The Hide of the Nauga

Neverland

2011-12-08T18:34:00.001-06:00

Occupy Melbourne - Tent Monsters or Shock and Awe

2011-12-07T12:24:00.002-06:00

Roseanne Cash OnBeing

2011-11-10T18:59:00.000-06:00

Marxist Elephants

2011-06-19T13:24:00.003-05:00

Thursday, Jun. 16, 2011

How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch with Reality

By Fareed Zakaria

"Conservatism is true." That's what George Will told me when I interviewed him as an eager student many years ago. His formulation might have been a touch arrogant, but Will's basic point was intelligent. Conservatism, he explained, was rooted in reality. Unlike the abstract theories of Marxism and socialism, it started not from an imagined society but from the world as it actually exists. From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, the greatest conservative thinkers have said that to change societies, one must understand them, accept them as they are and help them evolve.

Watching this election campaign, one wonders what has happened to that tradition. Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America's present or past. This is a tragedy, because conservatism has an important role to play in modernizing the U.S. (See "The Heart of Conservative Values: Not Where It Used to Be?")

Consider the debates over the economy. The Republican prescription is to cut taxes and slash government spending — then things will bounce back. Now, I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? Taxes — federal and state combined — as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest level since 1950. The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion. The rich countries that are in the best shape right now, with strong growth and low unemployment, are ones like Germany and Denmark, neither one characterized by low taxes.

Many Republican businessmen have told me that the Obama Administration is the most hostile to business in 50 years. Really? More than that of Richard Nixon, who presided over tax rates that reached 70%, regulations that spanned whole industries, and who actually instituted price and wage controls?

In fact, right now any discussion of government involvement in the economy — even to build vital infrastructure — is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such involvement is always and forever bad. Meanwhile, across the globe, the world's fastest-growing economy, China, has managed to use government involvement to create growth and jobs for three decades. From Singapore to South Korea to Germany to Canada, evidence abounds that some strategic actions by the government can act as catalysts for free-market growth. (See a dozen Republicans who could be the next President.)

Of course, American history suggests that as well. In the 1950s, '60s and '70s, the U.S. government made massive investments in science and technology, in state universities and in infant industries. It built infrastructure that was the envy of the rest of the world. Those investments triggered two generations of economic growth and put the U.S. on top of the world of technology and innovation.

But that history has been forgotten. When considering health care, for example, Republicans confidently assert that their ideas will lower costs, when we simply do not have much evidence for this. What we do know is that of the world's richest countries, the U.S. has by far the greatest involvement of free markets and the private sector in health care. It also consumes the largest share of GDP, with no significant gains in health on any measurable outcome. We need more market mechanisms to cut medical costs, but Republicans don't bother to study existing health care systems anywhere else in the world. They resemble the old Marxists, who refused to look around at actual experience. "I know it works in practice," the old saw goes, "but does it work in theory?" (See "When GOP Presidential Candidates Skip, They Quickly Stumble.")

Conservatives used to be the ones with heads firmly based in reality. Their reforms were powerful because they used the market, streamlined government and empowered individuals. Their effects were large-scale and important: think of the reform of the tax code in the 1980s, for example, which was spearheaded by conservatives. Today conservatives shy away from the sensible ideas of the Bowles-Simpson commission on deficit reduction because those ideas are too deeply rooted in, well, reality. Does anyone think we are really going to get federal spending to the level it was at under Calvin Coolidge, as Paul Ryan's plan assumes? Does anyone think we will deport 11 million people?

We need conservative ideas to modernize the U.S. economy and reform American government. But what we have instead are policies that don't reform but just cut and starve government — a strategy that pays little attention to history or best practices from around the world and is based instead on a theory. It turns out that conservatives are the woolly-headed professors after all.

Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2077943,00.html

An Artist Comes to the Ozarks

2011-06-01T01:35:00.002-05:00

An Artist Comes to the Ozarks

Posted on 28. May, 2011 by admin in Features

Susan Powell

By Velda Brotherton

Northwest Arkansas has long been a mecca for artists, writers and musicians. It’s not often that one of such esteem as Susan Powell settles in our Boston Mountains.

I first met Susan when she called to introduce herself and tell me about her plans for continuing teaching after moving into the area. She has settled on the mountain west of Winslow on a farm she calls Talley Ho. It’s located just a little way from Oak Grove Community building. The moment she saw the large piece of land on the mountain ridge she knew she could cultivate her love of writing and poetry and teaching in such serenity.

After a visit to Talley Ho, I am convinced that Susan’s dream of creating a retreat for artists and teaching writing there will one day become a reality. Talley Ho is a nonprofit organization and anyone who would like to help out getting log cabins restructured and ready for use there would be donating their time to a very worthy cause. The arts have long been the last in line for funding and are in the most need of any type of assistance we can give.

Susan was born January 31, 1954, in Dr. Pillstrom’s seven-room hospital, located down the hill from Weiderkehr’s winery in Altus. A sixth-generation Arkansan, her great grandfather Smith was a state representative for Franklin County in 1920 and again in 1936. Her great grandmother was an Earp, and yes, a cousin of Wyatt’s.

She says, “What I remember most about my great grandparents, the Powell’s, is their farm and their log house and barn. I remember playing on the front porch of the house when I was two. The chink lines between the logs provided great hidey-holes for candy and little plastic cowboys, which, I’m told, I wouldn’t travel without.”

She smiles at the memory, then continues, “The old log house lasted well into the 1960′s, and I was sick to see the land divided and sold. Of course, the new owners began clearing, which meant taking down the trees and burning the buildings all that history, literally, gone up in smoke for pasture land, which eventually became a housing development.”

Perhaps her deep desire to see history preserved is one of the reasons she has rebuilt and restored the log schoolhouse which she moved from Rudy to her farm. Originally built in 1843, the old building literally had to be restored from the foundation up. But this type of physical labor is Susan’s passion. And she continues to search for old barns and log houses that she can buy and add to those she’s already restored at Talley Ho.

She comes by this interest honestly. Her Uncle Bud, Norman Powell, is a noteworthy historian and history teacher. He was a primary resource for Senator Dale Bumpers when he wrote his book, The Best Lawyer in a One Lawyer Town.

“I’m honored by the fact that Uncle Bud gave me his publishing presses,” Susan told me. Her plans for The Press at Talley-Ho include publishing chapbooks, cards, calendars, a quarterly magazine, and “Reflections of Winslow”, an historical newspaper. Susan would also like to put Uncle Bud’s press to good use by publishing family memoirs for those who want only enough copies for their family and friends.

It’s no wonder Susan grew up to become a teacher and writer. On her mother’s side of the family, her great-grandfather Jim Douglas was a businessman and a father figure for Francis Irby Gwaltney, one of the great Southern novelists. One of Gwaltney’s later novels, Idols and Axle Grease, featured her great-grandfather as one of the idols. She grew up exposed to men like Gwaltney, and wrote her first poetry at the age of 5.

As a young woman, she yearned to live a regular life, rather than go into her family’s fourth-generation feed business. After a rather difficult job of convincing her family to let her attend college, she began her education at Jonesboro with a music scholarship to Arkansas State University. And she says ASU suited her plans. She was in the marching band, where they had to march in the fall if they wanted to play in the spring. With wool uniforms in the brutal heat, it wasn’t long before she added another major in Sociology and a lot of lit courses.

“Irby Gwaltney was my first writing mentor,” she tells me. “He encouraged my poet to speak out and be counted.”

Her first book, Sunshine and Shadows, came out in 1975. “I was primed to become a writer by four of the best, three of them born here in Arkansas. FIG Gwaltney, Clarence Hall, Miller Williams, and Norman Mailer were the foremost writers in my life. I was blessed to know each one of them personally, and to have their recommendations for grad school.”

