Nebraska state senator Carroll Burling, representing Kenesaw and its surrounding area, has introduced a bill that would change the state song to this:
Admittedly, the current state song isn't much better. Written by Jim Fras, it goes a little something like this:
Beautiful Nebraska, peaceful prairieland,
laced with many rivers, and the hills of sand,
dark green valleys cradled in the earth,
rain and sunshine bring abundant birth.
Chorus:
Beautiful Nebraska, as you look around,
you will find a rainbow reaching to the ground.
all these wonders by the Master's hand,
Beautiful Nebraskaland.
We are so proud of this state where we live.
There is no place that has so much to give.
Chorus:
Beautiful Nebraska, as you look around,
you will find a rainbow reaching to the ground.
all these wonders by the Master's hand,
Beautiful Nebraskaland.
Maybe things are a little differ'nt out west, but I've never ridden a horse down a riverbed, and I think tornadoes are more common than rainbows in the Cornhusker State.
It's bad enough that every non-Nebraskan thinks we're all a bunch of red neck hicks who chew on our corn cob pipes as we sit around the wood stove at night1. There's more to this state than rodeos, football games, and agriculture. Hopefully we can find a song that points this out instead of reinforcing the stereotypical perceptions of our fine state.
Footnotes:
Yes, this is how people think of us. When we lived in St. Louis, one of my in-laws friends asked me what it was like growing up on a farm! I told her that I wouldn't know, since the city I grew up in has a quarter of a million people. She seemed shocked to hear that Nebraska had so many residents. [back]
Second thoughts...
...Following the link in my step-mom's comments, I found an mp3 of Beautiful Nebraska, as performed by the University of Nebraska's Scarlet and Cream singers, which you can listen to using the player above.
Sure, it may be a little cheesy, but at least it doesn't sound like it's been set to the country/western background music setting on a late-80's Casio keyboard.
It all started on Saturday morning as an attempt to replace the light fixture in our bathroom, add an outlet next to the medicine cabinet, and add a GFCI outlet to the circuit so we wouldn't fry ourselves on the light switch that sits just 2 or 3 inches beyond the shower curtain. By 9 p.m. Sunday night, I had replace nearly everything on the circuit (from the breaker to the last receptacle) with updated wiring, outlets, and so on. Our house was built in 1935, and it has good ol' fashioned knob and tube wiring, which isn't exactly up to code these days. It's also not that much fun to work with.
If you know anything about electrical work, you know that modern wiring involves two or more wires (plus a ground wire) that all run together in a nifty little sheath. At least one of the wires is "hot" and one other wire is "neutral." Thus, the ingredients for a safe, complete circuit are always together. Not so with knob and tube. In a K&T setup, the hot wire may run 12 inches or more away from the neutral wire, and often times no neutral will be around at all. Then, several "hots" will all come back on the same neutral. While this technically works very well from a purely theoretical physics classroom perspective, it is more than enough to drive a novice do-it-yourselfer to the point of saying "Raca" to the man who devised this devilish wiring scheme. Like I said, all I wanted to do was put in a stinkin' light and a GFCI outlet.
I ended up tearing all of the old wiring out and replacing it with romex, and I can attest to just how stubborn those old knobs can be. During more than one pull, the wire actually gave out before pulling loose of the knob(s) it was fastened to.
Like most home improvement projects, this one came with its own dose of irony. One of the reasons I'm so intent on replacing the old wiring is for safety. Turns out the insulation on K&T systems becomes brittle with time, and it can fall off, or even be chewed off by rodents. And, when you get bare wire running through a house you can very quickly end up with charred wire sitting in a pile of ashes.
