I Think I'll Pass

A few days ago we got a flyer in our mailbox. (Isn't it illegal for people to put things in your mailbox?) It was from a neighborhood girl advertising her tutoring services. The large, bold-print attention grabber at the top of the flyer didn't bode well about what was to come:

Going back to School?

(For those of you in Rio Linda, California, "school" is a common noun and should not be capitalized here.)

A little further down the page, the young woman in question offers her contact information:

Call: 1-[555]-555-5555 and ask for _______

Two things here. First, the colon. Here's an easy rule to help avoid colon abuse: never use one after a verb or a preposition. (That last sentence is an example of how to correctly use a colon.)

Second, a phone number with area code is correctly written with either dashes OR parentheses separating the area code from the rest of the number. It is overkill to use both.

Back to the flyer. She who seeks students enumerates her areas of expertise:

I can tutor in:

Math (basic math, algebra I, advanced algebra, and geometry)

English (basic engilsh, Honors 8, 9, & 10, and AP 11)

Spanish

History

Science (including physics, biology, chemistry, and aerospace)

Art

Composition

There's that colon issue again. And might someone who is going to tutor in English be expected to know how to properly spell and capitalize it? And I would think someone who is going to tutor in composition would be familiar with the spell and grammar check functions in her word processing program? Regarding all those subjects, here's the rule: if it's the name of a general discipline (e. g. math, history, biology), it's not capitalized. If it's the name of a language, of course, it is. If it's the name of a specific course (Algebra I), it should be capitalized.

Here's the clincher:

I'm a senior at __________ High and am looking to use my academic skills to earn some extra cash. I have a GPA of 3.89 and have taken honors and AP courses.

And you wonder why we homeschool.

Don't Miss . . .

the latest installment of "Evan Essence" (see sidebar).

Two For the Price of One

Today my son and husband leave for Indianapolis and the Denker Tournament of High School Champions, in which my son is representing the state of Illinois. The Denker tournament is always held in conjunction with the U.S. Open, and Trevor is also entered in that event. So over the next nine days he will be playing something in the neighborhood of fifteen rounds of chess. All I can say is, better him than me!

Once the Denker portion of the tournament is completed, the other children and I will take over cheerleading duty so that my husband can return to paid employment--he takes that role rather seriously, you know? So since I'll be in the neighborhood, I'm planning a side trip to Fort Wayne next Tuesday/Wednesday for the Wisdom and Eloquence Homeschool Conference. Will I see a few of you there?

In addition to all the traveling for chess, my husband will be heading out to Nebraska next week to serve as the chief musician for a Doxology pastors' retreat. If you think of it, our family would definitely appreciate your prayers for safe travel!

Liturgy Solutions is Back!

After facing several daunting technical setbacks this year, Liturgy Solutions is up and running again! The site is a cooperative effort by some of today's most talented Lutheran composers to provide new liturgical music that is also inexpensive and accessible to choirs/parishes of all different sizes. When you purchase from Liturgy Solutions you are able to immediately download your music and are granted permission to make as many photocopies as you want for your use in your parish.

Liturgy Solutions is co-owned by Stephen Johnson and Phillip Magness and features compositions by the likes of Jeffrey Blersch and Kevin Hildebrand. In coming months, you will be able to purchase a new setting of the liturgy by Phillip Magness as well as brand new hymns by Pastor Stephen Starke (with tunes by Stephen Johnson).

If you have never investigated Liturgy Solutions before, or if it has been a while since you did, please take a few moments to drop by. The site is better than ever and improving every day, so don't be a stranger. And please pray that our Lord might continue to bless this labor of love as we look forward to seeing what the future brings!

Farmer Cantor

"Ma?"

"What, Pa?"

"Ah thank Ah just might be gettin' the hang of this gardnin' thang."

"Really, Pa? What makes ya' thank so?"

"Weeell, honey bunch, just take a look. Here we have some tomaters coming along right nice . . .

. . . and some peppers doin' the same . . .

. . . an' Ah think we're gonna be cookin' up a mess o' greens any day now . . .

. . . an' glory be, just looky what I found this mornin' . . .

"Do ya' think we waited just a mite too long to pick these two, Ma?"

"Mebbe just a mite. But don't you worry your sweet little head about that, Hon, I'll take care of it. Looks like zukes for supper tonight!" (And maybe tomorrow night, too, and the night after that, and the night after that . . . . Anyone out there have some cool zuke recipes?)

Classic Video Clip

From 1979, economist Milton Friedman trying to teach Phil Donahue about capitalism. Donahue actually seems to be thinking about what Mr. Friedman had to say, but ultimately he never learned. I love the way Friedman gently demolishes every argument Donahue throws at him.



(Thanks to my husband for passing on this clip to me.)

Ora et Labora

A Lutheran lady whose blog I like to read recently shared her thoughts on the frequent reaction of others to her life: "I don't know how you do it." (She is a stay-at-home mom, married to a pastor, with four young children and another on the way.) Her response? Read on:

"I don't know how I do it either. I don't have a playbook or blueprints; not even, if you can believe it, a Vision Statement. It's just my life, and I live it. . . . Speaking of my life like it's some epic task cheapens the currency. I apologize to victims of famine, fire, flood, fascism, fistula, and every other truly terrible thing in the world whose suffering is diminished by the selfishness of our culture. But I know how they do it. They do it one agonizing minute at a time, God have mercy.

"How would you do it if you had to take in your sister's kids or your husband's parents? How would you do it if a tornado flattened your house? How would you do it if you or a loved one became ill or disabled? How would you do something that you KNOW you can't handle? You would just do it. It would be hard and you would be sad and you would do it. Living under circumstances beyond their control is what people do."

I read this post some days ago (you can read it in its entirety here) but have found myself thinking of it repeatedly ever since, as I contend with my own feelings of inadequacy and hear similar sentiments from some of my friends. I, too, am often told by others, "I don't know how you do it" because I homeschool my children while working several part-time jobs and caring for my mother. So often, though, I don't know how the people who speak those words to me do what they do. How do moms who work full-time jobs outside the home get the kids up in the morning, get them to school, go to their jobs, and come home and still keep up with the housework and the cooking and the homework coaching and the chauffeuring? How does the single mother in our adult church choir do it? How does the teacher in our day school who is fighting cancer do it? How do all the people who have lost jobs in recent months do it? How do parents with seriously ill children do it? How do those who are battling their own illnesses and depression and loneliness do it?