Her other publications include An Act of Leaving, Sudden Departures, Women Who Paint Tall Houses and Arkansas Log Houses.

Miller Williams, Arkansas’ Poet Laureate, once referred to Powell as an intelligent teacher who is honest, has writing talent and is concerned for her students.

During her long career, she developed two programs for community colleges in Arkansas that are recognized as creative writing credit courses.

Because she loves teaching, she has plans to begin open-genre creative writing classes at Talley Ho toward the end of May. Typically, classes would be held every Saturday from 11 to 2 each week for 10-12 weeks. If enough students show an interest, she could have another session mid-week for a second group. Each class would consist of no more than eight students. Studies would include fiction, nonfiction and poetry depending on the interest of students. Anyone interested in more information should contact her at talleyhoarts@earthlink.net.

The Other Number of the Beast: 616

2011-05-20T17:02:00.000-05:00

The Other Number of the Beast: 616

P.Oxy. LVI 4499

The newest volume of Oxyrhynchus Papyri contains a fragmentary papyrus of Revelation which is the earliest known witness to some sections (late third / early fourth century). A detailed discussion of its place in the MS tradition is given in the printed volume. You will find images at 150dpi and 300dpi in the papyri section of this site, accessible from the main menu.

One feature of particular interest is the number that this papyrus assigns to the Beast: 616, rather than the usual 666. (665 is also found.) We knew that this variant existed: Irenaeus cites (and refutes) it. But this is the earliest instance that has so far been found. The number — chi, iota, stigma (hexakosiai deka hex) — is in the third line of the fragment shown below. But why does it matter what the number is? For that, we have to turn to ancient Greek ideas about numerology.

Return to main menu

Has the Rapture happened in Australia already

2011-05-20T16:48:00.001-05:00

Don't worry. Be Happy!

Support for PBS.org provided by:

What's this?

Interviews with historians and scholars on 2000 years of millennial beliefs and events.

Of all the books in the Bible, none has fired the Western imagination more than this one.

A report on the rise of the Antichrist as a central figure in end time scenarios.

Apocalypticism's fierce beasts, wild imagery and end time prophets and events over 2500 years.

Scholars assess apocalypticism and the American psyche, and what happens after the year 2000.

apocalypticism · book of revelation · antichrist · chronology · roundtable · primary sources · discussion
readings · video · glossary · links · synopsis

Apocalypse!

From Waco and Littleton to Y2K and global warming, as the millennium approaches, we are bombarded by visions of the apocalypse. From the team that created "From Jesus to Christ," this two-hour FRONTLINE special journeys back more than 2500 years to unravel the origins of the Book of Revelation and how its apocalyptic expectations have shaped our history and our world.

published nov. 1999

Old log to new log construction

2011-04-17T01:45:00.002-05:00

Clip from "Talley-Ho" an Arkansas documentary film by M.L. McKinney on the work of Arkansas poet, professor & reconstruction architect Susan Powell. For more information on Powell's work contact: Talleyhoarts@earthlink.net

2011-04-12T13:53:00.005-05:00

Farewell, Geraldine Ferraro (August 26, 1935 – March 26, 2011)

2011-03-26T17:14:00.006-05:00

With shouts of acclamation

2011-03-20T20:18:00.001-05:00

God, my God, why...

2011-03-12T22:41:00.003-06:00

Which do you think more likely?
God= An unconditionally loving parent who sometimes disciplines his child when he does something that is bad for it.

or

God= An amorphous blob oozing love.

Remembrance-Dennis Lowe

2011-03-11T21:11:00.003-06:00

Remembrance defined: To make present.

