Since Christmas your faithful correspondent has had the opportunity to see two DVDs produced by the English/Canadian musician Ralph Shaw.
Mr. Shaw is a musician/entertainer/teacher living in the lovely city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
If you are a uke fan you would be well served by checking out his website: www.ralphshaw.ca and ordering his instructional DVDs or his CDs.
The man's an awful show-off and has good reason to be so.
He also has a pleasant tenor.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Amazing Grace (Yeah) Overuse (No)
The other day you faithful correspondent made the mistake of watching a television news broadcast.
During said broadcast there was an account of some protest or another. The footage of the protest showed Joan Baez on a make-shift stage singing Amazing Grace. Last month, on the night of the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the television news featured footage of Joan Baez singing Amazing Grace.
I'm getting damn tired of Joan Baez (or anyone else for that matter) singing Amazing Grace at this or that protest meeting. It seems that Amazing Grace has become, over the last forty years, the official protest hymn for people who do not evidently believe in amazing Grace.
The hymn was written by an ex-sea captain and slaver named John Newton in the 18th century. Newton abandoned his wicked ways and became an Anglican clergyman. He was, despite his opposition to slavery, a man who supported the establishment. He supported William Wilberforce and John Wesley. His hymn addressed personal conversion to Christ. Not the idea that Grace is universal.
Read the words of the first verse:
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost,
And now am found.
Was blind,
And now I see.
Note that in Newton's words Grace is personal. It is not corporate. It refers to one person -- me. It doesn't refer to us. It is the individual who knows whether or not he has received God's Grace. It is not for another to know. For another to claim to know whether another person has received God's Grace is an exercise in presumption, but one often finds those of the liberal bent to be presumptuous in their pronouncements.
The last I heard Joan Baez was a Quaker. Quakers believe in the doctrine of the Inner Light, not the doctrine of Grace as do the (shudder) Calvinists or Wesleyans. So why does Joan Baez sing Amazing Grace? Is it because it's a catchy tune? The tune used in the Americas is based on an English tavern song. It surely couldn't be the words, because if she intended to sing an old Christian hymn she could (and should) sing Isaac Watts' When I Survey The Wonderous Cross. But to do so would ruin the whole thing, I suppose, because the average American liberal has no more idea of the religious definition of Grace than he does of the string theory in physics.
As a Christian of the conservative ilk (though so very flawed) I'm getting tired of a hymn that American Christians have sung for close to two hundred years, a song giving praise to Christ, being used as a protest song by people who can't even spell Christ for the purpose of trying to prevent the state from exacting its due from people who have violated the lives of others.
The hymn Amazing Grace is a CHRISTIAN hymn. It is not a secular hymn. It is not a protest song. It is a hymn that reflects the Christian's awe that Christ has deigned to save him or her.
Did Christ deign to save Stanley Williams? I don't know. But I never saw any evidence of it. His last interviews emphasized no one other than Stan Williams, not Christ. In fact, Jesus was never mentioned. And in Joan Baez's last protest appearance there was not mention of Our Lord and his sacrifice.
So please, Joan and Judy (Collins), if you want to use the tune for Amazing Grace to express a protest of some sort, at least have the decency to write new words to the melody. The old IWW did it for the melody of Revive Us Again by using the tune for Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. If a bunch of uneducated workingmen can make new lyrics for an old melody, why can't you? If you can't, go back to singing Joe Hill.
During said broadcast there was an account of some protest or another. The footage of the protest showed Joan Baez on a make-shift stage singing Amazing Grace. Last month, on the night of the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the television news featured footage of Joan Baez singing Amazing Grace.
I'm getting damn tired of Joan Baez (or anyone else for that matter) singing Amazing Grace at this or that protest meeting. It seems that Amazing Grace has become, over the last forty years, the official protest hymn for people who do not evidently believe in amazing Grace.
