An evening with David McCullough April 27, 2009
Posted by Richard in : Blogging, History , add a comment
John and Marjie were gracious enough to consider us when they had two extra tickets to hear David McCullough speak down at Powell Hall tonight. And, though I am woefully behind in reading most of his books, I, like you, have seen and heard many of his endeavors on PBS. And, when I saw an hour of him on the Charlie Rose Show, it really inspired me. He has a love of history coupled with some very, very good communication skills.
He spoke most passionately and emotionally on the subject of Public Education. No matter where the speech took him, he always seemed to come back again to the subject. His overall sentiment was, it’s up to the parents. Some of the biting criticisms he had were along the lines of “less soccer for the 6th grader and more family field trips” or “when you go the parent-teacher conference, ask the teacher ‘what can I do to help you.’ ”
That was also his answer when he wondered aloud what he would say to the new president. He claims he would simply say, “what can I do to help.” And, as long as one does not interpret that statement as “when can I get on the Federal payroll?” then, I most heartily agree with it.
But, what can you do to “help?” Well, help what? right? Isn’t that the question?
Anyway, listening to Mr. McCullough has inspired to write a bit, so there you go.
If Jesus could do it April 12, 2009
Posted by Richard in : Religion, Blogging, History , add a commentI figure if Jesus could get up after three days in a tomb, I could maybe write a blog post.
I had my usual Holy Week schedule this past week: Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. For me, the usual combination of playing guitar and cooking. It’s what I do.
Saturday morning I was watching the History Detectives on PBS and one of the stories got me thinking about mythology and religion. The story starts like this:
George Washington’s cherry tree, Betsy Ross’ flag, Paul Revere’s ride…now Muhlenberg’s Robe may be added to the list of debatable Revolutionary War legends.
The story goes that in January 1776, Lutheran Reverend Peter Muhlenberg turned his pulpit into a recruiting station for revolutionary fighters. During a fiery sermon, he tore his robe from his shoulders to reveal a uniform, and at once rallied 300 able-bodied congregants to the patriotic cause.
So, off go the history detectives to discover that a.) Though the robe is made of the right material and is of the right age to be the robe, there’s no way to prove whether it really is or not and b.) Rev. Muhlenberg most certainly did not tear it off during the sermon to reveal the uniform and likely did not rally the 300 right there on the spot. The story is probably a concoction derived seventy-plus years later when German immigrants needed to feel special about their role in the war up there in Pennsylvania.
But here’s my beef: we all too often ignore the plain obvious facts right in front of our face. 1.) Rev. Muhlenberg was a Lutheran Minister who lived and preached during the birth of our nation 2.) He gave up (took off?) his robe to wear the uniform of revolution and 3.) he convinced many of his congregants to fight against the British.
So, you see how the “myth” compacts and teaches us the story? The real story. The myth is good. Leave it alone.
On another note, I felt obliged to defend the Methodists a bit during this story. As the story goes, the “American Anglicans” (aka Methodists) would not fight the king. This is true enough. One must look inside John Wesley’s head a bit for the answer though.
I won’t bore with all the details, but we could safely say the Wesley simply did not like our founding fathers. He thought them buffoonish hypocrites. His main moral contention was, of course, their ownership of slaves. They demanded “freedom?” …right. The Wesleyan movement had already played a role in abolishing slavery in England years before.
Anyway, sometimes it’s healthy to read about people that our history books tell us are heroes, saints practically; to read Wesley just cut them down and insult them…well, it’s good for you sometimes.
It was raining in the city January 2, 2009
Posted by Richard in : Family, Blogging , add a commentIt was raining in the city. A hard rain.
No, really, it was raining hard. I was staring out the sixth floor hospital window onto a big, old, dark city. A river bending around us like some monster’s sinew. In the bed, my seventy-eight year old mother currently enjoying her morphine drip. She deserves it; she’s spent Christmas night in the ER of this equally big, old, dark hospital and now, a couple days later, just got out of surgery to have a colostomy bag hooked up. We’re all saying to each other, “she is not going to like that.” Flash forward a couple more days and after eating some dinner, the bag begins to fart. She says, “Oh, I hate this bag.”
