The End of Days.

So, it's no news that Palin belongs to an apocalyptic church, Alaska's going to be a last refuge for people during the end of days and whatnot, and that's going to happen in our lifetime so why worry about global warming, or anything else for that matter. Ok. She's a nutjob.

But.

But it's been brought to my attention the end of days, at least for our nation may be closer than we thing. Article was published in the Washington Times today about constitutional scholars speculating on an electoral college doomsday, a tie at 269-269.

In a system even more unrepresentative than the electoral college, the president would be decided by the House (Democratically domintated, thankfully) each state only getting one vote , and the VP selected by the senate.

A deadlocked senate, if Li'l Joe sides with his friends in selecting Palin, and the current VP, Cheney breaks the tie, we immediately get Palin for VP.

So that's an Obama-Palin presidency. There have been a few speculations that the house might be dragged into a bitter fight, with Democrats serving in states that voted for McCain having crises of conscience (though I don't know how).

With the debate drawn out, we could have Palin serving as our acting president with McCain still breathing somewhere out in Arizona.

With the country so bitterly divided in this mess, it's only a matter of time before this ignites into something worse, and we watch our nation sink into oblivion.

If given a choice, I'd prefer Hawaii as my refuge state.

The choices we make and prices we must pay.

The joke gets old 30 seconds into the clip, but don't let that stop you.



I'm waiting to hear on a few jobs, including my old position at Davis High School. Working with a band again would allow me to work with Dr. Halseth (director of bands at CSUS) and gain the benefit of his experience and master's program without the pesky requirement of 5 years conducting experience to work with his own bands.

So, yeah. Right now I have 5 and a half hours of class a week. Plus lessons, a few rehearsals and a good 10 or so hours of practice. I'm used to somewhere around 15-20 hours of class and 20-30 hours of work. Without too much to do, I decided to write more and now I've gotten caught up in writing a novel. 50,000 words is my goal for a first draft to be done in 10 weeks. Nothing fancy, no delusions, just something to feel productive and keep myself entertained. I hit 7500 words in my first week, not a bad start, but I'm slowing down. This draft is for concept - content and style will be focused on in later drafts.

That doesn't stop my brother or my friends from making the above reference though.

That's a negative Ghost rider, the pattern is full.

I was catching up on my reading, and ran across this commentary on McCain and Obama and their "hawkish" attacks on wall street, both calling for regulatory reform.

Mixing metaphors is always bad, but I giggled uncontrollably when they called McCain a Goose.

I know, the whole point of the article is falconry, raptor metaphors and such, but they called the country's "Original Maverick" Goose.

This of course leaves Palin as the last "Maverick" standing.

And ferocious? I'm sorry governor, but your wingman may need more lipstick.

Someone beat me to it.

Despite the McCain "Doesn't know who the 'president' of Spain is / considers a NATO ally to be a rogue state" stuff that's floating around everywhere, a good friend of mine brought something to my attention. There may be a better reason McCain doesn't want to talk about Spain.

As a pilot he was responsible for a blackout there.

That was after he'd crashed a few other places. 

Also: I like the 20 hours of combat time, and 28 medals.

I caught a lot of flak for picking on McCain for being a poor student, a poor pilot. It looked like I was bashing the Naval Academy to some. Whatever the sink or swim atmosphere there may exist at Annapolis, I still believe the achievements of others may have been brought down when McCain was pushed through, buoyed by his father's admiralty.

Bush got through Yale, and we know that was a sham. I'm just saying.

Assigned Reading.

I'm entertaining myself with a side project at the moment, and it's keeping me writing.

To keep you busy, I'll point you around. 

On Economics and apocalypse, as if you haven't heard enough: here

If you hadn't read it yet, the NY times article that spells everything out about Palin. McCain denied the book banning deal, as mayor. But the charge comes at her from when she was on the city council.

And finally, it seems someone put some hard work into looking at McCain's commercials.

Sacred Music

This semester I'm singing in two choirs, taking voice lessons and a course on K-12 Vocal Pedagogy. Vocal performance was my weakest point in studying music and I'm hoping to strengthen my voice, it's helped with score reading and playing brass instruments as well, anything where I need to hear pitches in my head.

The point of this post though, is I've run up against a huge amount of sacred music in this endeavor. 

