Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday centered on giving thanks to God for the abundance of our lives. It is sometimes difficult to explain this holiday to our brothers and sisters in other countries -- Pilgrims, Indians, eating together from the bounty of the harvest, no matter how small, thankful in every way.

Over the years, I have missed three Thanksgiving celebrations with our family -- 1986, when I was in West Chester, PA as the shopping network QVC premiered; my family was in Pittsburgh while I supervised the first hours of the network's television operation. The loneliness of the holiday-away was somewhat offset as two of my staffers and one spouse gathered and gave thanks around a meal that she prepared.

The second missed Thanksgiving was in 1996 while I was in Dusseldorf, Germany, this time working as a consultant with QVC as we prepared for the launch of QVC Deutschland. There were a number of Americans working with me and I organized a Thanksgiving celebration at the Steigerwald Hotel where I was living. The Chef was most obliging and understood everything except the concept of "seconds."

The third missed Thanksgiving was the next year when I was working as a consultant in Sydney, Australia, once again preparing for the launch of a TV Shopping network for Australia.

As I had done in Germany, I organized a Thanksgiving celebration for the Americans there which was highlighted by a verbal argument over a business matter between the CEO and the Director of Marketing; very verbal and entertaining, at the time.

This year, we will have members of our family missing from the table -- some are in Thailand, teaching music at a university there; others with family in Connecticut. They will be remembered in a toast.

However large or small our celebration, we are reminded every day in ways large and small of the abundance of our living -- the roof over my head, the running water from my faucet, the food in my refrigerator.

How grateful; how thankful!

Truth

It is hard these days to find the truth. Statements are always garbed in shades of gray, leaning this way or that way. We live in a non-committal world, fearful of taking a stand or not wanting to have our head handed to us for taking a position.

Our legalistic tradition requires the witness on the stand to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" as a way of eliminating all the possibilities of falsehood.

Political Correctness forbids us from speaking our minds for fear that we may either offend someone or that we will end up losing something ourselves in the shoutdown resulting from our true feelings.

Politicians and their staffs have become so skilled at shading the truth that we now have a new term -- "Spin" -- to describe what we all know; the truth is in there but it is either not the whole truth or maybe not nothing but the truth or perhaps both.

Somehow, "spin" has become acceptable -- not just for the political class, but also for the rest of us. And, we are doing that with our children: no child ever loses; everyone gets a medal or a trophy, every graduate excelled at something.

We even tried that with housing -- everyone should have a house, riiight? This is a great country and everyone deserves to own a house. Somehow, we failed to realize that not everyone in our society can afford all that goes with a house -- like a mortgage and taxes; we failed or did not want to accept ... the truth.

I did not set out to have this blog be full of political commentary, so please do not, dear Reader, take this as such, but aren't the politicians once again, failing to accept the truth about "the stimulus?" When all the stimulus money is spent, won't people get laid off again? We were paying for them to be employed, but now there are no more funds to supplement the payroll. The "shovel-ready" projects are all half-done, but the stimulus money runs out. It's over.

The truth.

If you stimulate my heart to keep it beating and then the battery causing the stimulus runs out of power, what happens? The heart stops. Truth.

We need to get back to a basic honesty with ourselves and our society. Legalism, Rationality, Enlightened Thinking, One Worldism, Spin -- all ignore the fact about human beings:

WE ARE FLAWED.

I want to be better, I want to do better, I strive to make the world today a better place than it was yesterday. But, calling our foibles something other than the truth of what they are, may make us feel better, but we are deluding ourselves and being deluded willfully and knowingly by others. Feeling better? Is that what all this illusion is about?

Spinning the truth to make it fit an agenda or to avoid full disclosure is deception, sleight of hand. Doing so may make the spinner feel better or feel clever, but in small ways or large ways, it harms those being deceived.

We should get back to the truth -- sooner, rather than later.

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

~ Abraham Lincoln

Innocent until Proven Guilty

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat -- "The proof lies upon the one who affirms, not the one who denies."

The presumption of innocence is a backbone of our legal system. Some scholars have traced its origins earlier than England, past Rome, beyond Greece to the Book of Deuteronomy.

