week...

A:  Got it.  Okay, friends, here's where the fun starts!  We have the biggest hits of the summers of the 70's coming at you, and you get to check out 22 of 'em!  Here's the first seven:

22- Kicking off with one right from the start in 1970, The Carpenters and (They Long To Be) Close To You.

19- we have a three way tie, kids!  From 1971 we have the Bee Gees and How Can You Mend A Broken Heart; from 1972, Looking Glass and Brandy (You're A Fine Girl), and from 1976, the Manhattans and Kiss And Say Goodbye.

Then, we have a two-song tie at #17!  Those two would be Elton John and Kiki Dee with 1976's Don't Go Breakin' My Heart, and the Emotions from 1977 with- whoa whoa, you get the Best Of My Love.

Finally for this first part, at #16 you get the Commodores with 1978's one, two, Three Times A Lady!  Back to you, HB!

******************************************

Er, yes, thank you.  Next is time to have you introduced to the Panel contestants.  Mr O'Day?

A: Call me Alan, buddy!

I think not.  I have a certain dignity to uphold.

A:  Whatever, dude!  So here are your four choices:

The Chairman of the Board, Ol' Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra was Learnin' The Blues...

The dark horse in the race, Julius La Rosa and Domani- what a cool tune that was!

No surprise here, Bill Haley and his Comets with Rock Around The Clock is contestant #3...

And finally, how about Somethin' Smith and the Redheads with It's A Sin To Tell A Lie.  Guess they really did have red heads!  HB?

Yes, please make your educated guesses from those four songs, and we will announce the winner, and next week's President of Time Machine, at the end of our program.  And now, Mr O'Day will continue the special list...

A: Yes sir, we are climbing the charts of the best of the summers of the 70's!  And we pick up where we left off with a tie for 14th, between the Bee Gees- for a second time- with 1975's Jive Talkin', and Swanky Frankie Valli with Grease, the word in '78.

Another of the Brothers Gibb, little Andy, makes #13 with I Just Wanna Be Your Everything.

Gilbert O'Sullivan claims the 12th spot with Alone Again Naturally.

And now we're gonna cheat just  a bit and give you all four of the 4-way tie for the #8 post!  

First, we have a Paul McCartney and Wings twofer- 1973's My Love, and 1976's Silly Love Songs.

Then we got the Rolling Stones with their best hit ever, Miss You, from '78.

And finally, from the heart of disco in '79 we get Donna Summer and Hot Stuff!  And HB thought Undercover Angel was racy!

Well, it certainly doesn't make your song any less 'racy' to compare it to one even worse than itself.  Frankly, I think we could do a lot worse than to have a post featuring the great hymns of the age.

"That'll drive the fans away faster than my bologna casserole!"

I'm surprised to hear you say that, young man.  I've heard it said that you do a fine job on classic hymnals...

E:  Well, yeah, but this is kind of a rock'n'roll thing, you know what I mean?

Not really... but our employer does, so I shall bear with.  Now, it is time for me to do the statistical package...

E:  STAT PACK!

And we start that out with the "6D victim" for which our host did NOT prepare a story, Unchained Melody by Les Baxter and his orchestra and chorus.

E:  What, you can't do one on the fly, like Chris does?

I would never presume.  Now the largest gain in the standings goes to Eddie Arnold and Hugo Winterhalter's Orchestra with, The Cattle Call, moving from 29 to #20.  In the United Kingdom, the #1 song was Miss Alma Cogan with Dreamboat.  Mr Martin would like to point out that, as he wasn't born yet, he couldn't know what song he would have put at #1, but mentions that of the entire Cashbox top 50, prior to Time Machine he knew only the following four:  Panel contestants Learning The Blues and Rock Around The Clock, along with Pat Boone's Ain't That A Shame and Bill Hayes with The Ballad Of Davy Crockett, and he would choose the last one from that list as his favorite.

E:  Aren't you gonna mention where they were on the charts?

