Ramblin' with Roger

Isaiah 40: Handel Messiah

Every valley shall be exalted

One of the odd results of the COVID lockdown is that I now attend two Bible studies each week. I started going to the Tuesday at 9 a.m. group shortly after I retired over a year ago.

It used to be that I couldn’t attend the Thursday at 7 a.m. group because I had to make sure my daughter got off to school in the morning. But now that she’s attending classes remotely, and the groups are doing the same, I can do both. The Tuesday group reads the chapters from the Old and New Testaments straight through. We’re reading Numbers and (again) Matthew.

The Thursday group reads from something called the lectionary. Basically, in Christianity, it’s a list of Scripture lessons to be read on particular days of the year. The Old Testament reading for December 6 is the book of Isaiah, chapter 40, the first 11 verses. It is an exceedingly familiar text.

Part 1

The first three verses [except the bracketed part] is the text for No. 2 of the Handel Messiah, Comfort ye my people, tenor recit.

1 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.

2 Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: [for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.]

3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

No. 3, Every valley shall be exalted, tenor air

4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

No. 4, And the glory of the Lord, chorus

5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

No. 9, O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion, alto air and chorus

9 O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!

No. 20, He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, alto air

11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.

These are all presented here by the Sixteen Harry Christophers.

Compare the above with the version of Comfort Ye My People by Vanessa Bell Armstrong and Daryl Coley. Then check out Every Valley Shall Be Exalted by Lizz Lee and Chris Willis (with Mike E.) They are from Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration.

Ending AIDS, racism: world falling short

Rosa refuses to stand; AIDS continues

cdc-hiv-race — https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/group/racialethnic/africanamericans/index.html New HIV Diagnoses in the US and Dependent Areas, 2018

Back in July 2020, I came across this article. “Ending AIDS: World Will Fall Short of 2020 Targets.” It noted that the “COVID-19 pandemic [is] on track to blow HIV progress off course, experts say

“The 2020 targets set by UNAIDS to control global HIV infection will not be met with ‘COVID-19 risks blowing HIV progress way off course,’ officials reported.

“According to the 2020 Global AIDS Update, 1.7 million people worldwide were newly infected in 2019 with HIV.” The target for this year was 500,000 “for 2020, according to the report at the International AIDS Conference virtual meeting.”

But on this World AIDS Day, don’t blame it all on the pandemic. “Our progress towards ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 was already off track before the COVID-19 outbreak.”

Three score and five

Meanwhile, it’s been 65 years since Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat in Montgomery, AL. The problems with the perception of the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and ’60s are several. For one, it seems to have been oversimplified. Rosa sat, Martin spoke and justice was won.

The push for equality started much earlier and remains necessary to this day. Why it took George Floyd’s death for a bunch of people to figure that out I’m sure some sociologists are analyzing.

Surely, we know about the perils of jogging while black or sleeping while black.

But it’s the everyday things that I find troubling. This story of a racist Pennsylvania judge resigning right before his own misconduct trial was set to begin happened to be in my feed. There are far too many examples to note.

About three and a half years ago, there was this blog post by a local author called “Why so many blacks in ads?” Knowing vaguely the guy who wrote it – he’s thrilled that IMPOTUS is going – I think the query was naive but not malicious. But the responses were, for the most part, virulent. Over 300 comments, 10% in 2020. There is a lot of use of the N-word.

Interestingly, the complaints aren’t all from the US. “My father fought in wwll for white British people this is our country and feel we are getting pushed out by black people ..their are to many black people in adverts.” It’s so comforting that racism and bad grammar are international.

The point is…

We ain’t there yet. We still need to work to eradicate these scourges. And, as you can see in the graphic from 2018, there is a relationship between race (systemic racism?) and HIV. AIDS is defeatable. And racism… well, I’m not so sure, but we need to keep on trying.

Nov. rambling: the Opposite of Déjà Vu

The djt library

set_in_the_present_2x — Permanent link to this comic: https://xkcd.com/2384/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
This means you’re free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them).

DNA evidence proved Lydell Grant’s innocence

John Green – On Immunity, Inoculation, and Individuals and Hank Green- How We Teach: Individualist Stories

BP Evaluation and Treatment in Patients with Prediabetes or Diabetes

More than anyone, Tom Heinsohn was Mr. Celtic

Golfer Jon Rahm Bounced a Ball Over Water to Get a Hole in One

Miami Marlins hire Kim Ng as MLB’s first female general manager

An Atlas of the Cosmos

Why Do Airline Dress Codes Still Exist?

Ken Levine’s podcast: Episode 200!

An Oral History of Marge vs The Monorail

How to Brace Yourself for Disappointment

Single foster dad adopts five siblings so they won’t be separated

60 Minutes Australia: John Cleese interview

What is the Opposite of Déjà Vu?

Word Genius: Most Beautiful Words in the English Language

Food Waste in America in 2020 and Guide to Food Storage for Healthier Eating

Animals

Meet The New First Dogs of the Country

The Angler Fish: A Mystery of The Deep

World’s Last Known White Giraffe Gets GPS Tracking Device

Woman the hunter: Ancient Andean remains challenge old ideas of who speared big game

A Fire in The Pig Barn at June Farms

After A Whale Dies, What Happens? and 50 Years Ago, Oregon Blew Up a Dead Whale. With Dynamite. On Live TV.

3 men banned from Yellowstone after trying to cook chicken in geyser

Ken Spears, R.I.P. Ruby, and Spears, who created and/or supervised some of the most popular animated characters ever on television including Scooby-Doo.

Commercials starting Alvin and the Chipmunks and David Seville

TREBEK

They learned English — and how to be American — from watching him

Tribute to a Travel Hero

Alex Trebek and Truth

Fordham benefactor

Choose Presence Over Judgment

TIME

Contestants’ Most Hated Word: Preemption

Who Could Take Over as Jeopardy! Host. Maybe LeVar Burton?