The seriousness of the concept is expressed in the number of countries and international organizations that have adopted this concept. Over the years, many learned scholars have expressed the same sentiment as the highly regarded jurist, William Blackstone, in the 18th Century:

"... it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."
~ William Blackstone, Commentaries on The Laws of England, 1764

Over the years, even though I have never come close to needing the protection of innocent until proven guilty, I have always been comforted that, should I need that protection, it would be there.

Now, I am not sure.

The Attorney General and his boss, the President of the United States, are promising that Khalid Shaikh Mohamed, the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attack, will be convicted in a US criminal court. Really?

What happened to his Miranda Rights? He was not "Mirandized." If you are going to try him in a US Criminal Court, isn't that cause for dismissal?

"Failure (to convict) is not an option," said Attorney General Holder. Really! So that presumes that the Defense Attorney in THIS trial is just going to roll-over and play along with the Prosecutor? Since when? Can anyone say OJ Simpson? The Defense Attorneys rolled over there, right?

Doesn't the Attorney General's remark prevent any impartial Jury from being seated? Why would a Jury deliberate in a meaningful way, when the outcome is already determined?

What happened to my promise from our Government of presumption of innocence by the practice of law in this country, if the Attorney General can predict the outcome? Isn't that a sham, a "rigged" trial? Is a Jury needed any more if the Attorney General can guarantee the outcome?

By sending this case to a criminal court in the US where Miranda Rights are guaranteed, where another country interrogated the suspect, and arrested the suspect but where our standards and protections will be extended to what was then a military operation -- all violations of our civil guarantees -- won't those violations of our Civil Courts and our rights, guarantee an acquittal for KSM?

But -- if a fair trial isn't guaranteed by the Attorney General's actions and a verdict of guilty is rendered as promised by Mr. Holder, haven't all of our rights in the Civil Courts been trampled upon -- by our own Government?

Bread

Each year, the family gathers at our house for Thanksgiving. For the past 15 years, part of the weekend activities has been a wine tasting on Friday and with the arrival of Grandchildren -- now seven -- we integrated a Juice tasting into that event as well, with the children giving their reviews and tasting notes on the various juices. This year they will taste and comment on Mango, Pineapple, Banana Nectar, Passion Fruit and V-8 Fusion Tropical Orange while the adults compare the qualities of five Pinot Gris from five countries.

With the Wine and Juice Tasting, we also feature three cheeses and three breads. This year, the cheeses will be Fromage d'Affinois, Morbier and a Chevre with raspberries while the breads will be a Russian Black Bread, an Italian Tomato and Basil, and a San Francisco Sourdough.

I do a little write-up of each of the wines, juices, cheeses and bread each year and this year, in my research, was stopped by a note about Sourdough Bread. Sourdough has been around since around 1500BC -- 3,500 years. It was the first agent for leavening bread and remained the only leavening agent for 3,000 years, until the Europeans began using the fermenting foam from beer -- called Barm -- as an additional leavening.

Today, many of us in the US take bread for granted; there are so many choices in the supermarkets -- soft, organic whole grain, rustic, rolls, buns, bagels, high fibre, seeded, unseeded. And yet, for centuries Bread has been a basic substance of living.

Bread is so woven into our existence that it is the subject of many quotes:

• He who has no bread has no authority -- Turkish Proverb


• Give us this day, our daily bread - The Bible


• Man shall not live by bread alone - The Bible


• Cast thy bread upon the waters - The Bible


• Acorns were good until bread was found -- Francis Bacon


• The greatest thing since sliced bread -- anonymous


• Anytime a person goes into a delicatessen and orders a pastrami on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies -- Milton Berle, comedian


• A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government. -- Thomas Jefferson

While bread has been a basic necessity of life, it has also become the source of slang -- bread to many means "money". "Dough" likewise means money. Or other euphemisms: "Breadwinner," "Putting bread on the table," "Breadbasket," "Bigger than a breadbox."

Bread has probably been a part of human living since Neolithic times. And for most of those 12,000 years, it was a central concern of every day. In our world of iPods and gigabytes, bread is no less important, but amongst all the technology, it has faded far into the background of our lives -- until you have a really good, fresh piece of it. And then your DNA does a little dance of joy.

You know that Pepperidge Farm Bread? It is fancy. That stuff is wrapped twice. You open it and it still ain't open. That's why I don't buy it; I don't need another step between me and toast.