I could go on, but you get the picture. It's a broken world. Each of us has our place in it--the thing that we have been called to do--and none of us has it easy. But it's so tempting to fall into the comparison trap--to look at the lives of others and imagine ourselves in their place--thus, the "I don't know how you do it" reaction. We can't imagine ourselves having to do the things we see that other person doing. Yet if we were given those shoes to fill, we would put them on and walk. We would have no choice.

It's also easy sometimes to look at others and instead of thinking "I don't know how they do it" find ourselves thinking "What's their problem? They have it so much easier than I do." Maybe the person in question has a supportive, loving family or apparent financial security or talents we admire or the ability to be a stay-at-home mom (or conversely, to work outside the home) or an intact marriage or better health than we do or "model" children who do not challenge them at every turn. It may appear that they have a much easier row to hoe than we do. And yet we never see the whole picture of other peoples' lives. We truly can't know "how they do it" because we don't know the extent of what they are facing. Unless we know them very, very well, we only see the surface, and even then, we can't possibly know it all.

Each of us is a unique individual with our own place in the time-space continuum, living the life to which God has called us, the life that He will enable us to live by His grace. May we ever be thankful for that life and the blessings and trials that it brings, trusting in our Lord to sustain us through them all as we "ora et labora"--pray and work our way through each of our days, one grace-filled day at a time.

"In what You give us, Lord, to do,
Together or alone,
In old routines or ventures new,
May we not cease to look to You,
The cross You hung upon--
All You endeavored done."

LSB 853, "How Clear Is Our Vocation, Lord" (Stanza 4)

Issues, Etc. Listeners

My husband the cantor will be appearing on the program today, tomorrow, and Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. talking about matters of music and worship, I imagine. Or maybe he's going to talk about the 2010 Congressional elections. Or the battle for the synod. Or the Civil War. Who knows? You'll have to listen to find out!

Mid-Life Crisis

Today is my birthday. I'm 45 years old. Maybe that's why a couple of days ago I cut myself some bangs after not wearing them for a number of years. I had bangs all through my adolescence and young adulthood and finally decided a few years ago to grow them out because I was tired of fighting the bang battle. I have naturally curly hair, so getting bangs to behave like bangs is not easy. It has been nice for a number of years now to just wash and go. With bangs, I have to blow dry to get the desired effect.

But maybe it's worth it. I think they may take off a few years. What do you think? Here are a few birthday pictures (taken by my daughter) for your consideration.

Without glasses:

With glasses (do I look more intelligent?):

Enjoying the new reading corner:

Thanks for being my official photographer, Caitlin!

I know, this post is an exercise in total vanity. But I'm entitled, right? I'm now closer to 50 than 40. The wrinkles are multiplying, the hair is graying, the eyes and mind are failing, and the body is going. Gotta take what I can get.

Happy birthday to me!

Master Bedroom, Round Two

Last year at about this time I spent some time getting the master bedroom in shape. (You can read/see more about that here if you missed it the first time around.) My deep desire was to be able to enjoy the fruit of that labor all year long, maintaining what I had accomplished so as to have an adult sanctuary for my husband and myself. My usual housecleaning approach is to save the master bedroom for last, since no one ever sees it except us and our kids. But the effect of that is that dust and clutter pile up and pretty soon our bedroom is a disaster when it should be a place of peace and tranquility.

So I'm trying again. My husband has been out of town for a few days, so I again set myself to fixing up our bedroom. The first step was to give it a thorough cleaning. But then I did a little more nesting.

Here's one corner of our bedroom last year at this time:

Here's the same corner now:

Much nicer, huh? Long-time readers may recognize the chair. It's the one I purchased for my husband from Ikea for Christmas. It wasn't working out in the rec room very well because the floor in that room is tile and the chair kept sliding around. Last month we found a heavier upholstered recliner at our church's garage sale ($20!) to take its place, leaving the question of what to do with the Ikea chair. We decided it would be a nice addition to the bedroom. Yesterday I stopped in at Hobby Lobby and found the side table (if you have a Hobby Lobby in your area, go NOW--they are having a furniture clearance sale). With the addition of a lamp, plant, throw, and some books, we now have a cozy reading corner with a back yard view!

We wanted to keep the desk, so we had to be creative. It ended up here, around the corner in the lavatory/closet alcove.

Here's a wider view of the reading corner:

What do you think, Melody? (She's the one who first introduced me to the Master-Bedroom-as-Adult-Sanctuary philosophy.) The ironing board is still here, as well as some piles awaiting proper storage, but I'm making progress, huh?

Protecting and Regaining State Sovereignty

I just discovered this site and wanted to pass it along to anyone who is interested.

The Tenth Amendment Center

"The Tenth Amendment Center works to preserve and protect Tenth Amendment freedoms through information and education. The center serves as a forum for the study and exploration of state and individual sovereignty issues, focusing primarily on the decentralization of federal government power."

HT: Father Hollywood

Dry Spell

It seems I've hit a blogging block. At the moment I have no funny family stories to share, nothing in the world at large that I feel like pontificating about, and nothing interesting going on in my daily life that you would care to read about. (I flatter myself by thinking that sometimes there are such things.) And I'm fresh out of Deep Thoughts. In fact, right now I'm having trouble finding time to think, much less write. Everything about which I might blog requires more of me than I can invest at the moment. So please be patient and keep checking back. I'm still here and hoping to get back in the groove soon!

Good Morning

Evan's first words to me upon waking this morning:

"I'm losing control of the world."

That makes two of us, honey.

More About That "Leer Heard Round the World"

LOL. Read this. But first put down your beverage.

Czars

Last night on his Fox show Mike Huckabee invited members of his audience to play a game called "Dancing With the Czars." The game consisted of his showing a picture of one of Obama's czars to the contestant, providing the czar's name and clues as to his position, and seeing if the audience member could identify the czar's area of responsibility. If so, he won $100. (One contestant was actually successful.) But the point was to demonstrate that some of the most powerful people in government are people who were not elected, are not recognized by the American public, and are not accountable to them.

In the course of the segment I discovered how many czars Obama now has. Do you know? I was stunned to hear that the number is now over 30. (I can't remember exactly--I think Huckabee said 31 or 32.)

Does this send up warning bells for anyone else? This concerns me greatly. Who are these people? And what gives Obama the power to appoint them? Is his behavior even constitutional? Not only that, how much are these people costing us?

This president is out of control. I hope and pray that we can vote him out before he does irreparable damage. But I fear it may already be too late for that.

