Memorial Day Weekend 2009

The Mansions of the Lord
lyrics, Randall Wallace; music, Nick Glennie-Smith

To fallen soldiers let us sing
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the Mansions of the Lord

No more bleeding, no more fight
No prayers pleading through the night
Just divine embrace, eternal light
To the Mansions of the Lord.

Where no mothers cry and no children weep
We will stand and guard though the angels sleep
Through the ages safely keep
The Mansions of the Lord.

And to all those who are serving or who have served in our armed forces who are not among the fallen, God bless you as well.

Go placidly amid the noise and waste…

…And remember what comfort there may be
In owning a piece thereof
.

The internet is often very nearly a grab bag of stupidities, false “information” and outright lies, but if one has a decent basic education (a rarity nowadays *sigh*), the ability to read and actually comprehend the language of ones birth and the rudiments of research and filtering capabilities, it is also a rich, rich resource for learning. No, not Wikipedia, although it too has its uses for folks with enough basic knowledge and filtering skills to be able to throw the bullshit flag with authority. No, I’m talking about such gems as the MIT Open Courseware, Project Gutenberg, The University of Chicago Press online books and a myriad of other less easily found but profoundly enlightening sites.

A new discovery for me is the “education” links Gary Garriton has posted at his website that promotes his sample libraries and software. Imagine: a resource anyone who writes music can find valuable, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Principles of Orchestration, available as an interactive tutorial, complete with sound samples that are drawn from the score samples in the book. Anyone who writes music would almost have to salivate over the prospect of having an interactive Principles of Orchestration right on their desktop! Oh, my! Nice! Sure, the book’s now in paperback (not so in my days as a student) and remarkably inexpensive, but the setup at Garriton’s site, complete with forum for discussion, is much more valuable than isolated study.

Anyone interested in learning how to write better music would be well served by hieing themselves over there and getting on with it.

Testament of Freedom

Rosemary’s post, “Religion and Politics Don’t Mix?” brought Randall Thompson’s setting of some Thomas Jefferson letters to mind the other day, and I thought I’d post a short snippet of a performance of the first number in the work to hopefully entice some readers into purchasing copies of their own. Yes, I’ll link to an Amazon.com page featuring a decent recording of the work, but no I’m not including my Amazon.com linky stuff to get credit for any purchases… because I just want folks to look and perhaps buy and listen to the piece.

I have some small quibbles with the otherwise very credible performance I’ll link, but I cannot be certain whether the sloppy consonants are the vocalists’ fault or something lost in the performance/recording space or lossy compression in the download. So, I’ve included the text to the music Randall Thompson scored both above the snippet and below the fold in order that the text be clear.

Here’s the snippet of “The God Who Gave Us Life, Gave Us Liberty”–the signature opening number of Randall Thompson’s The Testament of Freedom

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them.”

Or, if the media player doesn’t work for you, here:

The God Who Gave Us Life, Gave Us Liberty at the Same Time

Continue reading “Testament of Freedom”

“Consider the dandelions of the field… “

A repeat of this post from my old Blogspot third world county blog (it’s been imported here as well… somewhere *heh*) is long overdue, IMO.


A brief exposition on Matthew 6:28-29

01_dandelions1

“Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Weeds are mostly in the eye (and heart) of the beholder. Let me submit for your consideration the lowly dandelion.  Was there ever a more beautiful yellow, a more deliciously luscious green? What a feast for the eyes! And yet, our culture considers the dandelion to be a pest plant; not merely useless, but something to be eradicated. *sigh* Useless? Every part (excepting the seed puffball) of the dandelion is edible.  The greens cleaned and steamed or boiled are not only tasty but highly nutritious.  The root, after cleaning, peeling and then blanching, boiling or roasting is also highly nutritious and useful in many ways. And even the yellow bloom is nutritious and a treat for both the eye and the tastebuds in salads.

And what can I say of dandelion wine? 🙂

And, as much as our society spends to eradicate this nutritious food and lovely flowering plant, it thrives in spite of all the poisons thown its way.  And have you ever attempted to pull a dandelion to get rid of the “weed”?  Unless you get every last piece of the root, it’s more than likely to simply grow back. Lilies of the field? Nah. 

“Consider the dandelions how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

No matter how our society’s warped values may deem the dandelion to be an obnoxious weed, children who are as yet unpolluted by the depraved value system that would deem such a radiently bold and beautiful flower a weed, bring their mothers glad bouquets of dandelions every spring.

Real Hope for Real Change

A quick drive by post…

Over at Moonbattery, I ran into this hopeful comment:

…if Jimmy Carter could create a big enough backlash to give us Reagan, four years of Comrade Obama should be sufficient to bring James Madison back from the grave.

By jove, I think there’s some hope there! *heh* (Heck, I’d “settle for” John Hanson)

Not Intentionally Offensive

OK, so I had some time at lunch I didn’t plan on.

[Please note the subjunctive mood.]