Anglican Bishop Has Jerusalem Residency Visa Revoked

2011-03-05T23:38:00.004-06:00

The Anglican Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, the Rt. Reverend Suheil Dawani, was informed last August by the Israeli Ministry of the Interior that residency permits for himself, his wife and daughter would not be renewed because he “… acted with the Palestinian Authority in transferring lands owned by Jewish people to the Palestinians and also helped to register lands of Jewish people in the name of the Church," according to a statement issued by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem this week. There were further allegations that documents were forged by the Bishop. The letter also stated that Bishop Dawani and his family should leave the country immediately.

The Bishop has denied all accusations and asked to see the evidence against him. The Interior Ministry has yet to respond in terms of discovering the source of the allegations or restoring residency rights for the Bishop and his family which are crucial to his leadership of the Diocese. .

After months of trying to resolve the dispute privately, including high-level appeals on his behalf, Bishop Dawani is seeking redress through the Israeli legal system. Bishop Dawani now awaits a court date to be assigned for his case. “This is placing huge pressure on my role as Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem as I now have no right to live in the city of which I am the Anglican representative. It directly affects my ministry here as the future of my position remains uncertain,” Dawani told the Episcopal News Service.

A native of the West Bank, Bishop Dawani is not an Israeli citizen and thus needs a permit to continue living in Jerusalem and serving in his post. The Bishop's case is emblematic of the plight faced by many Palestinians living in East Jerusalem.

It is not uncommon for Palestinians to lose their residency status. According to B’Tselem, for instance, more than 4,500 Palestinians lost their residency permits in 2008 alone. With the loss of a residency permit, Palestinians lose the right to live or work in either Israel or the Palestinian territories.

There are a number of restrictions placed on Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. Persons who leave East Jerusalem for a period of time, for example to study abroad, can lose their Jerusalem residency permits. Palestinian East Jerusalemites who marry persons from the West Bank cannot live legally with their spouse in East Jerusalem. Permission is usually not given to expand existing Palestinian housing in East Jerusalem, while Israeli settler groups are given government protection and subsidies to expand into Palestinian neighborhoods.

Lincoln Logs

2010-12-10T23:28:00.003-06:00

When did "We the people... and of the people, by the people, for the people..." become
"We the Republicans... of the Republicans, by the Republicans, and for the Republicans?

The Gospel (Good News) according to Michael

2010-12-06T04:15:00.001-06:00

Diocese of Northern Michigan elects Rayford Ray as 11th bishop

By Pat McCaughan, December 04, 2010

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Rayford Ray was elected Dec. 4 as the 11th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan, pending required consents from a majority of bishops with jurisdiction and standing committees of the Episcopal Church.

Ray, 54, a member of the Episcopal Ministry Support Team in the Diocese of Northern Michigan, was elected on the second ballot of a special convention from a field of three nominees. A fourth nominee, the Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, rector of St. Augustine's in-the-Woods Episcopal Church, Freeland, Washington, had earlier asked that his name be withdrawn from consideration.

"We are a life-giving people here in this diocese," said Ray, who visited the convention after his election. "It is an exciting time as we will partner together as we look at the possibilities that stand before us. We have much to do, but we will do it together as we proclaim the Gospel as we know in Jesus Christ."

Ray received 59 delegate votes and 16 congregational votes. With 88 delegates from 25 congregations present, 59 delegate votes and 13 congregational votes were required to elect at the special convention held at St. Stephen's Church in Escanaba in the state's Upper Peninsula.

According to the bylaws of the Marquette-based diocese, a nominee must receive two-thirds of the delegate vote and a simple majority of the congregational vote to be elected. To achieve a congregational vote, delegates from a congregation meet and caucus--a simple majority of those delegates is considered a congregational vote.
Ray, a four-time deputy to General Convention, has served in Northern Michigan for more than 20 years, working as ministry development coordinator, and collaborated with parishes across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He was recently an adjunct instructor at Episcopal Divinity School.

He was born in Heidelberg, Germany, on August 30, 1956, and became a U.S. citizen on his 18th birthday, according to a personal statement posted on the diocesan website.

