Another Awards Show

Last night while flipping TV channels for a few moments I discovered that the Grammys were being aired. As I watched the song being performed at that moment I realized that, given the current popular music scene, there probably wouldn't be too much that I like listening to. It's not so much the music, though reading the list of nominees and winneers artists this morning I recognized almost none of the artists from the station I listen to most -- the Triple A (Adult album alternative) WWCT -- but the, uh, social commentary that is de rigueur with such televised spectacles. So I turned the TV off...

As into my mind popped another awards show from the distant past, in this case the Emmys. From its beginnings television programming has (often deservedly) suffered much from the tongues and pens of critics. Radio's Fred Allen observed in 1950 that "television is called a medium because it is rare that it is well done." (Google tells me Ernie Kovacs, the early TV genius who was taken from us much too soon, said much the same thing.) And while the Emmys can often take television more seriously than it deserves, there's this wickedly funny presention from the 1959 Emmy Awards by the comedians Mike Nichols and Elaine May.

There will be a lot said here tonight about excellence. And the creative, the artistic, and the skillful will all be recognized and rewarded.

But what of the others in this industry? Seriously, there are men in the industry who go on, year in and year out, quietly and unassumingly producing garbage.

I'm very, very proud to have been chosen by the Academy to present tonight's Special Award to the man who has been voted the Most Total Mediocity in the industry...

Oh, go ahead and watch it all. It may fit last night's Grammys more than I imagined.

Mike Nichols: RIP

Mike Nichols died a couple of days ago. I was probably 8-years-old the first time I heard the following. I've been a fan ever since.

Here he is accepting an Emmy Award in the year I was born. He definitely did not deserve this.

Television hasn't changed all that much, has it...

Geoff Edwards: Thanks for the Good Times

Geoff Edwards, the mid-morning DJ on KMPC Los Angeles from 1968-1979, has died.

Apparently I'm at the age where I'm going to hear this more-and-more of those people who I never met or knew but were, nonetheless, part of my every-day life growing up. While the national news is focussing on his game show hosting, the LA Times's obituary hit exactly what popped into my mind when I heard the news this morning on the radio:

On radio, he was a clever talker who sprinkled music and news with homegrown bits like "The Answer Lady." That was simply Edwards answering listeners' questions, often comically, without even pretending to imitate a female voice.

Listeners called 520-8600 (Can you believe I remember the KMPC phone number?), Geoff'd say in his normal voice "Answer Lady," a question was asked (it could be about anything), he toss off a quick one-line answer and immediately push the next button on the phone, saying, "Answer Lady," and doing this bit quick-boom-boom for 3-5 minutes. Alas, you don't hear this kind of radio any more.

Edwards probably received more noteriety for his game show hosting and he was, for many years, the announcer for the California Lottery's The Big Spin. Perhaps the biggest moments of his career was when he was reporting on the events following President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas for KHJ/Mutual, including being at the scene when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. A good retrospective of his career, including how he came to be in Dallas that day, appears right now on the front page of Don Barrett's LARadio.com, the place to remember over 6000 "LA Radio People".

While I remember him best from KMPC, it turns out Geoff was the morning man at KFI just prior to Lohman and Barkley -- which means I would have listened to him every morning when I first got my own radio for my bedroom. While they were indeed brilliant, Lohman and Barkley didn't do a whole lot for me when I was 9-10 years old, and I switched to KMPC. Of course, with a 9-Noon shift, I only got to hear him in the summertime.

You can listen to an air check of the 11 o'clock hour Geoff Edwards on KMPC from November 13, 1978. The first half,
and the second half,
.
No "Answer Lady" here -- she usually happened during the 10 o'clock hour -- but it's a good taste of the old full service AM radio that, alas, no longer exists. FWIW, it does run a wee bit slow, but that's noticeable mainly if you remember what he sounded like on the air.

Oh, cool!! One of Geoff's most famous radio bits, Mr. Kent calling the dry cleaners to see if his stuff (dropped off earlier by Miss Lane) is ready, appears on his web site.

Besides the Times' obit, there's this from the Hollywood Reporter (hey, local sources are best) and his Facebook page, which has some wonderful photos. I think he enjoyed a good life. I'm glad he was a part of mine. Requiescat in pace.

What I Am Learning on Retreat

Apologies to Waylon and Jessi....

This Is Just SO Wrong

"Leslie shares ways to make an intimate baptism ceremony elegant--even around a swimming pool." The good news is that that the YouTube likes-dislikes score is 38-653.

The bad news? While I haved tagged it "parody," apparently the producers of the "reality show," Big Rich Texas, are serious! (The things I miss not having cable....)

Sunday Morning

Spooky!