Thinking on the differences between a society where Sharia “law” is paramount and a free society where offensive opinions can be openly uttered and even more offensive questions asked, one wonders what would be the reception in each of those societies to someone who would ask an outrageous question such as,

If one were to desire such a thing, how would one say, “Mohamed was the offspring of a diseased dog impregnated by a drunk pig” in Arabic?

Just wondering, that’s all.


Also wondering how long it will take before Janet Napolitano’s deliberately illiterate goon squad will be by to give me a lobotomy for asking such questions…

twc Hiatus

This week, I may take most of the week off from blogging. Adding helping some young folks get a house ready to move in is going to take some extra time, and because of the rains (“May showers bring May flowers”? It’s a twist on the old “April showers” thing… :-)), I’m also way behind on yardwork. Those two lil added pleasures (OK, the helping with drywall, etc., is a real pleasure) will mean that most of this week will be a “Write your own twc posts” via linkfests. So, no snark, no politics, no compy posts, no music or YouTube videos, no railing against the coming of the night for Western Civilization. *heh*

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Whoo-Hoo! (a little joy in Mudville)

Bits n pieces:

Rainy, rainy day. Squirrels line-dancing on power lines, lots of lightning and thunder and hail and rain and nearby tornado… and the power only went down three times. Cable was out for what I believe was about six or so hours (I left after it went down and it was still down when I checked back in). But all’s well. Managed shutdowns on UPS-ed computers, so no real biggie.

Windows 7RC. What can I say? A mixed bag. Although with the ratings changes in the “Windows Experience” index this computer jumped up more than 3 points on the scale, Win7 seems much more sluggish. Notsogood. OTOH, everything works well overall, and… Windows Server Powershell is now included! (Whoo-hoo!) I had missed that before, although I assume it was probably in the earlier beta. Sure, most folks won’t use the command line much, but this is a power users’ command line. Like it. Some other good and notsogood things about this Win7 iteration, but I’ll either remark on them later or not. Who knows?

Mock stroganoff tonight. Just hamburger, onion, garlic, LOTS of freshly-ground pepper and some freshly-grated nutmeg with sour cream and the old standby shortcut, cream of mushroom soup. It’ll be fine over rice, and it’s a quick (less than 15 minutes’ prep time) and easy dinner. Some frozen mixed veggies steaming in a basket on top of the rice in the Wolfgang Puck rice cooker. Easy-peasy.

Gonna hit the sack early this p.m. Pooped puppy.

Hawaii’s Legislators Are Idiots

So, our 50th State (not 60th or whatever as The 0! would have it) has passed a bill to set aside a day in honor of Islam, because of “the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions” that Muslims have made to the world.

Pardon me while I throw the bullshit flag.

Muslims are credited (falsely) with so-called “Arabic” numerals invented by folks in the subcontinent of India hundreds of years before The Butcher of Medina raped his first victim. When were they put into use by the Islamic world in general, instead of being merely a toy for uncreative Muslim “scholars” and superstitious astrologers to use? Not until well after the same system had percolated into the West by other means and started being used for real life applications.

Muslims are (falsely) credited with the creation of algebra. Well, in a sense. We use the Arabic word for it, but that’s all. The mathematical principles of algebra had been known for nearly a millennium before The Butcher of Medina ordered his first mass murder. And what, pray tell, did Muslims use this valuable tool for? Scientific purposes? Nope. It was used hand-in-hand with the soi dissant “Arabic” numerals in astrology–more superstition from a people who have never seen a scientific principle they could grasp.

And so it goes. Every single meaningful, positive “contribution” the Islamic world has made has been something it stole from another culture and squirreled away somewhere doing no one any good whatsoever… until Western minds put it to use.

Now, that said, there was one genuine genius Muslim in the 12th century known for his analytical skills. He wrote extensively on Muslim law, Islamic philosophy (such as it is), art and music (if you can call Muslim noises “music” then you probably think rap is music too). But Averroès one great contribution to the world, THE one upon which his fame truly and genuinely rests, was his attempt to explain the thinking of Aristotle to the Muslim world. That’s right. His one truly great contribution was a commentary on the writings of the quintessential Western Civilization “unbeliever”. But make no mistake: his analysis and commentary on one of Western Civilization’s greatest minds is still worthwhile. Nothing really creative, though. Not a “contribution” that, given Aristotle’s surviving writings, the world could not have come to on its own, but still, a nice enough little thing for an academic to publish.

And what else has Islam “contributed” to the world? In emulation–direct discipleship–of Islam’s self-proclaimed “perfect man”, and in faithful adherence to his teachings, Islam has contributed mass murder, slavery, treachery, rape, pillage, pedophilia, and more, consistently, continually, without end from Mohammed’s first order to his followers to commit mass murder to this day.

Hawaii’s state legislators are idiots.


BTW, with a little homework of your own, you can debunk all of Islam’s “great contributions”–and if you do it yourself, you’ll OWN the knowledge that Islam’s “contributions” to the world are a sham, a big zero with the rim kicked off.


Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Leaning Straight Up, Allie is Wired, The World According to Carl, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.