Not the Martin World News... just the Martin Op/Ed

So I'm sitting here Tuesday afternoon, weighing my options on watching my sugar (Doctor:  new medicine, glucose meter, LOSE THE DAMN WEIGHT) while drinking a Pepsi (in my defense, a 20 oz bottle that I have been sipping on for the last 7 hours) and recovering from a prostate "where's Waldo" that coulda found the food I'll eat tomorrow, and reading my News 360 feed.  And it struck me, I could talk about this crap, and it might be cathartic and entertaining, and I might just stumble upon a reason to remain on this earth until my next exam in January.

So, here goes.

ITEM:  The FDA has removed "four major brands" of cigarettes from the domestic market for not being up to code.  You can decide if "Camel Crush Bold, Pall Mall Deep Set Recessed Filter, Pall Mall Deep Set Recessed Filter Menthol and Vantage Tech 13" qualify as "major brands".  Youse guys lined up at the fence in Hungary, keep lighting up.

ITEM:  Asylum seekers continue to build up at said Hungarian border with Serbia, as Hungarian forces put up razor wire discouragers and the two governments involved continue to play blind man's ping-pong with the poor unfortunates.  Can't blame Hungary:  Every country with an acre abutting Germany has also slammed the door shut, as has Germany after Munich cried uncle on Sunday.  Migrants are said to be holding up "Shame on Europe". signs.  Screw that, shame on YOU!  Go back and help make YOUR OWN nations something other then the festering holes they are, instead of abandoning ship and making someone else's country a festering hole.  The EU is now trying to demand that every member state take a quota of these people, to which Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland have said, "DIY", as they have no interest in moving from hole to festering hole status.

As these are mainly Muslim refugees (as opposed to the Christians who were left to die in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt), I say, why not stay in the lovely Muslim nations of Turkey, Kosovo, or Bosnia that you passed through on the way to Hungary?  Oh, right, they're festering holes too.  Funny how that works.


ITEM:  " Secretary of State John Kerry has made his third phone call to his Russian counterpart in the last 10 days, a State Department official said, seeking to clarify the intent of Moscow's military buildup in Syria..."  Uh, John, try looking up the years 1945-1989.  I know they didn't teach the facts where YOU went to school, so it might help you understand.  Or not.

Maybe your buddy Al Gore can help you.  He invented that internet thing...

ITEM:  "During a town hall Tuesday, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook is responding to years of demand from users who simply aren't satisfied with the "like" button alone. Zuckerberg didn't confirm whether the feature would officially be called "dislike" or specify when it would be rolled out. "  Wow, maybe I found that reason...


ITEM:  GE announces 500 jobs going overseas, claims it's Congress's fault.  Oh, because taking that extra mouthful of refritos away from Pedro every week can be more efficiently done in Mexico because of Congress?  You realize when you stand before the Lord, that won't cut it as an excuse...


ITEM:  Taco Bell is moving into opening "Cantinas", serving an expanded menu along with alcohol.  Yeah, tacos AND wine?  For me, they better put Kaopectate in their fun meals.


ITEM:  "North Korea said on Tuesday its main nuclear complex was operating and it was working to improve the "quality and quantity" of weapons which it could use against the United States at "any time." "  Yeah, well when they annex Santa Barbara so they can hit the US of A with anything other than an e-mail attack, I'll get right to worrying.


"(Ass't. SecState Daniel) Russel said North Korea should "unclench its fist" and the only path open to it was through international negotiations to ensure denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

I didn't think that's what they had clenched, but whatever.


ITEM:  Oh, yeah, and the one I forgot about from last night.  Mexico is demanding an apology from Egypt after forces hunting down potential terrorists bombed a convoy of Mexican tourists.  The phrase "Only in America" means less every day...

Now, Daddy's turn

I have a scheduled Doctor's appointment in about an hour and a half, so I took half a day off.  Thankfully, work managed to cram a full day's worth of stress into about the first 50 minutes (I told the guy at the gas station that had I stayed the whole 8, my BP would have been 500 over 250), but that's a story best left untold.  So Scrappy and I took a long walk on a beautiful day, and here are the results.