No, I have no wish to effect the voting.  I can tell you, though that Mr Boone was at #13 on the Cashbox list, and Mr Hayes was at #11, as they are not in the voting.

*************************************************

A:  Hey, this here's the big A, O'Day, with all but the very tippy top of the list of summers 70's!

1979 claims #7 with Sister Sledge and We Are Fam-il-eee!

Yours truly claims the #6 spot with that risque song, Undercover Angel.  So there, HB!

Gerry Rafferty and Baker Street from 1978 is in at #5.

Then it's another disco duo- at #4 we get Anita Ward's Ring My Bell from '79, and at #3 it's Ms Summer again with Bad Girls, also from the very last year on the list.

My predecessors at POTM, Starland Vocal Band, take the #2 slot with 1976's Afternoon Delight.

And that's it for me!  All yours, Horace baby!

*******************************************

"Baby", indeed.  The cheek of... ah, well, that is how it goes in times like these, I imagine.  Next up is the second debut, coming in at #9.  This is a band that first hit the chart in mid-August 2016, with their song that made a peak position of #6, called My Love.  Presenting to you, this is M.A.G.S.:






Good Heavens!  Er, I mean, Mr. Presley, might you step in and do the top ten, please, I need a glass of water...

E:  Sure ya do, Bellbottom!  So you heard 10 and 9, here's the rest:

Frankie Cosmos and Windows, up one to #8.

Alka... Al... the Russkies, with Ribbon In The Wind, at 7 and holdin'...

Silversun Pickups an' Simpatico up 2 to #6...

Foster The People and Imagination, stuck at 5...


King Leg 'n Running Scared up a pair to #4...

An' the top three hold- Maybird Keep In Line at 3, Agnes Obel and Riverside 2, an' the seventh song to make four weeks at the top...

...ELO an' Mama at #1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You up to it yet, buddy?

Yes, yes, I'll be all right.  Is it hot in here?  Anyway, the top song of the summers of the 1970's belongs to...

...Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta with You're The One That I Want!

And finally, the Panel race: Somethin' Smith, with one vote, was at #9 on Billboard and #12 on Cashbox;

Domani, with one vote, was #15 BB and #28 CB;

Learnin' The Blues, with 3 votes, was #3 on both charts;

And so the winner, with the remaining four votes, the #1 on both charts...

...Bill Haley and his Comets and Rock Around The Clock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Yowzah!

E:  'Yowzah'?  Bellbottom, you don't sound right.  Are you okay?

Yes, but I'm NOT Horace Bellbottom!  Actually, I'm....

E:  RODNEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


R:  Yeah, and even as a stuffy lawyer, I get no respect!  Be back next week with Chris and 1956!

Wednesday Bible Study: T is for Tamar (all three of 'em)

This one has been a little harder for me to get a handle on than most, for a lot of reasons.  For one, we are dealing with three different ladies in a couple of similar- but not so similar- situations.  Another reason is the fact that if I just stuck to Tamar #1, there are SO many interesting places to go.  She is one of the only four women (with Ruth, Rahab, and 'the wife of Uriah the Hittite') who get mentioned in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus.  Hers are the only set of twins (Jacob made it, but not Esau) where both children are mentioned.  And the significance of the three tokens she asked from Judah?  Yes, a lot of story- and I'll give you thumbnails of those.  But God called me to draw the other two Tamars into the mix- and that led me to do a lot of, "What is the common factor' debating- and what I discovered really threw me.

But instead of getting way ahead of myself, let me explain in short who these three are.

Tamar #1 was a woman, presumably Canaanite, that Judah picked to be the wife of his son.  But in a story I promise to flesh out, God killed him, and then killed the next brother when HE had to marry her 'for his brother', and then she was supposed to marry the youngest as well.  But Judah thought she was a jinx and him-hawed over it, claiming the youngest was 'too young'.  She knew he was trying to give her the bum's rush, though and tricked Judah into sleeping with her- and thus the twins.