~ Mitch Hedberg, comedian

The Jonestown Massacre, November 18, 1978

Thirty one years ago today, a grim scene was revealed in a remote area of the South American country of Guyana -- 912 bodies were found scattered among a settlement known as Jonestown. Each of them had apparently voluntarily drank cyanide-laced grape Kool-Aid. The leader of this group, "Reverend" Jim Jones, had shot himself in the head.



At first, this looked like a mass suicide, but then as this organization, officially titled "The People's Temple" was examined and determined to be a cult, the act was changed from suicide to "massacre."

The People's Temple had been founded in 1955 in Indianapolis by a self-styled minister who had no theological training, James Warren Jones. Jones' message and philosophy was a blend of socialism and religion whose theme of communalism appealed to a number of people. Jones moved his organization several times, ending up in San Francisco in 1971. There, his People's Temple grew to some 20,000 members.

Jones and his radical "Temple" became the subject of several investigations in San Francisco: voter fraud for having busloads of followers driven from polling place to polling place to vote multiple times; fraudulently using donations for his own personal use; and a manslaughter investigation for sending a box of candy with a bomb in it to a political candidate that was critical of Jones.

In 1977, Jones moved again, this time to an isolated area in Guyana, so that he and the 1,000 followers who went with him, could live in peace -- and so that he could avoid prosecution.

In 1978, a California Congressman, Leo Ryan, made a fact-finding visit to Jonestown. As he was leaving with several "rescued" followers, Ryan and four of his party were shot and killed by the Temple's security guards.

The next day, Jones orchestrated the largest mass suicide in recent history.

Of the victims, over 400 unclaimed bodies were buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California where each year at 11:00am on November 18, people gather for a memorial service.

Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.

~ Erik H. Erikson, psychologist

The Tangled Woods

Earlier this Fall, the leaves, while still on the trees, produced a spectacular display of colors. This was particularly true along the Brandywine River nearby.

Gradually, with wind and temperature and driving rain, the leaves have fallen from the trees, revealing the structure of each tree and each limb.

In the woods behind our house stand several trees -- mainly oak and walnut -- with very large trunks; they stretch perhaps 100 feet into the air. The majority of the trees, however, are tall but with smallish trunks, affected by competing with the larger trees for sunlight. All of them are rooted in a thin layer of soil over the rocky substrata of the area. When a Nor'easter blows up the coast from the South, one or two of the trees will lose their footing in the thin dirt and begin leaning. Seldom do the trees topple over, though, because they end up leaning on their neighbor, producing a tangled look.



Families are like that.

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Challenge Coins

Yesterday, the President and First Lady attended a very solemn memorial service for the thirteen men and women killed at Ft. Hood. Among the many traditions on display there -- the helmet, the gun, the dog tags and ... the boots -- President Obama placed a "Challenge Coin" on each of the markers of the fallen.

I did not know of this tradition.

There are many stories about the derivation of Challenge Coins, but the one told most often originated in World War I. Airplanes were a daring and somewhat romantic new technology then, with the first flight having been recorded only 14 years earlier. Many young men enrolled in the Army Air Corps to be a pilot. Among them, a wealthy student from an Eastern college who, in a generous burst of collegiality had bronze coins made for each of his fellow pilots in the squadron. Each coin contained "USA" on one side and the squadron's number on the other. The Pilots began carrying this coin with them as good luck pieces.

One of the US Pilots was shot down over France and captured by the French Army who could not determine if he was an ally or a German Pilot that could speak English. When they decided to treat him as a German, the Pilot remembered the Squadron coin and showed it to the French soldiers. It proved to the French that he was an American and he was dispatched back to the US Forces.

The tradition of the coins continued on into Viet Nam where it was used in drinking games -- if you couldn't produce your coin, you had to buy the soldier or group of men challenging a round of drinks. After Viet Nam ended, the tradition mostly disappeared until Desert Storm and has gained in popularity since. As a a side note, when the soldier would carry their coin in their billfolds, it often looked like they were carrying a condom, which produced some interesting "challenge" stories when the ring indentation was noted by the military spouse.

Each member of the Executive Branch has Challenge Coins, but the Presidential Coin is the most coveted. Here is the coin that President Obama placed on each of the thirteen memorials yesterday as a sign of respect from the Commander in Chief.

