Today's Tids Issue
4,014
For Depth:
I’m
a sucker for a good choral group. Saturday, while surfing
away from another mind-numbing basketball game, my ears heard the most
beautiful strains of a Christmas melody as I flicked past a channel. The song
wasn’t one of the old standards, but you could feel it was for the season. I
backed up to that channel and found it was the combined choruses of Minnesota’s
Concordia University. It was that other side of student body interest not often
seen on TV, like endless sports. I was taken
at first by the passion and the emotion of the singers, feeling their words as
their lush voices sang out, controlled – the perfect formation of their lips
and the love I saw in their eyes for each note; the intensity of their
determination to be great. Their concentration and force were easily equal to
that of the most ardent athlete. I watched it for an hour, as they went from
hymn to hymn. In the silence after the ending, I stood and walked to the
window, and saw a new light of love shining above the restless sea. Yes, I
finally felt Christmas.
Actually,
it was a nice excuse for avoiding Saturday chores.
It’s
time to take my hands out of my pockets and offer them to help
somebody along. To feed a person in need. To bring smiles to kids often seeing
the world though a haze. The greatest Christmas gift of all – a helping heart.
You
just plain have to believe in Christmas or else the US economy
would collapse.
Tension
reduction, Department:
I find that having a broad spectrum of friends
allows me to get away with wearing one evening event outfit for a week.
What
I have seen following the Trump Jerusalem statement has
been basically the three main sides posturing. The usual suspects ran into the
streets, TV cameras focused on anything that looked like smoke, commentators
perspired and countries shot missiles to the middle of nowhere. In the past and
for the long run, this is and has been an intensely complicated problem. Since the
Trump announcement, I have talked to Israeli experts and they pretty much agree
entirely. They have lived the history there, and know the layering and
divisions, and the roadblocks. It is significantly complicated, even without
the uniformed opinions of political opportunists..
Have
you heard about the latest piece of governmental irony? The
Italian Government has placed a lien on the Tower of Pisa.
The
Question:
Name the first US citizen to receive the Nobel Peace
Prize? The First American women? Bonus:
Often newspapers invite College Professors to help explain political, economic
or socio/cultural issues of the day. While most professors are pretty smart,
the accuracy of the report it depends on values of the analyst. Just so you
know, what the top ten most Liberal (or progressive) colleges. I have a couple
lists, because opinions differ.
The
Headlines:
--Police Still Investigating Pipe Bomb Explosion In
NYC’s Port Authority Bus Terminal That Injured Four; Man Arrested Said To Be
ISIS Inspired Bangladeshi.
--Stocks Open Higher, Despite Explosion.
--Wild Fires Continue To Roar In California; Thompson
Fire Spreads Rapidly Into Santa Barbara County.
--Net Neutrality Fans Marching In The Streets.
--NK’s Kim Hot After Bitcoins. Bitcoin ETF’s Could
Explode In US.
--Ya-Ya’s Get Super Hitter Stanton.
--Pols Have Eyes On Tomorrow’s Alabama Senate
Election.
After
years of quiet observation, I would have to advise people who
are driving while intoxicated to avoid sideswiping or plowing head on into
police cars. That doesn’t seem to work out that well.
CNN
and CBS keep on proving that Trump is right about “Fake
News”. In the latest journalistic “error”, it was The Washington Post who first
came to the rescue of truth, and they were quickly followed by the AP and WSJ
who also condemned the sloppiness of CNN reporting the WikiLinks “Sensation”, quickly
adopted by CBS.
There’s
so much good music in this world, and I miss much too much
of it.
Unintended
Consequences, Department:
Will the scourge of harassment accusations make men
wary of women in the workplace and business situations?
A
local radio news station went to a college professor
for an educated opinion on Net Neutrality. Her opening statement was, “If Trump
reverses Net Neutrality, we will go back to the days of dial up!” From that
point on, I began to consider her opinions as suspect. She became more so as
she also pounced upon the concept of free enterprise and basically anything to
do with Republicans. So much – for getting unbiased facts from knowledgeable
professors.
