What can you say about...

There are none so blind, I guess, so I thought I would send you one last chapter in the continuing drama of "Chris the milquetoast Christian".  Much to my surprise, our dear friend the "Sword Of God" (my tongue-in-cheek term, not hers), sent not only a reply, but a novel, which I shall now share, along with my editorial comments.

I find in funny that spiritual cowards and disobedient Christians like you decide to pick and choose the verses that allow you to condone sin and avoid any kind of controversy or trouble for yourself.

(She must get a good laugh doing her blog...)

 

The bible says very clearly, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. The wisest man who ever lived and who will ever live said those words. But people like you act like God didn’t say those words. Fear of God is throughout the bible- but in your ‘wisdom’, I guess those words are hateful.

 

(I find nothing hateful in GOD'S words... but fear involves reverence, and reverence involves when God says, Vengeance is mine, you leave it to him...)

Jesus also warned that if the world loves you, you are NOT following the Word of God. He also said we would be hated because of his name.

(Let's see.  5,992 people like you on Facebook.  I have 63 followers. Hmmm...)

People like you, in your complete disobedience to God, have decided YOU know how to express God’s will better than the bible. Really? God’s words are there, clear to see, and yet, you call me a HATER for simply writing them for all to see.

(Nope, I called you a hater because Jesus told us that we will be judged by our fruit.)

 Gee, I thought that is why God gave us his Word- to tell others about it. But people like you don’t want to see it- why? I know why. You don’t want other people to hate you. You are afraid that they will judge you. You know that to tell the truth about our God (that he is FEARSOME) will cause you, personally, a great amount of trouble. Jesus said, “11“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

 

(And He also said in the same passage to be meek and poor of spirit, and that by living THAT life is why they will revile you.  Kinda like you are doing to me.  He didn't say go out and drum up business.)

Salt and Light

13“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

You have no saltiness because you try to use YOUR words and not the living Word of God. You, in your own human version of ‘wisdom’ have decided that you will ONLY speak the words of looooooove and stickiness and honey into the ears of mankind.

(Anybody who got to the end of this week's Sunday message think I'm like that?  She does, and at the end you'll see why.)

  But that clearly is not what God intended as he also gave the words in my article above. You do this because you don’t want to be hated- you want to be seen as a ‘loving Christian’, a ‘modern Christian’, and most of all, a ‘reasonable Christian’. ALL of these things are motivated by selfishness- not a true desire to serve God. You are unwilling to lay down your life (by being hated for telling the TRUTH about God) for your fellow man- or for God. And so, you will lose it. So, YOU are the rebellious one toward God. And yet you dare to come to me and tell me that I HATE people by giving them the Word of God? Then you judge God, mister. And I don’t want to be in your shoes when you try explaining that to him when you see him.

 

(You'll be there, too.  I expect we'll compare notes then.)

There is only one person who is picking and choosing scripture and it’s you.

(Sure seems like I found an awful lot of it.  And unlike your typical post, it actually has to do with the topic.  You're more like "using vain repetitions... to be heard for all your many words.")

 Please note that I have no need to mock other Christians or use their blogs as ‘examples’ of what Christians are NOT. You must wonder why.

(1. You DO mock other Christians.  2. I don't wonder why.  You like being a big frog in your own small pond.)

 It is because I am confident in what I am saying. Please note that I have never, nor will I ever, visit your blog.

(See? I told you you'd find out why she thinks I'm all sweetness and light.  The only thing she really knows about me- or anyone else she battles with- is that I disagree with her.)

My mission is 100% focused on the Lord. Your mission is to be right and/or to be a ‘better Christian’ than others. Good luck with that when you explain yourself and your actions to God. p.s. The Westboro Baptist thing? Really?

 

Now as you might guess, you've seen most of my response.  I did have to add at the end:

Oh, and the Westboro Baptist thing?  If the shoe fits...


I feel sorry for her, because she is "100% committed" to someone she's not yet met, apparently.  You see, the post this has all been going on in was an attack on Christians who say, "love the sinner, hate the sin."  She sees God leveling Sodom, washing away the Ancient world, wiping out the Canaanites, as evidence that God hates both sinner and sin.  She conveniently forgets to add the word "unrepentant" in front of "sinner".  Equally conveniently, she forgets Paul saying in 1 Timothy 2,  Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, ² for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. ³ For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior... as well as it is God's will that ALL men be saved.  Like she says, it's right there in God's word, but I'm a cowardly false Christian for putting it out there for all to see.