Lotsa honeybees...

Scrappy gets swooped by a white butterfly (center)

Now, it's nice when I get a good shot like that, but for every really pretty shot...

You get a bunch of clunkers....

Trying to get a butterfly (little yellow spot)

Close up of Scrappy sniffing (a mite too close)

But we trudged on...

Suddenly, Scrappy insisted we head for high forest.  In we went, out we went, in we went, and then we found his "prize"...

Yep, dead raccoon, newly blown, complete with maggots.

This red-tail hawk lives near the alumni pond.  He just landed moments before.

Time for a dip in the river... so to speak.

Then a quick rest break.  There's the barn from ground level...

I thought I missed that Monarch...

...but nope, there he is!

And the grass from ground level.

And old man from ground level.

No fall colors yet... Bobby, circle 17th and 18th of next month.  Hopefully Ma Nature will co-operate with Laurie's vacation.

What're you bugging me for?

Woof, ruff, werf

That is to say, Hi, it's me, Scrappy Beagle.  Dad's watching football so he's letting me tell you about our walk Sunday.  It was such a pretty day, and we did something we hadn't done in a long time, which I'll get to in a second.  But first...

This was the closest we ever got to him before he flew off.  Usually Dad has to REALLY zoom to take a picture, but this bird was in a Sunday daze.

Dad stops and takes pictures of all sorts of weird things.


Then we did what I was talking about before- we went to The Spot!

For you guys that don't know The Spot, it is the hardest to get to place in our woods.  When we camp out here, NO ONE can find us!

Then we ran into these three deer a couple of times.  I told Daddy they went north, and I was right!  We took the back road and came out above them.  Huh?  Oh, yeah.  Daddy only got pictures of two of them.

Someday I'm gonna hide that camera...


(Note from Daddy:  You didn't seem to mind when Jessica took your picture....

Yeah, well, uhmm, that is....

Sunday message: It starts with praise

The other day, I hit a verse that really said a lot about my lack of victory over sin.  It was at the end of Psalm 61:


Psa 61:8  So I will sing praise to Your name forever, so that I may daily pay my vows. 


A lot of translations (I use e-sword so I can compare) leave out the "so" in that, but it is really the critical word here.  The effort of praising God is what wins access to the grace that keeps our promises.  That's why Jesus put it first in the prayer He taught the Apostles.  But praise is a funny thing.  Inside the group, singing with the choir, offering a sweet sound up to God, that is where praise is easy.  But how about at 5 AM when you're just waking up, trying to get ready for work, silencing the latest earworm, trying to forget the dream that just got interrupted?  Without that choir backing you, sometimes "praise" sounds hollow, repetitious... incomplete.

Words.

This week, Bobby G. unwittingly named my Tuesday not once, but twice.  On Tuesday, he put it this way:

First off of the porch is our WHO SAID THAT? quote of the week:
"Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking."
I think this makes a good case for WHY some people fail - the incorrect manner of thinking weighs them down, and causes them to make bad choices.


And I DID have that.  I made every little thing into a life-or-death, heaven-or-hell argument with God.  And what sucked was, I KNEW I was doing it.  I kept telling myself, this is all on you- you're making big deals out of little ones. And moments later, the next three bad things would happen, and I was right back at it again.

And just so I wouldn't forget it, Bob laid it out on me (unwittingly again) the next day:

Most times, the complexities of people are exacerbated by their own selves...THEY make things harder without any outside influence.   OUCH.


So how do you get out of the funk?  Jesus gave the answer- Praise.  I listened to Tony Evans early Saturday morning.  He talked about the procedure for accessing grace.  Grace, or blessings, is like a bank account.  Everything God's ever going to give you is already in it.  Faith is the means by which we make "withdrawals."  And obedience is the characteristic that makes it a faith that has the right "password" to access the account.  Put another way, he explained.  Say you have a pain.  First you try to take care of it yourself, with OTC medicine.  But if that doesn't work, you have to see the doctor.  He runs a battery of tests, and writes you down a prescription you can't understand.  So you take it to the pharmacist.  You trust him to give you the right drugs to alleviate the problem.  But spiritually, many times we ignore the obedience part- instead of "taking two every four hours", we might take two every four days.  And then wonder why nothing's changed.