Not
to be outdone, a big state newspaper had a story that
tried to explain the new tax deal’s effect on average consumers. However,
instead of going completely generic, the story relied on the opinions of a left
leaning economics Professor from Reed College. Reasonable consumers are
clamoring for unbiased simple descriptions from a neutral press of new
complicated laws or issues, but bias seems to show up every time.
I
find the comic Doonesbury hard to read… because of the
italic typeface.
You
have to figure that among the most loyal fans in America, those
of the Cleveland Browns are among the best. They continue to go the games for a
team that is 1 and 27 over the past two seasons and 5-50 in the past 50 games. This
year the Browns are averaging 64,532 fans per game. That’s a little over 1,300
lower than perennial champs the NE Patriots and higher than the constant
contenders Pittsburgh Steelers. In fact, in total attendance, Cleveland is 22
of 31 teams. Of course, to make my point, I am spinning this like a politician.
The Browns are only ahead of Cincinnati and Washington in % of stadium capacity.
Only Dallas (#1 in overall attendance), Green Bay, Denver, Carolina, New
Orleans, Houston San Fran, Philly, Seattle, Arizona Indy and Chicago are at or
above 100%. Maybe SF fans are pretty loyal too. They have only won 4 of the
last 28. But, I like Cleveland better. And editors get to tout their own
favorites. Right?
The
internet is in its infancy. So, what has a happened in the past
short history is not necessarily an indication of what may happen in the future.
The real answer to the net neutrality argument is that nobody knows. But, it
isn’t the wild, wild west anymore.
BTW,
Dallas is averaging 92,803 at home to date. That is far ahead of second place
Green Bay who have averaged 78,092. The rest of the top ten in home attendance
are NY Jets, NY Giants, Denver, Washington, KC, Carolina, LA Rams and New
Orleans.
Isn’t
ironic that one of the most self-congratulating
environmentally conscious states in the country, California, spews the most
smoke into the environment during their annual fire seasons. Tank God for Ozone
layer holes to let it escape.
Statistics
be damned, I’ll find an incident and viralize it to support my
beliefs.
Viralize?
Lately,
news agencies and reporters have been playing into
Trump’s hands with some serious misreporting apparently in support of the
zealotry of their own position against the President. The problem is that
instead of letting the reporters suffocate under the weight of their own
miscues, he has to issue some uninspired Tweet.
This
past Friday and Saturday I saw intrepid reporters standing
in a half inch of snow warning us of an impending life cycle interruption. I
saw in interviews of well-coiffed, intelligent appearing women on the streets
of NYC remarks like, “I’m scared”. Yes, we have too much media making too much
out of nothing, too often. Nothing happened.
The
Answer:
Teddy Roosevelt received the Peace Prize in 1906 for
brokering the end to the Russo-Japanese War. The First American woman to win the
prize was feminist, anti-war activist Jane Addams for her founding of the Hull
House in Chicago. Bonus: The Top Ten
most liberal colleges on one list are Oberlin, Hampshire, Evergreen State,
Bard, Bennington, Sarah Lawrence, Wesleyan, Smith, Cal Berkley and Macalester.
On several top 10 other lists, I have found other colleges high on the list of
those considered Politically Left: U Vermont, Carleton, Pratt, Mount Holyoke,
Brown, Clark and Smith. Others just below that ten would be Mills, Emerson,
Wheaton, Columbia, Skidmore, Swarthmore and several Art colleges like Chicago
and Savannah. Another list that lists colleges with “Most Liberal Students”
adds to the above Warren Wilson (Ashville NC), Marlboro (Vt.), College of Atlantic
(Bar Harbor Maine), Beloit, Reed, and New College of Sarasota Florida.
I
will feel the love of the season, and I will sing it from
my heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment