Proposal

To think I only proposed without the music or dancing (and we are still married).  This is a great video, but it raises the bar for those of you who have yet to propose.

In the style of http://youtu.be/ZPjjZCO67WI  from Grand Rapids, there are some clever people out there!

Choral Humor

My LW found this neat site of choral humor (http://www.chorus.neu.edu/Choralhumor.htm):


A Concise Guide To The Choir 


In any choir or chorus, there are four voice parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass.
There are also various other parts such as baritone, countertenor, contralto, mezzo-soprano, etc., but these terms are mostly used by people who are either soloists, or belong to some excessively hotshot classical a cappella group (this applies especially to countertenors), or are trying to make excuses for not really fitting into any of the regular voice parts, so we will ignore them for now.
Each voice part sings in a different range, and each one has a very different personality. You may ask, "Why should singing different notes make people act differently?" Indeed, this is a mysterious question which has not been adequately studied, especially since scientists who study musicians tend to be musicians themselves and have all the peculiar complexes that go with being tenors, French horn players,tympanists, or whatever.
However, this is beside the point; the fact remains that the four voice parts can be easily distinguished, and I will now explain how.
THE SOPRANOS are the ones who sing the highest, and because of this they think they rule the world. They have longer hair, fancier jewelry, and swishier skirts than anyone else, and they consider themselves insulted if they are not allowed to go at least to a high F in every movement of any given piece. When they reach the high notes, they hold them for at least half again as long as the composer and/or conductor requires, and then complain that their throats are killing them and that the composer and conductor are sadists.
Sopranos have varied attitudes toward the other sections of the chorus, though they consider all of them inferior: The altos are to sopranos rather like second violins to first violins--nice to harmonize with, but not really necessary. All sopranos have a secret feeling that the altos could drop out and the piece would sound essentially the same, and they don't understand why anybody would sing in that range in the first place -- it's so boring.
Sopranos think tenors, on the other hand, can be very nice to have around; besides their flirtation possibilities (it is a well-known fact that sopranos never flirt with basses), sopranos like to sing duets with tenors because all the tenors are doing is working very hard to sing in a low-to-medium soprano range, while the sopranos are up there in the stratosphere showing off.
To sopranos, basses are the scum of the earth -- they sing too damn loud, are useless to tune to because they're down in that low, low range -- and there has to be something wrong with anyone who sings in the F clef, anyway. One curious fact, however, is that although the sopranos swoon while the tenors sing, they still end up going home (and/or to bed) with the basses.
THE ALTOS are the salt of the earth -- in their opinion, at least. Altos are unassuming people who would wear jeans to concerts if they were allowed to. Altos are in a unique position in the chorus in that they are unable to complain about having to sing either very high or very low, and they know that all the other sections think their parts are pitifully easy. But the altos know otherwise. They know that while the sopranos are screeching away on a high A, they are being forced to sing elaborate passages full of sharps and flats and tricks of rhythm, and nobody is noticing because the sopranos are singing too loud (and the basses usually are, too). Altos get a deep, secret pleasure out of conspiring together to tune the sopranos flat.
Altos have an innate distrust of tenors, because the tenors sing in almost the same range and think they sound better. They like the basses, and enjoy singing duets with them -- thebassesjust sound like a rumble anyway, and it's the only time the altos can really be heard. Altos' other complaint is that there are always too many of them and so they never get to sing really loud.
THE TENORS are spoiled. That's all there is to it. For one thing, there are never enough of them, and choir directors would rather sell their souls than let a halfway decent tenor quit, while they're always ready to unload a few sopranos or altos at half price. And then, for some reason, the few tenors there are always seem to be really good -- it's one of those annoying facts of life.
So it's no wonder that tenors always get swollen heads -- after all, who else can make sopranos swoon? The one thing that can make tenors insecure is the accusation (usually by the basses) that anyone singing that high couldn't possibly be a real man. In their usual perverse fashion, the tenors never acknowledge this, but just complain louder about the composer being a sadist and making them sing so damn high.
Tenors have a love-hate relationship with the conductor, too, because the conductor is always telling them to sing louder because there are so few of them. No conductor in recorded history has ever asked for less tenor in a forte passage.
Tenors feel threatened in some way by all the other sections -- the sopranos, because they can hit those incredibly high notes; the altos, because they have no trouble singing the notes the tenors kill themselves for; and the basses because, although they can't sing anything above an E, they sing it loud enough to drown the tenors out. Of course, the tenors would rather die than admit any of this.
It is a little-known fact that tenors move their eyebrows more than anyone else while singing. And it's true what Liszt said: tenors have resonance where their cerebra should be.
THE BASSES sing the lowest of anybody. This basically explains everything. They are solid, dependable people, and have more testosterone and facial hair than anybody else. By the same token, they also tend to baldness more than any of the other parts. The basses feel perpetually unappreciated, but they have a deep conviction that they are actually the most important part (a view endorsed by musicologists, but certainly not by sopranos or tenors), despite the fact that they have the most boring part of anybody and often sing the same note (or in endless fifths) for an entire page. They compensate for this by singing as loudly as they can get away with -- most basses are tuba players at heart.
Basses are the only section that can regularly complain about how low their part is, and they make horrible faces when trying to hit very low notes. Basses are charitable people, but their charity does not extend so far as tenors, whom they consider effete poseurs. Basses hate tuning the tenors more than almost anything else. Basses like altos -- except when they have duets and the altos get the good part.
As for the sopranos, they are simply in an alternate universe which the basses don't understand at all. They can't imagine why anybody would ever want to sing that high and sound that bad when they make mistakes. When a bass makes a mistake, the other three parts will cover him, and he can continue on his merry way, knowing that sometime, somehow, he will end up at the root of the chord.