It’s Christmastime and I’m watching the Sound of Music with her in the hospital. Then, it’s time to leave and she says, “I’ll finish watching and see if they still fall in love.” They do, I watch it every year. I always make everyone in the room stop and take notice when the scene comes where the Captain is singing Edelwiess and Maria is off stage. Then the moment comes. I say to mom this year, “here it comes…wait for it…there it is! She’s fallen in love with him.” What a woman that Julie Andrews is. She’s on my list, you know.
We all hated the hospital, but kept it to ourselves. You want the best for your mother, right? Well, this wasn’t it. But, it was her hospital. Kinda like her car. I want her to have a better car, but she doesn’t and she won’t. And, after a couple of nights of all night partying by some of the guests, she’d had enough and asked for a private room. Much better. We told her when you go back for your surgery, you may as well just ask for a private room right of the bat.
The first surgery (for the bag) went well. The night before, my dad pulled me aside to whisper, “you’re gonna be with her tomorrow morning, right?” Even now, I’m proud to say, he wanted to make sure I was going to do the right thing.
Tonight, the new year is here. She looked really good tonight. Almost back to normal. She really is in good shape. After the tumor comes out next Friday, a couple of weeks of some slow recuperation and some pain, she’ll be back to this point, but for good.
Yes, it’s been hard seeing her like this; in the hospital and nursing home. But, it makes us ask the hard questions of ourselves. Will we be ready for this? First, will we be ready for our parents’ passing. Then, will we be ready for our own infirmities? Where will we go? Who will take care of us? I’ve very proud of her for taking care of herself through the years. I hope I can live up to that high standard.
My prediction November 4, 2008
Posted by Richard in : Politics , 1 comment so farWell, as you know, I was very wrong in my early prediction on who the candidates would be. I predicted Hillary and Giuliani. Crazy, huh? But, one must be bold in one’s thoughts, so here goes for tomorrow:
Obama: 338 electoral votes
McCain: 200 electoral vote
This election has been so very different in so many ways. If Obama wins even bigger, I won’t be shocked. If McCain were to somehow win Florida and Virginia, that would probably mean he wins some other battleground states and he could win. Very unlikely as we look at it tonight, but not impossible.
As my friend Ken always chides me, “what do actually think about this, Richard?”
Well, it’s actually quite simple: this was a race until Sept. 17th. You know what happened that week. the market meltdown. Panic set in, and most folks blamed the status quo, read “republicans,” and that was that. Obama is “not that” and we want “not that”. Now, could Obama have won without that boost? Absolutely; as I said, it was real race. But, now, we have to blame somebody for the meltdown, so who better to blame than the Republicans. It’s an easy out. The pendulum swings back and it will swing back again some day in the future.
Tomorrow, I’ll comment on our new President-elect.
Her name was Bernice September 9, 2008
Posted by Richard in : Morrison Observatory , add a comment
Her name was Bernice, though it seems many, including Carr Pritchett, spelled it Berenice, with an e in the middle. Is it pronounced the same? I don’t know; I assume so. I’m sticking with Bernice.
She comes from a time before the war, when Missouri had plantations and those plantation owners owned slaves. Those slaves tended the tobacco and hemp fields and that tobacco and hemp made Bernice’s grandfather very, very wealthy. That grandfather, known simply as “the captain” along with his wife Lucy raised Bernice from about the age of nine. Her mother had died when Bernice was just five and her father when she was just nine years of age.
Sara Catherine Swinney was Bernice’s mother’s name and she died at the young age of twenty-eight. I have done extensive research and have come up with literally nothing concerning the cause of the woman’s death. What I know for sure is that she was adored by her father. On her massive gravestone in Glasgow, in huge letters, just one word at the top: “Kate.”
[author’s note: I have created a page entitled “A Large Influence for Good” that you’ll see at the top of the blog. This entry that you’re reading now is the first installment of longer work that I’ve been researching for a while now. I will periodically use regular blog entries to write and then paste them into the page dedicated to the topic. Additionally, I will add directly to the page as I develop what I hope to be a magazine article.]
Two Couples July 1, 2008
Posted by Richard in : Annette, Blogging, History , 5comments
Two couples; both married on July 1st. The couple on the left in 1983, the couple on the right in 1916. Both married in the bride’s mother’s living room. The couple on the right, in Denver CO. The couple on the left honeymooned in…that’s right, Denver CO. Supernatural baloney? Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney? Perhaps not.