I will confess I am partially posting this for its entertainment value, as I do most things.  But the MAIN reason I have posted this is to be a warning-  ANYONE can call themselves a Christian and post stuff.  The wisest man I ever met, the late Frank Kalko, had a rule that you must read at least 10 verses before and after any verse you use to get the context in which it was meant.  I give you the verse numbers so you can look it up, apply the Kalko rule, and see if I am telling the truth or selling you manure.  NEVER TAKE ANY PREACHER AT THEIR WORD, look it up yourself!  I am NOT 100% confident in what I say, because I am mortal, human, and fallen just like the rest of us, the "Sword of God" excepted.

But one thing I am fairly confident in is this two sided coin.  One side, I love God because God first loved me, sins and all.  Other side, God only hates those who totally and permanently reject Him first.

So here ends the story of the "Sword of God"- at least as far as this blog is concerned.  If the tale has had any purpose, it is in that last line.  Let it color your Christian walk or lighten your journey to find Him.  Maybe then something good will come from her "Christianity." 

 

 

 

Sunday Message

I've always tried to make clear that these messages are about what God wants me to know, being passed on to others so that we all benefit.  Perhaps none of them have hit me personally as hard as this one- or took a path out of our norm more.  This week's lesson is about what I call hard faith.

My son and I discussing the topic last week.  He said it would be so much easier if God gave us a sign- not a miracle, just something to say, "This is why to believe".  There are a million reasons why that doesn't happen, most of them leading to the truth that we take God for granted when things are easy.  Faith is just one of those things (like exercise) that work more efficiently when it's more difficult.

My Monday reading on the topic comes from the latter stages of John 6.  This is the "Bread of Life" passage, wherein Jesus discusses the necessity of "Eating My flesh and drinking My blood".  At this point, Jesus had two large groups of "hangers on" following Him- the ones who'd just been fed on the multiplied loaves and fishes and wanted more, and the "religious" Jews who sought ammunition against Him.  These groups had one thing in common, that came out as He spoke:

⁴¹ At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴² They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

⁶¹ Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you?


My Bible terms it murmur, but it translates to the same thing-they were complaining to themselves about what Jesus said.  And the complaint was,  “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”(v 60).  They were happy to hear Jesus when He said the easy things, things that they could walk away from with their full bellies and feel good about.  But when Jesus raised the stakes of commitment past their comfort zone, they walked away, leaving only His true disciples.  "Lord. to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life," Peter told Him.  Having faith when everyone says, you're a homophobe because you think homosexuality is a sin; or when everyone is saying, you need to change to go along with the times; or even, don't be a prude- that is the beginning of hard faith, when you look around you and the crowd isn't there anymore.

Tuesday took me to I Peter, where in verses 10-12 Peter talks about the faith the prophets had.  You might say, well it's pretty easy to have faith when God is right there telling you what to say.  Oh, so?  David told us of exactly how Jesus would die, a thousand years before it happened.  Isaiah spoke of His birth 700 years in the future.  Daniel told us of the End of Days, 2,500 years and counting ago.  All of these saw how things were going to go, knowing full well that what they were seeing, no one else would see until long after they were dead.  Abraham received God's promise, which He is still keeping (check your world map for that pesky little nation on the eastern Mediterranean coast) though Abraham was a century old and had yet no descendants.  This hard faith is not only faith in what you can't see, it's faith in what you KNOW you WON'T see in this life.

Wednesday I hit Luke 23-24- and if there is a harder faith than faith that lasts after the Teacher is dead, what could it be?  The disciples had now idea how to react when Jesus died, though He told them it was coming.  They barely could grasp it when He stood before them that Sunday night, that He had rose from the dead.  And how many scoff at Him now, saying "He's been coming back 'anytime' for over 2,000 years!"  And yet, He promised He would return.  For a Christian this is the central faith, and it comes somewhat easy.  But on the outside, this is the hardest faith of all.

On Thursday, I was in Isaiah 41, and what struck me was the faith that a besieged and starving Israel had to have to hear the prophet tell them,

¹¹ “Behold, all those who were incensed against you
Shall be ashamed and disgraced;
They shall be as nothing,
And those who strive with you shall perish.
¹² You shall seek them and not find them—
Those who contended with you.
Those who war against you
Shall be as nothing,
As a nonexistent thing.
¹³ For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand,
Saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’

Atheists say, "Before I have faith in something, I want proof."  God says, "Faith is when the only proof you have is My Word."