Tamar #2 was similar enough that "The name was not often used in traditional Jewish societies, possibly because both Biblical characters bearing the name are depicted as involved in controversial sexual affairs." (per Wiki).  This one was David's daughter by wife #2, full sister to #3 son Absalom and half-sister to #1 son Amnon.  But Amnon was a lech, and drove himself nuts knowing that he couldn't have her because she was a virgin.  So his cousin gives him a plan of how to get alone with her, and he rapes her.  Absalom kills him in return, and the wheels really start falling off David's reign as king.

Tamar #3 is the DAUGHTER of Absalom, and all we directly know about her was that, like her Dad, she was a person of great physical beauty.


Now you've been introduced; let me loop back to Tamar #1.


I believe that the four women who were mentioned in the genealogy were mentioned because they were the means of SAVING the intended line of the Messiah when men were about to blow it.  Rahab had saved the spies sent to Jericho, because she feared the Lord and sought salvation; as a reward, she became the wife of Salmon, David's great-great grandpa.  Ruth, despite being a foreigner, pledged herself to Naomi and to God; as a result, she was married to Salmon's son Boaz, and their son was Obed, his was Jesse, and his was David.  Bathsheba, like Ruth and Tamar, had been married before; unlike the others, she was still married when she had the affair with David; and yet, she became the mother of the child prophesied when David was told by God he could not build the Temple.

How does Tamar fit in there?  Well, the Line of the Messiah was always to go through Judah (though none would know that quite yet), but Judah's eldest, Er, was wicked, and God killed him, before his evil could penetrate the line.  Onan was next, but he "spilled his seed on the ground", because any child he had with Tamar would get preferential treatment over not only any other of his children but himself as well, since a son would be considered Er's son; and God killed him as well.  Judah must have sensed that son #3 wasn't going to be any better, so he sent Tamar back to her father, and 'he would call her when the boy was of age'.  Well, considering Bar-Mitzvah is at 12, it didn't take long to figure out that Tamar was going to have to do something drastic or bear the shame of a childless widow.  So after Judah's own wife passed, he went up with a buddy to a "sheep shearing festival" (this is going to be a repeating pattern), and was POSSIBLY in the bag when he spied a "cult prostitute" along the road (Tamar in a veil for a disguise), and propositioned her.  When time came to pay, he 'didn't have his wallet' but promised her a kid goat next week.  In pledge, she asked for:  His staff (symbolic of the power of God he should have been leaning on), his belt cord (symbolic of the belt of truth, the Word of a God he wasn't paying attention to), and his signet ring (in effect his identity).  When he returned with the goat, she was gone, and he was like, "We can't make a big deal looking for her, or I'll be a laughing stock".

Three months later, he found out that Tamar had somehow gotten pregnant and was going to invoke the law and have her burned to death, as she was "promised" to son # 3.  But when asked who got her in the family way, she could have exposed the idiot's stupidity; instead, she just pulled out the three tokens and said, "It was the man that gave me these."  That gave Judah the chance to confess and own up; "Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not sleep with her again. (Gen 38).

So she basically became a wife to Judah that he didn't use; and she had twin boys.  One stuck his hand out first, and the midwife put a red cord on it to mark him as first born- but the hand pulled back in, and the other came out.  The firstborn w/o the cord was named Perez, and through him went the kingly line of Judah; the other was named Zerah, and he would become royal as well- at the end of the age of kings, the direct line of Perez was cursed.  But the lines intertwined with the post-exile governor Zerubbabel, and the line continued.  If not for her twins, the sins of Judah's sons would have ended the line right from the start.


Tamar # 2 is a shorter story, which I have told most of.  When Amnon set everything up, he begged and pestered David to send her to comfort him with some food, as 'he was sick'.  Against better judgment, David commanded her to go.  David could be talked into anything by his sons; and she knew it.  Thus, when the attack came...


11 But when she brought them near him to eat, he took hold of her and said to her, “Come, lie with me, my sister.” 12 She answered him, “No, my brother, do not violate[a] me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this outrageous thing. 13 As for me, where could I carry my shame? And as for you, you would be as one of the outrageous fools in Israel. Now therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you.” 14 But he would not listen to her, and being stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her.