So then the procedure is obedience which activates faith, and then faith activates grace.  And at least one of the obediences I struggle with is praise.  Not because I forget to/don't make time to/ don't want to praise, but because my human mind doesn't get past the idea of, "How do you tell the omnipotent creator of everything from the smallest particle to the largest galactic cluster how great He is in such a way that He doesn't just say, yeah, I know?"

How do you?  Bow down before Him, eventually you nod off.  Think back on what He has done and where He's been for you, and you drift into Thanksgiving- what He does for you rather than what He is.  Sing a song- how many verses of Holy Holy Holy do you know before you have to repeat?

So then do you try to analyse, until you get to, "so why does a God need worship, anyway?"  Answer, He doesn't.  And there lies the problem.  Coming to Him, wanting to do the right thing say the right words, give Him what He needs... when He doesn't NEED anything.  Praise isn't a need of God's, it's a need of OURS.  Young lovers get it.  Sometimes you just look into the other one's eyes when you can't express what you feel.  And it's enough.

And if all you need to say to God is, "Wow, you're awesome,"  and that covers it, then that's it.  No need to try to find old hymn books or turn a bunch of regular words into a bigger bunch of three dollar words.

After the debacle that was my Tuesday, a text of a Bible passage by a friend made me think, you know, maybe if I had a Bible verse to concentrate on when these brain spasms occur, it might help me.  So I found a random verse generator on my work computer, and Friday I tested it out.  Here's what I got:

Pro 17:22  A merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. 


Isn't that cool?  But like I told my buddy Bob, the day it comes up John 11:35, I'm getting a sick pass and going home.

Time machine week 40

Today, we fly to September 11th, 1962.  We whiz past the birth of Kristy McNichol (hah, hah, you're 53 just like me!), listen to Nikita Khrushchev warning the world that an attack on Cuba meant world war, and then settle on a recording studio where a basically unknown act calling themselves the Beatles were making a second attempt at recording their first single in the UK- a two sided disc with Love Me Do and PS I Love You.  Producer George Martin was running late, so he told his man Ron Richards to take the reins- and Richards decided Ringo Starr wasn't good enough and had studio man Andy White play drums.  Ringo gamely played maracas on the first and tambourine on the second.

C'mon, dude!  It got better...

Welcome to this week's Time Machine- a day when I was but 117 days old! And, the 275th actual Time Machine post over four volumes! So "Where were you in '62" for me was "in the bassinet pooping my diaper".  Our good friend Shady suggested I might do an American Graffiti themed post, but on research, I learned that only TWO songs on the AG soundtrack came out in 1962!  And BOTH of them got votes from the panel, though not enough to make the panel four.  So here's your quiz for the week which song- Booker T and the MGs' Green Onions, and the Beach Boys' Surfin' Safari- got the most points?  Answer coming later.

Also this week- a six degrees that starts with Elvis Presley asking permission to do a song from Ray Peterson; a twist on the unknown song; second most important, The lowest position on the national chart for a song in the panel four; and most important- a panel #1 setting a record that may never be broken- NINE number one votes and 52 points!  So climb in the Woody (temporary panel job on the Tardis this week) and away we go!


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The record setting panel for this week include WTUF Mobile, WSAI Cincinnati, KRLA Los Angeles, WARM Wilkes-Barre, KOTN Pine Bluff, WABC New York, WYRE Pittsburgh, WGH Newport News, WPOP Hartford, KRUX Phoenix, WNIA Buffalo, and KDWB Minneapolis.  These stalwarts posted 21 different songs, including the number one in Newport News, Jimmy Clanton's Venus In Blue Jeans.  Jimmy had one of the three number one votes that didn't go to our winner.  In the meantime, here are the also-rans... er, runners up this week:

In just its second week on the national chart this week, giving us a lowest ever national position on the panel four at #57, with 13 points- Bobby Boris Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers and The Monster Mash.