Friday I was listening on the way into work a sermon on the Wheat and the Tares from Matthew 13. I saw this as another kind of hard faith, one so many struggle to believe.  That one day, we will be gathered in harvest, and those who did not believe will be thrown into eternal punishment.  "A loving God wouldn't do that" seems to trump "A Holy God cannot put up with sin".  But here's the thing- the first one involves people who fail to understand the nature of God choosing what they WANT TO believe about him; the second is WHAT HE TOLD US.  If God is real, and not just a concept in the minds of man, we MUST believe in a hell.  If you'd rather go to this world's "Build-a-God-workshop" and get the nice, cuddly God you want, then you are wasting your time, because that is a "God-the-way-you-want-Him", and doesn't really exist.


Saturday, no reading, because Friday night I had to face my own coda to this story.  We sin, ask forgiveness, sin, ask forgiveness, and it seems that's all I ever accomplish.  When we practice easy faith, Satan has a million ways to get at us.  Through loneliness, despair.  Through anger, frustration, pain.  Through drugs, alcohol, sex.  Through "I didn't deserve that" and "I deserve this".  And once that crack is opened, he quickly switches to, "What's the harm?"

I found the answer- one of the answers- to that question.  Nothing earth shattering or criminally prosecutable.  Just a fragment of something I once had that "easy faith" has allowed to be corrupted.  Something I thought I had lost, but learned I just couldn't see it for all the cancer I've allowed to grow around it.  Hard faith is, then, closing the door before we get to, "What's the harm?"  Because by then it's too late.  Hopefully next week He'll grant me some pointers on how to do this, because all the others are meaningless unless I can deal with my own negatives by listening to Him instead of the one trying to get in.

An early Sunday Message

This afternoon I was notified by e-mail of comments after mine on a post I had commented on.  I spoke about this blogger at the beginning of this post, How she had toasted in a comment someone she disagreed with.  You see, she is VERRRY judgmental, and very aggressive against those she considers "milquetoast Christians"  (Note: I know one of my readers knows who this is, and they have had a running battle with her ever since. The rest of you, I refuse to direct any traffic her way because she is NOT a good example to follow.)  Anyway, as I was saying, she got a comment on her attitude from this one guy (with her original words printed up first):

The statement ‘love the sinner but hate the sin” is just one of many lies being spread by this new Milquetoast Christianity.   It is not in the Bible at all- no one uttered those words or those sentiments. God literally hated the sinner too sometimes. Certain sins made him angrier than others. This statement is [...]

You are why I hate conservative Christians! How can so much ugly fundamentalism be contained in such a cute little package?

 

Ugly fundamentalist, indeed.  Her response proves it out:

So. You hate me because I print God’s own words. This can only mean 1) you are a so-called atheist and hate all Christians, so why do I care? OR 2) you are a false Christian who dares to hate God’s own words which makes you not a Christian at all and again, why do I care? Either way, I will see God and you will see death. Your choice, not mine.

At this point, I felt obliged (you know me) to chime in:

Jesus told us to love our enemies. Where do your comments fit in? Our job as Christians are to save the lost, not taunt them. You’ve been told. You can delete it, but you can’t un-read it.

I put it that way because I commented before and  got deleted (at least I thought; but I see it's on the comments section now, along with a reply which somehow I never got an e-mail about).  Not to mention so many from others I've heard from whom she apparently didn't feel like consigning to hell.  This time, I guess, I was worth damning:

Really? Is that why Jesus called the leaders of the day, ‘Hypocrites’, ‘dens of vipers’, ‘white washed sepulchers full of dead men’s bones?’ ‘evil generation’? I could go on and on, but YOU have your ears plugged. Begone, cowardly milquetoast. You see God’s words and reject them. You will answer to him not me. Believe me, he’s on my side on this one.