God and Sarah Palin

Here is a theory about the Palin haters that is different from most of the others out there. The author pulls no punches but takes to task elite Republicans and Democrats alike who look down their noses at the authenticity and sincere (as opposed to politically expedient) God-fearingness of this remarkable woman. One of the author's most perceptive moments is when he points out the violently hair-pulling reaction of those who objected to Palin's description of the President's piling up of debt as "immoral." How dare she? How dare she pass judgment? It's similar to the outrage of many when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the "evil empire." Civilized, reasonable, tolerant moderns are not supposed to make distinctions between good and evil, you know, because after all, such things are all in the eye of the beholder.

(You are picking up on my sarcasm here, aren't you?)

I can't wait to see what Mrs. Palin does next.

Sloppy Thinking

Doublethink: the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously without seeing or questioning the contradiction between them. The term was coined by George Orwell in the classic book 1984. In the novel, doublethink refers to the unthinking citizen's ability to accept without question the government's constantly changing version of the truth (which we might call doublespeak, although the term doesn't appear in the book). So the government can claim to have raised the chocolate ration, even though the facts say it was lowered, and the masses nod and cheer at their good fortune and question not a thing. Anyone who pays the slightest attention to the news knows that doublethink is a phenomenon that is not limited to futuristic 20th century fiction. It is with us today, not only in the public sphere but in the private one. In our sinful condition, we human beings have an unlimited capacity for self-deception and rationalization that makes its way into all aspects of our lives and thus into all our social institutions, large and small. The only cure for that sickness is repentance, and the only thing that will put an end to it is the destruction of this fallen earthly kingdom and the establishment of God's perfect, eternal one. But in the meantime, we have to make the best of the here and now, so it sure would be nice if we would all use our God-given intellect to think a little more and feel a little less, at least when it comes to the world of facts.

So, doublespeak is intentional manipulation of facts in order to mislead and thereby control, whereas doublethink is the lazy mindset that makes doublespeak possible. Here is a case in point of how easy it is to practice doublethink, even when the two things that are mutually contradictory are side by side, staring you in the face. On July 4, the Associated Press published an article by Tom Roam entitled, "Rising debt might be next crisis." (Well, duh--but that's not the point here, so we'll move on.) Here are the opening paragraphs of the article:

"The Founding Fathers left one legacy not celebrated on Independence Day but which affects us all. It's the national debt.

"The country first got into debt to help help pay for the Revolutionary War. Growing ever since, the debt stands today at a staggering $11.5 trillion--equivalent to more than $37,000 for each and every American. And it's expanding by more than $1 trillion a year."

The history buffs out there may have already spotted the factual error. (Those facts--they're such inconvenient, pesky little things.) The national debt has not been "growing ever since" the Revolutionary War. In fact, President Andrew Jackson paid it off, rejecting one infrastructure project after another to do so. At other times in the nation's history, it has risen and fallen in tandem with the country's economic health and involvement (or lack thereof) in war. Yes, the overall trend has been upward from the founding until now. But to state that the debt has been rising ever since the nation's inception is inaccurate and disingenuous. And to refer to it as the Founding Fathers' "legacy" takes the pressure off those who bear current responsibility by suggesting that the debt has always been with us and is a fact of life that we have little choice but to accept.

Here's where the doublethink comes in. In the Northwest Herald, the McHenry County, IL newspaper in which my husband and I saw this article (while attending my friend's son's wedding), there was a bullet list of facts to one side of the article. One of those bullets stated, "The nation has been out of debt only once since the American Revolution: in 1834-35." Well, what do you know? Someone apparently does care about the facts. I'm thinking the credit for that bullet point probably goes to the Northwest Herald, because it's not an element of the multiple places you can find the article online (the article itself does eventually get around to saying it, but it's much later on in the story. And if you're like me, you often scan news articles, reading the headline and maybe the first few paragraphs, but only continuing if the article really interests you, which in this case would give a skewed picture. So kudos to the Northwest Herald for highlighting the facts in a way that provides a fuller, more accurate picture.)

Even with the bullet point, though, I bet most people would not pick up on the contradiction in the article. Full disclosure: I didn't (my husband pointed it out to me). I am as much a lazy thinker as the next person, accepting without questioning too much of what is placed before me. This wasn't a matter of my needing to know the historical record in order to recognize the contradiction. The contradiction was right there before me in black and white. Maybe if I had read the whole article from start to finish it would have sunk in that something wasn't computing. But from my cursory look at the headline, the opening few paragraphs and the bullet points, I didn't immediately see it. And I think of myself as a fairly intelligent and clear-thinking person.

So what's the answer? I don't know. I think my own response has been to become incredibly skeptical about the information that comes my way (just ask my husband). I don't trust anyone much--even those whose integrity I would bet money on--because I imagine they are probably just as susceptible to being duped as I am. Much of what I read goes in one ear and out the other because I doubt its veracity but don't have the time to pursue the truth of the matter. It's frustrating, because in our information society--the one I first heard about some years ago in the book Megatrends--it is more important than ever that we practice critical information consumption. And yet because of the constant onslaught of information I think human beings have less capacity to concentrate and pay attention these days (so much for evolutionary theory--I would argue we're devolving, not evolving). The ability to think critically--to not merely absorb information but to analyze, categorize, and organize it--seems to be a dying art in our postmodern world. I think that's why our culture has become so dominated by feelings and impressions and intuitions and headlines and soundbites. So maybe that's where the gut comes in. If your gut--not your heart or even your head but your gut--tells you something isn't adding up, it probably isn't.

So what do you think?

Was he looking? Or wasn't he?

The debate rages.

I don't know about Mr. Obama, but I think the expression on Mr. Sarkozy's face speaks for itself.

Milwaukee-Bound

I'll be hitting the road later this morning, driving my oldest son to Milwaukee for the U. S. Junior Open Chess Tournament, hosted this year by the Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Assocation. It's going to be a busy chess month. Next week is the Chicago Class Championship Tournament. We can stay home for that one! But in early August we're off to Indianapolis for the U. S. Open (which includes the Denker High School Tournament of Champions).

I'm hoping to catch up on some reading and email and blogging while Trevor plays. Sometimes I think I enjoy these chess tournaments (at least the out-of-town ones) more than he does!

I love this . . .

. . . and I think some of my readers will, too. Sorry--I guess quoting others is lazy blogging, but this is just so great!

Miss Maudie settled her bridgework. "You know old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist--"

"That's what you are, ain't it?"

"My shell's not that hard, child. I'm just a Baptist."

"Don't you all believe in foot-washing?"

"We do. At home in the bathtub."

"But we can't have communion with you all--"

Apparently deciding that it was easier to define primitive baptistry than closed communion, Miss Maudie said: "Footwashers believe anything that's a pleasure is a sin. Did you know some of 'em came out of the woods one Saturday and passed by this place and told me me and my flowers were going to hell?"