Of course, I love a Soprano (bass in the above description).  I also liked the lightbulb of the conductor:


Q: How many choral conductors does it take to change a light bulb?
A: No one knows....no one's looking!


Also our group has 2 men who started as Baritones:


Q: What's the dictionary definition of "tenor"?
A: Any baritone who joins a choir that doesn't already have enough tenors.

Memorial Day

I was fortunately lucky enough to not see death when I was in the military.  Being in Subs, the Vietnam War was more about being not detected and spying then "real combat."

But I have friends that did serve with death around them.  It is an honor to know these people.  To our fallen heros, I say thank you for the ultimate sacrifice and serving this country and perserving our way of life!

Bible Translation

This month, the Assemblies of God (AOG) USA and the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) study committees have released their reports on the use of Father and Son in translation. ....
The Assemblies of God World Missions’ April 2012 document was made public on May 15, 2012, and entitled, “The Necessity for Retaining Father and Son Terminology in Scripture Translations for Muslims.“ Its summary statement read:
“Our Fellowship is unrelentingly committed to the authority and infallibility of Scripture. While we appreciate the challenges missionaries and translators face in intercultural communication, we will neither compromise nor dilute God’s eternal truth, nor change its intended plain meaning. We, therefore, urge all believers to reject these and any other Scripture translations, whether for Muslim or non-Muslim audiences, for both public and personal use, that do not literally translate Father and Son terminology.”   (Pages 16-17)
In a similar fashion the PCA study committee released their findings on May 18 under the title “Like Father, Like Son: Divine Familial Language in Bible Translation.“ Like the AOG document it makes reference to the materials in the Fact Check of the Biblical Missiology petition, and also has strong concluding recommendations:
“Bible translations geared for Islamic contexts should not be driven by concerns that Muslims may recoil from biological terms applied to God or Jesus. That revulsion originates primarily out of religious conviction, not any communicative limitation of the terms themselves. The essentially biological terms (Hebrew, ben and ab; Greek, huios and pater) are divinely given and therefore should be translated into comparable biological terms. Footnotes, parentheticals and other paratextual comments may be used to explain the biblical and theological riches of Scripture, while never subverting the important truths embedded in the biological contours of Scripture’s words.(http://biblicalmissiology.org/2012/05/25/press-release-two-major-denominations-release-their-findings-on-father-and-son-terminology/)

The translations have altered references to God as “Father” and to Jesus as the “Son” or “the Son of God.” One example can be seen in an Arabic version of the Gospel of Matthew produced and promoted by Frontiers and SIL.