So let's look at what Jesus DID say about loving your enemies:

Luke 6:

²⁷ “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. ²⁹ To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. ³¹ And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.
³² “But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. ³⁶ Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Matthew 23:

³³ And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. ³⁴ Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”^[h]




Romans 12:

⁹ Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another; ¹¹ not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; ¹² rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer; ¹³ distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.
¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.
¹⁷ Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. ¹⁹ Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,”^[a] says the Lord. ²⁰ Therefore

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
If he is thirsty, give him a drink;For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”^[b]

²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

 

The thing is, my friends, anybody can take verse and situations out of context in order to give themselves power, glory, an excuse to hate or sin.  Unfortunately this is a person who does such things under the guise of being a "Christian".  I did send back to her- with one further verse:

 

It must be nice to read only the parts of scripture that allow you to hate. Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek. I knew somehow you’d reply thusly, but I thought I’d try for A) your soul’s sake and B) in the hopes that you might be a tad more intelligent than the Westboro Baptist crowd and would WANT to stop demeaning the word Christian with your hard-hearted attitude. Guess I was 0-for-two there, eh? On the bright side, I can use your replies on my blog to show others what Christianity Isn’t. I’m gone. In the mean time, you might want to check out Luke 9:54-55; 54 And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?”[a]
55 But He turned and rebuked them,[b] and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.


You'll notice, I didn't engage in her infantile "You'll go to hell and I won't".  Instead, I shall Quote Constantine XI Palaiologos to Sultan Mehmet before the fall of Constantinople:

...I will defend my people with my last drop of blood.  Reign in happiness, until the All-Just, the Supreme God, calls us both before His Judgment."

 

The Beagle Patient Returns...

...to taking walks.

In front of the office.

There's always one that has to be different.

Why the prettiest birds have to hide in brush I'll never understand.

Erosion is getting worse.  By the time they make this "officially" part of the greenway network, it'll be a submarine trail.

Ker- SPLASH!

New soccer fields now open... sigh...

At least the redbirds were posing.

Here's the money shot.

Great picture for how high he was.

Scrappy got to chase Mr. Bunny today.  If only he'd hunt with his eyes once in a while, he might have had him.

Scrappy and our favorite tree.

Time Machine week 66

Today is May 3rd, 1971.  In Washington, DC, the biggest mass arrest in US history occurred as a group of anti-war rabble calling themselves the Mayday Tribe (nice name for a bunch of pinkos) topped off 4 days of protests trying to shut the city down by battling it out with capitol police.  Around 7,000 out of a crowd estimated at 12,000 to 15,000 ended up spending the night at the fenced-in practice field of RFK Stadium.  This motley crew was led by one Rennie Davis, famous for being one of the Chicago Seven ( protest ringleaders at the '68 Democratic convention who got let off on technicalities by our wonderful judicial system).  Ironic that the were protesting at the convention of the party they would one day embrace, eh?

Before I launch into a "when you lay down with dogs" parable, let me kick off things here on this week's Time Machine by taking care of the news we don't want to have to do.  George Jones passed in this past week.  Although George wasn't a top 40 star (His biggest chart hit was White Lightning at 73), he was big on the country charts, with 62 country top tens and 14 #1s, from 1959's White Lightning to 1985's I Always Get Lucky With You- and including the classics She Thinks I Still Care and He Stopped Loving Her Today.  He added 13 top ten duets as well, including 8 with once and future wife Tammy Wynette, and also two top ten guest appearances.  Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg on a man whose life certainly didn't run as smooth as his career out side of it.


You know this old world is full of singers
But just a few are chosen
To tear your heart out when they sing
Imagine life without them
All your, radio hero's
Like the outlaw that walks through Jesse's dream

No, there will never be another
Red-headed stranger
A Man in Black and Folsom Prison Blues
The Okie from Muskogee
Or Hello Darling
Lord I wonder, who's gonna fill their shoes

Who's gonna fill their shoes
Who's gonna stand that tall
Who's gonna play the Opry
And the Wabash Cannonball
Who's gonna give their heart and soul
To get to me and you
Lord I wonder, who's gonna fill their shoes

God bless the boys from Memphis
Blue Suede Shoes and Elvis
Much too soon he left this world in tears
They tore up the Fifties
Old Jerry Lee and Charlie
And old Go Cat Go still echoes through the years

You know the heart of country music
Still beats in Luke the Drifter
You can tell when hew sings I Saw the Light
Old Marty, Hank and Lefty
Why I can feel them right here with me
On this Silver Eagle rolling through the night

Who's gonna fill their shoes
Who's gonna stand that tall
Who's gonna play the Opry
And the Wabash Cannonball
Who's gonna give their heart and soul
To get to me and you
Lord I wonder, who's gonna fill their shoes
(George hit #3 with this in 1985.  No one's gonna fill your shoes, bud.)