He earned a bachelors degree in history and language arts from Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. He was confirmed at age 24 at St. Andrew's Church in Lawton, Oklahoma.

A former middle school geography, social studies and American history teacher, he is a 1986 graduate of Nashotah House. He served congregations in Oklahoma until 1990, when he moved to Northern Michigan.

He is married to Suzanne Ray, also a priest in the diocese. The couple has three sons and four grandchildren.

Pending a successful consent process he will succeed Bishop James Kelsey, who was elected in 1999 and died in an auto accident in 2007.

The consecration is planned for May 21, 2011 in Marquette.

In July 2009, the Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester was elected bishop but did not receive the required consents from diocesan bishops and standing committees as outlined in Canon III.II.4(a) from the wider church.

According to the canons, a majority of bishops exercising jurisdiction and diocesan standing committees must consent to the bishop-elect's ordination as bishop within 120 days of receiving notice of the election.

Bishop Tom Ray (no relation to Rayford Ray), who preceded Bishop Kelsey, now serves as Northern Michigan's assisting bishop. "Bishop Ray has been our rock through all of this," said Linda Piper, chair of the diocese's Standing Committee in a letter posted on the diocesan website.

The other nominees were:
• the Rev. Dr. Susanna E. Metz, 60, executive director of the Center for Ministry in Small Churches at Sewanee: University of the South in Tennessee, and rector of St. John the Baptist Church, Battle Creek Tennessee (Diocese of East Tennessee);

• the Rev. Jos Tharakan, 46, rector of All Saints" Episcopal Church in Russellville, Arkansas (Diocese of Arkansas).

The Diocese of Northern Michigan, founded in 1895, encompasses 27 congregations and about 1,770 Episcopalians in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

-- The Rev. Pat McCaughan is a national correspondent for the Episcopal News Service. She is based in Los Angeles.

Michael Moore Meets Wendell Potter on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Pa...

2010-11-23T12:22:00.000-06:00

The "Ten Cannots" Weren't

2010-11-18T06:41:00.005-06:00

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Letters To The Editor & Editorial Columns

Story date: Nov. 16, 2010

A different perspective on the ‘Ten Cannots’

I write this after reading “Exploring the Ten Cannots” written by John Montgomery and published under “Your Voice” in the Oct. 27 edition of The Courier. I know Mr. Montgomery to be an active voice for the local Republican political party and I offer a differing perspective.

First of all the “Ten Cannots” that Mr. Montgomery attributes to Abraham Lincoln were actually first published in a pamphlet in 1916, some 50 years after the death of President Lincoln. The legitimate author of the “Ten Cannots” was Rev. William Boetcker, who could best be described as an outspoken political conservative of the Presbyterian faith. By attributing these ideas to Abraham Lincoln, one of our nation’s most beloved and respected leaders, Mr. Montgomery has misled the readers. I am sure that Mr. Montgomery did not purposely mislead but nonetheless he did mislead. Ronald Reagan made a similar mistake when addressing the Republican National Convention in 1992. Following the example of a leader as popular as Reagan does not excuse the mistake of attributing the quote to a respected leader in an effort to sway political views. Abraham Lincoln did make the following quote: “I see in the near future a crisis that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong it’s reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic will be destroyed.”

I find Mr. Montgomery’s attacks on “social justice” and “wealth-sharing” disturbing as well. When did these concepts become so abhorrent? It is a mystery to me how the people who cry out for America to become a “Christian Nation” can ignore or rationalize away the basic message of Jesus stressed in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. The following passages make the point that as a Christian nation we are called to love and care for others first and ourselves second. That seems to me to be the very definition of social justice: Luke 1:53, 21:1-4, 15:19-31, 6:30-37, 14:12-14; Matthew 23:23, 22:37-39, 25:31-46; 1 John 3:17; Acts 2:44-45; 2 Corinthians 9:7; 1 Timothy 6:10; James 5:4; Proverbs 14:31, 14:21; Psalms 82:3-4, 72:2; Ezekiel 45:9; Jeremiah 22:13-17; Deuteronomy 15:7-11; Amos 2:7; Isaiah 30:18, 3:14-15. I have heard Glen Beck speak out against “social justice” but simply do not understand this way of thinking. To me there is very little in the Bible that aligns with this anti-social justice and anti-wealth sharing agenda proposed by Mr. Beck and Mr. Montgomery.

