Lantern Waste

Remembering Veteran's Day

2005-11-12T16:30:00.000-08:00

The History of Veterans Day

November 11, or what has come to be known as Veterans Day, was originally set as a U.S. legal holiday to honor Armistice Day -- the end of World War I, which officially took place on November 11, 1918. In legislature that was passed in 1938, November 11 was "dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as 'Armistice Day.'" As such, this new legal holiday honored World War I veterans.

In 1954, after having been through both World War II and the Korean War, the 83rd U.S. Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word "Armistice" and inserting the word "Veterans." With the approval of this legislation on June 1, 1954, November 11 became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

In 1968, the Uniforms Holiday Bill insured three-day weekends for Federal employees by celebrating four national holidays on Mondays: Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day. Under this bill, Veterans Day was moved to the last Monday of October. Many states did not agree with this decision and continued to celebrate the holiday on its original date. The first Veterans Day under the new law was observed with much confusion on October 25, 1971.

Finally on September 20, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed a law which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of November 11, beginning in 1978. Since then, the Veterans Day holiday has been observed on November 11.

~military.com

Referendum on Bush?

2005-11-08T22:21:00.000-08:00

Democrats Win Gov. Races in N.J., Va. By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer
32 minutes ago

"Democrats swept both governors' races Tuesday, with Sen. Jon Corzine (news, bio, voting record) easily winning New Jersey and Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine taking Virginia despite a last-minute campaign push for his opponent from President Bush.

In Texas, voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage, while Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg surged ahead in his bid for a second term in heavily Democratic New York. Voters also picked mayors in Detroit, Houston, San Diego and Boston.

Kaine had 860,719 votes, or 51 percent, to Kilgore's 789,273 votes, or 46.8 percent, with 88 percent of precincts reporting.

In New Jersey, Democratic Sen. Jon Corzine trounced Doug Forrester, pulling in 54 percent of the vote to the Republican's 42.8 percent, with 55 percent of precincts counted. Corzine had 605,915 votes, and Forrester had 480,477.

In California, several government-overhaul measures on the ballot were seen as a referendum on GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who campaigned hard for them."

~ AP News

No comment here, except that New Jersey is a really special place to live *rolling eyes*.

Busy :)

2005-10-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

Greetings to all my fellow bloggers and friends who I have lost contact with over the last few months! Busy doesn't really begin to describe how my life has been going, I haven't had any leisure time whatsoever ( except for this last week when my Logic class got cancelled ) so I'm barely keeping up with what's been going on on here. But do not fear, I am aware of developments through dear frineds, I have been informed of the defection of false friends who removed me from their blog lists, I am equally aware of those who have faithfully awaited my return :P, and I highly anticipate Pete's promised predestination battle. Anyway, not to bore you all, but I have been working constantly, and now my boss has asked me to train to become a pharmacy technician, which would include lots more stress and time. School is going very well, I'm almost half-way through my first semester at PHC and I have to confess my college grades are far superior to the onse I got in highschool ( a testament to just how difficult A Beka's highschool program is ). Not to say college isn't hard - because it is, I had to read Virgil's Aeneid in two weeks, and the History course is swift, comprehensive, and overwhelming. Plus tons of paperwork ( which PHC is somewhat notorious for ) - I've already gotten myself into a History term paper on the economic repercussions of the cotton industry in the pre-Civil War South, a Research and Writing paper on the Jewish holy book The Talmud, and a Theology paper on the CESSATION of the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues. Perhaps I will post that paper once I finish, for everyone's edification. :D Anyway, that's all for now, because you're probably all asleep, but I will try to be a little more faithful in posting or at least appearing on here...:)

"LOST" Update

2005-07-30T19:38:00.001-07:00

Ok, I know I'm not the only one out there obsessed with LOST, or driving myself crazy with ideas and hypotheses (sp) about the show, so here is an update. LOST returns on September 21st, and is promising a new main character. Here's what the AP is reporting about it:

"NEW YORK - There's someone else on the island. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje will join the cast of ABC's "Lost," the network announced earlier this week. The actor will play Emeka, "a mysterious man whose presence on the island — and intentions — will be revealed" early in the upcoming second season, ABC said in a statement. "

Cool, huh? The show will of course pick up where it left off, with Michael's son in the hands of the strange island people, who are perhaps one of the biggest mysteries in the show. Sawyer, Michael, and Jin are all in the middle of the ocean having lost their boat, and Jack, Hurley, Locke, and Kate have unlocked that mysterious sealed vault. Should make for an awesome premiere. Maybe we will get two hours of it. :)

Blog Referrals

2005-07-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I wanted to refer you all to some excellent blogs that are not receiving all the attention they deserve. ;) First off, my dear friend Sara has a LOTR oriented blog called The Grey Havens http://lotrgreyhavens.blogspot.com . If you like discussing all things LOTR then by all means visit.

Oh, and it looks like MVB needs a little attention over at The King's Highway,http://kshighway.blogspot.com/ , and do check out his new poll. ;)

How Well Do You Know Your Denominations?

2005-07-27T10:29:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, I found an extremely challenging quiz on the beliefs and histories of various American denominations. There are only 25 questions, so it won't take you too long to take, unless of course, you get stumped on every question.:) I got 19 right out of a possible 25, with a score of 76%. If you decide to take it, please do not reference other web sites or books, rely on your own brain power. :)

http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz116278d51e58.html

History Trivia Questions

2005-07-27T09:59:00.000-07:00

This from ABC News:

"Join the "Stump Sam" challenge!"

E-mail us political trivia questions and we'll toss the quiz to Sam Donaldson during his daily appearances on ABC News Now.

Stump Sam Contest Rules
Questions can involve any aspect of presidential trivia, dating from 1950 to the present.

ABC News Now is a 24-hour-a-day news feed available on digital cable, the Internet and other outlets.

To get your questions to Donaldson, please fill in the form below. And if you manage to outsmart the veteran reporter, we'll send you an ABC News Now baseball cap! "

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=143872

I think we should all put our heads together and think of some really tough questions... and if it's trivia then we could technically ask him anything... like "what color tie was President Reagan wearing at his second inauguration?". :) Anybody got an idea?:)

Biblical Scroll Fragments Found in Israel

2005-07-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

This from the AP...

"Biblical Scroll Fragments Found in Israel

By DANIELLE HAAS, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 15, 3:48 PM ET

JERUSALEM - A secretive encounter with a Bedouin in a desert valley led to the discovery of two fragments from a nearly 2,000-year-old parchment scroll — the first such finding in decades, an Israeli archaeologist said Friday.

The finding has given rise to hope that the Judean Desert may yield more treasures, said Professor Chanan Eshel, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University.

The two small pieces of brown animal skin, inscribed in Hebrew with verses from the Book of Leviticus, are from "refugee" caves in Nachal Arugot, a canyon near the Dead Sea where Jews hid from the Romans in the second century, Eshel said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The scrolls are being tested by Israel's Antiquities Authority. Recently, several relics bearing inscriptions, including a burial box purported to belong to Jesus' brother James, were revealed as modern forgeries.

More than 1,000 ancient texts — known collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls — were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves overlooking the western shores of the Dead Sea.

"No scrolls have been found in the Judean Desert" in decades, Eshel said. "The common belief has been that there is nothing left to find there."

Now, he said, scholars may be spurred on to further excavations.

Archaeologist and Bible scholar Steven Pfann said he had not seen the fragments. If authenticated, they would "in general not be doing more than confirming the character of the material that we have from the southern part of the Judean wilderness up until today."

But "what's interesting and exciting is that this is a new discovery," Pfann added. "This is the first time we've seen anything from the south since the 1960s."

Eshel said he was first shown the fragments last year during a meeting in an abandoned police station near the Dead Sea.