In tribute, we'll have a six degrees that leads us to George Jones, as well as:  that last piece of unfinished business from last week's lookback; a song from Richard Carpenter solo; the return of Lt. Calley; 4 new top tens, but a top that is having sort of a chain reaction pile-up; a cameo from Laugh-in's Gary Owens; not one, but TWO videos; and the usual hijinks and other whatnot.  Tune in, turn on, and scroll down!

This week's hot 100 has 15 debuts, including a couple of fairly high flyers which I didn't know and we'll no doubt deal with in the next week or two.  Three of them, however, I'll mention now.  At 69, the new-look Supremes with an underrated hit called Nathan Jones.  At 87, a song written by Kenny Loggins and performed by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band called House At Pooh Corner.  Now, the version that I am more familiar with is the one that Loggins and Messina did later in the year but did not release, and the one with an added verse, re-named Return To Pooh Corner on Kenny's solo lp of the same name.  If you have a chance, you should look it up; it's always been a tear-bringer for me.  Finally, one of the big hits of the year gets its start this week- the Raiders' Indian Reservation at 98.

Our birthday song list is a pretty good one, with a pair of entries that (if you are my age) will surely make you feel old.  Turning 30 this week:  Hall and Oates' Family Man, Weird Al Yankovic's Ricky, Don't Pay The Ferryman by Chris DeBurgh (better known as "the song that didn't smother you in syrup before he did The Lady In Red"), Bang The Drum All Day by Todd Rundgren, and Madness' Our House.  Turning 35, Barry Manilow with Even Now, the O'Jays with Use Ta Be My Girl, and a disco version of Chattanooga Choo-Choo by a band called Tuxedo Junction- which is only notable for the following story:  Once upon a time, my dad came to me and said, "Did you here about that old-time song that they made a new version of?"  I said, "No, what was it?"  He said, "Oh, I can't remember.  I know it had four words in the title..."  When he finally remembered weeks later, I kept trying to count to four on my hands, but just couldn't figure out where the third Choo got off to.  This was brought to you by the man that thought "Afghanistan" was "Fagistan" and Robert Young was Robert Mitchum.

Turning 40 was Bette Midler's Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy; Turning 45 were two songs.  One of them I had to play to make sure I remembered, and I did- Gene Pitney's She's A Heartbreaker.  The other I knew I did, because it only takes the first note to freeze me in my tracks- Merilee Rush's Angel Of The Morning.  The other song I mentioned that might make you feel old turns 50- Leslie Gore's It's My Party, along with the unquestioned song of that summer, the Japanese-language hit Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakamoto.  Blow out the candles...

Merilee Rush- because it's my blog and I'll stare if I want to...

In one of those real rarities, both the biggest gainer and loser in the countdown this week are in the top 40.  Be patient.

That brings us to the Where Are They Now song at #50 (note: in thirteen days, I will turn 51, and the WATN feature will be at 51, accordingly)  is the plummeting former top ten For All We Know by the Carpenters.  We all know Karen left us too soon in 1983, but Richard soldiers on.  When Karen was battling the anorexia that would claim her, Richard was fighting Quaalude addiction, which he beat in rehab in 1979.  He would marry Mary Rudolf in 1984, who was an adopted first cousin.  The fact that they had dated for years caused friction between them and a disapproving Karen, but finally they had blood tests done that cleared the way and Richard told Karen to "just drop it".  The marriage has produced five children, and the couple are active in philanthropic endeavors.  He himself has recorded two albums (in 1987 and 1998) and is said to be mastering a Christmas lp.  One of his first album cuts I want to share with you- a haunting tribute to Karen, with only his piano and Herb Alpert's horn for background.




(Clears throat, wipes eyes, moves on.)

Five new songs grace the top 40 this week.  Up 8 spots to 39 is another that we lost recently and too soon- Richie Havens with Here Comes The Sun.  Another 8-notch riser moves to 37- Brenda and the Tabulations with Right On The Tip Of My Tongue.  Our big mover of the week goes from 70 to 35 (liberal fanatics, that is a 35-spot rise) with Terry Nelson, a Russelville, AL, DJ, and a studio band called C Company with The Ballad Of Lt. Calley.  Now you know where I stand on Lt. Calley from the lead in that featured him and fellow recent convict Charles Manson a few weeks back.  But in the interest of hearing the other side, let me give you some of the spoken-word lyrics to this song:

Sir, I followed all my orders
And I did the best I could
It's hard to judge the enemy
And hard to tell the good
Yet there's not a man among us
Would not have understood

We took the jungle village
Exactly like they said
We responded to their rifle fire
With everything we had
And when the smoke had cleared away
A hundred souls lay dead

Sir, the soldier that's alive
Is the only one can fight
There's no other way to wage a war
When the only one in sight
That you're sure is not a V.C.
Is your buddy on your right...


