Around the world

 

So as a new adjunct to Martin World News, I present you with Around The World, where we will start at a random country and mention their big news- because you can get all the Inauguration news on your regular news sites!  Stop #1:

Vanuatu, which is having a "Western North Carolina" moment of its own.  Over a month since a 7.3 earthquake hit the capital of Port Villa, the central business district is still abandoned- since most of the buildings have been declared unsafe.  "The Recovery Operations Centre (ROC) yesterday  (January 16th our time) confirmed that they approved the work that will be carried out by New Zealand, Australia, and Japan engineers.  200+ businesses in 90+ buildings, along with hundreds of employees, are out of luck.

Trying to make moves of around 3,000 miles, we land next in:

Indonesia, where newly-elected President Prabowo Subianto is doing something no US President has matched since 2001- he has an 81% approval rating.  One reason why-

The so called “Nutritious Meals Program” is recognised as a flagship initiative of the newly elected President Prabowo Subianto which has been prioritized among the eight most important priorities for the current government. The program aims to fight against malnutrition and promote healthy eating via the delivery of high-quality school meals prepared with locally sourced ingredients, with a special attention to nutrition education, and food waste reduction activities. On its opening day, the program has served over 500,000 meals.

The program is meant to reach out to nearly 60 million schoolkids.  Among those other 8 goals is 8% annual economic growth.  Next up, as I try to maintain the same direction:  

Pakistan, where the big news concerns textbooks in the province of Punjab, which will for the first time contain stories of prominent women in the history of Pakistan.  Which, you might think given Pakistan's Muslim majority, would be controversial.  But apparently the controversy to THEM was that when a Punjabi politician announced it on social media, they ONLY mentioned a pair of Punjabi women- at which a journalist questioned why it was ONLY these two and not several others as well.  So the particular news site I went to did a fact check and found that the books would include- in addition to the two who got pictures in the book- at least 12 other women.  Tempest in a teapot time there.

Next on our journey...

Germany, where their ambassador to the US, Andreas Michaelis, was embarrassed by a leaked cable in which he was quoted:

Michaelis voiced serious concern about the future of US democracy, writing, "Fundamental democratic principles, along with checks and balances, will be largely undermined, the legislature, law enforcement and media will be robbed of their independence and misused as a political arm, and Big Tech will gain co-governing authority."

At this point the German foreign office has been silent other than saying that the US "is one of our most important allies".  But with their envoy quoted with such bon-mots as:

 ...Trump's policy "of maximum disruption, the breaking up of the established political order and bureaucratic structures as well as his plans for revenge ultimately mean a redefinition of the constitutional order..." 

I have few doubts that Ambassador Michelis will soon be seeing his credentials "revenged".

Meanwhile, we move on to...

Ghana, where I found that something that's all the rage in South Africa is hot there too- illegal mining.  An illegal (according to the government) group of 60 such cut through a security fence and engaged troops of Operation Halt II with "locally manufactured rifles, pump-action guns, gas cylinders, knives, heavy duty bolt cutters, axes, and machetes".  7 (or perhaps 8) of the invaders were killed.  A lot quicker solution than in South Africa, where the plan is, 'Let them go down the mine, then block them in until they are dead, starved out and arrested, or flooded out'.

We hop our next plane to:

Brazil, here the news gave President Lula a 'check-up'-

President Lula (PT) reached the halfway mark of his term having fulfilled 28% of the 103 promises he made during the 2022 electoral campaign, as cataloged by Folha. In 2023, this number was 20%.

Additionally, 29% of the promises are in progress, 25% have started but are advancing slowly, and 17% are stalled (the total doesn’t reach 100% due to rounding).

For context, Politifact currently lists the Biden scoreboard on 99 promises: 33% fulfilled (+5), 32% "compromised", 34% broken (Wondering if this included the "Not issuing pardons" promise he made to Jake Tapper and shattered beyond all recognition today), with 0s for "stalled" and "in the works".  I guess just under a third is all you can expect from leftist politicians.  And most of them, we really don't want anyway.  Moving on...

As we are now close enough to the Pacific, we have to suspend the 3,000 mile limit and jump 7.888 miles to...

Tonga, just 1,200 miles from our starting point.  So Tonga is dealing with a two-headed monster in the area of roads and traffic.  I guess that you have to declare how many vehicles you have, and then you also have to register them as well.  Problem #1:  There are almost 18,000 vehicles declared, but only about 3,300 registered.  An officer from the department of roads and traffic, said, "One possible explanation for this discrepancy could be the presence of unregistered vehicles..."

Ya think?

The second problem is that the roads are "broken".  So much so, every taxi is averaging one replaced (second hand) tire a month, and are refusing to make fares in the worst areas.  In a burst of typical Government action...