A Bedouin said he had been offered $20,000 for the fragments on the black market and wanted an evaluation."

Hawaii Fights Noisy Frogs

2005-07-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

This startling news bulletin from the AP...:)

"Hawaii Fights Noisy Frog Infestation

By AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 15, 7:52 AM ET

SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii - It's hard to imagine a tiny, 2-inch frog could cause so much harm. Beloved in its native Puerto Rico, the coqui frog has become a menace in Hawaii, where it suddenly appeared in the 1990s. With no natural predators, such as snakes, to keep their numbers under control, the frogs and their loud "ko-KEE" mating calls have multiplied exponentially — causing headaches for homeowners.

Some believe the noisy amphibians could also cause serious damage to Hawaii's economy if they drag down housing prices, which real estate agents say is a distinct possibility. Officials have begun an extermination effort on several islands, hoping to get the problem under control before long-term economic losses set in.

"This is an invasive species of the worst kind," said state Rep. Clifton Tsuji, whose Big Island constituents endure choruses of crying coqui in their backyards. "It's a species of mass destruction."

Experts believe the first frog — or frogs — hitched a ride to Hawaii in a plant shipped from Puerto Rico or Florida. Hawaii's year-round temperate weather and open space provided the coqui with an ideal environment in which to reproduce.

Now, some parts of the Big Island have infestations so large, authorities have been forced into containment mode, abandoning ambitions to eradicate the frogs.

Brooks Kaiser, a University of Hawaii visiting scholar heading an economic impact study of the coqui, said living next to a major infestation could rival the experience of living next to an airport. Residents, for the most part, agree.

Mac Lowson, president of the Hawaii Association of Realtors, said he is particularly vulnerable to the noise in his town of Kapalua on Maui because he suffers from hyperacusis, a condition that makes him highly sensitive to sounds.

"I would rather probably live next to a highway rather than live next to an area that has the coqui frogs. The coqui frog (sound) is a shrill shriek and then silence," Lowson said. "A highway is more of a continuous rumble and there is something you can do with it."

He said it's only a matter of time before the frogs start bringing down real estate values, although trying to measure the effect is tricky because property values across Hawaii are currently soaring amid a housing boom.

2005-07-11T20:18:00.000-07:00

"Amy Ridenour's National Center Blog
What [Some] Conservatives Think

"Monday, July 11, 2005
Arlen Specter's Weird Idea

This, from the New York Times, is weird:
Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, suggested on Sunday that President Bush could name Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring from the Supreme Court, to the position of chief justice if it opens up.

"I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O'Connor, 'You could help the country now,' " Mr. Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and a pivotal player in any confirmation hearings, said in an interview on the CBS program Face the Nation. "She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she might be willing to stay on for a year or so."
How can Senator Specter hold the position he has and not realize that the right would oppose (tooth and nail) her confirmation? (And not just because it is his idea, as Senator Specter seemed to imply in the Washington Post.)

Second, how would it help the country? The Senator's suggestion that O'Connor could serve as Chief Justice for a year would mean two Chief Justice confirmation battles during President Bush's second term instead of one (IF the Chief Justice job happened to be vacant, which, at the time of the Senator's comment, it wasn't). Confirmation battles probably do serve a useful educational function (the press cries "woe is us" because they are "divisive," but let's be realistic -- they are a debate about ideas, not a battle with bullets), but I have the impression that Senator Specter was not thinking of that.

Third, O'Connor's resignation becomes effective at the time her successor is confirmed, so her replacement as associate justice would have to be confirmed before she could be appointed chief justice, anyway.

Finally, aside from Senator Specter, who really thinks President Bush is going to waste one of his Supreme Court nominations on a 75-year-old?"