The song would sell big numbers very quickly, and then fade away; in fact, it comes in this week higher than it would peak on Billboard (#37).

Finally Tin Tin comes in the forty with the song on the video I posted a while back, Toast And Marmalade For Tea.  They also climb 8 to #33.  And the high debut this week is the Rolling Stones, climbing 25 to #28 with Brown Sugar.

Now on to that unfinished business.  Last week we told the story of the song This Ole House.  One of the things I noted as I looked at the long list of names that have recorded this song (everyone from Boxcar Willie to the Brian Setzer Orchestra), I saw the name "Mrs. Miller".  Naturally, I said WTH and looked into this story.  And got a good laugh.

Mrs. Elva Miller started out as a lady with an operatic-style voice who wanted to do something good with her "gift".  She took her own money to press a 45 of Slumber Song and passed it out to local orphanages.  Whether they appreciated it or not is questionable; her voice was later described by The Book Of Lists 2 as "roaches scurrying across a trash can lid".  However, an arranger she met suggested she try her hand at more popular songs;  somehow this led to her being discovered by Gary Owens, who had a comedy radio show in the early sixties and would later be the announcer on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.  She then signed a contract with Capitol Records, thinking (apparently) they thought she was a GOOD singer; the man who signed her, Lez de Azevedo, is now a producer of LDS music and won't talk about her ( presumably out of shame for lying to her, but that's just a guess).  They purposefully would have the musicians play alternately ahead of and behind her to mess her up, and the results made me giggle.





This song actually hit the charts at #82, and the b-side, A Lover's Concerto, popped in at 95.  Listen if you dare.  I know I laughed from end to end.  She retired from the "business" in 1972 and passed in 1996, aged 89.

That Greatest hits lp?  It was her debut album, BTW.


Before we move on, an almost but not quite shoutout to Alice Cooper who peaks at #21 this week with Eighteen.

Four songs enter the top ten, four must vacate.  The droppers are:  She's A Lady (6 to 11); One Toke Over The Line (8 to 13); Just My Imagination (9 to 15); and the week's big dropper (bet you thought I forgot, eh?) Love Story (10 to 26).

BTW, as I'm typing, I made the mistake of trying Mrs. Miller's A Lover's Concerto... I didn't know you could make a human voice do that without a rap turntable.

Debuting in the top ten this week at 10, up three spots, is Stevie Wonder's cover of We Can Work It Out.

Dropping another 4 to #9, Marvin Gaye and the former top dog What's Going On.

Bread enters the top ten, up 3 to #8, with If.

Bridge Over Troubled Waters by Aretha Franklin jumps 28 spots to land at #7.  I am convinced many buyers thought Simon And Garfunkel had gotten back together and bought it by mistake.

In a fifth week in the lower half of the top ten, Paul McCartney moves up a spot to 6 with Another Day.

And with that, our six degrees for the week.

I Am... I Said starts a disturbing trend, holding at #4 this week.  Neil Diamond recorded this on the lp Stones, which among other songs featured a cover of Husbands And Wives.  This was a Roger Miller song, which he took to #26 here and #5 country in 1966.  You know Roger best for the 1964 top five pop/#1 country hit King Of The Road, a song covered by... George Jones on the 1966 lp Love Bug, whose title track was a #6 country hit that year.

Going on with the disturbing trend, The Jacksons hold at 3 with Never Can Say Goodbye; Ocean holds at #2 with Put Your Hand In The Hand; and that means that the #1 song remains...

 

 

 

...Three Dog Night with Joy To The World!!  But just so you don't feel cheated...

 

 

...here's three pictures of a dog, one taken at night.  See you next week!



The Beagle Patient

Scrappy would like to thank everyone who read about his plight and commented (despite the fact it was the shortest part of the whole piece, he adds sneeringly).

Here's our sad little Boofus last night.  He was not real with it and did a lot of whining as his pain pills kicked in.  A little bit before this pic, we went outside which he didn't particularly enjoy because he wasn't able to bark and howl at this:

Yep, Ms. Deer was just down the trail.  But we came in, and I thought perhaps if we laid down early, he'd forget the pain and the deer and just crash.  So at 6:30, we went to bed.  More whining, laying right on top of me, "Daddy, can't you do something?"  But then we looked out and Ms. deer had two friends.  First, a second deer emerged; then, within seconds, a bunny rabbit hops out.  One eating tree leaves, the others eating grass.  After several minutes of watching ( and more "Daddy do somethings"), the deer eating grass nearly stepped on the bunny, and he hopped over to the other side of the trail.  But apparently there was something about the taste of "grass recently sat upon by rabbits", and the deer ended up running her nose right up the bunny's butt!!!  I swear to God, this really happened.  Like anyone who's been suddenly goosed by a deer, the bunny sproinged about a foot up and a yard down range (0.3 m up and 0.9m downrange for you metric people).

After this, a third deer appeared in the brush, but soon everybody, having had their good laugh at Mr. Bunny, wandered away.  Scrappy soon walked over to his usual spot, flopped down with an unusually hard thud, and we were done for the night.

This morning, he was almost at his full level of piss and vinegar, wanting to play ( Daddy wisely making him just play fetch rather than the usual tug) before I went to work, and actually barking at me ( although shaking his head still eluded him).  This afternoon, he's basically normal, but will have to do with three pills every 12 hours and watered-down food for a while.

STUPIDITIES, STUPIDITIES

Okay, those of you that have hung around long enough know I love lampooning stupidity.  Whether it be the guy that tried to rob a bank in a clown costume or the dude that thinks he's been sent back in time by the government and was at Gettysburg as a child (Both of these true stories I've featured before), I have had a fun time with idiots.  But you may have noticed that I've laid somewhat back on that train of fun lately.  It's not because there aren't as many stories out there, but the fun has went out of a lot of it because of the sheer

STUPIDITY

 

 

of the people I am sharing this planet with.  Not the kinda stupidity where you sit back and say, wow, that guy was kind of a dumbass.  But sheer, this is what I believe and I'm going to make everyone go along with it, liberal crap that makes me wish I could just crawl in a hole and divorce myself from society.  I'm about to rant about this topic, but there will be some other stuff at the end, if you wanna stick around.

 

 

EXAMPLE ONE: Going chronologically, how about we start with the Jason Collins story.  For those out of the loop, he is a pretty minor NBA basketball player who made news by coming out as gay- the first such player in major American sport.  Me, I don't care.  Half the world thinks he's just the bravest thing, and the other half think he did it to ensure he'll get an NBA paycheck next year, whether it be a paycheck or a discrimination settlement.  Whatever.  What gripes me is that former Collins coach Doc Rivers made a comment that sideways compared what he did to Jackie Robinson.

 

WHAT A LOAD.  Robinson and people like him fought hatred of a kind Collins has never imagined.  And guess what, there was no "closet" to hide in for them, no way to hide at all.  And it was everywhere they looked, no matter how they acted or attempted to fit in.  And for Robinson, IT WASN'T A LIFESTYLE CHOICE.  Rivers, a black man himself, should be ashamed of thinking of Robinson and Collins in the same thought.

 

 

EXAMPLE TWO: Lady Liberty continues to lift her lamp beside the golden door, and contemporary thought tells us we should give EVERY chance for immigrants to live the American Dream.  "Oh, no," you say, rolling your eyes at another let's build a fence story.  But that's not what I'm about this time.  Do you realize that even though at one point I was in a trailer that I lost because the park raised the lot rent past my paycheck, let alone the trailer payment, I would have been turned down for section 8 housing, welfare, food stamps, because "I made too much" (read, I didn't know how to scam the system).  However, the family of the Tsarnaev boys, who "didn't understand America" and "had no friends" and thus felt they should go on a multi-city bombing spree, got all that.  Food stamps, TAFD cash, welfare, Section 8- over $110,000 in various aid, not counting another almost $5,600 given to older brother and current corpse Tamerlan to attend college on the taxpayer dime.  Yes, this would be the same guy that we were warned about by two different nations, along with his mother (who has a warrant out on her), father (an anti-government activist), who flew under the radar despite all this PLUS trips to terrorist vacation havens like Daghestan PLUS friends at UM-Dartmouth who had a license plates that read TERRORISTA 1 (and what brain surgeon let THAT go through?).  Do we REALLY think our intelligence community is stupid enough to let this go by like they allegedly did Benghazi- or is there someone who, in his relentless quest to be PC, just-didn't-listen?