The Encyclopedia June 23, 2008
Posted by Richard in : Blogging, Morrison Observatory , 1 comment so farThese days, when you say “the encyclopedia,” everyone knows you mean The Wikipedia of internet fame. I think it’s a great resource. Do it have some issues? Sure, it does. Is it “as good” as, say the Britannica? No, speaking strictly of quality it doesn’t even come close.
First and foremost though, it’s free, and the others are not. I like that. Secondly, it’s much larger that the other encyclopedias. Try looking up “The Morrison Observatory” in a regular encyclopedia. It’s just not there. And, probably shouldn’t be. But, in today’s internet world, isn’t it great that there is a place where I can find such things?
Read this article…
WIKIPEDIA and other online research sources were yesterday blamed for Scotland’s falling exam pass rates.The Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) said pupils are turning to websites and internet resources that contain inaccurate or deliberately misleading information before passing it off as their own work. (read the rest…)
So, what to make of this? Well, you have watch out for accuracy. But, first, one must ask, how does this accuracy matter? I think this is where the internet generation may be weak. I bring a healthy dose of skepticism to the table when I read anything, anywhere. I don’t care if it’s in the daily newspaper or it’s on the internet. I want to know who wrote it, why they wrote it and what’s their angle? So, it’s not shocking when I learn that an article or even an encyclopedia entry is a bit biased. But, biased is different than inaccurate isn’t it?
The Wikipedia deals with “inaccuracies” by having hundreds or more people looking and editing the same article. Click on the Discussion tab of a large article sometime to see all the wrangling. But, having said that, it couldn’t possibly be accurate across the whole body of articles. A better word would by consistency. Now, if you’re the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, you can understand an attitude where inconsistency equals inaccuracy; plain and simple. I agree with that.
However, one should enlighten and encourage young researchers to look out for any “inaccuracies,” for they lay in wait in all sorts of source material. Secondly, you, yourself, may log on to Wikipedia and fix any inaccuracies that you find.
I have written one small entry on Bernice Morrison. I have added to and edited two others. One on the Morrison Observatory (including the photo) and another on Carr Waller Pritchett.
The other day I took a gander at the entry for Dwight D. Eisenhower and about cried. It was horrible. Horribly written. I would assign a letter grade of F to it. I am in the process of completely re-writing it.
You got to time to breath; you got time for music June 16, 2008
Posted by Richard in : Music, Entertainment, Mayberry , add a commentI was talking to an old friend from church the other day about Allison Krauss and bluegrass music. I asked her if she remembered The Darlings from the Andy Griffith Show. I was explaining to her how Bluegrass bands are always so serious or expressionless while they play. The Darlings (The Dillards in real life) made a joke of it in the show. I don’t claim to understand it; but I could listen to Bluegrass all day.
First the Darling Family:
And then a very young Allison singing Heaven’s Bright Shore:
Have we been keeping up with our reading? June 11, 2008
Posted by Richard in : Politics, Entertainment, Blogging , add a commentCamille Paglia’s latest: (read all three pages)
June 11, 2008 | Shuddering, lurching and stumbling, the 2008 general election has finally, mercifully begun. For a year and a half, U.S. voters have been flogged like a prison gang through the nine circles of media hell. The two dazed survivors of the primary process, John McCain and Barack Obama, are now warily circling each other, looking for an opening even as they try to shed the already hardened public perception of their character and motivation. - read the rest….
The Cruise June 1, 2008
Posted by Richard in : Family, Blogging , 3commentsI figure I’d better post some pictures at least before my family disowns me.
First, a couple of shots while we’re waiting to embark:
A view from the shady deck:
Our dinner table on formal night:
Our Servers:
Us later on Formal Night:
Ready to power snorkel!
A really big ship that pulled in next to us:
Us in Cozumel:
It’s official; we are both born hams. With all the highlights of a Caribbean Cruise what was the best part for us? Why, singing on stage, of course! With a live band backing us up. The crowd roared, I tell you.
Oh, yeah, there was some other talent there too:
Ralph & Sam’s House in Mobile, AL:
