Gospel music today: Ernie Haase & Signature Sound

Gotta love the Internet. I hadn't heard about the group Ernie Haase & Signature Sound, but I stumbled across some videos featuring them at YouTube a couple weeks ago, while I was enjoying videos of The Cathedrals. (Ernie Haase was a member of that quartet, too.)

Oh, my, have I been having a great time listening to these guys... The official website is here.

From reading around here and there, I guess I'm late to this party. I guess EH&SS has been rather big and acclaimed for a few years now. Shows what I know... :)

Craftie Ladies of Suspense giveaway

The Craftie Ladies of Suspense is a group blog written by several authors of Christian romantic suspense. This week, they are compiling names of people who leave a comment at their blog, and tomorrow they will draw to see who wins four of their latest books, plus unspecified extra goodies. So, if you're interested, go leave a comment. Let me know if you win.

The Saturday Review of Books...

... is up and growing at Semicolon.

Alvin Fernald / Clifford B. Hicks update

I wrote a review of Alvin's Secret Code, by Clifford B. Hicks, the other day. I've received a comment to that post that has some information for fans of the books starring Alvin Fernald:

Kathryn --

A great review of a really great book. (Of course, I'm prejudiced!). My dad is 87 and is not particularly internet enabled but I will send him a copy today - I'm sure that it will please him very much. If you or anyone is interested in the Alvin series, you might want to check out http://www.alvinfernald.com. Dad still loves to hear from kids and adults who have read his books. He is in relatively good health and his mind functions at 110%. He no longer writes professionally, but he still writes very well.

Thanks, again!!!

Gary Hicks(Son #3)

Thank you, Mr. Hicks. I'm glad to know about The Wacky World of Alvin Fernald website, and I'm delighted to hear that your father is alive and doing well.

A note to my readers: contact information for the author is available at the linked website.

The bar has been lifted on productions of Swan Lake

Or would that be the barre?

This clip from a Chinese production of Swan Lake is incredible.

Coordination test

This is utterly trivial, I know, but it's kind of fun.

Sit on a chair, or stand up holding onto something. Move your right foot in clockwise circles.

Still keeping your foot moving in clockwise circles, draw a numeral 6 in the air with your right hand.

What does your foot do?

Let me know if you ever learn to keep your foot going smoothly in circles while you draw that 6.

Happy Birthday ditty

Tennessee Ernie Ford sings Don't Be Ashamed of Your Age.

That the men in this number can do it with (mostly) straight-faced gusto speaks well of their acting ability, I think. Also their senses of humor.

What to keep, what to shed?

A few weeks ago, our landlord was kind enough to warn us he is trying to sell this lot to someone who would tear the house down and put up something else, offices or commercial, or perhaps a parking lot. The point is, we might be forced to move. We understood this was a possibility when we moved in. We opted for the low rent that was offered along with the uncertainty. But somehow, with the passage of time, the possibility of having to move seemed to fade.

In our dining room is a stack of stuff, to be sorted into "stuff to sell" versus "stuff to give to a friend (if he wants it)" versus "stuff to take to the thrift store." It's not the first stack that's been there. It won't be the last. Well, actually, I'm hoping to move the cull pile out of the dining room once I get another room organized, but the point is that moving stuff into a cull pile and then out the door is something of a lifestyle for us these days. Some things skip the cull pile, and go straight to the trash. My life has become one where I measure success by pounds and armloads of possessions I no longer possess.

I'm enjoying this, on the whole. Over the past few years, we've been slowly, slowly whittling our possessions down to only those things we're using and/or love. We already have considerably less stuff than we did during our last move. It feels good. My goal is to have an uncluttered house, and a more simple lifestyle, whether we move or not. I'm embarrassed half out of my skin that I somehow accumulated this much stuff in the first place. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, either. We have jokes around here that stuff breeds more stuff when we aren't looking, but we don't quite believe that. Not literally, at any rate.

Having the prospect of a move staring us in the face has made it easier to look at things with a different eye. Those afghans I've had since college, I don't even like them anymore. Why are they still here? That odd saucepan under the stove, when did I use it last? How many travel mugs do we need? How many hats and mittens? It's also kicked things into a higher gear, which is probably good.

Since we've been hauling stuff into the house from storage sheds so we can sort in comfort, it doesn't much look like we're making progress. But I have a simultaneous goal of getting out of storage sheds. We're getting there, I think.

There have been some funny moments, like when we found no one wanted to keep a certain bulky chair in the dining room, but hadn't wanted to say so because it was assumed someone else had a sentimental attachment to it. No. We don't want the chair. We have dodged it and squeezed around it all this time simply because of a misunderstanding.