Matangi Tonga (the news site) asked officials at the Ministry of Infrastructure on 6 January 2025, for an interview about the state of the main roads in Nuku’alofa.

The CEO of MOI, Mr, Lopeti Heimuli required our questions to be sent in prior to the interview, which was then set for 7 January. However, on the day of the interview, the CEO sent us to the Director of the Department of Roads and Traffic, Mr Tevita Lavemai, who declined the opportunity to talk about the roads.

So, how is it in your world?

You call this a picture post?

 Well, I wouldn't, but it's all I got.  Between arctic blasts, work, and a mid-week case of having ZERO energy, all we got out for was Friday afternoon...

The remnants of our last snow

At this point, I was thinking how young Roald Amundsen didn't get started this way...

The gouge in the snow at dead center is doggie taking a bite of snow, repeated about every ten feet or so

This is me being too slow and groggy to take the picture before the squirrel moved on to the next tree

One lone disc golfer...

Tracks on the frozen creek at the bridge

Overlooking the Ravine

Some idiot took the time and energy to turn the "stay off the ice" sign the wrong way.

Snowplow gouged the yellow stripes off California Rd and deposited the fragments some 10 yards or so down the road

I'm guessing that funny set of tracks there (at the footbridge) came from the heron...

About as we reached the Swamp- about a mile and 3/4ths in- I started really dragging.  I copped a sit on one of the canal markers with about a half-mile to go before home.  And I got dizzy every time I looked up at a treetop, so I really wasn't in the best of shape for this.  But with Saturday being 'rain all day' and today being 'steadily falling temperatures into the ridiculous again', it was our only chance, and I am a good doggie Daddy.

M10 show week #149

 

Dude, I just read the best story about you- and now I know all this stuff about you not liking the Beatles was utter BS!

Yer crazy!  What're yew talkin' about!

Well it all starts with the song at #1 in Australia this week in 1975...

Say huh?

But I have 3 debuts this week, so I gotta go there first.  First at #9, this is one that's been hanging out in the shuffle for some time and finally squeaks in for the Linda Lindas...

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So my story begins when I looked up the #1 song in Australia this week, and found out it was a chap named Daryl Braithwaite doing a cover we in the US knew best by the 1977 Helen Reddy version- You're My World...

UH-oh... oh no...

...so I got curious and started digging.  A song that hit number one in many countries in many versions by many artists- Helen herself hit #1 in Mexico... a UK group named Guys'N'Dolls hit the top in Belgium and the Netherlands... a dude named Richard Anthony hit the top (in French) in France and (in English) in Spain.  Ria Bartok hit the Canadian French-Language chart #1.  But the poor guy who first came up with it, Umberto Bindi, never even got a hit out of it in his native Italy!

Well, that's a good story!  Why don't we lookit the other number ones?  Here, I'll even do it fer ya!  In the US it was Barry Manilow and Mandy, which hit the top in Canada, and 4 in Australia...

You KNOW you aren't getting out of things this easy, right?  So anyway, he wrote an English version that was given to Cilla Black, whom I am to understand my Big Buddy here kept the single on his personal jukebox...

Well, Pris loved it, an' they had the same actual first name...

...but here's where the story takes a bit of a turn... first, though, here's the debut at #8- which is another odd story.  Years ago, Roseanne Cash hit the top of the country chart with this song, and I knew after 3 notes, this was a Tom Petty song.  Thing is, I would have sworn I heard it on one of his lps- BUT IT WASN'T ON ANY OF THEM!  I searched for years, knowing I had to have heard the Heartbreakers do this song, but never finding it.  Then, a couple months ago, it was FINALLY released on an anniversary redeux of their Long After Dark album.  At long last, at #8- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers...

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Wow... that actually brought a tear....

And I sure hate to break the mood, but the story must go on.  August 27th, 1965...

Yew weren't never supposed ta find out about that....

...after three days of arranging it, the Beatles were introduced to Elvis at his Bel Air mansion...

The Beatles came in with Brian Epstein, their manager. They walked up to Elvis and were introduced, and Elvis sits down on the chair. The Beatles all sit down on the floor right in front of Elvis, in a semi-circle, and they look up and they are just gaping & staring at him.

There's this dead silence in the room until Elvis says, 'Well, what-the-hell, if you guys aren't going to talk to me I'm going to my bedroom'. And then everyone started to laugh and that broke the ice.

                                                           -ElvisAustralia: the Elvis Presley fan club

And the reason I found out about it:

"After a bit Elvis said, 'Somebody bring in the guitars'. Again one of his men jumped up, and within moments three electric guitars had been plugged into the amplifiers in the room. Elvis took a bass guitar, and I took a rhythm guitar. Elvis obviously wasn't that familiar with his instrument, so Paul gave him some instructions.