So, as I replaced what seemed like miles of old, brittle wire, all in the name of safety, I nearly electrocuted myself. I do have a voltage tester, but it fits very comfortably in my pocket, where it resides undesturbed for most of my wiring projects. Thinking that the breaker had been turned off, I inspected my progress, climbed onto my aluminum work platform, grabbed the wire I wanted to cut, and BOOM. My wire cutters produced a large orange ball of ozone about four inches from my nose, the lights dimmed, and the circuit breaker blew. The rubber handles on my cutters protected me from experiencing any of the current first hand, but not without any damage. When I picked up my cutters, they had two large scorch marks on them, each with a shiny melted-metal intent in the middle of it.
If anyone's looking for any last-minute Valentine's Day gift ideas for me, I might suggest the wire cutters with a built-in voltage sensor in them (pictured to the left), available from Amazon for just $24.97.
Second thoughts...
...My step-mom pointed out that my dad should at least get an honorable mention in this post. She suggested that a better title would have been "Things I Learned From My Father." She can say this because just a few months ago she heard a gutteral shout and then a thud coming from up in the attic, where my dad was working on the wiring for their newly refurbished kitchen. He was using a metal utility knife to strip a wire that he just *knew* wasn't live. Because he was just stripping it (and not cutting it like I was doing), the knife made contact with the live wire and sent a current through his body, making his hand clinch even tighter around the knife. He's not sure how long he was "on," but it was long enough to tell himself that if he didn't do something soon he would probably die. He mustered up enough strength and presence of mind to throw his body weight away from the wires, which disconnected him from the circuit. Any electrician would tell you that he is lucky to be alive.
I've heard it said that a father's greatest fear is that his sons will repeat his mistakes. If that's the case, sorry dad. I'll be more careful next time.
In the land of fruits and nuts, a California law maker has proposed a law that would make spanking a child illegal. Currently the state has a law making it illegal for anyone but a parent to spank a child and this law would go one step further, preventing even parents from spaking their own children.
Parents who spank could be convicted of misdemeanor child abuse and would face up to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail. Supporters of the law say that spanking a child teaches them to be violent, and that you can hit other people as long as you are bigger than them.
The Bible, of course, also has a lot to say about disciplining a child, and even corporal punishment specifically. A few examples: Continue reading this post »
If only more people in California would drive their big SUVs (powered by dead dinosaurs, of course), maybe they could warm things up a bit and melt away the three inches of snow and ice on I-5.
When I was a kid, I thought it looked really cool when somebody would throw a cigarette butt out the window of their car at night. It would bounce and roll along the pavement like an impromptu fire cracker, sending a shower of sparks in every direction. This probably isn't news to you, but young boys are, for the most part, completely obsessed with anything and everything related to fire.
Now, I'm not so impressed. I learned somewhere along the way that littering is bad. Not only that, but at some point some poor soul has to come along and pick up that litter. I also learned somewhere along the way (from my dad, I'm sure) that responsibility = good; irresponsibility = bad. Throwing things from the window of a moving vehicle, especially when they are on fire = irresponsible = bad.
It's bad enough that smokers think their constitutional rights are being violated because they can't smoke before, during, and after a meal at a Lincoln restaurant. But, I suppose whatever arguments might support the position that "My right to smoke trumps your right to breath air that won't kill you" would also support the conclusion that "It would be unsafe to keep a burning cigarette butt in my vehicle, so I will throw it out the window for somebody else to deal with it."
You have a right to smoke. I get that. Keep your laws off of my body, and so on. Fine. Kill yourself one lung-dart at a time if you want. I just don't understand why your decision to smoke inevitably means that I (or people paid using my tax dollars) should be responsible for cleaning up after you, especially since you're such a liberated adult.
In a biology class I took in high school, we had an experiment in which we tracked the "migratory patterns" of smokers who indulged in their unpleasant habit on or near school grounds. How did we track them? The same way you track the movements of any animal; we looked for their droppings. We set up small grids in areas known to be densely populated by smokers, and then measured the concentration of cigarette butts per square foot. I was amazed at how much litter these creatures produce and that, without exception, the damage they wrought went completely unchallenged by anyone in the school administration.