Allow the People to use the Internet to VOTE

The Frenetic antics of Congress has caused me to finally suggest out loud what I have quietly whispered for some time -- let the people vote on important legislative decisions using the Internet.

Give us your reform measure one decision at a time and let us vote on it, item-by-item. If the Health Care Bill is so important that it has to be voted on by the end-of-the-day, end-of-the-week, end-of-the-month, end-of-the-year -- hurry, Hurry, HURRY -- but won't be implemented until 2013, then with all this wackiness, the people need to get involved. Let us vote via the Internet!

If I can bank via the Internet, if I can purchase goods with my credit card via the Internet, if I can buy stock via the Internet, surely, I can vote securely via the Internet.

Representative Democracy was chosen as our form of government when the demands of growing your own food and clothing your family required the majority of one's time in a day. It was also the age of the horse as transportation, so traveling the 260 miles from, say, Boston to Philadelphia, at 20 miles per day on Nellie would have taken 23 days. That is obviously not the case today.

In my view, most of the Congressional Class has forgotten that they are "hired" by us to represent us. Instead, they have a view that they are there to take care of us in all ways, because they know better than we do.

Congress needs to listen to the will of the people of this country, not some poll where the fix is in due to the phrasing of the question and the make-up of the respondents.

The Internet is this tool, but it must be legislatively mandated to become an instrument of the governance; there is the rub. Legislators will not allow it to be used, so a Constitutional Amendment is required originated by the people. We can do that!!

There is reform needed of the Congressional Branch of our government.
... We need term limits on these Nabobs.
... We need to eliminate their earmarks.
... We need Congress to have the same Health Care System that they shackle us with.
... We need to be allowed to vote on important issues using the Internet.

What do you think? Will you join me in mounting a call for Internet use by the People, as a part of the governance of this Country?

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. " ~ Charles A. Beard, Progressive Historian

Frost

The first hard frost of the season fell overnight. The only vegetable in the garden still producing yesterday were the peppers -- Hungarian and Bell; the frost will have stopped that. Many of the trees have already dropped their leaves -- the ash, the walnut and the poplar -- while the maples out my window still retain many of their red leaves. The cherry trees lining our driveway have left a pleasant number of leaves on the asphalt, making walking to the mailbox a pleasant chore.

The roses on the Southern side of our house seemed to have missed the frost which means that my out-of-control Morning Glories will be spared also. All will need to be pulled and trimmed and cut and raked and swept -- as do we.

Back to Chapter Two, instead.

Besides the autumn poets sing,

A few prosaic days

A little this side of the snow

And that side of the haze.

~Emily Dickinson

The First Chapter Is Finished

Well, maybe not totally finished. The 13,000 words will have to be gone over by my chief editor -- lovely wife Joan -- and I will have to accomodate her corrections and suggestions by re-reading it and touching practically every space. It is an arduous task for me since I am anxious to plow on. But if I do not correct it now, the process will get away from me.

Among the challenges, is that the first chapter is in the voice of an eight year old boy. Plus, it is set 1,000 years ago. So, the adult terms, expressions and contemporary meanings must be excised and more appropriate words chosen. I leave the reader with these final paragraphs of Chapter One. The scene is between the young boy and his father, who has just been made Chief.

“Having said that to you, I now must confess something to you, my son.” Father knelt down on his one knee as he had in the town square to accept his headdress. We were eye-to-eye.

“I never want to lie to you, or participate in what appears to be a falsehood, so I admit this in truth to you. Tomorrow night, I will lead a war party out of this village in search of the young girls taken from us. This is what is expected of me—that I should find them. But if we do not find them, I will be forced to take girls from another village—a village that we suspect of having abducted our girls—to replace what has been taken from us. This will send a signal to other marauders that we are not to be taken lightly. Hit us and we will hit you back!”

Father knew and I knew that only days earlier, he had said to me that our village did not take young girls from other tribes. But now that he was Chief, he might actually lead such a raid. He was turning his own statement into a falsehood.

Neither of us spoke; I did not know what to say. “I ask you not to judge me, my son, but rather to know that I have such deep respect for you that I would tell you this,” he said, quietly.

