Indiana’s New Law

Indiana has a new law called the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act. There is a good analysis of the law here and the author of that article says:

“Of all the state “religious freedom” laws I have read, this new statute hints most strongly that it is there to be used as a means of excluding gays and same-sex couples from accessing employment, housing, and public accommodations on the same terms as other people.”

I admit I am confused. I’m sure most citizens of Indiana, if they express any religious affiliation at all, would claim to be Christians. And yet, it’s my understanding that Christians are not supposed to judge others. In fact, their  holy book warns explicitly against doing that:

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”

And:

“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself…”

And:

“Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.”

There are other, similar statements. And then there’s that “Golden Rule.” Luke 6:31 records Jesus as saying,

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Jesus taught love, forgiveness, tolerance, and treating others as we would like to be treated. And here is the source of my confusion: it appears Christians in Indiana, through this new law, are demanding (and getting) the right to act in very un-Christian ways. They want to be able to legally refuse someone a job, housing, or public accommodation if they don’t approve of that person’s lifestyle or the sex of that person’s significant other. Where did Jesus say it’s okay to mistreat someone if you don’t approve of who they’re in love with?

Maybe I’m confused because I’m not a hater. My parents totally neglected teaching me to hate. And I never spent much time in a “house of worship” where, it seems to me, many kinds of intolerance are learned.

It may not totally clear up my confusion, but I think it would be a start if Indiana would rename their new law according to what I perceive to be its actual purpose. They could call it the Indiana Religious Bigotry and Intolerance Restoration Act.

How about it, Indiana?

Susanne Sundfør

Song of the day: Slowly, from the album Ten Love Songs by Norwegian musician Susanne Sundfør. 

C’mon Spring

I heard on the TV weather that 47 of the lower 48 states have snow on the ground. Only Florida has no snow. You poor Floridians. Look what you’re missing by not living in central Virginia:

Though we’re in the early days of March, this is typical February weather. One day is calm, the next day the wind howls with 50 mph gusts and blows down trees and knocks out electricity. One day the high temperature is in the mid-30s, the next day it’s in the upper-60s. One day it’s rainy but not cold; then it’s sunny but freeze-your-butt-off cold.

Often the forecast will change, but this time of year it never changes for the better. If anything changes this week, it will be Thursday’s snow spreading into Friday. When we get a sunny day, it comes with a promise of more bad weather just behind it. January is mainly cold but often brings a week of mild weather called the “January thaw.” February to mid-March is a day-to-day  roller-coaster: mild, bitterly cold, sunny, snowy.

One day winter will end. Then we’ll have a week of nice weather called Spring. Then the central-Virginia summer will come, the polar opposite of winter, bringing sultry days with a heat index of 112°, 117°, 120°, and sweltering nights where, if you don’t have air conditioning, you lie naked on the sheets beside an open window and simply – not to put too fine a point on it – sweat. Oh, the anticipation.

Arctic Air Coming

When I first checked the temperature this morning, it was 8°F (-13°C). After a while it went to 7°. I turned to the TV weather to see what to expect for the day. The weathergirl said, “Enjoy today because it’s going to get cold!” Good to know. I’ll run right out and enjoy the warm.

A winter storm dropped 7 inches of snow onto my small central-Virginia city two nights ago. I shoveled my sidewalk clear, but I was the only person around here to do that. Apparently none of my neighbors know how to operate a show shovel. Insert shovel into snow, scooch it forward, lift and toss. Maybe the instructions should be printed on the handle. Homeowners are supposed to clear their walks within six hours of a snowfall ending. It’s a law that is never enforced.

Right now the day is sunny but we’ll get a short blast of snow this evening. “Up to a half inch,” is the prediction. And more snow/sleet is expected Saturday. It could be a lot worse. I could be in Boston, where they’ve had 59 inches of snow this month and 96 inches this season. Seven inches of snow on my sidewalk is not a problem. Ninety six inches of snow on my sidewalk – that’s a problem.

Another problem is approaching: daytime highs over the next 3 days will hover in the teens and nighttime lows will dip below zero, down to -4°F (-20°C). Like the song says, Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Will the water pipes in the crawlspace beneath my house survive?

The day did warm up. By 11 AM the outside temperature had risen to the freezing point – or perhaps in this case, the thawing point. I fired up the kerosene stove and placed it in front of my chair. Now when I park my butt in the chair, waves of comforting warmth are beamed toward me, and for a little while all is good.

Waiting

It’s a cold, gray Monday. I have food. I have candles and kerosene in case the electric power goes out. Nothing to do now but wait.