Get that?  Even though marrying a half-sibling would be a no-no, she KNEW Amnon could have talked David into it.  So David found out, got mad, and did nothing.  But Absalom plotted.  After bringing Tamar to live in his house-  And her brother Absalom said to her, “Has Amnon your brother been with you? Now hold your peace, my sister. He is your brother; do not take this to heart.” So Tamar lived, a desolate woman, in her brother Absalom's house- and then played the old, 'let my brothers go sheep shearing with me' trick on David, had Amnon killed by his flunkies and ran away.

And David did nothing.

So I am guessing that Tamar #2 shortly died of her despair, because not long after, it is mentioned that Absalom had a daughter that he named Tamar.  Like I said, we know nothing of this Tamar from the Bible except her beauty.  BUT, the Rabbis add that she married Rehoboam, son of Solomon.  Who's that?  Why that's the next king, who given advice by his elders to lighten the tax burden of his father and the people would love him, or the advice of his buddies to make it even worse so they would obey him, he chose the second- and broke Israel forever.  Did she have a hand in this?  I don't know.  But what did the others have in common?


Failed Fathers.  Sexual excuses.

Judah later recovered his honors by repentance; but he had watched his father play Truth Or Consequences with women since he was a child; his crimes were watched by his three sons, who became even more evil.  So evil, God would not have them in the line of the Messiah, so He killed them and 'started over' with Judah himself.  His sexual excuse?  Oh, my wife has died, I am lonely; oh, I'm out with the boys, all lit up, what's the difference; It's only a roadside whore, who cares?

David gave his sons whatever they wanted.  Even when Absalom turned the kingdom against him, he could only grieve his death- so much that he made his own army wonder why they bothered.  His daughters, though, were another thing entirely.  Oh, whatever my boy wants; oh, how about that pretty thing waving at me from the bath on her roof?

So what made the difference between the big two?  Somehow, someway, #1 acted righteously to the Lord; she did not submit her rights, but must have submitted to His will, because, after all, she got her name in the Genealogy, where the one who committed adultery (Bathsheba) just got a mention as another man's wife.

#2?  Well, she was at least in word willing to submit to evil to stay from harm;  She knew she could only trust her father to take his sons' side, and apparently hadn't been taught by that father to trust in God.  And she dies alone, desolate, in her brother's house.

And see, this is what troubles me.  I understand that each man stands on his own sins, not his father's.  But if the standard for fatherhood is Solomon's "Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it", then the Lion from which the Messiah would spring, the Man after God's own heart, and the wisest man the world had ever seen, all failed miserably at being a father.

And the women?  #1, "According to Legends of the Jews, Tamar was endowed with a prophetic gift which allowed her to know the future of her descendants. From this gift, she knew that she would be the ancestress of royal line of David and mighty prophets."  I don't buy that, but I do believe she was put into the situation by God for the purpose of His Will- a will that Judah's sinfulness would have shot down.

#2? There is just not that much to go on.  But consider this:  Where #1 became part of a blessing of God (the promise of the Messiah), all #2 became was the starting point of the curse God gave David for his sin with Uriah.  And really and truly, I am left still debating, not only over what we don't know about these women, but how the most dreadful of fathers- Judah, David, Solomon, even Lot- go on to be named righteous in God's eyes.  But one day I will, and when I do, I'll comprehend a bit more of what God sees in me...

Newspage Go!

On a day more than one of us could use a good laugh.  Now mind you, I'm gonna bend the rules a bit- the best one came in the US MAIL- but I hope you get the chuckles out of these headlines that I did.

Item 1- Fox News

This is one of a pair of headlines that made me sit up and blink:

Harley-Davidson goes green with their first electric motorcycle

An electric motorcycle from a brand that used to pass out t-shirts saying, "My Harley doesn't leak oil- it marks my spot"?  Now, I knew they were in a bit of a hurt, but can you imagine any Harley biker of the Old School wanting to be caught dead on a "green" bike?  "Yeah, man, like I'm trying to save the planet before we run outta weed, man..."