Winners and Losers

The djt library

Can I Get Over Donald Trump?

THE REAGANS Proves Just How Closely Trump Followed an Old GOP Playbook

His top scandals

Over 220 LGBTQ candidates celebrate election victories

The Gap’s Deleted Post-Election Tweet Shows Just How Uninterested Many Americans Are in Unity Right Now

Germany calls on its young to be the Covid heroes of 2020

Dilbert: Banana Is Not An Apple

Now I Know

A Long Way to Save a Few Quid and The Doctor With a Vision for Vision and The I’m Not in Washington Defense and How Did the Squirrel Cross the Road? and The Pothole Vigilante

MUSIC

Paula White’s Re-Election Prayer For Donald Trump Ft. Lil KC Remix – WTFBRAHH

Violinist Hilary Hahn, performing Beethoven’s Concerto in D for Violin and Orchestra. Leonard Slatkin conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Coverville: 1331: Sometimes They Come Back… and 1332: The Divine Comedy Cover Story and 1333: The Neil Young Cover Story III and 1334: Cover Stories for Graham Parker, Kim Wilde, and Björk

Les Miserables song One Day More

Vaughan Williams: Nation Shall Not Lift Up A Sword Against Nation/Glory To God In The Highest, from Dona Nobis Pacem

Tradicion from Fiddler on the Roof, performed in Panama

Medley of old TV theme songs – Josh Groban, 2008 Emmy Awards

Bad Moon Rising – Julien Neel

I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor

Sing – Carpenters

I’m in Love with a Big Blue Frog – Peter, Paul, and Mary (25th Anniversary Concert)

Baby Shark – PINKFONG Songs for Children, Watched over SEVEN BILLION times

Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift

Wendy Carlos doesn’t need THIS biography

Book review: We Return Fighting

Shaping African American identity.

We Return Fighting: World War I and the Shaping of Modern Black Identity is a physically beautiful book. It was published by The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History in 2019. It was a century after black soldiers returned from the war overseas only to fight a different type of battle at home.

One of the ongoing themes in the tome is the fact that black soldiers served the United States, in part, to try to prove yet again their worthiness as citizens. As in most previous conflicts, black soldiers were assigned to segregated units. They were often relegated to support duties rather than direct combat, at least at first. Given the opportunity, though, they often shone as warriors, even underequipped.

Specifically, in WWI, blacks in the military received the respect they deserved from French allies but not their US comrades. This disconnect incentivized them to return to the states and continue the fight for their rights. Black soldiers and black citizens on the home worked to lay the framework for advances in the civil rights movement.

There are scads of photos and illustrations of significant people and artifacts. In other words, it is the history of the black soldier from the Civil War forward. We read also about the horrific Red Summer of 1919 when black veterans were particularly targeted by the Ku Klux Klan and other racist entities. The war and its aftermath shaped African American identity.

Over There

An interesting paradox for me: the book discussed World War I broadly far more than I expected or was especially interested in. Yet I learned a great deal about the great world war. Notably, it was the event that first made the United States a world power.

The book appears to be an outgrowth of the We Return Fighting exhibit at the NMAAH that closed on September 6, 2020. But you can still see elements of that show. I am a founding contributor to this museum, and I hope to visit it someday. My daughter, BTW, has been there twice.

Incidentally, there was a 2002 book called We Return Fighting: The Civil Rights Movement in the Jazz Age by Mark Robert Schneider. I have not seen it.

Just a few Berry Gordy songs

Motown founder

Since it’s the 91st birthday of Berry Gordy, I thought I would link to a few of the songs he wrote or co-wrote. According to the ASCAP database, there are over 350 of them.

ABC – Jackson Five, #1 for four weeks RB, #1 for two weeks pop in 1970. As part of The Corporation TM – Gordy, Freddie Perren, Deke Richards, and Alphonzo Mizell – they “were responsible for the writing, production, and arranging” of J5 singles such as I Want You Back, The Love You Save, Mama’s Pearl, and Maybe Tomorrow.

Bingo Long Song (Steal On Home) – Thelma Houston. Written with Ron Miller. It was used for the movie The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings.

Buttered Popcorn – Supremes. A 1961 song written by “Gordy and songwriter Barney Ales, produced by Gordy… It was the group’s second single after signing with Motown Records…” It appears on Meet the Supremes, with Florence Ballard on lead vocal. I LOVE this song.

Check Yourself – Temptations. On the Meet the Temptations album. It was written by Gordy and group members Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin, and Elbridge Bryant, and produced by Gordy.

Now that I can dance

Do You Love Me – the Contours. #1 RB for three weeks, #3 pop in 1962. Berry Gordy wrote it to give to the Temptations. However, “when Gordy set out to locate the group and record the song, they were nowhere to be found… Gordy ran into the Contours in the hallway.” Decades later, on a Berry Gordy tribute album, the Temps did sing it.

Got A Job – Miracles. An Answer song to the Silhouettes’ Get a Job, it was written with Roquel Davis and Smokey Robinson.

I Call It Pretty Music (But The Old People Call It the Blues) – Little Stevie Wonder. Written with Clarence Paul.

Lonely Teardrops – Jackie Wilson. Written by Berry, his sister Gwen Gordy, and Roquel “Billy” Davis, a/k/a Tyran Carlo. #1 RB, #7 pop in 1958. It was ranked “#315 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” in 2004.

Money (That’s What I Want) – Barrett Strong. Written with Janie Bradford, it was the first hit record for Motown. #2 RB for six weeks, #23 pop in 1960. Barrett Strong later co-wrote songs with Norman Whitfield for The Temptations and other artists.