...that article is from another blogger.:)

I really don't know what's wrong with Specter; O'Connor announces she's resigning and then Specter suggests that she become Chief Justice. But he is from Pennsylvania, and you know how those people are... what can you expect? ( I'm sorry David, I can't help it...I'm bad).:)

Still No Answers in Aruba

2005-07-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

AP Story: "Divers come up empty in Aruba search

Later, the team from Florida State University planned to search a lagoon using remote controlled sensors. They planned to check other sites suggested by local authorities over the next two days, said Dale Nute, a forensic scientist who was helping to coordinate the effort.

"If we find something we will call the police and bring it out to them," Nute said.

The search of the cavern and lagoon comes as a Texas-based group that has also searched for Natalee Holloway prepared to abandon its effort within days unless they found some sign of the teenager.

Holloway, 18, vanished in the early hours of May 30, hours before she was to catch a flight home after a five-day vacation celebrating her high school graduation with 124 classmates.

Joran van der Sloot, a 17-year-old who was with Holloway the last night she was seen in public, has been detained in connection with her disappearance.

Numerous searches by Dutch marines, Aruban investigators and volunteer rescue groups have failed to turn up any trace of the honors student.

Texas EquuSearch, a Dickenson, Texas-based volunteer group that has searched for more than two weeks, said two Navy SEAL divers were scheduled to come to the island to help look for the teen.

Tim Miller, director of Texas EquuSearch, said the group planned to halt their effort on Tuesday unless they found something.

Miller said prospects for success were slim and said he was convinced the girl was not on the island.

The Florida State divers, who arrived Friday evening, are instructors at the university's underwater crime scene investigation department in Panama City, Fla. They also planned to leave Aruba on Tuesday."

What's especially sad in this case, is that the FBI was never allowed to investigate this case or even really help. It might have been solved so much quicker without these inept Aruban investigators. Now with all but one of the suspects being released it seems that we might never know what happened. Any theories?

Worst Attacks in London Since WW2

2005-07-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

GLENEAGLES, Scotland - President Bush vowed Thursday that the United States "will not yield to the terrorists" after a series of deadly bombings ripped through London's transportation network during the morning rush hour, killing dozens and injuring hundreds more.

“The war on terrorism goes on,” he said from Gleneageles, Scotland, where he was attending the Group of Eight summit. "We will not yield to these people, we will not yield to the terrorists."

Minutes before, British Prime Minister Tony Blair had read a statement from all the leaders gathered at the summit being held at a posh resort here.

Though Congress was in recess, lawmakers were quick to condemn the attacks. Traveling in Africa, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., denounced them as “cowardly acts against innocent people.”

“The United States cannot be intimidated and our efforts will not be deterred,” Frist said in a statement. “We stand by the British people in their hour of need as they have done for us. My sympathies go out to the people of London.”

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8496573/

War of the Worlds

2005-07-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

I went to see War of the Worlds yesterday night and it was totally awesome! Just wondering if any of you had seen it too, or were planning on seeing it. It was really a different type of alien movie, in that the focus wasn't on the aliens ( where they came from, what they were like, etc.) but rather on a father/daughter relationship. In fact, we learned next to nothing about the aliens, except what they were "allergic" to, lol. The focus really stayed on the human story - Tom Cruise and his kids and their survival during total pandemonium. The scariest scenes in the movie were those featuring panicked mobs or a wacked-out Tim Robbins. So anyway, they are just my thoughts on the movie.:) Definitely not for little kids though, too many scary scenes and bad language.

Sweet!!!

2005-07-02T16:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, I had to post these pictures of my favorite pets, although these particular little ones unfortunately did not make it. They had some sort of blood disease and I couldn't save them. They are such sweet pets though, very loyal and trusting, even if you do have to get up every four hours to feed them! My dad inadvertantly knocked them out of their nest and then destroyed the nest so I had to take care of them. :) I have raised other little squirrels successfully, but I don't have pictures of them.