ITEM 2- again, Fox News

Remember when you could be stupid in the privacy of your own home by just eating Tide pods?

People are stapling bread to trees and sharing the photos on Reddit

Yep.  This is a new thing.  Just do do something random.  Oh, and by the way, show the part of the world who struggles for enough to eat creative ways to waste what we have.


Item 3- BBC

Apparently the manufacturer of Juul e-cigs is involved in some odd child abuse:

E-cig boss says sorry to parents over child vaping

Now, I'm not into vaping, but I would think trying to fit children into something the size of a cigarette might be a bit difficult.  But, anything to get on Jackass, I guess.


Item 4- again, BBC

Here's one that I had a pretty good gag to use on it, but the first line from the actual article left me in the dust.


How Norway turns criminals into good neighbours


My gag:

Force-feed all prisoners that stinky fermented fish crap they all love so much- I know it would keep ME outta jail!

First line of the article:  Remember, this is how we turn prisoners into good neighbors:

"OK, and now put your big toes together and put your bum behind you!" calls the enthusiastic yoga instructor in English to the 20 or so participants who are shuffling into child's pose on rubber mats spread out on the grass in the faint early morning sunshine.  "Can you feel the stretch?" 


Item 5- Moscow Times

So, what kind of crime can a 75- year-old man get arrested for in Russia?  Well, here's one...

Nixon Fan Detained in Russia for Installing Plaque to U.S. President

Unfortunately, the local constabulary wasn't so grateful, and hauled him in- seems he had tried to get a permit and was denied, and put it up anyway, meriting a jail trip for unlawful assembly.  But the BEST part of this story actually came a little farther into the article...


Local lore claims that Nixon had spent his teens in the small town, where his parents had allegedly worked, in the mid-to-late 1920s.


Talk about election interference...


Item 6- again, Moscow Times

This one definitely falls under the, "you'd think they have bigger things to worry about" file...

Russian Communists Call to Ban Georgian Khinkali and Khachapuri

And what is that, you ask, and why do they want to ban them?  Well....

... the second one is essentially Georgian cheesy bread, and the other is a Georgian dumpling.  And Muscovites love them!  There are several restaurants in Moscow that serve them.  But they use the Georgian name for them, instead of changing them to the Russian  pelmeni and  pyshki.

Solution:  Learn American English, call them "cheesy bread" and "dumplings".  Leave it to socialists to make a big deal out of something with a simple solution.  After all, you don't hear US complain about...

Sarcasticus interruptus: I found what looked like a good one on the Jerusalem Post, but each attempt to peruse the article led to an attempt to "sell me fraudulent IT help" by something claiming to be related to Amazon, and being shut down by my anti-virus.  Clean up your act, JP, if you wanna get yer headlines here!

Which, of course, makes this headline from the Japan Times rather amusing...

U.S. education chief Betsy DeVos: Efforts to boycott Israel are 'pernicious threat'

Efforts to read their paper is a bit pernicious as well, apparently...


So, let's say the Japan Times saved the day on what we'll go ahead and call Item 7, and we'll give them a second shot with Item 8, with what might well be the worst selling point in vacation history:

A weekend in Kamaishi and Iwate: Educate yourself in natural disaster


Which reminds me I should still tell you about that ill-fated Saturday walk sometime...


Item 9- Deutsche Welle

And here with some perfect economic sense...

China growing at slowest pace in decades not a sign of weakness

Geez, I'd hate to see weakness, then...


But let me now round things out with the long-awaited Item 10.  Now mind you, I realize what this is actually trying to say, and I'm sure Chuck Swindoll, jolly pastor that he is, would get a chuckle right with me out of it.  Here's what he sent me in the mail today...

Wow, only been 40 years since the Lord ascended into heaven?  Doesn't seem a day over 2,000....