"Your flowers, too?"

"Yes, ma'am. They'd burn right with me. They thought I spent too much time in God's outdoors and not enough time inside the house reading the Bible."

My confidence in pulpit Gospel lessened at the vision of Miss Maudie stewing forever in various Protestant hells. True enough, she had an acid tongue in her head, and she did not go about the neighborhood doing good, as did Miss Stephanie Crawford. But while no one with a grain of sense trusted Miss Stephanie, Jem and I had considerable faith in Miss Maudie. She had never told on us, had never played cat-and-mouse with us, she was not at all interested in our private lives. She was our friend. How so reasonable a creature could live in peril of everlasting torment was incomprehensible.

From To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Chapter 5

An Obama Litmus Test?

One can't help but wonder if personal tax problems--or at the very least, questions--are a resumé requirement for Obama appointees.

HT: The Corner on National Review

Recommended

We watched The Singing Revolution last night. It's a documentary about the role that singing played in the non-violent liberation of Estonia from Soviet rule. Here's my previous post on the subject.

My Lutheran readers may also want to check out this review of the movie in Liturgy, Hymnody and Pulpit, where it is pointed out that the now sainted Rev. Dr. Kurt Marquart was born in Estonia.

The movie is a testament to the power of singing as well as the power of people to stand in the face of tyranny. I can't help but think Americans could learn a lot from this movie, things that may serve us well in the future. Problem is, we don't sing anymore in this country. At least, not like this. Instead, we have people sing to us. I suppose it's evidence of the importance and power of singing that we then turn some of our singers into near gods, looking to them for a sort of redemption. Then when they show themselves to be merely human, we are surprised.

Music can't save us. But when we make it our own it can nourish and fortify us in a way that not many other human endeaors can. May the Estonian people never lose the love for corporate singing that sustained and helped bring them out of the dark days of their oppression into the light of freedom. God bless them, and God bless all who thirst for freedom.

For Your Consideration

My liturgically and musically-minded readers might want to consider visiting Lutheran Kantor. He has a fine blog that is currently featuring some excellent topics and discussions.

Palin Prediction

There has been much speculation about Sarah Palin's decision to resign as governor of Alaska. Is she pregnant? Is there a scandal brewing? Has the proberbial kitchen finally gotten too hot for her?

Here is my theory, for what it's worth (which is probably not much, considering that I also predicted that McCain would pick Romney as his running mate and later, that McCain and Palin would win the election). I think that there is some truth to the "hot kitchen" theory. But I don't think the heat is getting to Palin as much as to her family. Sarah Palin has shown herself to be tough enough to handle whatever the media mudslingers throw at her. But she has also shown herself to be someone who champions family values. And how better to do that than to protect her own loved ones?

Mrs. Palin has had an incredible year. I think she is seriously considering a 2012 presidential run. If she decides to go for it, she will have to start the process next year. I think it is quite likely she is bowing out as governor now so that she can have a little time to devote to her family before stepping back in to the fray.

The Palin-haters are calling her a quitter and branding her as unreliable and fickle. I think this decision is just another sign of her integrity and her refusal to play politics as usual. I wish her the best and look forward to watching the Palin story play out.

Issues, Etc. Celebration

Last week my husband and I drove down to Collinsville, Illinois to help celebrate the one year anniversary of the new Issues, Etc. Some of the photos I took ended up at the Steadfast Lutherans site, but not all of them, so I thought I would post a few more here.

THE CAKE (from Kruta's Bakery)

The happy editors of the Steadfast Quarterly (me and Pastor Fred Baue)

Pastor Randy Asburry (l) and Pastor Bruce Kesemann (r)

I cannot remember the name of the gentleman in the middle. Anyone know?

Pastor Todd Wilken on the air.



Craig Feichtinger and Jeff Schwarz, making it all happen.

By the way, a couple of Pastor Rossow's statements in the Steadfast article need to be qualified. He called me an "English literature professor." I used to be a part-time college English instructor. "Professor" suggests a permanent, tenure-track position, which I never sought nor held. These days I am not teaching English at all except to my own children in our home school (Philipp Nicolai Lutheran Academy).

Secondly, Pastor Rossow referred to my "award-winning blog." You can tell that my pastor is relatively new to the blogosphere, since he doesn't seem to understand how EASY it is for a blog to win all kinds of awards. I don't mean to diminish my awards--I was thrilled to receive them--but they are viral in nature and require only a single reader (usually also a friend) to decide that one is worthy for the award to be granted.

Back to the topic at hand: CONGRATULATIONS, ISSUES, ETC.! And thanks for the free beer! :-) It was a wonderful party, and I am so glad I was able to be there! Can't wait until the second anniversary! See you then, if not before! (In the meantime, I'll be listening.)

My Friend's Son's Wedding

A friend's son got married this weekend. He's a soldier who has served in Iraq, so it was fitting that the wedding was on Independence Day! I took a few photos at the reception, presented here in no particular order.

My daughter Caitlin, looking at the camera, and her friend Mary (the groom's sister) leaning over.

Dancing at the reception (Mary is front and center):

Mary, Caitlin, and friends.

Mary and a rather tall, handsome friend.

The bouquet toss.

Melody (mother of the groom) after a wardrobe change (sorry I didn't get one of her in her dress!)

Mr. and Mrs. P. the older.

Mr. and Mrs. P. the younger.

Phillip and Barb K., eating low-carb at the reception.

Clara and her froggy friends.

Clara with her mom and dad.

Future leaders of the resistance.

MIA

Summer is supposed to be when my life slows down. Ha! I've been so swamped lately I can't think straight. Today the family and I are off to a wedding. My good friend's son is getting married, and my husband is going to play organ for the wedding, and the rest of us are going to party! I hope I can also be of some help to my friend, who seems remarkably organized and in control, considering the reception is going to be AT HER HOUSE! Hang in there, Melody! See you soon!

So my already spotty posting will probably remain so for a few more days. I do have some great photos from the Issues, Etc. anniversary party, so look for those to go up either here or at Steadfast (or both) in the near future. And who knows? Maybe I'll manage a blog post on the road. Because thanks to a near-dead cell phone, my generous husband, and a new T-Mobile service contract, I got my birthday present early (by almost three weeks) yesterday: a new Blackberry Sidekick LX. In addition to the phone, it has web capability, GPS, camera, video recorder, email, instant messaging capability (which I'm not subscribing to), personal calendar/organizer, and music player. Woo-hoo! Twenty-first century, I've arrived! Now my daughter and I can quit fighting over my Sansa and I can download Issues, Etc. podcasts right to my phone!