Rather than focusing on a 96-year-old list of “cannots,” the progressive-liberal agenda has historically fought to prove we are a nation that “can” improve the circumstances and opportunities of all our citizens. The following are a few of the changes, ideas or programs that progressive-liberals have fought for throughout our history: democracy, liberty, equality, a living wage, tax-supported public schools, civil rights for all citizens including minorities and women, safe food and drugs, protection against predatory business practices, clean energy, clean lakes, rivers and air, safe and healthy working conditions, the middle class, the GI Bill, state and national parks and reserves, freedom of religion represented by and protected with the principle of “separation of church and state,” affordable health care for all, social security, workman’s compensation, Medicare and Medicaid, humane prisons and mental hospitals, equitable and upright police protection, consumer protections and many protections for children.

Our Constitution begins with the following words: We the people of the United States, in order to perform a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. It was progressive-liberalism that established this country and made it great and I shudder to imagine what kind of nation we would be today without this progressive Christian attitude.

Bruce Futterer

Russellville

God Bless America ( and please do it fast despite the Republicans)

2010-11-02T20:41:00.003-05:00

It seems to me in the United States of America it should be We the People and not Me, the Individual that matters.
The Democrats won't get everything right, but they will try to make things better for the people of the United States of America rather than mostly their family, their friends, and their businesses.

Talley-Ho Arts Fall Festival 2010

2010-10-28T16:52:00.003-05:00

Talley-Ho Arts

The intention, or mission, of Talley-Ho is to revive/restore the artistic environment that accompanied the area from 1890-1960, thus positively impacting the dwindling economy of the community. While it is not our desire to encourage a population explosion, it is our job to help with the restoration of the town’s many ...beautiful but abandoned buildings, which thrived a century ago.

The workshops, public seminars, and art exhibitions take place in such structures, which have been retrieved from various Arkansas locations and rebuilt on Talley-Ho, a beautiful mountain farm near Winslow. These structures prove that art has an infinite influence and power to rename and reinvent architecture, wherein ...a 1901 pony barn can transform into a functional 2010 press house.

A Change of Venue has been planned for the month of October. Our new plans are being scheduled for Saturday, October 30th from 12 noon - 6 pm and again on Sunday, October 31st from 10:00 am - 3:00 pm. Come join us for a fun-filled weekend and learning experience with the artists.

..."If they don't win it's a shame..."

2010-07-13T15:32:00.003-05:00

Click to Print

Rising for Albert and his famous baseball song

By Edmon J. Rodman · July 6, 2010

LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- At the ballpark this summer, when you rise for the seventh-inning stretch to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” stretch a bit taller -- one of the song’s writers was Jewish.

The unofficial song of America’s pastime, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame" is the product of a Jewish-Episcopalian collaboration: Jewish songwriter Albert Von Tilzer wrote the melody, lyricist Jack Norworth penned the words.

Prior to writing baseball's hit tune, the lore goes, neither had attended a ballgame.

Their famous collaboration, which is sung publicly somewhere in the U.S. every day from mid-spring to early fall, is believed to trail only “Happy Birthday” and "The Star-Spangled Banner” as America’s most performed songs.

Since the sportscaster Harry Caray first began belting it out at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in the mid-1970s, and later at Wrigley Field, the song has become a regular feature at major league and minor league ballparks across America. They even sing it in Japan.