There was more silence between us. “May the Great Spirit be with you and be your guide,” I said, not knowing where the words came from.

Father looked me in the eyes and opened his wide arms. I went to him and embraced him and he embraced me in return. His chest heaved and he sighed loudly and his face was warm. He whispered, “I love you, and always will, no matter what may come."

The Pennsylvania Turnpike

Yesterday, Joan and I returned from our daughter's house near Venetia PA to our home in Eastern PA. Counting lunch, it took five hours to travel the 282 miles. The fall colors were spectacular and the day was gorgeous -- in the lower sixties. I havetravelled the Turnpike many times since moving to Eastern PA for my work at QVC in 1986, and although I knew something of its history, I decided to look further into the matter -- after all, I was a History major at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

George Washington was a proponent of building roads into the interior of the new country, to encourage commerce and to facilitate the travel of settlers; In Pennsylvania, there were early "log roads" or Pikes, the longest being 62 miles from Philadelphia to Lancaster. It wasn't until after the Civil war, however, that massive projects were undertaken.

In the 1880's William Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie began the construction of a private railroad bed from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh through the Allegheny Mountains, which posed an enormous barrier to railroad expansion. Before his project was abandoned, his company had built over half of the two-track roadbed and had started over seven tunnels. Twenty-six people lost their lives in the effort, known as "Vanderbilt's Folly."


In the early 20th century, automobiles and trucks were becoming the favored method of transportation. Yet it wasn't until the Great Depression that the Turnpike idea became a reality. With planning starting in 1935, ground was actually broken in 1938 and in 20 months, a 160 mile stretch of "Super Highway" was constructed, stretching from Harrisburg to Irwin, just North of Pittsburgh. Much of it followed the Vanderbilt route and completed the seven tunnels they had started or that were being used by contemporary railroad companies. The Turnpike was also known as "the tunnel road" because of these holes through the mountains rather than roads over them. The original seven tunnels were -- Laurel Hill, Allegheny, Ray's Hill, Sideling Hill, Tuscarora, Kittatinny and Blue Mountain -- and they were two lane tunnels; the twin tunnels would come later.



The original estimates of Turnpike usage were wildly underestimated. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in October 1940, so many black sedans were on the Turnpike that they ran out of the dime tickets and resorted to handwritten paper tickets. The toll plazas were backed up for miles and the congestion did not ease up until 10:30 at night. The problem wasn't getting people on -- it was getting them off the Turnpike. 25,000 vehicles drove on the turnpike that day when they had projected 5,000. In the first year, the planners had calculated 1.3 million vehicles would use the Turnpike; actual usage was 2.4 million or 85% more vehicles than they had predicted.






Today, the original 160 miles has grown to 512 miles of Turnpike and yearly usage is now at 156 million vehicles. Yesterday, Joan and I were one of those traveler/statistics, glad to be home and happy not to have had to use the old Lincoln Highway -- Rt. 30 -- or the National Road -- Rt. 40-- but instead availed ourselves of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Immutable

Today is Reformation Sunday, marking one of the important events in Western History. Although Jan Hus in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) had stood fast against the Catholic Church and was burned at the stake, it was Martin Luther a century later who nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the church in Wittenburg who finally initiated the separation from the Catholic Church.

The years since Luther's solitary act in 1517, were filled with change and the change continues today. Throughout the years of exploration and Renaissance and Revolution and Industrialization and World Wars, the pace of change has quickened. The technology of 20 years ago seems as dated as saying my computer is a Commodore 64.

Today the cycles of change interacts with each other as the ripples in the water from various pebbles, creating confusing merging half-circles. Social Engineering, Human Engineering, Governmental Philosophy, and Technology are all proceeding in a rapid collision course with each other.

Throughout all of this, the concept of "immutability" has sustained many people. These people believe that the passage of time is the real agent of change and that those of us who live in a temporal world will always be subject to change. These people also believe that God is eternal and outside time, not subject to change, and that God is immutable. Therefore in times of rapid change, these people can take solace in the immutable God; I am one of these people.

"Time is God's way of preventing everything from happening at once."
~ Anonymous, quoted in "Cottonwood Pass" by Ronald D. Giles

Special Places -- Special Joys

As a kid, occasionally, I would place a blanket over the back of the couch and stretch it over to the window sill. Then I would crawl on the floor in the space between the back of the couch and the wall. Laying inside, I would feel, well ... nice. It was my special place, provoking a warm emotion.