(Full story: it wasn't my cell phone that was about to die, but our other one, which has to date been our "house" phone; that phone has been replaced by a T-Mobile "At Home" wireless system, while my former cell phone will be shared among several family members depending on circumstances. I find it amusing that the phone I ended up choosing is aimed for a teenage demographic; I chose it because it had the biggest screen so is easier for me to read with my failing eyesight!)

Another great quote on education from To Kill a Mockingbird

"The remainder of my schooldays were no more auspicious than the first. Indeed, they were an endless Project that slowly evolved into a Unit, in which miles of construction paper and wax crayon were expended by the State of Alabama in its well-meaning but fruitless efforts to teach me Group Dynamics. What Jem called the Dewey Decimal System was school-wide by the end of my first year, so I had no chance to compare it with other teaching techniques. I could only look around me: Atticus and my uncle, who went to school at home, knew everything--at least, what one didn't know the other did. Furthermore, I couldn't help noticing that my father had served for years in the state legislature, elected each time without opposition, innocent of the adjustments my teachers thought essential to the development of Good Citizenship. Jem, educated on a half-Decimal half-Duncecap basis, seemed to function effectively alone or in a group, but Jem was a poor example: no tutorial system devised by man could have stopped him from getting at books. As for me, I knew nothing except what I gathered from Time magazine and reading everything I could lay hands on at home, but as I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me."

--from Chapter 4

I'm all for parental rights . . .

. . . but this is ridiculous.

Swedish parents keep 2-year-old's gender secret

HT: National Review

The To-Do List Will Have to Wait . . . Again

Have you noticed a change in my blog?

These days it seems I'm writing much more about my immediate sphere--the family and personal stuff--than about the world beyond. I suppose I'm just finding it too depressing to think about the state of the country and world and trying to find consolation in the day to day. The ancient Greek philosophers believed that the cosmos was interwoven in such a way that events in one part had a ripple effect on everything else. The belief was adopted by the Elizabethans, and you can see it in Shakespeare when events in the human world (the microcosm) are reflected in the natural world (the macrocosm), so that when the kingdom is out of whack (kings getting murdered and such), nature is also distressed (earthquakes, storms, etc.)

I am thankful that I am not seeing that macrocosm/microcosm connection in my own life right now. The world is messed up, but here on the home front we just seem to be floating along as usual in our little Lutheran homeschooling bubble. I thank God for the freedom and ability to do that and pray that events in the world at large don't invade and take it from us. And since I don't seem to have much power to affect the world right now, I'm trying to affect my immediate sphere. Problem is, it's almost July and it seems like I haven't made much progress yet this summer. I always seem to start the summer with a list of things that I want to get done that I wasn't able to get to in the busier part of the year. And every year it seems I come up short, not having made nearly as much progress on the list as I had hoped.

Right now, even though my piano students have lightened up for the summer and my various choir practices have ceased (so I should have more time on my hands), it seems I'm only managing the essentials: the laundry, meals, and running around. The deep cleaning remains to be done (heck, any level of cleaning remains to be done). So do the filing, and the organizing of books and homeschool supplies, and the printing and sorting of photos and putting them in albums, and the learning/practicing of something on the piano for my own personal development instead of because I have to, and the completing of one of the books I have been trying to read for months, and the multiple miniature home improvement/beautification jobs I have in mind, and the homeschool subjects we didn't get to during the year (we're still trying to finish up the things we DID get to), and the letters/thank you notes that have yet to be written, and . . . well, you get the picture.

And once again, today it will all have to wait. And for good reason. Because my husband and I are heading down to Collinsville, Illinois to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the rebirth of Issues, Etc (after it was so rudely snatched from the airwaves by a synodical leadership that continues to perturb anyone who is paying attention to it).

I'll have a report and pictures in a few days.

Bursting with Parental Pride

I think I sent this to just about everyone in my address book yesterday, but in case you don't hold a place in that highly exclusive club, here's a link to an article that our local newspaper ran about my firstborn, who continues to amaze with his talent and dedication.

By the way, in the near future I'll be posting similarly about my second born, who has also recently accomplished something remarkable.

Tumbling Class

For the Evan fans out there . . . a 1-minute video of him in tumbling class yesterday. We decided to enroll him because he seems to have a knack for it--he has been doing cartwheels and forward rolls and headstands around the house for several years now. Notice in the video that he elects to hop across the beam. The instructions (followed by everyone but Evan) were to slowly walk with arms stretched to the side to help with balance. But of course that was too boring for this kid.

I think you can pick Evan out, but just in case, he's in yellow.

And You, Miss, Are No Lady

This one is too good (and too long) for Evan Essence.

My five-year-old is all boy. He is rough and tough and physical. Sometimes his "playfulness" is downright painful to those around him. So last night I was trying to teach him about being a gentleman. I told him that some day he was going to grow bigger and taller and stronger than me, and that he needs to learn to be gentle with me now so that he will know the right way to treat a lady when he grows up.

He just looked at me and said, "But Mommy, you're not a lady."

O-kaayyy. Thanks, honey, you really know how to flatter a girl. I told him that I most certainly was. His response?

"But ladies wear shoes that are high off the ground, like this." As he said this, he lifted one of his feet in the air.

Great. He's only five years old and he's already a leg man.

Time to set this boy straight. I'll show him. I am, too, a lady! My mistake, however, was that I bought into his premise. One of the first rules of winning the argument is to attack the other person's premise. Evan's premise is that ladies wear high heels. But rather than challenge him on that, I took him for a tour of my closet.

"See, Evan?" Opening a shoe box and brandishing a particularly strappy, fashionable pair. "Mommy has high heels. I wear them to church sometimes."

He looked at me, dubious. "No. Those are only like this." (Holding hands a couple of inches apart.) "A lady wears shoes like THIS." (Spreading hands to about four inches apart.)

Elephant's Child, if Sparkle wants a future with this boy you better get her started on the heels now.

And to Sparkle or whoever the "lucky" girl turns out to be, my deepest apologies. I tried.

My Day

It's been a good day. Here's what I did:

1) Woke up at 5:15 a.m.

2) Spent about 45 minutes on email, blogs, and coffee.

3) Did final corrections on the Steadfast Quarterly. It's off to the printer!

4) Did some laundry and household tasks.

5) Made two loaves of banana bread.

6) Took a walk with my husband.

7) Took my 5-year-old to his swimming class.