With 21 points and the number one from Mobile, Nat King Cole with the national # 5, Ramblin' Rose.

With 26 points and the number one vote from Wilkes-Barre, the national #2, Tommy Roe's Sheila.

And at number one, with 9 number one votes, the national #1... stay tuned.

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This week, I'd like to do something a little different on the unknown song.  Since the story involves a not-so-unknown act, I'd like to tell the tale without the video- and save two videos for the Martin Ten at the end!  (Don't throw rocks until you hear 'em!)  Let me give you the interesting story though of the week's unknown song.

The tune comes to us from WARM in Wilkes-Barre, where their #4 was the national #26 according to Cashbox and peaked at #28 on Billboard.  It was by the Dion-less Belmonts.  Most people don't realize that Dion went solo after an incredible year-and-a-half run with the boys, that netted hits like I Wonder Why, No One Knows, and A Teenager In Love.  The Belmonts carried on after Dion's departure, with Carlo Mastrangelo singing lead, and they hit the charts without him 8 times, cracking the top 40 with Tell Me Why and the song in question- Come On Little Angel.  The sad part of the whole thing was that, according to one source, the Belmonts turned down a song about the time this one was charting, which would go on to be Dion's biggest hit- The Wanderer.

Yeah, I don't remember who's dumbbutt idea that was...

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And now, it's Bottoms Up time!

10- The previously mentioned Monster Mash at 57 after 2 weeks.

9- Frank Ifield's haunting I Remember You is also in its second week at 60.

8- Pat Boone is at 61, on the way down after 13 weeks, with Speedy Gonzales.

7- Recently making a Time Machine post, Marin Denny's take on A Taste Of Honey is at 70 after five weeks.

6- Tony Bennett Left His Heart In San Francisco, at 71 after nine weeks.

5- David Rose is on the way down after an 18-week run, with The Stripper at 72.

4- Sammy Davis, Jr sits at 73 after three weeks- actually, the chart position is the Cashbox agglomeration of discs from Davis and Anthony Newly- with What Kind Of Fool Am I.

3- Another tip of the hat to Laurie- her boy Jimmy Dean is at 75 in his debut week with Little Black Book.

2- Gene Pitney's classic Only Love Can Break Your Heart sits at 79 after 2 weeks.

And the top bottom...

... Ray Charles, still hanging in there with the song which was at #1 on my birthday, I Can't Stop Loving You!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was at 95 in it's 18th and final week on the chart.


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The six degrees starts off with Elvis asking permission to do a Ray Peterson song.

 "He [Elvis] asked me if I would mind if he recorded 'The Wonder of You.' I said, 'You don't have to ask permission; you're Elvis Presley.' He said, 'Yes, I do. You're Ray Peterson.'"

Peterson hit #25 in 1959... Elvis took it to #9 eleven years later.  Who's Ray Peterson, you say?  His big hit was the top ten from 1960, Tell Laura I Love Her.  That song was co-written by Jeff Barry, who has a buttload of credits to his name- but one of the more obscure was being the voice of Jughead when the Archies recorded.  Ron Dante, of course, was "Archie" (as well as the girls at times), as well as being the future long-time producer for Barry Manilow.  Among his collaborations with Manilow was Mandy, which featured saxophonist Artie Kaplan.  Artie played on a ton of records, including the highest charting song this week that got no love from the panel-  Neil Sedaka's original Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, which sat ignored at #6.


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And just before we move to the Martin Ten- Booker T beat out the Beach Boys, collecting a #4 from Cincy, a #5 from LA, a #4 from Hartford, and a #3 from Phoenix for 8 points, while Surfin' Safari got a #3 from LA and a #2 from Phoenix, for an 8-7 score.


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And now, the top ten this week:

10- I was recently perusing the solo lp from Alan Parsons from 2004, A Valid Path.  The song that stuck out to me was a composite of the first two songs on the Project's first lp, Tales Of Mystery And Imagination.  The song, renamed A Recurring Dream Within A Dream, comes in as a debut this week at #10.