'Here's how I play the bass', he said, strumming a few chords. 'It's not too good, but I'm practicing'.

George was busy looking over his instrument, and it was a few minutes before he joined in. If I remember correctly, it was Cilla Black's hit record 'You're My World' that we first got off together."

                                                                      -John Lennon

Yeah, yeah, we had a li'l jam, Pris came out an' said hi, they invited me to go party with 'em, but that wasn't my thing.  Happy?

Ecstatic!  So now let me give you the high debut- it comes in at #6! Another delightful lady who's bopped around the shuffle a couple of time, here's Hana Vu:

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Well, sometimes the video helps the song, and...

An' that one helped if'n yer a Hitchcock fan...

Uh, yeah.  Might be a good time to bring up that the #12 in Canada this week in '75 was Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, by Elton John, with some help from Dr Winston O. Boogie, aka John Lennon....

Y'know, I got on pretty good with John... 

So I heard.  For my fave of the week, you don't have to go farther than Mandy at #1.  And the biggest mover- since it's something of a John Lennon week anyway- was his #9 Dream, climbing from 45 to 31.

All right, since ya did such a good job a' keeping humilarating me to a minimum, ah'll do the rest of the ten...

10- Midlake and Roscoe, down 3...

7- Maggie Rogers an' Don't Forget Me, also down 3...

5- Linkin Park's Cut The Bridge, up 2...

4- Geowulf an' Stay Baby, up 4...

3- an' holdin' Japanese breakfast an' Kokomo, IN....

2- finally out a' the top spot, Junior Senior an' Move Your feet...

and the new #1....

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And with that, we'll see you next time!

Wednesday Bible study: Abraham plank by plank part IV

 

Gen 12:1  Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 

Gen 12:2  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 

Gen 12:3  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” 

This is the second time God has spoken to Abram (that we know of from the Bible), and this time, he listens, and heads for Canaan.  And when he gets there, God speaks a third time:

Gen 12:6  Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 

Gen 12:7  Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.

Note: THIS land.  God is telling Abram, "You are there!"  This is where God wants him.  But...

Gen 12:8  From there he moved ...

Abram is really having a hard time getting the message.  So he moves a little farther down.  What was wrong with where God told him?  But he's not in trouble yet; he' goes to "between Bethel and Ai", still in the land, just about 20 miles south.  And he builds an altar and calls on the Lord.  But then...

Gen 12:9  And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb. 

Catch that?  "STILL GOING..."  Why?

I believe it is a matter of TRUST.  He's looking at a land that is okay... but surely God can do better?  Or maybe it's the famine conditions that are still drying out a land just 360-some odd years after the worldwide flood, three generations since the re-arrangement of the world in the days of Peleg.  Either way, for some reason, where God told him to stay put wasn't good enough, and he ended up...

Gen 12:10  Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 

Egypt.  I can think of, including this one, four times someone on God's heart went to Egypt- two on God's urging, two against His will.  Joseph led his family to Egypt under God's design, to let them grow as a people, before the utter dipstickery of the sons of Jacob- marrying Canaanites, sleeping with Dad's concubine, getting the daughter-in-law pregnant- undid all of His plans.  Mary and Joseph also took the child Jesus to Egypt on God's urging, to protect the child from Herod. 

But I want to look at the two that should NOT have happened, because we learn something of God's carpentry on Abram from them.  There are two main reasons to disobey God:  One is, you don't trust enough, and decide he needs YOUR help.  This was Abram's problem, and if you know the story, you know it takes a LONG time to get that fixed in him.  That other time came after Jerusalem fell, and the last king, Zedekiah, was dragged in chains to Babylon.  There were Jews left in Jerusalem.  and God through Jeremiah told them to trust the Babylon-appointed governor, Gedeliah.  If they stayed there and obeyed Gedeliah and the Babylonians, God would protect them.  But oh, no, they had to assassinate Gedeliah and run things their own way.  Even then, Jeremiah told them, "God will still help you just DON'T GO TO EGYPT."  And they replied, 

Jer 43:2  Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie. The LORD our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to live there,’ 

Jer 43:3  but Baruch the son of Neriah has set you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon.” 

Now it's time for US to practice trust.  For Jeremiah, as he was being dragged with them into Egypt, prophesied, 

Jer 43:9  “Take in your hands large stones and hide them in the mortar in the pavement that is at the entrance to Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah, 

Jer 43:10  and say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will set his throne above these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread his royal canopy over them. 

Jer 43:11  He shall come and strike the land of Egypt, giving over to the pestilence those who are doomed to the pestilence, to captivity those who are doomed to captivity, and to the sword those who are doomed to the sword. 

Jer 43:12  I shall kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them and carry them away captive. And he shall clean the land of Egypt as a shepherd cleans his cloak of vermin, and he shall go away from there in peace. 