8) Read the 8th and 9th Commandments and their Meanings in the Large Catechism while said 5-year-old was swimming.

And that was all before lunch!

Then it was off to church to drop off Evan with his dad and sister (who were there for our week-long morning music camp/singing school) while I took Trevor to his orthotics appointment and then to a nearby junior college to do placement testing (he will be enrolling for college math this fall). While he was testing, I enjoyed some time on the library computer (a little more email and blogging). Trevor did great on his test and received permission to take college calculus (or something of equivalent level) this fall! He will be taking only the one class, attending as a high school junior on early admission.

After the college visit it was back home. I grilled brats (um, that would be bratWURST) for supper while Evan played in the water hose and Phil rehearsed in the living room with one of our best singers from church, who will be performing for and talking to the children at camp tomorrow. It's not many ladies who get to listen to a live performance of Leonard Bernstein's "I Hate Music" song cycle while cooking supper!

The teenagers cleaned up the supper dishes. Husband worked in the garden. I read bedtime stories to Evan. We are on a Dr. Seuss kick right now, so tonight it was Hooray for Diffendoofer Day and On Beyond Zebra.

Even a presidential news conference on why we need nationalized health care was not enough to cast a shadow on this day. It was busy, but satisfyingly so. Thank you, God, for days that are full of such earthly gifts as this one.

Progress!

May



June



This is only our second year of vegetable gardening. I think we overplanted a bit. But things are looking pretty good, don't you think? (The credit for soil preparation, planting, and garden care thus far belongs entirely to my husband, altnough I did go buy the plants.) We have tomatoes, peppers, basil, rosemary, chives, sage, squash, collard greens, and cantaloupe. We are hoping to expand the plot next year--maybe add a strawberry patch. Hey, gardeners out there, what else might we successfully grow in a backyard plot in Illinois?

Is it just me?

Or does my blog look funny?

For the last few days the font has not been showing up uniformly. Several posts down, at the point at which I used a smaller font for the excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird, everything from that point on is smaller--all the rest of the posts on the page, everything in the sidebar, etc. But I have not made any layout changes, so I don't get it.

Are you seeing the same thing I am?

Repeating History

So let me get this straight.

The federal government wants to give money to people to buy new cars that they probably can't afford because if they could, they would have already bought them.

Sound familiar?

Singing the Catechism

Last year my husband wrapped up a composing project in which he set Luther's Small Catechism to music (I think most of my readers know this, but perhaps a few do not). The songs--66 of them--were first included piecemeal in Concordia Publishing House's Growing in Christ Sunday School curriculum, but now they have been compiled available independently in CD and songbook formats. It is my understanding that both have been selling well. (We wouldn't know firsthand as my husband was paid for his work on a stipend basis so receives no royalties from sales.)

But the fact that something is purchased does not mean that it is used. (Just ask any homeschooling mom.) So my husband loves hearing from real life people that they are utilizing the fruits of his labor and that these songs are actually doing what they were written to do: helping children learn the catechism.

Over the last few years he has heard from a number of people who have told him just that. These stories are worth more to him than you can possibly know. I heard a few more of them at the Concordia Catechetical Academy Symposium this week. What a joy it was for me to hear how parents and their children have been blessed by my husband's work, especially after having had a front row seat to see the many hours of inspiration, craft, and sweat that went into it. He has given much to his parish and to the church at large over the years, but I am beginning to think that this may be his most lasting contribution.

Here's a recent blog post from a Lutheran pastor (of one of our sister synods) on how he has used this resource both in his parish and his home.

Homeschooling 101

I started reading To Kill a Mockingbird to my teenagers this week. It's our first readaloud in a while. I'm hoping we can actually finish it this summer.

It's been quite some time since I read this book, so re-encountering this passage in Chapter 2 was a pleasant surprise (the narrator is remembering her very first day of school). I think a few of my homeschooling friends may appreciate it. My children especially liked the third paragraph.
Then she [the teacher] went to the blackboard and printed the alphabet in enormous square capitals, turned to the class and asked, "Does anybody know what these are?" . . .

I suppose she chose me because she knew my name [due to an earlier run-in]; as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading.

"Teach me?" I said in surprise. "He hasn't taught me anything, Miss Caroline. Atticus ain't got time to teach me anything," I added, when Miss Caroline smiled and shook her head. "Why, he's so tired at night he just sits in the livingroom and reads."

. . . Miss Caroline apparently thought I was lying. . . . "Now you tell your father not to teach you any more. It's best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I'll take over from here and try to undo the damage--". . .

I mumbled that I was sorry and retired meditating upon my crime. I never deliberately learned to read, but somehow I had been wallowing illicitly in the daily papers. In the long hours of church--was it then I learned? I could not remember not being able to read hymns. Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces. I could not remember when the lines above [my father's] moving finger separated into words, but I had stared at them all the evenings in my memory, listening to the news of the day, Bills to Be Enacted into Law, the diaries of Lorenzo Dow--anything [my father] happened to be reading when I crawled into his lap every night. Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

First Swimming Lesson

(Note: if you have trouble picking Evan out in the group pictures, just look for the fluorescent white skin.)

Impacting the World

On Sunday my pastor began a new topic in adult Bible class: The Theology of the Church and Recent Practice in the LCMS. He started out our first session with this 1985 quote from Dr. David Daniel of Concordia Seminary: "The doctrine of the church will be the next big issue in the synod and the church at large" and went on to observe that indeed, Dr. Daniel's words were prophetic, as we in the LCMS are now fighting that very battle. As my pastor explained it: "Part of the synod wants the church to be modeled after the culture and another part wants it to be patterned after the heavenly Jerusalem." To illustrate the division, he spent some time in class focusing on one LCMS church in particular. I won't name the church, although some of my more savvy readers may figure it out. But here is the church's mission statement:

"Our Mission is Love God. Connect People. Impact the World. Passionate commitment to living out this mission is the best way we can be authentic followers of Jesus!"

Pastor pointed out several things wrong with this mission statement (setting aside the question of whether a church really needs a corporate style mission statement), all of which can be summed up by noting that the focus is simply wrong. Because the Christian life is not about what we do, but about what Christ has done for us. It's not about our love for God, but about His love for us. It's not about our commitment or our passion or our authenticity or our success at following Jesus (thank God for that). And it's not about all the ways we can help people and make the world a better place. Instead, it's about the One who died to redeem mankind and Who is going to return some day to gather His redeemed and take them to the home he has prepared. And guess what will happen to this world when He comes back? As a friend of mine likes to say, "It's all gonna burn." God is going to destroy it. So much for our so-called "impact."