The overnight low was supposed to be 8°F. It was 16°F when I checked this morning. Now it’s half past noon and the temperature has warmed to 22°F. That’s it; that’s going to be the high for the day.

The cold weather began moving in Saturday night with winds blowing 30 mph and gusting to 40 mph here and to 50 mph a few miles away. About 8,500 people lost electric power due to tree limbs falling on power lines, and occasionally a tree would blow over and land on a house. The local news showed an apartment building with a downed tree slicing through its roof. The tree cut through 3 bedrooms in that building.

The snow is supposed to start around 10 o’clock tonight and drop 5 to 8 inches of the white stuff on the city. The temperature has been in the 20s for days, so the ground is frozen hard and everything that falls will stick. The forecasters say that toward morning the snow will change to sleet. Lovely.

It could be worse. I could still be living in Roanoke, Virginia. One snowy winter I took this photo of cars in front of my apartment building. That, as I recall, was 15 - 20 inches of snow. My friend CyberDave still lives in the Roanoke area. He probably says, “It could be worse. I could still be living in West Virginia.” Bluefield averages 34 inches of snow annually, but there are places along the spine of the Allegheny Mountains that average over 100 inches per year.

Frozen pipes are a concern, too. My house has survived many cold winter nights, but the temperature normally doesn’t get into the single digits at night and low 20s during the day and stay there. The word used by the local TV station’s meteorologist to described this weather: “unprecedented.”

So I’m waiting. I see snow-shoveling in my future.

Wiener Conundrum

About twice a year, I develop a craving for chili dogs – wieners in buns topped with chili and diced onion. When I go to the store to buy chili dog fixings, there are a confusing number of decisions to be made in selecting a package of wieners. First of all there are all the various brands, with each brand proclaiming its distinctiveness. Then there are the various types of wiener: all-beef, chicken & turkey, kosher/non-kosher, etc. And on top of those choices, stores now have to stock regular and bun-length wieners.

Regular and  bun-length! It begs the question, “Why not make the bun the correct length to fit the wiener to begin with?” Then the store wouldn’t need to stock wieners in two lengths. Problem solved.

Maybe the bun people and the wiener people are not speaking to each other. I decided that for a proper article, I should do a little research and find out what’s going on. So I did. It turns out that the bun people are using English measurements while the wiener people are using metric measurements. No wonder they’re not compatible!

I’m kidding, of course. No one in America uses metric measurements. But I did learn something. Suppose you want to buy wieners that are as long as the bun they’ll be put into. Should you buy regular wieners or bun-length wieners? You may be thinking, “Why, bun-length, of course.”

But you’d be wrong. Regular wieners are actually as long as a regular hotdog bun. On the other hand, bun-length wieners are actually longer than the bun; they poke out of the bun a little bit at each end. They should really be called little-bit-longer-than-the-bun-wieners, but that’s probably too many words to fit on the label.

And I haven’t even touched on another vexing problem. My package of wieners held 10 wieners, whereas my package of buns held 8 buns. I’ve always wondered about this, and I have a theory. I think the extra wieners are for when you drop a wiener or two on the floor. After all, they’re wet and slippery little buggers and, when dropped on the kitchen floor, are apt to roll under the fridge or through the kitchen door and under the dining room table. The extra wieners also make good “table scraps” for Rover (and possibly Ginger, though I’m not sure a cat would eat a wiener – they’re fussy creatures).

My theory unfortunately does not explain the thinking behind one company’s policy of putting 7 wieners into each package. No bakery will ever market a 7-count pack of buns. It’s like the wiener people are being non-standard just for spite.

And that is why I make chili dogs only once or twice a year. It’s just too complicated.

Pentatonix Wins Grammy

I wrote about Pentatonix just last month. But that was before they won a Grammy. So I’ll write a bit more and hopefully I can plow some new ground.

Pentatonix are five young people who comprise the world’s most popular a cappella vocal group. (The name is derived from the pentatonic music scale which has 5 notes.) Pentatonix was formed in 2011 when three friends from Arlington, Texas – Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, and Kirstin (“Kirstie”) Maldonado, all 19 years old at the time – decided to compete in season 3 of NBC’s The Sing-Off. They found base singer Avi Kaplan through a mutual friend, and they found beatboxer Kevin Olusola on YouTube. The group first met on the day before the audition. They practiced their song and choreography for 12 hours straight, nailed the audition, and won a spot on the show – competing against 15 larger groups. Pentatonix went on to win the 10-week competition, and with it a $200,000 prize and a recording contract with Sony Music.

