Michelle Arnold – Page 6

“Tatooine” Planet Found!

Reuters runs a story out of Cape Canaveral indicating that astronomers have located a planet with three suns:

"The planet, a gas giant slightly larger than Jupiter, orbits the main
star of a triple-star system known as HD 188753 in the constellation
Cygnus ("The Swan")."

Okay, so Tatooine wouldn’t be a gas giant, and it only had the two suns… it’s still cool! For scientists, the finding adds another layer of mystery to the problem of how planets are formed. There is an "artists conception" picture with the story, even though knowledge of the planet is largely theoretical.
Now, if they could only find Magrathea…

GET THE STORY

Just Like a Fine Wine

As an artist, I feel an obligation to look for beauty in the world and draw attention to it. Beauty deserves praise, and people benefit from giving praise where it is due.

To that end, I would like to call your attention to the man in the red hat. No, that is not the late Gene Scott, and no, this is not the beauty that I spoke of earlier. The man in the red hat is Gerry Rafferty, and it is his music to which I would like to call your attention.

Let me back up a bit… 1978. Disco was all over the radio, and punk had fought back, kicking and gouging. The New Wave had not yet broken. I had my favorite songs, like everyone, but there was one song that could turn me in to a road hazard every time I heard it on the car radio: Gerry Rafferty’s "Baker Street", which sported the most arresting hook and spine-tingling sax line ever devised in pop music. I often pulled over just to listen to it (ah, to be 17 again…). It was completely unique, and sheer genius.

So a couple days ago I’m poking around on Google, playing a round of "Whatever Happened To…" when I thought of Rafferty and decided to see what he’s been up to lately. Fortunately he has been making music, and his skills have not dulled, but matured. His new release, Another World, is a masterpiece. You want to talk about melodic structure? Vocal harmony? Spiritual depth? You don’t listen to this music, it just washes over you. But I’m gushing.

You can find out more about Mr. Rafferty and his music at his website, which features several free music downloads, including two traditional Christmas carols. If you have ever heard the National Anthem butchered by a showy vocalist (and who hasn’t?) you will appreciate his beautiful, understated harmonies.
Did I mention he also has a free download of his rendition of the Kyrie Eleison?

Enjoy…

Cannon Fires Cultural Shot Across the Bow

Plato said "Let me write the music for the country, and I care not who writes the laws.".

Musician Nick Cannon has written a song and made a video that is not just open to a pro-life interpretation, but is unmistakeably, powerfully and movingly pro-life. It is called Can I Live?. In the song and the video, his spirit travels back in time to the day his mother went to an abortion mill and almost took his life. He pleads with her to think about what she is doing, and she literally RUNS out of the clinic and into a new life as a mother.

It is a stunning accomplishment, and not just in a spiritual and artistic sense; the video is ranked #2 on BET (Black Entertainment Television). Given the kind of amoral stuff I often see on BET, this is a very good thing.

Catholic Exchange has an article on the song, with lyrics and a link to go and watch the video.

I don’t know much about Mr. Cannon’s music outside of Can I Live?, but he has clearly set the bar very high now, both for himself and other artists. I’m going to buy the song, and possibly the album, after I check out the rest of the material.

I Need a Shower…

From our I Am Not Making This Up department, the Financial Times of London reports:

The Italian artist Gianni Motti has provided the latest scandal in the
name of art. His recent work “Mani Pulite” (”Clean Hands”) is a bar of
soap that he says is made from Italian prime minister Silvio
Berlusconi’s liposuctioned fat. After it was exhibited last month at
Art Basel, the world’s most influential art fair, a Swiss art collector
bought it for E15,000.

There is some doubt, however, as to whether this is really fat belonging to Berlusconi. The "artist" says he is open to DNA testing of the bath product in question.

Meanwhile, the Daily Planet reports that, in a recent development, Motti is working on designs for a candle made from the brain cells of the collector who purchased the Berlusconi piece.

He wasn’t using them, anyway.

GET THE STORY.

Didgeri – Do’s and Don’ts

In a move that is sure to bring consternation to accomplished didgeridoo players the world over, Reuters has revealed the secret to getting the most from the enigmatic instrument.

It seems it’s all in the glottis, that little flap of skin at the back of the throat. According to a group of Australian scientists:

"We conclude that a major difference between a novice and an experienced player is a learned, but usually subconscious ability to
reduce the glottal opening…"

And all this time I thought it was all in the uvula! Ah, well… now I can take my trusty old didgeridoo out of mothballs and play my children to sleep as I have always dreamed of doing.

THE "SECRET" REVEALED!

JIMMY ADDS: Hmmmm. . . . As a result of practicing Semitic languages like Arabic, where glottal stops are considered a consonant, I’ve been practicing closing my glottis on command rather a lot. . . . Maybe I should take up the digeridoo.

The Christian Marketplace

The Denver Post reports that sales of religious books have increased 285% since 1983, and that growth in the Christian Book market is outpacing that of other adult book categories. Religious books accounted for 7% of all book sales in 2004. Denver is hosting the national convention of the Christian Booksellers Association for 2005.