Now this is not to say that we shouldn't care about this world. For the time being this is our lot, and while we sojourn here we are called to love and serve our neighbor. But to get caught up in "changing the world," "leaving our mark," "having an impact," etc., misses the point. Better to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and His impact, which is timeless, extending backward and forward in history as he gathers His flock.

It's really rather liberating if you think about it. You don't have to leave your mark on the world. Jesus has left the only mark that matters, and He did it all for you.

Commercial

My husband (this guy) will be a guest on Issues, Etc. tomorrow afternoon, discussing the topic of children in worship.

Be there or be square.

Depression

For those of my readers who run in the same bloggy circles I do, this will not be news. But for those who may not know, I would like to highlight a new resource from LCMS (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) World Care and Human Relief. It is a book by a Lutheran pastor on the subject of depression. The author, Rev. Todd Peperkorn, is someone who has personally struggled with depression and well knows its thorny path. You can find out more about the book, as well as how to order it (it's FREE!), at Rev. Peperkorn's website.

In recent years I have had my own difficulties with depression, so I am very happy to see this book and have already ordered my own copy. To anyone reading who has struggled with depression and may be seeking answers or assistance, I strongly urge you to do the same. I have not read the book, but I have read the blog of the author, and I feel confident in asserting that this will not be a book that identifies depression as a spiritual problem, suggesting that you would not be depressed if you simply had more faith or that the answer to depression is to just trust God more, pray more, and read your Bible more. Rev. Peperkorn understands that depression is a multi-faceted issue that is at root a physical problem, just like any other illness.

The book is available in downloadable or print version. Get yours now, for yourself or someone you love.

Game, Set, Match

I listened to Rush Limbaugh for a while yesterday. He was talking about nationalized health care, citing this article by Mona Charen. Charen calls Obama's plan to socialize medicine in this country "the whole ball game." In other words, if he wins this battle, he has won the war for the soul of our nation, changing it essentially and perhaps irrevocably. As Rush pointed out, once the government has control of health care, it will be able to claim the right to manage and control almost every aspect of our lives in the name of cost-cutting. It makes sense. Almost every thing a person does can be said to have an impact on his or her overall health and well-being. If the government is paying for an individual's medical care, then, it will be able to assert the right to control your behavior in the name of controlling costs.

We can't lose this one. And we don't have to. The Democrats are already showing signs of infighting (just look at the lack of a clear party line on the release of the interrogation photographs--the White House says no, while Pelosi says yes). President Obama's approval ratings are starting to slide. It's time for the sleeping giant to wake up. Time for all of us to gird our loins and polish our swords. This is war! If we put our minds and hearts and will to it we can win it. And win it we must.

Jon Voight on Barack Obama

I knew he was one of those rare creatures known as a Hollywood Republican. But I didn't know how principled and fearless he is. Voight, speaking to a Congressional Republican fund-raising dinner, minces no words here, calling Obama a "false prophet," voicing grave fears about the future of Israel, expressing shame for the Hollywood Left's nasty and dishonest treatment of President Bush, voicing disbelief at the media's refusal to be objective about this president, and bemoaning our accelerating descent into socialism. He names names, both ones to whom we owe our appreciation for continuing to speak the truth, as well as those who deserve the blame for destroying the greatness that was once the USA.

It's about 10 minute long, but highly worth watching. There are so many great lines that I can't even begin to choose which ones to quote here.

HT: Michelle Malkin

Psalm 150

Hope you don't mind another music video! This one is also from Trinity Sunday--our adult choir singing Ernani Aguiar's Salmo 150. Just one piece of advice if you decide to listen: hold on to your hats (or wigs or toupees or whatever the case may be)!

"Salmo 150"

Laudate Dominum in sanctis eius.
Laudate eum in firmamento virtutis eius.
Laudate eum in virtutibus eius.
Laudate eum secundum multitudinem magnitudinis eius.
Laudate eum in sono tubae.
Laudate eum in psalterio et cithara.
Laudate eum in timpano et choro.
Laudate eum in cymbalis benesonantibus.
Laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis.
Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum.
Laudate Dominum, alleluia!

Translation:

Praise the Lord in His sacred places.
Praise Him in the firmament of His power.
Praise Him for His mighty acts.
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet.
Praise Him with psaltery and harp.
Praise Him with drum and dance.
Praise Him with strings and pipes.
Praise Him with high-sounding cymbals.
Praise Him with cymbals of joy.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, alleluia!




This service also featured the choir singing Peter S. Klemp's "Veni Sante Spiritus" and the traditional Caribbean "Halle, Halle" from GIA Publications. Hymns in addition to "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" (see previous post) were "Holy, Holy, Holy," "Gold Loved the World So That He Gave," "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus," and "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow." The Athanasian Creed was confessed, and in place of the Sanctus we sang "Isaiah, Mighty Seer" (Lutheran Service Book 960), a hymn paraphrase of the Sanctus written by Martin Luther with additional text from Isaiah 6, the Old Testament Lesson for the day. And the guest preacher was Rev. Daniel Preus from Luther Academy! It was a glorious Trinity Sunday. Wish you could have been there! (Of course some of you were. :-) But if you weren't, I hope you were in your own church singing some of these same great hymns!)

Trinity Sunday

"Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" (arr. John Ferguson, GIA Publications, copyright 1988)
Led by Proclaim, the adult choir of Bethany Lutheran Church, Naperville, Illinois, June 7, 2009

Holy God, we praise Thy name;
Lord of all, we bow before Thee.
All on earth Thy scepter claim;
All in heav'n above adore Thee.
Infinite Thy vast domain,
Everlasting is Thy reign.

Hark! The glad celestial hymn
Angel choirs above are raising;
Cherubim and seraphim,
In unceasing chorus praising,
Fill the heav'ns with sweet accord:
Holy, holy, holy Lord!

Lo, the apostolic train
Join Thy sacred name to hallow;
Prophets swell the glad refrain,
And the white-robed martyrs follow,
And from morn to set of sun
Through the Church the song goes on.

Thou art King of Glory, Christ;
Son of God, yet born of Mary.
For us sinners sacrificed,
As to death a Tributary,
First to break the bars of death,
Thou hast opened heav'n to faith.

Holy Father, holy Son,
Holy Spirit, three we name Thee;
Though in essence only one,
Undivided God we claim Thee
And, adoring, bend the knee
While we own the mystery.

(Make sure you listen to the very end!)