Yet considering the song’s fame, Norworth and Van Tilzen go largely unrecognized by baseball officialdom, and Von Tilzer scores barely a nod in the Jewish community. Their story resembles the song’s famous punchline: “and it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out at the old ball game.”

According to the Songwriters Hall of Fame website, Norworth wrote the lyrics to the universal seventh-inning stretch anthem in 1908 “while riding a New York City subway train.” He had spotted a sign that said "Ballgame Today at the Polo Grounds" and “baseball-related lyrics started popping into his head.”

His partner Von Tilzer already had a successful career in songwriting and music publishing in the Jewishly influenced Tin Pan Alley in New York when he wrote the music for what was to be his most enduring creation.

In 2008, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the song, but there's no mention of the songwriters.

Von Tilzer died in 1956 and Norworth three years later, but word now comes from AOL columnist Chris Epting in a story titled “Stepping Up to Bat for Jack Norworth” that in Southern California where Norworth is buried -- just a mile or two from the site of next week's Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Anaheim -- the stone marking his grave site is worn and barely readable.

A Facebook group has formed recently that is dedicated to raising Norworth’s visibility and “getting a groundswell going.” Its goal is to have the marker redone on better quality stone, adding words marking Norworth’s role in co-writing the famous song.

But since Norworth has no known next of kin for approval, the Melrose Abbey Memorial Park is not allowing any do-overs, though it is open to discussing a plaque elsewhere on the grounds.

And what of Von Tilzer’s grave?

I found he was buried in Glendale, N.Y., in a family plot in the New Mount Carmel cemetery. The headstone, simple in design with just a name and date, is without a word memorializing his part in celebrating America’s pastime.

I called the cemetery and asked the receptionist, Lina Cortesiano, if anyone comes looking for Von Tilzer's grave. First she had to look him up.

“Yes, he’s here,” she said. “But I don’t recall anyone coming to find him.”

In an era of sheet music, “Von Tilzer wrote the music for 20 million copy-selling songs,” said Tim Wiles, director of research at The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., one of the authors of “Baseball’s Greatest Hit: The Story of 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game,' ” with whom I recently spoke by phone.

Von Tilzer, who changed his name from Gumm (originally Gumbinski), was one of five brothers from Indiana who all had careers on Tin Pan Alley and in vaudeville.

In Indianapolis, where Von Tilzer grew up, “The Gumbinskis owned a shoe store,” Wiles said. “Upstairs was a performance space where they could kind of get their feet wet.”

I wondered if the Hall of Fame had done anything permanent to commemorate the composer and lyricist of baseball’s most often heard song. Perhaps an award set up in their names to honor others who have made creative contributions to the sport.

So far it’s a shutout.

Wiles says Von Tilzer and Norworth do not fit into any of the four categories recognized by the Hall of Fame: “player, umpire, ownership, and pioneers.”

“Von Tilzer's and Norworth’s cultural contribution was one of the most important that has ever been made to the game,” he said. “A contribution that is worthy of being remembered.”

Wiles recalled that in 1997, the Hall of Fame did have an exhibit.

And what recognition has Von Tilzer received in Jewish circles? Certainly a Jewish sports hall of fame would have done something to honor his contribution?

I checked the website for the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in Commack, N.Y., less than 40 miles from where Von Tilzer is buried. To achieve its goal of fostering “Jewish identity through sports,” I found that the hall had honored not only athletes but sportswriters, broadcasters, columnists and a photographer. But no songwriters; Von Tilzer has yet to be inducted.

Why not add a plaque singing the praises of Von Tilzer? We already stand and sing his song at every game.

Like the songs says, if he doesn’t win it’s a shame.

(Edmon J. Rodman is a JTA columnist who writes on Jewish life from Los Angeles. He also is the author of a baseball biography, "Nomo, The Tornando Who Took America by Storm.")