As an adult, we have many special places. Some special places are geographical or travel related like Artist's Point in Yellowstone or Uluru in Australia or Westminster Abbey in London.

Of course, there are personal special places that make us quiver, convulse and shake with pleasure or special events such as funerals or weddings or births that can evoke tears of sadness or tears of joy. Even the special place in minds devoted to memories can trigger the same emotions, causing us to laugh or smile or tear up.

And then there is the special place created by being held in someones arms. The gentle hug of a three year old can melt the heart of a 280 pound NFL linebacker or the comforting embrace of your lover can ameliorate the most distressing news.

In this world of increasing empiricism, I have to ask "how is it that we are possessing of these emotions?" They are precious gifts, not accountable by any science. Every human, from Aleut to Congolese share these same feelings. Education, experience or philosophy cannot purchase them; they are innate -- a gift from our creator.

My own special places and the joys they provoke are therefore -- to me -- Divine.

On Birthdays

Yesterday was my birthday, and it was the best one yet -- cards from family and friends, singing phone calls from friends, greetings from my children, friends on Facebook, Internet greetings, taken to lunch, gifts and a birthday dinner at home with my son and his family. And it isn't over. In Pittsburgh tonight, I will be with my daughter and her family and we will go to dinner. It is almost overwhelming.

As I was dressing to go to lunch, I thought about my parents. I was an only child. Mother said that they had hoped for more children; I was every one of their hopes rolled up into one. They lavished positive energy upon me and gave me a lot of love, common sense and values.

We lived together for 21 years, a long time, really -- and yet, in the scheme of things, not very long, really.

In my heart, I carry my parents with me each day, wherever I go. Yesterday, on my birthday, I wore Dad's watch.

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."

~ Lao Tzu, Chinese Philosopher (600BC-531BC)

The First Chapter Continues

The first chapter of my third book continues to get larger, having passed 11,000 words or about 40 book pages. I am finally past the toughest slogging and have the end of the chapter in sight -- a dramatic moment when the Council of Women throw out the old leader and install a new one, the main character's father.

The final straw for the council came when the former chief took his guards on a ceremonial junket and while they were away, the village was raided and five young women were taken captive, not to be found again.

"An author should ...
12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple, straightforward style."
~ from "The Literary Offenses of James Fenimore Cooper"
by Mark Twain

A Day of Music

Yesterday, Joan and I were up early for a rehearsal at 8:45 am. She was accompanying three men's four-part pieces and I was one of the seven singers. Two of the three selections were difficult but beautiful; the third piece was a Canon or round, in four divisions. The church was in 1723 stone barn, converted to a sanctuary. The service lasted until 11:15.

Then we were off to a three hour rehearsal with a Lutheran Church Choir, filled with 80 energetic singers. The rehearsal is for a Christmas concert on the afternoon of December 6.

Throughout the day, I was reminded of the debate in the early days of the Reformation about the best way to present church music -- either as Unison singing or singing in parts.

John Calvin was against singing in parts, which he thought distracted from the words. The best vehicle for a text, he thought, were many voices - male and female -- singing as one.

Others who had thoughts on the matter -- such as Martin Luther -- encouraged singing in parts, believing that the beauty of voices in harmony, emphasized the meaning of the words.

The debate went on for over 200 years. John Wesley, who with his brother Charles Wesley, founded the Methodist Church, was a proponent of Unison singing -- that is until he heard Handel's "Messiah" performed in London in 1742, with the composer conducting. After that, he thought that "fugueing" was acceptable.

Joan and I were exhausted when we finally returned home at 5:00, collapsing on our accepting couch and love seat for the remaining football games. Running through our heads from nine hours earlier, though, were the strong strains of "Contate Hodie," meaning "sing today." And Joan was still complaining about having to play the piano accompaniment in four sharps (the complaining started two weeks earlier and will continue on into the new week) although she handled it beautifully. Sleep was close at hand.

An English singer (named, Gordon) complained of Handel's method of accompanying during the Messiah. If Handel persisted in accompanying him in this manner, the noted singer threatened to jump on Handel's harpsichord and smash it to pieces. Handel is said to have replied:
"Oh! Let me know when you will do that, and I will advertise it.
For I am sure more people will come to see you jump, than to hear you sing."