9- Another song I pulled off Spotify's viral list is by a brand new band from Australia named Castlecomer.  Their lead single is called Fire Alarm, and it debuts at my #9.

8- King Harvest slides three more to #8 with Vaea.

7- Another debut comes to me from a Shady post you can check out here.  It was a melodical copy of the Shirelles top ten Foolish Little Girl.  It's by the Spandells, it's called The Boy Next Door, came out in 1964, and you can enjoy it  right here, right now (or on the link to Shady's digs):





6- Staus Quo slips three to #6 with our inaugural #1, You're In The Army Now.

5- A band I didn't know called Family Of The Year just released a new lp, and I was going to feature their lead-off single from it here.  I really was.  But the thing of it is, I got looking back and found their big hit so far, a tune that hit the top of the Adult Alternative chart and 12 on the main Alternative chart.  It's called Hero, and you'll be hearing it here in the next week or two.  For now, it is our high debut at #5.

Let me go

I don't wanna be your hero

I don't wanna be a big man

Just wanna fight like everyone else

Your masquerade

I don't wanna be a part of your parade

Everyone deserves a chance to

Walk with everyone else...

4- NRBQ slips out of the top spot to #4 with Ridin' In My Car.

3- Adam Lambert noses up one more spot to #3 with Ghost Town.

2- Our runner up moves up 4 to #2 in just its second week in the ten.  Beach House with Space Song, and you can hear it here.

And that leaves us with our number ones...

On the Martin Ten, Weezer moves into the top spot this week with Island In The Sun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And our survey's new all time king....

...One of my top two all time, the Four Seasons and Sherry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next week, well... 1979.  But it only comes once each cycle!  Tune in next time!

On the bright side, she gave me something to blog about

So a co-worker and FB friend decided to comment on the migrant crisis in Europe.  For those of you out of the loop, it goes like this:  Germany announced they would be willing to take Syrian refugees from the civil war/ISIS attack.  However, the path these migrants chose included clumping through Hungary, which really didn't have the resources to deal with them.  Chaos ensued, and the EU woke up to the realization that Germany had blundered them into a real mess.  As an intelligent person, my friend realized the potential for mayhem in allowing migrants into your nation unimpeded.  So she wrote a post based around this cartoon:

A FB friend of hers then berated her, saying this was "just as ignorant" as saying all Mexican migrants are terrorists or criminals (which neither my friend nor the cartoon says), and posited that this "racism" showed "hatred in her heart."  Needless to say, I hadda put in my two cents- that she needed to actually read the post and the cartoon, that they both had a valid point.  The lady then once again pointed out what we were all agreed on- that not all Muslims are terrorists- and went on to blame it on US because we didn't finish setting them on the straight and narrow after our war on terror.  To which I expressed that THEY need to take some responsibility for the sh!t sandwich they currently live in- they're the ones that let the dirtbags that run/ran their nations IN charge, and maybe they should straighten out their countries rather than playing rat-and-sinking-ship.  I even agreed that "you shouldn't hate a whole people on the actions of a few".

At this point, she excused herself, calling an intelligent discussion "a troll fest".  (After I explained to her what a troll was, she rescinded that term, choosing to go with she thought it was "when people not in the discussion enter the discussion."  I apologized for not seeing the (this person only) button.

But now, let me bring up the points she couldn't quite grasp.

Germany has basically been caught making promises for the whole EU yet again.  Guess what?  Hungary had neither the resources nor the interest in being the sidewalk from Syria to Germany.  Police had little choice but to react violently while the government tried to figure out what to do and Germany stood by with one thumb firmly up their ass.

They weren't the only ones.  Just today, Denmark cut all rail ties with Germany to prevent their becoming the migrant wave's walkway to Sweden.  Even if you remove the consideration of terrorism, no country wants to, or should be subjected to, an invasion of their sovereignty because of the promises of a neighbor.  Germany and Sweden want to take in refugees, fine.  Good for them.  PROVIDE THEM AN EGRESS THAT DOESN'T SCREW OVER YOUR NEIGHBORS.