It changes Matthew 28:19 from “baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” to “cleanse them by water in the name of Allah, his Messiah and his Holy Spirit.” (

http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/church-groups-keep-father-son-in-bible/)

It seems to me that the Bible's major emphasis should not be changed.  It seems that "politically correct" language has gone rather far, allowing perversion of the Bible's main message.

14 Videos

I took videos of the Swedish Glee Club Spring Concert.  In total, I processed 14 videos of the singing.

It took 88 GB of data on our computer.  I used iMovie to convert the data to m4v videos and then uploaded them to YouTube (actually at the moment I still need to upload the last 5 to UTube).

So if you are interested, all of the Swedish Glee Club videos are at (or will be at later today) SwedgleeClub channel.

In many respects, iy is easier to sing the songs, then process them & upload them!

Real Federal Deficit

If congress did not exempt itself from nearly all laws, the federal deficit would be $5 trillion.


The typical American household would have paid nearly all of its income in taxes last year to balance the budget if the government used standard accounting rules to compute the deficit, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
Under those accounting practices, the government ran red ink last year equal to $42,054 per household — nearly four times the official number reported under unique rules set by Congress. ....

The big difference between the official deficit and standard accounting: Congress exempts itself from including the cost of promised retirement benefits. Yet companies, states and local governments must include retirement commitments in financial statements, as required by federal law and private boards that set accounting rules. ....
The deficit was $5 trillion last year under those rules. The official number was $1.3 trillion.

•Social Security had the biggest financial slide. The government would need $22.2 trillion today, set aside and earning interest, to cover benefits promised to current workers and retirees beyond what taxes will cover. That's $9.5 trillion more than was needed in 2004.

•Deficits from 2004 to 2011 would be six times the official total of $5.6 trillion reported.

•Federal debt and retiree commitments equal $561,254 per household. By contrast, an average household owes a combined $116,057 for mortgages, car loans and other debts. (

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-05-18/federal-deficit-accounting/55179748/1)

My generation is going to bankrupt my grandkids.  In general, I believe is spending less than we make, if only our federal government believed in that, we might have some hope for our kids!


“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Kids Play

Yesterday when I was putting up the banners (it is Pentecost on Sunday) at our Church, Little Bear (a Christian preschool housed at Trinity United Lutheran Church) was practicing for the school graduation program.

This got me to thinking about when I got to watch our kids perform.  It is a great feeling to watch your kids (or grandkids) do something.

My daughter was (and is) very talented at singing.  She starred in A Birthday Party and other plays when she was younger and was brilliant.  Fortunately, she gets her vocal skills from her mother (my LW).

Most Saturdays, we got to watch my son play soccer,  He was often (IMHO) the best player on the field.

I miss those days when we got to be proud parents of the stars.  Of course, now we have grandkids, which is great too!

Spring Concert

This past Sunday at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, the Waukegan Swedish Glee Club and the Waukegan Swedish Women's Chorus held their Spring Concert.

The above video is of one of the combined numbers, Alleluia by Randall Thompson. The Glee Club & Chorus sang as total of 18 songs, both in Swedish and English.

The intermission group was Lekspel, which consisted of an accordion, a violin, and a guitar.  They played various Swedish dances and were very good.

Amy Nelson played a trumpet solo with Jeff Delay on piano, which was excellent.

It was fun to perform, I wish I was better, but at least I try!

"Holidays"

We are coming out of the Mother's Day holiday season.  Every store had "gifts for mom" and ideas for under $500, etc..

I saw some of the first ads for Father's Day!  It's not like Father's Day is a real holiday.  Everyone (well most people anyway) celebrate Mother's Day.  Which only right, since as Bill Cosby's mother used to say "I bought you into this world boy (and I can take you out)."  (For some classic Cosby on parents http://youtu.be/anNR5YU98OQ).

It is interesting the "gifts" available for the 2 "holidays."  Mother's Day is flowers and candy and jewelry and iPads.  For Father's Day, it is gardening equipment and shaving gear and GPS's (since we refuse to ask for directions) and auto stuff.  So we look lousy, need to cut the grass, can't find our way out of a paper bag, and need to make the car look nice for the LW's.