Only thing is, if you listen to the experts, this never happened.  They know of Nebuchadnezzar attacking Egypt more than once- and failing.  BUT- one of those supposed failures occurred during a time of Civil War in Egypt- and a lot of details in the history are missing.  One of the sources I looked at mentioned a 40 year span of very cloudy history- and from his place among the earlier exiles to Babylon, Ezekiel backs up Jeremiah, predicting a 40-year destruction of Egypt- and both prophets claim Egypt would recover, which it did.  Don't let scientists scare you.  No one thought the kings of Israel were anything but myths until Ahab's name was found an an Assyrian monument in 1861; no one thought Troy was anything but a legend until Schleimann found it in 1871, and no one thought King Tut was real until Howard Carter found his tomb in 1922.

One day, perhaps, the evidence of Nebuchadnezzar's invasion will be found.  But if you trust in God, and you follow the true science that has confirmed nearly every other history the Bible has shown us, you will be one step ahead of Abram at this point, and be able to trust God with everything- even staying put in a famine.

The return of pictures

 So we did stagger out New Years Morning...

At least it isn't raining...

...sure looks like it could, though

Plenty of water in Misty's drinkin' holes

A new item in the field south of the Swamp.  What will this be?

Almost looks like a river again, but here it is, January 1st, and the river has frozen over twice, but no "Stay off the ice" sign.  Last year it was out before Thanksgiving...

Then came COLD weather, a return to work, and other such things, and so it is that it wasn't till this morning we returned to the trails...

...in the snow!

Now, the complex had been shoveled last night, but about another half-inch fell.  Here, though, we hit the "you're on your own" phase

"Look, NOW the ice sign is up!"

They actually shoveled the trail from PFW to the Holiday Inn...

Snowplow running down Coliseum

Snow-nose!  She eats snow the whole way

Purdue Logic:  Clean the sidewalk, but not the lot

More Snow-Nose-ing

First ones into the ravine trail

At this point, we're playing, "Your best guess where the trail is, winter edition"

Squirrel says, "Was that a right or left at Albuquerque?"

Big (White) Guy

M10 not-so-show week 148

 

Not so much of a show tonight mainly because I am starting round three of sneeze-a-thon '25 for today and have a doubt my humor would be anything but, well, snotty.  So A quick look at 1976, and this week's top ten.  I have one debut this week- and it debuts at 8 after just 2 listens, so you know this will soon be a contender for another #1 for this lady.  Here's new Geowulf...

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All right, lets have that look at this week in 1976!  First, what was #1? In Australia, ABBA was about to replace Mama Mia (which surprisingly Billboard peaked at 32 here- but played much higher here in Ft Wayne- and 18 in Canada) with SOS (My favorite of theirs, which got 15 here and 9 in Canada).

In Canada, they were about to replace KC and the Sunshine Band's That's The Way (uh-huh, uh-huh) I Like It (Also a #1 here and 5 in Australia) with the Bay City Rollers and Saturday Night (Again a #1 here, but a #45 in Australia).

And here, Cashbox was about to replace Barry Manilow's I Write The Songs (5 in Australia, 3 in Canada) with Diana Ross with the Theme From Mahogany- maybe my second favorite of all of hers (4 in Canada, 38 in Australia).  And the big movers this week on Cashbox include:

14 songs that moved up just one;

3 that moved up 2;

8 that went up 3 to 5;

and the top movers were a ten spot for Donna Summer's Love To Love You Baby, a #1 for Canada, 2 here, and 4 in Australia, that moved up to 14 this week;

and a 14- notch for Rhythm Heritage's Theme From SWAT, which topped North America and made #11 in Australia, dropping in at 33 this week.

AHH-CHHOOOOO!  Excuse me!  My favorite from this week in 1976 is a toughie- we were at the late end of my wheelhouse here.  But I would have to say this week I would have topped my chart with the song at #20...

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Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds (but really Dennison) took Winners And Losers to 18 on CB and 21 in Canada.  

Now, for the rest of the M10:

10- Robert Finley holds with Age Don't Mean A Thing.

9- down 2 in week #10 for the new member of the 4-way-tie-for 23 all time club, Lucinda Williams and While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

7-Up one for Linkin Park and Cut The Bridge.

6- down one for Midlake and Roscoe.

5- down 3 for Geowulf's other top ten song, Dreaming.

4- and holding for Maggie Rogers and Don't Forget Me.

3- Up a big 4 for Japanese Breakfast and Kokomo Indiana.

2- up one for the Cowsills and She Said To Me.

And still at the top for week #3:

...Junior Senior and Move your feet!!!!!

Well, I'm off to see if a shower might clear this stupid nose!  Have great weekend from lovely 19F (-7.2 C) Indiana!