I have also been trying to cull my personal library. This has slowed things down considerably. I have gotten rid of precious few books, but I've been reading like crazy. How can I decide whether I can part with a book unless I read it, or reread it as the case might be? Or, at the very least, browse through it...? :)

Rabbit ears, not cable

Last weekend, we sat down and tried to decide if there was any good reason to keep our cable television subscription going. We were hard pressed to come up with one. I get most of my news from the internet, my husband gets most of his news from radio. There are other, and better, options for entertainment. Certainly there are better options for education. We just don't watch television much any more. But that old bill kept digging money out of our pockets, money we could use elsewhere.

So, Monday my husband called and canceled. To show you how much this affected our lives, it wasn't until last night that we thought to check if the service had been disconnected. It had. We unhooked the cable, and put on the rabbit ear antenna, to see what there was in the way of broadcast TV around here. We find we still have 3ABN (a Seventh-Day Adventist channel) and OPB (Oregon's public broadcasting channel). If we're ever in the mood for mental whiplash, we can channel surf back and forth between those two, I guess. ;)

Brrr

For the record, I walked through a snowstorm to do some errands this morning. This afternoon, we had a hail storm. Last night, my husband met some travelers who'd had to pull off the highway to sit out a storm not too far down the road from here.

Spring has a toehold around here, but it's still prone to slipping.

"Seven Modern Misdeeds" are not "New Deadly Sins"

From Littering Not New "Deadly Sin," Bishops Clarify (Zenit, March 11, 2008):

LONDON, MARCH 11, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Reports that the Vatican has published a new list of the seven deadly sins of modern times that includes littering and economic inequality is simply not true, affirmed the episcopal conference of England and Wales.

The conference released a statement today clarifying that an interview published Sunday by L'Osservatore Romano with Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, regent of the tribunal of he Apostolic Penitentiary, was misinterpreted in the media as an official Vatican update to the seven deadly sins, laid out by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century.

"The Vatican has not published a new list of seven deadly sins; this is not a new Vatican edict," said the conference. "The story originated from an interview that Bishop Gianfranco Girotti gave to the L'Osservatore Romano in which he was questioned about new forms of social sins in this age of globalization."

Read the rest

Books for widows and empty nesters

Debra is seeking recommendations for good books for newly widowed women, and also for empty nesters.

Family friendly movie rentals

Via Baptist Press's Culture Digest, Faith and Family Flix rents DVDs, without subjecting you and your kids to the trashy stuff. They have an affiliate program, too.

Strolling around their site, on the rates and plans page, right beneath the "sign up now" button, I found this: REMEMBER...WE SHOULD NOT SPEND TOO MUCH TIME PLANTED ON OUR BEHINDS WATCHING MOVIES!

I think I'm beginning to like these folks. :)

From glancing at their blog, I see they're still working out a few bumps, and are working on increasing inventory. They're also taking suggestions on which movies to add.

From the About Us page at the blog:

We are the family and friends who founded Faith and Family Flix in 2007. Steve is the Dad of 8 kids with his wife Ginny. John is the father of 4 (with one on the way) with his wife Rebecca. Other authors will be joining us as we go along, we will add their information to this page later on.

This blog is part of the community that we are hoping will form around FFF. Together we hope to share insights on our movie watching experiences. Along with this blog there is a review system in place on the main FFF web site. Logged in users can click the Reviews button at the bottom of the movie detail page for each movie. We encourage all users to review the movies they have seen and provide our wider membership with good information to help them choose titles to add to their queues

Love2Learn at the Movies has a review of the service.

Initiative lessons

Learning to notice what needs doing, and doing it without being asked, is a valuable life skill. This family makes sure that their kids learn this while they're still kids.

Human dignity and bioethics essays published

Via Peter Lawler at No Left Turns, there's a new report out from the United States government: Human Dignity and Bioethics:Essays Commissioned by the President's Council on Bioethics.

Unauthorized reading material gets astronaut yanked

South Korea has had to pick a new first astronaut for their country, after Russia got upset with the initial choice. From the BBC:

Yi So-yeon, 29, is to replace Ko San, 31, on a Russian flight to the International Space Station in April.

Russia's Federal Space Agency requested the change because Mr Ko broke training centre rules, a senior official said.

South Korean officials played down the breaches, which involved removing reading material from the centre.

On one occasion, Mr Ko sent a training book back to South Korea - something he said was by mistake.

On another, he received a book from a Russian colleague that he was not meant to read, said Lee Sang-mok of South Korea's Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

"The Russians emphasised the importance of abiding by the rules, as even small mistakes can bring about grave consequences in space," Mr Lee said.

Mr Ko, who beat more than 36,000 other applicants to the position, has been training in Russia since last year.

He will now serve as the back-up astronaut when Ms Yi flies with two Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station in early April.

It's really hard to refrain from trying to fill in the blanks, or, more precisely, making wild guesses as to what might have really happened. On the other hand, if the people involved want to play down the squabble (whatever the particulars), perhaps I should drop it...

Book note: Decline and Fall, by Bruce Thornton

Peter Robinson interviews Bruce Thorton, author of Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow Motion Suicide at Uncommon Knowledge (NRO TV).