Some Dads like candy at least!

Article Mishmash

(NaturalNews) In a bombshell revelation of the depth of the food police state that now exists in LA County, California, NaturalNews has learned that the LA County health department has unleashed door-to-door raw milk confiscation teams to threaten and intimidate raw dairy customers into surrendering raw milk products they legally purchased and own.
According to Mark McAfee (see quotes below), both LA County and San Diego county have attempted to acquire customer names and addresses from Organic Pastures (www.OrganicPastures.com) for the sole purpose of sending "food confiscation teams" to customers' homes to remove the raw milk from customers' refrigerators. Using both phone calls and home visits, these teams intimidate customers and try to force them to give up their milk.  ...

"I received a phone call yesterday morning from a wonderful young gal, a 36-year-old mom out of LA County. She's one of our UPS customers that we deliver overnight raw milk to her house. When the CDFA was in here the other day on our recall, they demanded to have all our delivery addresses for overnight UPS delivery. We screwed up and [inadvertently] gave it to them, they got it from one of our secretaries here. The LA County health department started calling her, six or seven times, demanding that she give up her raw milk from her own home to the health department.
She refused, then they showed up at her house and demanded that she give her raw milk to them. She was getting ready to call 911 for the Sheriff's department and have them removed from her front doorstep, and she was threatening to use her camera to take a picture of them and post it on Facebook for harassing her over her raw milk... The investigators left after she told them she was not going to give them the raw milk and to get the Hell off her property.(http://www.naturalnews.com/035895_food_police_raw_milk_confiscation.html)


I don't drink raw milk, but I don't like the idea of people who chose to use it being harassed by the government.  Sometimes people need to live their own lives without the GOV!


The violence in northern Nigeria is mistakenly viewed as a religious conflict rather than simply a tribal dispute over land, according to the Obama administration.
Despite the ongoing Muslim destruction of churches and the slaughter of Christians – including many murdered during worship services – the U.S. Agency for International Development claims that the misunderstandings make it difficult to administer aid programs. ...
The unveiling of PEACE comes as the slaughter of Nigerian Christians is on the rise.

As WND reported earlier this month, an international Christian ministry says Muslims recently killed hundreds of Christians gathering for worship.
Patrick Sookhdeo, international director for Barnabas Fund, said at the time: “The simple act of going to church on a Sunday has become a perilous one for Christians in many parts of Nigeria.”
Indeed, Nigerian media have reported that the Muslim jihadist group Boko Haram has pledged to “eradicate Christianity.” (PEACE is Programming Effectively Against Conflict and Extremism from PO that will cost $600 million). (http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/obama-slaughter-of-christians-a-misunderstanding/)


Sometimes violence against Christians is just violence against Christians.  PO seems to believe that "radical" Muslims don't really dislike Christians they are only rebelling against poverty!


Davis High School has been fined $15,000 after they were caught selling soda pop during lunch hour, which is a violation of federal law.
The federally mandated law prohibits the sale of carbonated beverages after lunch is served. The program is an effort to help fight childhood obesity and to have young students make better food choices.  
The mandate allows for carbonated beverages to be sold before lunch, but restricts students from buying lunch, then purchasing carbonated drinks afterward. 
“Before lunch you can come and buy a carbonated beverage. You can take it into the cafeteria and eat your lunch, but you can’t first go buy school lunch then come out in the hallway and buy a drink,” said Davis High Principal Dee Burton.
Principal Burton said he does not understand the law with rules that seem to be contradictory.
“We can sell a Snickers bar, but can’t sell licorice. We can’t sell Swedish Fish, we can’t sell Starburst, we can’t sell Skittles, but we can sell ice cream, we can sell the Snickers bar, Milky Ways, all that stuff,” said Burton.
The school is bound to obey the law, however, if they want the $15,000 the federal government gives to subsidize their school lunch program. (http://fox13now.com/2012/05/14/davis-high-fined-for-having-unhealthy-vending-food-choices/)


Why can't the federal government just let parents control thier children, why must they make stupid and conflicting laws?  Well, when you except anything from the Federal Gov, their is a cost!