The hymn was written by an ex-sea captain and slaver named John Newton in the 18th century. Newton abandoned his wicked ways and became an Anglican clergyman. He was, despite his opposition to slavery, a man who supported the establishment. He supported William Wilberforce and John Wesley. His hymn addressed personal conversion to Christ. Not the idea that Grace is universal.
Read the words of the first verse:
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost,
And now am found.
Was blind,
And now I see.
Note that in Newton's words Grace is personal. It is not corporate. It refers to one person -- me. It doesn't refer to us. It is the individual who knows whether or not he has received God's Grace. It is not for another to know. For another to claim to know whether another person has received God's Grace is an exercise in presumption, but one often finds those of the liberal bent to be presumptuous in their pronouncements.
The last I heard Joan Baez was a Quaker. Quakers believe in the doctrine of the Inner Light, not the doctrine of Grace as do the (shudder) Calvinists or Wesleyans. So why does Joan Baez sing Amazing Grace? Is it because it's a catchy tune? The tune used in the Americas is based on an English tavern song. It surely couldn't be the words, because if she intended to sing an old Christian hymn she could (and should) sing Isaac Watts' When I Survey The Wonderous Cross. But to do so would ruin the whole thing, I suppose, because the average American liberal has no more idea of the religious definition of Grace than he does of the string theory in physics.
As a Christian of the conservative ilk (though so very flawed) I'm getting tired of a hymn that American Christians have sung for close to two hundred years, a song giving praise to Christ, being used as a protest song by people who can't even spell Christ for the purpose of trying to prevent the state from exacting its due from people who have violated the lives of others.
The hymn Amazing Grace is a CHRISTIAN hymn. It is not a secular hymn. It is not a protest song. It is a hymn that reflects the Christian's awe that Christ has deigned to save him or her.
Did Christ deign to save Stanley Williams? I don't know. But I never saw any evidence of it. His last interviews emphasized no one other than Stan Williams, not Christ. In fact, Jesus was never mentioned. And in Joan Baez's last protest appearance there was not mention of Our Lord and his sacrifice.
So please, Joan and Judy (Collins), if you want to use the tune for Amazing Grace to express a protest of some sort, at least have the decency to write new words to the melody. The old IWW did it for the melody of Revive Us Again by using the tune for Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. If a bunch of uneducated workingmen can make new lyrics for an old melody, why can't you? If you can't, go back to singing Joe Hill.
Amazing Grace (Yeah) Overuse (No)
The other day you faithful correspondent made the mistake of watching a television news broadcast.
During said broadcast there was an account of some protest or another. The footage of the protest showed Joan Baez on a make-shift stage singing Amazing Grace. Last month, on the night of the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the television news featured footage of Joan Baez singing Amazing Grace.
I'm getting damn tired of Joan Baez (or anyone else for that matter) singing Amazing Grace at this or that protest meeting. It seems that Amazing Grace has become, over the last forty years, the official protest hymn for people who do not evidently believe in amazing Grace.
The hymn was written by an ex-sea captain and slaver named John Newton in the 18th century. Newton abandoned his wicked ways and became an Anglican clergyman. He was, despite his opposition to slavery, a man who supported the establishment. He supported William Wilberforce and John Wesley. His hymn addressed personal conversion to Christ. Not the idea that Grace is universal.
Read the words of the first verse:
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost,
And now am found.
Was blind,
And now I see.
Note that in Newton's words Grace is personal. It is not corporate. It refers to one person -- me. It doesn't refer to us. It is the individual who knows whether or not he has received God's Grace. It is not for another to know. For another to claim to know whether another person has received God's Grace is an exercise in presumption, but one often finds those of the liberal bent to be presumptuous in their pronouncements.
The last I heard Joan Baez was a Quaker. Quakers believe in the doctrine of the Inner Light, not the doctrine of Grace as do the (shudder) Calvinists or Wesleyans. So why does Joan Baez sing Amazing Grace? Is it because it's a catchy tune? The tune used in the Americas is based on an English tavern song. It surely couldn't be the words, because if she intended to sing an old Christian hymn she could (and should) sing Isaac Watts' When I Survey The Wonderous Cross. But to do so would ruin the whole thing, I suppose, because the average American liberal has no more idea of the religious definition of Grace than he does of the string theory in physics.