SOF: Wendell Berry and Ellen Davis in Land, Life, and the Poetry of Creatures

2010-06-16T12:57:00.000-05:00

SOF: Wendell Berry and Ellen Davis in Land, Life, and the Poetry of Creatures

Bienvenido a la Iglesia Episcopal

2010-06-03T22:41:00.002-05:00

Bienvenido a la Iglesia Episcopal

Los episcopales seguimos a Jesucristo, nuestro Señor y creemos en el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu Santo.

La Iglesia Episcopal tiene miembros en Estados Unidos, en Colombia, la República Dominicana, Ecuador, Austria, Bélgica, Francia, Alemania, Italia, Suiza, Haití, Honduras, Micronesia, Puerto Rico, Taiwán, Venezuela y las Islas Vírgenes.

Nos esforzamos por amar al prójimo como a nosotros mismos y respetamos la dignidad de todo ser humano.

La Iglesia Episcopal forma parte de la Comunión Anglicana, y su patrimonio arranca del principio del Cristianismo.

Nuestra liturgia conserva estructuras y tradiciones antiguas y se celebra en muchas lenguas.

Recibimos a hombres y mujeres, casados o célibes, para ser ordenados de obispos, sacerdotes y diáconos.

Creemos en la enmienda de vida, en el perdón de los pecados y en la vida eternal.

Los laicos ejercen una función vital en el gobierno y ministerio de nuestra Iglesia.

La Santa Comunión la pueden recibir todos los cristianos bautizados, nos solamente los miembros de la Iglesia Episcopal.

Defendemos la Biblia y adoramos con el Libro de Oración Común.

Afirmamos que las relaciones comprometidas y monógamas son para toda la vida. Los episcopales reconocen que hay gracia después del divorcio y no niegan los sacramentos a los divorciados.

Afirmamos que temas como el control de la natalidad son asuntos de conciencia personal.

Celebramos nuestra unidad en Cristo al paso que respetamos nuestras diferencias, siempre colocando el trabajo de amor antes que la uniformidad de opinión.

Todos son bienvenidos a encontrar un hogar espiritual en la Iglesia Episcopal.

The Four Fold Blessing - A Celtic Prayer

2010-05-31T15:59:00.001-05:00

Bishop Maze Celebrates the Eucharist at All Saints' after "The Journey "In"

2010-05-03T16:43:00.001-05:00

"created he them"

2010-05-03T13:50:00.012-05:00

Yesterday morning in Rector's Forum we had a very soulful discussion on immigrates and our church, All Saints', and how we should respond as Christians and a church to aliens in the land.
EFM was better than usual also. The reflection was basically on John 3:17, but not quite as the old hymn puts it "Jesus paid it all".
It was a bit of synchronicity I suppose that Charlie started us with Worship by reading from a book of old Puritan prayers. The one we prayed seemed a bit Celtic.
It kept invoking the 3 and different aspects of the Trinity. The synchronicity was in Julie's Reflection.
Her statement was to me a paraphrase of this,

"For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."

That passage used to bother me a lot until I realized that God foreknew all of us.
Since we have free will it still is up to us to accept what was done for us or not and if we don't then it is God who will decide what happens.

Angi our mentor said the Reflection showed Julie was a little Calvinistic. I'm pretty sure she was joking.

Charlie ended the session with another good prayer from the Puritan book of prayer, but since I'd already written the first sentence of our usual round robin of writing the ending prayer together I was asked to read it anyway.

The group decided it was good on its own.

O Divine Majesty, Thank you for breathing your Spirit into us and making us more than just your image. In Jesus, your Son, our Lord we pray. Amen

Maundy Thursday All Saints' Episcopal Church

2010-04-03T10:33:00.001-05:00

Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday)

2010-04-01T11:25:00.001-05:00

Irish Blessing

2010-03-17T17:13:00.002-05:00

May the road rise up to meet you
before you fall down to meet the road.(Mc or Mac Gillum)