But Sony Music didn’t know how to promote the band – a cappella is not exactly mainstream. So the band got busy and set up a YouTube channel for their music and started shooting and posting music videos. They sold music through iTunes and a small record label that produces movie soundtracks. They also used social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Google Hangouts, and SpreeCast to interact with their fans. Less than 4 years later, they’ve produced several top-ten albums and have 7.5 million YouTube subscribers. They began touring to sold-out venues in the U.S., Great Britain, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Japan. Their latest Christmas album (That’s Christmas To Me) was the #4 album of 2014 (and the #1 holiday album). They’ve been invited to the White House. They’ve performed at the Kennedy Center Honors 2014 honoring Tom Hanks. They were presenters at the American Music Awards 2014. They were co-presenters at this year’s Grammy Awards. They recently filmed a cameo appearance for the movie Pitch Perfect 2.

Somebody at Sony Music took notice and signed them to a contract with RCA Records, a flagship label of Sony Music.

They are not merely amazing singers who can produce incredible harmonies without the need of production gimmicks like auto-tune and overdubs. When they cover a song, they take it apart, rearrange it, change the rhythm, change the melody, shift to a different key in the middle of the song, and put it back together in a unique way. They do mash-ups so perfectly that by the time you figure out what song they’re singing, they’ve already transitioned seamlessly into a different song.

In late 2013, they recorded a medley of hits by Daft Punk. Daft Punk is a French electronic music duo whose music is a blend of house music and synthpop. For the medley, Pentatonix recorded a music video (which they named "Daft Punk") in the apartment where two of the band’s members were living. They hung a large black curtain on a wall beside the kitchen appliances, set up light rings, and used blue contact lenses and special make-up to give the video an other-worldly feel. That music video earned the group a Grammy for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella. In accepting the award for the band, Hoying said, “We recorded this in a bedroom closet, we filmed it in a kitchen, and now we’re Grammy winners. It’s proof that anything can happen.”

Anything can happen, but Pentatonix have worked very hard to make it happen. They’re in the big leagues now, and the days of filming a music video in a kitchen are fast disappearing in the rear window.

White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes Cover)

Run To You (Pentatonix Original)

Daft Punk mix (Grammy winner)

Love Again (Pentatonix Original)

Blog That!

There are some things I read on the Internet that just scream for a blog post.

Like this: scientists can now un-boil a hard-boiled egg. You can do it too, and it takes only minutes. You need two things: one, a chemical called urea, and two, a vortex fluid machine. You can buy urea at a fertilizer store, and as for the vortex fluid machine – you may already have one gathering dust in your attic. Go up there and look for it. It’s probably in a box labeled Ronco®.

The scientists claim to have un-boiled some egg whites, but they haven’t un-boiled any yolks, yet. They said that un-boiling the yolks would be easy to do, but they just don’t have any need for un-boiled yolks at the present time.

The scientists also said that they can un-cook a chicken. That’s really handy to know. I can’t tell you all the times I wanted raw chicken and all the store had was rotisserie-cooked chickens. Science is amazing.

There are some other interesting things in the news. For instance, underwater pole-dancing. Women dress up in billowy gowns or bikinis – depending on their mood, I suppose – and dance on a pole … underwater. Don’t ask me why. And there’s a carnival festival in a small Spanish village in which men throw flour on each other. What fun! (You see what happens when the cable TV goes out?)

I’d like to write more, but right now I have to go up to the attic and dig out my old vortex fluid machine. I can’t wait to un-cook something.

Winter Storm

For a long time after I awoke, I lay in darkness and listened to sleet clinking on the windowpane above the bed’s headboard. I knew sleep was out of the question for the remainder of the night, so at 4 AM I got out of bed and looked outside. The window awnings were growing icicles. I sat down at my computer and checked the weather radar. It looked like a child’s coloring book, with different colors for rain, sleet, and snow. The worst of the storm was yet to come. Ice was accumulating on my sidewalk and on the street. Before the morning is over, cars and roads and tree limbs will be glazed in ice. There will be numerous automobile accidents around town and on the highways. Some tree limbs may come down, taking power lines with them. Some schools will open late; some won’t open at all. It’s a good day to be inside.

A few hours later, a gray sky dawned on central Virginia’s wintry landscape. Every blade of grass, every leaf, is encased in its own cocoon of ice. And yet, as winter storms go, this first one of the new year is not a bad one. It won’t knock out power for days. It will breeze into town, hang around for a few hours, and move on. It will leave few traces it was here, except for icicles, bent sheet metal on unlucky automobiles, and perhaps a few scrapes and bruises from falls on icy pavement.