The Switch to Digital TV

I entered the digital TV age when, at the beginning of the year and in preparation for my convalescence from prostate surgery (good news, my PSA level is still immeasurable and, while I still tire too easily, I'm doing a lot more to get there), I bought a DVD player that has both a VCR and a digital tuner. There I discovered that a Peoria resident does not have to hook up to cable TV to get the CW affiliate (CW 4) or the PBS affiliate (WTVP 47) after midnight. They are broadcast over the air using digital transmissions, the CW being on WHOI 19's subchannel. I also discovered the 2 subchannels for WTVP and NBC's WeatherPlus (the subchannel for WEEK 25), which enabled me to discover the very-pleasing-to-the-eye Samantha Davies (whom the Urban Dictionary describes as "smokin hot chick."

The bad news with digital is that you either get the signal or you don't. No more in-between, where with a weak (analog) signal you get a somewhat (or severely) snowy picture. And that is particularly annoying in the Parsonage because TV signals here, even with an amplified antenna, have a habit of suddenly becoming shadowy, especially (but not necessarily) where there is a major weather change. A channel comes in just fine for weeks, then suddenly the signal goes kablooey and I spend weeks realigning the antenna to get as many of our over-the-air channels as possible clearly. It's pretty rare that all 6 analog signals come in decently, though usually I can get 4 very good and 1 quite acceptable with one set up. WYZZ 43 (Fox) or WAOE 59 (My TV) throw fits the most, but it can happen with any of the Peoria area channels, the afore mentioned stations or WMBD 31 (CBS).

The TV stations are also busy promoting the changeover to digital and I have gotten my converter boxes, one for the living room TV (the "big" 20-inch one connected to the DVD/VCR -- heck, it's a perfectly good 12-year-old Zenith) and one for the upstairs TV -- a 23-year-old 13-incher which is a bit fiesty on UHF (which is what all the local channels are) but with the converter works just fine on Channel 3. Except, naturally, I can't get all 6 digital signals no matter what direction I put the (regular rabbit ears) antenna. Well, I don't use that TV set much anyway.

Nevertheless, a digital converter box enables me to continue resisting the evil cable company. This video guide to the conversion is more useful that others:



Meanwhile, NBC is pulling the plug on Weatherplus. But you can watch the lovely Samatha Davies here. Enjoy!

Broken Escalator

Okay. I'm on dial up (except when I use the free Wi-Fi at a local restaurant), so I don't view web videos very often. But this was linked at Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor last month (I'm catching up on old reading), this one was pretty short, and it is just too funny. Especially since I've not had any of my elevator nightmares in a long, long time.




And if that's not enough for you...

My parents just came back from a planet where the dominant life form had no bilateral symmetry, and all I got was this stupid FShirt.

ELCA News on Triduum

This was posted today on the ELCA News Blog:

Lutherans wade in water during World Water Day, Easter Vigil, March 22

March 20, 2008  
by Melissa Ramirez Cooper, ELCA News Service

More than 1 billion people in the world lack access to clean, safe drinking water.  In an effort to bring about awareness, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in 1992 to designate March 22 as "World Water Day."  "Water access is a priority to all people, and World Water Day is a day to bring attention to those in our world who lack clean, safe drinking water, and adequate sanitation services," said Patricia Zerega, director, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Corporate Social Responsibility.  The ELCA social statement, "Caring for Creation Vision, Hope, and Justice," affirms the church's support for proposals and actions to protect and restore "water, especially drinking water, groundwater, polluted runoff, and industrial and municipal waste."

The new edition of the ELCA World Hunger's "Congregation Connections" and the new ELCA World Hunger "Reproducible Stories" will feature water and justice themes, said Sue Edison-Swift, communication director, ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal.  Both resources will be made available in April.  "Just as water is foundational for life, life-giving water efforts are foundational to ELCA World Hunger," according to Kathryn Sime, director, ELCA World Hunger and Disaster Appeal.  "Clean water becomes a trout farm, safety in a refugee camp, or heightened knowledge about malaria prevention," said Sime.

For Christians, water is symbolic in Baptism.  "A number of ELCA congregations will be conducting Baptisms on March 22, since it is the Vigil of Easter this year," said the Rev. Marcus Kunz, executive for discernment of contextual and theological Issues, ELCA Office of the Presiding Bishop.  "The Easter Vigil service is focused on Baptism and the believer's baptismal journey with Christ in his death and resurrection, following the tradition of the early church in baptizing converts at the Easter Vigil after catechesis during the season of Lent.  The story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea is read.  When the Easter Vigil service is observed with gusto, a lot of water gets thrown about, and a thanksgiving prayer full of water references is prayed," he said.

World Water Day? Just whose church is this?

Choir solution

Zion hasn't had a choir for most of the 15 years I've served her. This is tempting.

Update Sept. 1, 2008: Naturally, with the auction long gone, the link no longer works. So, while missing some of the formatting:




Anglican Choral Tradition (SATB) (Bristol Based)

Venerable Anglican scarlet-robed choral tradition (SATB), of St Stephen's Church, Centre of Bristol. Good condition.