The Journal Star reports that the state legislature may be picking up where Principal Wilkes and the administration of Northeast High School left off. Sen. Joel Johnson of Kearney, Sen. Ray Aguilar of Grand Island, and Sen. Arnie Stuthman of Platte Center have introduced a bill that would outlaw smoking in any indoor area anywhere in the state. The bill would bring uniformity to the state, which currently has some communities under a smoking ban while others have no such restrictions. The same old tired arguments are being brought out again, how business for restaurants everywhere will suffer drastically if people aren't allowed to smoke. The article cites the example of the Trackside Bar in Waverly, which claims that its business is fueled by Lincoln residents fleeing the smoking ban. My first response would be that if you are willing to drive 15-30 minutes just so you can smoke while you eat, you are pa-the-tic. Secondly, and perhaps a little more rationally, whatever revenue is lost from an alleged decrease in restaurant spending will be more than made up for in the savings to our health care system, which is highly publicly funded. In 1998, economists at the University of California published a study showing that smoking costs $72.7 billion (yeah, with a "B") per year, and I would expect that figure to be even higher today. One researcher also pointed out that one in five deaths in this country are due to cigarette use.
As this bill picks up steam in the legislature, I would urge you to contact your senator to voice your support. You can bet that those opposed to it will be extremely vocal, so don't just assume that your senator will make a common sense decision and vote for this bill.
- - -
This concludes today's anti-smoking rant. Class dismissed.
MINDEN — As utility crews continue the campaign to restore power to rural Nebraskan communities devastated by a New Year's ice storm, many are wondering if the government has failed them in its efforts to help some of the nation's neediest citizens.
In Holdrege, population 5,636, many residents are still without power. According to Mike Wight, who is with the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, "The process of building poles back up is a very, very time-consuming process." Some officials estimate that utility crews may be working well into February in some places before power is fully restored. Their work has been slowed at times by rioting, looting, and gunfire, but the crews continue to persist in their efforts.
This grim prognosis has many Nebraskans affected by the storm asking why more isn't being done to help them. "If the gover'ment can't get my power back on by the next day at the latest, what are they there for?" wondered one Nebraskan who lives just outside of Kenesaw. According to Frank Zimmerman, the mayor of Upland, not a single one of his constituents has received their debit card yet. When asked to comment, Hadley said, "I'm quite confident that state and federal agencies, including FEMA, will do everything they can to meet the basic needs of our citizens, including heat, shelter, food, and spending money for televisions and other electronics." FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Mega-ATM.
The Bush Administration, at the behest of Senator Ben Nelson, has declared the area a federal disaster area. However, city officials in Wilcox, Hildreth, and Funk have filed a formal complaint with FEMA and are requesting that a full investigation be done to determine if the government acted swiftly enough. Walter Yoder, chairman of the Wilcox city council, said that he thought things might have been handled differently if this disaster had happened in a different part of the country. "You can be sure that, had this storm happened in an area with a dense Asian, African-American, or Hispanic population, they would have had the power back on, the roads cleared, and the temperature back into the 70's within 48 hours."
The uproar has spread even to Hollywood, where last week Jack Nicholson exclaimed that "George Bush does not care about white people" during the taping of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Nicholson's comments were edited out before the show was broadcast, but a member of the audience recorded the outburst on his camera phone and leaked the video to YouTube. Nicholson later apologized for his comments, but said that he had spent a significant amount of time in central Nebraska for the taping of his film "About Schmidt" and that the devastation of this storm had affected him personally.
Surprisingly, this outrage is not universally shared. When asked if he'd received his $2,000 debit card from FEMA yet, Randy Davis, who owns a family farm just East of Minden, said, "Why would they give me a debit card? I thought that people in this country were supposed to be responsible for their own well being."
Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, could not be reached for comment.