The fact that this will be a relatively mild event does not stop local TV meteorologists from preempting network programming in order to drone on endlessly about dangerous driving conditions, nor will it deter reporters from going on the roads to get videotape of traffic and – if they’re lucky – an accident to show their viewers. I have to ask: do we really need talking heads on TV to tell us it’s icy out there? Won’t finding our cars covered in ice be a tip-off? Don’t people know icy roads may be slippery? Do we need to be told to be careful? It seems kind of … patronizing. I half expect to hear this over the radio some cold morning: “All right campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties ‘cause it’s cold out there!” * But, I suppose they mean well.

Pentatonix Revisited

It’s 7:20 AM and I just finished breakfast: an omelet stuffed with sautéed mushrooms, onions, and cheese. (Ketchup is optional.) It was pretty tasty. Now I can get back to this blog post, which I may or may not finish.

I started writing it yesterday morning. The temperature was 37°F and a cold rain was falling. In the pre-dawn darkness, it seemed like a good time to write.

So I wrote a few paragraphs and thought this is no good and quit. Now it’s 24 hours later. The temperature is 37°F and a cold rain is falling. Mother Nature is in a rut. This may be a good time to write a couple more paragraphs.

I wanted to write about the a cappella singing group Pentatonix (a.k.a. PTX). But there has been so much written about them in the past two years, it may be pointless. So I’ll just hit the high spots and leave the reader to follow up if she/he feels so inclined.

I’ve written about many musicians and bands whose work I’ve enjoyed. The first time I mentioned Pentatonix on this blog was in November, 2013. They’ve exploded in popularity since then.

The group was formed in 2011 when three friends decided to drop out of college in hopes of winning the NBC a cappella show The Sing-Off. Those three were Mitch Grassi, Scott Hoying, and Kirstin “Kirstie” Maldonado. Through friends, they found their basso profondo, Avriel "Avi" Kaplan. Then they added Kevin Olusola, a beat-boxing musician they found on YouTube.

The group went on to win the third season of The Sing-Off, receiving $200,000 and a recording contract. They have a YouTube channel with more than 7 million subscribers and more than 785 million views. Their YouTube channel is the 12th most subscribed-to music channel and the 42nd most subscribed channel overall.

In 2012 the group released PTX, Volume 1 followed by PTXmas. Their third release, PTX Vol. II, debuted at number 1 on Billboard’s Independent Albums chart and number 10 on the Billboard 200. In 2014 the group released PTX, Vol. III and two full-length compilation albums. Their second holiday release, That’s Christmas to Me, was certified gold by the RIAA and platinum on December 24,  2014, and became the highest-charting holiday album by a group since 1962 and the fourth best selling album in the United States in 2014.

By now, January 2015, they’ve released 5 albums which all charted in the top 20 of the Billboard 200. They had the number one Christmas album in 2014. Their first national tour in fall of 2012 was sold out in all 36 cities. Their second national tour was in 2013. In 2014 they toured the United States, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and South East Asia. They performed on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2015 (video) and on the final episode of Wetten Dass? (video), a long-running entertainment show in Germany. They participated in the 2014 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, in NBC’s Christmas in Rockefeller Center special (video), in the season 5 holiday special of The Sing-Off (video) and in The Kennedy Center Honors award presentation (video) for Tom Hanks. They were presenters (video) at the 2014 American Music Awards. They’ve won awards from YouTube Music Awards for the song “Radioactive” with Lindsey Stirling and from the Streamy Awards for Best Cover Song, “Daft Punk.” They’ve been nominated for a Grammy Award, which is pending.

You don’t come this far, this fast, unless you are something special, and Pentatonix is (Pentatonix are, if you’re British). They are hugely talented and seem to have the perfect mix of voices. They make distinctive arrangements of the songs they cover and they produce good original material. When I am listening to them, I have to remind myself that five young voices are making all the sounds I am hearing. A cappella: no instruments, just vocal cords.

There are plenty of articles about Pentatonix on the Web, and there are plenty of YouTube videos that show the group performing. I’ll suggest a few clips here that will give you a flavor of their music.

White Winter Hymnal

On My Way Home

“Daft Punk” Mix

La La Latch

Say Something

Mary, Did You Know

I Need Your Love

I hope you enjoy the music. And why not live a little dangerously and try some ketchup on your eggs?