On a rainy, chilly Autumn day

The sky today on the East Coast is overcast, producing a darkness in the house that a lamp brightens. Rain is falling lightly outside, knocking down some leaves whose time has come to fall. The clock ticks loudly on the wall as my wife rehearses on the piano.

Dear reader, I give you today some thoughts about rain and Autumn:

A wind has blown the rain
away and blown the sky
away and all the leaves
away, and the trees stand.
I think,
I
too, have known autumn too
long.

~E. E. Cummins

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

~ Emily Dickinson
Nature XXVII, Autumn.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold,
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

~Robert Frost
Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Autumn wins you best by this, its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay.

~Robert Browning

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.

~Johnny Mercer.
Originally a French song "Les Feuilles Mortes"
with lyrics by poet Jacques Prevért.

The Chinese Restaurant

I have a favorite Chinese Restaurant that I visit for lunch about once a week. Yesterday, while sitting in their nicely decorated space, I was struck by the contradictions of the lunch.

Although it was a Chinese Restaurant, I was there to have Japanese Sashimi; my waitress, a pleasant college-aged young woman, was neither Chinese or Japanese -- she was from the Philippines. And, the music playing in the background, was a "smooth jazz" saxophone slurring "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." By the time I had finished my last morsel of pickled ginger, Frank Sinatra was kickin "New York, New York."

Aaaah, my Fortune Cookie -- half vanilla and half chocolate. It read, "The world will always welcome talent with open arms." Perfect...but vague.

You can only go halfway into the darkest forest; then you are coming out the other side
~ Chinese Proverb

Fearing the "Plot Dump"

Even though my days seem full and the yard work that needs to be done is embarrassingly large, I still have found time to write a page of my third novel, pretty much every day. Much of what I am doing is "exposition" -- setting up characters or situations in the plot for later resolution and/or action.

Because this first chapter seems so long, I fear that I am guilty of a "plot dump," although I am hoping that it is really an "info dump," which is a less sneering appraisal. Here is an example of character dialogue one should avoid:

Joe: Who's at the door?

Mary: Oh, it's my uncle, who was released from prison yesterday after serving ten years for stealing the family jewels from this very house, although the jewels themselves have never been found and are rumored to be buried in a secret chamber guarded by the ghost of my late grandmother.*
* quoted from "the Free Dictionary by Farlex"

I have not re-read my writing so far, but ... could be. Let's hope for info dumping, instead of the above.

Over 10,000 words and counting.

Sippenhaft

Last evening, I watched "Valkyrie," starring Tom Cruise. Although I was aware of this unsuccessful 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler -- headed by a Nazi military officer, Count Claus von Stauffenburg -- I wanted to see the dramatization of it to understand more about it, and also because I generally like Tom Cruise movies.

Count von Stauffenburg's plot was foiled and he was executed along with others involved in the event. I then wanted to know about the Count's wife, Nina Schenk Grafin von Stauffenburg, and what happened to her, after her husband's anti-Nazi treachery. They had four children when he was executed and his wife, Nina was pregnant with their fifth child, born after his death.
As the result of Count von Stauffenburg's failed attempt, his wife and family were subjected to "Sippenhaft." I didn't know this word, but it didn't sound good.

Sippenhaft means "bad blood" and/or "kin liability." It is an ancient concept that many other countries developed and used before the Nazis incorporated the practice into their laws. It is among the ways that the Nazis kept discipline in their country during the war, because if you were convicted of some heinous act -- treason, cowardice, espionage -- you could cause your family to be severely punished also, as a way of eliminating the "bad blood" in the perpetrator's lineage -- and the "bad blood" in future generations.

The rule of Sippenhaft exposed your family and extended family to horrible punishment -- perhaps even death -- as the result of your act. Count von Stauffenburg's wife, Nina, was arrested and imprisoned; her children were taken from her as the result of the Count's attempt on Hitler's life. Later, after the war, Nina was reunited with her children.

Nina von Stauffenburg never remarried and lived to the age of 92, passing away in 2006.



Nina Schenk and Claus von Stauffenburg in 1933. They were married two months after this picture was taken.