A run a day, for years (and years, and years)

Via Each day, a run and a prayer: Pastor's running streak nears 28 years (by Mark Morical, Bend Bulletin, January 14, 2008) - did you know that there are people who claim to have run at least a mile a day for decades?

The number one active running streak listed at United States Running Streak Association, Inc. as of March 1, 2008 (the latest info available), is that of Mark Covert of Lancaster, California, a teacher and coach who has logged at least a mile a day since July 23, 1968, for a total of 14,467 days (39 years plus 222 days).

There are nine men in the 35+ years category. Can you imagine?

The website also has a retired running streak list. As of post time, there are 22 runners on both the active and retired lists. I guess that means that they missed a day or more and had to start over.

I have mixed feelings about this. In the article on the pastor, it noted that John Watts talked his wife into letting him go for a mile run before he drove her to the hospital after her water broke when she was in labor with their first child. He was afraid, he said, that her labor might last more than 24 hours. (Wouldn't it have been better, at a guess, to get her to the hospital and then take his jog? Does this 'gotta get a run in every day' mindset mess up how people think? I have to think that it could.)

On the other hand, if you're a good runner, a mile a day wouldn't take very long, would it? If you were smart about fitting it in, and kept your priorities straight, I guess you could keep from becoming the sort of person who would run out on people when they needed you, just so you could keep a 'streak' alive.

From the Bend Bulletin article:

“More than half my life I’ve been running every day,” he says by way of putting his amazing streak in perspective. “The last time I didn’t run, Jimmy Carter was our president.”

Just how does Watts maintain his impressive routine despite his demanding job — he oversees 41 churches, driving about 30,000 miles each year throughout Oregon and Idaho — and his responsibilities to his family?

“At first, it was really hard to get used to when we were first married,” says Helen, who married John a little more than a year before his running streak began. “Now it’s just something he does, and I’m really proud of him for sticking with it. It seems a little crazy, but he works it out so it doesn’t conflict with family or work.”

“Getting used to the smelly laundry is the worst of it,” she adds, laughing.

The Watts kids — in addition to Kelsey there’s Heather, 16, and Collin, 11 — have never known their father to skip a day of running.

On Christmas Day last month, some last-minute gift wrapping caused Watts to miss his early-morning run, and by evening, he still had yet to go. But he had some encouragement.

“The kids told me I had to run,” Watts says, smiling.

Watts does not advocate starting a running streak. Everyone’s body is different, but most need a day of rest once in a while, he says. Watts will limit himself to the minimum mile run if he is sick or injured.

“I’m not sure if it’s something I should be proud of or embarrassed about,” Watts admits. “It’s a little obsessive. It’s not something I’d recommend. The sensible thing is to listen to your body and rest. So far I’ve gotten the rest I need by just running a mile.”

[snip]

For most of the past 28 years, Watts has run free from injury and pain. That’s not so for the only other Oregonian on the USRSA list. David Hamilton, 53, of Portland, has run every day since Aug. 14, 1972, good for eighth place on the active list.

“It’s a physical ordeal for him,” Watts says of Hamilton. “Some of these guys, they’re going to have to die before they quit. I tell myself, if it ever becomes a burden I hope I have the sense to stop.”

But that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Watts speaks of running 100,000 miles in his lifetime, or about four times around Earth. He has already run 67,000 miles, or 2.69 times around the planet.

[snip]

His wife thinks he can do it, but she adds: “He’d probably be due for an oil change before that, though.”

“The day he can’t do it (run one mile), it will be a huge blow,” she predicts. “It will be sad for him, and it will be due to something way beyond his control. That will be sad for all of us.”

John, interestingly, doesn’t think ending the streak will be that difficult.

“I actually don’t think it’ll be that big of a deal,” he says. “I don’t think it’s going to be hard.”

[snip]

For Watts, it’s not so much about reaching a goal. It’s just part of his lifestyle.

[snip].

“I like being in shape. Running every day is enough that you’re never out of shape. I like the pattern and the predictability. So much in life is not stable or predictable. I love being outdoors. It’s nice to be out at least once a day.”

Read the full article

I can't argue with the "it's nice to be out at least once a day" bit.

"This could be a bit dodgy"

For the record, there are still Brits with that lovely knack for understatement, combined with bravery and a sense of duty. See First woman DFC wears her uniform with pride - Times Online (March 8, 2008), which honors Flight Lieutenant Michelle Goodman, 31, who has earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for some gutsy helicopter flying in Basra last year.

Assaults on British identity and pride

Melanie Phillips asks What's the point of citizenship classes when we've already surrendered our national identity? (Daily Mail, March 10, 2008).

Well, no, the headline writer at the newspaper probably came up with that bit. On her website, the same article is entitled Britain's broken heart.

In any case, it's worth a read. The government in the UK is discussing ways to improve a sense of belonging, but Phillips thinks some of the ministers have some of their arguments backwards.