 

 

EXAMPLE THREE:  Now the morning-after pill, after the fact contraception, has been allowed for 15-year -old girls, without a prescription, without a parent's permission.  All involved tell us this is a great day for women (despite the fact that a 15 y-o isn't physically or mentally a woman).  But here's what grinds me is that some spokeswitch for the Center For Reproductive Rights (whose slogan is apparently "old enough to pee, old enough for me") said that they wanted all such "arbitrary restrictions" on "women" lifted.  Why yes, why not let six year old girls have legal sex?  Another CNN news "person" spoke about how many "women" are denied such protection "because they can't get to the pharmacy before they close, or a pharmacy is too far away".  We live in a nation where a 24-hour pharmacy is a 10-minute drive away, and you could probably pick out three regular ones from your roof and hit each with a rock; where the hell does she live?

 

EXAMPLE FOUR:  The Pentagon has bowed to pressure from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and banned proselytizing- thus theoretically they will court martial any chaplain bold enough to do his job.  “Someone needs to be punished for this,” Weinstein told Fox News. “Until the Air Force or Army or Navy or Marine Corps punishes a member of the military for unconstitutional religious proselytizing and oppression, we will never have the ability to stop this horrible, horrendous, dehumanizing behavior.”

 

Sharing the good news of how to attain Eternal life- horrible, horrendous, de-humanizing behavior.  And giving children birth control, allowing ambassadors to be murdered and innocent people to be bombed, and glorifying those who engage in behavior which, no matter what you think of the person, is against nature's intent, those things are A-OK.  Of course, as we learned from Doc Rivers, gays, and probably atheists, are horribly oppressed.  Thank God they have someone like the ACLU to prevent all those life-draining Christmas creches, crosses, and prayers.

EXAMPLE FIVE:  A family in (I bet you'll be surprised) Kentucky gave a five year old boy a .22 rifle for a present on his birthday.  Today, he shoots his two-year old sister dead.  Now, you tell me who is the idiot here- the parent or the gun?  You don't need a gun ban, you need a simple intelligence test before you give people access to dangerous things like guns and ballot boxes.  I imagine the bereft family is trying to sell the two year old's supply of morning after pills on eBay.


Yeah, maybe the world wasn't so great when I was a kid.  Maybe we don't need all these sticky moral rules.  Maybe it wasn't so innocent, or so easy, or so kind as I like to remember.  But at least it wasn't this fricking

STUPID!

 

 

 

______________________________________

 

 

Okay, rant done.  Scrappy went in today for a simple tooth cleaning, and now he's recovering from having 7 teeth pulled!  Waiting for a call to go pick the poor little guy up.

 

 

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Finally after about 48 hours, the AIHL website posted the box on Sunday's Perth/Melbourne Ice matchup that the Ice won 9-3.  It was native Aussie Joe Hughes who got a hat trick and added an assist to lead Melbourne, and it continues to look like a long year for Thunder goalie Michael Smart.  Right now, I bet he'd change the team's slogan from "the West against the rest" to "you and  me against the world."

 

 

And on the subject of said website, I decided to write them:

 

I am an American doing a blog that frequently features world hockey.  I have been trying to do a good job on your league, but your site’s ability to get box scores posted does no one any favors.  For example, the Sunday Perth/Ice matchup is still not posted 36 hours later!  However, there’s little I can do as your country’s newspapers have no idea you even have a hockey league.  Public recognition is the first step in league development.  I am trying to help, but am dependant upon you not to shoot yourselves in your own foot.  Sincerely, CW Martin

 

 

 

And I actually got a response- hoo boy!

 

 

 

CW, thank you for your interest in the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL). We will add you to our media distribution list so you receive the box scores, summaries, and access to photos each Monday.

 

To keep up with all the action and participate in our communities, please join us on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Kind regards,

 

Robert Bannerman

Australian Ice Hockey League 

 

 

 

 

How about that?  Now I'm a semi-official media person for the Australian Hockey League!  Tell you what, dudes, you get the boxes to me, I'll do ya proud!