I attended one CBA convention several years ago (about the time Veggie Tales was breaking big) and found the experience a mixed bag. I got to see some of the top names in Christian Music perform live. I got to hear Franklin Graham speak and I went home with a whole bag of cool freebies for the kids, but I was somewhat uncomfortable with the commercial atmosphere and kept wondering what Jesus would think as he wandered down the colossal aisles of million-dollar vendor displays.

How the money do flow!

The CBA is about more than just books, of course. Christian bookstores carry devotional items, music, jewelry, toys, videos, framed art – all kinds of products, some of which I find helpful and am grateful for. I even found a vendor that was carrying beautiful icons from eastern Europe (Catholic products are rare in the CBA, however). I know from experience that the success of the Christian marketplace has attracted many that have no interest in the spiritual nature of the products they are associated with. It is a business.

One has to wonder what this all means. Is America on the verge of a religious awakening? Or have great commercial interests simply awakened to the "Christian Market?"

GET THE STORY.

U.N. Has a Hearing Problem

Catholic World News carries a story (in a follow-up to an earlier piece) concerning a troubling new way of doing business at the United Nations. In preparation for the upcoming Millenium Development ~~Circus~~ Summit, a series of "informal " hearings is being held to give non-governmental groups (NGOs) an opportunity to address the General Assembly and perhaps influence the proceedings.

Thing is, though, all those conflicting points of view can be confusing (especially if you have already made up your mind) so in order to streamline things a bit, the organizers of the hearings (a special task force appointed by GA president Jean Ping of Gabon) decided to invite only those NGOs that will tell them what they want to hear: that abortion is a basic human right. The task force chose a number of radical pro-abortion groups to address the GA, but not one pro-life/pro-family group was allowed to speak. There was, therefore, simply no rebuttal at all to the pro-abortion groups repeated calls for universal abortion-on-demand.

Anne Patterson, the acting U.S. Amabassador to the U.N., has now made a formal complaint (thank God) on behalf of the conservative NGOs that were excluded from the hearings. Will it make much difference? I’m afraid that the fact of their exclusion in the first place says all we need to know about the agenda of the U.N..
The U.S. should withhold payment of our dues to the U.N. (we are by far their biggest contributor) until such time as the pro-life and pro-family NGOs are allowed to address the General Assembly, the GA president is replaced, and a new task force appointed for future hearings.

GET THE STORY.

Dangerous Species

Yesterday I had a close encounter with an animal of the same kind you see here. Though briefly shaken, I was unconcerned until I read in AARP Magazine’s July/August issue (sorry, story not available online) that deer account for more human deaths in the U.S. than any other animal. Dogs? Shark attack? Not even close.

Here is the breakdown, with the number of human deaths per year:

Deer – 150
Dogs – 18
Snakes – 15
Sharks – 2
Bears – .5

Now, I am sympathetic with those who would put deer into a different category because, after all, they don’t really "kill" people (or do they?…). I am even reluctant to call them a nuisance when we are the ones driving into them at half-a-hundred miles per hour. I would sure rather die in a collision with a deer than be mauled to death by zombie dogs.

Still, I didn’t know there were so many human deaths associated with deer wrecks. As Michelle has said, be careful out there.

Mystery Toast

If you look closely you will see that this very toast bears the image of a well-known (and, ironically, anti-carbohydrate) Catholic apologist familiar to us all.

In a bizarre coincidence, it popped up out of the toaster just as the announcer on Iron Chef shouted "allez cuisine!" (translated – "Everyone into the kitchen!"). Clearly I was meant to come "into the kitchen" and discover this mysterious image.

You won’t see this on E-bay, though. In my excitement I became confused and the mystery toast was accidentally slathered with butter and honey and consumed.

Unbelieveably, when examined closely the second piece of toast bore the images of Tom and John Knoll, inventors of Adobe Photoshop.
Find out more about the history of Photoshop HERE.

JIMMY ADDS: In this case, I wouldn’t be anti-carbohydrate. Any toast of this nature should be consumed immediately for the sake of all mankind. Who knows what the Easter Bunny could do with it!

Mystery Meat

Not long ago I was warming up one of those fancy health-conscious TV dinners when I got a little curious about the entreé, Salisbury Steak. I decided to Google the term and was shocked to find that my meal would never have passed muster with James H. Salisbury at all, at all.

Salisbury turns out to have been an early (though somewhat misguided) forerunner of modern low-carb enthusiasts. He rightly believed that people ate way too many "starchy" foods, but he also wrongly believed that vegetables of almost any kind were bad for you. He invented the Salisbury Steak as a health food which, eaten along with copious amounts of hot water three times a day, was supposed to keep the digestive tract free of toxins and other bad stuff. There were all kinds of crazy things like that going on at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries.

The original Salisbury Steak would have been made of pure, lean beef (and very little else) grilled. The Salisbury Steak and the Hamburger Steak were virtually indistinguishable at one point, but the Salisbury gradually became adulterated with the addition of gravy, mushrooms, egg, onion, bread crumbs, etc…
Salisbury would certainly never have approved of his invention being served with a side of mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables.

The next time you fix yourself a plain hamburger patty, maybe with some Worcestershire sauce (as Salisbury recommended) think of the inventor and be thankful that you can wash it down with something tasty, rather than several glasses of hot water.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT J.H. SALISBURY’S STEAK HERE.