Of Ivory Towers and Neighbors

Victor Davis Hanson has got this president figured out. If I were in charge, his most recent series of articles on Mr. Obama would be required reading for everyone in the country. But alas, I'm not in charge. So all I can do is post an example here and encourage my little band of readers to avail themselves of it.

In this brilliant piece, he relates a personal story of having left the family farm for 9 years "to get a BA in classics, PhD in classical philology, and live in Athens for two years of archaeological study-all on scholarships, TAships, research-ships and part-time summer and school jobs tucked under the aegis of the academic, no-consequences world. By the end of endless seminars, papers, theses, debates, discussions, academic get-togethers, I had forgotten much of the culture of the farm where I spent years 1-18."

Hanson writes that when he returned to the farm he was "quickly disabused of the world of the faculty lounge":

"Oh yes, I came back to Selma thinking, “I am not going to be the grouch my grandfather was, yelling at neighbors, worried all the time, nervous, seeing the world as rather hostile, hoarding a tiny stash of savings, worried as if bugs, the government, hired men, weather, and markets were out to destroy him. I’ll farm with my Bay Area manners and sort of think, “I will reset the farm, and things will at last work as they should” (not thinking that my grandfather raised three daughters, sent them to college while mortgaging the farm in the Depression, and spent on himself last, and was a saint compared to my pampered existence in the university)."

He then shares the story of his attempt to get along with one particularly difficult neighbor with whom he shared a communal ditch. Initially Hanson and this neighbor "talked and exchanged pleasantries . . . at the standpipe gate. He lamented how rude my late grandfather had been to him, and even had made unfounded accusations that he was less than honest (he was also sort of playing the race card, remarking about the prejudicial nature of California agrarian culture)."

But in short order this neighbor began behaving in rather un-neighborly ways, "stealing water . . . [by] taking an extra day on his turn, cutting in a day early on mine, siphoning off water at night, destroying my pressure settings, watering his vineyards on days that were on my allotment. Stealing no less! And in 1980!"

Hanson tried a number of measures to deal with the problem:

"First, I gave a great Obama speech on communal sharing and why the ditch would not work if everyone did what he did. Farmers simply would perish if they did not come together, and see their common shared interests. He nodded and smiled--and stole more the next week.

"Then I appealed to his minority status, and remarked how wonderful it was that he came from dire poverty abroad and now farmed over 500 acres. He growled--and stole even more.

"I took the UN route and warned that that I would be forced to go get the ditch tender (a crusty, old hombre who enjoyed watching fights like these for blood sport); he pointed out that the tender was, in fact, on the alleyway across the street watching us, and meeting him for coffee in an hour.

"I went to the irrigation district and filed a formal complaint. Nice people with smiles and monogrammed hats promised they’d look into it, but pointed out the season was half over anyway, and I should “get used to it” and start anew next year. Meanwhile, I noticed by July my vineyard was starting to be stressed, and his was lush. He watered so much that he began to flood the entire vineyard middle, the water lapping out the furrows and reaching berm to berm.

"For a while I went the Clement Attlee mode and rationalized, “Hmmm, maybe all that watering is going to give his vines more mildew, while my dusty dry vines will aerate more. Do I really need my water? Did I offend him in some way? Do I really want to lower myself to his troglodyte methods?” A few meetings went well with his, “OK, it’s a misunderstanding.” I heard “No problem” about a zillion times the next two weeks.

"Then by July 15, after three months of such aggrandizement I tried the empathetic route with the neighbor, “If you don’t stop this, I’ll have to turn on my pumps and spend hundreds of dollars to supply the water I’m supposed to get by virtue of my irrigation taxes. You know that’s not fair!” He laughed at the use of “by virtue of”.

Finally, Hanson says, he "went out to restore deterrence. I got a massive chain and lock, and simply shut down his communal lateral. Locked the gate so tight, he couldn’t even get a quarter-turn. He’d be lucky if he got a 100 gallons in a week. Then I got a veritable arsenal of protective weaponry, got in my pickup, drove back over to the gate, and waited with ammo, clubs, shovels, etc.

"In an hour he drove up in a dust cloud. He was going to smash me, get his football playing son to strangle me, sue me, bankrupt me, hunt me down, etc. He swore and yelled--I was a disgrace to my family, a racist, a psycho, worse than my grandfather. He was going to lock my gates, steal all my water, and indeed he leveled all sorts of threats (remember the scene in Unforgiven when Eastwood walks out and screams threats to the terrified town?-that was my neighbor). I got out with large vine stake and said something to the effect (forgive me if I don’t have the verbatim transcript-it has been 29 years since then), “It’s locked until you follow the rules. Anytime you don’t, it’s locked again. Do it one more time and I weld it shut. Not a drop. So sue me.”

"He got up, screeched his tires, blew a dust cloud in my face, and raced down the alleyway-honking even as he left."

And whaddya know? Hanson's neighbor was, "for the next ten years until his death . . . the model neighbor. He would stop me with, “Victor, I shut off tomorrow, half-a day early--why not take my half day to jump start your turn?” And indeed we finally began to have philosophical discussions (he was widely read) about Sun-Maid, Carter, Reagan, the US, literature, etc."

Hanson concludes:

"Obama will come to his senses with his ‘Bush did it’, reset button, moral equivalency, soaring hope and change, with these apologies to Europeans, his Arab world Sermons on the Mount to Al Arabiya, in Turkey, in Cairo, etc., his touchy-feely videos to Iran, his “we are all victims of racism” sops to Ortega, Chavez, and Morales. It is only a matter of when, under what conditions, how high the price we must pay, and whether we lose the farm before he gains wisdom about the tragic universe in which we live.

"A sojourn at an elite university, you see, can sometimes become a very dangerous thing indeed."

If you want more from Victor Davis Hanson, you can find it on Mr. Hanson's blog (linked above) or at Pajamas Media, where he is a regular contributor.

Watch This & Feel Good

Ready the back story here.

What more could I want than for my husband and I (both pianists) to follow in their footsteps? Here's to 50 more years, honey. I hope we are still moving and playing like this in our nineties!

Coming Up for Air

Yes, I've been quieter than usual. It's the result of several things. One, lack of time due to several social engagements this weekend, my husband's birthday, and general busyness with other things.

Two, I've been having too much fun with another project I am involved in. It's not one I can tell you much about. But if it keeps going the way it is I may have to drop back from posting here daily to posting every two or three days. I trust you'll understand and keep reading. Right? Right???

Three, these days I am more and more at a loss for words. I feel kind of like this. I look at the world and just don't know what to say. It seems pointless to try. Better to listen to some good music, read some good books, watch some movies, spend time with my family, and pray. Unceasingly.

See you soon.