Secret of the Liberty Bell

2005-07-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

Interesting article on the history of the Liberty Bell, and the "mystery" of its message. Just in time for the Fourth! :)

Special Report:The Secret of the Bell
By Judd Magilnick Published 7/1/2005 12:08:38 AM

Forget the pyramid on the dollar bill. Forget the eagle's talons on the Great Seal. Forget the Zapruder film. The biggest "hide in plain sight" American Mystery resides in Philadelphia, permanently cast on our beloved Liberty Bell. Its well-known inscription from Leviticus -- "proclaim liberty throughout the land and its inhabitants thereof" -- sounds straightforward enough. But isn't that how these hidden messages always seem to work?

Finally, a juicy generational conspiracy demands a dollop of the paranormal -- and ours does not disappoint. Insightful as the Assembly may have been, could they have seen the future? Could they have known that on the other side of July 4, 1776 -- exactly fifty years later, that jubilee would be consecrated by the return of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to their own ultimate natural state? These great men had explicitly acknowledged that the first test of the Republic would be for it to endure fifty years. Both men lived to see that day, but not a day more. We arrive at a kind of temporal (bell-curved) palindrome. This Liberty Bell -- inscribed with a verse that is a celebration of fifty -- itself celebrates a past and future jubilee event. As Ben Franklin might have said, how weird is that?

http://spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8382

Summer Reading List

2005-06-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

I was wondering what you guys were planning on reading this summer, I know most of you have only have a couple years of high school left. So what's on your reading lists? I found an interesting book list designed for 11th and 12th grades on The Well-Trained Mind website ( wow, I love that title).

"Eleventh grade, 1600-1850
Cervantes, Don Quixote (abridged)(1605)
Divine Meditations, John Donne (c. 1635)
Principles of philosophy, Rene Descartes (1644)
Paradise Lost (selections), Milton (1664)
Pensees, Pascal (1670)
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678)
"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding," John Locke (1690)
Gulliver's Travels, Swift (1726)
"On American Taxation," Burke (1774)
The War for Independence, Albert Marrin
"The Social Contract," Rousseau (1762)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1771)
The Declaration of Independence (1776)
"Critique of Pure Reason," Kant (1781)
The Federalist Papers, Hamilton et.al.
The Constitution of the United States (ratified 1788)
Songs of Innocence and Experience, Blake (1789)
"The Rights of Man," Paine (1792)
Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth and Coleridge (1798)
Pride and Prejudice, Austen (1813)
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818)
"Ode to a Nightingale" and other poems of Keats (1820s)
The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper (1826)
"The Lady of Shalott" and other poems of Tennyson (1832)
"The Fall of the House of Usher" and other stories of Poe (1839)
"Self-Reliance," Emerson (1844)
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (1847)
Moby Dick, Melville (1851)

Twelfth grade, 1850-present day

Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engles (1848)
de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1805-1860)
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Stowe (1852)
Walden, Thoreau (1854)
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman (1855)
Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky (1856)
On the Origin of Species, Darwin (1859)
Great Expectations, Dickens (1861)
Unconditional Surrender: U.S. Grant and the Civil War,
Albert Marrin Virginia's General: Robert E. Lee, Albert Marrin
"Gettysburg Address," Lincoln (1863)
Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, Sandburg (Pulitzer biography, 1940)
War and Peace, Tolstoy (1864)
The Return of the Native, Hardy (1878)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche (1883)
Huckleberry Finn, Twain (1884)
Selected Poems, W. B. Yeats (1895)
The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud (1900)
"The Innocence of Father Brown," Chesterton (1911)
Selected Poems, Wilfrid Owen (1918)
"A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes," Frost (Pulitzer, 1924)
"The Trial," Kafka (1925)
"Murder in the Cathedral," T. S. Eliot (1935)
"Our Town," Thornton Wilder (1938)
The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck (1939)
Mein Kampf, Hitler (1939)
Animal Farm, Orwell (1945)
The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank (1947)
Invisible Man, Ellison (1952)
Mere Christianity, Lewis (1952)
"The Crucible," Miller (1953)
"A Man for All Seasons, Bolt (1962)
"Why We Can't Wait," Martin Luther King Jr. (1964)
"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," Stoppard (1967)
"The Gulag Archipelago," Solezhenitsyn (1974)
Night, Elie Wiesel (1982)