Next up, let's discuss these alleged "refugees".  A BBC article I read a few days back when this all got started (Tip to the lady commenter:  Try looking at some REAL news sources.  Become informed.) said that the hedges and bushes at the Serb/Hungarian border were littered with IDs from Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other known hotbeds of terrorist thought, discarded after receiving fresh new Serbian made fake Syrian IDs that would get them into Germany.  So you want me to trust that most/many/any of these refugees are legit?

Please confine your answers to the current discussion

And what about the people getting in?  One refugee when interviewed told BBC he blamed the US and Europe for what was happening in his homeland... so where does he move to?  Yeah.  This isn't about fear or principles.  This is a bunch of opportunists using the suffering of others as their way to go live somewhere where they don't have to eat camel pot pies every day.

The lady was right about one thing.  There are many of these people who are legitimately fleeing war, fleeing religious persecution.  I wish we could just close our eyes, click our heels, and give everyone of them a good home.  But like in everything else touched by fallen man, for everyone in legit need there are three douchebags either seeking a way to sneak in, or a place that should go to someone needy.  You can't just believe in the good in everybody- you never could.  And you can't say that when someone speaks out about a specific subset of a group (such as ISIS), they are being hateful to the WHOLE group.  That flies about as far as those who call me racist because I oppose President Obama, because if you oppose a black president it HAS to be because he's black (Note: I opposed Bill Clinton too.  Does that mean I hate pervs?).

And you don't start a comment thread by calling someone ignorant or having a heart of hate and then hint that I'M a troll.

Happy Labor Day! While you weren't paying attention...

...I did manage to get some things accomplished.  One of them was something I had not ever done in my 53.31 years on the planet was this:

...I found my first 4-leaf clover!!!!!! Of course, it wasn't much of a challenge.  I had just stepped out of a huge bed of clover- and there it sat, about 2 feet away from any of the rest of the patch!  Stevie Wonder would have had a 40% shot at finding it, but I got there first,


Second, I finally got motivated to enter the beer caps given me by Bobby G into my vast collection!  To see that story, go hit the "Chris' Cap Collection" link at top right to peruse that long neglected blog for the post.


Third, I got several pictures from my niece through FB today.  Seems she was out in the old neighborhood and couldn't track down Mom and Dad's graves.  She tried to blame it on their "moving to Florida", of which I was a bit skeptical, because Dad never took Mom anywhere!  Nevertheless, I proceeded out to the land of my youth to look things over.

The old, not-so-familiar-anymore route down old US 30 to St Louis Besancon...

And there's Mom and Dad, right where I left them.  (See, I told you Mom's name was Ursula!)

A really nice cross, erected since I'd last been there.

I visited the rest of the family, including Grandma and Grandpa on Mom's side...

...and Dad's.

And there is the school I spent first through eighth grades at.  Kindergarten?  That's now the field on the other side of that cross I showed you.

And this is the house I grew up in.  More correctly, the building that USED to be the house I grew up in.  I left it to my ex in the divorce so she'd have a home.  She spent a four figure tax return on a trip to Florida instead of paying property taxes, and had to sell it for an eighth of what it was worth.  (Never mind that she'd have been evicted without knowing why had I not spotted the tax sale in the newspaper...)  But it needed massive remodeling, and the buyer accomplished it... to a point which I stood inside and could not tell where ANYTHING used to be.  But it's still a living and breathing home, with children playing, and that's what a home is for.

My niece had posted pictures of the house, too, and I'll admit I didn't know what I was looking at first.  That picture there is shy about eight big maple trees that are no longer there, an added on porch stands where cement steps used to be, and the window you see next to the light pole is where my bedroom was for 22 years.  The oak in the back is still one of the most massive trees I've ever known... an ancient burr oak that was 12 foot around at the trunk when I was still a toddler.  The second building behind the two car garage is where another big maple used to be.

In truth, they may be the things I miss most from back then... well, that and the two-holer outhouse that used to sit in the back corner.  Brings back a LOT of memories...