Reason for sale: The choir have (with extreme sadness) decided that even though they would have liked to have assisted with the future plans for the church, they essentially have no place in the new worship arrangements that will soon be imposed, and that little opportunity for negotiation now exists.

Over the past few years the choir have sung in guest appearances at: Notre Dame de Paris, Wells Cathedral, Buckfast Abbey, Bristol Cathedral, and St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and produced well reviewed concerts.

Example Repertoire: Works by composers like:

Arcadelt
Allegri
Ayleward
Attwood
Bach
Briggs
Bruckner
Bull
Byrd
Darke
Gabrieli
Gibbons
Lassus
Marsh
Mozart
Palestrina
Praetorious
Rose
Rutter
Stanford
Sumsion
Tallis
Taverner
Tye
Viadana
de Victoria
Vierne
Weelkes
(and many more....)

Remember this during the debate...

Okay, I just couldn't resist. Thanks to Touchstone's Mere Comments for pointing me into yet one more helpful (okay, they describe it as "brutal") direction.

For more similarly inclined, uh, motivational posters click here. It's a good thing these weren't around when I was in seminary....

The Parable of the Good Soccer Mom

A the tail end of my Saturday entry I mentioned that I would be on the Peoria Life Chain, missing a big chunk of the final game of my beloved Los Angeles Angels. That enables me to bring to your attention to, if you haven't already read it, last Thursday's First Things: On the Square entry.

For background, it seems that the Democratic candidate for Governor of Texas is joining a growing number of Democrats (including our Junior US Senator from Illinois in (rightly) declaring that a "Christian voice" (or, at least, a "voice of faith") in American politics ought not be the exclusive property of the Republican Party. Congressman Bell invokes Jesus in the national debate over embryonic stem cell research, declaring a clear answer to "What would Jesus do?"

First Things Junior Fellow Ryan Anderson responds by offering this "retelling of a familiar parable."

The Parable of the Good Soccer Mom
“You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

Chris Bell, because he wished to be elected governor, asked, “And who is my neighbor?”

Consider the Parable of the Good Soccer Mom: An embryo fell into the hands of ambitious scientists after she was left over in the freezer of an in vitro fertilization lab.

A molecular biologist happened to be journeying through the lab. Seeing that the embryo was very small and didn’t look like other human beings, he decided that it was not a human being. And he passed to the other side of the lab and left the embryo for his colleagues.

Likewise a moral philosopher came to the place and launched into an exposition of human embryology and developmental biology. He concluded that the human embryo was a whole human being at the very beginning of her life. The embryo possessed all of the internal resources necessary to guide herself—by a self-directed process—through further stages of development toward the maturity of organismic life. In doing this, the embryo integrates herself so as to keep her unity, identity, and determinateness all intact. No mere part of some other organism—as the sperm and egg cells whose union brought her into existence were—the embryo is both functionally and genetically distinct from any other organism, a whole and complete (though immature) human being. The term embryo is just a way of classifying the early human being, just as the terms fetus, newborn, infant, child, adolescent, adult, and octogenarian all refer to human beings at other stages. These terms, he concludes, refer to the same self-developing, unitary organism: the human being.

While the molecular biologist got the science wrong, the philosopher got it right. But the embryo could feel no pain or pleasure and exhibited no consciousness of any type, and so the philosopher concluded that the human embryo had no moral status and possessed no rights. And he, too, passed to the other side of the lab and left the embryo to the tender mercies of the scientists.

But a Soccer Mom who came upon the embryo was moved by both scientific fact and right moral reason. Aware of the humanity of the embryo as established by modern embryology, she wondered what was owed to the human being in the embryonic stage of life. She thought that whatever was owed to human beings at other stages of life was owed to them at the embryonic stage. For age and stage of development certainly are not morally significant. Older people do not have greater moral status; neither do the more fully developed. All human beings are of equal moral worth, she reasoned, because they are equally human. So, what is owed to human beings? Why, human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, possessing free will and rational natures that make them entities of intrinsic—and not mere instrumental—worth. They are to be treated as subjects and not as objects. Hence they are owed protection, support, and aid. In a word, they are owed love.

She summed up her findings: A human embryo is a whole member of the human species. Each human being entered life as an embryo. And all human beings are subjects of profound, inherent, intrinsic worth in virtue of what they are, not what they can do. And if they are subjects of worth in virtue of what they are, then they bear this worth from the moment that they first come into existence.

The Soccer Mom then rescued the embryo, transferred her to her womb, and cared for her.

“Mr. Bell, which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the embryo?”

Read the rest here.

I've been a subscriber to First Things since issue #13 and I was an Intern Pastor at Saint John's Lutheran Church, Helena, Montana -- when every penny counted.