As a Christian of the conservative ilk (though so very flawed) I'm getting tired of a hymn that American Christians have sung for close to two hundred years, a song giving praise to Christ, being used as a protest song by people who can't even spell Christ for the purpose of trying to prevent the state from exacting its due from people who have violated the lives of others.
The hymn Amazing Grace is a CHRISTIAN hymn. It is not a secular hymn. It is not a protest song. It is a hymn that reflects the Christian's awe that Christ has deigned to save him or her.
Did Christ deign to save Stanley Williams? I don't know. But I never saw any evidence of it. His last interviews emphasized no one other than Stan Williams, not Christ. In fact, Jesus was never mentioned. And in Joan Baez's last protest appearance there was not mention of Our Lord and his sacrifice.
So please, Joan and Judy (Collins), if you want to use the tune for Amazing Grace to express a protest of some sort, at least have the decency to write new words to the melody. The old IWW did it for the melody of Revive Us Again by using the tune for Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. If a bunch of uneducated workingmen can make new lyrics for an old melody, why can't you? If you can't, go back to singing Joe Hill.
During said broadcast there was an account of some protest or another. The footage of the protest showed Joan Baez on a make-shift stage singing Amazing Grace. Last month, on the night of the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the television news featured footage of Joan Baez singing Amazing Grace.
I'm getting damn tired of Joan Baez (or anyone else for that matter) singing Amazing Grace at this or that protest meeting. It seems that Amazing Grace has become, over the last forty years, the official protest hymn for people who do not evidently believe in amazing Grace.
The hymn was written by an ex-sea captain and slaver named John Newton in the 18th century. Newton abandoned his wicked ways and became an Anglican clergyman. He was, despite his opposition to slavery, a man who supported the establishment. He supported William Wilberforce and John Wesley. His hymn addressed personal conversion to Christ. Not the idea that Grace is universal.
Read the words of the first verse:
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost,
And now am found.
Was blind,
And now I see.
Note that in Newton's words Grace is personal. It is not corporate. It refers to one person -- me. It doesn't refer to us. It is the individual who knows whether or not he has received God's Grace. It is not for another to know. For another to claim to know whether another person has received God's Grace is an exercise in presumption, but one often finds those of the liberal bent to be presumptuous in their pronouncements.
The last I heard Joan Baez was a Quaker. Quakers believe in the doctrine of the Inner Light, not the doctrine of Grace as do the (shudder) Calvinists or Wesleyans. So why does Joan Baez sing Amazing Grace? Is it because it's a catchy tune? The tune used in the Americas is based on an English tavern song. It surely couldn't be the words, because if she intended to sing an old Christian hymn she could (and should) sing Isaac Watts' When I Survey The Wonderous Cross. But to do so would ruin the whole thing, I suppose, because the average American liberal has no more idea of the religious definition of Grace than he does of the string theory in physics.
As a Christian of the conservative ilk (though so very flawed) I'm getting tired of a hymn that American Christians have sung for close to two hundred years, a song giving praise to Christ, being used as a protest song by people who can't even spell Christ for the purpose of trying to prevent the state from exacting its due from people who have violated the lives of others.
The hymn Amazing Grace is a CHRISTIAN hymn. It is not a secular hymn. It is not a protest song. It is a hymn that reflects the Christian's awe that Christ has deigned to save him or her.
Did Christ deign to save Stanley Williams? I don't know. But I never saw any evidence of it. His last interviews emphasized no one other than Stan Williams, not Christ. In fact, Jesus was never mentioned. And in Joan Baez's last protest appearance there was not mention of Our Lord and his sacrifice.