2005 National Spelling Bee Results

2005-06-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

"Anurag slays appoggiatura EDUCATION: Homeschoolers and hard-working Asian descendants continue national spelling bee domination

by Priya Abraham

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Only at the very end did 13-year-old speller Anurag Kashyap lose his cool. Exsiccosis did not dismay him in Round 17, and he slew ornithorhynchous in Round 12. But so stunned was he when he won the 78th Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, he shielded his face with his contestant number and dissolved into tears.
If Anurag was overwhelmed, it may have been because the whole room was cheering for him. Spellers knocked out earlier yelped in anticipation when the pronouncer declared appoggiatura as his final word, knowing it was a cinch for the eighth-grader from San Diego. Parents sprung to their feet in applause and remained standing as he hoisted the champion's gold trophy...............
Homeschoolers have been increasingly successful at the national spelling bee, as well as other academic competitions. This year's bee saw 34 homeschool children who are not only accomplished academics, but musicians and athletes, too. Another group blazing trails includes children like Anurag, sons and daughters of South Asian immigrants who emphasize strong study habits. The top four spellers this year were Indian, as were three of the four previous champions since 2001.
For champion Anurag, who has appeared twice at the bee, the prize is hefty: $22,000, a $5,000 college scholarship, a $1,000 U.S. savings bond, and sets of encyclopedias. Ever responsible, the California native said he would save the money for college. But right now, he has to figure out what to do with his time during spelling bee season next year. —•

http://www.worldmag.com/subscriber/displayarticle.cfm?id=10736

June 3, 2005, 8:00AM
Giving new meaning to second place
Texas speller wows the judges with his knowledge of word definitions at the national beeBy ALEXIS GRANTCopyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - Texan Samir Patel not only spelled correctly nearly all the words he drew during the Scripps National Spelling Bee, he also rattled off their definitions.
But it wasn't good enough.
The 11-year-old tied for second in the 78th annual competition Thursday after missing the word "roscian," which means pertaining to or involving acting.
He was in a fierce competition, going head-to-head with three spellers for five rounds before making an error. In the end, it was 13-year-old Anurag Kashyap of Poway, Calif., who came out on top with the correct spelling of "appoggiatura," a musical note. Aliya Deri, 13, of Pleasanton, Calif., was the other second place winner.
Samir, who is home-schooled in Colleyville, wowed the crowd in several rounds when he replied to the judge's words with their definitions.
"Does it mean the biting of fingernails?" he replied, when asked to spell "onychophagy."
http://www.hslda.org/docs/link.asp?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Echron%2Ecom%2Fcs%2FCDA%2Fssistory%2Empl%2Fnation%2F3209387

B.C.

2005-06-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

New Bach Piece Found

2005-06-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

"BERLIN (AP) - Experts have discovered a previously unknown work by Johann Sebastian Bach in documents taken from a German library shortly before it was heavily damaged by fire, researchers said Wednesday...

Bach composed the work for a soprano, to be accompanied by strings or a harpsichord, to mark the 52nd birthday of the duke of Saxony-Weimar, for whom he worked as a court organist, the foundation said.

A solo soprano was to sing a 12-verse poem beginning with the duke's motto, Everything with God and Nothing Without Him, written by Johann Anton Mylius, it said.

The work was Bach's only known strophic aria, in which several stanzas are set to the same music, and the precise date made it valuable to researchers studying the development of the German composer's style, the foundation said."

http://www.canada.com/news/national/story.html?id=b81dcfed-1f86-441c-90c6-cbf2f23ec810

Cool, huh?