This is not surprising. If you look at the history of music, it's hard not to believe that about 90% of vocal music is sacred music, written for worship. This is 90% (if not more) of everything, all vocal music leading up to and including everything heard on broadway, on the radio, everything. In studying it, there's no escape. I don't have any particular problem with sacred music, in fact I enjoy listening to much of it. Baroque Cantatas, so many settings of Latin Masses. I recently joined a church, specifically for the purpose of singing in its choir. Yeah, I'm going to hell. Anyways. I sing through a mass twice a week, settings of psalms, everything, without blinking. The music director for Sacred Heart is a renown conductor and arranger and his music beautiful in its simplicity; clear, reverent and austere. 

Sacred music is fine, it's great; faith inspires people to creativity beyond what they expect of themselves. 

My problem is gospel music. For a few reasons.

A.) I find praise music deeply disconcerting.

B.) I feel completely out of place singing something like "Keep yo' hand on de gospel plow" But I feel even worse placing stress on the syllables of your and the when they're missing.

C.) I can't deal with people clapping while they're singing. It feels wrong.

D.) I desire a feeling of reverence when singing something like this, and despite the rich history of gospel music, it fails me in that respect.

People tell me I should feel joyful in my faith when singing this music and it just lays bare the fact that I don't know what I believe, question too many things to be enraptured.

Also, despite the syncopation and blues scales, I don't find it challenging or aesthetically pleasing. I'm a snob. 

The CSUS university chorus is singing one piece of which I highly approve. It's called You Are the Music (you have to click the name again, twice). Give it a bit to get past the soprano and horn solo, there's no time stamp but starting halfway through is good enough. Without mentioning one biblical word, the piece inspires reverence, and makes one believe -just for a second- in divine inspiration.

Whereas this leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I've found that actually singing sacred music provides an incredible shift in perspective. However, thankfully, not nearly enough.

The pre-packaged Republican sound-bite machine.

It seems everyone was really excited to finally see Sarah Palin sit down and be interviewed, to listen to her speak without a script written for her, like at the RNC. Unfortunately it seems many were disappointed.

[interview Part 1]  [Interview Part 2]

Well, that's not to say she didn't meet or exceed the rather low expectations that were put out there for her. It's being tossed around  that she "held her own" or "came off fierce" didn't freeze up with a "deer in the headlights" deal. That's great. She's running on the Republican ticket for the white house, I certainly hope she can handle an interview.

What was disappointing is that she didn't provide anything of real substance in her answers, something to demonstrate to everyone paying close attention to what she was saying that she actually knew what she was talking about and had an interest in what was going on in the world.

Over at the Economist's Democracy in America page, they said it best:

There was something very troubling about the whole affair. The reason why many voters have forgiven Barack Obama his lack of experience is because they have confidence in his ability to think critically about the major issues facing America. Did voters come away with the same confidence in Ms Palin last night? I don't see how they could have.

... Ms Palin came off as a pre-packaged Republican sound-bite machine—the predictable product of a week of cramming with John McCain's advisers. When pressed on specific questions about Russia, Israel, Iran and Pakistan, she seemed to rely on campaign talking points, oftentimes repeating similar phrases in her answers. When those didn't fit, her answers were vague. When, for example, she was asked about cross-border raids into Pakistan, she talked about "building new relationships" and "working with existing allies", but made no specific references to any country or policy.

Ever since her debut, Republicans have been successfully diverting attention from McCain to Palin, focusing the debate over experience to compare Palin and Obama, and saying the comparison is more valid than comparing Obama to McCain. An unfortunate derailment, but this interview has shown that even that comparison is invalid and Palin, even after serious coaching is unqualified to be Vice President of the United States of America.

Then again, I wouldn't mind watching a real life Disney tragedy unfold from a safe distance.

Yeah, I know. Matt Damon, an actor, is highly qualified to comment on the issue. Even if the dinosaur issue was made up by some blogger, he has a point. Palin is a creationist, and wants that "theory" taught in schools. 

If she believes in a literal reading of Biblical creation, then she believes that the Earth was formed ten thousand years ago and that dinosaurs existed around that time.

And yes, she tried to ban books.

What could be worse?

I'm sorry lady, three strikes and you're out (read: a dangerous religious nutjob with no business in public office whatsoever)

Oh yeah. Here's the best part though, she supports her church in its endeavor to "save" homosexual people through the power of prayer. 

Naive? Yes. Intolerant? Yes. Christlike? No.