I've been doing some thinking on the idea that the Church is an all-volunteer army. The idea is that we sit down and select the church that we want to belong to, and that we should continue to go to that church until someone or something there offends us enough to send us "shopping." We then repeat the process, finding the church that best meets our "felt needs" that is also within reasonable driving distance. Not exactly biblical, if you ask me.
If this is the situation you find yourself in, I would like to point out an approach that may be beneficial to you. The Sacred Sandwich reports that Lucy Ditmer, a professional personal shopper, may be able to help you out.
From the article:
Growing bored with the outdated programs at their present church, the Henman family of Peoria, IL, recently hired Lucy Ditmer, a personal shopper, to find them a new church home to meet their spiritual needs. “Between my boy’s hockey games and my girl’s dance classes, I really don’t have the time to go church shopping,” said Helen Henman. “It’s a great relief to know that Lucy can take care of all that. The last thing Phil and I want to do right now is spend every Sunday morning going to strange churches just to see if they have cushioned seating and a proper food court.”
You can read the rest of the article here, and I should warn you. The satire may hit a little close to home at times.
The video below is making the rounds of the Reformed blogosphere. The gist of the song is that God is completely sovereign over every last part of the universe. Well, every last part except for, um, you.
and the lyrics:
I Give You Freedom (The Whippoorwill Song)
I set the boundaries of the ocean vast,
Carved out the mountains from the distant past,
Moulded a man from the miry clay,
Breathed in him life, but he went astray.
CHORUS:
I own the cattle on a thousand hills,
I write the music for the whippoorwills,
Control the planets with their rocks and rills,
But give you freedom to use your own will.
And if you want Me to, I'll make you whole,
I'll only do it tho' if you say so.
I'll never force you, for I love you so,
I give you freedom - Is it "yes" or "no"?
I hold the waters in My mighty hand
Spread out the heavens with a single span,
Make all creation tremble at My voice,
But My own children come to Me by choice.
(chorus)
Even the oxen knows the master's stall,
And sheep will recognize the shepherd's call
I could demand your love - I own you twice,
But only willing love is worth the price!
(chorus)
What most blogs aren't telling you is that the Joy Quartet busted out Meatloaf's Paradise by the Dashboard Light for an encore performance, giving us God's perspective during altar calls:
"Whats it gonna be boy?
Come on
I can wait all night
Whats it gonna be boy yes or no?"
Seriously though, the best part is when the preacher comes out and talks about this theme that runs through the entire word of God, that God gives us this incredible freedom to choose. What an awesome privilege? How about what an awesome blasphemy.
Like most theological errors, this one starts with too high a view of man and too low a view of God. Continue reading this post »
Ev'rybody's building the big ships and the boats,
Some are building monuments,
Others, jotting down notes,
Ev'rybody's in despair,
Ev'ry girl and boy
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.
I like to do just like the rest, I like my sugar sweet,
But guarding fumes and making haste,
It ain't my cup of meat.
Ev'rybody's 'neath the trees,
Feeding pigeons on a limb
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
All the pigeons gonna run to him.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.
A cat's meow and a cow's moo, I can recite 'em all,
Just tell me where it hurts yuh, honey,
And I'll tell you who to call.
Nobody can get no sleep,
There's someone on ev'ryone's toes
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
Ev'rybody's gonna wanna doze.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.
So, as I replaced what seemed like miles of old, brittle wire, all in the name of safety, I nearly electrocuted myself. I do have a voltage tester, but it fits very comfortably in my pocket, where it resides undesturbed for most of my wiring projects. Thinking that the breaker had been turned off, I inspected my progress, climbed onto my aluminum work platform, grabbed the wire I wanted to cut, and BOOM. My wire cutters produced a large orange ball of ozone about four inches from my nose, the lights dimmed, and the circuit breaker blew. The rubber handles on my cutters protected me from experiencing any of the current first hand, but not without any damage. When I picked up my cutters, they had two large scorch marks on them, each with a shiny melted-metal intent in the middle of it.
Does anyone else think it's ironic that, on the day Nancy Pelosi is 
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