So please, Joan and Judy (Collins), if you want to use the tune for Amazing Grace to express a protest of some sort, at least have the decency to write new words to the melody. The old IWW did it for the melody of Revive Us Again by using the tune for Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. If a bunch of uneducated workingmen can make new lyrics for an old melody, why can't you? If you can't, go back to singing Joe Hill.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Sex Symbols
One of my casual New Year's resolutions ("casual" here meaning not written down or promised) along with eating less and moving more, is to spend less time paying attention to politics. Your faithful correspondent has long held the belief that blogging and talking about politics, both world and national, is a waste of time because very few blogs have any influence on the body politic and talking about the latest crisis in North Korea at the shop coffee pot only shows one to be a news geek and does nothing for the victims of the North Korean Elvis, Kim Il Jung.
So yours has made a resolution to spend more time blogging about things that he is interested in such as music, culture, religion and literature.
A case in point is the decline of sex symbols. When I was a laddie gambolling about the banks of the San Gabriel River, there were women,why, since we were young sprites unaware of exactly what a sex symbol was, were considered by man, woman and child, to be sex symbols and truly beautiful women. Such women had names such as Jane Russell (a tough but sexy woman), Rita Hayworth, Rhonda Fleming, Sophia Loren, Gina Lolabrigitta (sp?), and the almost divine Brigitte Bardot. The common factor in all these women was that they were women. They were not teenagers. They were not children. They were all women who knew their own minds. A grown man who had the hots for Jeanne Craine in her role as Margie was considered a little suspect because Margie was a teenager.
Now that I am a man approaching senior citizenship I find that the sex symbol has become the child-like teenager as is evinced by Brittany Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Gweneth Paltrow, et al. In other words, youth women who all look like they just got out of junior high school instead of ripe women. Apparently the modern taste is for the green instead of the ripe, and that says something not good about the society. It's as if a bunch of adolescents have taken over the society. When Catherine Zeta-Jones, a truly sexy woman, is considered and oldie, one knows that something is wrong.
It may be that I'm spoiled. I grew up with truly beautiful women. The ever young Baroness Nib (my mother) and her sister were beautiful women. I married a truly beautiful and sexy woman -- the ever lovely Lady Nib --(especially when she wears stocking and a nice pair of black pumps), and she is still, some thirty odd years, later my ultimate sex symbol.
The sex symbols of my youth all smelled of Tabu or Nuit de Noel. The current crop smell of Heaven Scent or bubble gum.
It's sad.
Muslim Moral Values
Since at least September 11, 2001 we have been told that, in the view of Muslims, the West is a place of decadence. Which, of course, explains why the plane hijackers (devout Muslims) who guided the airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon spent the evenings before their highjinks in topless bars badly tipping for lap dances and watching porn on hotel television sets.
I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Apparently all European women are, by the fact that they aren't Muslim, whores. Consider the following: Gang terrorizes train in France - World - The Washington Times, America's News It was a hell of a way to celebrate New Years in France. And it was a hell of a police response. There are a few things that are better addressed with a nightstick and gun than with being sensitive to cultural differences. Our Gallic friends seem to have not heard the lines from Pirate of Penzance, " A policeman's lot is not a happy one." One gets the idea that the French police are getting ready for service in Vicheystan.
Or perhaps this: Pan-European Arab Muslim Gang Rape Epidemic - IRIS Blog might make one think that Islamic values in Europe and Australia are better than good old Anglo-Saxon values.
I guess it's all a matter of perspective. Apparently all European women are, by the fact that they aren't Muslim, whores. Consider the following: Gang terrorizes train in France - World - The Washington Times, America's News It was a hell of a way to celebrate New Years in France. And it was a hell of a police response. There are a few things that are better addressed with a nightstick and gun than with being sensitive to cultural differences. Our Gallic friends seem to have not heard the lines from Pirate of Penzance, " A policeman's lot is not a happy one." One gets the idea that the French police are getting ready for service in Vicheystan.
Or perhaps this: Pan-European Arab Muslim Gang Rape Epidemic - IRIS Blog might make one think that Islamic values in Europe and Australia are better than good old Anglo-Saxon values.
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