Ok, I know he's gone, but his memory lives on..:)

2005-06-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

Update on the upcoming Narnia movies

2005-06-09T19:31:00.000-07:00

Some interesting news here on the new Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe movie...... should be some unique soundtracks. :)

"Top Movie Questions

Who is behind this production?This live-action film is being produced by Walden Media (Holes, Ghosts of the Abyss, Around The World In 80 Days) and distributed and co-financed by Walt Disney Studios. The production company is Frozen Lake Productions. The film has a reported $100 million budget ($170NZ) although Disney has not released the actual numbers that it is paying for this film. Andrew Adamson, co-director of Shrek and Shrek 2 will be directing. The script is written by Ann Peacock with assistance from Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Weta Workshops has signed on to build much of the set. Computer graphics are being handled by Rhythm & Hues and Sony Imageworks.Is this going to be a secularized Hollywood version or will C.S. Lewis’ Christian themes stay intact?It’s no secret that C.S. Lewis was an outspoken Christian and his faith was woven throughout everything he wrote. Narnia is no exception and much of the stories are allegorical in nature. Will Hollywood have its way and strip out Lewis’ spiritual messages? Not so, promises Douglas Gresham, co-producer and stepson of Lewis himself. A committed Christian, Gresham has vowed not to “change the words of the master.” Indeed, Walden Media itself has a track record of family-friendly films so it seems that the film will be in good hands. Many are concerned that Disney's influence will water down the Christian themes which run through the Narnia stories, but it's important to remember that Walden Media is ultimately in charge of the film, not Disney.

Soundtrack Details Announced
EMI CMG will release two soundtracks with music inspired by The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The first soundtrack will be released on September 27th and will feature a wide range of Christian artists. The following artists are slated to appear on the album:- Steven Curtis Chapman- tobyMac- Nichole Nordeman- Jars of Clay- Newsboys- Jeremy Camp- Rebecca St. James- Chris Tomlin- Delirious?- Bethany Dillon- David Crowder BandThis album will be followed by a soundtrack featuring mainstream pop and rock artists, which is scheduled to be released on October 25.This information compiled from a report at NarniaFans."

http://www.narniaweb.com/content.asp?id=2

John McCain: Can "Moderates" Win?

2005-06-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a very interesting article about John McCain's politics. Do you think he, as a moderate, could win a Presidential election, or even the primary? Does America want a "moderate" leader?

McCain’s Delusion: The Rebirth of “Moderate” Dominance
Monday, June 06, 2005
- Christopher G. Adamo

"OPINION - Despite continuing outrage among conservatives over last week’s sellout of Senate Republicans by seven “moderates” in their midst, it is clear that Arizona Senator John McCain, the apparent leader of the effort, presumes himself to be a big winner.
While McCain has been positively deferential towards Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist when questioned directly, his actions dealt a severe setback to Frist’s efforts to solidify Republican Senate clout. Appearing widely in front of network cameras (a place he clearly relishes), McCain nevertheless pronounced that the compromise had been undertaken “in the finest traditions of the Senate.”
However, any presumed victories resulting from last week’s treacherous act will be short-lived indeed. McCain’s deal which, not surprisingly, mirrors the original plan presented by Minority Leader Harry and the Democrats, exemplifies the classic format of political strategizing by “moderates.”
Riding to power on the coattails of conservatism, they occasionally find themselves in a position to tip the scales on critical issues. Invariably, they do so in favor of the left.....

.....Contrary to the misguided hopes of John McCain, such behavior does not constitute a significant force of “centrism” that might seize the reins of power based on the superiority of its ideas. Rather, it indicates the worst sort of capricious opportunism, proving its adherents to be nothing more than self-seeking pragmatists.
Devoid of any loyalty, these so-called “centrists” are only able to appear relevant on the political scene by virtue of their duplicity to the Republican leadership. Moreover, they have little influence on the Democrats, since they are unable to affect the makeup of legislation originated from that camp. Thus, their ability to betray and sell out is one sided. In the long run, all of this will redound to McCain as neither principle nor leadership....."

http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=26211